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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> What's being passed around is an outline for today and uh something that we're going to use today. I was informed since I uh didn't do it two weeks ago and I had to write myself a note, but I forgot to write myself a note this time.

So, I'm going to introduce myself first instead of near the end of the uh I was almost going to say lead. By the way, this is not an AA meeting, okay? It's a a workshop on AA.

It's a workshop basically going to be of my opinion, but that opinion is drawn on uh uh experience in working the steps in my study of the big book. Uh good sponsorship, good home group uh and the like. But nonetheless, it is my opinion.

Uh and so if it conflicts with anybody's knowledge, I'm going to ask you to do one thing. Don't don't throw it out right away. Please sit and uh meditate on what I say.

Uh because most of what I say and I like to believe that all of what I'm going to say is going to be reflected in the big book where you can find it uh or in the experience of the founders. And uh I'll uh hopefully cite exactly uh what I mean as we go along. But my name is Chris Daell.

I'm a recovered alcoholic >> and and welcome welcome to everyone. Before we start, I usually say the set aside prayer. And I say this prayer before I read any of the work that comes before me uh in when I'm on my journey.

And I'm on my journey hopefully 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And the set aside prayer uh if we have a moment of silence. God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and especially you.

>> I pray for an open mind with these things. Amen. >> That must be the edited form that I don't have in my big book.

And my apologies for you know, we we can screw up, right? Right. Right away.

Uh uh I That's right. I did give it out last week. >> Last week.

>> Okay. But I hope hopefully I'm more prepared than that. Over the last three weeks, we hit uh the first three steps.

Uh the first four steps. And the first step being one of hopeless, truly hopeless, that we're alcoholic. It's not that we can't drink, it's that we are alcoholic.

And that's our first step in in recovery. We finally take our inventory and seeing our alcoholism for what it is and what it's been doing to us and how I see that I am hopeless to do anything alone away from my God which is the natural uh awareness that one comes from when we take our first step inventory. All uh all our living out there has been to build up resistance, denial uh and a defense against that knowledge uh that we are hopeless in the inability not to drink.

That's why one of the things that we're told when we first come around program uh don't drink is really inapplicable to the alcoholic because I have I don't I lack the ability of choice. I cannot not drink. So therefore telling me not to drink uh is really irrelevant.

And that's why uh in in the early days of AA they tried to get the prospect through the steps even before they went to their first meeting. They try to acquaint them with the powerlessness because see once I start uh putting some time under my belt the delusion comes back in that I'm doing it myself even though I'm biting the bullet white knuckling it and whatnot I don't have the ability to to sustain sobriety if if I identify myself as a real alcoholic and we talked about that. My second step uh is the awareness that since I can't do it by myself, I need something more powerful in myself.

All right? Uh and to me, it's not the door knob. Uh al although in early sobriety, I thought it was a radiator.

I was going to ask my uh No. Uh if you listen, this is how I was going to use the radiator. I was going to ask my uh wife at the time to handcuff me to the radiator because I feared drinking.

Now a radiator would have been my higher power okay at that particular time it does not work okay it hasn't worked for me that's my experience that's the experience of the founders this third step and most of this is an internal but hopefully work through with a sponsor uh the awarenesses and the understanding and then I have the biggest decision in my life to make over that first inventory that I make and that first inventory that I'm going to take uh is me being an alcoholic. The answer to that inventory is that I need God in my life. My third uh action in program is to see that and sit and take fours and truly ask myself if I want to stop drinking for the rest of my life and based on my first step experience, am I willing to turn my will in my life over and do anything?

Am I willing to do anything to stay sober? See that anything, the underlying uh operative word is anything is because I'm going to kill my ego as I know it. I'm going to kill myself as I know it.

The all the things that I think I know I have to be willing to throw out the window. All right? Because everything I know only did one thing for me.

Even though I knew a lot of quote good things, and I don't really believe in good or bad things, they were things that were inappropriately used. And that's what we're going to go across today in uh six and seven steps. Uh is the things that I used to keep me out there that I was very effective at it.

So I did a good job out there because I kept that awareness out of my consciousness and I went uh down the road into alcoholism because I was a strong person, not a weak one. The weak ones die long before they get here. Okay.

I don't uh you know they say we're a bunch of weak people. Hey. Okay.

All right. I dare one of them to get up at 6:00 in the morning after getting home at 5, shower, and go to work. I dare them.

That's not a weak person. Okay. All right.

So, what we put ourselves through is implicit. Although I come in here with the thought that I'm a weak person. There's the duality.

There's there there's the misconception. And there's a misperception of me, the alcoholic, that I can live in the same world, think of me in two different ways, that I'm weak, but yet prove that I'm strong in all those uh areas. Okay?

So, the decision that I make is that I'm willing to go to any length, and I'm going to turn my will and my life over to God. Now, my will is my thinking, my life is my actions. All right?

Now, that doesn't mean that all is I'm going to do is go to AA meetings. Okay. And I fulfill that obligation in my third step.

The obligation in the third step is that I am willing to change all my thinking and think along the lines of what I perceive my God would do and that I am going to live by that knowledge. That's a big strong statement. It's not just turn turn it over.

Turn it over. All right. That's a commitment.

There's my third step. It's a commitment to God, to myself, and to the human being that I am, and to everybody in my life and to the world at large that I'm going to change who I am. That's a strong, powerful, uh, insightful, but yet awesome task to do because, see, I came in here self-centered.

And hopefully I'll put that aside. Just like the 2-year-old that's totally self-centered that when mama leaves the room that mama must have died and she they're all alone. Okay, that's how I came in here is that little baby.

Okay, on a lot of levels even though I could belly up to the bar uh go back to back uh uh in a fight. All right, that didn't prove my manhood. It just proved that I had certain uh male testosterone in me.

Okay. Uh and and uh today I walk the walk of following my truth and I'm the man that I knew I was all along but couldn't do it because I was in denial of what I needed to do. And what I needed to do was surrender and accept that fact in my first three steps.

So the first three steps are the foundation steps as we talked about. My first step is the foundation. The second step is the cornerstone.

And my third step is the keystone. It holds the arch that I'm going to walk through to freedom. We went over the fourth step last week.

The fourth step is going to identify a prepundonderance of or the grosser handicaps of what I brought into program. And what I brought into program was a lot of fear, rage, anger, resentment. And that kept me out.

And also the guilt of the harms that I did and I never addressed them. That's what we looked at last week in our fourth step. All right?

And as I'm going to be redundant here and repeat what I said, the basic thing is to get it done. All right? You bring into it honest, open, and willing.

And no matter if you do it that way and you write it down or you uh sit with a sponsor, they write it down and uh you come into the fifth step with a full or at least an understanding of who you are and what you brought into program. That is sufficient for your fourth step. It does not have to be perfect because if it's going to be perfect, I'll never get around to completing it and then I I don't and then I don't have to change.

All right? Because I am uh a passive aggressive so and I have perfected my resistance to change. That's who I am.

And this is the awareness that it's going to come about. So when I commit it to paper or I finally own it to another human being, if I can't write, I'm illiterate. And there's been people that come in here that are truly illiterate and can't write.

We help them with that. That's what we're about. We're to be a service to people and a willingness to be the service to people, which means that I have to do away with my self-centeredness.

And if I can't understand what makes me self-centered and display those character traits in my life, I am not going to understand what I need to change. these middle steps uh five through nine contrary to some other beliefs in AA they say that we do the steps over and over again. Well, these middle steps as I understand them to be is to clear up the wreckage of the past in a process.

All right? And I'll I'll reaffirm that especially when we get into the 10th step. Okay?

Uh but I'll give you a little peak. The 10th step says our new stuff that we become aware of. So it's not about repeating the old stuff.

Okay? That doesn't mean if you think that it's uh possible you don't sit down and write. That's not what that means.

What it means is that these middle steps are what's I'm going to clear up to become new. I like uh uh liken it to uh a forge. All right, I am going to put me in that forge and I'm going to create steel of sobriety.

All right, that means I have to burn my way into that steel of sobriety. But I don't temper it until I get to the 10th step. I've already made the steel because I've changed from all those iron nuggets and whatnot that they put into that forge and I I come out with a uh beam of steel and then for the rest of my life I'm going to hammer it and form it into a life of service.

That's what my 10th, 11th and 12th are for and we'll get into that in next week. All right. So these middle steps are all those veterans out there.

It's akin to basic training in AIT. You don't get into the stuff of freewheeling in that tank until you go through basic in AIT. So, it's the same thing.

These middle steps are uh a basic change of character from civilian life into where we're going. All right? Or from a drunk life into a new life.

This is what we're going to form. These are what those middle steps and that's how I've uh come to understand them. uh and then we maintain what we have and enhance it and polish it and hone it in our 10th, 11th and 12th because they continue to take an inventory and so on.

Okay, so we're up to the fifth step and that starts on page 72. And if you haven't guessed already, I'm an advocate of uh the Little Red Book. And the little red book for those that haven't been here before uh is a a publication started in uh pamphlet form in the ' 40s was made as far as I can determine uh in the mid50s into a book uh and then it's uh the last uh date that I have on it was apparently changed in the ' 70s.

Uh but the the book was called in pamphlet form the interpretation or the orthodox interpretation of the 12 steps. And as I went over in the first step is that they took their program seriously. They had fun.

They didn't take themselves seriously but they took their program seriously. I just want to give you a little uh indication of what they uh thought of about step five. If we have been honest and thorough with our personal inventory, we have listed and analyzed our character defects that have recorded the harm we have caused others.

We have a list of our greater handicaps and imperfections and also the names of people who have suffered as a result of our unmanageable lives and insane behavior. The exact nature of our wrongs is now admitted to God on ourselves and then talked over with a third person. That's our fifth step.

Alcoholic rationalization bs at this honest procedure discounting the need of admitting anything to another human being. So they also understood the resistance. All right.

But anytime we see resistance in our program or anytime I see resistance in my program, what I have to do is go back to my first step. And I see that I told myself in my first step that I was willing to go to any lengths. So if I'm willing to go to any lengths, resistance be damned.

The speed bump of life be damned. I put it aside and I pocket my pride. I happened to have when I did my uh fifth step uh I had already uh talked to my sponsor.

My sponsor was living up in Montreal at the time. Uh I said I'm ready to do it. And he's starts to go into uh and I lived in Brooklyn and uh he goes into about uh the thing about the selection of it.

There's no selection. Walter got my fifth step. I drove up to Montreal.

It wasn't because I was hiding anything. One of the things that I pinned out is that I'm loyal. He took me through the steps, the first three and the fourth.

He's going to get my fifth. To me, it was that simple, you know. Uh but the selection process uh shouldn't be too much more difficult than that.

You need somebody that understands where you're coming from, even if you have to teach them where you're coming from. And it's perfectly okay to teach somebody what you're about because you need to acquaint and hopefully somebody that is spiritually based. So if you feel after meditation that you need to go to a priest, you go to a priest.

That's what we do in uh uh program. We take inventory, we see the solution, we go take it. That's all our program is about.

So if you feel uh whatever whoever it is that you take your fifth step or give your fifth step, you don't take it, you give it and hopefully the benefit will start coming back. Okay. On uh uh 722 this act in actual practice we usually find a solitary self- appraisal insufficient.

Many of us thought necessary to go much further. we will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons for it. Okay, there's the problem.

And as uh we've said before, once we come up with a problem in a big book, they're going to give us the solution. And here's the solution. If we skip this step, this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.

Okay? It's simple. All right?

Remember your first step uh promise that you're willing to go to any length uh to get sober. All right. On page top of page 73, first parag uh not the first paragraph, but the top paragraph, the continuation from the page before, having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell.

We think the reason that they never completed their house cleaning, and this is going to be a part and parcel of the completion of our housekeeping. They took inventory, all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. What's that?

shame, fear. >> That's what we're supposed to identify in our thing. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear.

They only thought they had humbled themselves, but they had not learned enough humility, fearlessness, and honesty. And humble, humility, fearless, and honesty really is the prod that that willingness to go to any length overcomes. And in this sentence, we find it necessary until someone they told someone else all their life story.

And another way is saying all their truth because that's what moral is. A moral inventory is the truth about me. All right?

You don't go into a store and take inventory in the store and say you have uh three shelves full of stuff when there's nothing on the shelves. And conversely, you don't say that there's only one thing on the shelf when there's 10 things on the shelf. All it is is the truth.

And there is nothing that we put down on that fourth step that we didn't know already. It's just that we didn't see it all at once. And that's what it's about.

And uh they give an example. He pushes these memories and that's on 732. Far outside himself.

Hope they will never see the day of light. He is under constant fear and tension. That makes for more drinking.

Now there is a caveat in there and again going to the point of perfection. We deny things so many times and so often that we become immune to what the truth is. So, we're not going to know it at times at this point in our sobriety.

It's going to take maybe 1, 10, 20, 110 steps. Okay? And one of the things that uh I I've been very fortunate enough I do a lot of 12 stepping is that during those 12 steps I start remembering when the denial the resistance and son of a gun you know that's better than an inventory sometimes you know at the bottom 73 Paul we must here's an operative word must entirely honest uh be entirely honest with somebody If we expect to live long or happily in this world, rightly and naturally, we think well before the choice of the person of persons with whom we should take this intimate and confidential step because that's what it is.

All right? So yes, we need to be cautious, but we don't need to be neurotically where we're resistant to any change. Okay?

And uh there's a rule on the last sentence in 741. The rule is we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others. Well, this is our inventory.

Okay? It's not what I did because of. All right?

And when we own it to this other person, we stick to our own responsibilities, not anybody else's. Page 75 one. When we find that person, when we decide is who to hear the story, we waste no time.

Again, it's time effective. There's the direction. We waste no time.

752 gives us the fifth step promises. We hear the uh other promises uh almost every time uh we go to an AA meeting. Uh once we have taken a step withholding nothing, we are delighted.

We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace with an ease. Our fears fall from us.

We be feel the nearness of our creator. We may have certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. And here's where the spiritual experience comes from.

Not the relief of uh not drinking, but here's where the spiritual experience truly begins. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared. Okay?

We don't not drink. The drink problem disappears. We feel we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe.

All right? And truly you will or I had felt that and the people that I have the sense of relief the sense of connectedness comes from being honest. There's the operative word and there's the result and there's the promises that the fifth step gives us and it gives us directions upon when we complete it.

In the next paragraph, page 753, we thank God for and that second line, third line down, we thank God from the bottom of our hearts that we know him better. Taking this book down from our shelf, we turn the page which contains the 12 steps. carefully reading the first five proposals we ask.

Okay? And anytime you ask, the natural thing is is that's a prayer. All right?

When you see the word ask in the big book, that's the prayer. Rereading the first five proposals and proposals are principles and principles are steps. So you go back to page 58 and you look at uh all of them and you ask, "Have we omitted anything?

For we are building an arch." There's other metaphor for what we're doing through which we shall walk a free man at last. We ask ourselves, are the stones properly placed? Those are the steps.

The cement is the action we have done and and the mortar uh is made out of the uh is what's going to hold the bricks together. And that's our God, the power of God. Okay.

Is all that put together? Okay. Again, what is it doing?

It's asking us to do an inventory of what we just did, which is an inventory and the sharing of our inventory. All right. So, old dummy here says, "My goodness, they're asking me to do inventory." And that's what we do.

We do inventory. We constantly look at ourselves. If you haven't felt any one of these things and uh felt relief, okay, when I left my sponsor, I was up in Montreal.

I didn't have a shelf to pull it down. I was very anal, you know, should I put it up on a shelf and take it down? So, I followed the directions.

Okay. But with that honesty, okay, I it sounds silly now, but at the time, should I look for a shelf? Did not seem so silly.

All right. And I and I I and I went to one of the finer restaurants up in Montreal and I sat down and had myself a steak while I reviewed the book and I reviewed my uh fourth staff to see if I, you know, so I had to give myself some pleasure. So maybe that's where I had my spiritual experience.

I don't. All right. When we're satisfied with that, we come to six.

Okay, step six and step seven. And that's on page 76. Okay, now I gave out a handout.

If you look on uh the column side, you'll you won't find that in the big book. All right, but uh this is a compilation of uh uh a bunch that I picked up. I I've mixed and matched.

Uh but basically this is what six and seven steps are about. Remember I gave you the uh uh uh it's the basic training of the forge that's going to fire the steel. All right?

And this is what we do. We start looking at those things. Number one, aggressive.

Why am I aggressive? Okay. I have identified that because it's on my fear list.

That's my defense against you for coming in and rattling my cage. I'm going to keep you away with aggression. All right.

Some people uh think it's my New York attitude. No, it's my aggression. You know, I've tempered it.

Trust me. And if you don't, anyway, uh that's what I mean. We can take ourselves, we don't have to take ourselves serious.

I do take my program serious and I do try to uh uh bring into my life uh of love and service uh and I'll code love and tolerance. I'm not perfect at it by any means but that's what uh uh the program is asking me to do. And how am I going to identify the specific things and this is important for me to identify the specific things that I use to keep the sunlight of the spirit out of my life.

So all those things on the left column, the flaws or the character defects, these are the things we're going to give to God. Very simple. Just like we gave our drink problem to God, we're going to give these to God.

All right. Now, there's a vacuum created. And the vacuum is that I need to replace it with something.

Nice and simple, isn't it? program ain't a ain't for rocket science, >> you know, I'm going to apply those things in my life. So, if I'm uh if I can see myself as aggressive, belligerent, I'm going to work on my goodnaturedness and my gentle forgiving.

Okay? Now, I know it's not edited too well because if you look down here under resentful on the other side is bitter and hateful. Okay?

But there is the last one forgiving. All right. So when I edited, I split them up, but I didn't split them up perfectly.

So, but I'm sure if you sit in meditation, you'll see that resentful, bitter, and hateful should be on the left column. Okay? just just I I'm sure unless as we identified uh uh in in step one that the barriers to success was brain dam one of them was brain damage you know so unless there's brain damage I I'm pretty sure we will now they they banter back and forth about character defects and character shortcomings what's this Bill said needed to make up another one and this and that and all all all the I don't know what's true I've asked uh uh and uh so I just put it down as simple as this.

Shortcomings are things that I am not doing that I need to do. And that's on uh the back of that page. And defects are those things that I'm doing that I need to stop.

Quite simple. Now, if I'm being aggressive, that's a defect. If I'm procrastinating, that's a shortcoming.

>> Okay? You you you see something that I'm not doing that I should be doing. I'm being resistant.

I'm dragging my feet. That's a shortcoming. I'm not doing something.

When I'm doing something that keeps the sunlight of the spirit out. All right. And the reason for this list is not to say, "Oh my goodness, what a long list I have." All right.

What it is is to be able to specifically identify because just putting fears down and understanding that I am fearful without identifying the source or a label to it at another level for me has been insufficient. I need to get down to causes and conditions. how I truly keep people away, keep God away from my life, how I've acted in my past and with what and what tools because actually character traits are tools and character traits are those that keep uh the sunlight of the spirit away from me and those that open me up to receiving that.

All right? So uh that's why it's uh somewhat of an extentless and then I gave the caveat at the end any other dysfunctional ways of acting feeling or thinking which cause others or me pain because me being the creative rationalization person that I am I'll come up with one that's not on the uh liability list and say oh I can keep that one. All right.

Also when people come in or when I came in there was a certain element even though I had uh slight hubris and an ego uh I also was suffering low self-esteem. All right. Now my low self-esteem told me that I didn't have many assets.

So I needed those character defects to help me through life. Well, see in my prayer and meditation I come up with the fact that uh God has made me perfect. God has made me whole.

So there is nothing that I lack to overcome the deficiencies that I wish to give my God in my sixth and seventh step. I am a perfect human being and I give God my negative like I gave God my drinking problem. And when I work fervently at that, these go away.

When I bring in the lack of trust of my God, when I bring into my life my fears and my resentments, these come back to me. So these are the principles that I'm going to start to develop today to be able to practice in my 12th the third part of my 12th step. These are the principles of working and reworking who I am.

This is where the bulk of the work comes. Even though I'm doing away with what's I brought in from the past, these things are going to crop up and that's where my maintenance steps will come in and we will see that next week. So on page 76, the beginning because it is the shortest of the steps.

All right, you have two steps on one page and me the drunk will tell you, hey, don't have to worry about it. All right, it's just a short two paragraph, three paragraphs. What do I need to do it for?

In very real actuality, it is the bulk of what we do. We're changing a lifetime of behavior. We're changing our basic makeup.

And remember a complete conversion of thought as we saw in the earlier chapters under the first step that that's what I need to do to turn around and recreate thel and the reason I need to recreate myself is because of who I became because of my disease and I again I am willing to do anything and everything to get well bar nothing. Step six right at the top uh and uh it starts off when we can answer to our satisfaction and that is when we sit and uh meditate over the first five proposals and when I can answer to the satisfaction of the questions in the previous paragraph. Then we look at step six.

We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove all these things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can he now take them all everyone?

If we still cling to something, we will not let go. We ask God to help us become willing. So they already see and the founders were intuitive that my aggression in the in the case that it being on the first one on the list.

I was not truly willing to let go of that for a while. Intellectually I said okay I'm willing to be Melba milk toast. Okay.

Huh. Between the preamble and the hour of father I still got to live outside in that real world out there that these turkeys don't know nothing about. All right.

>> Started being nice to the neighbors. Now, that was contradictory, you know, to who I'd been. I started saying hello to the paper boy.

You know, these are the things I do step by step because I prayed for the willingness to do it. I didn't use my alcohol denial to say screw that. I know what I need to do.

Just not drink and go to meetings. Because see, it's about a life transforming way of life, not to remain the same. Because how many times do you hear somebody say, "I want to change.

I want to change." And they're not willing to change. No change, no change. It's as simple as that.

All right? So, we ask God to help us to become willing. And it's going to show, you know, it's like Ponzi sometimes.

You know, I don't like to say I'm sorry. You know, I'm so whatever Ponzi did. You know, I get up there and I swallow my pride because that's what my pride is because I don't want you to think I'm something that I don't even know who I am.

But when we get to learn who I am, I get more comfortable with who I am and I have trust in my God. And it's not that I don't care what you think of me, okay? Because I do.

I ask people to take my inventory. Sometimes I make a mistake at that. All right?

You know, they tell me what I don't want to hear. You I only want you to tell me the good stuff or the stuff I've already dealt with that I don't care about. That's the one that I'm currently Okay.

When I'm ready, I say something like this. And this is actually the seventh step prayer. All right.

So, I'm becoming willing to let go of my shortcomings. And this is where I'm going to give my God my defect. And if uh we can all say it together, >> my creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellow. Grant me strength to go out from here to do your Amen. >> We have then completed step seven.

Okay, the step is a step. That doesn't mean the work is completed. Mhm.

>> I say the sevenstep prayer with my love a lot and because we know each other so well and we know ourselves so well that uh we go I pray that you now remove from me every single defect because I know myself. I am reluctant on everything. You know, there are some things that I have prided myself into, but I need to reinforce that everything.

The essence of it is to know, and that's what the list is for, to know what you're turning over. So, if you stick that list in this page as uh we go on, if you see a character trait that you seem to be exhibiting and that you know that you need to do something with, identify it before you give it away because it's important or I found it to be very important. Now, this brings us to step eight and nine.

Funny how it follows right in the uh right after that. And we're going to repair, restore, reparate, compensate. That's what we're going to do to the people that we've harmed.

On your handout, they take some basic categories and they're going to be in here, but I just pu uh called them out of the reading. We've already made the list. There's no real separate list, but you're going to break down the list a little bit different, at least to understand it a little bit more because those are your character traits.

And the basic categories of the list of those that we've harmed are those we hate or resent because we usually have done something to them, those we owe monetary reparations to. those which were the incidences of some criminal or crime behavior that I might have uh caused and domestic and domestic includes friends, family, sisters, brothers and whatnot. Society as a whole.

All right. And those are the four categories they usually fall under. All right.

Now, our right step says to become willing. All right. And again, as with our, and I don't mean to give anybody a a back door, we're not going to be totally willing.

As I said last week or the week before, when I uh I came in with the first three steps, I fully believe under my belt when I came into my first AA meeting because I was 12step in a way that uh after I finished, I was willing to go to any lengths uh including go to these meetings, which I had no idea about. And I was willing to rely on a higher power to deal with my drinking only because I could handle the rest. Uh uh and but I was willing to go to any lengths.

And in my first meeting, I saw that ninth step. And that's the only one that my intellectual rationalization couldn't get around because it's dead sure that you go make amends to the people you harmed. You know, the other ones I could finagle God in my understanding.

Well, yeah, I know God, whatever. All right, but that one I couldn't get around. Why?

Because I was resistant. I was guilty. And I was still full of rage.

Some of the people out there, in my opinion, deserved what I gave them. See, I always rationalized and justified my behavior. I would never give you the same courtesy.

All right? So if that was the rule for me to go to any lengths, I was already having my doubts that I was going to be able to do it. So when you come to this step, you put the categories that we just talked about into three separate columns.

The ones that we can do immediately, and that's on the back there. the ones that we're resistant on but we're still willing to do it but uh it's uh throws up some uh fear and uh trepidation. Okay.

And then those that are willing that there ain't no way in hell that I'm going to do it. All right. That's realistic to what we bring in.

And it it it is covered in here and we're going to go over it, but I just wanted to lay that out for you. The reason being is that when I was willing to go to any lengths when I first came in, you wouldn't have me going into a jail talking to convicts >> like I do today. Wouldn't do it.

wouldn't have thought of doing it because still I was still full of judgment, remorse, condemnation and I was still playing God on a lot of levels and my God had to remove it only and it was only removed because I was willing to have it removed but it didn't come overnight. So these three uh columns that you put them in and the first column is usually the simplest one and that's the and usually the simplest because uh the guilt stimulates me to be a good father and a good uh son yada yada yada sometimes not all the time uh but it's the restitution of the immediate people in your last circle of friends that you have before you came into the program. Okay?

Cuz if you're like me, I've left a lot of circles back there, you know, your way, okay? Because I wasn't the most pleasant person near the end of my drinking. But anyway, I'm talking about the literal circle of friends that I had at the end.

Those were the people that stuck with me, but probably uh if I take inventory on their part, they were my enablers. Those are basically the only ones that the drunk at the end of their drinking has around them because uh if they ain't an enabler and you ain't helping me drink, I don't want you around me because you're not going to give me what I want and what I want is to continue drinking. So th those friends are usually the ones that I also step and run through the life as it talked about as a tornado.

All right, so that's an overview of uh 8 and N. And we're going to do uh 8 and N now. Now, we need more action and we're on 76 uh paragraph 3 without which we find that faith without works is dead.

Let's look at step 8 and n. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We make it when we took inventory.

We subjected ourselves to a drastic self appraisal. Now we go into we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. Now, this is also setting up you for the maintenance steps.

You're starting to clear up the past. The maintenance is the current way we live. This is for our pasties.

Although when I take inventory in my 10th step today and uh see that I've done a harm earlier that day, >> technically that's in the past also. But we bring the principles that we learned in this step into the making right in our 10th step. All right?

Because our uh when we were wrong properly admitted it implicit in that uh admission is the willingness to repair the harm that I've done. And that's my 10th step. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves.

That's playing God. And we haven't the will to do this. We ask until it comes.

Remember, it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for our victory over alcohol. So, what are they saying? When you become willing or if you're resistant to become willing, you pray and you go back to your first step.

Remember your first step. Remember the first day you walked in here. Just the act of going in here was something that you didn't want to do but it was in any length just to breach the doorway.

Okay. So it's with the same tenacity, the same attitude and the same love that you have for yourself today to do the work or I have for me. Step nine is a humbling step.

And that's one of the principles we practice in our 12th step humility because it is about going to a person and owning what it is that we're responsible for. On page 77, uh, few lines down, humility will give us this. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be maximum service to God and the people about us.

And we cannot be of maximum service or I cannot be of maximum service if I don't humbly start rectifying what I have done. Down at the end of that paragraph, desire to set right the wrong. Okay.

Now there's a not necessary here. It said fully says, "But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong." That's an expectation, and I have no expectations of anyone else when I do my work. I have an expectations for me to do it as honestly as I can, but I don't expect a pat on the back or my goodness, where you've been all these years.

I've been waiting for you to come and apologize to me. Okay, an apology is insufficient by the way and we'll get into that. The real question on the next uh paragraph is the question of how to approach the man we hated will arise.

It may be he has done more harm than we have done to him. Though we may have acquired a better attitude towards him, we are still not too keen to admitting our faults. Now that's ego.

But when I start to begin to trust my God, my third step, my ego is deflated. I begin to have a sense of beingness with my God. And it's not about me.

It's about me being of service to others. And that person is another. We take the bit in our teeth.

Remember those five o'clock in the mornings when you got home and went straight to work? You took the bit in your teeth. Well, here we take the bit in our teeth.

We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regrets. I remember somebody did a 10step to me and it was uh in my opinion it was a inappropriate 10step. He went to his sponsor and really reined me from one end to the other and whatnot.

And sponsor said, "You're angry, resentful, yada yada yada." But then he said something that uh I didn't agree with. He said, "You owe this guy a 10 step, man. You you you really reigned him.

You know, you call me would be uh" And uh so he calls me up and tells me how how and what he thought of me. And then he's offering me a 10step. I says, "You didn't need to call me up and tell me that, you know, so that's why it's good to at least know your sponsor and do some prayer and meditation before before." It's nothing that I didn't know.

Uh anyway, you know, but I I just found it cute. But I also saw that he was making an effort at cleansing his side because he had to swallow a lot of pride because he did own in it that he saw himself in me. Okay, that's the learning lesson that he could have had and he and he did get, but he didn't need to bring me into it.

Okay, but it was cute that he did that. And that's why it's important uh to do somebody that has gone through the work before. All right.

And I'm not a sponsor that tells people what to do. Well, very rarely I will tell anybody. Uh, and uh, my experience is in working the steps, not making amends to your wife.

I don't know how to make amends to your wife. I do know how to make amends to my wife. I also know how to sit in meditation that I can share with you.

I can also know how I do inventory. That I can share with you. But what you say to your wife or your spouse, I have no opinion on it.

I shouldn't. I'm not in your shoes. This is a program of responsibility and self- responsibility.

And I am responsible for me, not for what you do. What I am responsible for you is to share with you what the steps are, what the steps mean and how to go about the steps where you will intuitively know what's right or wrong and how to do the things that you were reluctant to do before you came into the program. That's what to me a sponsorship is.

All right? And I am not your god in life. Although you might appreciate the knowledge I have, there's a distinct difference.

I don't tell you what to do. Okay? I lead you on how to do it.

Uh a sponsor is a guide. Okay, that's going to get that's going to come back at me. I know it.

But anyway, on 772, under no condition do we criticize. So if I have a harm that I don't do, I don't say I'm sorry, but you were the real sob in that instance anyway, but I'm just here to clear up the path. All right.

I made a uh uh a nightstep uh to this one person one day and somebody else that was involved in it through their fear, guilt, remorse, sorrow, resistance, whatever it was, intervened as I was talking to this person and stopped the amends in the tracks. Okay. The only thing I can say is that I'm uh I guess they were fearful that I would have brought them in on it and I didn't.

I was there to write my wrong, not their wrong. They didn't know it or apparently didn't know it by their actions. Okay.

But the amends was just about complete. Uh, I was up to the point of is there anything I can do to rectify the past? So when I go to somebody, it's truly self-centered, all about me.

It has nothing to do with anybody else. And like you hear in the meetings, the ninth step, I have to make amends to myself. No.

My experience has shown I have 12 steps. That one's for them. Okay.

Uh we're on page 78. It gives somewhat of a promise on 781. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress.

There again, they're telling you don't have any expectations. It's about what you do and the honesty with which you do it. Uh first line of 782 and 783 they talk about the money and the criminal offense that may have been and we already uh looked at that uh list of uh that category.

That's where I took that uh those things from. All right. We do not dodge our creditors, but we do pray to see how we can best help.

And here's another reason why not to listen to people that tell you what to do. No one knows your finances. No one knows what you have to do.

And there are creative ways there was uh of doing it and doing your amends. There's no way that I can go back and pay anonymous people back what I stole or what I damaged. But I can in today be charitable, open and responsive with the humility that knows that I'm clearing up that wreckage anonymously.

So, it's in the creativeness and I get that intuitiveness and that knowledge from in my prayers and meditations of what I need to do to set that right because that's on my list. And here's the validation for that. Although these reparations and where 71 791 take innumerable forms, there are some general principles reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any length.

There's that again. They're asking us to review the first step to find a spiritual experience. And that's what we're looking for.

We're not looking not to drink. We're looking to have a spiritual experience. Not to drink.

Not to drink. Not to drink. I don't think I can say that any more than I already have.

It's not about not drinking. It's about having a spiritual experience. It's wonderful if anybody in here is dry in abstinence and I applaud you.

But for me, it's about having a spiritual experience to be free and at one with my God. We ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the personal consequence and double underline personal because we'll attend to that in a second. We may lose our position or reputation to face jail, but we are willing.

We have to be. We must not shrink from anything. And I've had both experiences, not by me, but by people I've uh sponsored that uh they faced jail and they were willing to do the right thing and they owned up to it.

And there were others that couldn't because of the burden it would put on their family. I don't tell them which way to go. They have to resolve that between them and their guard.

I do not have the ability and I certainly no longer have the audacity to tell them what to do. That is a personal opinion and a personal choice between that person and their god. I have no truck with it one way or the other.

I can't. That's my truth. But we mustn't shrink at anything.

And it goes on to say, "Usually, however, when other people are involved, therefore, we are not to be hasty or a foolish martyr." All right? Because if you look back on your character trait list, you'll find hasty and foolish somewhere within that left column. Okay?

And that's what we give to God. And we become resolute, discerned, and directive. That's what we apply in our lives and we take pause before we take any foolish action.

Okay. So there's a lot of creative ways of making restitution in order to balance the scales. Call it karma, call it what goes around comes around.

Whatever you want to do, whatever your belief is, that's fine. But we do do the doing. Here's what I said before on the top of page 80, paragraph one.

before taking drastic action we uh which might implicate other people we cons uh we secure their consent. If in other words if I have to do or uh or if I at least think I have to implicate somebody else I secure their consent. If they say yes, fine.

And it goes on to say about the person uh whose wife and uh business partner was partner was uh uh consulted prior to making an amend to this uh person. That's what we do. All right?

But not if it's going to harm the other person. We don't really have to ask. and harm.

I'm I'm talking about if I've committed a crime and uh or in in in an example, but this could be, you know, uh any situation that uh would that if I could go to jail and I'm willing to go to jail and I need to set the scales right, I can't tell uh that uh my partner in crime was X, Y, and Z. I can't bring them in on it. I have to stand the weight myself.

Okay. So it says that that after consulting with his partner, he came to the conclusion that he was better to take these risks than to stand before his creator and his partner and his wife were inconsistent in collabor collaboration with him. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God's hands.

And that's what we do most of the time. Be willing to do it. All right.

Now, I may have cheated with this woman at one time, and I have no right to go to the husband and say, "My apologies for cheating with your wife." All right. Now, there is a harm done there. Okay?

Because in effect, I did participate in a harm. What creative way can I now work to restore that? What I do is look for a similar vein of that in my daily life or in my daily workings with other people.

And a good example of that is when I see a 13st step in action, I'll step in it. Okay? You women ain't getting away with everything because the 13th step does not have a gender on it.

>> Okay. >> All right. I step lightly though because it's still none of my business.

But if I see a harm about to take place, I I I need to at least be proactive in uh uh what I what I need to do. So we place the outcome in God's hands. On the handout list there is uh a way to approach uh we gain consent to the person and how we do that person letter.

It doesn't make a difference but we need to gain their consent. We share with them what they do in a sense that's an apology and you can put the uh apology words to that. Okay, we admit our total faults and our responsibility in the action putting aside all theirs or anyone else's.

>> And the last thing we do because you know if if I owe somebody $10 and it was 30 years ago, you know, I ask him is there anything else that I can write the wrong, he might ask for interest. Okay. >> Whatever form that interest comes in, I sit in meditation and ask if it's right and I own it.

That's what the uh the last part of the amend is. And then after I commit the amend and complete the amend, it's over. Look on your list again.

See if there's self- judgment, self- condemnation, carrying guilt, remorse, and whatnot. That's on the left column or should be all right. Somewhere along there is beating yourself up or words to that effect.

It's over, done with, you give it to God. After that, the amend is done. The ones you're resistant on will start coming into light.

The more you uh I work my program, the more amendable I am to the amends. And the ones that I am totally resistant to, those walls start falling down on 822. Okay.

Uh before we go to two, go to 821. And this is what I was talking about about sponsorship and uh their opinion on what it is. And in here uh although they give the illusion to a wife and cheating and so on and so forth, I take it to everything or I attempt to take it to everything that I sponsor with.

And that is that uh there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded and that's uh they they set that up in the previous paragraphs. But here is the thing. No outsider can appraise such a intimate situation.

In other words, it falls on our shoulders or my shoulders to complete the amends and to do it as honestly as I can do it. And it tells you the direction. Write two sentences down.

Each might pray about it. and keeping the person utmost in their mind, not my pride, not my ego. On page 822, right below that third uh second uh sentence, sometimes we hear an alcoholic say the only thing he needs to do is keep sober.

Well, actually what they're talking about in here is abstinence. abstinence from alcohol. Sobriety as we talked about earlier uh in one of the other is sobriety is sound insane thinking.

It's not abstinence of body. Okay. Sober thought.

That's the definition. And in the that with that thinking in my mind is that certainly he must keep abstinence for there will be no home if he doesn't but he is a long way from making good to wife and parents. So my mere not drinking is insufficient for a spiritual awakening.

It's absolutely necessary to begin one, but just mere abstinence is not good enough. I need to be willing to go to any length. And that's reinforced by the humility of this step and in uh talking about these midsteps again.

It's a forge to create the steel of my future sobriety. So, I'm going to be doing things differently than I have before. I'm going to bend and make that steel as strong as I can.

And when it comes out to the forge, I'm going to temper it in steps 10, 11, and 12. So staying sober is only a beginning of amends to family and in and of itself is nothing. The action is needed, becoming the father, husband, son, daughter necessary for each individual.

It reaffirms this on the top of page 831. There's a long period of reconstruction. It doesn't say abstinence.

There's a long period of reconstruction. That means building. That means changing.

That means becoming. 832 is a reaffirmation of what we've been talking about. The spiritual life is not a theory.

We have to live it. Live what? What is the it?

The it is the program. We have to live the steps. We walk in the prayer.

I walk in the prayer. It doesn't mean I'm perfect about it naturally, but I walk in the prayer. Is a poet.

I can't think of his name. He's one Waldo. Is it Emerson?

>> Forget what. But um I'm going to paraphrase him anyway. I can't remember his name, so he's not going to get a credit because I'm I'm I'm paraphrasing it.

But uh nothing speaks so loudly as our actions. >> Okay? So I can talk a good talk.

It's in my actions that it's done. So it's with that in mind that I have to live the steps and they uh are redundant uh in that thought on page 832 at the bottom of uh that paragraph is that our behavior will convince them more than our words because remember our words all those those times in the in the past is I'm sorry I'm sorry I'll never do it again da da da da da da and and really we're meaningless. It was just to get the heat off.

Please don't bug me now. I'm I got a hangover. That's really what that's really what we were saying.

Okay. Little more elaborate than that, but nonetheless. Okay.

And on 833, we should be sensible, tactful, considerate, and humble with oursel without being survi or scraping. is God's people. We stand on our feet and do not crawl before anything.

That's not arrogant. That's confidence. That's trust in my God.

That's what I uh that's a pre-promise to our promises that we're going to come on to right now. And these are the promises that we uh the ninestep promises. And as we saw up until this point, there are many promises throughout the big book.

They're just not the ninestep promises. I think the more powerful promises are are in the 10step promises which we will get to next week. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will not regret the past and the 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 that our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and his economic insecurity will leave us.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Okay?

And that really completes step 10. Uh uh step nine. Thank you.

Hey I'm only leading the seminar, right? You know, there was a little faulty communication with me and him just now. See, I don't like to take responsibility even if today I screwed up.

Is there anything I can do to make up for it? See, one of the things that uh I like to do at the end of a seminar is read the last paragraph in a vision for you. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.

Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us.

We shall be with you in fellowship of the spirit. And you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the happy road to destiny. Thanks a lot.

Peace and love. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day. >>