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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. I thought if I kept on hiding, you'd just keep on talking about me.

Talking about my favorite subject. Good morning. My name's Paul and I'm uh I'm a full-blown alcoholic as a matter of fact and I have a uh incurable terminal disease and uh yet I uh haven't even had a drink uh for some time now.

In fact, I'm in my uh 30th year. Three three Yeah, you you're nowhere near as impressed as I am. I actually I'm only 3 days into my 30th year.

Uh but it sounds good that way. Uh I' I' I've been having a good weekend. I enjoy this.

I enjoyed up things. And uh but uh there's one thing I've I've missed at this weekend. I don't see enough of it.

Then of course you can't because these are doctors and uh they're significant others and they have to be more careful. Uh but I I this is Southern California. Uh you probably already knew that.

And uh but what we see in the meetings that I go to and the thing that I I miss when it's not there is I don't is the hugging. I like to see a lot of hugging. I I couldn't hug when I came here.

Uh, in fact, the fellow that brought me used to grab me and I I used to push him away. Said, "Don't leave me alone. Forget don't touch me, damn it." And uh, so I know I know that I assumed a lot of you feel that way, too.

And uh, the best way to get over it is to get over it. And so >> >> uh, I'd like to see all of you stand up and turn around and hug the people in the row behind you or in front of you or beside, not just the people you came with, but Hi, Gail. You sound good.

I'm glad I'm here. >> Now, that really didn't hurt too much, did it? Thank you.

Maybe you didn't like it, but I feel better. And I and I got a nice hug from Gil and I started to say, "You look great." And then I remembered um somebody said that to me the other day. They said, "Gee, you look great." And u I said, "Thank you." And he said, "You do you know the three stages of mankind?" And I said, "What are the three stages of mankind?" And he says, "Well, first there's adolescence, and then there's middle age, and then there's you're looking great." And >> >> Anyhow, I one of the things I like about this the meetings this morning is this is a it's a meeting uh but it's also the steps and I think that that uh combination is uh extremely important that we have both the steps and the meetings.

I see uh people saying so with meetings uh alone with just the meetings without the steps and uh I've seen people have beautiful sobriety with ju just the just the uh the fellowship just the steps meeting every day and they stay sober and have happy sobriety right up to the day that they get drunk and and and then they're so amazed that they got drunk and they in fact I see people come in and go out and come in and go out and come in and go out and I said this time when you come in why don't you try to hurry up and do the steps before you take your next drink maybe you'll never have to take it I hate to have anybody walk up behind me when I'm can't the u and I've also seen people we see it all the time people who come in and go to meetings and get enough meetings and meetings keep them over long enough that they actually can take the steps and uh do the steps. And after they do the steps for a number of years, then they decide they don't need the meetings anymore and drift away from the meetings. And uh and we see people have what's called slips after 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, even 30 years.

And uh uh so it takes both as far as I can see. You need both the steps and the the meetings. And I u I I need I hope I never forget that.

And uh remember to keep it that way. I uh I don't want to have a sleep. I' I've never had a slip.

Uh it's a from what I've seen that looks like a hard way to go. Uh getting sober, getting drunk, getting sober, getting sober. I've never done that.

I found an easier I found an easier, softer way to do it. And that was to just keep on drinking between meetings. Uh I I uh I drank and went to meetings for 7 months and uh it was after 7 months of come to these meetings that I actually turned into an alcoholic.

Uh yourself uh I wasn't an alcoholic. I was an alcoholic when I came here. Uh I drank.

Everybody drinks. We live in a drinking society. I mean you can't be a doctor and not drink.

you can't go to social functions. You have to go to social functions and how else would you get referrals for heaven's sakes. And I remember uh one time that I had quit and uh I really was glad that I had quit.

U felt good to have quit. Uh I hadn't had a drink all day and I thought, gee, this quitting drinking is fine. I I wish I had done this a long time ago.

And uh then I got to thinking about the uh New Year's parties that were coming up and we'd be going to uh his doctor's uh house for the the celebration and I'd walk in, his wife would say, "Hi Paul, hi Max." And what are you drinking Paul? I say, "Well, I'm not drinking." I think what a downer that would be on her party. I mean, everybody else would suddenly become very conscious of whether or not they were drinking and it would So I just I just drink beer.

I'll just drink beer. And uh in fact, I used to quit every morning. Uh for a while, I would wake up in the morning and think, "My god, I did it again.

I did it again. I I I did I did it again. I I just shouldn't drink.

I just I just can't drink. I I just I'm not going to drink. I I quit.

I quit. I'm not going to drink anymore. I quit.

I'm not going to drink. I quit forever. I'm not going to drink." And I think that's that's a good idea.

I'm not going to drink. And I get up and go shave and have to keep one eye shut so you can see the shave and um you have to be careful not to shut the other eye or you go to sleep and you can they can burn yourself with an electric razor and I which I hadn't known before and and I go to work and u and be glad that I wasn't drinking just be really glad that I had wasn't drinking and u go through the day and enjoy not drinking and wishing I quite a long time ago, as I say. And uh somehow on the way home from the office, uh somebody would drive by the liquor store and pick up a six-pack of half quarts and uh I'd get started and uh next thing in the morning, I'd wake up and I'd think, "My god, I did it again." Uh and I wouldn't even remember having uh any discussion with me as to whether or not I was going to drink.

It was I I the only thing I can figure out is that that committee in my head uh one of us decided in the morning to quit and late in the afternoon or evening another one decided no we're going to have a drink and uh in fact I don't even think the no was in there. He just decided we're going to drink. There was no discussion.

The the different parts of my brain weren't talking to each other. Uh they it's like u it's as if my my whole life had been by like a a tour bus and with no driver. Yeah.

And and one of the tourists would get up and drive a while you know then they'd stop and go to the John or something and while they were gone another tourist get up and drive for a while you know and they wouldn't even talk to each other about where they were going you know and we'd wonder why we never got anywhere. and now it's it's just there too many people in my head. I I've had the in fact I think that it's a combination of this the meetings but I think particularly the steps has helped me to get better communications not only with my spouse and with people out there and with my higher power but with the people in my head.

I uh uh the communications they they run my life. It isn't what happens in my life that matters. is what the people in my head think about what happened and what I get to what they what I get to listening to of what they're talking about what's happened and u it's a what I was born with a a knack uh and it's a the Bible tells you if you don't use this quality that you have it'll be taken away from you and um I have this knack where I can see the defect, the imperfection, the thing that's wrong with any person, place, thing, or situation.

And and I and I'm always glad to tell you because I know you want to know, too. And and and what I found is there's just this one guy in my head that is a specialist in that. And he passes judgment on everything and everybody that goes by.

And um and if I listen to him, everything turns bad. And but there's another one thinks everything is great. In fact, the same thing is that true with my wife.

U we've been married now the end of this year, it'll be 57 years. And my we've known each other for over 70 years. And uh in fact, that's how I got to be an alcoholic.

Uh, no. As a matter of fact, what it was is when I was four years old, my father gave up his job as a drugist in Canton, Ohio, and he bought a house drugstore combination in Alliance, Ohio, which then I live, which meant I literally grew up in a drugstore. The the home was right above the drugstore and we all had to work in the store.

And that's how that was the beginning of my life of better living through chemistry. and and uh but next door to the drugstore is where Grandma Gensline was raising her orphan granddaughter. And she not only was raising their orphan granddaughter, but she was raising two sons, the Gansline boys, and they were alcoholics.

And they were always in the Lance Reviews getting put in jail again for common drunk. And my parents didn't like for me playing with the Gansline girl all the time because they were afraid that if we grew up and we got married, I might turn out to be an alcoholic. And by God, they were right.

Uh, a lot of it's really not very funny. It's a sad story. Uh the uh a lot of people don't know how they got to be an alcoholic and I'm an alcoholic by marriage.

Uh either either that or I caught it in Alcoholics Anonymous cuz like I say, I wasn't an alcoholic when I came here, but I had to come to all these meetings and uh I picked it up here. But getting back to this thing about the people in my head, uh, I've known Max all these years and and and it isn't what Max does that determines the quality of our relationship. It's who I listen to of the people in my head who talk about our relationship.

I mean, there's a guy in my head who is obsessed with Max. He watches her all the time. and reports back to me, which is okay, except he doesn't really care that much for her.

And and what he does, he says, he says things to me all the time like, "Did you notice the way she's looking at you? Have you noticed the tone of voice in which she just said that?" And ask question. Does does that woman realize who she's talking to?

Yeah. Yeah. And and the other thing is there's another guy up there that thinks she's just wonderful.

He's just as obsessed with her and he thinks she's just great and likes to point out to me that she's attractive, got a great sense of humor, and that uh she's very active in Alanon. She's been going to meetings. What he really likes to remind me is that of is that she's the one who continued to go to AA meetings even though she's not an alcoholic.

she continued to go to AA meetings when I decided I wasn't going to go anymore. And u many a time I'll say let's go to show and she'll say no no no let's go to an AA meeting. And um so she's been she was uh well I guess come to think of it she drove me to drink for years but she's also been very important in my uh recovery too.

So I guess I'll keep her around a little longer. Uh anyhow, uh I'm supposed to talk about the steps, aren't I? Uh yeah, shaking your heads by the time you got to the steps is what you're saying.

Yeah. Yeah. Frankly, you know, one of my favorite steps though is the first step that I love that powerlessness.

I love that powerlessness. It's a I find that a very useful tool because it seems that so often so often the thing that's upsetting me is something over which I'm powerless anyhow. And it and what I'm really working on is trying to do change something that I'm powerless over changing.

And um until I realize that I I can be really struggling. But I I love to wallow in my powerlessness once I find out that usually I'm trying to change somebody else's attitude or change their behavior. And um I like to file things away.

I like to have things in in order. Uh I like to when I have something I like to put it away so I know where it is. Uh I'm not here to talk about Max, but truth is Max is just the opposite.

Uh she enjoys the hunt. Uh she's she's always going to put it away later and later hasn't arrived in 57 years and I don't know if it ever will. Uh another thing about Max I'm talking about Max is Max I'm a I'm a horizontal thinker and Max is a vertical thinker.

uh when we have a a situation or a problem, I like to ask questions that'll narrow it down. And when it gets narrowed down and it comes to a point, at that point, I know what I need to do next. I need I need I have a sense of direction.

I know what I need to accomplish. Max is a vertical thinker. She she never has enough information.

She always whatever she she always wants more. She'll even ask she'll ask questions even when she knows where she's going. She just loves to ask questions.

Uh and so I I will I will try when I'm trying to talk to Max. I will want to ask her a question and all I want to know is yes or no. Now, that's very little to ask of somebody.

And you know, I'll spend a whole day planning how I'm going to ask this that she can only answer yes or no. And it never works. She always say, "Well, we can't do it that way." And I haven't even told her what way I'm going to do it.

Yeah, that's all. Anyway, I uh I I like to file things in in what I have. My my biggest file is the the file of things over which I'm powerless.

If I drop something in that file drawer, then I can forget it and go on and and and be relieved of any uh any concern about that. In the same way with the on the second step, uh I I like to have ask came to believe that God could re um restore me to sanity, restore me to sane thinking in my own home. Uh I'd like to uh adjust that to sane thinking in my own home because that's where a lot of most of my problems come from.

And in my own life, I it seems so obvious that I'm right. Well, I usually am as a matter of fact, but I have to get along with uh people who don't can agree with that. And u then the third step made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God.

U you know, initially all that is is a decision. We don't have to do it. We just have to make the decision to do that as we're able.

Um, and I see a lot of people are new who are struggling with that because they're confusing the third step which is just a decision with the 11th step which is a way of living uh with God's will. They combine three and seven and and and people often say I'll say have you done your fourth step and they'll say no I'm still working on the third. What they're saying is they haven't done the third and they they don't want to do the third because if you do the third then you got to do the fourth.

In fact, the book is very specific. My book is very specific about that. After you do the third step, it says that third step is useless unless followed immediately by a thorough house cleaning.

And and it says at once that we do the fourth step. So if you haven't done the fourth step, be careful. Don't tell anybody you've done the third or the book will tell you you should be doing the fourth right away.

I u had a real hard time. One one thing I what I started to say before was I I've noticed that uh over the years the steps are changing for me. Um you know how the book changes as you go back and read it.

They take out they move stuff. I mean, all I have to do is quote what page something's on and they move it. Uh, and and they add new stuff and uh well, the steps are like that for me.

The the more I do the steps, the more um they they change. I I I they change for me. I I live them differently as they go along.

And they all fit together. Uh I've noticed that every step I do makes the steps before that more meaningful. I mean nothing for instance nothing makes the decision to turn your will and your life over the care of God.

Nothing makes that more significant than writing a fourth step. And nothing makes that still more significant than taking a fifth. So each step affects all the steps before that.

and they actually become a wheel that we go around and around in. We do go around and round. Uh along that line, I uh someplace out of Texas uh a group had gotten together and they set up uh they would form a group for the specific purpose of studying the first 164 pages of the book and when they came to a step they would do the step.

It wasn't a step study, it was a step do it. And they had these mimograph sheets and I got a a copy of them and um they were kind of hard to read and there were parts missing and they didn't finish all the steps after about eight I think they stopped or something. And anyway, I got those mimograph sheets and I finished them up, edited them and put it into a pamphlet.

And I decided uh that for myself, we got a group together and went through them and we we did all the steps together and it it formed a real nicely knit group of people uh having done something together and it formed a great sense of intimacy. It took about 20 meetings to complete to read all 164 pages of the book and do each of the steps as you came to them. And um so I I decided I would make those pamphlets available.

But I couldn't sell them because really they're just the big book. There's nothing in them that's other than the big book and maybe a little out of the 12 and 12. and particularly was good for uh setting up how to do the fourth step inventory, the four column inventory just like the book says.

Only somehow it's easier to read than this than in the book itself. That was one part of the book I have a little trouble understanding. Uh but anyway, this was I decided to make it available and um just give it away and let people donate for it.

And it's worked out fine. the the donations take care of printing it up and I've printed up 17,000 of them so far and I put a box of them in the um bookstore serenity shop and anybody that wants any u pick them up and on the back it tells you how to get more of them if you want them and that and if you haven't u I was going to say if you haven't done the fourth and fifth step or you haven't done steps I highly recommend you do it but I would also say if you haven't redone the steps in the last maybe five years, you might want to do it. I I say that only because that's what I've done.

Not by design, but just by accident or something. Uh about every five years, I have redone all all 12 steps to the best of my ability in with one of these groups. And every time I've done it, I've moved to a new plateau in my sobriety.

Remember how it was the first time you did it? I've had that same effect each time. And um so they're available if anybody wants to use them.

And um I guess that's the end of that commercial. Um going back to the fourth step, I had a a real hard time doing the fourth step. U I thought I felt I had been a confession millions of times, it seemed.

And so why would I need to write it out for God's sake? I never wrote it out when I went to confession. U but and besides how if I wrote it out, my wife or kids might find it.

And so I couldn't have it around the house. And I thought, well, and I'll write it out, but I'll keep it with me. And then I thought, yeah, but I might have an auto accident.

And then that stupid nurse at the emergency room would read the damn thing. So I couldn't do that. So I said, "Okay, I'll write it in code." And so so I can't read code, but I can write code.

And and so I wrote it out in code. And and then I had a really difficult time uh finding somebody to read it to. Uh somebody, you know, most people are blabbermouths and they be glad to tell tell stuff like that.

And I I had a real hard time finding somebody to read that to. And um and I wanted to be somebody on the program, not a professional. And u u I remember finally they were having a u convention down in San Diego.

And I made up my mind that u I made up my mind. I told myself I'm not coming back from San Diego unless I've done my fifth. And uh I didn't part particularly want to spend the rest of my life in San Diego and um so I found some it turned out to be a doctor who was uh uh somebody I was sponsoring as a matter of fact and um I read the whole thing to him and he told me stuff about himself that shocked me and uh and and you know I got once I got done with it was a big secret and once I got done with it I was running around telling everybody I did it.

I was uh I was wishing I had done it a lot sooner. It's like so many things in the program that we hate to do it but once we do it we wish you had done it before. And um so I uh uh did my fifth and uh I going back to the the uh the fourth step as I said redone them thoroughly every five years approximately.

But in between times I've done a lot of spot inventories. That has been very helpful to me. spot inventory.

Just doing an inventory on a particularly a particular problem. Uh doing an inventory on work or an inventory on money or an inventory on relationships. Um an inventory on my relationship with Max.

I've done all the steps over again in relation in specifically with my relationship in my my own home and that's been very helpful and to the point where today I still uh go to u one all-non meeting every week. Um fact my program consists of going to Almont meeting Monday noon maybe a men's stag Monday evening usually not uh going Tuesday night is state night and u Max and I go out wherever she wants and Wednesday night is my Wednesday night home group Lagona Beach speaker meeting Thursday night is the San Juan Capistrano topic discussion meeting and Friday Saturday and Sunday are either meetings locally where I'm either going to or talking to or we go someplace uh uh to talk and um so I get in four to five meetings a week and u and and love it and um but what I started to say was this spot inventories have been very helpful to me and and a modification of that is automatic writing. Uh I've got a lot of benefit out of automatic writing.

I've I've um back when I was in pharmacy uh I taught myself to type and uh I gotten so I love to type and I can type real fast. My fingers can type real fast. I say my fingers because if I let my fingers do it I can type real fast.

If I try to help them they go nuts. I mean it's like so much in life. If I just do it it's fine.

But if I try to think about it and work at it I screw it up. But I can sit down and now I do it at my computer and it's almost it it's almost as if my higher power has a substation in my computer or something cuz I can sit down and so I start out a letter to God. Dear God, here we go again.

You've been doing a good job. Keep on doing it. You make happen today whatever you want to have happen today.

You have come into my life whoever you want to have him come into my life. You have them say what you want them to say and do what you want him to do. whatever happens today and whoever comes into my life and whatever they say and do, I'll know that's your will for me this day.

I give him permission to let whatever happen and then I can't about whatever happens cuz I told him he could do it. And uh and and and I said you I'll pedal and you steer and for God's sake watch where you're going. Uh cuz I don't like some of the places we've been, you know, I I figure if I tell him if I tell him he can make happen whatever he wants to have happen in in that way and if I also if I do the seventh step where I say my creator I'm now willing that you should have all of me good and bad.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Then I have in I have turned over to him everything in the outside world and with a sevenst step I've turned over everything on the inside world. And to that in that to that extent I have given up my right to criticize, condemn or complain about anything either in myself or in anybody else.

And I'll often u with a ballpoint pen write three C's in my palm of my hand because I talk like that a lot and I and it reminds me that when I see that that we really that my job is not to figure out whether or not we're really in the palm of his hand. My job is to act as if that's true and stop acting as if it isn't true. And when I can see it in my hand at three C's, then I I don't complain quite so much and u it works out well.

But anyway, what I'm saying about a problem uh and I I will start out with a problem. I and I will explain to him. I I I'll write as fast as I can.

No, automatically no concern about punctuation or spelling or anything like that. I'm not going to read it again and nobody else is going to read it. But I put down all the facts I can about the problem so that I know that he knows everything about the problem because so often it's difficult to deal with his way of dealing with a problem if I don't think that he has all the facts.

And but once I've got it all down there and I know that he knows all the facts, then I can the thing that happens is it's surprising how often it happens that before I'm finished typing some sort of an answer or an approach will come to me. It just happens again and again and and indeed the oftener I do that the more often and the more readily answers come they just come out of describing the problem and the answer comes it's a a way I find of getting the intuitive answers to problems what is that bottom of page 86 top of 87 when faced with a problem we uh relax and u take it easy and but first we have to know that he knows they'll probably move that now that I mentioned what pages I'm I'm that powerful. Um anyhow, uh that's that's what I do with the fourth step and the fifth steps I've uh I've taken with the people I sponsor.

Uh took one with Chuck one day that was a delightful experience. Uh then the delight fifth step is a delightful experience to have experience once it's over. It's uh not easy to do at the time.

It's a fact we had a old dog Lily uh one of our two all dogs. uh she got blind and deaf and uh just last week we had to make the decision to put her to sleep and it was a very difficult decision to make but it's been an easy decision to live with after it's been made and so much of the stuff in the program is like that and um uh I think that's about everything on the fourth and fifth step that comes to it is everything on the fourth and fifth step that comes to mind I have in thinking about giving this talk on these steps. I had a lot of random thoughts and I thought I should make some notes but whenever I do that then I get into the business of that like I'm teaching and I get really uncomfortable with that and I knew that when I didn't make notes that I wouldn't remember the things I wanted to say while I'm here but I'll think of them later today and u and over the next 24 hours I'll have some really sure loss I'll think of it later.

You'll never know, but I'll know. And and I'm more more interested in my sobriety than yours. But uh I think that but one on that uh on the sixth and seventh step um this the sixth and seventh step uh but the sixth step says became entirely willing to have God remove our defects of character and seventh step humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings and as far as I know shortcomings and defects of character are the same he just didn't want to use the same word twice Um those two steps meant very very little to me the first time I went through the steps.

But as I've uh stayed around and gone through the steps and lived the steps and gone through them a number of times, six and seven have become much much more meaningful. And this I have a an attitude toward them that might be a little uh different in that um the sixth step says became entirely willing to have God remove our defects. I think we also have to be entirely willing to have him not remove the defects he doesn't want to remove.

Um because I he has never the most dramatic defect he has removed for me is my addiction to alcohol and drugs. And yet you and I both know he hasn't really removed it. It's still there and it can flare up at any moment and one drink and I'm can be gone.

So he he modifies the defect, but I don't think they totally completely remove them. And I find I find people hating themselves for a defect or two or three. Uh and and I hear them saying they're working on a defect or they're asking God to help them get rid of a defect.

Well, I don't that business of asking God to help them do what they want, that never worked for me. I would spent all my life before the program asking God to help me do what I wanted to do, to quit drinking or to get through medical school or to do this. And help me, help me, help me.

It was always I was always begging for help. And he was always saying, "Well, screw you." Uh what I found out was that he is not willing to help me. He's not willing to help me do my will.

But he's very willing to let have me help him do his will. But if it's my idea, he's not going to help me. But if it's his idea, he's fine.

Sure. Come on. I'll be I'll be glad to take your help.

Uh and and it's the same way with defects of character. We even say that in the seven step. May please remove from me every single defect that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

Which implies that if it doesn't stand in the way, you may be stuck with it. And and that's his choice. That's a big loophole.

I mean, God doesn't need very big loopholes. He can get in anywhere. Uh but that that's a biggie.

And so, so I think we have to be willing to have the defects he doesn't want to remove and live with them in spite of them and be comfortable and in spite of them and not hate ourselves for having them because it's not our choice. I mean, that's the way I see it is that uh if uh you know, I've turned myself over to God and and I've told I keep telling them to do a good job, but this is what he's done. And if you don't like the result, that's who you ought to complain to.

don't complain to me, go talk to him. Uh and um I think I think that's been that's been an important concept for me to stop hating myself. In fact, I I see that a lot in so much of the focus on the the program is to look at our defects, look at our faults, look at the things we need people we need to make amends to, look at how we've been bad here and bad there.

And um the thing that the steps have helped me with is to get rid of to do the things I can about the things that are have been bad, the things I've done in the past to clean up the past, but then to like the final result. I my higher power likes for me to like what he has done with what I've given him to work with. I I think he he likes for me to approve of his handiwork.

I think he smiles on that and um and you know I think I've noticed about that is I don't I don't don't think I noticed it. I think I read it someplace. Anything I've either that or heard it in aa uh any good idea I have either read or heard but then I take it over his mind.

Uh, but somebody said, and I've I've I've observed this, that you can't raise somebody else's self-esteem without also raising your own. You can't love someone else without being a more loving person. You can't you can't hate somebody else without being a more hateful person.

uh which re reminds me of something I just went through in the last uh six weeks or so. It uh has nothing to do with this steps I was talking about. Um except but it had to do with resentments.

I'm always looking for easier softer way to get rid of resentments. And I uh uh Clint H gave a um weekend retreat for lawyers up in Oregon and I knew some of the lawyers so they sent me some of his tape. They sent me a copy of his tapes and they were they were good.

But when they got to the eighth step about dealing with resentments, I really listened to that. In fact, I I listened to it several times until my machine got sick of playing it and ate it up. Uh but um this take a little time, but I got a lot of time.

I'm in charge here. Uh I got the microphone is what I mean. Uh but what he this is not this is non uh uh conference approved now.

I mean, uh, so maybe you better turn the tape off. But, uh, what he was talking about, he was quoting, uh, EMTT Fox in the in the book Sermon on the Mount. And what EMTT Fox said, I went out and got bought I couldn't find my copy, so I went about went out and bought another one.

And Fox said that you should not say the Lord's Prayer beyond that point where it says, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Don't say that if you have any resentments that you haven't taken care of because you're asking God to treat you the way you're treating somebody else. You're telling them to. And he goes into a long detail about resentments and how risky and how dangerous they are and how they a resentment change you a spiritual chain to another person that you become the jailer and they're the prisoner.

But he makes out the fact that you're as much a prisoner as the prisoner because you're attached to each other and inseparable. And um he says that the basis of getting rid of a resentment is forgiveness. We have to forgive in order to get rid of the resentment.

But an important point that I like is just like acceptance is not approval. He was saying that forgiveness is not liking. When you forgive somebody for whatever they've done, you you don't then have to like that person, which makes it a lot simpler.

I mean, you can forgive the sob. U he made quite a point of that fact. In fact, he says it's impossible to force yourself to like somebody you don't like.

So, you don't have to like him, but you do have to forgive them. And but the I told you this going to take a long time. uh um well finalize it.

He his way this is the point I wanted to make his way of dealing with the resentment. He said get ready for it. Think about it.

Think about it. Pray about it. Get ready to forgive the person.

Don't have to like them, but you have to forgive them. Pray for it until you get ready. And when you're ready, sit down, pray to God, think about what you're doing, and then tell God you are going to forgive.

You are forgiving that person totally, completely, absolutely. It's as if it never happened. It's gone.

It's out of your life. It's in God's hands now. It's done and over with.

So on. And when you're through, get up, walk away. Don't ever come back to it.

Don't forgive the person again because you've already done it. To do it over again, you're negating what you've already done. When it comes back to mind, just remember that it's done and over with and gone and walk away from it.

And he says that over a period of short period of time, it'll no longer even come back to your mind anymore. it'll be gone. Don't keep rehashing it.

And I u I've done that with two things. One of the things was that I always put resentments as just a uh being tick ticked off at somebody or a mild resentment or a big resentment or a big fat resentment. And big fat resentments are the ones where somebody does something that really upsets me.

But I found that when I stopped to think about it, there are people in my life, a particular one who had been in my life for many years and again and again and again and again did something that annoyed me and it annoyed me and annoyed me and annoyed me until that had grown into a big fat resentment and I didn't even realize it. But when I did this business that he sets up, it's really taken care of it. Now when it comes to my mind, I just it in fact it doesn't come to mind anymore.

And um it's really worked very well for me. Uh oh, the people who are sitting on the floor will be happy. They're now bringing in some chairs.

The meeting's about over. I always feel bad for the people that have to stand. Uh, and then I think, well, hell, you've got to stand.

Uh, I'm going to say one one last thing. Uh, the U, Father Barney used to come down from Seattle area and put on retreats for alcoholics and Alanons. and he he liked to break uh sobriety down into segments just like we put sobriety into uh a day at a time.

Uh he would he he said the sobriety was like a baseball diamond that uh first base was physical sobriety and second base was mental sobriety and third base was emotional sobriety and home plate was spiritual sobriety. And I I like that concept. I like breaking things down.

And the way I see it is that those the steps are on that diamond. That step one is right after physical sobriety. You have to get physically sober and then you realize it's alcohol that's been beating you up and you're powerless over it.

We take the first step and the second step getting to believe that power greater cells could restore us to sanity is that the second base and I see the rest of the steps on the rest of that diamond but and the further as we work the steps we get more and more into spiritual sobriety but what I see it's all of us always on that diamond all the way through recovery we're on that diamond Simon and we're always in motion. We are either moving further into spiritual sobriety or we're drifting back to where we came from. We can't stand still.

I like that concept because that means keeps me going. In fact, when I was very new in sobriety, I remember u what's his name who who said that he's non-alcoholic and outstanding in New York uh at the university there. Anyway, uh he uh he said that I have a disease and it's following me and it'll always be there and there's no way I can tell how far back it is.

Oh, there is one way I can stand still until it gets me. Then I can think, well, I should have gone to one more meeting. U but but uh and I like that concept because it keeps me going.

But what I've been focusing on currently now is uh the third third base emotional sobriety. I have I am willing to go to any length any length any any length at all. I'm willing to I'm willing to go to any length to maintain my physical sobriety.

And the longer I'm sober, the greater lengths I'm willing to go to to maintain my emotional sobriety. And for two reasons. Uh one is that I feel that if I lose my emotional sobriety bad enough long enough, I'm liable to say what's the use and take a drink.

And main thing is if I don't if I allow other people to control my emotional sobriety, that means they can control my physical sobriety. And if I'm willing to do any go to any length to maintain my physical sobriety, that means I have to maintain my emotional sobriety. So I just I can't afford to let somebody else control how I feel.

And I become very conscious of that to not allow somebody else's behavior to be more important to me than my emotional sobriety. And um in fact I um when I'm upset, one of the voices in my head will say will ask the ask the question, well is it really all that important? And I always of course it's important for God's sake, you know.

And then the little voice will say, "Well, is it is it worth getting drunk over?" I said, "Hell no. Nothing's worth getting drunk over for God's sake." Then the little voice will say, "Well, if you're not going to reward yourself with a drink, why bother to be so upset?" Yeah. And I have no answer.

And uh I think that's enough out of me. I'll think of the other good stuff later. And uh you know, I hope you all have a good rest of the day.

If you don't, it's your own damn fault. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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