Clancy I. at Bristol Reunion February 21st 2002

My name is Clancy Ellis Lynn. I'm an alcoholic

and I'm very glad to be back in the

the heart of Bristol, glad to have a had another exciting time coming here. Not on the airplane, just Sally driving me from the airport.

But I it's very good to be here. See some old friends, meet some new friends. Kind of kind of cold here for people from California, but there's a young man here from Iceland. Where are you, kid?

He came here to thaw out.

I

enjoyed your talk, Adam,

and I hope you won't feel offended if I tell you something, but you're kind of new and I'm not. I'm very old.

People like you really shouldn't drink

if you can't handle it like a man for good. You know?

Every year on Friday night they asked me to talk about something that I never know is going to be which I'm talking about. The last year I talked about a little bit of the history in the traditions. Year before that I talked on singleness of purpose

and I guess I have to tell my story tomorrow night. So I got to think of something to talk about. I think there's something to talk about. It might help somebody new here. Tonight. I want to talk a little bit about a little puzzle with an, a, a, you know, it's a funny thing. Alcoholics Anonymous is certainly the most effective treatment for alcoholism in the history of mankind. And the 6000 recorded years of alcohol usage or something.

And in the United States, for example, where it's the most

his outlook, it's a hot pair today if there ever is one. And there's more sobriety in the United States than anywhere else in the world on a continuing basis.

And that's why it's kind of a puzzlement where you stop and think that it's estimated by one of our national societies dealing this professionally. That's still in America. About between 90 and 95% of Alcoholics die drunk. I'm sure the percentages as high or higher in Great Britain. I'm sure it's higher in other countries where Alcoholics Anonymous has not made an image. And you wonder why that should be because there's a there's an answer and it seems to work. It seems to have an effectiveness and

it's just so many people come to AAA do not stay. So many people don't know about A and don't come because they have preconceived ideas. Some people come to A don't last very long. You know when you look at the meetings where every week there are new people and 52 weeks a year, 10 years, you think you'd have enough to fill Wembley Stadium. But the meetings grow little by little, not exponentially at all.

And it's really an odd situation. And you look back and think, well, maybe we're not sincere. We were, as we're in the old days,

we're thinking about our we have a new book now, and we have the old book with the stories that are some of these stories have changed, sometimes with our approval and sometimes not. But some, you look at the old book, it's kind of an interesting thing. It's hard to realize this. A number of people whose stories of the old book died drunk,

Many of them got drunk again. Now why would that? Because these were good A members, good guys.

The is just

Why would these? Why do these things happen? Why do people drink?

And I think it gets back to something that has happened to all of us when we come here. They mentioned the topic of my talk to. I had a disease of perception, but certainly alcoholism is a disease of perception.

And

as Adam was saying tonight, we perceive life as a hopeless situation. We come to a hopefully over a period of time through taking steps

at depth. Hopefully our perception changes, but then unless something continues, our perception begins to diminish again. In the program I noticed Sally has put that thing about the invisible boat that does Kemper talk. I gave the International Convention in 1985 in Montreal

and you just left one little thing out of that. You know, the point I was trying to make, which is the point, is that

the point is the difference between good treatment centers and bad treatment centers are that bad treatment centers, when they release you, they leave you feeling that you're OK now and you don't have to do anything more. And the good treatment centers say we're leaving you off here, but look for those two guys, the invisible boat and roll like hell. And that's the purpose of a continuing effort.

And I,

I would say offhand, to the best of my knowledge, just as a little terrible, but I think the first three steps have kept more people out of a A than anything in history next to booze. And not because they're bad, because they're eventually with a change of perception, they become a trampoline that keeps you in A. And I'm going to just talk you a few minutes tonight about the steps. I know we all heard about the steps of the board or the steps, but I just want to talk about my perception.

The the first step that,

you know, people come here and have a terrible time because you have to start off by meeting, you're an alcoholic and therefore your life is unmanageable and you're a loser and a failure. Dude, it's really a terrible thing. And you have to go to turn your, your, you have to admit you're crazy and your God's going to make it better. And if if God doesn't like you, you got no chance,

then you're going to turn your life over to God. Try that some morning when you can't figure it here. God,

you sleep in the streets. That's what happens when you do that.

And it really took me a long time. I think, I think one of the great I slipped in and out of a A for almost 10 years. I went from being a high bottom drunk kind of to being a media bottom drunk. And the last day I drank, two big guys threw me out of a Skid Row mission in Los Angeles and said stay out of here, you damn bum. And I try to explain to him I'm not a bum. Three years ago, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas,

adds that I helped write the Elsie Delmaras for the boarding company we're running that very weekend. In Life and Time and The New Yorker setting post, I'd had my picture in the New York Times for one of my achievements.

How many people you have had their picture? The New York Times. But it's hard to explain these things in midair.

But I knew all about AI, knew almost a month as much about a A then as I do now.

Isn't that odd? But I knew what I could talk about, the steps. I've provided a lot of meetings over the years in and out. And after all, they didn't make any difference. And this time I was raining and cold and I walked a long way to an 80 club where I could get out of the rain for a while. And I was in strange city where I didn't know anybody. One guy and he got I got so much familiar with him anymore

and I fell into a terrible trap of this hideous club in there, a bunch of fanatics and all those just crazy. And I just lurked in there because it kept raining and I somehow stayed sober a couple of weeks

actually. I wanted to stay sober, but I had no place to go. It's still raining.

And then they started the same old pattern, you know, get a sponsor. You've been summer two weeks now. Get a sponsor. And I had no front teeth.

Let me tell you, if you're new tonight about sponsors. They all pretend to be so nice. Oh yes, we care. We love you. But they always want to stick their nose in your business. That's what they want to do.

And this guy, I used to see him come in and out of the club and he was an actor and he every time I saw him in the movie, he was playing some role where he's giving people money or taking care of him or helping him. That's my new sponsor.

I'll get some money from this idiot. I get some teeth, I get some clothes. My eyes are clear. I'll go back to New York, maybe get a job at an advertising agency again. I guess the money, I'll come back out here someday and I'll burn this club down.

So I have to be my sponsor and he I said we'll give you my sponsor, Bob,

try to get my newcomer looking to share. I want you to do what I say. Oh sure, Bob,

I've often said he should have won the Academy Award for every loving role he ever played in any movie because he was a right wing fascist AA pig. Just a terrible man. Do this, do that.

But over a period of time he he grabbed me down a little bit. I'll talk a little bit why maybe tomorrow night. But one of the things I did

about 3 months sober, I was, I'd have a couple of jobs. He, he wasn't very sympathetic. I mean, the first week I became so I think, you know, Bob, I'm an intelligent man and I'm a sensitive man. I'm living in an abandoned car in the a club parking lot. I'm cold and hungry. I'm an intelligent, sensitive man. Bob. I can't live like this. What can I do? He said get a job.

I said get a job for Christ sake, look how terrible I look. I should get a terrible job.

Yeah, I I followed that advice to the hilt for a long time. But anyway,

I had a couple jobs and I was a smart aleck newcomer. I know nothing worse today than a smart Alec newcomer. A God's a loser and failing and knows more than anybody. And that's no idea. I've often thought I've worked with a lot of people over the years. People send people me to me. I just makes me crazy sometimes.

Couple times

the doorbell rings at 2:00 in the morning over the past few years and I go to the door. There's some grass. They said you'd help me

and I said who? There's a car speeding away across the park.

Did you get a license number? Anything

but I don't know what I'd do if me and my early sobriety came in to talk to me. I would not put up with that kind of crap from that guy.

I'm glad I found somebody better than me and he

I'd had a job, but I was feeling I'd make a little progress over three months. I say I'd lost a job. I'd been living in somebody's sofa and they moved or I had to go leave. And I was back in that abandoned car briefly. And I got a chance because I was out of work to go back to the noon meetings in the club. I was like the noon meetings because all the philosophers are there. None, nobody with jobs or that real stuff. You just go to noon and philosophize. And

I had a good feel. I was trying to be honest that day. You know,

I really envy you people because I am not really an alcoholic. I've a lot of problems. I've grave emotional problems and I my drinking pattern is pretty bad, but I am not an alcoholic, so I can't take the first step. I envy you people who can take the first step because for years I've been going to a meetings on New York and Chicago and Los Angeles to get the heat off. And I heard people talk about the steps have done for them because they're Alcoholics. But my problem is not really alcohol,

and so I can't be an alcoholic. And I know these steps work for Alcoholics, but they don't work for people like me. I don't know what's I guess I don't do. I don't know which ones

try to be honest. One of the few times I've ever honest in a meeting and about 10 seconds after the meeting, some boom,

called it, my sponsor said. Here's what he said. No, Bob.

So the next two weeks, Bob and another guy named John Sullivan gave me a seminar on the first step, which I'll try to condense into two or three minutes. But it really was something. It went like something like this. Wow,

you're not an alcoholic. You said that and told me that before. Is that why you can't take the first step? I'm trying to be honest, Tell you the truth,

I I can't admit I'm an alcoholic. Really, I'm not, he says. Why are the first step does it say you're an alcoholic?

Well, it doesn't actually say so, Bob,

but we know what they mean. Don't care. So he says. Why don't you ever try reading the black parts on those pages?

Just want to say we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. Do you think you're powerless over alcohol? Not really.

He's what do you think powerless means? He said. Why do you hear these speakers? You know, they get drunk and they rape nuns and they go to prisons. They go to Hong Kong and go do crazy. I'm just a good guy. They've been screwed around a lot. Bob. He's, I don't think that's what it means at all, kid. It means some of this. It means that there's a small percentage of people in every generation who seem to get an unnatural reaction to alcohol.

What do you think of unnatural reaction to alcohol is kid? I guess they drink stay drunk all the time, right Until I let us in at all. Just the opposite,

alcohol does something special forum that it doesn't do for most people. It makes things better

after two or three or four drinks. It seems to change their perception of reality. Most people after two or three, four drinks get a little dizzy, want to go home. But these people now are suddenly living in a Technicolor world.

That's the unnatural reaction. Nothing bad will happen to you unless it's doing something for you. I'll tell you that.

I said yes, I, I guess that's happened to me, Bob, But but I drank two or three or four drinks. I didn't always go out and do crazy things. He says. It doesn't mean that you may drink two or three or four drinks and go and go to bed. You may two or three or four drinks go to Mexico.

You may fall in love with an 89 year old woman on a Walker. You know

something's going to happen, that's all,

he says. The trouble is for people like this, every time they drink, it's a game of Russian roulette and they don't even aren't aware of it. And when you're young, you sometimes get away with it.

You know what? After about 3:00 this morning, boys got loaded. I got home in time, take a shower, got to work.

All right click. I met this woman at bar last night. She turned me every way but this. I'll tell you, I was lucky to get out for clutch

quick. Oh, we went to that bar last night. What a terrible bar. That wasn't enough fighting. The guy got drunk. It was just terrible.

But as you get older, somebody puts more and more shells in that baby and they wind up like you, kid. Boom Jesus.

Boom Jesus,

boom Jesus. There's a click in here somewhere.

She's

all you gotta admit that you can't tell what's going to happen. You start to drink. Is that true? That is true, Bob. But you see, that isn't the point. That isn't why my life is screwed up. I drink because my life is painful. My life doesn't get painful because I drink, although it does that too. But I have deep problems that I can't take it. If I don't break, I get suicidal. My life is not caused by, probably not caused by drinking,

he said. Now you told me that you were an award-winning writer. That's right, Bob, I was.

He's wanted to read what that says.

We were admitted. We were powerless over alcohol. Dash. In the English language, dash means end of thought, beginning of new thought.

Now we have a new thought. You have to admit your life's unmanageable. You think your life's unmanageable?

Not really,

he says. You're living in an abandoned car for Christ's sake.

Is that some sort of a clue or something?

He said. But that isn't what it means. I'm just kidding. You're kidding, he said. I'll tell you what, not Malibu. The richest man in America, one of the three richest men in the world, perhaps sits an AE meetings three and four nights a week, every week. And he can afford to buy chains of treatment centers and he can buy doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists and every therapy in the world and existing meetings. And he says he's content. Why do you think that would be?

It beats me,

you know, tell you something. Everybody's,

everybody's born. Every human being, rational human beings born eventually go along. You have problems, you have upsets, you have conflicts, a lot of conflicts you have to work through and pain and problems, and then you'll workout and you have to go through them painfully. Now just think, some people can take a few drinks and bury those problems

and bury those conflicts. Sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't. Is it great?

And it's great you come. You come to depend upon alcohol as a conflict resolver for an unfriendly world. But eventually alcohol gets to be a problem. Do I have to stop drinking? Then you stop drinking and you realize that these things are surfacing now. Now all the old pains are back and all the things they should have done and didn't do, and all the things they did do and shouldn't have done, and all the problems and come back eventually get so bad you have to have a few drinks to get some relief.

But you can't keep drinking. So you got to get sober, but then you can't stay sober. Let's start drinking.

But then you can't keep drinking. Sugar starts up. He says that's the problem. Cute, He says. The only thing right you I've heard you say about this. You said your problem isn't alcohol. And you're absolutely right. If your problem were alcohol, you wouldn't have to be here.

He said the problem is something called alcoholism. I said, isn't that the same thing as alcohol? He said no it isn't, it's a lot different and alcohol problem is overcome by getting sober and cleaning up your act and straightening up

in this thing called alcoholism. However, you'll discover sooner or later, as you've already discovered, that getting sober and straightening up and cleaning up your act has no significant long-term effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't stand it,

he said. You know the kid. There's a name for people like you,

he said. You're an alcoholic

and I said we'll all be goddamned cause for 10 years I'd been drinking and I drinking myself and lost everything I had because I could not fit a a definition of what I thought Alcoholics. Where would people tell me in meetings and never once think what it means?

That had the probably the greatest single effect in my life I've ever had. That was in the winter of 195859,

and since I guess what I did, I learned a lot more about a sense that reading chapter 3 and so on, But I without being aware of it, I conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic that day. So what? What difference does that make? Here's the difference. I never could have done that. I never would have done it, couldn't have. And since that day, I have never had a severe desire to drink.

Now I didn't. I'm not saying things got really wonderful

because in those days several times I desire to commit suicide, almost committed suicide once and ran away and quit jobs and lived in. But the reason I did not drink is because I knew if I drank

had one beer, I just knew this as an alcoholic. Sooner or later, if I got away with it, I'd drink more. Everybody thinks if I can get away. One of the sad things sometimes in age, seeing how somebody have an easy slip because they still think they can handle it.

But I,

it enabled me that ever have to desire, strong desire to drink. And that has been one of the great things in my life. I, I, I started to say, if I had one drink sooner or later, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, I'll find myself standing out in the street corner getting one more time and there won't be anybody in the world who cares what happens to me. That's the sad part. It doesn't lose your family. You get new families, you get new homes, get new jobs,

But when you've lost the world around you and your perception is gone, it's deadly.

I've always thought the greatest wish somehow

I could have had to explain to me clearly when I was new in 1949 would save me a lot of problems. But maybe it wouldn't have. Unlit this candle tonight, I'll tell you that.

I don't,

but I think that's what the first step is. It's hard to understand that everybody thinks you've got to sit. Your problem is alcohol. Your problem is not alcohol.

Then you get to that second step, but it's just a little bit spooky because now we got to

got to return to a higher power and I had to tell my sponsor the bad news. You know, I was raised in the Norwegian Lutheran Church, Bob, and they don't screw around there. You make two or three mistakes and you're screwed. And I, I, I was gone at 12.

I, you know, I remember I told him I was here. I've broken all 10 commandments. Not intentionally said that, but I broke them all. There's not much chance of me returning to God once in a sober few years that I realized that God, I haven't broken all 10 commandments. I've never coveted my neighbor's manservant.

Of course, in Los Angeles we all say, yeah, you know, who knows? But

I told my sponsor, I said I can't return to God, Tell my second step. He says, why does it say you have to return to God? It says higher power doesn't say God. Oh, do that fool the people. Oh, that isn't God. That's a higher power. He says that it doesn't say return to anything. Nothing and a A ever says return to anything because we're coming out of sick perceptions and bad

concepts, he says. You got to try to come to believe something. That's what they ask you to do. You try to come to believe that a power greater than yourself.

Can't you believe in God said no, I can't Bob, because God exists, I am damned, I cannot believe it, he said. Can't you believe in? AAI said no. He doesn't seem to work for me,

he said. You think I'm doing better than you are?

Yeah, he says. Congratulations, I'm your new higher power

and I could accept that he couldn't send me to hell, although it came close. But

people in the club, you say there's that crazy guy thinks his sponsors God.

I knew he wasn't God.

I'll tell you one thing though. If you're kind of new and you're having trouble with God or a a, I would much rather see you believe in your sponsor that you believe in than to pretend to believe in a God you don't believe in. Because you can fool them at 8:00 at night, but you can't fool that dark at 2:00 in the morning. You better have something there that you believe in. But anyway, he said

how how could I come to believe that? And Robert pretend we, we work that out because you don't understand how it's going to happen. You don't have to see why it's going to happen. All I can do is try to

accept the concept here. There's some power will restore you to sanity. And I was always was a little nervous about that word sanity because Once Upon a time I was committed to the Texas State insane asylum as a schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies because that stayed sober so long and tried to kill myself, which is another story. But,

and I've always been a little sensitive when people call me crazy because I'm secretly crazy,

but it works out. That is what it means at all. I don't care how I work that out. I had to come to believe that a power greater than myself will restore me to sanity. Now the definition is what is sanity? Well, you read 10 books of mental health and you read 10 depredition, 10 different renditions of sanity. But oddly enough, the definitions of psychosis insanity are pretty stable.

And what psychosis is, that's mental illness not caused by brain damage. And this is highly oversimplified, of course, But when the brain, under sufficient conflict that it cannot cope with, sometimes in desperation to maintain its integrity, will alter perception of an outside object to make it look different, to resolve that conflict, Sometimes it's just a little thing, sometimes it's all around. By that time you're in a hospital somewhere. But you read about these people who seem to be living normal lives. All of a sudden something happens that triggers that little area and they kill

neighbors. So they do some crazy thing or act differently.

Psychosis is a

is a male.

It's a miss.

It's seeing reality. Wrong is what it is. Now they say that alcohol, you know, alcoholism is the second greatest cause of insanity, but not that kind of insanity. Alcoholic insanity is something entirely different. Alcoholic insanity is a physical condition. Almost everywhere in this room has been drunk, sometimes a few times. I know how it is. Sometimes you wake up in the morning at that fire burning and need something to put it out

wet cold. And the reason is because alcohol may be the only substance I know of that takes that scripture body of moisture. It dries out your body little as it dries,

dries up the cells in your body. Many of them die. And when you add fluid to your body, the cells revive. There's only two organs where cells die and don't revive. That's your brain and your liver. And that's why you get liver problems that stick out together, malnutrition and brain problems. I have millions and millions of brain cells. You can kill a lot of go for a long time, but eventually you kill enough of them

and you get a dried out brain

or at least a portion of it's funny in a, we call it a wet brain, but I'm sure most of you have never seen a real wet brain or very few. I see them all the time and they're terrible. They're not acting crazy in meetings and talking silly. There are people sitting on a bed and people come and change their diapers three times a day and feed them and put them to bed and get them up and change their diapers and feed them. They can never get better. They sit like that sometimes for 40 years. Their body's healthy, just their brain is gone.

Families come out once a while, see if Dad knows him. You know the hell they are. So they cry and go home with them. That's alcoholic insanity. Neurosis is when your brain can't stand the pressure and alters your perceptual reality. Now here's the funny little thing. Alcoholics almost never, almost never become psychotic. You'd think they'd be the number one, would you? But they don't. You know why not?

Because when it gets bad enough long enough,

they will drink alcohol and change their perception of reality. They can induce, in a sense, temporary psychosis.

They can literally change their relationship. And I'm sure every drunk in this room knows has done it sometimes and many, many times. Some doctors feel that sometimes Alcoholics get to a point where they must drink to preserve their sanity.

And so when I have to come to believe I didn't know what sanity was, the only but I thought sanity was I had a bed next to mine in a Texas nut house who guys laughing all the time. I thought he was saying I don't know today Fred, I'm fine

and suddenly realized he's never going to get out of there and he stops laughing. That is not sanity. That's goofiness.

Somehow I have to come to believe that there's a power here. What can it be? I don't know what you'd be my sponsor

doorknob, something but I don't understand yet will enable me to live in the world without having to induce temporary psychosis to stand. It will allow me to live in reality without getting ever get so bad I have to drink to standard. And I can accept that premise of the second step because it made sense. It seemed to be logical. Came to believe that a power grid of myself would restore me to sanity. And for me, sanity is sustained reality.

But then they want you to turn your life in care of the gods. Understandable.

You're not getting around that one. I had to put that one aside for a while and I went long. I stayed sober for a while. Linda there was about six months over. I had a little bad luck. I got fired as a dishwasher.

It wasn't my fault. It seemed to me that the busboys were bringing in more dishes than the waitresses were taken out,

and I thought they were getting dishes in other restaurants to humiliate me.

So I didn't do a lot of I wasn't feeling well anyway. I got fired tonight. That day I decided to kill myself. If I can't hold a job at six months, I'm gone. I'll never see my children again. I'll never see anything in the world. What's the sense? What's the sense of living? Now? Let's go back and live that damn abandoned car. You said we'll have rent money. What am I going to do? So I decided to. Well, I just seen at the Aid Club on the Late Show television. We used to watch that

a movie called A Star Is Born. At the end of that, this drunken guy walks into the ocean.

Nobody feels sorry later. As for me, it doesn't hurt and I'll give it a shot.

I don't know exactly know how to get to the ocean where I was, but I walked back to La Cienega over Wilshire, walked West and walked and walked and walked and walked and I couldn't find the ocean. I finally stopped and guesses. Where's the ocean, pal?

So you're just western Beverly Hills. You have to walk past the veterans hospital in another 5 miles. Not that we'll screw that. Yeah, I don't mind dying. I'm going to walk myself to you,

but I felt so bad. I called up my sponsor. And I hate to call him because I'd have to tell him I got fired as a dishwasher. And he, he, he was always disappointed I lost a job. Very loudly disappointed. I called my head,

why don't you work it? I said, look, Bob, let me explain something to you. You know, you know, I've lost my family and I've lost my career. I understand that, Mom. I don't need anything. But there's something I don't think you understand, Bob, when you're not around a in the club and other places, people treat me differently.

They they don't call on me much. It means they call me once and ever call on me again. They old timers warned their newcomers to stay away from me. People laugh at me and take jokes about me. You know about I just

in my judgment, Bob, A can't make, I doesn't work. What am I going to do?

Why don't you write your damn inventory? And he just told me that a week before and I explained to him, I've taken my inventory with psychiatrists, train people. Why would I take with an out of work actor? What's he going to do? Say caught? Let's do that again. You know, it's nonsense.

I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I said, Bob

in my judge, I know you mean well, but in my judgment, going over all the pain and agony I've known can't make me feel better in my country. I need something more and he kindly

counsel me in your judgment. Who cares about your judgment? You're back living in an abandoned car for Christ's sake. If I wanted your judgement, I put my head in the back window and ask you for it,

he said. You're a loser. You're a loser.

He really got me. So cross. I came out of that phone booth just about it turned right. I'd have been in that ocean in three steps. I'd have been gone, but I turned left. What? Back to the a club in Wilshire. Solomon here is on paper on the right line in the jury. They gave me a pad of paper and I wrote God. I wrote stuff I never told. A soul would never tell a psychiatrist that stuff.

Somebody asked me what time to tell your psychiatrist these things,

and we're paying that kind of money. You can't risk rejection. That's why you don't tell a psychiatrist. I'd want some little wussy to say to me you did what, Sir? Get out of my office,

but first wash off that chair.

And I wrote, I just wrote, I put down stuff. Just

I vomited on the page

in words. I got done and I felt better. And I guess that proved to him it didn't work. That cheered me up a little and I shoved around the scene of that car and I went about my business, felt a little better. And a couple days later he came by the club. Well, get your inventory. We'll take your inventory.

I don't think I'm really ready for that step yet. I I got to kind of work myself into it and get a, he said shut up and get it in the car. So we get in the car. He drove me from Santa Monica to Oxnard, 40 miles

and give me a flashlight and I read this hideous thing.

I thought, God, he's going to make me get out from walk 40 miles back from Oxnard.

I probably got all done. I just, it was worse than I remembered and that's all. Are you done now?

And you know where he is? That's the best thing you've done since you got sober, kid. And I said thought it was.

I've taken that trip over 200 times since then, only I'm on the driver's side. There's some other puke over there, their little flashlight, so I was the same.

Let me let me explain this part before I read it.

But it's far as I'm concerned, inventories could inventories are all the same. They all have the same elements, a lot of deep seated

guilt and resentment

and fear and spiritual loneliness and it really is amazing. In one week a few years ago, I heard the daughter, one of the most famous men in the 20th century of your inventory. A week later, a guy who was born under a bridge in Juarez, Mexico, never even knew his father was. And the renovator's were just about the same. I mean, their specifics were different. She lived in a penthouse and he just out of the Washington State Penitentiary, but the same. It's just amazing.

I have. I've come to look back and I've worked with a lot of people over the years

and I think the inventory, as we almost know, is a very, very valuable step.

I've come to look back and I've worked with a lot of people over the years and I think the inventory, as we almost know, is a very, very valuable step. But I think that

I have will come to believe that the hardest part about inventory is sitting down and putting the pencil on the paper and deciding what is appropriate to put down. Some people put down 150 pages of biography, some people put down half a page. It's just

and many years ago I did something. I'm not suggesting anyone here do it for the people I sponsored to get them going on this. Now we have a thing in the book that talks about resentments and how it which is very good. But I think that at that stage and the Oxford Movement where Bill was the time, that seemed to be the answer. But

and the people I've known need something else. And I I've had seven questions I give people to to write an inventory with. And the first one is in looking back over your life, what memories are still painful, are still guilty, are still dirty?

2IN what way today do you consider yourself inadequate as a person? Three, who do you resent and why? Be a specific and nasty as necessary.

For what do you conceive to be your defects of character as you see them today?

Five, What is the nature of the ongoing problems you have with people close to you having human relations? What seems to always happen? We have these things that blow up. Six In what way do you see that a A can be? How do you believe that a A can help you in any of these problems? And so in what way do you think A can start to begin to change things? And I just put those two on the ending of a little positive spin on the end.

But a lot of people pick the inventory that way. I'm not. I think any way you take an inventory is fine, but I think for most people

it's and as a set of specific questions seem to help but they can answer it better.

But it's really good, very simple, 4th and 5th step.

And the fifth step, should you know, in many parts of the world, and I don't know why it is some parts, the United States,

you take your inventory, you take your 4th, you take your 5th step, you go find a clergyman and take with a minister or a priest. There are some priests who specialize in some clergymen. But Minneapolis have gathered to specializes listening to four steps. And in our part of the country, which is Los Angeles, that's entirely different. There you always take your inventory with your sponsor because you're asking him to guide your life and then you want to know about you. Isn't that just silly, is it? Well, what if he's a blabbermouth and tells Problem tells these things.

It isn't that interesting.

You know, I,

I mentioned this last year, but in Pasadena, I'll tell you a guy that should be worried. I watched my daughter put on the aisle and marry a guy I sponsored. I was in favor of, but I didn't ask me. But

if you all know the absolute definition of mixed emotions, it's washing your darling daughter. Marry someone whose 5th step you've heard.

You can't really say anything, but you can give little warnings. Let me know if he ever brings a sheep home, honey,

I

but that is a great you know, you stop thinking about it. Psychoanalysis, psychiatric health usually would take you up to Step 5. If if they're doing steps, then after that it's kind of a lot of conversation. But the great thing about a is that's what a begins to kick in. Now you, you stay so sober a while

to be taking the first three steps are staying sober. Well, the reason I mentioned that inventory is because I look back, the day I took that inventory is the day I took the third step because I believe the third step means what it says. You, you, you're not making it. You have problem drinking problem sober. There's a power here that will help change it. Now you got to do what they say. That's just that simple. You got to follow what they say.

You got to surrender your judgment.

That's the hardest surrender in the world. I know for people like me, I'll surrender my money or my clothes, but not my judgment because I know more about me than anybody else does. And I have to come to believe that isn't necessarily true.

So you take a 4th through 5th step and I think that's where the you really turn your will in your life over the care of God. If you continue to do it, then there's a 6th step. I guess sometimes question, how do you really do the 6th step? I've been working on it for weeks and I don't understand that the 6th step is really quite simple. Became willing.

We're entirely Ridge at subset. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. All that means I don't know anybody who doesn't want to stop hurting. That's all you're saying to have God removed. Become willing to have God remove these defects of character