Steps 6, 7, 8 and 9 at the Carry This Message group in West Orange, NJ

like down introduce our guest speaker the month of March and she'll be speaking tonight on steps six seven eight and nine now would be Kerry C. from Harrison New Jersey

hi I am Karen alcoholic

you're like you don't know me when I was drinking I was worse

six seven eight and nine

you don't

when I was six and seven you know there's only a couple paragraphs in the big book about kicking seven and I used to think that there wasn't a lot to it because the people didn't vote a lot of time to it and then I realized that every page before that was devoted to six and seven the average age of the big book talked about my inability to control my own character defects and my powerlessness over myself

so therefore every paragraph in every page in every sentence in every word is about seven that's why bill only had to dedicate a few paragraphs to it because he said it already I didn't realize that when I first started going to the steps actually first few times to the steps I really thought the conception was a matter of realizing that self sufficiency okay verbalizing let's get that correctly that self sufficiency and that whole like you know control freak thing in the actor and all that wonderful stuff

wasn't working and then you know it's saying that some of the prayer I didn't really comprehend what

what six seven what was all about you know and again you know what I would have been speaking about and when the great things about this meeting because you don't have the book in front of you and it's not about mechanics and it's not about the detailed but more about the essence of the steps

no that's that's what you know six and seven there is a very powerful essence to that

and I didn't experience that if it's my first time through the steps and I did I know that I cried I said the seventh department across my fist at because I felt so powerless I felt the impact of of who I had been in what I had done

you know but as I as I don whose death after that I have full time

it has less meaning and till I had a very very powerful spiritual experience with six and seven is something of a something akin to a white light experience I kind of believe that that whole like you know power because we were to experience what light you know thing that they talk about the big book and on the bill talked about we've mentioned in some of the history list her was like a fable or myth and at first like I expected have won it didn't happen so then I thought there's something wrong with me wrong with me and then I was like I didn't think I'm special because I don't get to have this really big spiritual experience I had that educational growing you know sort of thing and I thought that that kind of sucks because I couldn't take a look I had this fantastic experience because we really wanted I want to go to a meeting

I had a spiritual experience not only do I had I had a spiritual awakening but I had a white light experience I didn't have that

but what happened was is that when I was ready to have that experience experience it happened it was when I stopped reading it to validate that

that god Love Me

and it happened to me like you know it was for me in second grade the boy that I really like and I wanted to notice me I I would like to I would just really knows me and he ignored me quite put my hair and the minute I start caring about him he would follow me home

I mean that's kind of the way it is in life I think I have a demand I don't get it

that's the bottom line I have an agenda

you know I mean I love John Steinbeck you know and he was one of my favorite writers

and he you know he always said that you know we should the plans of mice and men often go astray

I remember reading that like you know not grade English class thinking that's my entire life I have a plan and it never happened and why and then when I start planning and and I'm honest about my motives and desires these things happen they're gifted become pearls because on that expectation I don't take them for granted so you know as it happens after having gone through the steps a handful of times and you know I think it was like a six year sobriety

I had a personal experience with six and seven step and I was alone so I could prove it

it was at two o'clock in the morning you know and it was just one of those things you know I had done

I had done a

this step I mean I did I did on the long form I don't think many of the bone for me it's a really long boards for staff and a kind of kind of like

eight yes really and it's very cleansing you don't have a lot of times when you do that inventory is taking forever especially what it what it is you write out your third column and you find a selfishness self centeredness dishonesty and fear associated with each one of the seven areas itself so it could end up being like thirty seven thirty eight our

columns kind of

some columns

thirty they get like that you know five times yet thirty five

the column

no fun

but I had I I I I needed you I needed something drastically much bride I needed I needed to get a couple of honest and this was something that was suggested to me to do in my little eleven because all the guys did not the girls did it so I had to do this inventory because you know the boys did it you know and the women weren't handing this out it was like the secret things so I get it

there was one other woman at that time we've done this inventory of course that still played out my ego so I did him in court and I had all these expectations I was a lot of pain I was in a lot of pain when I did that inventory because like I had already had like six years of sobriety under my belt and been sponsoring quite a bit and I was still shows off

and I would still I would still do profissional with beautiful

and I have discovered a personality called Little Miss day

I didn't know she was in existence but she she kind of came up on that inventory and I really you know and I had was kind of getting honest about I had to get honest at that point about my role in outlook's not amiss my expectations my ego bill I was reading and I and and and and the seven counts of fraud or something like that a bill Pullman book I don't know the name of it

I think it's difficult for the body or something like that covering today some about bill road and he said that basically there's a lot of schemers and alcohol can honestly use Alcoholics Anonymous for their own egos and

and that was me

I came in today to get sober

and

I used a a two scheme because I wasn't insecure little girl

who wanted to feel superior

so in this inventory I discovered that was not fun

and

I mean yeah I mean like you know I have a good motives but underneath those good motives and in between those good motives and in between all that I I discovered that there was this morning you know I'm kind of using a to feel superior to others and you know all those people who don't work still to know what it is all about I mean I think a lot of people who get into the step kind of fall into that scorn of what we think it should okay and then even among big book numbers of people who are the best kind of numbers are more fundamental than others you know the book better and who has more spontaneous and and you can get a little it got a little cut my own little head and I'm so I didn't inventory and I discovered that that's how it's really the tackles monuments that on some level it stopped being about my not drinking I have shot with being about god could do the same and kind of coming into

I'm in trouble you know I kind of you've got out of the steps that any good

so I did this inventory and I went to a person who is who's come acting as my provider at the time I said what do I do with it I mean all this pain I gotta get rid of this thing he said fine three newcomers who had just gone through the steps for the first time

and tell them that they have to be under a year and I'm like hell no and people you don't know

I don't know you know I mean like I don't at that time I was I had not had seven years of sobriety sorry I'd almost seven years the price somewhere around there there's no way in hell that I was going to somebody with you know who is still on fire with the steps to hear about one ego maniac I had become I did do that though and I got one of doing to step with poor women

when I leave in between and it became three has got to be a long

I'm a little winded long winded I end up being three of four women who had listening here one had a year and two months and she was one that left and they had all been through the steps

and we're on a nonstop they were feeling the first flush of god and they're listening to this jaded which

Hey you become you know supreme ruler of our universe

and the whole time like I was I I was told that I was not allowed to justify like you know Hey when you get to be seven years so you'll do this to us I want one stop missile middle of him don't get to work you know you're gonna be messed up with me a couple years

I didn't

Linda so I did it inventory it was it was in the distance that when I was in a diner too you know and we stayed there too but I got home at two o'clock in the morning and I was like oh I got you could quite our and I'm like I kind it ma'am like there is no

I was told that like I would be like didn't look at my watch you know be like you know I did forty minutes of a quiet hour after fifty

I can't get the twenty making the big Bucks now

so then I just hear the wall like no constructive anything we've had I just done a fifty per million years you know and and and you know like not so rigid that I couldn't not given our Orton yeah whatever

thank him home in the and the and I had to do my quite our before I went to sleep at two o'clock morning I had to do this

and I did and I what I did is I I hesitate Waycross

so I I and I took I took my my four step and I took everything in candles and I went into the bathroom to the top and that's what I love like in the middle of the night with candles and bubbles and quiet

and

I yeah I took it in there and one of the things that I was always told to do with my fit my big for that after a dentist that would go through it and highlight my character defects like look at the pattern because it's one thing to to write it as nothing talk about it and there's nothing when you got to bring it back to god

yes but you know I was told to re read my four step you know between me and god and look at what's going on here look you know LOL the light of god's family to god coming through and in

and and it happened like it happened that way the first time I'd read my force that to god I was like alright read it out loud this time I didn't read it out loud but I sat with him and I sat with me and got in my pre and this thing came to me

you know I had this thought my head why don't I write a letter to god asking to tickle my character defects all the parts of me because I can't manage me

my relationship I can't manage my relationship you know some some level I still thought I was in charge of my relationships I still but I was in charge of my relationship with myself with my husband with my children with you know my school my work my parents my family with the world the log everything and like I still thought that I was in charge of those relationships they were my relationship you know you know the whole idea of like a M. M. Y. or Y. anything that usually

a little dishonest there you know because I didn't look at the fact that I was god's child

my god was within me and then the second deposition of god everything thank god it's all of my relationships awesome but they're not just mine

but there are an extension of god therefore

I'm not in control of

and this whole thing came to me at two o'clock in the morning in a bubble help with you know coughing candles in order to stay away because I had to do my our

and so I wrote this letter to god asking him to take every piece of me and

I can just remember like

I don't even know if I did the whole hour after that point it was so profound and it sounds so crazy too so I just came to my head and I was just sitting there and it's something that I I'm sure or you know you guys have thought about a hundred times before but it was something that I hadn't truly surrender

you know in my life was

what I do I want a guy to fix made make me behave better

but I I wanted it so that you know things will go my way

not so that I could be a better service not so that god would be I think you know

I wanted that stuff because I didn't want to come I want god to communicate my character defects with anyone the consequences of that

not because I wanted god to be a part of everything that I did

the fact is that only god I didn't want got a part of everything that they could not couldn't do some certain things that I wasn't unwilling to do

yeah or what yeah

you know they weren't I didn't want to go out there

but after having done that system realize what me self will run riot me using the twelve steps to my own in me hi Donna to the program about clocks Nani's

you know how I could take something so beautiful so pure and perverted in my own little hit

you know I felt the certainty on manageability of trying to run my own spiritual life can you imagine I tried to run my spirit

America you know I mean I wasn't you know somehow I still was playing god within my own little house in my head

and I'm

I wrote this letter I mean I ask god to take away that I perceive myself that was my one of my biggest thing I wore in security like a cloak

and you know I'm I'm I'm a recovering anorexic bulimic and anorexia bulimia were like a

and I'll hold him in

man

you know like I I I pretty much anything that would help me feel in control of me I would do you know anything that I could do in order not to feel I would do it's all part of my spiritual illness

and that those were areas like the on the way that I perceive myself my own insecurities I was not willing to give to god and in that moment in that brief

the humility that was I was graced with not that I gave myself

I was able to see this

it was it I looked at it like this player in a dark room and it burned for awhile and it felt wonderful and it burned out you know and it didn't go away though I mean the experience of that that home that experiences a seven step in the six and seven step with that you know what it is all it doesn't mean you know some

it means a lot I didn't get that I thought it was all the things that got me in trouble

not a well of me you know only things are inconvenient

god to me was still an ATM

you know you walk up you put in your car you

push a button and you get your results and I thought the steps work that way

I thought they were a combination code in order to get what I wanted

the experience of the steps or something that eluded me for a long time

you know

you know I I'm pretty sick

so

you know I had this profound experience you know and I had had something that was really weird because it was the

from my sixth and seventh you know and now my eighth year sobriety have been the hardest years of sobriety my life most humbling on the end they were not by my choice but because I would die and I would drink if I didn't do it

I didn't do it god did it for me god took things away from me

and it wasn't taking away like taking a toy away from a child for me it was I recognize that things in my life run manageable and I ask god how help me here and god to pare down my life you know at one point I was in school full time two children and marriage and thirteen sponte and I'm twenty six years old I feel like it's not even like I have a motion which already on my side here I don't you know

I'm twenty six years old man

so you don't and I said god at some point I was like my life is a manageable got I can't be everything to everybody I can't do this god what do I do everybody fired me but five

some of them were just like you don't care I need a new sponsor your great I love you and other ones were like you failed me to the road and I had to sit quietly with that you know what I did I felt because I'm not a sponsor here and that's okay and I had to stop that one of the not offended that was hard yes I did but I can tell you a few years don't believe me I'm busy you know but you know and but the thing is is that when when that moment happened when that moment happened and that that that experience that knowledge that that grace that I was given to that insight into my life I was that I was given although

you know it's not that it can't

you know I book it called me after the SEC the laundry

okay you don't know about it you know they talk about their spiritual experience and they talk about what happened after it you know what happens if you have you know several profound spiritual experience how do you fit this new awakened spirit into like Monday in everyday American life

it's kind of hard you know I I don't get to go into a cave I don't wear saffron robes I got it you know why my children's knows my fine he's called me at odd hours in school sucks and I can never get parking and I get tickets all the time and you know stuff happens you know don't have the money that I have money they don't have money everybody wants money you know

you know you know it is all part of life you know I don't get to hide out in a little cave you know and levitate whatever you know I have to I got to show up I want to me and I'm like do you know that I'm I'm gonna like I'm going to commit myself to like some sort of monetary or something or like you know I'm just going to bat speed it will not have that because you know because that would have never mind there's a bad political situation if you get my drift you know I'm going to call whatever

whatever

I'm running away

you know and I and you can let me take my we can spirit not share it with go hide it you people don't mess with it

you know and I I couldn't do that so what happened was is that I had this wonderful spiritual experience and it stays with me I really did for a long time and I mean it's like I was in this amazing place I felt like I had to have one on me

that the problems and the frustrations in the fears and all these things didn't really stick to me the way they hadn't before I didn't carry them when they did you know and today some of them took some of them don't and when they do step I'm able to recognize him and you know something in that surrender that happened in that moment resurfaces itself and it flies off

you know

I have financial security you know like I'm being audited by the IRS for a couple years back we filed our taxes wrong or stupidity they say we owe the money or the money we say we don't and it's okay

you know these things happen in my life but they're not crisis and that's all part of that spiritual experience extension of the seven step because god is not relationship to god and my relationship with the IRA

because my relationship to money because my relationship to my material possessions

to all extensions of god

for me you know and I forget that I remember and that's all part of a seven step for me

you know and

the last little bit I'm going to say on the six and seven steps you know I started off saying that you know there's only a couple paragraphs I think it's two or three paragraphs in the big book about six and seven because the whole book is about the concert

and I I at one time like I do said this had come to me I was going through the big book with the spontaneous you know sometimes most of the time the greatest spiritual into Tabor got with have been graced with where when I'm sitting across my kitchen table with another person somehow god working through the two of us help dealing in

illuminate

god god universe for me

so I was sitting reading this you know going through the four step in you know I came across this whole thing about you know us being so powerless over selfish

I thought you know I never really thought that I was powerless over selfishness I mean it is powerless over selfishness but that wasn't something that I had internalized I still want some level that if I played right and I play with a nice little girl and I did what I supposed to do that you know

it would it would just go away like I I didn't really comprehend that I was powerless over selfishness is I was over alcohol and I said this before and fear and resentment

you know it and

what happened is I I saw that so the contention struck me and said that I was a powerless over selfishness and resentment as I was over alcohol and that god was the only thing that could relieve me of these things

yeah I saw that echo tomorrow the book in the book echoes itself it thousand times and I love that because alcoholics or dent it'll take me reading sixty pages for me to see what bill said thirty times before

you know

eight my friends but it's like throwing **** at a wall sometimes some of it stinks of six seven of the deaths

our

yeah that's the whole point of thing you know we get cursed with kids

anyway you know that's kind of how bill did it you know it and

for me

I I saw that sentence and I said you know what the book did it say something about me being powerless over you know my own moral convictions and such in my philosophical convictions and all that wonderful stuff and I realized from Vietnam to con

you know build sets and you know that moral conviction we can have moral convictions galore but I can't we can't live up to them as much as we would try I can't live up to them as much as I could try because lack of powers my dilemma

and so for me the crux the crux of the seventh that flies in the second

because my problem is is that I'm allergic to alcohol I am my problem isn't that I'm obsessed with alcohol it's I had been

and I can be again my problem is that I lacked power

the bottom line lack of power is my dilemma that's my problem dilemma problem problem dilemma

and my powerless over alcohol my powerless over my moral and philosophical conviction my powerlessness over my selfishness resentment and fear my powerlessness over you know how that whole thing about the actor in trying to control people my powerlessness over

just about everything in this darn world you know lack of powers my dilemma and so what my dilemma with lack of power you know did do not alcoholics have more power than I do

or is it my delusion that I've power is my dilemma

something to consider

you know our non alcoholics more control of their selfishness and myself I've seen some pretty selfish non alcoholic and I've seen selfishness wreck a lot of different people and a lot of different levels are they more power do they have more power over selfishness than I do I don't know

is it my delusion you know they'll talk about us wanting to cure the headache with the hammer

he wasn't just talking about alcohol got you talking about me use my brain to pick my brain that doesn't work using my will to pick my will does not work using my fear to pick my spirit does not work did you know that equation does not work

you know

so when he talks about me trying to fix myself with myself without divine intervention without the grace of god without going to the higher self for the highest self for god within god without or whatever the heck you find god for I find god

can I use myself to fix myself with my problem

so for me

you know I'm not really sure whether it's my own powerlessness over myself that is my dilemma my delusion that I power

I'm still waiting for some answer on that one and maybe I'll get some intelligence a couple years down the road or maybe I won't maybe it's something that I just need to watch and wait for

that's what's so awesome about having spiritual experiences watching and waiting

you know

a good example

we're talking about the nine seven eight nine nine

I was sitting with his party today we were considering whether or not she had to make men what about something

and I said we'll go make the cement and watch and wait in your relationships watch how you interact with these people at work and ask yourself what do you need to make amends

so for me after having had a spiritual awakening with you know as a result of the steps at and living

trying to live basing my life or basing aligning my will with god's a lot of just watching and waiting and asking god for the grace asking fruity the insight and being quiet

you know that's why you know ten eleven so gosh darn important

so what you want when we when I had this experience and I realize how powerless I am over my own relationship myself god and everything else in this gosh darn world

you know I had this experience and I look at eight nine I could want make amends for you know my delusion that I can control myself and my inability to go to something greater than myself in order to help me be a service

you know and that one thing I love about the nine steps this is that we fit ourselves to be a maximum service to god and others

you know I've been waiting for everybody else change that I would be a better person

so that everybody if everybody else did what I wanted to do or acted the way I thought they should then I wouldn't have to be so damn selfish and I would have to get somebody with them and I wouldn't be so gosh darn friend

you know and then the nine seven says that we set ourselves to be of maximum service

you know and pretty much it begins with the

I mean I believe it's like maybe the second Cajun right at the top as we set ourselves the American service to god and others that's the spirit that I bring into the night

that's when I realized that it's not about everybody else changing so that I can be better but me surrendering all of my shortcomings in all of my successes

to god so that I can be shaped and fit to be a maximum service to god

so

C. H.

let's see let's see does it have a cool one

it does it could make a list of all persons with Carnegie Mellon commitments to them I harp on all line

he did make amends to them all I clear it let me clarify that became willing nine step dad whenever possible there's a big difference between being willing to make amends to the mall and actually going out making amends to the mall that's respond to content god meditation watching and waiting you know that's really important in eight nine that's why you know in the tenth episode as we clean up the wreckage of our past you know we watch we listen

I changed a little bit but you know that we can you know as we clean up the wreckage of our past you know we continue to take personal inventory is that right and we all work so in eighty nine I'm supposed to have been getting some sort of a relationship with god

you know and it's a lot different than a telephone and that Hey got in trouble nine one one four four one one

you know it has to be something more than that

you know

it's gonna be reciprocal

and I needed to start developing that before I got two eight nine

and I'm not telling you not to do a ninety you have that that kind of the point it happens because you go out and do that stuff

you know

you know it in the in the big book it says that when we start it when we straight now at spiritually that we straighten out both mentally and physically

and that's kind of the same like same concept one that we bring into the eight and nine that that we go out to set right the wrong we have hope that we have done to the world we go to set the stuff right and then mentally and physically we clean up and that means that our relationships on the outside I don't think about to physically attend like physical health I look at it like my actual relationships on the outside of my internal condition on the inside

happen

you know sometimes it's about taking action

and it's not because I was given is not because a lot of times because I'm given the grace to take that action because based on my own well I won't do it

you know

is what I'm talking about the A. stuff because because we come willing to make amends to the mall I mean I have to stop being a victim in the east

it means that are the issue that is no longer about what other people do to me

you know it took me a long time to be willing to make amends to all the people who I believe I Harmon who I believe that harmonic

still on some level I wanted other people to admit where they were wrong I wanted to do like knowledge that they had for me as much as I would harm them or if they didn't do it first I would have had to do it I didn't you know and that's not really what the stuff is all about

you know it's about feeling

it's about

how can I articulate if you don't use the one thing that's really hard about this is experiencing the staff and putting it into words are two very different things

and words fail sometimes and actions or demeanor

atmosphere sometimes it's more than actually what words do you know what I'm talking about the a step and I'm saying that

that the eight

that being willing to make amends to the people that I have harmed and no longer living in a place where I expect other people to adhere to admit I didn't need that anymore I didn't need the people in my life that I believe harm may or I harm them

to to say that they were stars are committed they were wrong

you know for my entire life I was always convinced that it was my fault or that what happened what I believe happened wasn't real because a lot of times it wasn't and some of the stuff that was real I needed people to admit in order to make me feel safe

and when when not that deep surrender happened within me when it came to six and seven

I no longer needed other people to behave in a certain way so that I could feel safe

he became what it became easier for me to be willing to make amends to them all because they weren't so threatening to me

that makes sense to you

I never wanted admitted I was wrong because then you would know that a ballot and you would know that era every little thing that I had ever done before anybody had ever said that I did was turn

and my life is so dependent my self worth was so dependent upon how other people saw me and protecting myself you know and

and the big book it talks about self seeking

and it talks about self centeredness and selfishness and they're all different graduation himself

and I look at self seeking as you know looking to cover my body

I'm always looking to protect me

that everything in my life every relationship I have is about me

and if you threaten me I'm going to cover my **** and protect myself from you

and usually I call harm in doing that

and that was a belief system that was a thing that I could not bring into the night

because it was about fitting myself to be a maximum service to god and others

and I couldn't do that if I was still afraid of you and what you might do to me

four no I'm not afraid of pain to I am afraid of pain

I don't like looking bad

I don't like it when people don't you know

don't treat me in a way that I think they should

you know and I'm

the difference between not liking it and seeking to change everybody else in order to avoid it are two different things I could not like something

it can be downright annoying me

but today because I've been living and working in ten eleven and twelve and I've gone out and made nine seven mins and I brought the spirit of the a step into my life

what other people think about me doesn't necessarily define who I am what you say about me doesn't necessarily define who I believe I am and how you treat me doesn't necessarily define how what I think about myself

so I'm not as threatened and it's okay it is okay to be willing to make amends to people who I have harmed or who I believe in harm me

because if you hire me I calmly harm due to medical to tangle six

and the time you know and you know that didn't happen to me like that bringing that that kind of attitude to the eighth and ninth that didn't happen to me

until I made a comment to my mother about the fiftieth time

you know I tell this story all the time because it's the most powerful example in my life of what god can do

you know I spent a lot of my life hating my mother

I believe that she was the reason why I was so messed up I didn't you know that whole thing about you know about our outside circumstances not really having much to do with alcoholism wasn't something I wasn't totally buying into

I still insure that would've been an alcoholic but I would've been so screwed up try to kill myself nine times had she been a better mother

but now the truth wasn't I enjoyed a lot of physical and sexual abuse as a child

and I believe that at some level she could prevent it and I wasn't empathetic to where she was that because I was too busy being angry

I'm feeling the victim and you know when I started talking about the stuff that you can't bring the victim into the a step the victim has to die before you get there

because I had a I went I made amends to my mother and I made amends to her before because I was always doing something every four step by to go it was like a yearly thing it was really funny because it's a joke in the family because I thought they were like you know mom

here I did this business and I'm really sorry I want you to get you know what can I do that right now if you'd like to stop doing it you know I don't usually because I fight with her at least once or twice a year where I wouldn't be here for a couple weeks because she wasn't doing what I thought too because I thought she was repeat repeating the patterns of my childhood again I was attached to what other people did to me and what they did to me to find whether I felt important or not

so I went and I made a mentor and I had been working with my sponsor cast and I had done this this stuff with her and this was before the meeting yes seven steps virtual experience and