Steps 3, 4, and 5 at the Carry THIS Message Group in West Orange, NJ

to do is I get bigger for the month James L. speaking on on the

three four five and days opened over the

good in everybody will great to drop my name is James

because the grace of god

should people like yourself I have found that said pick up a drink or drug any model of the chemicals is June eleventh nineteen ninety four for that I'm eternally grateful

nobody is the lessons that I learned I can't take a bit of credit

you know

tonight

people show up three four five

I believe I left off with talking about the difference between belief and faith

I thought I use an illustration that I learned

listen to Joe and Charlie one day we talked about laundry detergent

for those who might not heard what I said last week I was talking about how you sit down and you look at the TV as a Todd alter bleach alternative to get your whites white is white

sit on the couch you don't know if it'll work or not

so you get up you go to the nearest store you purchase it you bring it all you probably try the product

it comes out like you expected

so the second time that you go to the store if you call because you think it works would you go because you know what

I kind of think that that's about the best way for me to introduce other Thursday it happened for me

because see I would one of those people that you read about we did not think that had a fundamental idea of god before I even got here

naturally as I said last week when I was talking with a little bit about what it was like for me is being of African American descent the church was one of the safest places I had to go I never had a problem with the church

and I still don't

and I'm not here to introduce you to any of that you may hear some of it in my experience but as far as my opinion that's what might be you know and I'll try to keep that to myself don't bank on it but I'll try to keep that

when giving to AA this last time

learning a bit about what in the gnostic was helped clear up why I was so defiant about turning my will and my life over to the care god is on the

because if you're anything if you're anything like I was

which was self centered

you probably who's watching the man standing behind a podium podium

he was saying things like you need to look like a little walk like I walked and talked like I told him if you do this and that you're going to die and go to hell

you probably set and go

I can't do that yeah I like this too much you know

and and then you will find yourself reading away from something that you was the large number of people flocking to why you're going the other way

and then you would wonder why you couldn't feel like they felt it and we were told that in the literature

how we had looked at me in the face judge don't

you know what I mean fought them tooth and nail not even given here to the concept or the idea of a power greater than me

because it was always easier for me to always assume that

if I did that then what happens to the things I like

you say because I was told I could have more than one woman

I was told that I shouldn't do that thing before marriage and all that kind of stuff but I like to sell that stuff and and and and I I I believe that I'm I'm talking to people who is soon may be adult enough to understand that the issue

that was one of many

because if I don't tell you this you will understand the importance of why I had to make a fearlessness searching more libertarian myself

yeah I can't stand here in front of you input tray myself

as pure as the driven snow

because the truth

my third step came about

and it started where it says

being convicted

that should now step three

that very thing like I am you probably look at the steps on the wall and understood what what that meant

and now I'm at this point well I gotta turn my will and my life over to god and prior to that I had just finished my second step reading that said

Hey check out call if you cannot manage your whole life have I come to believe that yet

yeah that's true that's me

then there's probably no human power could relieve me of my alcoholism

I look back

a teary eyed women in my life quiet that I don't go out again tonight and do what I did again

I remember loved ones telling me every time that you drink this and that will happen

and just like it says more about alcoholism I'm the guy they didn't want to believe that but about the fifty six drink there I was banging on the boss say to myself how could this have happened to me again

you know I found myself

in the last part wizard god could or would I like the original manuscript god can and will

for some appropriate reason that one worked for me the could and would was nice but I like the original manuscript because always like that that that factual speech you know like okay then will you know so okay good so now I got a a valid reason now out in my mind they did not yet but in my mind I'm thinking you know if he can and will get out should be convicted

before I realized that anything rattle stuff will get all the B. S.

now if you anything like I am and you read that next raise that said any time that I was driven by self propulsion I'll be there in collision with something or someone else remember what I told you there I was in a place talking about believing in the power and what everybody else was going this way I was going opposite I was in collision with with with with what the opposite work called moral psychology I was in collision with a concept of a power I was in collision with anybody telling me anything based on ethics morals and just basic decency of courtesy for the next year maybe why everybody was gone this way

we have a few like me was going that way no wonder I was banging into everything I mean even the law

I ran into a collision with loved ones I read a collision with friends I ran a collision with me today what kind of drinker I was

towards the end of the type of guy would be the best buddies

I'm going to a barbecue about my first Bourbon I'm a fun loving joke telling hahaha type of person by the second Bourbon I became suspicious

I guess yeah relate to that

and now kinda like by the third one I'm looking at you saying what do you say to me

and now you're no longer really that close to me anymore we went in the box shoulder to shoulder

we'll try to go right to

I don't have a lot of time to go

grab the paragraph sentence to sentence but those who are familiar with the books and all the way if you go back and look later you'll see what I'm talking about

if you choose to

M. and the reason I say that is because the original manuscript he says if you ate convicts do

I see the reason I like to emphasize do because a lot of times people sit in meetings and all like the heat they likely hear recovery but they all might be recovered

do

the

and spiritual experiences it talked about being able to tap into in into resource

if I had done my second step the way my sponsor had outlined it for me about this point I have an idea what he's talking about

because when I got the illustration of the preacher's son who wanted to emulate his fault but yet could not stand on the same footing but yet when he finally found the problem he said though he been tempted a few times he still didn't drive

I guess he must have found something he could tap into

also by the time you get to the end that we spiritual spirit to talk about you know content prior to investigation I'm at that point now

because in in in in we did not think it said that I would not give you give myself over to reasonable approach or interpretation

meaning that there I was sitting in my old my old stuff having my old ideas like it says try to hold on to my old ideas that these concepts these principles these values these things that I took on in my make up we're keeping me alive

most alcoholics know if anything like I am that I don't talk bad about alcohol because alcohol saved my life

and I want to come into the meeting and I want to practice scare tactics which USA

call

you know it don't make sense to me because I've heard it said and I also believe that if it wasn't for alcohol on the blue my brains out

and the reason is is because just like it says between pay sixty two

S. sixty four

I was setting stages

I would wake up in the morning

let me give you a scenario

I promise to Thursday I will come straight home from work on Friday

I failed to do that

she let me end Saturday night

she's mad at me

and I would not go to prayer

but I will go to bed

stay with me

and the truth was as I laid my head on the pillow

I was putting the play together

I knew she was hurt she was angry

Saba wake up before

and go in the kitchen washing dishes mopping floors

thank you straightened out get the kids together

that I would approach her

in her gender and then minded approach

he

how to make it all right

and I would try to not be confronted

but what I knew was wrong

step three help to open that up

because it told me that

selfishness is substance was the root of my truck

I have stepped on the toes of my fellow

and they seem really hurt me without provocation

in my mind

caci prior to this point I learned something nice to say that we did not begin the proceedings chapters I had learned something about alcoholism so I know all walking around in the losing delusions mental place spot strange procurement practices I was full flight from reality maladjusted to life and you can add to my list add from item

so I got this idea in my mind that I'm going to make this thing on hold

when you look at page sixty two of the sixty four where it says we're not going to get down the calls and condition the reason that I believe right now that the room is somber because of what the story did I'm emulating or telling you about probably have you in the sub conscious state where you set stages and play the game

the psychoanalyst like the call that manipulation

we call it the game

and I would do that drunk

or sober

I gave you a drunken episode now let me give you a sober after so

remember last Sunday when I woke up early and clean the house and everything

my head hurts a bit

so I called the work Monday bossa

really sick

they come

and the reason I don't want to go in Monday is because Thursday I had borrowed about fifty sixty dollars from people and I don't want to pay it because I'm broke

so I show up Tuesday I go to bed Monday night

putting my play together

not a yeah yellow yellow to get out of this movie yeah yeah well okay we'll get on with me so what I'm going to put my played together so I go win

Tuesday

how do I know what the debt limit this story certain got owned automobile agency

showed up to work on Tuesday had a few words with the boss not not too bad you know and if you want to go down to the to the restaurant to see if we can sell the car and eat a sandwich I would find myself in that same episode

now showed up that Tuesday and in the Gaza waiting for that money and they say will make more money

already gotten a play in my head I said man that's what women yesterday

no matter how great may have cried when I got off work and I paint the story fall and that type of life just continue to go on and on and on and that was the tolls of the people of stepping on

I was walking around living in my old line

telling a lie trying to live a lot

and just a plain lock

so now I'm in the big book of my sponsors got me looking at me being what they call selfish

like I'm just running my whole life

about me drunk or sober

so I can relate to what bill said that alcohol was only but a symptom

it only played a very small part in the way I've behaved anyway

because what it was is that I was still I might've been sober up to a certain point now while I'm looking at it three but I'm still reflect back to the car the life I was living up to this point

and now I'm I'm making the decision to turn this new life over to the care that is understandable I'm afraid

so I'm told that I suffer from a hundred fold the previous up moves your self seeking self pity I don't want to believe none of the stuff and then I'll find out a little later on in the third step prayer is like I told John I knew the difference between me and some not a little different and all the people but I love the fact that bill was loving both ways

some people need to have a sponsor kneel down at the bed would do

and open up to big books essay the third step to go

I didn't need that in a six

because the I had a prayer that came with my belief system that was similar to the look took to the Thursday at prayer so it wasn't that this Thursday April was insignificant the the way that it breaks it down it's very

important

if I see god is my fault

if I see god as my principal and I'm just the agent of his that I see that that that the life that I'm living needs to be put in his hands I understand that concept but we're bill save change that which is right and when he said it is better for one to go to god alone

they have to go with someone who don't understand

how do you explain doing the third step prayer with me and all the sudden jump up off my knees going to a dead stop praising the lord right the move real quick

you would say I don't understand it or if I happen to fall off in a foreign tongue based on my religious practice you wouldn't know if I'm for real I'm not

so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place why because here I was a young African American male practice in the critical Kerr Christian Judeo practice in Masbate will have Irish you have Jewish

right

we have people who would not normally mix

but what we have found is indescribably wonderful

he was the only may from a practical standpoint combined tire lifetime

that can speak to me in truth

and all I wanted to strangle his little but

I had to take you there

though I did not want to call him

I thought of her

and I remember when I felt that born again fill in as it mentions it in the big book not the born again based on my religious practice but the born again from a practical view point

well I knew for the first time in my life I had to stop playing god was going to kill me and I couldn't do it outside of the day

because I had a mall with my parents

I was scared of front of somebody in the argument you could be eight foot nine follow the path and I'm may you'll take me all I had this little model on the back if you say one more thing to me I'll punch you didn't you're not one of those

and I paid a heavy price for that both drunk and sober

that's why I mean the law working on this is one thing that

soul soul now

the thirst that is affecting me

and I'm home alone that day that I go back over the paragraph

and sure enough

I went to god alone that day

and I remember I was cleaning the apartment

and I'm like

like I'm a cracking

the wires I mean I mean like the book like at this point the book opened up to me in such a way that I needed to tell somebody

to see a map of the system that's it you know like I say the person that

there was nobody to slack zero I've read the full article must think that god was real practical food John said to me what did you get

that's what he did what did you get I said I got a John so what did you get upset my will is not thinking

yeah my life is the way that I live

and I think that I made the decision no longer to live the way I always live Josh said get a piece of paper and a pencil

let's get down the calls in condition

I thought he goes they run with it for awhile

because that's what you hear

people run around in a meeting for Thursday I did my third step it was wow I think it really

so let's get down the cause and condition

not all of I'm ready to do that yet

so how much of you are you willing to turn over to them

if you are willing at this point

to get down the calls in condition

a light bill said you need to re read the volume

and if you're still not convinced do

we still suggest that you thought away

I was convinced at this point

I took that piece of paper that pencil and Josh said get some you could draw a straight line wind

Hey we have read up to the point to where bill gives you the description of the force that

ACC are we talking about read the law yeah

you

those those big book attics are

right you know it and I'm I'm I'm really you know I'm I'm I'm don't know why he was

you know I'm I'm I'm still in it you know what I mean I'm I'm I'm I'm

because I'm excited

I'm excited at this point

are you ever did the audio for Thursday what did it according to how the big book out loud by this point you convinced

if you don't understand what I mean by conviction think of the person in your life because of the opposite sex if you've got a relationship with and they said yes now we're a couple why are you convinced

when they call on you do you

what do you cut a brush all

see I had a relationship at this point well I was introduced to a new relationship with my created by this point and and and I could not just brushed him off I was excited like I was going out you know girl okay

and I was feeling that kind of excitement so I was willing to right now some drawing these lines Joshua right four lines

all right before my eyes and John told me that the difference between my four step because he was the one who introduced me to the job with Charlie Gard said

yeah he did he did it in a similar fashion he told me the only difference you're going to do now is you make all the right the left the right

Sagal work from the top to bottom

and he said James I want you to do your four step edges as chronological as you possibly can remember

I said oh yeah I'm up for trees and other than that

he said we want to go back to the first thing you really resentful about

and if he was here last week I talked about my earliest regulation record I can't say a word to say my life my earliest remembrance of the worst days

whatever happened to me

okay now see sometime that southern accent will allow me to turn it off you know so

I remember like I said my mother put them on one side and grandma pulling on the up

and I was resentful about that

if you remember

I never really got to know my mother

so I remember starting that list

way back to

and it started with the person that was closest to me I was very helpful with my mother from not winning that battle

and then he said

once you got that down and I wrote a little little mammal underneath her name Mary I put my arm

and then I drew my line

then I went over the call

and he said that's where you're at and I just roll calls this he told me to write the number right a call put another number right a call real simple what bill did no different in the book

and when I finished writing all the calls with mama

I drew a line underneath that went over to the affected he said look at the first call right down the way that affected you he said remember don't go ahead numb to it just tell right words of how you felt good John caught me

how to put words to the way I was really feeling

like I would I would not be like somebody said Jane what's the matter with you remembered

right

I really want to say I'm to start

but I know I'd say that could always use words like may

I'm angry you know so I had to find words and and and Johnson well you know just put words not wrote words but the effect was straight out till I'm finished with the calls on the line then I wrote down the role I played

then after doing the inventory

and I will go back before the walking in the five I want to tell you know what happened

and I'll tell you what god kept that simple for me

I am not going nobody nobody's met at a party to the forced up by debate that kind of stuff I hate that but I'll tell you need a routine stuff

can you tell them James said

give me just a case by praise to them against

the legal

just say no

just use able to go to be

whatever you have to do just don't do it because put me

because what it did to me is it made me become my old personal cycle Ellis

did you hear me

I got nothing to get the medical fraternity especially after what doctors that were did for me

but I want to tell you what happens what happened to me with a psychoanalyst

I was in California I was involved involved the cycle and with a psychoanalyst psychologists therapists and they would give me this thing called bio feedback

I was cuckoo for cocoa puffs

and the cycle analysts did something like this

I started telling a bit about myself

and he looked at me and he said

that's too bad shapes

it must have been really really hard on you

and if you anything like I am I way yeah

and I walked out of that place

blaming all those people in that chronological list that John so simply help me to put on paper

yeah

the man is trying to hold you down

yeah

and then out the self pity pot was I'm just a poor black man in a white man's world and I can't make

bad news

psychoanalyst may work for some but he almost killed me

so now I'm doing this for step

and I try to give you an idea how simple this was that was with me

I'm a give you a piece of it

okay

my mother ended up after her mind as she ended up being an alcoholic and schizophrenic

I was a drug dealer

and I was standing on a street corner

where my gold chains drama cool call

cool

and then I will see this lady turning the corner about a block down the street

pushing a cart

and it's dead some

she got on jeans would close under the

maybe a sneaker an issue with a dress on top of it

with the with the sun the head all the flowers and

with a bag in her hand

and it was my mother

and I will see her coming

and I was separate from around the corner

just so I could not be associated to the scene

and after she would bypass I will come back to the call

and get angry

and I resented her for something that wasn't even a full

what was the cost

she was an alcoholic

she didn't care about what she behaved like

she embarrassed me

how was I affected my self esteem

big time

my personal relations

my sexual relations was affected by my mother

right my social standing

what was the role I played

I was a piece of crap

some

any body

park geun

have your say all you

just any body part human who I would stop and say you have to skews my mother

she's ill

all I'm sorry brother

and had enough of a backbone

to stand up straight

and not deny my whole month

that's the truth before manning got

and I walked around for years

when memories of my mother when I was a kid when I used to run up to war and hunger she would smell like she was this is the picture that I always want my mother to always be in my mother was an African American female with golden skin

her father was half Cherokee they do have the build on our

my mother had a skin complexion they just not told this story before my friend would not show me your mom fun

if you add that jet black wavy hair she would turn it up in that little little balls dependent well she would come down the street as a single mother raising four children by herself she was such such dignity she added in there she was pushing his car and and dripped on the border

broke my heart

and I never tell nobody

and there would be times I'll be sitting with my buddies and their young most of them be drinking because they have a good time

I'm looking at the bottom of the glass finances

how can I live under these conditions

hi my life just kept on

I had other things in my story that was similar to that

so now

I don't want to move up too fast but it's time I start running through the steps I have to slow it down a little bit

and this is why like what bill does and how it works

by this point now bill is telling me towards the end of how it works builders say you looked at your grocer handicaps

I hope you all heard about some of my heavy cat yeah I could see I think I'm cute

so you can imagine how badly my mother most affected me

you know and how bad this thing must the bothered me for years and years and years out there so here I am at this juncture of the game doing this four step and I had looked at some of my grocer handicaps I had took some big chunks the truth about myself

but like bill says in the beginning of into action all of the thought I got rid of my ego TISM and fear

I only thought that I had humbled myself

because by this point all I had done was just simply write down a story or a light that I had already live I thought I had done a big deal

that is the delusion by that

is he running around in a

good about something that have done

how many times have I set meetings and hurt myself and other newcomers say I just finished my four step

and

what do you mean

I go

okay

you don't understand it was hard

why

I had to look at myself

what I

because that's all the force that does for you when you do it

all paper only one know about this truth is me

and I don't know about that truth way before I put it all

but I'm in a meeting because the cycle analyst

when people with the H.

had me thinking that because I did a self appraisal of myself that I had accomplished something

see a moral a moral inventory

he sent me to her this

every time you hear the word moral that always was related to like god

ethics

values

principles and you know I always had a mis definition of the word so I never really understood what I was really don't

until I sat with John

John told me the word moral met true

so the reason that I was putting stuff down is because I was searching for the truth

I didn't know the truth

but I was now at this point because the step three I was willing to look at my life had been turned over to a god of my understanding and I became willing enough at this point even take a chance to try to find out the truth

but I'm only halfway done

because bill says to you into action you only thought that you got rid of your ego TISM in fear you only saw

you humbled yourself now know about y'all but my father told me to sweep the world wrote that was from squeezing

so he was trying to make a point to me and after I read a little bit more he started let me know that this self appraisal that I had done was not enough

now I'm getting kind of ticked off about what could be a lot

yeah great right now I'm a four step now that this point like

what

what you dress a bill

because bill got me looking a little deeper inside then the actual writing of the force that actually meant for me to see

because the bill is telling me now they yeah

that person that you put down on paper is it still the person you want the world to see

or is it the hidden man that you can't hit me all this time

and how do we bring that to my attention bill says how many times have you tried to get Congress

that's somebody else's

who

I like that

then he told me I was unfair the clergyman

he told me I was unfair to

the cycle Ellis

no I did tell the flight where I have to go through James that's terrible what happened you ask I didn't go

well you know the truth of the matter is my didn't have much

I say yeah you're right

growing up in a cold water flat just wasn't right

you know rather than say mama did the best she could with what she had

you see I don't want that I wanted to be like they do usually you know with a

so okay

all right

just don't drink go to meetings

easy does it

so what you beat up everybody in the house you do drink today right

okay

all right so right you didn't call me on a regular basis understand we all do

so how does that work right now is to show

follow me that's about

not only am I drinking coffee and eating a Cup after which

it is just say at this point

and now faced with with bill telling me this kind of stuff and he's opening up this idea what the fish stocks real purposes for me and he tells me if I if I skip this vital step that from their experience I'm bound to get drunk again

and all of a sudden after being relieved of some fear I thought the film a different kind of fear

and now I got a roof relate back

to what I said I came to believe it

and I remember what is said all sixty eight men of faith have courage and courage happy what they believe in their god

and I remember this old old big old this is a state monopoly system Margie green she's always I don't know what you come to do but I know what I can do

accurate and all of a sudden I'm starting to get these inspirational thoughts in my head you know and all of a sudden I'm starting to feel like you know what I need to get this work done I really need to get it done

and I I don't I'm I'm I don't know what god's going to think of me

say this is the new free about

and I'll say you know what I I've still got to see it through

I get the work done and I'm going to tell you something that happened to me along the way

that I don't wish for anybody in a

I was married at the time

that wrote my four step down

I took it to my personal card that I use on a regular basis

I put it

in a bag

in a shoe box

under the spare tire

in the chalk

yeah my wife stumbled upon

okay you get

my four step

in a bag in a box under the tire in the trunk

yeah she stumbled upon

and now another fear kicked in

and I remember Colin John up telling him and John said now it's hard to

and I went

but what happened was and I don't wish this on nobody

is that they were looking for something about them

and didn't find nothing

other than the fact that I was resentful that the fact that she said you should have died

does it

I had no resentment at the fact that she took care of these kids while I was away we have

I had no resentment about that I had no resentment at the fact that she was holding things up the holy things together while I was trying to get me together so there was nothing in there so what she did is she started becoming resentful that the fact that I had a list of the women

that I head home along the way up to her

as she began to reflect that

well some of my past behaviors the mailbox job

a lot with the bay

the gal

she probably remembered times I've done that to her

and this woman hated me

I'm I'm I'm really I wish usually when I do these commitments I usually have a few of my pigeons here