The How to recover from a spiritual malady weekend seminar in Fresno, CA

My name is Bob Darrell. I'm an alcoholic. We spent a lot of time on resentment. The book says it's number 1 offender. If you've noticed something, when we did the first three columns on the resentment list process, it was almost as if I took the position of the prosecuting attorney.

And then from this was our course through referring to our list again, I've had to take the position of the defense attorney. One place I'm looking at it from my self centered prosecuting point of view and judgment, and then I have to look at it from another centered point of view and put myself in their place and see it through their eyes. And that's where the shift, the change of perception comes, the under 180 degree turn. And one of the great things that happens to to me as a result, not only of doing this myself in my own 4th and 5th step, but then consequently over the years through listening to other 5th steps is that I start to get that maybe what Einstein said was true when he said the great illusion of mankind is that there's more than one of us here. You listen to enough 5th steps and you do enough inventories and you know what you see?

You see the same guy in different towns with different faces doing the same thing to different people. It's the same guy. It's never any different. I'm waiting for a different 5th step. I'm waiting.

I wish sometimes I wish that there would be different. I wish somebody would come up with something new with, you know, fluids and barnyard animals and jumper cables and ViscQueen or something. It's never anything that exciting or German. It's just the same pathetic judgments, in the same pathetic insecurities and fears, in the same pathetic self justified sexual gratification endeavors and excursions. It's the same stuff over and over and over and over.

We're all the same. The, the Hindus we're talking about the Hinduism at lunch a little bit. The Hindus have a story of creation that is I is marvelous. Unlike the judo Christian story of creation where God created the heaven and the earth in 7 days, etcetera. The the Hindus have a their story of creation is called Maya, which means the great illusion and their story is that God Existed unto himself with nothing else for endless in eons, for endlessness.

And after eons of endlessness unto himself with nothing else, he became bored. So he created this cosmic game and what the game was, he decided to break himself up into an infinite number of parts, give all the parts amnesia, and the game is which parts are going to realize they're not separate first? And isn't the separation the illusion of the ego? That it's comes from my judgment. My judgment the greatest judgment, the biggest wrong I've ever had is that I my case is different.

I'm not like you. You wouldn't understand me. But I but the real truth is is in the realm of the spirit is what and that's one of the things that's gonna talk about later in the steps that we are gonna enter into the realm of the spirit. In the realm of the spirit, there is no separation. There is no separation, and the Hindus call that enlightenment.

When you finally got it, that there is no separation between you and me and me and you and God, it's all the same. It's all the same. But the illusions of the ego and the defenses that we create, create the separation. Give you a little example of this. I want to go through the process of resentment real quickly with one resentment and to show you exactly how it works.

And if you have a resentment that's unresolved, the the best resentments to work this with are ones that are justified. They're the best ones to work it with. Okay. I'll tell you tell you the story, the kind of the prelude to the resentment. When I was 6 years sober, I got married to a gal I met in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we were married for 4 and a half years.

When we were married almost 3 years, maybe a little less than 3 years, we had a child, my daughter, Katie, who is the love of my life. I just we just had her 16th birthday party and, she's just a sweetheart. And, we had Katie and then about a year and a half, not quite, no about a year after we had Katie. My wife came to me one day and told me that she wanted divorce. And I I'll tell you, one of the symptoms of my own particular self centeredness when I'm in when I'm in it is that I don't get it.

I don't if I'm fine, I think the world's fine. I don't pay attention. I don't get it if there's something wrong with you unless you tell me and wave a flag in my face. I'll just ignore it wrapped up in me. Right?

And I didn't think there was a problem in the marriage. As a matter of fact, somebody would ask, and I said, oh, that's perfect day marriage. It's wonderful. Didn't even know till she asked me for a divorce then I get I'm then I got it. Okay.

Maybe there's a problem here. And I I said to her, I said, Jesus, really? What's wrong? Well, I'm just not happy. I just don't want to even so I talked her out of the divorce.

I said, let's go to some marriage counseling. And she agreed. She said, okay. We'll try the marriage counseling. We started entering into marriage counseling and the guy, my first sponsor, who was my sponsor back then, had retired and he bought a bus and he was on an extended 6 month to a year sabbatical incommunicado, could not talk to him.

He was traveling around the country in this bus, and he was somewhere in Kentucky or Washington DC or somewhere on the East Coast at the time in his in this deal he was in. And so my confidant through all of this, the guy I started talking to was a guy that I sponsored named Craig who was sober at the time about 3 years. And he was also sort of one of my favorite pigeons that I sponsored and him and I would he was the guy that I would talk to about the marriage problems and about what was going on in counseling, etcetera. He was my confidant. Went to marriage counseling for a marriage counseling anymore.

I'm I'm won out. And I I said, okay. And I I there was something wasn't happening in the marriage counseling and no matter what would come up, I she would say something. I'd say, okay, we can try that. We try it and nothing would be different.

It was all it was still a problem there. It was like I didn't know what it was and I just thought, well, maybe it's just meant to be. And, we decided to get a divorce and in Las Vegas, an uncontested divorce can happen quickly. I mean, like 10 days. It's quick.

And we got a divorce on a Thursday. The papers were finalized. Friday, the next day, my wife and daughter moved in with Craig, my best friend, my my confidant, And I find out that they had been sleeping together for over the last year of my marriage, and I didn't know about it. And I found out that everybody in AA knew about it except me. Now here I am, I'm in my 11th year of sobriety and you guys have been telling me for almost 11 years that there's no such thing as a justifiable resentment.

Well, I got one now and I can even get I can even get old timers and they'd agree with me. I I got that ability, maybe some of you have it, walking into a room, 50 people, and just intuitively know who to go to that'll side with you. You know what I mean? That'll agree with you. That'll cosign your crap.

And I could it doesn't matter how long they're sober. And I'd find those guys sober 25, 30 years. I'd tell them my tail of woe, and they'd say things to me like, geez Bob and God didn't you just buy her a new car? I'd go, yes, I did. The nail holes in my hands would open up from the cross a little bigger, you know, and it was hideous.

It was awful and I'm dying and I I tell you if there was a short period of time, not very long, where I got some vindication and I got some mileage out of being a victim. You know, you do get a lot of attention after being really hurt, you know, you get a little bit of attention and you get that ego pump of of feeling smugly superior. Well, I've never cheated on her, you know that kind of crap. But I'll tell you even though you get a little bit of ego gratification from that, if you're an alcoholic of my type, you start to get real sick of spirit right in here. Real sick.

And it's forcing me into my head and I'm going crazy, and I can't get rid of it. And I I sat down with this book and I'm trying to do I was gonna try to do the resentment inventory and I was too close. I couldn't do it yet. And I'd go to meetings and I would talk about it, meetings and people would line up to give me advice. Oh, and it was hideous.

People one guy said to me, well, Bob, just don't think about it. How do you do that? I mean, how do you stop thinking about something you can't stop thinking about? One guy said to me, well, if you believe if you believed in God, it wouldn't be a problem. I said, oh, you're talking, I want to hit him, I believe in God, but it's a problem.

God was very, very merciful to me. Thank God that I had a high level of involvement in AA and all of a sudden it was funny how God works. All of a sudden I got more guys asking me to sponsor them with various lengths of sobriety that are going through divorces and relationship breakups. I mean, there are waves of them are coming, and I just I'd fill my car up with a bunch of them, and we drive to the meeting, go to the meeting, we'd be the depressed section of the meeting, you know, you you almost hear the chairman tell the secretary. The secretaries tell the chairman don't call on them, you know, they'll talk about that stuff.

And these guys relieved me of the bondage of self. They gave me islands in my day where I would get me off of me a little bit. I remember, just being insane. I just I just came from dropping my daughter off at the house where they lived altogether and watch them wave goodbye as I drove away alone. My daughter and him and her standing there, and I'm dying inside.

And I'm dying. And I drove over to pick up this guy that's I'm sponsoring as an idiot, and I don't wanna pick him up. And he gets in the car, and he's sitting next to me in the car and he starts crying because he can't see his kids and he hasn't seen them in 2 years. And another birthday for his one daughter just went by. And I got out of myself a little bit, you know.

And those islands of relief from me bought me enough time to eventually go back and do this process. And I put both their names down column number 1. Column number 2, what they did, the lies, the the infidelity, the cheating, the whole deal. Column number 3, what was hurt, threatened, affected or interfered with everything? My pride was devastated.

My my ambitions, my pocketbook, emotional and material security, my relationships in AA, my sex relations, everything was threatened. Everything was hurt. Everything was affected. Nothing was left untouched. And then it says this was our course and it's asking me to do something that was very hard to do.

I had to look at the situation through their eyes. How would they be seeing it if they were telling their sponsor about it? If they were honest with themselves about what happened, what would they be saying to themselves or to someone else? The book says this was our course we must realize. I had to get it that though they did I didn't like the symptoms of their sickness and how they affected me that they were like me, spiritually sick.

And I said that prayer and I'll tell you what I started to I started to get. I started to get a sense of what it must have been like to be my ex wife in that marriage. I started to understand what it would have been like to be a gal who grew up in an alcoholic home not as I did. I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home. An alcoholic home that by the time she entered into sobriety, she had developed certain defense mechanisms that rendered her absolutely incapable of confrontation.

Absolutely incapable of being dissatisfied in telling someone about it because she was too afraid of their rejection. And she marries a guy who's mister AA, who goes to a lot of meetings and he's got this big opportunity in business to build this business, but he's got to all of a sudden after they're married for a little while, he's got to work 70 hours a week to build this business, which eventually which was a life once in a lifetime opportunity. But between she put her whole life around a guy and in short order, a guy that really wasn't there very much. A guy that worked 70 hours a week and then did AA commitments to keep his own sanity and was gone most of the time. And I started to get a sense see, she didn't have the involvement in a job or a business.

She didn't work. She didn't have the life that filled her up that I had. I was the life that she turned to to fill up, and I ain't there. And when I started to really get it, where she was coming from and really understand and realize inside myself the desolation and the loneliness that she must have experienced in that marriage and the and her the and her trappedness because she didn't have the skills to get out of it. She didn't have the skills to get involved in a lot of stuff and fill her life up.

She didn't have the skills to even tell me she was dissatisfied. Everything was fine all the time. And I pictured myself in that trap and when I really got it, I thought to myself, my God, how did she last as long as she did? I would had an affair year before she did and I would have felt awful about doing it. And Karen felt awful about doing it.

She she she suffered tremendous from her from that action. She really did. And I started to look at the last part. Where was I selfish, dishonest, resentful, afraid, self seeking? And you know what I saw that was really when I went through these questions, where would I where was I selfish?

The whole thing was about me. I am so wrapped up in myself, in my little plans and designs that I never once stopped to consider what's going on with her. I never got others centered enough to wonder how full her life is because mine was fine. Thank you. I never got others centered enough to ever wonder, you know, is this plan of mine to work 70 hours a week and do all this AA and leaving you here by yourself?

Is that okay for you? I never even asked. I just had the blinders on of selfishness. This is my little plans and designs. And where where was I dishonest?

Oh, God. You know, I I lied to myself about a lot of stuff. I had a lot of justifications. I I remember one of them was, you know, even when I started to look at some of this stuff, I started saying, yeah, but I had to do all that. I mean, my god, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have this business.

I mean, I've been stupid not to to do it, and I had to work 70 hours a week, and that was true. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I did have to work I've had probably 60 anyway, but I'm a little over the top obsessive guy and I worked I became a little bit of a workaholic and that's all true. And it was also true that I because of that high involvement level and and at work and and having a wife and kids and everything, I had to do AA or go crazy. That's all true.

But there's a deeper truth. And the deeper truth is even though there is some element of validity in in those justifications, Those things were also very convenient because my big secret is I don't know how to do intimacy. My big secret is after about 6 or 8 months in a relationship, I've told you all the funny stories about my childhood. We've done all the little conversation stuff. Now all of a sudden, there's dead air and a living day by day adventure with another human being I've never had and didn't know how to do.

I didn't know how to grow together with someone. I didn't know how to integrate myself in a partnership in someone else's life. And it was an awkward when the stories were over and the shine of everything wore off, there was an emptiness in there and a feeling of inadequacy, and so I got real it was very convenient to get busy Because I didn't know what else to do. And guys like me, when the vacancy is on you, it's one way to get away from it is to stay busy. So I worked 70 hours a week.

And I I had a commitments and I sponsored guys and I was on committees and I was all that stuff. Where was I dishonest and I made outside made this illusion in my mind of what a great husband I was. That's a bunch of crap. I was great in the fact that I was a good provider and I never cheated on her, but in the real day to day things that really matter, I sucked. I was terrible On the matters of the heart, the things that really have substance in a relationship, I was terrible.

I'd never grown up. Was I terrible because I was a bad guy? No. I just never learned how to do that stuff. As if I'm I don't know what it is about me.

I won't ask for help in an area because I think I should know. You know, I I I said I should know. I don't wanna look like I don't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.

Where was I self seeking? It was all about me and trying to fill my holes, trying to keep everything juggled and in place. And where was I frightened? Oh, my God. I was scared to death.

I remember a night my wife was pregnant and my daughter was coming pretty soon. I remember a night when I was so overcome with anxiety and fear, I thought I was gonna have a nervous breakdown. I remember getting in my car and driving and driving up into Utah. I drove 100 of miles and I just I like, I didn't ever wanna come back. I was scared to death.

I I I was a guy who never even could take care of myself. And now I had a wife and a child on the way. And I was overwhelmed. It was just too big. It was too much for me.

You see, I was back in the driver's seat. God was not running my life. Somehow it got to be back in my care. If I had trusted God, I'd just been able to show up for the next thing. But I had it right here on me, and it was overwhelming.

I was scared to death. Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where was I to blame? I'll tell you something that became real clear to me. If I would entering into that marriage, if I would have went to the a major university and hired every genius, every professor in the that was expert in the areas of psychology and sociology.

And I brought them together in a big conference room, and I gave them the psychological profiles of the gal I was gonna marry and tell them everything about her and let them interview them and then said to them, in light of all of this information, here's a gal that's that's faithful, good natured, loving, kind, monogamous. Can you, gentlemen, come up with a game plan that I can implement over the next couple years that would make her cheat on me? Can you come up with something like that? I'm telling you, whatever they would have come up with wouldn't have been as more effective than what I did. See, I'm the guy.

Sometimes people hurt us seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that sometime in the past, we've made decisions based on self, which later placed us in that position to be hurt. I'm the guy. And I was able to do the same thing for him. He he was actually easier. She was the harder stretch for me because I the minute I started to put myself in his position, it was like, oh, yeah.

I remember I remember him one time saying to me, he was he got sober and he was lonely guy and he didn't do very well with women and he and he really wanted a relationship. And he said to me one time, he said, God, if I could just someday have what you have with Karen. I didn't think he meant specifically. I thought he meant in a general way. Right?

But what I was able to do this was our course with him and and and I mean, he had her on a pedestal of like my sponsor's wife and she's young and beautiful and all this. And she's sober a long time longer than him and all this other stuff. And then knowing what it's like to be a guy, I know as a guy and I know what happened, the details in in their their deal was she initiated it all out of her resentment towards me because she was lonely and pissed because I was gone. And I know as a guy, there have been times in my life where I have had the most noble, honorable intentions, Very really good of heart and I've been with a gal and absolutely made up my mind. There's this is on the square here.

There's nothing gonna happen frantically looking for that resolve. I know it was here a minute ago. I where did that go? I mean, and it's gone. And I know that about me.

I know that's why I will avoid situations where I'm liable to do something that later I'm gonna think, God, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Not because I'm such a great guy. I I've learned if nothing else in alcoholic exam is I've learned to protect Bob from Bob. And so I could see him very easily and myself and him very easily. And I came out the backside of that and I realized I owed both of them a tremendous amends.

And I tell you what happened when I made the amends to her. It was 3 parts. The first part, I said something to her that I think in the bottom of her soul she wanted to hear. I told her how sorry I was for not being there for her and more importantly, I told her that I got it. I understood what she went through, and I understood exactly how what happened happened.

And I think she'd wanted to hear me she wanted me to get that so bad. And there was a healing not only in me as a result of that amends but in her. And we we've become really good friends. And I did the same thing with him and part of my immense to him and to her is that I went around Alcoholics Anonymous like an idiot for about 6 months. Every time they'd let me share at a meeting, I would tell my tale of ifying, sharing it at meetings that I need to get this off my chest and, no, that's a bunch of crap.

You know what I was really doing? I wanted everybody in the meeting to think of them as badly as I did. I wanted everybody that would listen to me to hate them the way I hated them. And I'll tell you something, I did a lot of harm to them, and I harmed their reputation because I didn't tell the whole truth. I told my self centered, judgmental, vindictive version of it.

And part of the amends to them was to go around and tell the truth. And the truth was that they didn't do anything that I wouldn't have done if somebody had put me in the position I put them in, that they weren't bad guys. They were people that were just like me, and that I could have easily done the same thing that they did. And what a tremendous healing that occurred as a result of this part of the book. See, I came out the other side, and I'm free.

I sponsor him. I I sponsor result of that. He had a hard time taking him off the himself off the hook. And, I had a tremendous amends to make to him because I bad wrapped him and I hurt his reputation. I tried to stab him in the back by slander and gossip and alcoholics anonymous.

I wanted everybody to you know what I really secretly wanted? I wanted everybody to hate him and ostracize him from AA so he would have to die of alcoholism. Alright. Pretty pathetic. I had to go make amends to him.

He's an outstanding member of my home group. He's one of the best guys I sponsor today, and I'll tell you what else he is. Him and Karen got married after that and they it's pretty hard to to maintain a relationship when you start like that. And they eventually they eventually got divorced And I'll tell you a funny thing happened. I'd have never guessed.

I spent 6 months working with both of them trying to help them to save their marriage. Isn't that a bizarre thing? Not a bizarre thing. You know why I did it? I believed in my I really believed in my heart they were good for each other.

They were much better together than her and I ever were. And you know what else? He was an incredible stepfather to my daughter and still is. I call him I introduce him to people as my ex, my ex husband-in-law. And we just were at my daughter's birthday, and we're just piling it up and crying and laughing and having a good time.

And, even the fact that they're divorced, he's still part of my daughter's it's a it's a great thing. It's a it's a great thing. There's a tremendous power in this thing called resentment. I'll tell you if you're sitting here and all you've ever done is tell somebody your life story, you've missed a lot of this really. I would highly recommend going back and following this procedure and finding someone else that can help you do it.

Page 67, the second part. We're going to kind of go through fear and sex quickly. I don't like to do sex quickly, but it's just what we'll do. It says bottom of page 67, it says, notice the word fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties with mister Brown, missus Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.

It was an evil and corroding thread. The fabric of our existence was shot through with it. Every resentment I ever had involved fear without exception. It It is impossible to be angry without being threatened. You can't do it.

And yet, I was pathological in my life to the point where I never I was so afraid of being afraid. I developed certain defense mechanisms that when I was threatened, I jumped right to rage because I don't even wanna admit to myself that I'm scared. I just automatically some of the worst fights have been in my life, the more some of the worst violence that I've participated in, some of the the most hideous stuff I've ever done has not been because I was tough. It's because I was scared to death. And I was so afraid of being weak and letting anybody ever know that I was afraid.

I developed a cultivated this defense mechanism of rage and violence and fear. So you'd never know what a pathetic weakling scared weakling I am. I did that in county jails. I'd put on that grill outfit and act like a tough guy. I did it when I ran the streets.

I did it. I did it. I was afraid. I was afraid and I didn't want to be afraid. And I had this this fundamental basic fear of being afraid.

I don't I think somewhere as a young child, I came to the conclusion that if you're afraid, you're vulnerable, you're weak, people can run over you, they can take advantage of you, you're less than human, there's something wrong with you if you're afraid. Never show your fear. Never be afraid. And so I I come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm in my 4th, 5th, between 4 5 years of sobriety, and I'm starting to do my first real inventory out of the book. And I get through the resentment section, and I did I did pretty good with that.

Didn't come too difficult, but I got to the fear section and I'm blocked. And I don't know what's wrong with me, and I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I got this yellow legal pad and I got fear wrote across the top of it, and I'm trying to figure out something to put down on this paper, and I'm coming up blank. I don't think I have it. I'm thinking, man, I can't think of anything I'm afraid of. I don't really feel afraid of anything.

And so the thought went through my mind, well, maybe, oh, god. I'm sober a few years now. Maybe AA works. You know, maybe I just don't have any fear anymore. I went to a late night meeting, and I I there was a guy there sober a long time and I I grabbed him.

I said, you know, I'm doing this inventory and I did just finish my resentment section. I started the fear thing and I I don't have any fears. I said, you know, I don't think I have any fears anymore. He looked at me and said, really? I said, yeah, I don't think I have any fears.

He said, can I ask you some questions? I said, yeah, sure. He said, are you afraid of large angry barking dogs? Well, yeah. He said, oh, good.

Put that you put that down. That's good. Good. Put that down. How about rattlesnakes?

Well, yeah. Black widow spiders? Yeah. Are you afraid of being embarrassed? Yeah.

Are you sometimes afraid of what people think of you? Yeah. Are you afraid of growing old alone? Yeah. Are you afraid no one will ever really love you?

Yeah. Are you afraid of get being sick and not being able to take care of yourself? Yeah. Are you afraid that God's gonna find out what a crap head you are and pull his grace away from you? Yeah.

Are you afraid of success and all the responsibilities that come with it? Yeah. Are you afraid of failure? Yeah. Are you afraid of stuff from your past catching up with you?

Yeah. Are there people that you're afraid to face that you haven't seen for years? Yeah. Are you afraid of homosexuality? Yeah.

It's in county jails. Are you afraid of cancer? Oh, jeez. Yeah. I had cancer every other day and when I was new, it just I could feel brain tumors growing in my head.

Just I remember one time I got up in the morning and my something was wrong with my leg and I couldn't it was like it was screwed up. I knew it was bone cancer. I knew it. And I went down to the hospital and I rays and stuff, and I know it's I know it's can bone cancer. And I'm in the I'm in the waiting room, and I'm doing my deathbed speeches.

I'm imagining what's gonna happen to the last stages when I'm in the cancer ward and the people from AA come in to see me and I'm giving my spiritual last talk and it's real it's wonderful too. It's really wonderful. And I'm getting up this whole I get it all figured out and then the people I'm gonna let them know how they weren't quite right to me and, you know, in life and how they're gonna feel bad when they find out I was dying and they tried and treated me right. You know, all that crap and and they get the x rays and the doctor finally sees me and he says there's nothing wrong with your leg. I think you slept on it funny or something.

And I want a second opinion. You know, it's like, what do you no. No. You you sure? I would I don't wanna be wrong about my fears.

I would rather be right and dying of cancer, but right. I like to be right. I like to be wrong and free and go home and live a normal life. Isn't that bizarre? I'd wanna be that right about something I get convinced of?

And I found that I was afraid of a lot. It says it's an evil and corroding thread the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. I'm sitting at that kitchen consuming, motivating force in my life, and I've just adjusted to it. As doctor Silkworth says to us, our alcoholic life seems the only normal one. I just have assumed that it's normal to worry about everything.

I think it's normal to live with a with an edge of apprehension and anxiety in your life. I think it's normal to have a head that spins occasionally about stuff. I think it's normal to have 30 conversations with someone before you actually go talk to them. You know, I think all of that's normal. I've just adjusted to be being driven by fear.

It's what causes me to dress the way I dress, work the way I work, work where I work, do the things I do with money, live where I live, drive what I drive, talk the way I talk. It's the driving motivating force in my life, and I can't see it because I've adjusted the journey. Fabric of my existence shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances, which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve, but did not we ourselves set the ball rolling? Psychologists call that self fulfilling prophecies.

And what it happened what happens in my life over and over again, I will get a fear that I will secretly believe, and I will believe in this fear in the face of all kinds of opinions from other people. It doesn't not gonna be that way. It doesn't have to be that way. I believe the fear. And then because because of an inert inability to manage my own life, I start to defend myself against the fear and inevitably I didn't have much self esteem really.

I didn't have a lot going for me. I was working in a kind of a minimal little job, and I I was going to AA and I was being the best Bob I could be. I was trying to chip away at my amends, and I met this girl and became obsessed with her. And I was so afraid from the gate that she was going to leave me and dump me. I was so afraid that she was gonna find somebody that had more going on than I did, and I get dumped.

And what happened is that that I must have believed that fear so much that that fear drove me to become the possessive, controlling, smothering guy she couldn't live with. That fear drove me to be the nutcase that would drive by her apartment in the middle of the night looking for guys' cars. It drove me to be the nutcase that would watch her in meetings to make you see if she's talking to any guys. She said to me one time, you're always looking at me. What do you mean I'm always looking at you?

I'm I'm protecting my investment here. She said to me one time, you're smothering me. What do you mean? What? I don't get it.

I I don't get it. And what happened? And I didn't realize this until down the road further when I got in a relationship with someone who was doing that to me, and then I got it. And I had never been in that spot again in my life. It it I'd beat it out of me.

I'd never been in that spot again. And what I had done is I had literally drove her out of my life. And I remember the day she left, and she went with this other guy, and they went off to her to his townhouse. I remember the day. There was a little voice in the back of my head that said, see, you're right.

I like being right. I like being right. Even if it means I'm broken, laying in the gutter, dying, at least I was right. You know what I mean? I make that stuff come true.

At a job one time, my dad helped me get this job. He needed a job badly. My dad knew this guy owned this company that it was an environmental engineering outfit. And this was back in the day when environmental engineering was cutting edge stuff. There was all of a sudden government mandates in place for every industry to clean up their air pollution, to to test their smoke stacks, to test their water coming out of the factories back east, and back east is just tons of factories.

And this company was on the cutting edge, and the guy who owned the company hired me and gave me a once in a lifetime opportunity. That if I stayed there, he would teach me how to become an environmental engineer and walk me through the process. And without ever finishing college, I could actually have gotten certified to work for his company as an environmental engineer. It would have been I would have been in the ground floor. Tremendous opportunity.

But the problem is he gave it to the person with the mind of a chronic alcoholic, and I went there afraid And I went there afraid that I didn't measure up. I went there afraid that the people there were talking about me that they were saying things like, look at him. The only reason he's here is his father owns knows the owner. He wasn't for that. We'd never have someone like him here.

Now nobody's saying that, but I'm imagining I got that fear they're doing that. I got that fear of not being accepted by them. I got that fear that they're gonna reject me. And what happened is that fear drove on me and affected my attitude and my interaction with those people until and to push me to become controlling and defensive and on the muscle with them, and so serious that one day they're calling me to the office and they're saying to me, Bob, you know, you're a hard worker, but we're gonna have to let you go. Because for some reason, Bob, you're not a team player.

And I made the fear come true. I made it come true. And I could tell you I could go on and on with examples of how I make my fears come true. Part of the exact nature of my wrongs is I was not only was I wrong in my judgments about other people and my resentments, my fears are really judgments about my own life that I make and I believe. I believe them.

I believe what it says in the book that we think it should be classed with stealing. It robs me of my very life. I sat with a guy that was dying of cancer one time, and he was sober about 30 some years. He's an old guy, and he didn't have probably only had about a year left to go, and he said to me something I never forgot. He said, you know when you get to this point in your life and you're on the home stretch and you look back over your life, It's not the things that you did wrong that you regret.

It's the things you were afraid to try, and the fear will steal you, will rob you of your very life. See, I'm the kind of guy that says somebody says to me, you wanna try snow skiing. You'd really like it. No. I don't I wouldn't like that.

I never did it. How do I know? I'm afraid. I'm afraid of trying it and looking dumb. Somebody said to me, boy, you gotta try scuba diving.

I think you'd really like it. I wouldn't like that. I know. See, I just know stuff, you know. I was afraid.

I was afraid. I'd try bowling, golf. Why don't you try jogging? Why don't you try working out? Why don't you try why don't you try motorcycles?

Did you used to ride when before you got so screwed up on the drug? Nah. I I don't like that. I wouldn't like that anymore. So I never tried nothing.

I was sober I was sober 10 years before I had a core and a trust enough in God to be able to show up in life and try some stuff like that, and really it didn't matter whether I looked like a dummy or not. And to my amazement, I loved to ski. I loved it. I was so wrong in that judgment. I was I I believed with everything in me.

I wouldn't like it. Oh, no. It's not gonna it's not gonna be a bad experience for me. I believed that about motor sex. I believed it about scuba diving.

I believed it about some people that I just was so afraid they wouldn't like me that I never tried to get next to him. I have a guy that I sponsored just recently. He said to me he's he's enthralled with this girl and he says, god, I'm just I can't stop thinking about her. I said, is she single? Yeah.

Ask her out. Oh, no. No. I'm not gonna ask her. Ask her out.

No. I said, why not? Ask her out. He said she'll say no. I said, let me get this straight.

If she says no, that means you're not gonna go out with her. Right? He said, yeah. I said, are you going out with her now? He says, no.

I said, what the hell is the difference? Ask her to go out. Alright. What's the difference? You've already she can't reject you.