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

I'm Bob Darrell. I'm an alcoholic. If you have been thorough about our purse our personal inventory, we've written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and fatality.

We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We begin have begun to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill towards all men, even our enemies, for we look at them as sick people. That's an important part that this was our course. We learned how to do that. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

In this book, you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self will has blocked you off from him. If you have already made a decision, step 3, and an inventory of your grocer handicaps, step 4, you have made a good beginning. That That being so, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself, which brings us to step 5. I'm not gonna talk too much about step 5, except a real thumbnail sketch.

It says in the big book, one of the best reasons for doing step 5 is if you don't do it, you're probably not gonna stay sober. That's a good reason. To come it's one of the it's one of 6 places in the big book that comes out point blank and says, look, if this this isn't happening, you're probably not gonna stay sober. So that's a good and and then it goes on to explain why because we we, have a tendency to live live live a double life. You know, we have this it talks about the stage character we present in the in AA and and then the secret person we know we really are.

And I don't think alcoholics can live in that kind of inconsistency for long. The separation eats our lunch. The fear of being found out eats our lunch. And then it says on it's 74 and 75, tells you who to take your 5th step with, and it says it should be a closed mouth understanding person. Very important.

I think hearing a 5th step is sacred ground and I have a sacred obligation to keep my mouth shut. And, if you are the type of person who you leak information like a sieve, and you have an inability to keep your mouth shut, doesn't make you a bad person. You you're welcome in AA, but you probably shouldn't hear 5th steps. Go wash ashtrays or something. They don't hear 5th steps because it's sacred ground.

Because the stuff that you start blabbing around that somebody told you in in confidence that a 5th step could kill them if they have not grown through it enough to accept that as public knowledge. Especially, when it comes to things that people are real ashamed of. Secrets. Page 75, 5th step promises, middle of the page. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.

Once we have taken this step withholding nothing, we are delighted. That might be the first promise. Some of us haven't been delighted about anything in years. We can look the world in the eye. I remember being new looking at people's shoes.

I remember being new feeling so ashamed of myself, and so phony, and so afraid of being found out. I had this anxiety, this feeling that if you really looked deep within my eyes, you would see the disgusting person I really believed me to be inside. It's hard for me to look people in the eye. Somewhere after step as a result of these steps, especially 5 and getting clean with these all this stuff, I could start to do that with a pretty with a ease. The second promise, we can be alone at perfect peace and ease.

I could not do that for a long time. I couldn't be alone with my head. I remember trying it at about 3 a little over 3 months sober, I think. I was in a meeting, and I was listening this one of the clubs listening to this woman who was obviously sober a long time, and had worked the steps, and she was pretty good shape. And she was talking about alone time, and the way she talked about it made it so attractive.

She she said how she liked to just be alone by herself and kinda commune with herself and how much she enjoyed just being alone with herself. No music, no TV, just alone time with herself. And the way she said it, it it sounded so attractive. I thought, yeah. Yeah.

I wanna do that. I went back to my apartment. I went in. Nope. Nobody's there.

I'm all by myself. I didn't turn the TV on. Didn't turn the stereo. I'm gonna commune with me. And I'll tell you something, when it got quiet out here, it got noisy in here.

And after about 30 seconds, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to go turn the TV set on because I'm just going my head just started on me. What you gonna think about? What are you gonna sue? What is it?

What are you sitting here for? This is crazy. I don't know what you're gonna do. She says just nuts. That's nuts.

I can be alone at perfect peace and ease today. Not only, can I be, I I must be? I have time every day in the morning and some time, a little bit of time at night when I just me and God me in here, and it's it's good. It's good. It's it's essential.

It's, it's it's fresh air for my spirit. Important stuff, but I couldn't do it then. It says, our fears fall from us. Not too long after doing step 5, I found myself a fear falling from me that I didn't even know I had. I got in my car one night and I'm sitting in the driver's seat and I'm driving away and I get away a couple I get away from I drive a little way down the street and I realized I did not look in the back seat of my car before I got in.

And I was astounded because I always did. It I I I didn't even know that that was a fear. I don't know what I'm afraid is gonna be lurking back there, but I just always looked back there before I got in the car. And I'm driving down. I just I thought it was it was bizarre.

I didn't and I didn't even have to turn around and look. I just kept on driving. And it fell I didn't I didn't even deal with that. It just was removed from me. I guess as I was opening the channel to God I started with, maybe I started to feel more protected, more closer to him.

It says, we begin the next promise as we begin to feel the nearness of our creator. We may have had spurt certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. I think it's step 5 is really where the you begin the process of lightening your spirit, awakening your spirit, in step 5. It really comes to fruition in step 9 when there and it doesn't come to it's funny about step 9. The books and the promises will be amazed before we're halfway through our 8 step list, but I tell you, there's a big in my spirit, there's a big difference between doing all your amends and doing all but 2.

There's a big difference. I'm telling you. Those 2 that you hold on to make a big difference in here. It's really I I watch guys sober 20, 30 years that are financial disaster areas, and if if they get I've I'm working with one right now and it all came out. It's because of some unmade financial amends that he swept under the rug.

But what I there ain't nowhere to sweep it. Don't go nowhere. Don't go nowhere. So he sabotaged his life unconsciously for all these years. Yep.

We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. I remember getting that. I remember the moment. I remember a sense of just a of an a a it's it was like an elated sense of hope.

And I remember thinking to myself for the first time that that I wasn't cured, But I remember thinking, you know, God, I could you know, if I kept doing this, I could I might really really able to stay sober the rest of my life if I kept doing this one day at a time. I just I could maybe really do this. I think up until that time, this was some kind of another treatment self help deal. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know what I mean?

Because I've done that. You know, I've gone to seminars, and therapists, and treatment centers that have changed my life for 6 months. You know what I mean? Then you're back then, there you are again with you. But I started getting a feeling after step 5, Not that I was fixed or that the drink problem had been solved, but I started getting a lot of hope that this thing could work.

This could work for me. We feel we are on a broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Returning home, after doing step 5, we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour. This is a very important paragraph. This is the first place in the process where the book says, okay, you've been going wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, right for right along.

Now we want you to stop for an hour, and we want you to take an inventory essentially of what you've done so far, the first five steps. And you and God are gonna take a look at what you've done so far and we're gonna plug any holes that exist in the foundation because we're gonna go on with some stuff that's very important. And you're not gonna be able to go on with that stuff if the holes aren't plugged. It says, returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. So I'm gonna sit alone at home for an hour and look back over my 4th and 5th step.

Then I say a prayer. The prayer is, it says, we thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. I said, hey, it doesn't say only thank him if you feel I said, hey, it doesn't say only thank him if you feel like it. Just do it. And maybe it's a leap of faith, maybe what you really feel is tired and washed out.

But maybe we're gonna trust that I have just cleaned some stuff away between me and him, and whether I feel like it at the moment or not, that I am actually closer to God. And I will thank him from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity. Taking this book down from the shelf, we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps, beginning chapter 5. Carefully reading the first five proposals, first five steps, and there's we say another prayer. It says, we ask, we ask God, we ask if we have omitted anything for we are building an arch to which we shall walk a free man at last.

Many many I've I've heard, I I don't even know how many 5th steps, a 100, a 150, I have no idea, a lot. And I on many occasions, many many occasions, I've sent guys home to do this. And 45 minutes later, I'll get a phone call. Bob? Yeah?

I forgot something. Did you say the prayer? Yep. Popped up, didn't it? Yep.

What is it? Well, I, I stole some money at work. Oh, really? How much? $450,000.

Oh, yeah. I forgot that, did you? Or a guy will call up, Bob, forgot to tell you about something. What's that? Didn't tell you about the sheep.

Sheep. Whatever it is. There's something that that often happens when I'm alone with God and I ask I ask that prayer, I say, God, have I admitted anything? And it's not unusual that something we have not consciously admitted, but admitted just the same will just arise to the surface. And it's you pick up the phone, you go back to see the guy, you do whatever's necessary to get clean with it.

And then it asks some questions. It says, is our work solid so far? The stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement, put into the foundation, and tried to make mortar without sand? If we're good with the first five steps and we can in the top of page 76, it says, if we can answer to our satisfaction, we're good with first 5.

We then look at step 6. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable. Can he now take them all everyone? If we still cling to something we will not let go, it's perfectly alright.

We say this prayer. If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing. There's nothing I'm required to do in Alcoholics Anonymous I can't do. If I get to step 6 and I've just done my 5th step and I got some defects of character that have been driving me lust and greed and and the real truth is I understand intellectually that I really be should be free of this. But the real truth is I don't really wanna get give them up yet.

I don't wanna give up all my dishonesty because what if I ever get in a bad financial crunch? Can I reserve the right to wiggle a little bit? To just shave the truth a little bit to get a little edge? I mean, if it's really in a bad spot, you know? Or what if I really ask God to take away my lust and he did?

Then what? What if I ask him to take away my greed and he did, would I still go to work? Would I have any ambition? And I I I think it's perfectly alright to be afraid Because what are my defects of character really except defective defense mechanisms that I've used to prop myself up, give me a false sense of security, protect me, take care of me. Now intellectually, I may understand that they don't work, but there's a big gap and abyss between intellectually knowing you should give up something and giving it up.

I smoked I was addicted to cigarettes for a lot of years, and I'll I'll tell you something. I knew for years I should quit. I'm just gonna tell you, I'm telling you something. There's a big difference between knowing you should quit and quit. Big difference.

I knew for years I should stop drinking. Big I'd go into bars and order order another drink. Tell them, you know, you know, I really should cut this shit out. I got it. Big difference between intellectually understanding that this is objectionable, and being entirely ready.

Entirely ready is an inside job. Entirely ready is comes from God's grace. Entirely ready is it comes from the opportunity of failure and grace coming together. And, I'll tell you what I believe in my experiences with step 6 is step 6 has been the story of the last 25 years of my life. It's been the story of my sobriety.

It's been the story of how I've become really entirely ready to give up some things that I kind of wish still worked because maybe at one time they did. Some to give up to give up some things that I'm secretly afraid to live without. Some defense mechanisms that propped me up and that gave me at one time an illusion of security, and validation. And it's a story of how I become entirely ready. And I tell you what I've discovered, sometimes sometimes I become entirely ready by asking for God's grace and he gives it to me and I get it and I connect the dots and I walk, and I give it up.

And other times, I can't. Other times, the way God's grace works in my life is I gotta wear it out. You know, I gotta take a defective character that no longer works and yet I still have an illusion that it might and I gotta wear it out till it's a smoldering, stinking carcass that's dead on the floor. And then I still ain't ready to walk away. I wanna kick it again, see if I can get it to get up and ride.

Right? I did that with my drinking. You know, the last 3 years of my drinking, that's how I got sober. That's how I came to AA. I would have never come to AA during the fun years.

I'm drinking. I'm not an idiot. I didn't even come here when there was a lot of problems. I had to go all the way into the phase where they have wrung every ounce of fun out of it. It's all problems.

It's all terrible. And now I still tried it for another 2 years just hoping I could get back to that. Right? And I just didn't take it that far. And I've had to take some of my character defects that far.

Right? Not because I'm a bad guy, it is my nature to be that way. And one of the great things about my life from step 3 on is, it's not my business. God is the director of my life. God is who he is building with me and and doing with me.

And it's really easy to look at members of my home group and say, you should have got over that by now. Well, God. I wonder what they're saying about me. Right? You know what I'm saying?

Because it's in God's time. And AA, one of the great differences between AA and like a lot of churches and stuff. In And a lot of churches, if you're a sinner, they want you to come to their church. They invite you in. They make you real welcome.

They kind of expect you to stop sinning. I mean, it's implied in the literature. In AA, we're almost the opposite. We say, sin as long as you can stand it. Matter of fact, oh, you're doing that?

Oh, yeah. Okay. Go ahead and do that. Oh, you're one of you're gonna really help some people one day when you hit a bottom with that. I'm telling you.

No. Really. Because it's the it's the weird crap in my life that I crash and burn with and survive that 3 years later becomes the most use full stuff I got. When I'm running into a guy that's thinking about often himself sober because he's jacked his life off, I can sit I can say, come along with me. I wanna tell you what I did at 5 years sober.

I wanna tell you what I did at 10 years sober. I wanna tell you how I jacked my paycheck off in a casino. I wanna tell you about me. I wanna let you know you're not alone, and there's a way to get grace in your life even when you feel unworthy of it. And my worst things about me in sobriety have become some of my greatest assets, really.

I've often wondered why, God doesn't remove all my defects of character. And I'll tell you what I've discovered. It this the I I was I was very dishonest for a long time with me about some of this stuff. And I would whine to people about how God's not taking away my defects of character, but I tell you the truth about some of it is that I don't really want him to. And what I do is I go to him and I ask him to remove the thing, but I don't really want him to take away the defect.

I want him to take away the consequences. And every defective character has 2 parts. In Bill's story, there's a part of his story where he goes through a thumbnail sketch of the 12 steps, and he talks about step 6 and 7, and he talks about defects of character in that part of the book differently than he talks about them anywhere else in AA literature. He refers to them he he and he's coming from the Oxford group place, so he calls them sins, but he's talking about step 67, and he says he asked his creator to remove them root and branch. 2 parts.

See, I want God to remove the branch because it's poking me in the eye, but I wanna hold on to the root, which is where I get the illusion of validation and security. And the problem is you can't get rid of you can't be free of one without the other. It's a package. That's like trying to say to God, remove the hangovers but let me drink. You know, you you can't have one without price and consequences and it also has a cookie.

It has a goodie attached to it. And the Chuck Chamberlain used to talk about these steps 4 through 9 is a process of uncovering, discovering, and then ultimately discarding the thing in me that's blocking me. And I have to not only uncover it, but I have to discover the truth. Fracture the illusion of validation and see what's really going on, and that's where god's grace is is paramount. I think a lot of my defects of character, my experience with step 6 is is very similar to the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and he's he's beside himself.

He's a nervous wreck and he goes into the psychiatry, he says, doc, help me, please. My life's a mess. I really need your help. And the psychiatrist says, well, sure. What's going on?

And he says, well, my brother-in-law lives with me and he's crazy, doc. He's insane. He thinks he's a chicken. Every morning when the sun runs up gets up, he's running up and down this block naked, flapping his arms and clucking. The cops are at my house all the time.

The neighbors will have nothing to do with me. I'm an embarrassment in the community. Please, doc, I can't live like this anymore. Will you do something? And the psychiatrist said, well, sure.

Here. Sign these committal papers and I'll put your brother-in-law in the state mental hospital hospital and your problems are over. The guy says, oh, yeah. But, doc, I don't know if I can live without the eggs. Well, there's eggs in every defective character.

I don't hang on to stuff that hurts me because I'm self destructive. I hang on to it because there's a secret illusion of validation or value somewhere in it that I secretly can't imagine life without. They're my defense mechanisms that are defective, and I have to give them up. In the 19 forties, the Japanese empire was faced with a tremendous, tremendous thing. As a result of 2 nuclear weapons being dropped on 2 of their major cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were faced with ultimate and complete destruction as a nation and they had no defense.

There was nothing they could do. They had no atomic bombs. They had no defensive weapons that could stop that. There was nothing that they can do, and I don't think that a harder, more rot resurrender was ever made. And they made that surrender in face of the knowledge of what they did at Pearl Harbor and what they did to our prisoners of war and of all there are soldiers and people they'd killed, of the ships they'd ambushed and sunk, They didn't have a choice.

They were faced ultimate destruction and annihilation as some of us felt like we were dying. And they signed the formal terms of surrender, which would have been in a sense their step 3, but that was not enough. They were required to do an inventory of all their defenses, their planes, their ships, their tanks, their they had to disband their standing army, air force, navy, and they had to make this inventory of all their defensive weapons and turn over all their defenses to their enemy, what they thought was their enemy, and render themselves defenseless in order to carry out the surrender. It was not enough to sign if they would have signed the papers and continued to maintain the defenses in the army, in the navy, in the air force, the war would have never stopped. They had to give up.

You know, defend and as a result of that surrender and they're carrying out the actions that they decided to carry out in the terms of the surrender, and they've never reneged, they never created a standing army, they never up they never turned up their arms industry again, they've they've stuck to it. And within 40 years, the Japanese ended up owning more of the United States than they could have ever conquered or maintained through military means. I'm telling you, they became one of the most richest productive affluent nations in the world as a result of giving up and they stopped defending themselves. And you know what happened when they stopped defending themselves? Help poured in to Japan.

It just poured in. And when I stop defending myself and protecting myself, grace pours in. But you cannot be defended and surrendered at the same time that you're mutually exclusive positions. I can't stand there with a shield and a sword saying, I surrender. It ain't gonna happen.

I must act like someone who has surrendered and give up my defenses. And that's really what step 6 and 7 is about. It's giving up the things and and uncovering the reasons I hang on to. I I have always wanted to be free of the discomfort of resentment. The hollow gnawing feeling.

The the thing that makes my head spin where I can't sleep because I lay my head on the pillow and I think about what I'll say to that son of a bitch and what I'll do. You know that, I hate that. I wanna be free of that. But am I willing to give up the pleasure of judgment? Well, you can't be free of one without the other.

In order to be free of the resentments I have to give up the judgment. What if I gave up all my judgment? What would I use to make me feel to attempt to make me feel better on a spiritually bad hair day? You know those days where you feel awful and it just kind of gives you a sick sense of fun to feel someone that looks worse than you and judge them and make them, you know, feel like your superior. What would I do to try to in a frantic way to make myself feel better except that that doesn't work.

That's why I'm willing to give up a lot of that stuff because I wear it out. It doesn't really make me valid or whole or complete. It doesn't really make me more secure. I just think it does. God is either everything or he's nothing.

He either is or he isn't. Page 53 says, Bob, under that light, what's your choice gonna be? The 7 step prayer, it says when ready we say something like this, my creator. If he is my creator, he know he is all of me. He's created it.

There's nothing I am that God is not. My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. That's a novel idea for some of us. Ice came to AA secretly thinking that for me to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, if I really were to surrender, I better clean my act up first and get good. The idea that that God could take unto himself all of me.

Flawed that I don't have to be perfect. Yeah. I don't even have to have gotten really a lot better. That God I could offer myself to is flawed and is incomplete and is vacant and is is pitifully judgmental at times, and self centered, and fearful, and that I could do that? I'm willing that you should have all of me good and bad.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defective character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen. We have then completed step 7. It's a tremendous prayer.

I I every time I read it, I am amazed that Bill Wilson wrote it, because I know Bill Wilson was like me. Self centered, self concerned, self consumed. I would have never written this prayer. I would have said part of it. I would have said the first part, my creator, I'm now willing you should have all of me good and bad.

I pray that you now remove for me every single defective character, which I wouldn't have said stands in the way of my usefulness. I would have said that stands in the way of everyone realizing what a terrific guy Bob is. Or at the very least, it stand in the way of my being rich and famous and happy. Don't I get at least happy? I'd at least said happy.

Wouldn't you have said happy? That stands in the way of my being happy, don't I get happy? Right? Because the great call of the alcoholic is, yeah, yeah, you know, helping the people. That's all great, but what about me here?

I don't even say that. So it has nothing to do with me. It stands in the way of my usefulness. My usefulness. Maybe maybe because that's the way it is.

Maybe that's why God leaves some stuff that sometimes causes me discomfort. Maybe maybe because if he ever took everything away and rendered me white as snow that I would be absolutely useless really. I don't imagine I'm much different than most of us. I'll tell you what I'm like when I'm having a bad day, I mean a bad day. I need help when I'm having a bad day.

When I've done something that I feel really bad about myself for, like I wanna go out in the garden and eat worms, maybe I've I've didn't eat all day and I went to a restaurant and the waitress was really slow and I just flipped out on her and read her the riot act and stormed out of there and now I feel awful. And I can't go back in there again and or maybe I've as I did in my early sobriety, gambled away my whole paycheck and I don't have any money for rent or cigarettes or gas and I can't get to work. I already owe my roommate money from last month's rent. I can't face him and I can't face my boss because I owe him money because I gambled the week before. When I'm like that, a guy that is a saint is not gonna be any use you know what I need?

I need a guy that did the same thing last year and lived through it. Because first of all, before I can ever apply any light to this, any spiritual principles, the first thing I have to do is I have to deal with the separation. Because that stuff separates me apart and puts me in a corner, in a feeling like I am all alone and I'm different from all of you, and I've lost my sense of community. I'm no longer part of the realm of the spirit. I am separate and apart from.

And what I need the guy that can be the most useful to me at that moment is somebody who maybe 2 weeks before gambled his paycheck and now he's been 2 weeks without a bet. Or maybe a guy that I heard talk in a meeting last week about how he read the riot act to some waitress who didn't wait on him right, and how he wanted to go back and make amends. That's the guy that I need to talk to. I don't want to talk to no saint because I'm gonna feel less than. I'm not gonna be able to.

There was a guy in Vegas who died a few years ago. Old old timer, sober, 40 40 some years. His name was Bill. And I loved Bill. On a good day, Bill was one of my favorite members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But Bill used to always share about it it how it was a happy program and he'd never had a bad day since he got sober. When I was having a bad day, I avoided Bill. I'm telling you. He I'm not gonna share I had I remember coming into a meeting one time and I just felt awful. And I'd had a I had some problems at work and problems in a relationship, and I needed to talk to someone.

And there was, Bill is not the guy I'm gonna talk to. I'm not I could talk to Bill about any stuff in a good day, but I can't talk to someone that's never that that exhibits an an an aura and says stuff in meetings like he's never had a bad day since he got sober. I don't wanna talk to him when I'm having a bad day. Now, afterwards, a day or 2 later, I can go talk to him after I've quieted the disturbance. But you know the guys I found, I needed to find the guys that weren't perfect.

They were the most useful to me, really. And so maybe that's why that some of us never get we never get out we never outgrow our our humanness here. We never get over it. The delusion that we're gonna get over our alcoholism ain't gonna happen. My my I might keep my head in the clouds with God and be spiritually centered, but my feet should always be on the earth with you guys.

My feet should always be right in the trenches of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the prisons, in the Skid Row detoxes, in the halfway houses, where I can be most useful, that everything that has ever been wrong with me in my life and every mistake I've ever made will come to bear and a weapon against the disease of alcoholism for these people who suffer from alcoholism. For the first time in my life the worst things about me, the things I hated and despised the most become useful, become useful. Amazing stuff what happens in god's hands. How things turn around like that. I would have never imagined that I could be that some of these things could be useful.

That brings us to step 9. I'm gonna go real quick through this. I think step 9 I could talk a whole day on step 9. It's probably one of the most important steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. Most of the people my experience with I get a lot of guys that come to me with 15 20 years of sobriety that have destroyed their life sober and asked me to work with them.

And usually, they've left out big chunks of step 9. And they left them out not because they're bad guys, they left them out because they thought they could. And nobody was breathing down their neck to pay back some of that stuff. Some of that stuff nobody even knew they owed except they knew and they couldn't you can't really get away from the truth within you. You may sweep it under the rug, but 5 years later it surfaces.

Step 9 was the step that terrified me the most. When I was new, I remember looking at it and just being overwhelmed. I thought, oh my God, I can't do that. I can't do that. If if I would have known I had to pay that back someday, I would have never stolen all that shit.

I just I got I can't it's too much. It's too big. It's too I I I thought I looked around AA, and I thought the people in AA can make amends. You're good people. I can tell by looking at you, you're nice people, kind people.

You're kind to me. I bet you you're kind you're always been that way. You're good people. Go make amends. Good for you.

You probably embarrassed your family, go say you're sorry. You probably padded your expense account at work, go make it right. Good for you. But I live like an animal on the streets. I, guys went to prison as a result of my actions because I dimed them out in order to save my own life so I wouldn't go to prison.

How do you make amends to guys like that? Career criminals and outlaw motorcycle gangs that gang guys that went to prison because of you. How do you make amends for that? How do you make amends to parents that all they ever did was love you and you just battered them and broke their heart over and over and over and over again till you've destroyed them, till your mother is on tranquilizers and in therapy and your father sleeps 15, 16 hours a day. How do you make amends to a sister who's who's ruined her life because her her her older brother is always in the newspaper and the kids at school make fun of her because he's a gangster.

I wasn't really a gangster even though I fancied myself, the police told me the truth, they said you're not a gangster, you're a public nuisance. How do you make amends to a guy that you that was your best friend that you took a hunting knife and you opened his chest up and and he lived, but he'd never be the same. How do you make amends to the to the friend of yours that you you don't know where he is to you ripped his brother off and let him take the blame and it just split their family right in half. And, they never would speak to each other again. How do you make amends to the nameless faceless people that you you robbed?

The purses you stole and the cars you broke into and the houses you you you burglarized, and the and the people, the nameless people that you ripped off in drug deals, and you held guns on. How do you make amends to them? I don't even know their names. And my experience with step 89 was very similar to the experience of a kid in 3rd or 4th grade if he were to sit down one day and look at the tests that he must pass in order to graduate from high school. A kid in the 3rd or 4th grade looking at those tests would become overwhelmed.

He he'd look at those tests and he's, if he was like me, he would feel I might as well quit school. I'll never ever be able to pass those tests. I'll never be able to answer those questions. I will never even be able to understand those questions. But a funny thing happens, if he shows up one day at a time and does the next indicating thing, then that goes to the next class, the next homework assignment, reads the next chapter, By the time he gets to the end of 12th grade, he has everything in place within him to take those tests and AA is kinda like that.

Carl Jung was one of the first I ever heard talk of or read about that talked about a principle that is that is the fabric of AA. The principle of synchronicity. It's a description of God's grace and how it works and how it seems to work in my life in a lot of this, is that I need to change. I need to do some things that can't be done. I need to go from point a to point b, but between the two points is an abyss I cannot surmount.

And I need to do it And I make the commitment and the willingness to make the change even though it is absolutely impossible for me to go from point a to point b. And from the moment of commitment, the universe gets in motion to start providing a vehicle to go from a to b that did not exist prior to my willingness to make the make the jump. And I have seen that happen in this principle of synchronicity and how god's grace works in my life and my amends over the years is is things of, you know, the I when I do I had to break my my 8 step list into 4 parts. And I tell the guys I'd that I sponsor to do the same thing because there's really 4 types of amends on your 4 on your 8 step list when you think about it. Because there's there's 2 factors that are involved.

It says it says in there, it says if we haven't been willing to do this when we we're facing people that we the idea of making amends, it says we ask for the willingness to make the amends, and we ask until it comes. In step 8, it says we made step 8 says we made a list of all persons we'd harmed and in the book it says we made it when we took our inventory. So it comes right off our 4 step list. All my resentments, the people I have judged harshly and hated and retaliated against are all my 8 step list. All my fear of creditors, of all the people I'm afraid of facing and showing up in my life and ever running into, all go on my 8 step list.

All my sexual encounters where I've been selfish and people got hurt, those people all go on my 8 step list. It's my job to make the list and ask for the willingness. It's God's job to provide the willingness and the opportunity because it said says, made direct amends wherever possible. It's job God's job to create the wherever. There's nothing I have to do and AA can't do.

So I pray for the willingness. God needs to provide the willingness and the opportunity. And I've had people in my life that I I had no idea how to find them. I had 1 gal, I searched for her. 17 years sobriety, she just popped up out of nowhere in my life.

And I found out later why she popped up, why I could not find her at 4 years. I searched for her. Flew back east looking for her. Searched the town, talked to people, tried to find her, could not find her. 17 years sober, she pops up in my life.

Wasn't even looking for her because a guy that was an old friend of mine who I was probably the worst drunk he ever said, ever saw, just got out of Chit Chat Farms treatment center for a second or third time and she was a friend of his. And I got to make the amends to her so he could she could put me and him together so he could come to AA and get sober. Right? I didn't see that was happening. God creates the wherever.

So I got 4 columns in step 8. Column number 1, people I know where they are, I got to wherever and I'm willing to make the amends. Easy column. Just go do it. Just go do it.

Column number 2, people I know where they are, but the truth is I couldn't be ready to face them yet honestly. So I got the wherever, but I don't have the willingness, so I do what it says in the book, I ask for the willingness, I ask until it comes. Column number 3, I got the willingness, I would really like to make amends to these people, but I don't know where they are. I don't know how to find them. So they go on that list and God must provide the wherever and when I when they pop up in my life, he's already given me the willingness, I'd make the amends.