Big Book Study on Steps 4 7 in Prescott, AZ

Of how you're going to look at this resentment. This is my course. I realized that the people, what I wrote in column 1, who wronged me column 2, were perhaps spiritually sick. Though I did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed me, they like me or sick too. And I get start to get introduced to an idea here.

Here's the idea. Is it possible, Mark, that these people did not wake up one day and intentionally decide to pursue a course of action to hurt you. Is that possible, Mark? Is it possible, Mark, that the extent to which you are asleep dreaming you're awake or spiritually sick is the extent to which you will harm others. Is that possible, Mark?

It's trying to introduce me to some things. It's trying to introduce me to something else. Mark, you're sitting in judgment on someone who's spiritually sick. So are you. You actually believe someone could have acted different.

I wanna go back to this issue of choice and how it ties into inventory. I have never in my lifetime made a conscious choice to harm another human being, and they haven't done that with me either. And if you're sitting here thinking people in your life have made conscious choices to harm you, you've missed the intent of what this is trying to tell you. And it is impossible to get taken to a state of forgiveness, love, and compassion. When I understood there's nothing but oneness and if I harm you, I harm me, I really understood what the book said.

Anyone who would pursue a course of action to create any harm to another human being is doing so because they're spiritually sick. This is very much being played out in our lives right now. What is taking place is not based on people who are spiritually well. They are spiritually sick. They have no concept that there's nothing but oneness and if I harm you, I harm me.

So it goes on to say, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ask God to help me show these people the same talents, pity, and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. That's a powerful powerful instruction. Take all these people you're resentful at and imagine they're laying in the bed dying of cancer or some horrible disease. What would you do then?

Let's say they said something or did something with a body wracked with cancer. Right? Would you be forgiving? Would you have compassion? Would you take it personal?

No. You wouldn't just like me. When a person offends, I say to myself, this is a sick man or sick woman. How can I be helpful to him or her? God, you save me from being angry.

Thy will be done and I need to avoid retaliation or argument. Why? Cause I would not treat sick people that way. We get angry at sick people and ourselves. Heard a statement one time, you said to me what I said to me I'd have to kill you.

Right? See, I have to stop doing that with myself as well. Goes on to say referring to my list again and this is the 4th column. Putting out of my minds the wrongs others have done. I'm gonna look for my own mistakes.

Mistakes. The extent to which you are spiritually asleep is the extent to which you'll continue to make more and more mistakes. My experience has been with the big book said, over the years, I have made spiritual progress. Not perfection. Progress.

I make less mistakes every year that I am sober. Every year that I submit to God to this way of life, I make less mistakes. There are less amends. I put out less harm. I am more loving.

I am more kind. I am more compassionate with myself and with you. Where have I been selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened. Those situations is not my fault. I'm gonna disregard the other person involved entirely and that does mean entirely.

That does mean entirely. I want to tie back to something. The greater your need go back to the name that you wrote in column 1 and column 2. The greater your need for that person or institution to fulfill that need is the extent to which you cannot do this. The greater your attachment is the extent to which you cannot do this.

Where am I to blame the inventories? Mine not the other man's. When I saw my faults, I listed them before me in black and white. I admit my wrongs honestly and I'm willing to set these matters straight. Let Joe talk a little bit about Resentment Inventory.

I have a great story about resentment. The guy's been sober 30 years, and in those 30 years, he's become a hunter. And his whole life, he's had a dream about this one certain rifle. 50 years old, 30 years sober, his wife gives him this rifle. It's like a dream come true.

Of course, being a good alcoholic, he's gonna go all the way to Alaska, and he's gonna shoot a a bear. Goes to Alaska, first bear he sees, boom, Blows it away. There's a tap on his shoulder. It's a bigger bear. This big bear says, this is also a story about whether to die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.

Bigger bear taps him on the shoulder and goes, sorry. That was my cousin you just killed. You have two choices. I maul you to death or I have my way with you. He thinks about it for a minute.

It's not a it's not an easy alternative, but he he lets the bear have his way with him. It's a little painful. He goes home. It takes about a week to recover, and now the resentment is deep. He's refilling it and refilling it and refilling it.

Now he's got to go back and find that specific bear. Goes back, finds that bear. Boom. There's a tap on the shoulder, there's a bigger bear. The bear says, you have 2 choices.

I maul you to death or I have my way with you really rough. He thinks about it for a minute. It's not an easy alternative phase. He lets the bear have his way. It's really painful.

He goes home. It takes him a month to recover, and now the resentment is festering. He's got to go back and find that bear. Then it's the next bear. Then it's the next bear.

About the 5th time, he's up there and he's now has to find the biggest white polar bear you can imagine. Finds him. Boom. Now there's the hugest bear you can possibly imagine. Tatch taps him on the shoulder and says, that was my brother you just killed, and we've been watching you for a while.

And we realize you're obviously not here for the hunting, are you? I have another story about how we make fun of the how we make fun of people with the same thing we have. It's a story about a strong mother. Strong, assertive mother with a perfect child, of course. And of course, her child is a little more perfect than any other child.

He has a small speech impediment, but no one will admit it because he's perfect. She puts him out on the street, catch the bus. The bus pulls up. The door opens. The boy goes, bus driver slams the door, drives off.

Next day, she puts him out there on the corner. The bus pulls up. The boy goes, slams the door, drives off. This time he tells his mother, his mother is, like, enraged. Nobody's gonna treat my son like that.

Blah blah blah. Puts him out a corner the next morning and hides in the bushes. The bus pulls up. The door opens. The boy goes, driver gives him the finger, slams the door.

Mother jumps out of the bushes, opens the door, says, you're not gonna treat my son that way. He he's in he's due. He has a right to his education. What do you think you're doing? Bus driver steps off the bus and goes, he was teasing me.

That's what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous, I got a poem here. It's called becoming someone. Blocked by confusion, I forge a destiny through impulsive acts. Self consciously, I enter situations where personality unfolds and world impacts on a sensitive soul. Personality creates self consciousness.

Just as attention, the eye and the colorful shape trigger vision. Impact is the meeting of self consciousness senses in the world. It leads to experience. I crave to have and I crave to avoid. Craving makes me cling, and senses, opinions, rules, and different selves.

Clinging is to insist on being someone. Not to cling is to be free to be no one. To be someone is to be conscious, impulsive, thinking, feeling, which is born ages and dies, suffers torment, grief, and pain, depression, and anxiety. Anguish emerges when someone is born. Impulsive acts are the root of life.

Fools are impulsive. The wise see things as they are. When confusion stops through insight, impulsive acts cease. Stop this and that will not happen. Anguish will end.

A lot of people who've been around for a while get to a new resentment inventory, and they don't find any resentments because you and I frankly don't live with a lot of deep seated resentment anymore. I was encouraged if we're looking for the things within ourselves which are blocking us from others, from God and myself. No separation. Just like Mark said, I'm going in there to discover that stuff that is currently blocking me. It will be a manifestation of the current unmanageability, the current self will, the current agnosticism.

So try this, work with other words other than resentful act. Who's let you down? Who's discouraged you? Who are you jealous of? Because we live with more subtle forms of things, not less dangerous, but but less abrasive, less coarse, more subtle forms of things that are blocking us.

Ask God to reveal to you the things within yourself which are blocking you. I like to do the way Mark said, where I work on my first column until the first column is done. When do you know the list is done? When you know the list is done. I think this last time going through with Mark, I had 35 in the first column.

People, institutions, and principles. And that was basically looking back at a 2 year period. Sometimes, people in the program, when they hear that you're in inventory again, they think things like, what are you doing? Write in the same inventory you wrote 20 years ago? No.

I've been awakened through the first three steps to stuff that I've missed in the last period of time since I finished amends that I was asleep to in 1011 and 12. It's still there. It's still festering. It's still being refelt. It's still stuck.

It might be discouragement. It might be I've been let down. It might be I've been hurt. I'm jealous. Blah blah blah.

I just ask God to show me the things within myself which are blocking me from others, myself and him as one. I work on the list till I know it's done. Then like Mark said, let's say for the first person on my list, I have 4 things, 4 resentments, 4 whatever. A, b, c, d. I like to do one resentment per page.

One page for every second column. So for Charlie, if I have a, b, c, d, that's gonna be 4 pages of inventory. Because what my ego would like to do, and I'm sure those of you that work with others have seen before, the ego would like to smash it all together. Put about 10 second columns and try to squeeze in 10 third columns and this much space for the 4th column. Don't be afraid of paper.

Don't be afraid of paper. There's plenty of paper. One resentment for each page. One page for every second column. So I work on the second column until it's done.

This is on another notebook. Then I finally had the first and second column done. I take the first one off the list, and I and I number it. And I put the name, and I put the first resentment, a. If I have 4 more, I'm gonna make 4 more pages.

And then I put which of those 7 areas were hurt, threatened, or interfered with. When she left me, see, and I think that's the truth. That state of consciousness that she left me. It's the truth. It is the truth.

It's the truth that I would rather die than have to face that it maybe isn't the truth. So I put her name in the first column that she left me in the second column. And then I asked myself, when she left me, did it affect my self esteem, how I feel about me? Yes. Self esteem.

Did it hurt what others see or feel about me? Yes. Pride. Did it hurt what I want? Yes.

Ambition. Did it hurt what I need to be okay? Yes. Security. What about our personal relation and other personal relations of people that saw that?

Yes, personal relations. Sex relations? Yes. Pocketbook? Maybe.

Yes. Then I then people that have encouraged us and remember, those of you that do the work, don't look down on things that are revealed to people doing the work that aren't necessarily word for word in the book. Remember, our founders ended this the 164 pages with a statement. They'd only been doing it 4 or 5 years. What?

Bill got sober in 34 35? Someone? 4 years later, the book's published. When the book came out, which hasn't been changed, nobody had more than 5 years, and they said more would be revealed. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.

So some of our heroes, when they got to that line that Mark read, you see, because it's on the page where the first three column example is, they knew that the 4th column was like a page and a half away, but it still said, when we were finished, we considered it carefully. And they started to ask, when she left me, why did it affect my self esteem? Because I'm no good? Because of low self esteem? Sorry.

That's usually a lie. It's because I have a little bit too much self esteem. People are just starting to talk about in America high self esteem and the damage it does to children. You know, at home, they're told, you're a perfect angel, wonderful child of the universe. Then they meet someone in the world that says that they're not, and they, like, blow everybody away in the school.

Right? High self esteem is sometimes my problem because, see, I didn't stay resentful because when she left me, I'm no good and I didn't deserve her. If that was the truth at the core of my being, I'd sit there like somebody with no self esteem. Well, I don't deserve you any, honey. And anyway, honey.

And she's walking out the door. But I'm still angry. Why? Because there's a part of me that believes I'm above anybody leaving me. I'm a perfect boyfriend.

Self esteem. I am. This is not about thoughts and beliefs. This is about what your ego tells you you are. Now don't think you're discovering the truth in the 3rd column.

These are the lies that your ego tries to tell you are true. Your first inventory, if it's a big one, just put the words or do what your sponsor says. But if you've been around and you get it, ask why was your self esteem? And usually, when you think it was slow self esteem, it was high self esteem. And usually, when you think it was high self esteem, it was low self esteem.

You're just fooling yourself. That's why you stayed angry. If you were in the truth, you wouldn't have stayed angry. What about ambition? When she left, did it affect what I wanted?

Yeah. I wanted her to stay no matter what I did. That's what I wanted. Security. This is always life and death for the ego.

I need her to stay to exist, to be okay. You know, like most of those R and B songs that are really codependent songs, I'm nothing without you. Right? My world is empty without you, babe. Right?

You complete me. You are my everything. Right? We make people into God and God into people. Right?

What about that's my security. What about personal relations? No friend should leave me and no friend should ever see me. Me who? Mister AA.

Perfect boyfriend. No one should see me being left. Sex relation. These are my beliefs about men and women and how they interact. Women don't leave men.

Men leave women. Boom. Pocketbook. No one leaving me should interfere with mine and money. I think it's mine.

I actually think it's mine. And that's insanity with unfinished demands because you're spending their money. It's their money. It's not my money. It's a gift in the first place.

I turn the pay and then I do the 3rd column on everybody. I think, one of the best descriptions that Mark and I have ever heard of how people die with those beliefs, and I wish we had time today. I don't think we do to do what Mark likes to do with the theater of the lie, but the best pitcher I've ever seen of that is a man who after many years and did very little work became a speaker. Went to the doctor one day. Doctor said, you have an, problem with your appendix.

You better be at the hospital tomorrow at 5 o'clock. We'll do whatever it's called. The guy couldn't. He just couldn't get to the hospital. Why?

Because he's a speaker, and you never say no to an AA request. That belief destroys more families and loved ones and children and wives and vice versa in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous than any belief. It precludes intuition, prayer, God. He couldn't go to the hospital because he's a speaker now. He went and spoke.

Boom. His appendix bursts. He's in the hospital dying of peritonitis. And I think back then, there was nothing they could do if your appendix burst. You're just gonna die of this poison in your body.

And our friend Frank went to visit him every day. And he said he watched this man go through the the inventory process right in front of him. One day he would say, you know I wasn't the greatest father in the world, but you know I wasn't the worst. And he could feel another one of those personalities die. He said, You know I wasn't the greatest, father in the world, but I wasn't the worst.

And he would feel another one die. And he said, day after day, took him 17 days to die, when he was lucid, he would come to the realization that we get to do right here in inventory. Because see, it's not about low self esteem or high self esteem. It's about healthy self esteem. You know, I'm not the greatest boyfriend in the world.

I'm also not I'm also not a piece of crap. I'm a guy with 21 years of sobriety trying to do the best he can who makes mistakes. I'm human. You face your humanness in the insanity of your beliefs in the 3rd column, whether they're high or low. You know if they're high or low, the ego wins either way?

The ego loves it if it has you the worst or the best. It can't stand just one of the guys. Average. An average guy doing an average job trying to do the best it can. The ego hates that.

I do the 3rd column on everybody. I turn the page, and I start to look for the truth because all of it's a lie. I'd like to share one more thing with you that I do with the 4th column now. I never got the check thing because my sponsor told me that the big book says, where was I selfish? Not were you selfish?

Check. Were you dishonest? Because here's how I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you how important the 4th column is. Five steps come from the 4th column, the truth in inventory, exact nature of your defects, the truth in 6, 7, the truth you need for 8, and the truth you need to go to somebody to make amends. Five steps come from a clear 4th column.

Steps 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. My book says, where was I selfish? I write, I was selfish when I did this and this and didn't do this. Three kinds of dishonesty. There are three kinds of dishonesty.

Outright lies, lies of omission. What's more dishonest? Lying to her about it or not telling her at all? There there one is not more than the other. And then there's self delusion which I've seen all through the 3rd column.

Where was I selfish? Where was I self seeking? Where was I dishonest? And where was it rooted in fear? Now what I do is, let's say, with this resentment, she left me and all these things were affected because of these beliefs and this is what I did or didn't do.

This is where I was afraid. I stay in the 4th column until I can rewrite the first two columns. And I stay in the 4th column until I have a realization like this, holy moly. She didn't leave me. I drove her away with selfishness, dishonesty, self seeking, and fear and I put myself for driving her away at the bottom.

I do that on every resentment and then I take those and I write 4 columns on those and they're either toward me or God. And I don't know why I saw it more today when Mark read it, but I really saw that line and then we're sore at ourselves. And I believe this, resentment is anger towards self held onto, focused on somebody else, when it's really a resentment toward yourself. I just had, an inventory with 35 in the first column. I did the 1st and second column again at the bottom of every 4th column, and there was about 10 toward myself, and there was about 5 toward God.

I took those and I wrote 4 columns on those. And Mark said, you didn't even need to read the rest of those 35 pages. That'll help you with amends, but those last 4 or 5 pages was the inventory. Have you ever written inventory about a resentment toward God, yourself? Have you ever made amends to yourself or God?

Now we can't hurt God, but we can certainly do a lot to hurt that relationship. And that whole inventory came down to resentments and and and delusion and, disappointment and having let myself down and it was all toward me and God. And then I write a fear inventory. I find my fears in my 4th column. I like to write 4 column inventory.

I like to write 4 column fear inventory. But if you start with a big list of fears, you should break them down by asking, why am I really afraid of that? Because it's painful. Why am I afraid of that? Because I'll die.

Why am I afraid of that? Because I'll live. Why am I afraid of that? Because I won't drink. And you end up with about 10 negative fears and 10 positive fears.

Negative fears: drink, die, alone, abandon, in pain. Positive fears: alive, not drinking, with power. See, I believe most of us in this room are much more afraid of having power than we are remaining powerless and irresponsible. Nelson Mandela wrote a wonderful poem, I wish I had it, about how we're more afraid of the light than we are the darkness. We're more afraid of truth than we are remaining irresponsible and powerless.

And it's sad to me because of the awakening that I've had that many many many people with long term sobriety still think that they're powerless over alcohol and that their life is unmanageable. What kind of message is that for a new person? My truth is something has come between me and alcohol and I'm not drunk. The power of God has come into my life and I have a manageable life. I can use proper use of the will.

I can make decisions along these lines. I'm living the way I wanna live and if you're not, where's the promise of Alcoholics Anonymous? If the problem is powerlessness with no choice but to drink in an unmanageable life internally as it's manifested externally, then shouldn't the solution be there's something between you and alcohol and you have the power in your life to manage your life? You make mistakes. It talks about that.

So I do 4 columns on fear. I see that there's usually only 2. And whatever you come down to, those 2 fears will be summed up by this: Here we are again, whether to die an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face because I'm afraid of dying and I'm afraid of living and I'm afraid of not having power and I'm afraid of having power. And there they are. Boom.

And then I take a list of relationships. The sex inventory isn't necessarily about sex. Mark says it's about the opposite sex. Not in some cases. Right?

Sometimes it's about the same sex. Sometimes it's about sex that's jumbled up nowadays. Men with men men men with girl men, this and that. I look at the relationships God reveals to me to make in that list and I put myself, and I put God. I remember this woman in Denver that said, Have you ever answered the 9 questions sex inventory about your relationship with God?

And it was amazing. What I do that's inconsiderate and selfish, arouses jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness in me. And because I'd had a period of time where I'd chosen to be celibate, there was only one person in my life that I have a relationship based on my sane and sound ideal from the last piece of work, and that is that I am to remain celibate until I'm with somebody where there's that kind of a commitment. And she was there. And I answered those 9 questions.

But I think some of us sometimes those of us that do the work, we forget the importance of the ideal. The book says it's a chosen ideal. Ask God to mold it. It's between you and God. Advice from other people is good, but we let God be the final judge.

Just like they say with everything, even amends, place the outcome in God's hands. I have a sane and sound ideal that I live up to today because the power is there. Tells me what it tells me what'll happen if I make mistakes. I'll be forgiven. But if my conduct continues to harm others and I don't see that with just sexual behavior because I don't see sexual behavior separate from myself, God, or you from any other kind of behavior that's selfish, dishonest, self seeking, rooted in fear.

I have a sex ideal that's grounded in reality. Tells me what to do if my conduct continues to hurt others. Many many many many people that do the work that come out the other side of amends have a delusion, which is a first step reservation, that they can keep doing that kind of behavior and not pay a price. It kills us. It kills us.

God's gonna make that possible. And I write my ideal. And from time to time, the people in my life that I've given consent ask me, is that is that within your sane and sound ideal? And then I take this to someone and I read it. I usually do more than 1 fist step.

Remember, even in the short form of step 4, it uses the word once again that we've been focusing something different about inventory, that's probably about the experience they would have. Tell this person it's going to be a horrible experience. That's probably what they'll have. Set you free. That's probably the experience they're going to have.

You're really going to enjoy this inventory. That's probably the experience they're going to have. If you find yourself in the 4th column beating yourself up, go back to the statement our troubles of our own making and find the positive side to the statement till you can go back into the 4th column. For example, let's say I'm writing the 4th column about her leaving me and it just feels like I'm I'm not doing anything productive. I'm just beating myself up.

I go back to that statement and I sit with it until I can come back to the inventory and say this, thank God my troubles were of my making because if they were of her making, she's either got to change, see the light, or come back for me to get free. And they don't have to. My dad's been dead since he I was 21, but I he still owned me when I was 30. How am I going to get free if he's dead? A lot of people said I couldn't make amends to someone who was dead.

Not true. A lot of people said I couldn't get free with someone who was dead. Not true. Thank God my troubles in that relationship were of my own making decisions I made based on self, which placed me in a position to be hurt. It was funny.

I was in New York doing a small retreat in December. You can imagine some of these tough New York guys. So I said, how many people in the room believe in karma? And these guys are like, you know, what's one of those new age ideas? Right?

Couple hands went up. I said, how many of you believe what goes around comes around? They believe that, right? It's the same thing. My books I believe the book of alcohol big book of Alcoholics Anonymous believes in karma.

One of the greatest statements that describes karma that I've ever heard is we made at some time in the past, we made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be heard. Where every one of them was toward myself or God. Yeah. What about a couple of questions about inventory that maybe are common among us, or any confusion about the mechanics of inventory, or anything at all someone is confused about? Yes, sir.

I did I couldn't get it. Can you come up and maybe do it in the microphone so they have it on tape maybe? I I think that microphone is on right there. You can go ahead. Yeah.

I can pull it out there if you want. Hi, everybody. I'm Dale Alcoholic. I I just wanted to add that, after doing several inventories, I came to the conclusion that, where it talks about where we turn back the list again in step 4 Column. In the 4th column.

It says, where have we been selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened? And I did identify, each of those in in in every instance. And then I I went to a 5th column and wrote down, what did I do? What was my part? And that really helped me, making the correlation between that I was selfish and that the action that was attached to my instinct.

It's a great point. And the guy that does the workbook from our group in Santa Monica, he also, has you do similar to what he said, where did I set the ball rolling, and where have I done that very same thing to somebody else? And, of course, if if if harm comes to you that was caused to that person or sometimes you're writing about 1 person and before you're done with that resentment, 3 or 4 other names that you've done you've done the same stuff with. You could make notes about other people. You could make notes about harm.

Remember, in the 4th column, you're just looking for the truth. You're looking for the truth about what did you do based on that selfishness, dishonesty, self seeking, and fear. Where did you start the ball rolling? Yeah. But it's an amazing thing to find out the first three columns are all a lie.

I'll try to describe and then Mark can add to it because he's the one that's really good at theater the lie. But imagine a circle right here with 30 people and you got a blackboard and you have someone give a resentment. And it's it's a guy and he says, she left me. He brings him and he puts him in the inside the circle kind of at that edge. And then he he gets a girl to represent the one who, left him.

Put her inside the circle and she's the one that left him. And then he gets a girl to represent the one who, left him. Put her inside the circle and she's the one that left him. Now, he writes, she left me. And you start to ask this guy, who did she leave?

What do you mean who did she leave? Who did she leave? Well, she left me. No. No.

Me who? And they don't get it. Me who? They don't get it. And then all of a sudden, they'll get a little angry and they'll say, well, you know, I do have a reputation in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, it didn't look good when she left. So you bring up mister a a and you stand him next to him. And then there's gonna be Rambo and there's gonna be Romeo and there's gonna be the businessman. There's gonna be the unworthy son. There's gonna be mister AA.

And he's got all these personalities standing around this guy. Then he does the same thing with her. Who left him? She doesn't get it. Who do you mean who?

Who? Who? Me who? Well, you know, I am a businesswoman in the nineties, and I have a 5 year agenda. And that and it brings up the businesswoman and Juliet and the sex goddess, and the unworthy daughter, and the mother, and the daughter.

And he got all these personalities standing around her. And he goes, now I'm gonna show you why you're having trouble with personal relations. And he keeps reminding you, remember, this is when you're not at 1. He's mad because she left and she's mad for whatever reason she left. Neither of them are dealing with the truth.

But the reason they're having trouble with personal relations, they're not at one, as all these personalities have arisen. And one morning, the sex goddess wakes up to the businessman. He's got a 9 o'clock appointment. She wants to make love and boom, they're like this. Vice versa the next day, Romeo wakes up to the businesswoman.

They're like this. And the only time you have a good day when you're not at one is when the right two personalities wake up at the same time. Then he goes further. I'll show you another reason why you're having trouble. And he asked each of the personalities how they felt when she left.

How did Rambo feel? I wanted to kill her. How did mister a a feel? Live and let live. Right?

How did the unworthy son feel? Don't deserve it anyway. Every one of those personalities has a different belief and a different feeling about how what when she left. Same with her. He said, there's another reason you're having trouble with personal relations.

Then he says, so now, you start to discover some truth. Man, I wasn't the greatest boyfriend in the world. This personality does. Man, I'm not the greatest lover in the world. I'm selfish.

That's this one does. You admit truth, these personalities are smashed. He said during that period of admission, like 4th column, 5th step, you have to be very careful that the ego doesn't start to say, wow. Look at what I've been. So now, I'll just and he showed how all the personalities would do is get up and change seats.

The passive guy goes for a class in assertiveness training. Right? The businessman goes to a class on how to be more a sensitive lover. And he he graphically showed us how if you start to play the so now I'll game, recreating yourself in a new image, not only do you end up with a whole new 3rd column, all the personalities do is get up and change seats. The whore becomes a nun.

The nun becomes a whore. The passive guy needs to be a little more aggressive. Be careful when discovering truth that you don't start to create yourself. Let God do that as he would have you the good and the bad. Give him it all.

You can have some fun with with that is, look at your own life and you can identify 6 to 8 major roles that your ego has perpetuated that you think define who you are. I recently did work some work with a woman in Houston, Texas who in 1 week had 5 of those stripped from her. She called me going insane saying, who am I? What happened was her husband left, so the wife was fighting for her existence. Her son was gone, so the mother's fighting for her existence.

They were gonna have to sell the house because he wanted the divorce, so the homeowner was fighting for her existence. They had been Mr. And Mrs. AA, down in that neck of the woods, and now they were separated. And so, that was gone and she literally didn't have a clue who she was.

And I said to her, what an incredible wonderful experience you get to have. Because that is not what she wanted to hear. She's, what are you talking about? And I said, because you become attached to all of them. And then depending on over the next couple of months when I did some work with her, I could always tell which one of them was calling me.

Sometimes the wife would call very angry. Sometimes the spiritual woman would call and, of course, she understood and home homeowner would call and she was angry because she'd put a lot of time and effort work in this home. And ceremoniously one day, I told her go out in the back of the yard. I want you to dig 5 grapes. I want you to bury those.

That's not who you are. I live in a world of impermanence and I'm in the world to play the role that God has assigned. Do not attach to the role. That's freedom. See?

You're in a one act play and every day it shifts and changes and you don't get to decide your role. That's already gets decided. You just get to play the role for a day, but don't attach to it. That's when you get to go through life being a free man or free woman. That's why they say in connection to the fear inventory, remove my remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be.

We always think we're gonna have to do something about all this stuff. What do we you know, like they say, relax and take it easy after you've discovered something that crops up. Right? We always think we're the ones that have to do something, deal with it, cope with it, work on it, figure it out, fix it. I've seen through fear.

Now does that mean I don't ever have any fears? No. Los Angeles right now has been, for me, an experience where the whole energy in the entire city is just riddled with fear. Do I have to be dominated by that? No.

Can I move into faith at any moment? Yes. Is it a scary time in our history of this planet? Yes. Is it a scary time in our history of this planet?

Yes. But we don't I I used to admire Michael Moore, this guy that got in trouble at the Academy Awards. And he's got a pretty good book called Stupid White Men. And I saw him on Oprah the other day and I saw through the delusion that he's trying to sell, shouldn't be afraid of this and this and this and this. They're afraid of the wrong things.

They should be afraid of this and this and this and this. And I thought you're doing the same thing that you're blaming the people that are programming us to be afraid of doing. You're just saying it should have another name and you're not telling people how to get free of fear. The way to see through fear when you discover one is to ask yourself, ask God to show you what is the idea behind this fear rooted in self reliance that I can do something about this fear without God and the fear can disappear. How many times have you heard in this program, fear and faith can't exist in the same place.

What a trick the what a trick that one is. Fear and faith better be in the same place when I really need it is when I'm afraid. God is there. I think sometimes negative emotions are not only negative. They're really helpful and we have a bad attitude about them in AA.

You know sometimes for new people, fear gets a bad rap when it's actually a reflection of your becoming human. My God. You haven't been afraid of anything in years and all of a sudden you're 6 months sober and you're able to say, I'm afraid. Could that possibly be a reflection that you care? Fear and shame get a bad name in LA and they tell newcomers you shouldn't be afraid or ashamed.

People like that. That's so it's called a sociopath. No conscience. I saw this movie with Deborah Ringer and Anthony Hopkins and, she's dying of cancer And he's just riddled with pain. And she pulled him out of it by one simple thing.

She said to him, don't you see that your pain is a reflection of how much you love me? And it's just the other side of the love that you have for me? Next time somebody gets really angry at you and you have the nerve to do this and they get in your face and they're really angry, look at them and say, wow. You must be really afraid. You'll either get your ass kicked or they'll get free, but one way or the other.

Because we all know, and that's the easy one to see. It's so easy to see in your first resentment inventory that underneath every resentment, you're really afraid. Wow. I thought I was a tough guy in the penitentiary. I was a scared kid.

But here's the tricky one. If if resentment is a mask to hide fear, what is fear a mask to hide? Fear is a mask to hide agnosticism and self reliance. And our book says it. It's a conscious decision.

It should be classed with stealing. Didn't we ourselves set the ball rolling? And fear is because self reliance fails. Fear is always rooted in self reliance. Fear is always rooted in self reliance.