Steps 3 5 in a workshop called "Catch the buzz with the steps" in New York, NY

Any questions so far? How could there be? Sure. I don't know. Ask it basket.

That's what we need. We have one. No one has any questions so far? Yes, ma'am. Hi, Amanda.

The question is, who gives a hoot, what kind of alcoholic we are, why should we have to fit into any particular category? Excellent question. Seconded by this woman over here. Yes. And I agree with you.

You know, all that stuff is in the beginning, I think, is people could say, oh, well, I identify with that or identify with that a little bit or identify with that. And it just allows you to move on. You know, you'll hear people in meetings say, hi, my name is, you know, Bob. I'm a real alcoholic. Or, you know, I mean, as opposed to the rest of us, you know, who thought AA sounded like fun.

We're just coming. You know? Alcoholic. You know, I agree with you. We never well, we can't point to anybody else and say, you know, I'm an alcoholic and well, actually, in a meeting I did here one time.

This is one of the greatest things I ever saw in an AA meeting. I was at my home group on a Monday night, and they asked for anybody that's new, just stand and give us your name and the nature of your disease so we can get to know you better at the break. Right? And it might mean we actually do that. Right?

And this guy gets anybody new? And this can goes up and this guy stands up, my name is Claude and I'm an alcoholic. And he goes, and so is that guy over there And sits back down. Right? I thought that was the greatest thing I ever said.

You know, he's right. That guy is. I've heard him say it before. I love that stuff. Right?

Yeah. It's just it's just stuff that you can go, yeah. Well, that's me. Carry on. You know, I'm an alcoholic.

Who identifies me as an alcoholic is me. Nobody else. You, nobody else. You know, what we identify with, how we come to that, you know, is how we come to that. A lot of us knew it before we got here.

It's amazing for me, because I'm a I'm a low bottom, damn near dead drunk when I got here. I got here and went, yep, that's me, yep, that's me, yep, that's me, yep, that's me, yep, that's you know what I mean? There's no question. That this is where they need to be. It must have something to do with the amount of education that's gone on in the in our communities over the last 25 years that they find their way in here.

Or they got the nudge from the judge, you know what I mean, or a family member's forced a man, or, you know, they're they're here under threat of some terrible event. No. You know? And they go through this process and discover that they are. You know?

It's just it's just amazing to me to watch that happen. I love watching that happen. It happened to a guy I'm sponsoring right now. Let's see. He's got to have about 57 days now.

Yeah, 57 days. He's very funny too. We read a meeting. He had the last meeting I was at with him, he had 51 days, and there was a guy who'd shared right before him who had, 41 days. So he had 10 days more than this guy.

So the guy is sharing about, you know, his plight as a recovering alcoholic at 41 days, right? And the guy is going through a lot. And my guy raises his hand, you know, Dave, alcoholic. And he looks at the other guy and he goes: and I got 51 days. And brother, I gotta tell you, I've been there.

Yeah, last week. You were there. Oh, God. We're classic, aren't we? So did I help with the question?

Thank you. We are right over here? Alright. Any more questions? We've covered so much already.

Alright. Step 3, made a decision, right, to turn my will and my life over the care of God. I mean, to keep this one simple, for me, some people have apparently have no problem with this step. They come in with a with a significant spiritual life in place. It's odd that the normie thinks, how can you be an alcoholic and have a have a spiritual life at the same time?

Easy. You have a profound faith in God and you drink uncontrollably. That's how you do that. That's how that happens. But the third step for me, was very scary.

This was a very scary step, because I knew going into this process that my life was on the line. I knew that I was in the last house on the block. I knew that if this didn't work for me, I was a dead man. I knew that there wasn't another there wasn't another game that I was going to get in that was going to help me with this. This was going to have to work or I was screwed.

Because I was so angry at God when I got here, what the 3rd step meant to me was: Was I going to become willing to turn my will and my life over the care of a God I was incredibly angry at? Was I willing to turn my will and my life over the care of a God I saw as an unjust and unforgiving god? Was I willing to turn my will and my life over the care of a god I may or may not understand, I may or may not believe in, that this is all up for grabs, this unseen, unknown, untouchable presence, this this, experience where I had yet to meet the individual who could tell me about the face of god. I didn't this was a really an alarming leap into the abyss, if you will, for somebody like me. The beauty of this thing, though, is that on the one side, I had my experience of 16 years of chronic alcoholism and drug abuse, and on this end I had a bad relationship, I jumped.

I pulled the trigger. I got down on my knees and to the best of my ability, turned my will and my life over to the care of a God I did not understand. That was the best I could do. The best I could do is, I don't understand if this God thing if this is what I must seek to relieve me of these problems, how can this be the same God that I've had these other right? There was so much self there was so much self inflicted upon this relationship.

There was so much willful behavior inflicted upon this relationship. There was so much dogma in my head that I was inflicting this relationship with, that I couldn't see it for what it was. It was so befuddled and enmeshed. I couldn't just let it be what it was. So I did this.

I turned my will and my life over the by getting on my knees and saying the 3rd step prayer and getting back up. And how that felt was, and I felt it was spooky. Right? I mean, what I basically felt was that my life is on the line, I just took a pair of dice, and I don't even know what the game is we're playing. And I threw them out on the board.

Having no idea what to expect, that was the leap of faith. Right? In spite of my own experiences, I must go this way. In spite of my own crippled belief system, I must go this way. Those who have what I want are saying, Go this way.

See, that's the amazing thing about Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sitting around in meetings and there's guys like the late Fred Ellis in these meetings. And this man would talk, and I believe everything that man said. If I stood next to him, if I felt like I'd taken 20 milligrams of Valium, I'd just Nice. Fred makes me feel good.

Now, I was too afraid to talk to Fred. Right? So at the Thursday night beginners workshop in Brentwood, California, Fred was always there. At the end of the meeting, Fred would stand up like right over here by the podium, and guys would come up and talk to Fred. Guys he sponsored would check-in with him and ask questions and Fred would share his experience, strength and hope with him.

And I would stand behind Fred and burglarize their conversation. Right? I did this for many, many weeks. And then one day, Fred was talking to these guys and all of a sudden Fred turned around and went, Hi, Earl. How are you?

He stuck out his hand and I went paralyzed. My God. He knows my name. You know, which was entirely too close a relationship for me. An early surprise.

Right? And there he was. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Gotta go now. You know, run home. Pace. Jesus Christ. Red knows my name.

So I did this step. It felt like you know when you get on the roller coaster and you're going up the thing and it's going click click click click click click click click click click click. The third step is where you feel the you hear the click and stop. It's like, well, buckle your seat belt. Here we go.

You're on the ride now, pal. And that's how it felt to me. It felt to me because as soon as I did it, it felt a little spooky. It felt like, wow, man. I really did that.

I did that as well as I could do it at that time. And I got back in my seat in the book. And basically, the book says at that point, we hope you're serious about what you just did. Like, oh, now you tell me. Couldn't you have said, you better be serious before you do this.

Right? I coulda hovered right there at the brink of 3 for several years, having heard that. But he said, we hope you were serious about what you did because, see, now we have to embark upon a plan of rigorous action, right? Or this is all just a conversation. A lot of guys sitting around in the bars, going, You know, that third step is a bitch.

Anybody in here ever heard of a guy named Mike Ross? It's apparent I need to tell you about Mike Ross. Now, one hand went up. Mike Ross was bigger than life in every respect, big man. I think when I got sober, Fred, Mike must have had, I don't know, you know, like 1100 years of sobriety.

He'd been sober forever. He was this old guy, gruff, gruff man. And we used to love the guy. My my friend Christopher time in you. I mean, he's just this hard edged guy.

Right? But what we love we didn't care. You know what I mean? What we loved about the guy was what he shared in meetings and the way he would say good night. Because, I mean, every every time you you see Mike and he'd be walking off towards the door to to, to leave and we have we'd be behind him and we'd go, 'Good night, Mike!' And Mike would think that a friend of his was calling out to me, and Mike would turn around to us and say, goodbye to a friend of ours.

He'd just dismiss us. You're not even worth saying than I do. You know, we only had like 8 years, you know. The guy was hysterical but he saved my life more than one time. We would be sitting in a step study.

I remember going to this one step study, brand new. And I mean, my head's on fire. I'm in flames. Just nobody can see it. You know what I mean?

I'm walking in a meeting, and I'm you get a signal in the AC. I'm gonna sit in the seat, and I said, we're gonna talk about this step. We're gonna talk about this step. Okay. Good.

Good. Good. Good. Apparently, steps are a big thing. We'll talk about steps.

4 step. 4 step. I've done that yet. Let's hear all about it. Great.

Great. Great. Great. I just, you know, sit in a meeting, I'm like, out of my mind, but, you know, people are walking up and going, how you doing? Fine.

How you doing? Fine. My newcomer mantra, you know, how you doing? Fine. Fine.

You know, in in my head, you're think I'm thinking things like, you're not being attacked. You're not being attacked. He just said, hello. You're not being attacked. Mayday, mayday person coming at me.

Dicey in my head. And I'm sitting down and a guy shares about the 4 steps, talks about the 4 steps. Great length, great detail, minutia. Just, I mean, just, God, could there be any more about this step? It's brilliant.

I remember thinking, gotta get the guy's number. Fabulous. Fabulous. Broke the step down. What more could I need to know?

Next guy raises his hand. It goes on for 5 minutes about the 4th step. Just fabulous. It's just unbelievable. Couldn't be less like what the last guy talked about, but delightful, very entertaining, great stuff.

Thinking, okay. Alright. We got 2 we got 2 ways to do this now. By the 5th guy, you know, I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, I don't need to buy a new gun because I'm only gonna use it once. Yeah.

I'm ready. This is it. I can't do this. And all of a sudden, in the back, a big mitt goes up in the air and the guy calls and I hear, Mike, alcoholic. Here comes Mike Ross.

Right? And he goes like this, and I go, jeez, maybe he knows the old guy. And I see this go up. It goes like this. I gotta ask, has anybody in here read this?

And I just went, thank God for this guy. Right? And he just basically says, when you do your 4th step is when you're done with the 3rd. I got that. That sounds good to me.

He made it very clear. When when should I do my 4th step? Did you do the 3rd? Yep. Get on it.

Make a list. Make a list. Oh, okay. Okay. The guy just had a way of it's just don't wanna go round and round and round.

Wanna move. Wanna move. Wanna carry through this process. Because here's the thing about this whole thing. You are not gonna get this right, according to Mike, in your first pass.

This isn't about getting it right. This is about getting it, doing it, having an experience as a result of the process. The cool part about the steps is you don't you're not it's like, okay, does everyone in here recognize that, you're allowed to do the steps once? We don't allow you to do it any more than one time. See, you better get it right the first time.

If you don't, you're screwed. You know, you will be relegated to the half measures room. And there you must stay until one day, mercifully, you just drink. Now if I do the steps to the best of my ability, I'm I'm doing something. I'm taking an action.

As a result of the action, an experience comes. As a result of the experience, I change. So then when I come back to step 1, I'm looking at it from a different perspective. It's a new step. Right?

I remember going into a meeting, I was 11 years sober and there's a guy I was meeting this woman at this meeting and we and I go in there. I'm not going to a meeting. I'm gonna meet her. Right? And I slide in and right before the meeting starts and there's one seat, she's got a seat for me, in the front row.

Oh, good. Alright. Now, the front row is 6 feet from the speaker, because it's just a table, you know, a fold down table, and there's the leader and the speaker sitting there. And this guy, Jack, is going to talk on step 1 for 20 minutes. Oh, Christ.

You know, and I'm in the front row and I can't just go, can't hang with you, Jack, and run out the door. You know what I mean? I'm stuck. I'm gonna have to sit and listen. Now, I got 11 year sobriety at this time.

Right? You can't tell me a thing about step 1. I have done step 1. It's done, put it to bed, case closed, 100% done. Step 1.

You're not gonna I don't want this is this is hell. I'm in hell. I gotta listen to this guy go on about step 1. Well, it turns out the guy was Jack Prose, who had 43 years of sobriety at the time. He talked for 20 minutes on step 1 and blew the top of my head off.

He was talking about concepts and ideas and a level of awareness that had never even occurred to me before. Just talking about the steps, just kind of tripping on where he was at with it. Right? And when the meeting was over, I looked at my friend and said she said, well, what step are you on? I went, well, 1.

Apparently, I'm on step 1. And the cool thing about AA is, is that if you hang around here and actually pay attention, that's going to happen all the time All the time. I thought I was very cool with God till a woman I was about 16 years sober, and a woman with two and a half years got up at the podium, started to talk about her relationship with God. Blew my mind. Great.

That's what goes on around here. Different people coming at it from different perspectives and different directions. So if you're thinking about doing the if you do the book, you come up to me at the end of this and go, delightful, very entertaining. However, I do it in a completely different way. Okay.

That's my response. Okay. Good. That means more dialogue. I what I love is people who get up here.

Occasionally, we'll we'll do this sort of stuff and somebody will come up to me and go, Earl, I find your comments on, the process of recovery disturbing. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I think you're killing alcoholics, Earl.

For Christ's sake, you need to do it this way. Here's my workbook that I've developed over the last 8 months. And I'd like you to take this workbook and explore what I've seen is the relationship between god, self, and others. I said, okay. Cool.

And and, Earl, please, for god's sake, just, you know, don't talk in a a anymore until you till you've till you've read my book. Yeah. Alright. Then thanks for sharing that with me. That's lovely.

And I love how pissed off people get about this stuff. It's hysterical to me. I'm stand I'm standing in a room with a bunch of dead people sitting up pretending they're paying attention to me. Right? We're alcoholics and drug addicts and we're arguing over how to develop a relationship with God.

It's like, okay. I can't get too upset about this. Alright? It's just it's crazy. Right?

What we're do we're wrestling with the concept of God here, right, in this third step. I wrestle with the con that's the that's what Israel Israel means one who wrestles with God. Right? And now it does the book it says to me in the portion of chapter 5 that I've heard God knows how many times in 22 years, God couldn't would if he were sought. Doesn't say God couldn't would if he were found.

God couldn't and would if he were sought. Then I must seek God. I'm giving very very specific instructions on how to go about doing that later on in the steps. I'm a seek God. But what I've got to do at first is throw myself at it, to open up my arms and say, I let go, I let God.

I surrender. I can't, God can, I'll let him. God could. Restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession I drink. Now, what what what's interesting is is that these actions the action of these steps where I seek this god, is remarkable to me.

That that it's about my willingness to get the stuff that I place between me and God and a million of my fellows out of the way. I put it there, I get rid of it. I don't ask god to get rid of it. I do it. I don't ask you to do it.

I do it. I do it. I don't stand, sit in my apartment and wait for life to come knock on the door. I must get up and go outside. I had a sponsor, my second sponsor after Donald died, I had a second sponsor for 6 years.

He's a great friend of mine. I love him dearly. Al Ess. He's the guy that gets between those. He's a big meditation guy.

He's very difficult to talk to because he's just being there while you're while you're talking to him. He's a fantastic example. You know, he's a sponsor. You don't do what he says. You just watch him and feel him.

You know what I mean? He's right there. He's just he's an amazing human being. Absolutely amazing. But he said, Earl, if you give your life to God and sit in the closet, what you get is coat hangers.

Right? It took me 6 months to wrap my head around that. It's like, alright. I'll I'll be back when I have any idea what that means. You know?

Donald used to say to me, hero, God comes in shoe leather. Okay. Apparently, God is a shoe salesman. I don't so I get it right that these actions I take to open myself up to this experience of a power greater than myself. I can assure you I do not understand God.

I pray to a God I don't understand. But I do pray to a God that I see the evidence of in my life on a daily basis. On a daily basis. You know, it's there if I want it. That's that's a lot of what the big buzz is for me.

These sudden realizations that if I just stand still and feel the life that is around me, that there's something quite remarkable going on all the time. That's the cool thing, man. It's better than any drug I ever took. I took so much LSD that I was classified legally insane by the military. Right?

And this buzz is better. You know? This buzz is better. You know? I've done enough heroin in 1 night sitting around, you know, just checking my pulse.

Yeah. There it goes again. I've slowed it way down. I drank enough alcohol to come to in different cities. Right?

No buzz better than that the clarity of being completely present in a moment and feeling the presence of God. That's an amazing, an amazing, amazing event. And this is the only way that that's available. How I begin that process is by being willing to turn my will and life over the care of God as I understand him or don't understand him, to get out on my knees and say the 3rd step prayer. If you and I mean literally get down on my knees, not figuratively speaking.

For me, literally. I literally get down on my knees and say that prayer. The reason I do that is it's I I gotta humble myself. Humility is the willingness to learn for me. And I I have to present myself willingly.

And that way, I know for a fact there's no mistaking. I can't say, well, I feel willing as I stand there with my chest out. But if I'm willing to get out on my knees and just do it from a position I'm not being submissive. I'm relinquishing power. I'm relinquishing control.

Come on. I'm here. I'm willing. If I ask, I will come. That's what the book says.

I have to ask. I gotta ask. So I do. So That's step 3 for me. Nice and simple.

Easy. It's about the experience of it. It's about gathering an experience. It's about creating an opportunity for a deeper and more meaningful experience. That's what it is.

Step 4, I just pulled the trigger in step 3. Boom. I'm in. The ride stopped clicking. Here we go.

Right? It says I must immediately I get up from step 3 and I embark upon a plan of action immediately. What's the action plan? For me? 4 through 9.

4 through 9. 4 and 5 is me. 6 and 7 is god. 8 and 9 is you. Nobody else to play with.

That's everybody. We're all covered. What do I do in 4? Well, according to this according to this, I do a resentment inventory, a fear inventory, and a sex inventory. Why do I do it on those three things?

Because if you want to see where I can leave the playing field, those are 3 pretty good areas to take a look at. We're gonna see a pattern develop here that that a blind man could see. Alright? Then that's why I do it, and I just do it out of the book. I do a resentment inventory.

Right? I do it in 4 columns. There are those that will tell you it's 3 columns. There are those that will tell you, you need there's 4 columns, but 3 of the columns are broken down into 4 specific areas. There are others that will tell you that there are 2 columns that are broken down into 1 into 3 areas and 1 into 2.

There's another that will say we do it in black and white, so when you do your 4th column, we suggest you use these four things and write a sentence detailing specifically how those things have come into being. To all of this I say, okay. Sure. Whatever floats your boat. Whatever you can look at and go, well, you know, that makes sense to me.

I can see that. Great. Then dive into that. Just do it. Just do it.

First inventory I did, I went to my sponsor who was not a big book guy. Donald wasn't a big book guy. He used to rant and rave at us. He called us little book thumpers. They're little book thumpers.

He goes before there was a book, there was 1 alcoholic down in the dirt sharing his experience, strength, and hope with another alcoholic. Well, that's true. We're going back to the book now. And you would get into the book. And in my first inventory, I said, what do you want me to do?

He said, get rid of the garbage. Sir, I wrote 27 pages of garbage and told him about it. And I got my first direction from my sponsor. And, hey, my first direction was we don't kill people here one day at a time, which I thought was very reasonable, doable, one just one day at a time, just today. And, and I haven't killed anybody one day at a time.

I was actually planning a murder when I came to AA. So he felt compelled to tell me immediately. We don't do that. Yeah. My best thinking again.

So I do a resentment inventory. I make a list of and it it talks about it in the book. I mean, if you guys want me to, I can waste a lot of time up here, put my glasses on and read it to you, exactly what it says and why you do it that way. But I'm figuring these are readily available. You know?

These are readily available. You wanna see precisely how it is in here? Go here and look read it. What I'm telling you is what I did was I went for 1 year. And when I finally did an inventory that was out of this book, that's when things changed for me.

The getting rid of the garbage was great. It made it possible for me to take action that suggested I was making a commitment to being here. That was a value. Doing it completely different than the book told me to do it was a value. Absolutely a value.

I think what that did was it allowed me to then feel like I'd earned the seat I was sitting in. In AA that I was an active member. I wrote written 27 pages of this stuff and write down on paper. I was doing something in support of my own life, in support of my own recovery. I wasn't acknowledging that this was my problem.

I wasn't acknowledging that this was my solution. I wasn't quietly slipping off the couch to my knees saying the 3rd step prayer and popping back up. I was actually at the direction of another human being, my sponsor, writing down all my secrets, all the stuff I was going to my grave with. It was really, really valuable. Did it change my life?

Yeah. Did doing out of the book have a more profound effect on my life than that? Yeah. Much more so. Much more so because I was able in this inventory out of the book to see the pattern of behavior in my life.

When I looked at my inventory, when I looked at my side of the street, when I looked at how resentment, fear, my sexual behavior was isolating me in the world. When when you looked at my whole inventory, I saw one word, powerlessness. A powerlessness to be effective in the world, powerlessness in terms of my own individual well-being, powerlessness in terms of my relationships with other people, that I was in fact a self centered frightened man, and that this was ruling my life. In my sexual relationships, I was either completely in control or totally unavailable. Right?

Never in the middle, never an equal participant, unable completely unable to do that. My relationship with God, I already told you about that, and that wasn't doing so well. Relationship with self, filled with self loathing. All of my relationships were just in the trash can. This was a painful experience.

I listed my resentments. I listed the individuals that I resented. I listed the institutions that I resented. I listed the principles that I had great objection to. You know, loving and being loved, being on time, being accountable for my actions.

Hated all that stuff. And when I did my when I got to this enough, I realized I just got out my address book, Because it basically got down to because the question I ask myself when doing an inventory is, how free do you want to be? How free do you want to be? When that thing goes by and you go, well, not really. Right?

Well, if it floated by, write it down. We can discuss it later whether or not it's pertinent. Right? And people always ask me, Earl, can you have a resentment in your life that you have no part in? And my answer to that is, probably.

There weren't any in mine, But I have actually sponsored a couple of guys that had some things listed in there and it was there was they had no part in it. Right? They had no part in it. There are circumstances that can occur in life that can cause you great deep seated resentment that you have no part in. Yeah.

I've actually seen it, and I'll be happy to discuss with anybody one of these breaks that we have along the way for you smokers, of which I am now a proud non member of that group. Yeah. The smokers. Now, here's the smokers. Anyway, so you do the inventory.

Right? I list my my resentments. I resent my father. Column 2, why do I resent him? What's my specific resentment against my father?

Well, I got 54 resentments against my father. Right? 54. Listen, 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d are 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1 157. 1 dash 57.

I got 57 resentments against my father, specifically. What areas in my life were affected by this? I use the 7 things that I always taught to come up in the book. Affects my personal relations, sexual relations, pride, self esteem, security, ambition, and pocketbook. Yeah, that's them.

Right? I list any or all of those that are affected as a result of this specific relationship. What's my part in it? List 4 things in the book: selfish dishonor, self seeking pride, and what are these things that aren't in the book? Where and specifically, how did this come about in my life?

Next. Now, other guys break it down way more than that. One other guy that I hold in high regard, adore him, has now come to the belief that there is no 4th column, that it's a 3 column inventory. I have yet to discuss this with him. I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

But I'm willing to listen. I'm not going to reject it out of hand. Fine. You got another way of doing it? Let's hear it.

If it works for me, I'll give it a shot because this isn't about this way. It's about doing it. It's about getting this stuff down on paper and being relieved of this. This is the stuff that I put between you and me and you and me and God. I get out my phone book, because basically I realized at one point, my address book, if I knew you well enough to put your name and phone number in my address book, at some point you had frightened me.

And if you frightened me, you piss me off. You frighten me, I resent you. Right? Now, early on, all you had to do to frighten me was walk up and say, How's it going? Well, what the hell are you asking me that for?

How the hell am I supposed to know what's going on? I don't know what's going on. And clearly, you don't either or you wouldn't be asking me. I hate you. This is all entirely too much work talking to you.

I don't want write them down. I had Thomas Jefferson on my inventory. You mean, have you ever read this guy's life story? The stuff that he did? Who could live up to this?

Hated that man. Institutions, groups of people see, this is and what you write down, it doesn't have to look good. You don't have to say, oh, you know, I don't really like that I feel that way. Write it down. That's your best way out of it.

Right? You may discover that you're a bigot, a racist, a liar, a thief. You may discover that you're all of them and that you don't like that about you. Maybe those lessons your daddy taught you are not lessons you should have embraced or cared to embrace. And you've gotten to a point where to be who you really are, which is not a racist, not a bigot, not a thief, not a liar, that you can that that the the ills of your father, that you can say, no, this is not who I am.

I disagree with this, that you can get to a place in order to save your own life, where you can make your own father wrong. Not easy to do for a lot of us, but we get there in this process. If we write it down and see the pattern of your own life, see it right there. I resent this stuff, right? Fear inventory what am I afraid of?

Fear fear of flying. Why? Because I crashed. Right? It's not a not a what do they call it when it's just it's not a phobia.

Thank you. He gets an extra bagel. It's not a phobia. It's based on my experience, right, that I'm afraid of flying, Right? Why am I afraid of crash?

And then move through your inventory, move through. Basically, what I've discovered is I'm afraid of 2 things. I'm afraid of rejection and I'm afraid of abandonment. That's what I'm afraid of. Pretty much every fear I've got, you can put under one category or the other.

Right? In the 12 and 12, in the 7th step, right, second to last page, it says self centered fear is the chief activator of all my defects of character. Either I'm not going to get something I want or I'm going to lose something I already have, rejection of abandonment. And it gets real, real simple, so that when I'm functioning in my life, I don't have this blanket, vague, unexamined wall of fear that I can throw up in the world. You You know what I mean?

So when you walk up to me and suddenly you're confronting me, Earl, I hate your discussion about step 3. Wall of fear. Now lob things over the wall until this person goes away. Yeah. Well, I don't like your clothes.

I don't like your discussion on step 4. I hate you. I don't like you either. Screw you. Make them go away.

Scaring me. Then the person goes away. But if I recognize all I'm afraid of is is is fear I have a fear of not getting what I want or losing to my own, I'm afraid of 2 things. Right? So you come up and you scare me, and I throw up my wall of fear, and I just go, Well, it didn't work.

I gotta take a deep breath and go, what am I afraid of here? I'm afraid I'm not going to get something I want to be accepted by you or I'm going to lose something I already have or reason for being here. Or just fill in your own blank, whatever it may be. What works for you? Right?

And it's just silly. And then so then you say, you know, I don't like your thing on step 3. And I go, well, you know what? Let me take you back to the room back there. There's a whole bunch of tapes and stuff of other guys back there, some of whom I think are really good at talking about the book.

Maybe one of them has got a way of breaking down step 3 or step 4 that you like. May I suggest Joe and Charlie? Right? It's got nothing to do with me. You don't like it?

Okay. Fine. I personally delight in the way I do this. Find your own way. Find your own way.

This is just one little glimpse of it. I don't have this thing wrapped up. I I'll come back here next year, sit down and go. Remember that dust time I was out here? You got a tape of that last one?

Burn it. We got a whole new way of doing it. What would that mean? Would that mean that I was wrong today? No.

No. Would mean that I've continued to explore the process. I have another way of communicating it. I have a different experience of it now, which requires yet another way of communicating it. So you just find your way through.

Some of you are going to become big Joe and Charlie fans. Those are going to be your guys. So that guy and that guy and that guy? Crap. Then you're gonna pick out a Joe h guy.

The rest of us are peasants. Find your own way. It's all good because what you are, if you're prescribing to a particular path is, is that you're saying, I'm an alcoholic and I seek this thing. I seek this process. I seek this unfolding in my own life.

And that's what it's about. So that's all we're doing here today is wrestling with it this way today. Alright? So I do these 4 column inventories on resentment, fear, and sex. Right?

Now, in step 5, I'm supposed to reveal these before God to another human being. I'm supposed to sit down with somebody and get it out. I would suggest doing that. Really, it's not that deep. Do you know what I mean?

What you have to do, the specific way you go about it. The book will suggest the 12 and 12 will suggest, it will the book will suggest this is how you go about it. Right? You sit down with somebody, the the 12 and 12 bill talks about all kinds of stuff in the 4 step. He talks about only thing in the 12 and 12 I disagree on, that's just me.

I actually disagree with something he says. He says, well, if you got a bunch of really, really heavy stuff and you read most of it to your sponsor and then you go to another person, there's one paragraph, and talk about the rest of it with somebody else. I don't go for that personally. I'm I was so good at compartmentalizing my life when I was out there. That was one of my major problems, was that nobody knew the whole story.

This guy knows a little bit, she knows a little bit, that guy knows a little bit, she knows a little bit, but nobody knows Earl really. Nobody knows the whole deal. And there's pieces in each of those compartments that say an awful lot about who I am. So I had to find me that's just me I had to find a place where I could give it all up, all of it, in one place. So that's what I did, before God to another human being.

And I sat down and I laid out my 4 columns in resentment inventory and I did it in columns, right, and I read it in rows. Right? I wrote my resentment list until it was done, then I went to column 2 and answered the stuff in column 2. When that was done, I went to column 3. When I read it to the individual that I read it to, I read it across in the rows.

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, till 11 was done, then I went to 2 and I read across. And that way and that was how it it became a completely different document doing it that way. Instead of just this way, all of a sudden, I'm doing it in another way and this incredible pattern of behavior in my life is revealed to me. Right? When I saw so that was the 5th step.

It's 5th I sat down and I did it. Was I happy about this? No. Was it a comfortable experience for me? Absolutely not.

Did I have a lot of discussion with my sponsor as I was reading it to him? No. Anything that was said in that meeting, other than what I had written down, was conversation that he introduced. My job was to show up and read what I had written, not offer further explanation, not gonna read what was written, not not an occasional preemptive strike where I would sit and go, now this next one. Let me discuss this next one with you.