Step workshop in Slidell, LA

I'm the one that hears the siren and hangs on to see what's going on. Found power in sex. Discovered girls and found it was even better. It's a power source. It gives me the sense of accomplishment, ease, comfort, Stress is gone.

It just it does what I'm looking for. It gives me the sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a couple of drinks, but early on there's other sources. I found power in money. There's great power in money if you know how to do it. I got a problem.

There's only one reason to have money. Spend it. There's very little power in spending it. You got to manipulate it. I found power in, been sick.

When I was 6 years old, I had scarlet fever. Temperatures that actually put me in comas off and on for several days. I still have a clear memory of waking up several times and having heard my folks talking. There was another guy in our house. He happened to be there when the doctor diagnosed me and quarantined the house, so he couldn't leave.

They had to burn everything I touched. I was being cared for and looked after like you couldn't believe. I was really when I was there, I was really getting taken care of, but the whole idea that they had to burn my plates and, stuff I touched and this man couldn't leave because I was sick. I found power in being sick so long over the years periodically, I did sick pretty well when when things got tough. There's power in it.

Did you ever do that? Because I'm a word mechanic, one day just for the hell of it I broke the word and it's 2 component parts, powerless. It had one of those fun little games that your head will play with you. I have less power than I need. Bingo.

The lights went on. If I have less power than I'm going to need to accomplish any task, I might as well have none at all. So I suggest to people don't be afraid to let your mind go play a little bit as long as you have the foundation solid. It'll fit every possible thing you can bring to it if it's the truth. I'm still a power seeker.

This is all about seeking power. There's no other reason for this. It tells us in this book, its main object is to help you find a power greater than yourself that will solve your problem. This is about power seeking. I don't pretend for a minute, it's not.

If you don't find the power, you're dead because I can't keep you sober and this group can't keep you sober. And AA can't keep you sober. If it could, we would have so many people drink after coming here. Reading a big book won't keep me sober. I know people who drink and read the big book.

I know people who read the big book and drink. By itself, Nothing. Okay. So I'm a power seeker and I have found the power today that I needed to find. I suggest to you on page 45 where it says its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.

It does not say problems. It does not have an s on the end. I only have one problem. It causes me a lot of problems. There's some guides here for not only working the program, but for the future.

And because I have a mind that will not quit, it won't shut down ever. I can put it to sleep and it'll still dream. It just it works all the time. There are very precious moments when I can get it quiet, but boy, they they're hard to come by. I can't think one thought at a time now as a result of cleaning out all the things I was angry with and afraid of and guilty about.

When those things are in my mind, it settles down pretty good, But it is suggested. It says, do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. So through the process, if you're working with me and I just offer it to you, ask yourself what does that mean to me? What does that mean to me? I throw the word of God around here and I don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I can't give you a description. The better my relationship and the more my sense of god's presence has become, the less I can describe to you. But what does that mean to me? What does powerless mean to you? You get to ask yourself that.

It's a wonderful tool along the way to engage that idiot that lives in there and has have to have something to do. Now this is gonna sound schizophrenic, but I love the little monster. There is within my mind a piece of something, call it ego or whatever you will, that has never forgotten anything. It had it's like a computer. It has access to every little thing that's ever happened that I that caught my attention and some things are just on the periphery.

Unlike a computer, it does not collate those things well nor put them together correctly. It just stores information and presents it at odd times. Usually in some garbled fashion. Depends who's operating the stick. Right?

When I get frazzled, I mean, this thing's gotta have something to do, so I let it do all that kind of information storage and sorting and retrieval and all that. It's a busy little thing in there. And I'm reached the age where every now and then I don't remember things, particularly names. The function that produces the labels for people and and other things has been damaged and I don't always get it. And I found out that I can make a request.

We need this information. Would you go get it and bring it back? Sounds goofy, but it works. Then I can get on about my business because I trust the little monster. You go get it and bring it back.

My name or a location or whatever I need. I just have to be patient and wait for it. If I push you, I get the finger. It's like a deep pool and beneath the surface of the water is every piece of information I will ever need about anything. All I have to do is put the request in and it'll float out.

That's another way it occurs sometimes. We'll have to have a quiet mind to do that. If there's a brainstorm going on and the waves are high, it doesn't work. Just some images that along the way have helped me. Serenity is not that floating like a zephyr on the soft sun rear.

I've done that. Good hash will do that. A quarter southern comfort will take you there. Okay. So I used another book I use.

I use the big three volume Webster's dictionary just to kind of locate things, and I found a definition definition of serenity in there that works for me. Clarity of thought. Clarity of thought is serenity. That's what it produces. When I'm thinking clearly, there's peace in my mind.

I'm serene. It's almost like floating like a zephyr on the south some rare. What does the term serenity mean to you? What is the power greater than myself? We went over powers greater than myself one day.

As I sit here right now, I'm I'm almost brought to tears by what Bruce really did for me. He gave me his time. I don't know how much time I've got or how much time anybody's got. It's pretty precious stuff And he gave it to me on a regular basis and helped me wade through the muck of my own mind. That's pretty precious stuff.

We talked about powers greater than myself and they were all negative at that time. He'd draw it out of me. Guards, courts, systems. We talked about all kinds of things that were clearly a power greater than I was. Alcohol.

All kinds of stuff, and it was all negative until I understood that I believed in all kinds of powers greater than myself. There was no great leap for me to say I believe in a power greater than myself. Got all list of them. All I had to do is make a shift that will restore me to sanity. And then the bastard got me again.

I had in mind what I've been doing for 34 years, minutely tracking down moment by moment, year by year to find out when I went insane. That's it. Okay. I said, no. No.

No. We will just assume that you went insane about 2 seconds after birth. Okay. So just forget everything you think you know about anything, particularly about spiritual matters. Well, I rebelled at that.

Surely, I know some truth. He said, it's really doubtful, but it is possible. But I'll tell you something, if you know any truth at all when we're all through, it'll still be the truth. And all the rest of it's garbage anyway. So So just throw it all out together.

Accept the fact that without God, I am nothing. I know nothing. I laugh hard at old Schultz on home and his heroes because he says, I see nothing. I hear nothing. I say nothing.

Yeah. I know nothing. Without God, I am nothing. I am lost. So that's where we we come to.

We're brought to a place on page 47 where it says simply, all we need to do is ask ourselves one question. Do I not believe or am I even willing to believe that there is a power power greater than myself? Isn't that a silly question? What an ego I've got that I even have to ask that question. A quick look around says, of course there is.

Anybody closer to that switch than I am can turn the lights out, but I have to ask myself that question. I saw in Bruce, and I saw in Phil, and I saw in Roy something I wanted. A changed man who were able to not just function, but actually be alive in the presence of death. They lived in cells, but they were free. They were not contained.

They had something I wanted. They told me it was God. I had no idea what that was about, but I was willing. And in my eagerness, instead of pursuing the path that was laid out, I went my old way. I went running back to my cell after I made a decision I want this and and said the 3rd step prayer with all the fervor I could muster.

I meant every word of it. I had a terrible experience because nothing happened. I had put demands on how God was gonna come to me. I'm gonna say the prayer and then I'm going to wait and I'll get a flash of light. The cell door will open, they'll send me home.

I will then acquire a jacket with patches on the elbows, a place on the side of the hill with French doors where the peasants can come by and I can generously dispense wisdom for the rest of my life. God. And nothing happened. Nothing. Terrified me.

I've got to get rid of all my fixed ideas. I have no idea how God's gonna come. I have no idea for sure if he's gonna come. One of my favorite stories I picked up during the doubting, oh, not me. I'm different.

Period. Old farmer out in Nebraska during the drought time came out 6 o'clock in the morning. It was already a 102. And then the milk bottle in the kitchen table was a note from his wife. Said I can't stand it no more.

I'm running off with the milkman. Because out on the porch, and the poor old dog had crawled under the porch that night to get out of the heat goes out and gets on his tractor and heads into this dust bowl he's got to plow. The right rear tire goes poof, the front end falls into a gopher hole, The radiator goes and he looks to the sky and he says, God, oh God, why me? And a voice comes booming back out of nowhere saying, oh, I don't know Ralph, there's just something about you pisses me off. Off.

Well, that's kinda how I felt. It was made clear to me I do not need to understand God, to know about God. I simply needed to become aware that where I was, God was. The presence of God. That's all I need.

Scary place. If the concept of God says he sees everything you do and everything you think. Because I've been thinking some really weird stuff for a long time and doing some pretty weird stuff for a long time. And, that's pretty scary. I'm faced now with the proposition.

Either God is everything or God is nothing. God either is or isn't. What's my choice to be? There's a choice I have to make and it won't matter which one. Isn't that wonderful?

If I choose God as everything, there's nothing to worry about. If I choose God as nothing, there's nothing to worry about. But I've got to make a choice. I gotta quit being wishy washy about this deal. It's all or nothing.

I'm faced with made these guys attractive to me. Well, made clear I'm not looking out here anymore. I gotta look in here. Very frightening. But the promise that I can face and be rid of this stuff is what brought it around.

Let me tell you what I had to had to face and get rid of. And it's high drama stuff, but every one of us has this kind of high drama. I went to the federal penitentiary in 1966 for a failure to pay $96,000 in taxes on a load of marijuana I brought into the United States. That's what the tax was and we didn't pay it. Now that's the surface stuff.

I was hired to do a job because I was insane. These guys had gotten this load of marijuana to Juarez and their courier had been busted for something else. So it was stashed in a hotel and they were all afraid to go get it. They didn't know who might be watching it, but they know they wanted to get it. Somebody said, we'll call pritz.

He'll do it. He's crazy. At this time, I've got 2 little boys When my oldest boy was 2 and a half and his brother was a year old, their mother left. She's also an alcoholic. And we'd been on the road for a while and, they were with me.

Now one of the reasons they thought I was a psychopath is because I demonstrated that I had no conscience. It was clear. They offered me the job and I took it, of course. I didn't take it for money. I took it for the prestige, for self aggrandizement.

It's really prestigious in that particular community to take the kind of risk it took to run-in there and get that stuff out of there and get it back to Albuquerque and dispersed. There was big time ego satisfaction in that. And I took the job and we I'm not an idiot. I made them get it out of the hotel and then take the transfer somewhere else. But I got that across the border because I knew some things about human nature and I had no conscience at that time.

I packed the stuff in an air mattress and then resealed it. And I put dirty diapers on top of that, and then I put my 2 little boys on top of that. And when we hit the border station, I yelled at them so they'd be crying. Because they don't stop you and give you much shit. When the place smells like dirty diapers and the kids are crying, they just want you moving through.

And that's I also had 2 quarts of vodka. But to be able to look at that, the promise that I could get rid of whatever it was that allowed me to do something like that was taken away and the guilt that goes with it left too. I'm today, I am incapable of even considering something like that. But I lived with the fact that I did that. K.

If you've done something to hurt your kids, let me tell you. I know about that and you can be done with it and get on with life. To face and be rid of the things that have been blocking us. God didn't hate me for that. If anything I've ever done should have brought down the wrath of God on me, that should have been it.

No. When I got even worse than that, I was accepted by fallible human beings. They accepted me as I was where I was. And I came to believe partly because I could see these guys are really imperfect. These weren't Boy Scouts.

They weren't even all that cool, spiritually fit. They took me as it was where I was and I thought one day, you know, if they can do that as imperfect as they are, maybe this god you're talking about can do that too. Just little steps forward in making that happen. Okay. There's some lovely stuff in here leading toward the 3rd step, But there's a big piece that I want to share with you because it touched my life deeply.

And little Kim, first time I met her, she was buttoned down. Young girl, she had on combat clothes and combat boots, you know, the camouflage stuff, hat down to here, buttoned down to here, buttoned up to here. This child had been abused by our grandfather when she was 5, and, she was buttoned down. You didn't touch her. You didn't get too close to her.

She was alcoholic, so she was coming. And she asked me a serious question. She said, what could I possibly have done at 5 that would make him do that? What do you mean my troubles are in my own making? So Kim and I talked about it and this is what she gave to you that I'm gonna give to you because we work through that.

She did nothing in 5. Shame on that old man. What a terrible thing to do. That's real. That happened.

Somebody got a horse with him. Okay? The very first time she remembered that it wasn't what really happened after all. It was already changed. 15 years later, what was keeping her button down was memory after memory after memory after memory of something that never ever happened because she talked to somebody else or added to it or taken away from it.

And I remember doing that. That's one of the processes I had. So her troubles, the feelings she had today, the victim and all that, were of her own making. When we let that go, we could look clearly at the fact that that old son of a bitch ought to be horse whipped. But we're told in here one of the ways we look at this thing is to understand that the people who wronged us are perhaps spiritually sick.

I don't want to be owned by the kind of people that do that kind of thing. And if I resent you, you own me. You gotta seek him today. Long flowing black hair. She'll hug you.

She'll tell you she loves you. She still thinks, as I do, that that old son bet you I'll be horse whipped. But he's dead now. So okay. Things happened to me in my life.

I got beaten with a rubber hose when I was 11 for having sex. I should have been given an ice cream cone or a cookie. I carried that for years. Warped a number of other things happens too. Warped me.

Poor old me. And I hung on to for dear life with what kept it hooked in place was, How could an 11 year old possibly have known it was so wrong to have that happen? What a bunch of crap. When I got into the inventory process and looked at it with clear eyes, I may not have known why it was wrong, but we were hiding. I knew it was wrong.

That's all it takes to get free, to be honest with the fact that, yeah, I knew it was wrong. There's no victim in that. Those are some of the things that we're going to face in here. Our troubles we think are basically of our own making. Do you really believe that?

I do. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We mustered to kill us. We could not reduce our self centered as much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.

And then they go on and give us some images. But some wonderful stuff happens here. I think in images. I'm a word mechanic, but I think in images. There's a piece of me that needs a whole picture and it's got to be part of what's going on.

So I'm giving some images. Let's take a look at these images and see if any of them fit us. Okay. First of all, we're going to quit playing God. Why?

Because it didn't work. Not because I want to. Not because cause I think it'd be a better thing to do. It just doesn't work. Next, we decided that here in hereafter in this drama of life, God's going to be the director.

What does that mean to me? I've been asked to do that. What does that mean? Well, let's think of a stage play. There are a few actors that are good directors, but very few.

Most actors are good actors because they have the ability to become character centered. They become the character. And I know a lot of actors and I've done a little. I I don't care what character it is. I know it's going to play better center stage.

Okay? In every case. Do you ever listen to actors? They don't look at parts. They look at how many lines do I have?

How often am I going to be out there where they can see me? We get character centered and so they don't see the whole play very well. We need somebody who can stand back and look at the whole business and put it all together so when it is your turn, you really do shine. Sometimes you only have one line, but it's the pivot line of the whole play. A good director is I'm not a very good director.

I've proven that in my life. Bill gives us that wonderful business about the actor. Read my mail with that one. Okay. If God then is the director okay.

That's an image I can accept. He's not the scorekeeper. Gonna be the director. He's the principal and we're his agents. That was an easy one for me.

I've been a salesman most of my life. The principal decides what the goods are, how much they're gonna sell, and what territory they're gonna sell them in. The agent goes out and does the job. Okay. I can kind of go along with that.

Can you go along with that? I'm not gonna decide anymore what the goods are. When I decide what the goods are, I get in trouble. I bring the wrong goods into the country and don't pay the right taxes on it. You know, even after they sent me to prison, they still wanted that $96,000 in taxes.

Yeah. That federal guy came to me and asked for that and I said, wait a minute. He says, I'm I'm doing my time. Do I still have to pay the taxes? He says, what do you think this is all about?

Boy. And they did that to 5 of us, $96,000 each. I pay my taxes today. I'm not messing with them guys again. He's the father and we are his children.

And at the time I first encountered it, I was really pissed at my dad. And through good sponsorship, I was taken to Hawaii. We just read it in the earlier session. Deep down in each human being is the fundamental idea of God. I know what father is supposed to be, and my dad didn't match up.

And it made me angry with him. Nobody's dad could. It means available 24 hours a day all the time. Full protection. No mistakes.

My god. What I put on my dad. Shame on me because he didn't match up. But I because I knew what it was. I can live with that image.

It's an easy one for me to deal with. If he's the father and we're his children, makes us all Ken, and the relationships are clear. I've got a chance of getting along with you a little bit better for Ken. It's just an image that today I can work with. Maybe you can't.

It doesn't matter. He gives us several of them here. Now he describes another spiritual awakening. Shall we see if we've had it? We're being asked in a few minutes to turn our will on our lives over and surrender to consciously and deliberately I sincerely took such a position, remarkable things followed.

When we sincerely took such a position, remarkable things followed. We had a new employer. Being all powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. K? There's one I can work with.

What do I have to do with my life? Well, each morning, I have to show up and say, okay. Here I am. You're the boss. What do you want me to do?

That's all I have to do. He'll provide everything I need. And I I watched him provide for Bruce, and through Bruce, he'd provide for the group. And for me and for all of us, I can can get on have you had that happen? Do you have a sense that there's a new employer and he's gonna provide everything we need.

Look at this. We got us a room. We got plenty of chairs. Not that comfortable, but we got plenty of them. Provided food.

Provided us all an opportunity this weekend. Do you know we made a 12 step call this weekend? We don't do anything else right. We did that. I know of at least 2 people that have been with us this weekend that are really, really fresh.

And, we did what we were supposed to do, gave him the message. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves. Did that happen to you? As scary as it was for me. For somebody who's totally self centered, if someone may be interested in somebody else, it will frighten them.

My god, if I don't care to me 24 hours a day, who's going to? You may be interesting but I'm far more interesting. We became less and less interested in ourselves and our little plans and designs. More and more, we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. I remember the pain of really believing that nobody'd let me help them, that nobody would let me love them.

It didn't matter that I wasn't loved. I hurt because nobody would let me love them, it seemed. Nobody let me help them, it seemed. But I had nothing to contribute, that I was useless. That's a terrible time.

And I began to see even early on how I can make a contribution to life. If I don't do anything but show up, I have made a contribution to life. I've made the room less empty by just showing up. I know people watch us. I know people watch me.

Before they make a decision to step fully onto this path, they watch me for a while and see if I really do what I said I do in meetings. You know how I know that? I did that. I watched Bruce, and I watched Phil, and I watched those a a guys before I made a decision. I'm not following anybody anywhere ever again.

That's not sure that they're going in the right direction. Yeah. As we felt new power flow in, have you felt any power recently that you didn't know about before? Scary. Yeah.

Tell me about that. It's scary. Aren't we funny? We are power seekers who are terrified when we get to power. Because now we gotta do something with it.

Oh, we're funny. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind and that's taken on a new meaning for me. I used to think that means I will finally have some. I finally realized it means just what it says. I don't know how to enjoy peace of mind.

I don't like it. When it gets quiet, there's something inside my head that says, well, no. We better do something here and stir something up. This is too quiet. There's something wrong here.

Rah Rah Rah Rah. Can you do that on a gene? Yeah. Yeah. I've learned to enjoy peace of mind.

Most of my mornings are absolutely gorgeous because I go into a little room I made for myself, and I sit in an old chair I've been hauling around for, I got, 25 years. I've recovered it, and now it's got a blanket over it. And I just sit there. Nothing special. I sit there and enjoy peace of mind.

Wondrous thing. Have you done that? Have you had any moment in the last year when you just sat still for a minute and it was okay to just sit still for a minute, if you've done that, it's that says here that's a spiritual experience. As we discovered we could face life successfully, not that I always do, but I can. As we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear that today, tomorrow, and the hereafter, we were reborn.

Does that describe anything that you had happened to you? Would you be willing to surrender your entire life from here on forward to whatever it is that can make that happen? Because that's what they're gonna ask us to do next. It's another jumping off place. We're now at step 3.

However you can see God to be, if this happens, I'll give myself up to this. K. A sense of purpose, a sense of direction, a sense of power, just enough. I don't wanna run the universe. I don't even wanna run my house.

I just wanna have that sense that if I'm called on, I can come to the line with it. Okay. I'll be there. Well, if we wanna do that, this is now step 3 and suggest a prayer. Now let me give you a view before we say the prayer.

In spiritual terms, amen is a closure to a prayer, to a conversation with God. Amen. So be it. This is so. It ends this peace.

There is no amen at the end of what we call the 3rd step prayer. The only amen I can come up with is at the end of the 7th step prayer, which is actually the 3rd step prayer with teeth in it. K. So my view is that everything from the word God to the amen at the end of what we call the 7 step prayer is all part of the prayer. It's one prayer.

Prayer will become activity and action. But this this process we're gonna get into from here on is a spiritual process, not an intellectual process. God will help me with that. There will be power to do that. I need the power to even look at my life.

I don't have the honesty or the power to look at it. I'm gonna need some help, and I'm gonna ask for it. Listen to what this says. This this is a cheap shot, this prayer is. God, I offer myself to thee to do with me, and build with me as thou wilt.

In street talk, that means from here on, my life is none of my business. Do with it as you wish. That's a big commitment. Okay. I will go where you want me to go and do where you what you want me to do.

Just tell me. I gotta I gotta tell you something. If you say that, you better mean it because I have been called on since the time I took this prayer to do things that are way beyond me over and over and over. This is one of them. My life is not my business.

My conduct is not like this, but my life is none of my business. I really love this woman. And given my druthers, I'd be home every weekend. We'd lock the door and shut off the phones, but I don't get my druthers. I got to go out and do this stuff.

I had to go to Russia 1 year in November. That's a crappy time to go to Russia. I had a good time. But for 17 I've called her every day we've been married. Like, every day since I met her, except for that 17 days.

That was a hard 17 days. I'm really glad I got to go, but it's because I said this prayer. I am not the kind of person you would send as an emissary to Russia. That's what you did. You know?

You're not too bright. You weren't paying attention. You sent me and 4 of my compatriots, who had no more sense than I do, to tell the Russian government about Alcoholics Anonymous in an attempt to make it possible for it to happen over there. You're not too bright. But we all may had made this commitment, so we went and it just went fine.

We didn't do anything special except walk through there. Build with me and do with me as thou wilt. It strengthened my character to make that trip. It wasn't because I had the character that I made the trip. It strengthened my character to make that trip because I had to do something that I didn't wanna do.

I had to get me completely out of the way because every word we said to the Russians who ask us questions constantly, we had to be very careful of what we said because they would do exactly and respond exactly to what we said. We were at a public meeting in Moscow. A doctor had written a book about AA and was very pro AA, and they were having a public forum, which is customary there. 100 of people, government officials, regular people, big auditorium, critiquing the book. So a second edition would be even better.

And we were introduced as the Americans from Alcoholics Anonymous. And when it was my turn at the microphone, one of them asked me that loaded question. How do you think Alcoholics Anonymous will work in this country? That's really a scary question, or could be. I was here.

You put the words in my mouth, and I heard myself say, I have no idea. I've only been here for 13 days. It would be presumptuous of me to even comment on how it would work. And I started to clap. I became aware of the danger I've been in.

Any other answer would have shut them down. What a glorious thing it is to be led like that. Then I was able to explain to them, well, I don't know. It has worked quite well in a 144 other countries. That's the kind of direction you get if you make this.

But if you make this commitment, that's the kind of stuff you're gonna have to go do. Do you know where we really get it? Someone will come into my life and say to me, I can't stop drinking. How do you do it? And they want to know right now, what do I have to do now to not take a drink right now?

I have to pray about that. Build with me and do with me as thy will. K? Relieve me of the bondage of self and I may better do thy will. That's mean.

It doesn't say relieve me of the bondage of self so that I get to feel better. K. Only so I get to do your will better. Take around the difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. Your power, your love, your way of life.

Don't take away my difficulties so I get to feel better. I've come to believe that what they mean by take away my difficulties, it has nothing to do with this out here. Take it away the difficulty I'm having in being honest, in being thorough, in recognizing you, in recognizing my faults. All those difficulties that I have. Take them away, please.

So that I can sit in this chair and tell everybody in this room that's exactly what it did for me. You'll relieve me of the bondage of self. I became free in a penitentiary. I got out of prison when I was locked up one night. And he took away the difficulty I had being honest, and there's a price I've had to pay for that.

I can never again have I been able to say, I didn't know that. I didn't know that was wrong. I didn't know the truth. I do. I just am too weak to do it sometimes, but I know what's right and what's wrong.

The price to pay for this prayer is that you will know. The truth will set you free, but it'll kick your butt along the way. Uh-huh. K. But it's worth the price.

I had to go my little my baby daughter, to steal my baby daughter, did something one time that really pissed me off. I won't go into the whole story. Jackie remembers it. She and Kelly were having a little argument, and I didn't like the way it was going. And I started to get out of my chair to fix it.

And my and so in my head said, sit down, shut up, leave it be. And I got up anyway. I fixed it and I created more chaos in our house that day. It's I've got the inventory right here. If anybody wants to see it, it was it was a beaut.

Yeah. And I knew the whole time I was doing it, I was being stupid. I knew when it was over what I had to do, and I did that. I had to go back to this poor child and tell her I was wrong. That I still didn't agree with her, but I was wrong.

There's a price to pay. We always talk about the upside of of surrender. There's a downside. You wanna do that? Is that prayer suits you?

It's a meeting. Alright. How would you like to do it? I'm convinced that god doesn't care whether we meet him standing, sitting, laying down, kneeling, whatever. I really don't think god gives a damn.

K? I really enjoy doing group 3rd step prayers. I must tell you one time someone had a seizure, but I think she'd had a seizure anyway. I don't believe it was because of the prayer. So if you're afraid of that, don't worry.

It was the same kind of group as this. If you have a seizure, we'll just make sure you don't bite your tongue. I'm making a joke. I know. But it did happen.

Would you like to say the 3rd step further with me? Because I'm gonna say it and then get on about my business. Okay? God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to deal with me my works. Believe me of the binding soul, that I may better do than I will.

Okay. That was pleasant. My experience with God has always been pleasant. I hope you had a pleasant experience too. Everything we do until we finish up the 7th step because of what we just said is part of this prayer.

Everything you do. Events are gonna occur in my life from this moment on and for until I get through this little housecleaning process. Every bit of it will be applicable to what we call inventory, to housecleaning. Do you like what just happened to you? Yeah.

Just that sense of of presence. That's all there is here. It's not gonna get any better. No great mountaintop stuff. There will be moments of great elation, but this is what it's about.

It's about being still enough for me to hear the voice of God. In my experience, God has never ever yelled at me. Never. It's a very gentle, quiet voice, and I must be still or I won't hear it. When Whether it comes through your mouths or in that special way his of talking within me, I won't hear it unless I'm quiet.

And all the inventory is is an effort to clear away the stuff that's making noise in my head. The resentment, the fear, the guilt, the anger, the self centeredness, the where's mind is cleared up. So See, my mind's quiet. So it says next, we'll launch in, of course, a vigorous action. The first step of which is because this will have a little permanent effect unless we had once followed by a strenuous effort to face many of the things that have been blocked.

We're not gonna write all that inventory tonight. But I can say from my experience, if you do it the way the big book suggests, I'm gonna show you a couple of things I do. You're already inventory experts, so I won't take much time with it. For most people, there's there's 3 formats here. There's a format for resentments.

There's a completely different format to examine fear. There's a completely different format to examine conduct starting with sexual conduct, but it's good for all conduct. There's approximately, roughly for most people, about 8 to 10 hours of actual work involved in the resentment piece. K? Unless you just have to go insane and have 25100 names, in which case find another sponsor.

I ain't listening to that. K. Be thorough, but don't be insane. Mhmm. I had one kid do his fist up, and after 10 straight hours he was like you, Bill.

Kid one of those mice. I was literally dying. He just sucked the juice right out of me. And I said, I'm dying. We gotta quit.

No. No. No. No. Let me get it out of here.

So I climbed up on his bed and went to sleep. I woke up in about 2 hours later. He's still coughing. And he was still coughing. He was still fine.

He was still fine. His tent step. One time I came home, and there was a 10 minute tent step on my answering device. He didn't carry it on the other end. Anyway, I use what I call a check list method simply because it works.

I take it a little of time because this is a delicate area in my mind. It's subject to get deliberately confuse the issue. My ego really will kick in at this point and do its best to create trouble. So I do a little checklist thing, which simply means as we go through the direction book and by the way, to my knowledge, this is the only place where there are specific directions on how to do it. We have a lot of good philosophical books written about this, but this is where the directions are for me.