Step 4 at a Big Book Study in Geneve, Switzerland

Are we all we all back? Yeah. We're all back. Okay. If we're all back, let's get sober.

There's, just just to, quickly talk about what we're gonna be talking about. In the beginning of, of the chapter, there is a solution. It talks about the solution, interestingly enough. We talked about alcoholism. We talked about what's wrong with us.

Now, they're gonna talk about what's how to get well. It says here that having a feeling of well, first of all, it says, we of Alcoholics Anonymous know if thousands of men and women are once just as hopeless as Bill. And with Bill's story, my sponsor says to me with Bill's story, is if you got any doubts as to whether you qualify for being an alcoholic or not, go through Bill's story and underline everywhere that you thought like Bill. And then go back and then underline everywhere that you felt like Bill. And then go back and read it again and underline everywhere that you drank like Bill or used drugs like Bill.

Now, women can do that. Men can do that. A lot of people say we don't like this book because it was written by a man. No. Seriously.

I'm serious. I've had people who don't read this book because it was written by a man, and it says he all the way through. It talks about a male alcoholic all the way through. And there was only one woman sober at this time when they wrote this. There'd been a couple who would come to the rooms and gone out again.

They weren't even sure whether women could be alcoholics at this time when they wrote this book. I mean, we now we know. But anybody can do that looking through Bill's story. I've got to identify. When I go on a 12 step call, I tell I tell I tell them my my story because they need to identify with me, because I have an answer, and they need to identify with me.

Every one of us has worked these 12 steps and had a spiritual awakening has the answer, so they need to identify with us. I don't tell my story in in meetings unless I'm asked to tell my story in meetings. I don't go and tell anybody. I I I share the solution in the meeting. I don't share my story.

My place, my story is on a 12 step call. That's where you need to know how I drank. And it says here that a common peril our common peril is one element in a powerful cement which binds us, this is the fellowship, but that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. That means the same solution.

We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree. Is it your experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that we agree with this solution, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous? The 12 steps, Working the 12 steps to have a spiritual awakening that will solve all our problems. Is that your experience of what happens in contemporary what I call archolists anonymous. Upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action.

We're not very popular, are we not? And that's the experience of people who who work in the book, in the big book Alcoholist Anonymous, is that's that seems to be now I've been sober long enough to have been around when that's happened, and another time and place, I can tell you what I think what I think happened, but I'm one of the people that watched it happen and did nothing. Maybe this is why I meant that. This is the this is the great news that this book carries to all those who suffer from alcoholism. The great news this this carries is, step 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps.

That's the message. There's no other message in our call list. People, there's a great quote, it's not mine, that says for those for those folks that are hiding behind the fact that the 12 steps are only suggestions, they're the only suggestion we got. There is no other suggestions. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to our colleagues and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Just after how it works, we read this out in a lot of meetings, and I I said last night that the way to hide things from people's folks in alcohol is not to read it out at the beginning of the meeting or put it in the big book. Because at the beginning of the meeting, nobody's listening to what's being read. And it gets to be, kinda like a a mantra thing. It gets to be, oh, well, there's the opening. Okay.

Now we start the meeting. And the other thing that that I really I I got I got very very I get very rigid about is that years ago, when I first came to archives anonymous, we actually read from the book what we read at the beginning of the meeting. What a lot of meetings do now for convenience is to print out a sheet, sometimes laminate it and put it on the table. There are newcomers in Alcoholics Anonymous that don't know that how it works comes from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They don't know that it's chapter 5, and that there's 4 chapters before that that explain what's wrong with you.

And it's no good looking at the 12 steps unless you know what's wrong with you. And it takes it out of the book. When I first came to our correspondence, they said you can read anything at the beginning of a meeting as long as it's the first parts of chapter 3, 5, or 11. Now you read the first part of chapter chapter 11. I heard it on my second meeting, and it filled me with so much hope that I wanted this, that I wanted this, I wanted what you had.

Anyway, here we go. We're gonna get sober. We've got to make this decision. The decision we're making in step 3 is to continue with the program, continue with the steps because I've got no idea what god is. But I'm ready.

I'm willing to hand my will and my life over to god. And it says here that that and I use these as questions. The a b's and c's. A, that we're alcoholic and cannot manage our own am I alcoholic? And can I not manage my own life?

Step 1. If I can answer, yes, I am alcoholic, and no, I can't manage my life, I've done step 1. B, that probably no human power can have relieved my alcoholism. That's step 2. I can't do it.

The psychiatrist can't do it. The doctors can't do it. The folks in the call list anonymous can't do it. My sponsor can't even do it. But he can show me how to do it.

Step 2. Here's step 2. See, that God could and would if he was sought, I've got to seek a power. That's step 22. That's step 2 as well.

I don't know what that power is yet, I just know I need it I need it. And then it says there's some requirements before we do this. The first requirement is that we any life run on a self will can hardly be a success. Selfishness, self centeredness, that is the root of my problem, not alcohol. Selfishness, self centeredness.

I was playing God. I wanted everybody to do what I wanted them to do. It says, on this basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody. Was I? See, I was told to make all the statements in here into questions.

Personalize this book. Any statement in here, turn it into a question. Any question in here with a question mark at the end of the sentence, stop. Don't read anymore until you've answered the question. It says here, even though our motives were good, most people try to live by self propulsion.

Everyone is like the actor. Now, it goes on about saying how we're virtuous sometimes. Other times, we're modest and self sacrificing as manipulation. We're talking about manipulation here. If I'm in self, I am gonna manipulate.

And what we're talking about here already, it says here, you see on top of page 61, it says, everybody including yourself would be pleased if everybody did what I wanted them to do. Yeah. And I think you'd be pleased as well if you did what I thought because I got the best ideas, haven't I? And in trying to make these racial act, it may be certain it may be quite virtuous or pretend to be. He may be kind and considerate, patient and generous, even modest and self sacrificing.

On the other hand, if it doesn't work, it can be egotistical, selfish, and dishonest. So I'm gonna show up in various ways in my life. I'm showing up various ways in my life in order to manipulate you to do what I want you to do. I'm already talking about character defects here. They're already beginning to identify up the character defects.

I can get to the end where I can either be self pitying, victim. You're not doing as I want me to do. Or I can be angry or I can be indignant. Now, one of the things that I know about alcoholism, that it looks causal. It looks like I drink because of what other people do, but it's not.

Here's some questions. Who in this room drank when they were deeply unhappy? Okay. A lot of folks are sticking their hands up there. How many, did you did you, drink to celebrate?

Happy. Yeah. Same hands. Drink when you were in a relationship. Drink when you were out of a relationship.

That's the deal. We drink. It doesn't matter what other people do, we drink. Yeah. That's part of the powerlessness.

We're looking for powerlessness. Self centered. It says here on page 62 and it really does it here. So selfish is self centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles driven. When you're driven, you're in slavery too.

Driven has been in slavery too, being driven by. When you're driving a horse, will they drive? Yeah. You've been driven to under the whip of a 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking, self pity, lot of self in there. Most sponsor says, I don't need anything with self in it, including self esteem.

He said, if you want self esteem, do self do, esteemable things. I don't need anything with self in front of it. I start with self in front of it, I mean self, period. It's telling me here that's the root of my trouble. Our troubles we think are basically of our own making.

It ain't the alcohol. It's not them, it's me. It's me. Above everything, we must we alcoholics must get rid of selfishness, we must or it kills us. Seriously?

Dead? Yep. No musts in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's 2 there in 2 sentences. There's 80 some.

I don't know. I've never bothered to count. And there often sees no way of entirely getting rid of self without his, capital letter, his, God's aid. And this is the how and the why of it, bottom of the, the bottom of page 62. There's again, we're still talking about conditions before we take the 3rd step.

It says, 1, first of all, we had to quit playing God. Oh, I've been playing God. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Manipulating people.

It didn't work. No. It certainly didn't. Look where it got me. The second one, next, we decided here in after, hereafter in the drama of life, what god was gonna be our director.

What do directors do? They direct actors. They tell actors what to do, how to how to move around the set and whatever. Yeah. Here's the principle.

We are his agents. The principle Doesn't does whatever whatever is necessary. He is the father weareth his children. Most ideas are simple. Very simple idea of God.

Yet another idea of God. In in the agnostics, it talks about other ideas, another idea of God. We've got to have a really good idea about what we who we're going to hand over or what we're going to hand over here to. It also says, and I missed this for a long time, just underneath on page 63 where it says the 3rd step prayer, it says, we thought well before taking this step. They've already said the prayer, and then they say, we thought well before taking the step.

Did I? The first time, no. But now I know this, I always ask people, are you are you think think please think well before taking the step. Don't just do it. And I'm not particularly I'm not particularly keen on doing it as a group, if you know what I mean.

Like, he must say, okay, let's all say the prayer together. Okay. Now we've taken step 3. I'm not really keen on that. We thought well before taking this step, making sure we're ready.

And this is the reason why they put it afterwards is because this is quite a very strong statement that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to him. I'm gonna abandon myself. That's letting go completely. The old story of a drunk drunk that falls over a cliff and he says he's falling down the cliff, he's grabbing at things. He grabs this one branch and there's a 1,000 feet 300 what?

How about a 1,000 feet? 300 meters that way and 300 meters that way. And he's hanging on to this branch. It's the only branch there, and he said, well, if there's a god, I need help here. Get me out of this one.

And his voice comes up and says, this is God. And he said, well, get me out of here. I'll do anything. And God says, let go the branch. And the drunk says, is there anybody else there?

And about now, some, some people that I sponsor in in AA goes, is there any other course of action that I can take? I don't really wanna abandon myself utterly to this being that I've no idea what it is. But we take and we take the step. If we take the step, at the bottom of the page, and I missed this for a while as well, there's a little word. It says next.

What does next mean? Next means like next, now. K, now. Sit on step 3, now. We launched, They launched, the space shuttle the other day.

Did you watch it? It goes very, very quick, very quickly. Breaks the sound barrier very, very quickly after it takes off. It's launched. Alright?

We're launching into a course of action, vigorous action, it says. Figure and it's this sentence is unbelievable. It's at the bottom of the page, so I missed it. I need to be I only read the middle of the pages. I'm alcoholic.

I skim read. I don't need to read the book? Oh, yeah. Sure. Next, we launched out on the course of vigorous action.

The first step which is a personal housecleaning. Oh, dear. Which many of us had never attempted. You bet. I didn't wanna look at that stuff.

Now our decision is vital. Our decision step 3 decision is vital, life giving. Yeah. What happens when I take step 3 is I gain a little bit more of the grace of whatever has kept me sober enough to do step 3. People talk in Alcoholics Anonymous of a pink cloud.

I talked about a pink cloud. You for coming to their rooms. Oh, wow. Yeah. A bunch of folks all doing the deal.

I've arrived. I'm home. Yeah. I I can really do this. And I get this feeling of it's all gonna be okay.

And people call it the pink cloud, and sometimes I don't know. Is this problem with that is I don't know how long it's gonna last, but this pink cloud, I don't believe it's pink cloud at all. I believe it's the grace of God, that I'm given grace. See, on my last day of drinking, I was I I thought I was dying that night, and I actually said, God help me. And I believe that I was given enough time to call Alcoholics Anonymous, to get in the room, to get somebody start with me on the work, on actually working these steps, that opens up every step I take, opens up a little bit more of the door that I need opening to let the grace in that's gonna keep me sober.

I don't believe it's anything I do keeps me sober. God keeps me sober. What I do puts me closer to what keeps me sober. That's what I believe. And I think that's what the book is talking about as well.

So our decision is vital and crucial. It can have little permanent effect, unless at once. Next. At once. Followed by strenuous effort.

Oh, vigorous, strenuous. To face and be rid of the things which are blocking us. Blocking us, blocking us from the grace, blocking us from the power. I'm blocking me from the power. If the power is to be found deep within me, as it says, where to find it.

I mean, this is great about this book. It says you need a power, tells you where to find it. Deep inside. Not out there. God of the universe far too far away.

In here. Yeah. That's where I find it. Tells me where to find it, and also tells me that that I've got stuff in me that's blocking me off from accessing that power. Liquor was but a symptom.

We had to get down to these causes and conditions, so it isn't my drinking at all, it's my thinking. It ain't my drinking. Now it goes on to say at the bottom that we're spiritually sick. The when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. So this is gonna say that I'm going to have to go on a spiritual path here that if I work the spiritual path It's It's gonna be straightened out for me for me.

Now that for me was a great gift. It means I don't have to do any I I just all I have to do is do one thing, and everything else is gonna get looked after. And as we go along, you'll see. I've got to have this because I don't know how long that initial grace is gonna last. When I'm talking to a sponsor, I don't know how long that initial grace is gonna last for him either.

It might last for years. I I know people who've who've who've stayed sober on that grace and an awful lot of service in Alcoholics Anonymous and no steps. They're very, very busy in AA, and they're going to a lot of meetings, and they're getting temporary relief by sharing their their their their dramas in the meetings, and they've never taken the spiritual step to let the sunlight in. And they're very very busy in AA, AA, and they're staying sober. I meet a guy regularly who's, what's he, 42 42 years sober, and when he leaves the table, you can see the the scratch marks on the table.

I mean, bless him. Bless him. You know, I'm not criticized. Bless him. You know, But there's a better way.

There's a better way. You know? And, this is the way. This is a solution in which we which we all agree. And when they wrote the book, they all agreed on the solution.

The reason why they wrote the book was already before they wrote the book in the 1st 5 years of this fellowship, it was already being changed, because what do we do selfish, self centered, we change it. I changed this because I think I got a better way, and it was already happening. So they wrote it down. So that they actually all looked around and said, what did we do? What did we do?

What did we actually do? And here it is. This is what we actually did. Yeah. And that's why they wrote it down.

Down. So I'm quite happy to follow what they said because my ideas got me into a lot of trouble. Got me drunk. Got me in all sorts of crazy crazy places. There you go.

Okay. I'll pass over to Simon. Thanks, Peter. Go for it. Next we all sat on a course of rigorous action, immediately after the 3rd step prayer.

When I'm working with guys and and they're and they're around at my apartment, I take them through the first three steps, exactly as as we've done here straight out the book. But prior to doing this, I do let them know what any lengths look like. I let them know that once we've got to this stage, the the any lengths that they've they've agreed to when they entered into this sponsorship requirement. 10, 11, 12 is a requirement. And working with others is a requirement, you know, immediately as they're getting through this work.

Obviously, I don't believe you can sponsor anybody unless you've had a spiritual experience as a result of doing this, because then you've got nothing to give away. So we did a 3rd step prayer. Next thing we'd get out is an a 4 pad and a pen. I sit down, and I showed him how to do a 4 step. It's exactly as it's it tells us how to do it on 64 through through 71 here.

When people mention step 4, it it's got sends us into the seething cauldron of debate. And and again, if you're not really talking to a man who's properly armed with the facts about himself or or this book, you will get lots of different ideas and opinions about how to do a 4th step. You know, will I do an extended 5th column? Will I go down the page? Will I go across?

It don't have to do it straight away. Step 4 will take a year. And all of these these different opinions and experiences. Yeah. I just wanna share my experience of step 4, straight out of the book.

That way there's no there's no room for any opinion, or there's no room for, for me to mislead you or tell you a lie based on this. Because I had to get down to causes and conditions, as the book said. Liquor, the cocaine was was was but a symptom. I had to get down the causes and conditions. And he says, this commercial inventory is a fact finding and fact facing process, and all it is is an effort to discover the truth.

So now I'm I'm embarking on a on an exercise to discover the truth with the main the one objective is to disclose the damaged or unsalable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. We did the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. It's an honest look for me to see the truth about my life. Search out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure.

Being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us. We consider its common manifestations. Immediately after that first that third step prayer, we go straight in into into inventory, Looking at all the resentment I have towards people, institutions, and principles. Get them down on paper. 2nd column, page 65.

The cause, why I've got it, what they did. 3rd column, And it gives us a number of options to choose from. Self esteem, security, ambitions, personal or sexual relations, pride, to choose from in that 3rd column. But we're still really only at the first three columns. Step 4 isn't a life story.

Step 4 is an honest effort to find the truth and to look at the resentment I have. I was as definite as this example in the book and most of the guys I work with are because I pass on what's in here to them. Also says that resentment is the number one offender. It destroys us. Kills us.

Resentment. I can give you clear examples of when I've made a decision and gone out and drank all of resentment. It says when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Right? Now the spiritual malady, or if you like untreated alcoholism or untreated drug addiction, explained in the doctor's opinion, this restlessness, irritability, discontentment, and again on page 52.

The problems in personal relationships, being full of fear, the selfishness, feeling of uselessness, pray to misery physically. Now making a list of these, people in the first column, the institutions and the principles, we ask ourselves why, what was affected. But we're still only really in the first three columns. And this is this is about being specific. No.

I don't really need to understand why you've got the resentment because column 4 is gonna tell you exactly why you've got the resentment. Or we don't I don't need any big explanation on really what they did, and it started like this, and then they did this, and then they did that, and this is how I arrived at being resentful. It's just specific. Mister Brown. Why?

Because of that. His attention to my wife affects my and I I write it in. You know, I don't do these these columns and graphs that we do where we tick it and we put dots in it and stuff. I have to see what was affected. The same reason is that I have to write down when we get to page 67.

It tells us to go to the 4th column on page 67. So I need to list everybody that I'm pissed at. What they did and what it affected in me. It says we went back through our lives, nothing accounted but thoroughness and honesty. And my sponsor, Peter, explained to me what resentment means.

And it means re feeling something. Refeeling. I'm thinking about this, and I'm constantly refeeling it. I was specific, and there were some things happened very early in my childhood that when I thought about them, and I think about them at the most bizarre times of the day. But I think about them, and I'd get a knot in my stomach.

I'd clench my fists. I'd kind of grip my teeth a little bit, you know, and I'd start remembering it, and I'd start re feeling it on what they did. That's the stuff that we need to to to put down on paper. I don't really we don't really need to see, pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of repetitive stuff. This is about being specific about the stuff that's really burning you up.

It goes on to some page 66 that would for the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience. Step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening or spiritual experience as a result of these steps, you know, my only hope to recover from this disease was a deep and effective spiritual experience, and it reminds us again what we're aiming at here. We go back to the column. The 4th column. The great thing is the book gives us 4 defects of character to choose from, not 16.

The book gives us 4. Selfish, where was I selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened? Column 4 is really about seeing the truth about myself and that I was always blaming people in columns 12, always. It was my dad because he did this. It was my mom because she did that.

It was the school teacher because of this. And it also says, you know, fancied or real on the previous page. Some of the resentments I had, I didn't know whether they actually happened or not, but I thought they'd happened. It it also tells us on 6667 I'm sorry to jump around a bit, but but how I'm meant to view the people in columns 12. Yeah.

And that I realized that the people that that harmed me were perhaps spiritually sick. Perhaps. Though I didn't like their symptoms in column 2, and the way they disturbed me, in column 3, they, like ourselves, will sit too. So how do I get around that? I've seen you know, I'm looking at columns 1, 2, and 3 again.

It says here there's a prayer here. It says we ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we cheerfully grant a sick friend. We move down. A sick friend. We move down, and we then we look at column 4.

Referring to our list again, which right now contains the first three columns, we put it out of our minds the wrongs others had done. So we put the wrongs others had done on columns 123. We resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened? So a situation had not entirely been our fault, we tried to disregard the other person entirely.

Where were we to blame? And it says here, when we saw our faults, which is selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened, we listed them, which means write them in the 4th column. It says it again. We placed them before us in black and white, which means I need to write in selfish, dishonest, self seeking, and frightened. But with a guy the other night, you know, there was a 100 page 4th step.

A lot of work there. And I I certainly didn't have the time to sit down and and to listen to all of this stuff. And in some in some of the columns 3 and 4 was graphs, was ticks and dots. And there's a lot of effort that's gone into doing something like that, and I can't knock the willingness with that. But this is about being specific.

You know, it's a condensed exercise. Shouldn't take long at all. The 4th step, you know, should not take time. It shouldn't take time to do it once you've done the 3rd step prayer. Put in your pen and following the instructions here in step 4 in the graph.

The definite example that the first 100 have laid out for us is about being specific. And most of the people that I take through this work steps, step 4, recently, these guys are getting it done in about a week. They're being honest, and they're being specific about it. Because they're still blaming people when they're not doing it. And it's easy.

And sometimes we hear in in mainstream AI meetings, especially where we're from, I can't talk about here, but where we're from is, oh, just don't worry about that. Just turn it over. Let go. Let god. Steps 123.

Well, that's fine. But previously, it says that my 3rd step, you know, isn't gonna have any effect unless at once followed by doing this. If we get down to the causes and conditions, that's the first list. Four columns. Who and resentful at, what they did, what it affected in me, what my mistake was.

Write it in. Next, there's 3 parts to step 4, fear inventory. Two columns. We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper even even though we had no resentment in connection with them.

We asked ourselves why we had them. Two columns. What I'm afraid of. Why? List them.

Pen to paper. And then the sex inventory. And I think there's there's sort of 5 5 columns around the sex inventory. And, again, it tells us how to do it on page 69. I will tell you that sex inventory is is nothing to do with the act of sex.

Sex inventory is about looking at how selfish, dishonest, and inconsiderate my behavior towards the opposite sex. And I was just as dishonest, selfish, inconsiderate around my behavior towards the opposite sex as I was with everything else. Yeah. And I had to go back and look at all of my previous relationships. And the great thing is it it tells us how to do this, but at the end of each, resentment, it tells us what we do towards the how we act towards the people that have wronged us.

With all the fear, it tells us what we do once we see it. We ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear. So we see where we're currently burned up and what we're currently suffering from, but it gives us, it shows us at the bottom now what we need to do when we get afraid. Same with the sex inventory.

We review our conduct over the years past. Specific conduct. And we're just looking for your must your mistakes in this. And it goes on to talk about, in this way, we try try to shape a sane and sound ideal for us our future sex life. I had no idea.

No idea what my sane sound ideal was. No idea at all. I had been absolutely self selfish, self seeking, and dishonest with regards to the opposite sex as I was in every other area of my life. No. It was all about me.

If you get it down on paper, we look at it, and we try to shape the same and sound ideal for our future sex life. So we're talking about future sex life now. We subjected each relation to the test. Is this selfish or not? Am I just looking for what I can get out of this situation?

Or or am I looking for a sane sound ideal with the other person's, with the other person in mind. It goes on to say, whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow towards it. We must be willing to make amends where we've done harm, provided that we do not bring around still more harm in doing so. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. And here's a meditation.

We ask god what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it. And then it goes on to give us I think one thing I I will mention, here now is it says, suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble, does this mean we're gonna get drunk? Some people tell us so, but this is only a half truth. It depends on us and our motives.

If we are sorry for what we've done and have the honest desire to let god take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and we would have learned our lesson. If we continue if we are not sorry and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We're not theorizing these are facts about our experience, and that's been my experiences as well. I'll go into that in in the session later on today around the 8th 9th step amends. I was not sorry for what I had done, and my conduct, being in amend, regarding a sexual relationship, was selfish, shall I say, and I got blocked.

I got blocked. The other person was hurt and harmed in an immense process, and the experience I had from then, over the coming weeks was horrendous. And I got blocked off from this power. And all of a sudden I would found myself on the phone to Peter, restless, irritable, discontent. Extremely uncomfortable in my skin.

And and go back to what the book says, it's facts about their experience and was was me too. So to sum up about sex, I have to earnestly pray for the right ideal. And there's a bunch of prayers there around sexual relations. It also says, you know, but we let God be the final judge. And again, within sponsorship, I I don't tell these guys what they need to do about sex.

Their real dependence is upon a power greater than themselves, and to be going to God in in in this area of relationships. I can share my experience, but that's it. You know, it says we we don't we don't wanna be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. And the moment I start being the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct, I'm giving them an opinion about what I think they should do. And I don't even know what I should do.

So what gives me the right to to give you an opinion on what I think you should do? It's arrogant, and it's selfish to the court. I stay out of that. You know? But instead, I point them to the the pages on 69 and 70, starting to get them to develop a prayer life, which I do myself every day.

And I happen to be in a relationship at the moment, and I work very, very closely with the prayers on 6970. I have a daily reprieve as well, you know, and I need to ask daily what I need to do. Please mold my ideals, god. Please help me be patient, tolerant, loving, and kind. It also says at the end here, and I'll just finish on this 4th step a bit before Peter will go into some step 5 stuff.

It says if we've been thorough about our personal inventory, We've written down a lot. We've listed and analyzed our resentments. We've begun to comprehend their futility and their their fatality. Yes. Within the 4th step, people used to say to me, this is this painful exercise.

And once they've done it, they felt so free. And I looked at column 4, and for the first time in my life, I realized that it wasn't their fault. It was all my mistakes. And that's not a very nice feeling. It kind of I felt very very deflated, but at the same time relieved that I knew what the truth was.

Stop blaming people. Very specific. Shouldn't take if you're doing step 4, it shouldn't take you any longer than a week if you work it. If you work it. Yeah.

I think I'm done on that. So, Peter, do you wanna, yep, tie up the loose ends on that? Yeah. There's an awful lot of stuff actually around step step 4. And, bear with me.

I I just wanna kind of hang around there for a little while because there's a lot of stuff. What I what I do, is is generally have a kit. I call it my 4 step kit, and it's a kid's exercise book and a pen. And when a sponsee has taken step, 3, I give him the kit. And I say, you know what this is?

And he says, no. I said, it's a step 4 kit. And and what it is and I'll what's in there? Since we've got it, I've gotta use it. Here's here's the here's the exercise book.

And we open it up at the first double page of the exercise book. And what I do is I draw a line down that one and I draw a line down that one. We've now got 4 columns. And I open up the page the other side and I draw a line down each side. I can open that up a number of times and say, okay.

You got you got, here's your 4 columns. Now in the book, it says as specific as this, it's got 3 columns. Now I don't know why that is, but I've got a feeling that they couldn't print it that way to give it 4 columns. I'm not sure. That was when they first set it up, but the 4th column was on the next page.

Let's look at those first three columns. And they say that that we that we we we have a grudge list, and resentment is recentire, it's based on the Latin recentire, which is to refill. Now we refill. Now and they say people, institutions, and principles. Let's start with the people.

I say to the folks, okay. What's the first one that pops up in your head? How many that are on the page there? There's 4. You got 4.

1, 2, 3, 4 per page. That's all you got, 4 per page. Do 4 per page. Just list them. When you run out, list them.

When you run out, think of it again, list them. When you run out of people, go on to institutions, banks, governments, whatever. When you finish with institutions, go on to principles. I don't know. Feminine equality.

Whatever. You name it. Whatever. Principles like that. Just don't drink and go to meetings.

Just don't drink and go to meetings. Contemporary AA. When you come to the end of that right now okay. Go back. Why do I have resentment against this particular person?

In the book here, it says, mister Brown. I picked up on this some time ago. I heard this some way and it's really great. None of this stuff is original. I listen to a lot of people and I like what a lot of people say, and they say, this guy said you got 19 words.

In mister Brown, there's 19 words. You've got 19 words here to describe what this person why you've got resent no more. Because if I start to explain why, it's gonna give me more resentment. I'm gonna wind down. I'm gonna go run-in a circle.

I'm gonna get more resentment against this person. It's gonna get bigger, and it's gonna get bigger. And I'm gonna get mad as hell. And I go down, and I look at each one. I look at each one, and I've got a little prayer that I picked up as well that's before I start this, it says, God give me the strength and the courage to see what I need to see about myself, and remember what I need to remember, and do what I need to do to complete my 4th step inventory.

Help me see truth. Once I got to that, I now look at the 3rd column. Once I finished, I got I I was actually told to go down in columns. Because if I go across, I stay there. I've gotta be objective about this.

And and I think if I start to stay there, it's gonna start hurting me again. I'm gonna start re feeling it again, whereas if I use it objectively down down the list, I use it objectively. And they give me they say, alongside our grudge list, we set opposite each each each name our injuries. Now these are our injuries. Was it my self esteem that was injured?

Was it my security that was injured? Was it my my security being my bank balance or my financial security? My ambition? My personal or sex relations, or and they slip this one in. I missed it for a long time, but actually in the columns, they got pride written there as well.

Well, if I'm selfish, self centered, then I'm quite prideful and I'm really in my that's what it's what pride means. And then it says says at the bottom of that, that nothing counted counted but thoroughness and honesty. At the beginning of this chapter, in one paragraph, it mentions honesty 3 times. In beginning of chapter 5, we read at the beginning of the meeting. Yeah.

Rarely, we've seen a person follow us thoroughly followed our path. Rarely, we've seen a person thoroughly follow our path, And it talks about honesty, honesty with themselves, rigorous honesty, a way of living that demands rigorous honesty. And if they many many can recover even though they have grave emotional and mental disorders, many can recover if they have the capacity to be honest. And it says down here, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. It's about being honest with me, not honest with you, honest with me.