Workshop titled "The Big Book experience" in Dundee, Scotland

one
my name's Bob their own I'm an alcoholic
would you indulge me at the moment of silence
while I opened with a prayer
lord help me to set aside everything I think I know about you everything I think I know about myself everything I think I know about others and everything I think I know about my own recovery all for a new experience in you lord a new experience in myself a new experience in my fellows in a much needed new experience in my own recovery a man a man ask a basket right here if you have any questions
write them down and we will address them in a little later on today after in about the second bullet right after dinner
there's a bed that that prayer the set aside prayer is a deviation of fleshed out deviation of a very simple prayer that was used by one of my mentors and also wanna Scott guy named don prince who passed away about a year ago the Colorado the man who carried a
tremendous message through an error when the big book was
was lost to within the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous he was one of a half dozen men who capital live in the United States when people were trying to figure out the steps from treatment center guides in the twelve by twelve he was one of the gentleman that kept the big book a lot
and that prayer is very important to me because the thing that I discovered the biggest
baggage that I can carry it to today is all the other stuff I thought worked once before but I need to have an open mind because without an open mind it's hard to have an open spirit
there's an old Chinese
proverb this proverb about the wisdom to know the most important thing you would ever know
and it's a story of this little old wise Chinese farmer who lives on this meager piece of ground that he doesn't even own it sold by this lord and the lord allows him to live there and work hard in the fields and he must tied the certain portion of his crop to the lord for the privilege of working the fields he lives there with his only son and they own one thing and it's their only possession it's a horse
in one day
the horse runs off
and this is written literally at he loses everything he owns in that running off of that horse and his friends and neighbors and family come running over to console him to tell him how terrible this is that he lost everything he owned any the little man just shrugged his shoulders and said I don't know if it's awful
maybe it is maybe it isn't
and they just look at him like you don't even think that's bad you've lost everything you own we just grow so I don't know maybe it is maybe it isn't
couple days later the horse returns right into his corral leading a whole herd of wild horses
and now he's the richest man in the valley and now his friends and family and neighbors come over to celebrate to congratulate him to tell him this is wonderful this is what great this is good you're the richest man in the valley he just shrugs his shoulders and says I don't know if it's good maybe it is maybe it is it is a little bit of Yiddish accent
this is
a couple days later his only son is trying to break one of the wild horses in eastern road and he's let his leg is all mangled up but he can't work can't walk they know his friends and family neighbors come running over to console him to tell him how terrible this is this is bad this is this is often and he shrugs his shoulders since I don't know if it's awful maybe it is maybe it isn't who knows
and they just shake their heads and they think that your only son you don't even think that's bad he just said I don't know maybe it is maybe it isn't
a few days later the Chinese army marched through the valley and they forced all the young men to go and fight in a battle where none of them would survive and they couldn't take the son because of his broken leg
you see the little man is the most important thing he would ever know
the city doesn't know
isn't it the things that I think my ego tells me you're so that of sabotage me over my life
hi the worst thing I would have bet could have ever happened to me would be for me to be end up an alcoholic and end up in Alcoholics Anonymous
end up having to surrender and end up having to work the steps and yet
years later I can tell you with absolute certainty
that I didn't know
did it turned out to be the best thing that's ever happened to me and I have been so wrong about so much in my life
if you have the type of vehicle that you can't stand to be wrong
you're going to have a hard time even for free yeah yeah it's not good to be good if you can't stand to be wrong
because we're going to enter into a process right now we're going to start looking at the exact nature of our wrongs we're gonna start looking to see how wrong I'd been about every judgment I've ever had
Scott thanks Bob I have it was put in mind of a couple of the old sage sayings that I love the the first one is the first rule of holes when you're in one stop digging
that's hard for us and and the other one very similar to the first rule of cavalry and that's when the horse is dead dismount
I go to United this
continued on page sixty three
with the prayer in the second paragraph got offer myself to the it doesn't say give me a little help and I'll take it from here it says take me
I'm literally inviting god into take over my life to build with me we may have to tear down some what's already standing there and I think I think we do newcomers a great disservice if we don't tell them this
you come here and do this thing we're doing your life's going to change and you are not going to like all of the changes and I think you need to know that some things you'd like to keep our probably leaving and they are not coming back and some things that you don't like are coming and they're going to stay
but it's a package deal look at two bowling balls here my well god's will pick one
that's what I'm being asked to do here the fact is that this package is dramatically better than the life that I had before and yet they're still on some days parts of it that I don't like isn't that insane
that that's the one I like doesn't really matter that much if all stop and think about if you're been hearing people for years say it's important for me to be comfortable today I don't believe that what's important is that I don't borrow discomfort from any other day by live only in the state we talk a lot about one day at a time continue with the prayer
to do with me as thou wilt relieve me of the bondage the word bondage means the exact same thing to slavery
really me of the bondage ourself then I better do they will and then the balance of the prayer talks about me helping other people I think they're about thirty references in the big book to me helping other people that's what this is about and then it says we thought well before taking the step in when I get a new man to this point us out want you to think about this
let's don't leap at this give this some thought because we're not messing around here you're going to have major life changes want you to make sure you understand that you invited them in and then it suggests in the next paragraph we do it with someone and I'm more than happy for them to do their third step prayer with anyone they like and me
because I want to be there because it has been my experience generally speaking
somewhere between the beginning of this work on step three and the end of step nine there tends to be a big experience and sometimes we see it madam its metamorphosis it it's right there it's it's from the cocoon to butterfly other times it's a process but if it happens here at this third step prayer in it can I have seen it someone who knows what's going on needs to be there
I have had man unable to get up off their knees from the third step for
they need someone there who knows what's going on and so I and I'm more than happy if them invite someone else but I want to be there no that's just what I do I'm not saying you should that's what I do and then it gives you the invitation to write your own third step prayer
and also in that last paragraph and and I invite them to and I want to tell you this to Bob and I have talked about this we both have permission if you hear us tell a story about someone we know or someone we sponsor we have that person's permission to tell you that story we would not be telling it so go to the bank with that
all right we have permission or not so I have permission to tell you this when I I sponsor a songwriter you can't live in Nashville have twenty years of not sponsor songwriters one of one of the rules actually sponsor more than one but this particular one
when he got to this point I I said you're invited here to write your own third step for if you'd like to he said I'll do that so he he came to us and I want to read it before we get it so I read this beautiful thing that he had written but it left out the part about god being in charge of that being okay with him SO I think it's kind of important that we check the details on these things I have seen some beautiful ones I wish I had a copy of Burke Harlan's he wrote a magnificent thirds that prayer I'd love to see a copy of that again but we got to make sure that we express the whole idea and then we pray the prayer
and I like to tell them as as we finish the prayer that that the discussion rages on our fellowship is to win to do a four step I've heard people say don't do forced up to soon you may drink
I personally never seen that I've seen several thousand wait too late
because if you haven't done one I'm talking I'm referring mother when I say the fourth step is to the actual force them
which is cleverly concealed in this book
which is news and a lot of places and
what the four step does it brief me brings tremendous relief it contains the forgiveness process which is what we're what we're going to talk about hopefully this hour
but this thing about don't do for step two so I've I've heard people say you do one step a year what pages that I can't seem to find that I mean you wouldn't want to get well too fast would you
yeah I was always afraid I might over correct yeah I might do just a little bit more than I absolutely had to I think that's what that thinking is about the book is not specific about when to do a four step it actually makes two time references and I believe that I should give any leeway that the book is and if the book is makes two time references if I sponsor you may use either of those two or anything that lies between them does that seem fair to everyone here so that's the approach we take and I have him begin reading at the bottom of page sixty three after we finished the press has next to say wait that's a time reference so the next would be as we come up off of our knees having done the third step prayer
next that's a time reference we lost out on the course of vigorous action first of all which is a personal house plan which many of us than ever attempted our decision that would be our third step decision was a vital word vital comes from the Latin vida which means life vital means necessary to life
was a vital and crucial step and have little proven effect unless and once that's a time reference so if I sponsor you you'll do your four step next order once or anywhere in between I give you all of the leeway that the book gives you I think it's only fair
and then it's gonna get worse than that believe me it's gonna get worse than that
follow less strenuous effort to face and be rid of isn't that interesting be rid of in step four I'm going to be rid of the things in myself that have been blocking me and I would observe it if you do a four step and all you do is right you will be rid of ink paper and time
and I basis so surprised to find out that ink paper or time were blocking you
and yet in step four going to be rid of the things that are blocking me so there must be things in step four other than writing
and I would observe that is the things other than writing a step for that are life changing we're going to cover that in this hour and the next one block blocking us from what
three things
page fifty five
the great reality deep down within us the books as it were blocked from it were obscured from it
the fundamental idea of god deep within us were blocked from it I am also blocked from carrying out the decision in step three
if if you he may have the same experience that I had in early sobriety I get down on my knees onto the third step per twenty minutes later I'm in my hand running the show
and I used to think well I'm turning it over and taking it back no I'm not turning it over because I'm blocked from carrying out the decision in step three I can't do it
I am still in the bondage of self because I've not dismantled the judgment machine that is my will that I will dismantle in step four so I'm blocked from carrying out the decision in step three
and I'm also blocked in something I don't even want to admit
I'm blocked from any kind of connectedness our community intimacy with others
and I don't know that I am blocked from you because I think it's your fault
it's not that I don't want to be close to you you're just a jerk
and eventually so are you and you and you want to get start getting lonelier and local control over the year and alcoholics live in a peculiar state of isolation
through our judgment were blocked from god from carrying out the decision and step three and from other people I don't even know it alcoholism is a lonely business
thanks continued on page sixty four therefore we started upon a personal inventory this will step for businesses take no regular inventory usually goes broke the business is that I deal with most of them do a computer update every night for me that's the evening portion of step eleven as described on page eighty six but once a year sometimes twice but at least once a year they do a full tear down inventory so this is the reference and I have some friends who say you do the first nine steps once you stay sober on ten eleven and twelve and if that's what their sponsor has them doing it suits me fine
my own experiences on my eighth four step I discovered resentments are over twenty five years old and I had been thorough before that I just couldn't find them until then so for me about once a year in in twenty years twenty three years of sobriety I believe I've just completed my eighteenth four steps I've missed some but my last and only took me about thirty minutes
because I stay pretty cleaned out but I think it's important for me to stay involved in the process because every once in a while I find some big particular in the states as we come up on election year some of the old resentments do come back I'm sure that doesn't happen here
okay continuing on sixty four take a commercial in towards a fact finding in fact facing process than ever to discover the truth about the stock in trade one object is to disclose damage run sell goods to get rid up twice on this page we have told you in step forward going to get rid of
prompting without regret next paragraph we did exactly the same thing with our lives took stock honestly first we search out the flaws in our make up which caused our failure there's the good news one more time
bacon itself manifest in various ways when it defeated us we considered it's common manifestations so here is an overview of step four as I understand it from this text and by the way if you disagree with something I say I'd love to hear from you that's how I learned it I make mistakes I wonder what I know for sure today that's incorrect time I'm on a constant search for people to disagree not to argue with her to set your mind but to see what I might learn so please I I feel free and I'd like to reiterate that if also if you I say something you disagree with I'd also like you to see Scott
yes Bob starting a new group called the knights of humility
and so as I look at step four in here this is what I see that the three functions of self the three manifestations of self that we're going to inventory very specifically our resentment
fear and sexual misconduct and I claim there's not a sex inventory in the book we inventory only the dark side
I don't find the direction here that says what did you do in the sexual arena that you thought was right good so we only inventory the dark side of it I do not like the idea of sex having a bad name it's my favorite toy and right and so I don't like the idea of having a bad night so and then the format that we use is is we will do a series of lists
observations and prayers
on resentment fear and sexual misconduct so that's what the setup looks like on this thing
it is my experience that the writing portion of step four has very little if any effect at all the observations not would you happen to notice as you went zipping through writing but the observation specifically called for some written most not
and the prayers are life changing that that's where the poisonous dug out your soul I heard a speaker one times a resentment is when I didn't get my will in the past anger and depression or when I'm not getting my will right now and fear is the concern that I may not get my will sometime in the future
so this whole thing is about my will
and what is carried to me
I'm from my home group god forgives me for everything I ever did and he loved me while I was doing it
my god got bigger the day that guy said that
the rest of my experience is that I don't have the power to make a mistake so ugly that god can't turn it into something magnificent I didn't say fix
I don't have the power that's who I am that's who he is those things helped me so much
so we're going to do now is we're going to explore for directions and I people ask me occasionally when you think about writing an autobiography I think it's a great idea I hope you will write an autobiography but also hope you'll do a four step because that will change your life
because the force that was not an autobiography not at all next paragraph
resentment is the number one offender it destroys I love the new language it destroys my alcoholics and then else from its stem all forms of spiritual disease we've been not only mentally and physically women spiritually sick when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically Bob already talked about that how important that is
yes isn't dealing with resentments we set them on paper for me that's a general description they're going to tell me exactly how to set them on paper it says we listed people institutions are principles within we are angry so what I need first first direction is a list
of people institutions principles that is to say anything or anyone
that has ever made me angry
have you thinking wow that's gonna be a long list
good then you're going to do a thorough for step
my first name is pretty long
don't talk a little bit I'm gonna have some fun first probably I say to this guy at this point you're probably wondering what coloring to usual color paper we wondering that about half of them say yeah
paid sixty seven two thirds the way down the page
when we sorrowful as we listed then we place them force in black and white that's not very specific
it does not say white paper black ink that could easily be black paper white ink
and I sponsor will be one or the other and black pencil by the way and white papers close enough but I but I want and and I want I want you I think that's crazy I think that's absolutely insane and stupid and I'd insist on it
because the first time I let myself on the hook on the detail in here it might have been the one that would save my life so I think that's insane and I fully expect the guys I sponsored to do their inventory in black and white and if I could delete this part of my presentation make Bob a lot happier but I can't say this is what I do he doesn't have that same perspective and that's fine
I like to recommend a spiral notebook I think that's a very easy way to do this just a just a simple little notebook you open the inside cover write something on the first page something subtle like this is my four step put it down if I find you with that I will kill you and hide your body
something subtle and yet to get your point across still don't leave them confused
and then and then if you'll turn the next page you'll be looking at two facing pages consider that to be one page and if you make a total number one above the margin on the left hand page a number two in the center of the left hand page and a three and a four equidistant on the right hand page that's the way we laid out we're going to do a four column inventory and what we need first is a list of people institutions are principles with whom we are angry that's what that first column is going to be
if you have a a a forty hour a week job in a thirty minute commute to work that cost you forty five hours a week if you sleep eight hours a night that's fifty six hours a week if you attend seven meetings a little driving time low hanging around this another fifteen hours three hours of recreation maybe some tennis around the golf something like that two hours to mow the lawn and do your mailing list the all the mailing lists honey do this honey do that it's it's what
we call that a mailing list in the states five hours reading spiritual literature of I sponsor your read two pages a day in the big book you can't read to page a day in the text I'm good time food yet three hours a week to bey's shave you know personal hygiene four hours a week for a date with your wife if you're fortunate to still have one maybe to coach a little league soccer team or something like that five hours on the week on the telephone with me and with some other men whose names and numbers I will give you
twelve hours a week cooking and eating
an hour shopping for groceries getting hair cuts things like that five hours a week in prayer and meditation we're going to need some time on that nine hours a week watching television that's three ball games or two games of golf on TV that's enough
add that up it's a hundred and sixty five hours there are only a hundred and sixty eight hours in a week you got three hours left I want half
I believe that one of the principles here is that recovery should not have a negative impact on any other aspect of my life he should be dead gum inconvenient at times but it shouldn't have a negative impact on my marriage my job my relationship with my children
so let's don't take time away from those things but let's talk about it for me the hour and a half is just a rule of thumb ice I sponsor man and when we got to step four his wife had a fabulous job they had a one year old son he was a stay at home dad his son took a nap from one to three every afternoon five days a week I expect him to do two hours on this four step from one in the afternoon to three while the sons of sleep and and and if there's a day when you can't then tell me beforehand what my experience is is that I get reasons before him I get excuses after
don't get me with the reason on the front end I'm easy whatever your reason is good for me I buy on the back and they tend to be excuses and other ones on the front and also have a tendency to be true
anyway
and so another guy has got a wife and five kids in the working two jobs I don't think he can give an hour and a half so let I like to come up with something that we can agree to I think what I set out to do my first four step I gave myself the assignment of completing a four step if I do that I'm in perfect position to hate myself until it's done
and I think I hated myself long enough if I can agree with my sponsor on how much time I should spend each week and I spend that time on it I can feel good about myself alignment process doesn't that feel better it's it's a much easier way to approach
I like because I want them to to schedule it and Monday Wednesday and Friday is not a schedule
Monday from seven PM to seven thirty PM that's a schedule call me every Sunday with your schedule now and you feel all my goodness I didn't know he had a little league game Monday night and so I slipped it from seven o'clock Monday night to six o'clock Tuesday morning I don't even need a phone call on that
right but like anything else on my counter that's important it's not subject to cancellation is subject to change maybe a little bit not subject to cancellation and then just do it in process you know how to eat an elephant right
one bite at a time you know one of these days that sucker's gonna sell select plans don't worry about having the elephant is let's take today's bite
one day at a time folks that's what this is all about
I also like to tell them that if you have to do the perfect for step you can't do one at all you have my my permission to do a poor for step
anything worth doing is worth doing poorly as I learned to do it well that was a new one for me
that so you're not going to do the same perfectly we are not saving a special alcove in Akron at the a hall of Famer you're forced
all right and our whole group does not give a trophy every year for the best for step this is the trophy you are not going to get
if you can't read it in the back it says four step trophy never awarded hi this is a trophy you are not getting you can have your picture made with us like if you like to live right here which is not yours you're not getting it
the other thing I do is as soon as he starts and I get a hold of his four seven I given is great on the inside cover under that stuff about please put it down F. minus right you have to do this again
so if it doesn't have to be perfect then you can actually do it
in the thirty minute session and I just actually just recently got a fellow through the work and he's an early riser and have a lot of time on his hands in the morning he was doing forty five minutes in the morning four days a week that's what he and I agree to something came up and he had to drop that down to two days a week for a couple days great we talk about it on the front end so it's there's a lot of flexibility but I like the first five minutes of that to be in prayer and meditation let's invite god into this four step
let's let's ask him for clarity of mind to find what I need to find the courage to write it down
about five minutes and then let's sit down and just start spending them
the inside cover
turn the page we're looking at a double page one two three four across the top we're going to work in the left hand margin and we need the names of all the people and things that I've ever made you angry ever ever even if you're sure you've already forgiven them the rule is it when in doubt righted out let's get it down
write a name skip align right a name skip align right a name skip the line for those of you who looked ahead and realised column two is going to be what they did you're planning to save ten pages for your father and nine for your boss the answer is right one name skip one line
right one name skip one line do not write any other night don't don't write any names a second time that you may do that by mistake will find it later we're not going to take all that extra time for writing all that stuff and I'm sure you wanted just a minute
when you get to the bottom of the page turn the page and write one two three four and continue and do that until they slow down if you sit for thirty forty five seconds and not think of anything or anyone that has ever made you angry the let's take a look at the bottom of page sixty five
first sentence below the examples as we went back to our lives so then it indicates that we use what I call a reverse chronology we begin with today and work backward to our lives I currently live at this place I'm married to this fabulous woman who's doing the workshop down the hall this is where I work this is my home group center to center but fifteen years ago I was married to
and I worked at the other place and someone and before that I lived in this other place and before that and I go back through my life thinking of everything that went on in those places searching for anything that has ever made me angry there should be some major political figures down there local and international major political parties there's probably at least one religion listed there may be a branch of the military most of your teachers and schools all of your family members just put him down
right
and just just whatever you can think of and people ask me sometimes what what's a a good size of the list I think the shortest list IRA so I believe was complete was around forty five or fifty it was a very young man who had a pretty good attitude
the longest list I've ever saw was over six hundred
and it was incomplete
this guy hated everybody and he wished there was more of a
I don't think I'd ever seen anyone is as much in love with pages this guy was and and so we're gonna go back to your life and when we get to your earliest memories we are finished
here's a list complete no absolutely not but it's as complete as we're going to get it this time because of AI spots you sometime in about six months you're going to be sponsored somebody else and when you take him through this work you're going to go yourself so we're gonna pick up the other pieces later the other thing I ask you to do is to carry writing materials with you all the time once we complete that first call
as you're gonna be in the grocery store look at the cantaloupes sailors had looked just like the Jews right at them well added to the list next time you get to it so that list remains fluid
when you get your earliest memory were moving on to to direction to which is the next sentence says we asked ourselves why we are angry take a look at the example on the facing page I'm resentful that Mister brown
the cost listen to the words under the cross his attention to my wife
I told my wife of my mistress brown may get my job at the office
begin with the word office if you were to count backwards just the words under cost somebody give me a number
thanks
nineteen nineteen it's easy to mess up and the even to go backwards to go forwards and every animal nineteen words
let's talk about what he did
Mister brown is messing with his wife
has told his wife about his girlfriend about that make things pleasant at the house
and just trying to get him fired he got nineteen words it's a summary all right we're not gonna start out it was a rainy Wednesday afternoon no we're not going there it's a summary it's brief my second column says things like screwed me in a business deal
let me for another guy next to high school football coach didn't play me as much as I deserved left me for another guy left me for another guy there are patterns if you look for them you may see patterns
but it's a summary and it's brief and and then I say to him nineteen words if you've done the format we talked about you've got the name on the left hand margin and you now have the space from the name over to the spiral and you have the entire line below that in which you can write nineteen words or fewer
don't write the twentieth word if you have someone who thinks done more than this and you need a ride to twenty work call me will negotiate I'll be happy to talk about
I'll tell you I've never given up the twentieth ward I'm willing to talk about the truth is I never been called you wouldn't call me would you
not not after that now mostly squeeze it down because what we're trying to we're not going to feed this result we're going to dig it out here that's what we're here to do is we're here to dig it out and one of the hardest things if you've never done the for the act the four step out of this book having this information the hardest thing for you is going to be to you're good when you're right and then you're going to write what they did don't do that
it said list we need the list first we're gonna complete column one before we go to column too that will be hard because you're going to want you're going to war we write in English and people who write in English like to work left to right not top to bottom it's not going to be easy but I hope you'll do that their two reasons the best one is the book says lists and lists go down the page thank your last grocery list series words and phrases went down a page list don't go across the second reason is because if you work across the page will tend to make this resentment flare and when I try to make it flat we're trying to dig it out
direction three top of sixty five
undergraduates we sat opposite each name our injuries wasn't our five part multiple choice self esteem security ambitions person or sex relations some will only get one this is column three some will have two or three some may have all five some you may not be able to figure out
don't give yourself a brain hernia trying to figure this out by yourself hopefully have a sponsor
and call your sponsoring your sponsor help you understand what was self esteem
because it almost always is on my first fifteen inventories self esteem got the most think the last three it's been security is really funny to watch the change
still working down the page are you would assume that what comes after column three is calling for what comes after calling three is the part of this inventory that I think is life changing and what lies between the third and fourth Collins and my experience is some of the most metamorphic of all the work that we do this will take the poison out yourself
bottom of sixty five when we were finished we considered it carefully they're going to tell us how to consider disassembles observations I was referring to the first thing a parent was that this world is people are often quite wrong
yeah probably you have been sitting on bar stools or some of the other great philosophers of our era
looking at this exact thing for decades so we don't need to give this one a lot of time
to conclude others are wrong as far as most of us ever got and I have to look and say that that's the truth usual outcomes that people continue to wrong us we stayed sore it was remorse sometimes we sort ourselves we'll move on to the next paragraph says it is plain
the life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility on happiness that's an observation that they have made and when I asked the man I sponsor say do you want with the people who wrote this book had and what they had was long term productive happy recovery is that what you're looking for if it is then I'd encourage you to commit that when we go through this book if they say they wrote something you will stop in writing and they say they prayed something you will stop and pray it if they say they observe something you will stop an endeavor to observe it you may or may not be able to but you will try to observe it so here's an observation it's plain that the life which includes deep resentment leads only to futile and happiness is that plain to you have you ever seen a life that was happy joyous free and full of resentment
I never have
interesting point to precise instead that we permit these we squander the hours I might have been worthwhile did you ever squander our summers image ever sit in class and item
we should be listening Jever late wake at night planning their demise when you should've been sleeping that's something familiar did you squander hours it might have been worthwhile this is true for you okay but with the alcoholic whose hope who now they're going to move my hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience growth means that what I already have may be insufficient hello it's good
my two thousand and seven program might not be enough to keep me summer two thousand and eight I must stand a growth mode
maintenance I believe means two things
maintenance means I cannot afford to lose anything already have in that sense to maintain it also means the most maintenance my spiritual experience in the same sense and I mean it's my vehicle I keep the front end aligned I have the right pressure in the tires I change the oil I watch it I made it's my spiritual experience through prayer meditation taking meetings in the penal facilities and treatment centers sponsoring guys having a sponsor letting people in in traffic that may not be a big thing around here Borchers at my place being faithful to my wife telling you the truth trying to be a good father I'm maintenance my spiritual experience in that way reading spiritual literature
says this business of resentment is infinitely grave I love the language in phonetically grave I think we just threaten your life I think we're going to do a lot on this page that was one we found that it is fatal
they're not playing here
I found the man who hadn't seen him in several years I ran into the man that took me through the steps the first time have a clubhouse and national
and I said I need to ask you a question do you remember and I gave him a man's name and his response was if anyone you sponsor ever commit suicide you always remember them
I said when I was over two years he was over two years we had we were within a month or two of the same sobriety date
with the same home group press on him five or eight times a week with the same sponsored you
and two years sober he drove home from a meeting one night pulled his car in the garage and drop the door and left it running sober and committed suicide
and I'm looking at this and I'm sitting here with a six year chip in my pocket and I can't see the difference between me and that guy's name is bill and I'm scared what's the difference
and he said bill died of resentment
I could not get him to do a four step and the resentments killed him
and I've thought about it I've talked to other men that I knew in recovery from that era who knew him and everyone agrees with that analysis every time you saw him he could not wait to tell you what some SOB just under him he was the perennial victim and the victim's don't get sober we're going to talk about here on the balance of this page in a couple of others stepping out of the victory road but I want you to know when this book says we found it's fatal I watched it I've seen it more than once we just enjoy life twice
continuing for one harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight in spirit does anyone having such feelings
I think I'm okay if I have resentments of I'm not harboring them or talk about how do not harbor them harbor means to give a safe place to to nurture
the incentive I'll call returns we drinking with us to drink is to die we just killed you three times if we were to live all this is only for the ones one of every one else could take another break
we just threaten your life again if we were to live
we had to be free of anger the grouch in the brainstorm or not for us about the time this book was being written
a very creative man named Walt Disney said his staff down around a table
and came up with a concept for writing Mickey Mouse cartoons and people would spit out ideas and your idea remind me of something I think that remind him of something and we we build something and Walt Disney label his process brainstorming
has nothing to do with the word brainstorm as we find it here in the text I have a dictionary at home from the nineteen thirties and I looked up brainstorm and it says transient violent mental outburst
we know that is rage
so this brainstorms which I has nothing to do with the creative process we're referencing two kinds of anger the grouch or the slow burn and rage the brainstorm
I hope that help that your help me to get that information
I love this next sensitive so thin they may be the dubious luxury of normal men
well that's the end but for alcoholics these things are we just killed again poison
we turned back to the list right held the key to the future does that mean if I don't find the key to the future I don't have a future yes that's precisely what that means we just killed your six time on this page
we're prepared to look at from entirely different angle different from what
the last time we looked at this was actually at the bottom of the preceding page
the first thing a parent with its people in this world as people are often quite wrong it's a last time we looked at the list so now we need to prepare ourselves to look at it from an entirely different angle
and I thought the different angle is going to be a real look for my part and it never says that I think that's one of the most damaging miss quotes in the book are about the book clearly we never look for my part of this thing we're gonna talk about that
it says we began to see that the world of people really dominate us I think a thirty minute session look over this thing we got three columns written down let's have a look how did their stuff dominate you this particular instance right here where someone gotcha did you plan your life so you'd be around them as much as possible so if they made a mistake you can make sure everyone else knew did you plan your life so you'd never be around them so they could get you again did your father beat you down so far that it's sixty four years old you still have occasional trouble with authority figures that's my story by the way let's have a look at these things and see how this stuff dominated you let's spend about a session and just sort of look at it this is a tremendous indictment of resentment that's what this whole pages about continuing in that state the wrong dose of others fancied or real fancy does that mean some of this only happened inside my head
that's exactly what that means
the power to actually kill we just killed again seven
how could we escape we saw that these resentments must be matched I think it's one of most powerful observations in the book do you see that
bill Wilson was a salesman by trade that's what I am
I'll tell you this about a salesman a good salesman will never ever mention price until he has established value
we just kill just seven times on this page is of no value for you I hope it is because the price is high the price is very high
do you see that they must be mastered have we made our sale we could not wish them when when I'll call you mean I can't just say I forgive you and it's all over no you can't
this is this was our course we realize that the people around us were perhaps spiritually sick our mentor don describes spiritually sick is cut off from god
cut off from god as I think that's really something enter up watch my hands if you would have to reveal yes but the people around me were bad spiritually sick when I reveal I see it it becomes real for me is what my wife calls heart knowledge I can know something up here but when I real I see it it becomes real in a very different level
very different level
I'm not gonna call on anybody
please bring to your mind the one or two worst things you ever did
but I want
wait you spiritually sick to have done that
what you cut off from god when you did that had you been walking in the sunlight of the spirit and conscious contact with this gentleman god that created the galaxies and the giraffe could you have done that
good yeah now
no chance at all probably would have thought of it would you know
where you spiritually sick when you did those things you did yeah
so perhaps these people who wronged you were spiritually sick when they did it this is the beginning of the forgiveness process and when I asked them to do with this piece is to pray the list wants to begin your five minute period
talking to god about the two or three worst things you ever did and how you crave his forgiveness there's a line in a prayer that we and most of our meetings in the states with all the ones I go to and the line says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and I believe what that means exactly as god if I don't forgive them don't you forgive me
my sponsor told me he said you got here one mercy for you and justice for everybody else
in the packages mercy for everybody or justice for everybody and you are part of everybody and you get to choose
and I am not a position to face justice not at all I have therefore chosen mercy for everyone including all those who harm me for they were merely spiritually sick SO talk to god for five minutes about the worst things you did and how you pray for his forgiveness and then begin to pray the list first name of the list read god help me grant that Fred was just spiritually sick and not an S. O. B. second name on the list merry god please help me granted merry was not a bad or evil person she would just spiritually sick when she did those things that harm me let's pray that list one time then ask you to me to ask you to do it
top of page this is some of the most powerful stuff we have and please observe there's no riding involved here
W. sixty seven no we did not like their symptoms in the way these disturbed as they like ourselves are sick to
a lot of stuff in it so that we didn't like their symptoms the symptoms of their spiritual sickness and the symptom is whatever they did the left me with the resentment
the way they disturb us is the resentment
and then the great truth they like ourselves we're sick to
and then here's a prayer we ask god to help us show them the same tolerance opinion patients we're cheerfully grant a sick friend
lists observations and prayers
I very prayerfully approach this because I had a mentor actually most of my mentors gets over on the second edition of what I'm about to do was not in that but I also believe that puts on page one sixty four god will constantly disclose more do you want us page five fifty one
enough when I refer to as the immoral be disclosed section of the book the stories
and the story freedom from bondage
ladies referring to resentment against her mother last paragraph one morning however I realized I had to get rid of it from my reprieve if you look up a reprieve by weights a stay of execution
right there's another death threat my reprieve is running out if I didn't get rid of it I was going to get drunk and I didn't want to get drunk anymore and my prayer is that morning I ask god to point out to be some way to be free of this resentment during the day a friend of mine brought me some magazines to take to hospital group I was interested in I look through them a banner across one fiction article by prominent clergymen were check out the word resentment before going to want to observe the sequence of events because I propose that it is a predictable sequence of events
she sees something about herself that needs work I chose my words very carefully not something wrong with her I don't think there's anything wrong with this regards kits we just got parts of it could use some work out I like to think we're like faceted gemstones like a diamond has a lot of different sides of your call facets
it doesn't matter that some of my facets are cut beautifully and well polished and that summer not even started what matters is what I'm working on today's fast that's what matters and I don't believe in like the gemstone the diamond there's nothing wrong with it they're just some places that could use some work and I think that's a better attitude for me then then beat myself up I don't want to see something about herself that needs work I am too she prays about it I like to add item three talk to a sponsor spiritual adviser and then item for she doesn't stay focused on her problem or or what needs work she got busy helping somebody else and her answer fell out of the sky owner
and I'd like to tell you that I believe that's a predictable sequence of events that will happen over and over and over again
see it pray about it talk to response about it and take a meeting into a jail come out your answers laying on the hood of the car
watch for it you'll see it I love to watch for them and then I sponsor continued on page five fifty two
he said in effect if you have a resume that you want to be free of him as an interesting cabbie out do you want to be free that we make our sale
if you will pray for the person or thing you resent you'll be free if you ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them you'll be free for their health their prosperity or happiness and you will be free even when you don't really want it for them in your prayers are only words and you don't mean it go ahead and do it anyway that goes on to say that I work in two weeks you start out with a hundred ninety five resentments probably don't work in two weeks
she's down to one
but I wouldn't worry about that too much you plan to live to be a hundred ninety anyway we got plenty of time right
and so I like to take that prayer and add it to the one here on page sixty seven
and so it might look like this and continuing to do these thirty minute a forty five minute sessions three four times a week sit down talk to god about the worst things ever done hi Craig is forgiveness first name on the list Fred got
help me show Fred the same tolerance and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend
and I pray that his hair didn't fall out then he gets promoted at work it gets a new car that his kids go to school on scholarship and don't give him any trouble that his wife is a fabulous lover I pray that his long rows lush and green to grow so slowly he only has the more once a year that is a big spiritual experience any walks in the sunlight of the spirit and is filled with your love
all of that stuff but like that that's pretty good example
and then I ask a simple question do you mean that or don't you that's not an essay question that's a yes or no either meter you don't if you don't mean it go to the next name don't stay there if you mean it put a check mark in the margin to go to the next name and we get to the end of the list will start again just with the ones that are checked and it wouldn't be unusual to get all the way through the list a couple of times before you check the first one
this is my experience and forgive me I'm I'm getting way off what the text says but this is my experience with it I think it's most appropriate because of that I don't have the power to forgive English language has that wrong you know I can always go second give you the force that drove the I can't we don't give that but I can give you this
but I can't forgive you forgive isn't something I do something I receive
the two me resentment is like ice around my heart
and the ice has the thickness and I believe that fitness is based on the severity of the event and how much I have nurtured that resentment
and what I do here is I prayerfully hold the icy heart up to the sunlight of the spirit and someone will melt ice question a time question of how thick it is how close I can hold it how long I can hold it
if I use both of these prayers on this one sixty seven I'm asking god to help me show him something on the prayer in the back of the book I'm praying for him some praying for both people involved here
and what happens eventually is that someone I just hated I really hope that I have a great life and I hope they have a big spiritual experience and all that great stuff happens for them and at that point I have forgiven them and it's not that I did it I received I hope I'm explaining that I got here like this locked up and what you've taught me to do is to open to receive the gifts that have always been here has never been gods and willingness to give its been my inability to receive
so when I forgive you I have received the gift of not hate you anymore
and I want to tell that over and over again the guy I if we get something more important in here I don't know what it is
the forgiveness process is so powerful and I hold them there and I the last guy took about three months and I really don't care how long this happened are on how long this takes
when we're confused about this acceptance thing too we are not asking you to approve of what they did
it's not unusual among us pretty good percentage of us were abused as children
if you were abused as a child I want to tell you right now what they did was wrong you did not deserve it that child did nothing to deserve for that to happen and I'm sick about it I'm so sad that that happened to you and shame on them that was not right it's never gonna be right
you need to know that
we're not asking a acceptance does not have to include approval acceptance is in here acceptance is when I stop fighting on a hard level something over which I have no power
I only get a certain amount of spiritual energy on any given day and if I squandered on things over which I have no power I will not have enough left for today's assignment
acceptance is when I step out of the ring
when I stop fighting
so this forgiveness process does not include that you have to approve of what they did I think that's very important
the next sentence for me describe and I hold them there and I really I really just don't care how long it takes
really don't and I want to pray in the shower and drive in the car and whatever you think of these people thrown some prayers and do the whole thing
and it's a process and sometimes it's very quick at three or four months not unusual on this not at all
next sentence gives me my marching orders from Iran
when a person offended we said to ourselves this is a sick man how can I be helpful to him god save me from being angry and I will be done
where Ford retaliate so that's what I do when somebody makes me mad now those are my instructions
we would retaliation argument we wouldn't treat sick people that way if we do we destroy our chance beyond helpful paid seventy seven
it's one on one they rewrote recently
third line they stuck something in it wasn't there I swear if it if it was there in your book don't be surprised
it says our real purpose to defend ourselves to be a maxim service to god the people about us I thought for the longest time it said our real purpose is to be a maximum service and that's not what it says is to fit myself to be a maximum service how do I do that I can't very well be of service to someone that I hate and I have to be available that person shows up at the door here I have to be available to him I can't do that if I still hate in this forgiveness thing is so powerful and so important
continuing on sixty seven
if we do we destroy our chance of being helpful we cannot be helpful all people at least god will show us how to take a kind and tolerant view of each and everyone referring what a promise
god's gonna show me how to take it kindly intolerant view toward everybody a gift
referring to our list again putting out of our minds wrongs of others have done how are you gonna do that if you still hate him
you got someone that you roundly hate how are you going to put on your mind what they did and deal with them some other way I don't think it's possible I think it's necessary to get that hate poisoned dog out of myself before I can do that I tell you feel different people will ask you what happened
you go through this process they will ask you what happened they will still be visible you will look younger
putting out of our minds wrongs others have done we resolutely look for own mistakes doesn't say I'm looking for my part do that part which was one of them we got a bunch of stuff that I bet you do let me let me knock up you know what I think it's enough for me once you just take it from there we we go another fifteen minutes to break and you pick up there after the next
okay thanks Scott I'm Bob still no garlic
about seven years ago I had a guy with his sober twenty three years come and ask me to sponsor
he was an ex navy chief kind of blustery tough guy
and he had heard twenty some years before in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous he got it that resemblance something that's bad
you're not supposed to deadly you're not supposed to have resentment so he never had one again dammit
by god I never had one again
it's so I'm taking this guy through the steps and we get through the third step and I I said to him I want you to make a list of your resentments
these phones was false orders but this real defended guys up type guy
this is resentments I don't have any resentments
but I just let it go but no don't bother me
well you can watch this guy walking across the parking lot from a hundred yards and always up tight about some money he needs he just wound up tight
and I said you don't have any reset bid city should not
I said really yeah really
I said okay then we're going to do something different
I want you to make a list of people you feel smugly superior to this look on his face like all my god is that going to be a long list
he didn't he knew that resentments were wrong
and so he deluded himself into believing that he didn't have any
it isn't that a game that we play in a
don't let anyone else catch you with your spiritual pants down right
so what happens is is you get your new comer and if you're anything like me your new car when you realize you're not supposed to have resentments okay I don't have any anymore
and that's not how you get free that's how you build at all Sir
that's how you get sick inside
and we started the process and if it wasn't for this process on page sixty six and sixty seven
I am absolutely convinced
that in my eleventh year of sobriety
I would have either drank again
committed suicide
or killed two people and I'd be sitting in prison right now
when I was in thank god that when I was for a little over four years sober I went through this process in in between four years and eleven years I took a lot of guys through this
so I understood it
because you know it
I think sometimes you do all this stuff and you're not really sure why you're doing it because it doesn't seem like you really need it I mean it's good
but why am I doing this really and you don't know that you're forging a weapon
that one day you're very life is going to be to depend upon it
that something's gonna come at you and if you don't have the certain principles in place you're not going to have a chance
when I was in my eleventh year sobriety I've been sober over ten years and I found I was married to a gal that
our tour for over four years we had a little girl the love of my life I will see her on in Barcelona
on Sunday she's now nineteen years old
it
we had some marriage problems
but I didn't understand what was going on into
she came to me one day and said I wanted to divorce and I I realize there's a problem here and I talked her out of it we went to started going to marriage counseling
and after being in marriage counseling for a little while she said to me she said I don't want to go to counseling anymore I just want out
I live in Las Vegas it's an unusual town you can get divorced there so quickly you you haven't even paid the master card bill in the divorce yet you're single two weeks I mean you're it's it's just it's just like that
and we got divorced on a Thursday the next day Friday
my daughter and just ex wife moved in with one of my spot sees my favorite spots in my best friend and I found out that they'd been sleeping together the whole last year of my marriage
and everybody in a a new about it except me
now I'm over ten years sober you've been telling me for ten years there's no such thing as a justifiable resentment well I got one now
and I I get sick sometimes on an intuitive level I want this kind of guys I can walk into a media room of fifty people and I will intuitively know who's going to cosign my crap you know just gravitate right to gravitate right to the people that say things to me like
but didn't you just buy a new car no go yes I didn't and the nail holes from the cross open up a little bigger in my hands right
there's a little ego justification about being right about them and feeling that smug superiority I would've done filling the self righteousness of I've never done you know like you know those eagle lies you tell yourself
but if you have the same disease of the spirit that I have you can't stay that way you will die you will die
and so I had to take this process this resentment with both of them through this part of the book to get free
and one of the first things that really hit me it says we we were in it you could almost put this in the form of a question on the bottom of page sixty six the second line the second to last full paragraph
or was I prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle
I immediately after the divorce after finding out about it I was
but eventually if you're like me you get like the rat you don't want any more cheese you want out of the trap if you're like me eventually you would rather be three then write about them
you hear what I'm saying a vanishingly you've grown spiritually enough to chill values serenity rather than be in right six people who never get better I would rather be right
they would never they would read the value being right more than they do being freer happy
but I wanted to be free
and so I was prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle so what would that be up to this point I'm looking at them as in the first three columns
as from the point of view of the prosecuting attorney
right I got my case built against them so if I'm going to look at it from an entirely different angle what what I have to do what I have to cross the court room
and all of a sudden sit at the defense table and start looking at the case from that table and through that perspective
and most of us don't want to do that because that that means we may not be right
but I wanted to be free so I started to do that in and it says here at the bottom of the page after spends the whole page tell me the steps going to kill me
here's what it says to do in order to be free
it says we realize that the people who had wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick
yeah yeah I get that they're sick and they're stupid they're idiots too you know I get that that's not all what it says
it goes on to say though we did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us then they like ourselves that they that they like me
but there are like me
we're spiritually sick that they don't like me
no no no no I'm smugly superior I'm not like
they're like me in other words I have to get down off my high horse my throne of judgment and come right down and really realize something
to realize that if I stood in their shoes and I had all the emotions going on in all of this stuff going on inside of them that was going on inside of inside of me that was going on inside of them could I really get it
but I would have done the exact same thing I may not have liked myself for doing it
but can I see my humanness enough to see help you know I could have been sick like that and I could have done that can I get that or do I need to be on the high horse do I need to still feel smugly superior
and what I what I started to see when I put myself in their place well I tell you it was not a pretty picture
I am self delusional I would've told you up until that point all these fantasy stories about my marriage what a great provider I was it what a great husband and how I never cheated on my wife and I provide water a new car and provided a great house for her and all this other stuff
but when I put myself in her position
what I realized is I married a girl who
who put her whole life into this relationship
thank you in no time at all she found herself married to a guy who is trying to build a business that work seventy plus hours a week
who sponsored a lot of guys whose on several committees who would come home late at night so exhausted mostly to just go to sleep
there's a lady in in the family afterwards that it really hit me one day it says that we became a motion only an accessible from his see the real truth is in the areas that we're we're she needed me to be I wasn't
I was good at all the trappings but the real one on one end of the sea I got married a couple years sober I didn't have a clue how to do that stuff
and I'll tell you about me I I'm the kind of guy that after about three or four months I've told you all the funny stories about my life and childhood everything and now I run out of things to talk about
and I can't stand the silence
so I stay busy
and I work and I was convenient but I was in a position to take over this company a company that I'm glad I have to this day I'm going to have to interrupt we've got four cars across the street and gone be there long there's an astra S. D. fifty six DHL Corsa S. P. five four Z. R. E. Meghan S. F. O. four FEC and the Suzuki S. D. O. Z. E. P. V. if you have plans for them for later this afternoon you might want to move him right now
I'm sorry Bob okay yes he has managed to do that
and we're gonna break it in a couple of minutes here sorry but we need to do is to store your car yeah right all right finish the story yeah
so what I started what I started to realize the desolation and the loneliness that she must have experience and I started to see the truth in all call terms we talk about awakenings and awakening is means that you're going to pull your head out of your **** and see the truth
you're going to see you in the way that they saw you and when I saw myself in that marriage the way that my ex wife saw me I tell you I was not proud of what I saw
I was saw a guy who conveniently worked a lot because he didn't know what else to do a guy who used the excuse of alcoholism and it is in the it's it's a reality I have to go to means I have to sponsor all those people that's true but it's also very convenient for a guy who doesn't know what else to do
then I started to sense her desolation and loneliness so when I really realized the sickness that would must've drove her
to cheat on her husband I knew that I was the guy who initiated that
intentionally no
my sponsor said one time he said you're not guilty for anything you've ever done drunk or sober but you are responsible I'm the guy who did it
what I really saw that I I thought to myself my god I would have easily done the same thing and probably hated myself for doing it you know Karen
really had a tough time she was lucky to have stayed sober through that when I went to her and made my amends to her partner not only to make amends for telling this victim's story about involving her as the wicked witch of the east and all this crap it was just a bunch a nonsense not only derail remains for that then have to go to all those people tell the truth but I only managed to hurt I had to say to work I said I want you to know how sorry I am that I was just to sleep
in my in that marriage and never realize what you needed and that I was still vacant in that marriage that drove you to do something I know you would have never done
I know that that's not you
and I don't and I said words of that nature to her and she started to cry
then she started to cry because I think all she ever wanted me to do was get it
all she ever wanted me to do was understand
right but I was too wrapped up in myself to ever see past myself
to what was going on with her
see we heard a lot of people in our lives not out of malice
but we're just asleep at the wheel
I'm just not I just don't get what's going on I can't see it through your eyes I can't see past me
but I was able to do the same thing with him and it was really easy
and then I was finally able to come back to the the last part of the step in it says after the prayer
in the last part says referring to our list again putting out of our minds the wrong so there's a done we resolutely look for mistakes coupled that lines down and said we tried to disregard the other person involved in parley we're not looking for a part
that is it's dangerous to think in those terms if if I'm going to look for my part okay I'm gonna look at my part
there's another part of sure
and did you notice how there's just happens to be a little bigger
you can't look at your park without unconsciously reserving the right to think that they have a part
you know how they came to me and I used to say that meetings I sell we look for our part and then I took a guide through the steps and he went to make amends to someone and it turned badly on him and he ended up getting it all was just a bad deal I got a little got another resentment now as a result of it and I were talking about what happened and he went to the guy to make amends
and after clearing up his heart he standing there waiting for the guy to deal with his part
the guy never dealt with his parts we got this
because he reserves the right to think in terms of him having a part the book says we disregard the other person involved entirely
it doesn't matter what you've done
and if if I do that if I'm serious about that then I'm really looking at my life in a new light
because what if what if I had to look at my what kind of the sun I once and I couldn't hide behind all the bad things my parents did
what if I had to look at what kind of a son I was in its own white
what if I had the perfect parents then what kind of a son I was what if I couldn't hide in the shadow of their imperfections in their wrong doings what if I had to actually stand up and be a man and look at what I did on its own
I'm telling you it's a different vision
see I am an expert in here at hiding my selfish vindictive judgmental bad behavior in the light of anything I could fault find wrong with you
I could I was the kind of employee if I had a boss and I could catch you doing something wrong it was almost like it was a license to be a lot about lousy employee sometimes is a license to steal from me if I can find you do it in the front if I was in a relationship and I and I caught you cheating on me once it was like seven get some free tickets you know what I'm saying I just when you lose anything you did wrong as an excuse to go to justify all kinds of selfish self seeking behavior
but for the first time in my life I had to stand up and I had to look at my list here in its own light
but I couldn't hide behind the wrong doings of others
and
when you look at it in that light it's really different
what kind of a son am I know
not a very good one
was I guilty no I was asleep I didn't know
and what you know it's never the same you know they say the truth will set you free
it will give you a bad day or two first though I'm telling
let's take a break thirteen minute eight second ranked
asking me asking if you want to put a question in