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

six five four

my name is Scott Lee and I'm an alcoholic and absolutely can't tell you how thrilled I am to be here thank you again to thandi and Lynn and Linda and Patrick for giving us this opportunity for you for for come in and we are so grateful to be here George I George forgive me yes and and for the significant others who gave them kitchen passes so they could get out and go to the meetings and all maybe they don't have kitchen passes here don't talk a little bit about step five generally speaking step five is a confession page seventy three

the bottom psychologists are inclined agree with us we spent thousands of dollars for examinations we know but few instances where we've given these doctors affair break we have seldom told them the whole truth nor have we follow their advice and I have a friend who says he believes that alcoholic should not go to make medical doctors and psychologists psychiatrists we should go to veterinarians

that's because veterinarians are used to trying to guess what's wrong with their patients

and I've got a friend that says he has to pay a psychiatrist a hundred dollars an hour to lie to him

this how typical is that

on on page seventy four it talks quite a bit I have to realize was going context now this book was written there were fewer than a hundred people sober in Alcoholics Anonymous so there weren't qualified sponsors on every corner there were people who had done this work on every corner but the overriding principle is that I must be if you look at the last paragraph begins with notwithstanding a bottom a seventy four count of three lines this is a real is we must be hard on herself but always considerate of others means my wife can't hear my fist at it means I can't tell anybody anything that would harm them or or have a negative effect on them in anyway and then suggest several ways to find someone to hear of system again this is simply what I do the man that I sponsor a welcome to do their fist up with anyone they like

and me

and there are a couple reasons one of them is I'm going to hear things and their fifth step that belong to their eight step that they were going to miss that that's that that's a high percentage of the time another one is that I believe someone who's already done this is is infinitely better qualified and religion that requires it I think that's wonderful but I want to hear at all so

yes I pray before hearing a fist step

I ask god to make me perfect Bob praised the useful ask god to make me perfect and and I and I mean that and I do it page thirteen

two thirds of the way down I was to test my thinking by the new god consciousness within common sense with us become on common sense how is it quietly wanted out asking only for directions trying to meet my problems as he would have me never was I pray for myself except as my request born my usefulness to others then only might expect to receive but that would be a great measure

I want you to know that I believe that as I sit to hear someone's fist step and I ask god to make me perfect I believe that he does I believe that when I ask god for what he wants me to have I get a lot of help it's about me getting to the right question

I I wrapped a man in a blanket and held him while he cried for about forty five minutes when he talked about his father

of my own wisdom I don't know to do those kinds of things but I believe god blesses it I also have a horror story

my sponsor sponsored a guy who chose to do his fist up with the preacher

and he did his fist up on a Saturday on Sunday morning his preacher used his fist up as the sermon in the church with him sitting with his wife in the front row

I don't either I'll be astounded if they recover from that so it it needs to be a close male friend top of page seventy five gives me a one sentence direction on how to do a fist of it says we pocket our pride and go to it illuminating that means to shine light into

top seventy five illuminating every twist of character every dark cramped in the past it's a confession

this is what I've learned I ask him we sweep and I don't want to schedule a festive place to live for I'm not gonna let him bash himself into completing its force that because he's got a schedule to do five I want to continue to work the schedule that we laid out when he gets through with that that'll be fine

we schedule a time we have a room in our home is Lynn and I had a

a certain we are married but we also had a ceremony in our home in an up stairs room we call the meditation room where we offer got everything we had specifically rock in the home we offer in the grounds we offer and it will it is not like that big the grounds you know well from the cars we offer and just everything we could think of very specifically including our relationship and in that room there are a lot of systems and people we sponsor use that room for fifth step they just call us and let us know we turn off the phones we get out the Kleenex we got a refrigerator up there we are self contained

and I asked him to pray for and I want I I say how do you feel and I want to be nervous

the guy sitting down to do its first asset that isn't nervous is wasting my time because he knows what he's not going to tell me he's already decided what he ain't gotta tell me and I got a sponsor called one on that here not too long ago he says we're wasting our time your notes are not to me said the guy came apart in two years and told him

and someone nervous because he's either going to tell me or he's not sure I'll settle for either one of us and

I asked him to pray for an open heart and to invite god here because it we said

so let's invite god and then and then we come out of the prayer what I do is I asked him I said I want you to tell me the single worst thing you ever did I want right now

it is amazing to me how slowly will go through the small stuff about cheating on the exam in the third grade on the way to the big stuff

if we get the big stuff first this doesn't take too long

I've seen force at the fifth steps run to the second day

not anymore not for me I wanna hear the worst thing you did and in my lineage we do not hear footsteps we exchange them

as you talk about what you did if I've done it I probably have that I'll tell you when I did it or something similar

and now I wanna hear the second worst thing you ever did and I'm gonna talk about when I did it now only here the third I'm a do that until he runs out

and then we can take a look at your four step it if you're gonna read me your four step rated into a tape player and I'll play I'll listen to it on the plane

it did I don't think that's going to do us much good so I want to hear the confession and I want you to hear mine

because part of what happens here is that he now has because I've maybe done some things he hasn't done when he started sponsoring someone who's done then he knows where to come

and it's funny I don't remember people's distance

except when you have a problem and it lights up and save but I know someone let me put you in touch with someone who can help you with that and it's amazing how quickly those things come back and then I have a review S. four step and look around for other places where he's done harm when we both think we're finished I asked a series of questions

have you harmed a human or an animal amazing how many of us have beaten dogs I'm gonna sounded and how many of us have done that

have you had sex with an animal or a family member have you had if it's a heterosexual male if you had a homosexual experience

have you been involved in abortion and I don't know how that is over here it's a very hot issue it in the states politically don't hear that

Hey it's it's legal over there but there are people that are torn up about it anyway so have you been involved in one of those

and or is there anything that you had decided not to tell me are you weren't sure that you haven't already told me

and

and then I read him the fifth step promises here in the middle page seventy five and I'm not gonna do that now you can read them

and then I send them home to do the second half of the fist

since returning home we find a place where I can be quiet for now or not maybe he hadn't got a place in which case I leave him there were years

so is carefully reviewing what we've done so that tells us what we're gonna do for this hour we're going to review what we've done so far

we thank god from the bottom of our heart that we know him better I also tell him that I believe that I forgive him

that I believe god forgive him in that by the time we get through with a nine step people to forgive himself I see that very consistently

taking this book down from our shelf okay I'll expect you don't put your big book up on a shelf and it'll be need to be shoulder higher higher she take it down from the shelf and I wanna know tomorrow that you did that I'm serious about it now I think it's stupid too but I mean it

turn to the page contains a twelve step carefully reading the first five propels we ask this is a prayer we ask if we have omitted anything for with the land arts of which we shall walk a free man at last as a works on that so far the stones properly impressive we skimped on the submit button of the foundation and we try to make mortar without sand metaphorically we're saying have I left anything out I also like to tell them that somewhere around half of the time I get a phone call within the next twenty four hours

that you have forgotten something will mean you've done a poor job

it's not at all uncommon to run somewhere around half would you say

something like half of the people think of something else and there were a couple things in the next twenty four hours and so just give me a phone call when you can talk not be a problem

and then it says interestingly enough at the top of page seventy six if we can answer a satisfaction that's it we've been there on the first five metaphorically

we then look at steps six I don't get two weeks off now

same day

oh and by the way on the trip home after we finish and I send you home I don't want the radio on your car I don't want you on your cell phone I don't even want to listen to one of my C. D.'s heart

that's commitment by me by the way end up

because I want you to hold focus and

and then at the top of seventy six we've emphasized willingness being indispensable are we not ready to let god removed from us all the things which we haven't met our objectionable to simple question are you

can you take them all everyone and then here's a prayer if you need it if we still cling to something we will not let go we has got to help us be willing so there is a prayer in the six step if you needed

if you're not willing and it says you prayed that prayer and then it says when ready we say something like this my creator I'm now willing that you should have all of me good and bad I pray that you now removed from every single defective character which stands away of my usefulness were back that usefulness to you in my fellows Grammy strings like up here to do your bidding

a man it does not say I'm not asking to remove all my character defects only the ones that stand where my usefulness to him in my files isn't that interesting

in the short form the step it looks like I'm asking take a mall but in this program clearly not

I had the experience not too long ago of god using one of my remaining character defects as a tool to help me

but what Bob and I do appears pretty dangerous

and I I don't know if you understand what I'm talking about but it seemed something in me that these to be starved

and we don't present ourselves as experts the people perceive us that way and and you can you know you tell us how great we are and all that

that doesn't help this part of me and yet I have a mission here and I let myself get up on a pedestal so could you put me on a pedestal as long as I don't climb up there myself and I climbed up there myself and I I found myself involved in something that was going to make me very very sick

and realized it and step down off my pedestal and god used that that mistake of mine as a tool to help me

interesting powerful god my sponsor told me that steps six and seven say nothing about me removing my defects of character when I'm working on my defects I'm living in the problem classic example living in the problem I've got three things that I call my spiritual parameters

they are lying well not actually lies improvements really upon the truth

lying swearing

and my attitude toward those of you who possibly got your driver's licenses out of Cheerios boxes and if one of those gets out if I look they're all out and I can't change me I hear people are going to change me if I could change me I would've changed me we'd probably never met I can't change me

I can change my actions this day and there in lies a tremendous power but I don't change me and so when I find myself lying swearing or angry with you in traffic I don't work on those character defects I inventory my my actions over the last few days I'm told my priorities not when I say it is my priorities when I do

one of my priorities are don't listen to my words about the future look at my actions in the last few days what was accomplished was a priority what was not accomplished was not a priority and anything that I say to the contrary is alive and I'm telling me and I hated that when I first heard it because I was saying some things are properties and I wasn't doing anything about them

priorities not when I say it's what I do

and when I get angry with you in traffic and I start losing control of my language if I look back over the last few days there holds my scripture program I told you this morning my merit meditation was short my prayer was short I didn't read my two pages I'm thin right now and I know and I'm tired also so I'm in a note

when those things start happening I look back over the last few days and I haven't taken a beating into the jail in two weeks and I haven't called my sponsor I haven't done the things I'm told and I go back in or my hardest ones are my morning premeditation of gotten short

and I go back and do those things you've taught me to do

and two days later you can cut me off in traffic and almost hit me

and I will smile at you

from here I will smile in a way that you know where my whole hand

they do that here too yeah we've got the entire thing and I'll say god go with that one today and thank you so much that I saw he comes going to cut me off and I was able to hit the brakes and not be in a wreck with him it would have been his fault I'm grateful not to be in Iraq and god bless him but he needs some help today's not having a very good day go with them I make those mistakes myself and I can't change me from the raving lunatic three days ago that would have tried to run him off the road and beat him up I just I can't change me

because I don't work on my character defects my sponsor said my character defects are all self centered by definition and self does not have the power to push itself out of the center and if it did it would leave a vacuum and so the answer to my character defects is not for me to work on them it's me to go back and do the things that you have taught me to do to lead a god centered life and when I do that my character defects just received

I don't take power over them

I don't focus on the darkness what I do is I invite the light back in and the light comes in the darkness flees because it cannot exist in the light

thanks Gautam Bob stone calling about

there's a lot to be said for taking a fifth step and I think there's even more to be said for here in one

I have I I've heard probably

two hundred over the years

and it is in

the hearing of the fifth step that I've found myself

more than in the telling of the fifth step

there's something that happens to us is we it's not it refers to this in the twelve by twelve it refers to not only this is told their whole life story but heard someone else tell theirs that something happens to sin and I think if nothing else we start to awaken to something

in I don't know how many fifth steps you have to hear before you start to see something that you can't deny

and what that is is that it's something that Feinstein once referred to he said one time that the great illusion of mankind was that there's more than one of us here

he listened to enough fifth steps and you start to realize it's the same person

it's the same person over and over I haven't heard anything new in the fifth step in probably twenty seven years I just heard one not too long ago I was hoping for something new I was hoping for something interesting something exciting you know this queen of vibrating lawn rake chunky peanut butter a mule something interesting

or anything like that it's it's always the same

Fettig vacant scared inadequate person driven by their fears and self centeredness to try to fix themselves frantically and make themselves better and in the process they step on the toes of everybody around them in the process of trying to make themselves better they ruin their whole life they burned to the ground they don't even know why

it's the same story over and over and over and over again

and isn't it odd that some of us come here absolutely convinced that we are unique

there are cases different

and it were sold lonely in somewhere as a result of taking these steps and then helping to other people to take then we start to develop a sense of community we start to realize the truth is that that you are me

in step seven I'm saying something to god that is very interesting something that

that wouldn't have occurred to me I'm not asking him to take away the things that stand in the way of my happiness

or that stand in the way of my becoming rich and famous are being wonderful are the things that stand in the way of everybody realizing what a tremendous guy Bob is

I'm asking him only to take away the things that stand in the way of my usefulness

did I am claiming in step seven a commitment to a primary purpose and that is to abandon myself and stop trying to fix me and I am about my father's business which is helping his kids

and that is it

in most of the problems

did I incur with guys that I sponsor in with myself the people that are in long term sobriety seem to come back to step seven

it seems to be aspects of self little judgments and resentments and fears that have come up once again in that have diminished my ability to be useful because what happens is I get back into me again

and I my primary purpose slips incrementally slowly away from being here to help other alcoholics back into helping me

it is it is it we talked about in the dilution is that no matter how much time and energy you put into trying to fix yourself we only seem to get worse and it is only from abandoning myself going about my father's business that I seem to get a sense at times times of wholeness and completeness of usefulness

so I'm about this business of becoming useful

it it's it's always stuff cropping up it's always stuff

the couple things that I've I've discovered about steps six and seven

for me is that

I think all my character defects have two parts

in bill refers to that in his story when he goes through that there's a in his personal story in the beginning of the book he goes through a thumbnail sketch of the twelve steps and he gets to step six and seven and refers to these things is asking god to remove them root and branch is there's two parts

and we all know what the route the branches that's the part that's been poking in the Ojai that's the consequences see I want god to take away the consequence

but I do I really wanted to remove the defect

because what are my defects or day just defense mechanisms that I've been relying on for decades to give me a false sense of security and protection and validation

don't I use my anger because I'm under the illusion that it will protect me when I'm threatened

did it ever protect me or to just push people out of my life and make me feel more alone

did I use my lost because of the fear of being alone in a fitted terror of having a life that will be boring and vacant an uneventful and unexciting

and yet did my last ultimately push me into a life that was boring in the law you know vacant and lonely

N. I. S. I. A.

awakened to the truth is that these are defective defense mechanisms

there's never a defect of character that you will bring to the table in step six and seven the works

if they worked they would never be on the table

we bring them to the table because there it's only an illusion of value there's no value it's very similar to drinking most alcoholics cannot come to a

and come to guided by the whole package here with their alcoholism is really really get it the tape roll all the fun out of the drinking I mean nobody gets sober in the following days I mean why would you and if you have a whole that's terrible

that would be the biggest travesty of all imagine getting sobered and finding out you had three fun years left oh my god

no we come here after we've we've grown three years past we run all the fun out of would be kicking a dead horse for three years

and I think the same is true with most of my defects of character once I see the truth

then I realize there's no value in it's not it's not as difficult to take these things to god

whom to trust god

that brings us up to step

eight nine

just very very briefly historically up in this sense

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded on one man's eight step

if you know the history of how Alcoholics Anonymous was founded doctor Bob Smith was was twelve stepped on mother's day weekend nineteen thirty five and after he sat with bill for hours talking about this the spiritual principles the bill had gleaned from the Oxford group in this new way of life and the things he's been putting together which was the rudimentary foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous Hey Bob liked it all except the men's

he liked the help and others who like the confession of shortcomings he like prayer meditation like gaudy looked all but when it came to face and all the people would hurt the community he dug his heels in and he said the bill he said I can't do that he said oh my god you know what my drinking almost ruined my reputation is a is a doctor in this community as it is he dug his heels in and consequently doctor Bob Smith Drake again

and he came back from a convention is a medical conventional landing city so drunk on the train that the conductor didn't know what to do so they just laid him on the platform at the Akron station he was comatose and they called his office manager and she came down and got him and then eventually took him back to Ardmore street to the Smith residents were bill Wilson was

was living

and he came too early in the morning on what most historians believe was June tenth nineteen thirty five he came to shaking as we will come to drinking cheap whiskey round the clock day in and day out for several days

and he was jumping out of his skin and his nerves were shot and he said to bill and Ted Smith he said what day is it they said it's the morning of June tenth when Dr Bob said oh my god it can't be June tenth I have to perform a surgery the morning of June tenth and he's like this Ragin beyond his patient watching your doctor can

with the scalpel looks like you can thread a sewing machine you know just right

doctor bill Wilson gave Dr Baba a little some alcohol to drink in a in a sedative to stop the vibration send him into the

the surgery to perform this operation Dr Bob was approx tala just so you can use your imagination what kind of surgery this was and I don't nobody knows really

what happened to that patient we

it does say in the big book that he lived but nobody really knows I know one historian bill bill he builds try went into the Akron hospital records trying to find out who the patient was what happened to it because he'd like to know I'd like to know if we did the guy whistle when he walked or what we don't know

which is the only live

surgery was very quick it was a small cancer surgery

and Dr Bob got out of that was done that surgery is still in the morning of June tenth and disappeared

and bill Wilson and Dan Smith we're both afraid as I thought I would be that he went on a drunken man had to give a drink to go before we went into the surgery

easy assumption

but Dr Bob did not going to drug Dr Bob but yet he didn't come back all that morning all that afternoon at all that evening and it's almost midnight he came back to Ardmore street and something was different about him

and he had spent that whole day searching out everyone he was afraid to face and make those immense

consequently

doctor Bob Smith never drank again the rest of his natural life

low estimates is he personally helped in sponsored personally over five thousand people

and I don't know how many millions that the people he helped helped to help to help and I think most of us are sitting in this room as a direct result of one man seats step

what would have happened to us if Dr Bob one more time would have dug his heels in and said the bill I'll do all of A. A. except that there's nothing to lead me to believe that he would have stayed sober because he didn't before that was the major difference between may eleventh

in June tenth

is one man's eight step one man's willingness to make amends to the mall

it I understand why Dr Bob had to drink again and be beaten half to death by the bottle to become willing

step eight nine I think is the most terrifying thing any of us ever to it's frightening

hi I remember sitting in in meetings as a newcomer in in the years I was in and out I would hear people talk about a man said I would just I would just be so overwhelmed with fear I would want to run that would want to pull out of a in a in and I could hear you people talk about the mid you've made and that's fine good for you

you don't understand about me

I have people that went to prison as a result of my actions I have people I have one guy to this day I've I've hired detectives I've never found him he'll know he would never be the same

because I took a knife with a blade about this long and I opened up his chest in a black Audi was my best friend

I've never found him I can't tell you the dozens of people hundreds of people that I run all day I lived on the streets like an animal if I went down the street and and and a car was unlocked they stole whatever was in there if you were at the bar he went to the bathroom by the when you came back and stab Drake your drink I've taken your changing if you had a purse there it's gone

and I don't talk about I'm not talking about once or twice I'm talking about a way of life

so I could tell goal is not a business and they're talking about making amends to them all and I'm going home no problem yeah I would've never stolen all of that if I would have known this

this is impossible this is overwhelming and I would just feel like my head was going to explode just contemplating this it was too much too big

but step nine occurs after stepping

which occurs after steps six and seven which occurs after step five which occurs after step four

which occurs after a decision in step three which occurs after two realizations of absolute powerlessness in absolute on manageability and absolute helplessness

but I wasn't there yet

skiers are in the parking lot of tennis bag

to Mars with four wheels to two four by fours a Mercedes for twenty

nine geo seven XLT

and and I don't know what this other one is shogun

S. D. O. for DXC

move him if you have further plans form

that it

start up okay

or you can let him Tolman make amends later

but it it terrified me

you know what I but there's a print there's a principle that the first time I think I've I've ever heard anyone talk about it was it was mentioned by the great psychiatrist Carl young

it's the principle of synchronicity and synchronicity is a principle that seems to permeate all of Alcoholics Anonymous and what synchronicity is it's a view of the universe that

makes the looks of the universe as if it is it an exceptionally miraculously accommodating place

in the in a synchronistic universe if you are here eight point eight then you need to get over here to point B. and you can't because there's an abyss between a and B. that you will never surmount from the moment of desire

the word desire comes from two Latin words

of the father from the moment of desire in your routing for the change the universe start shifting subtly

to eventually accommodate the impossible

but you don't have to sit in very many meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous to you here

the stories of god's grace the stories of a synchronistic universe the stories of of people that

I could never get the family back in they did and then they'll tell you all the weird coincidences that had to happen for that to come down

and that's what we're facing here

and so in these amends that seem unreachable into impossible in Alcoholics Anonymous the impossible just takes a little longer

and the biggest battle I ever have to fight is to do my part you know there is it from the moment I take step three my wife the divides into my business in god's business it is stepping nine there's my business leaders guides business my business instead baited says we made a list my business to make a list of all person to be booed with art and became willing to make amends that's god's business is to bridge provide the willingness you know how I know what's his business and not mine because on page seventy six there's a prayer we're I ask him for that and it's the it's the last two lines in the middle paragraph it says if we haven't the will to do this in other words you get it you have an amazing you just can't imagine facing those people they know they're you know they're going to take a stick to your hit you with a brick you're not going to face so you don't get to do this you're not ready perfectly okay

it says if we haven't the will to do this we ask

we ask god to prayer and I ask until it comes

so I don't just say a

god give me the willingness to never think about again I ask until it comes

and so that's god's business my business is to make the list in the end in this paragraph it says we already made it we made it we took steps for

so if if you just finished your force your first step

and you have kind of a new age sponsor that wants you to burn it to watch the smoke what they have in or something like that that's fine that's fine make a copy first

because you're going to need the names off their rates stepless

no talk about a hundred and eighty degree turn in consciousness I don't know what alcoholic that has ever started making yours resentment listed isn't unconsciously making a list of people that you know really owe you an immense

and then what happens you come out the backside you go oh my god another thing I'm wrong about I owe them an immense

I was the fly in the ointment I was the monkey wrench in this engine

I was the problem

they decisions based on self and it's so it is my business to have created the list in step four and it's my business ask god for the willingness and its guides business to provide the willingness and in step nine it says make direct amends

wherever possible it's god's business to create wherever possible

I don't have to do anything in Alcoholics Anonymous I can't do it so I what I discovered is that all my images will fit into one of four categories and some guys do these on on index cards in that that's very good other guys will make four columns that's fine but I I understand that there's there's a man's that that I am willing and I got to wherever I know exactly where those people are I know how to find

that's that would be number one those are the only image I actually have to make today

they're the only ones number two it's the people we're

I know where they are

but I'm not really willing you know why how I know I'm not really willing

because I haven't gone there yet when you're really willing you're you're you're pulling up in front of their house I mean you know because action well because because willingness without action is fantasy

so

could the number two position is the people that I know where they are but the truth is I'm not really willing so I asked I asked all have to do with number two is is I have to pray

number three

are people that I really am willing I know in my heart that I be willing but I don't know where they are thank god that I stabbed I'll tell you I've looked for him to look for him if I found out next week where he is I would be on a plane as soon as possible to go see him

and I am willing but I don't have the wherever so god must make that possible and I don't know when that's going to be I just had some momentum I just got to make amends a couple weeks in July to a guy had seen for thirty five years

many pops up and you know what I get to make amends thirty now the neck I look for in years ago is he because he got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in years two years and eight months

at eight I got I got to meet him at a conference in Philadelphia I got to make my amends

and I got a gift from all that I don't know if it's a good gift your bad give maybe it is maybe it is not

he told me some stories about myself that I was just starting to think I wasn't that bad

he told and I got my men's list got longer he told me about it I hideous thing I did that was involved I wiped out a whole block of parked cars one time I don't remember this I remember

so I was willing and god at twenty eight and a half years provides the wherever

I don't know why he provides I know that when I was seventeen years sober I found a woman that I'd searched for when I was three and four and five years over and could not find

it is a result of my finding heard seventeen years sober a friend of hers who knew me ended up going to his first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I understood all of a sudden every once in a while you can see you can see the reason for the dance steps put out by the big choreographer

and sometimes you never see the reason for the dance steps you just after a while I realize it's a good dance

and I could see in that particular incident why why I could make that the meds seventeen years but so that this other guy Jim could get some help

C. isn't it's funny that I always think it's about me sometimes it's not about me there there's a gal

Dave I think knows this gal there's a gal my old home group name Chelsea Chelsea but affect only do she says she said I could tell the story it makes her smile when she finds out I dalka by next time I see her outside I told you that they told a story about you again she just lights are up

what Chelsea before Chelsea got sober