The OA Big Book Study in Winnipeg, MB, Canada

OK, we're back. I'm amazed at how 300 people were able to get lunch in this cafeteria that quickly.

We're we're now on to step three. And I said that the first part of the discussion and how it works is not really about Step 3, but it's about why we take step three. And I want to talk about that. Included in this discussion is an extremely important definition of a word because

the word that is defined in this part of the big book, the word selfish, is not the way it is found in a dictionary and is very, very important when we start to work Step 4, to understand the difference in the definition of the word selfish in the big Book as opposed to what it is in the dictionary. I'll show that when we get there. Go to page 60.

What do we mean by turning our will and our life over to God as we understand them?

The first requirement they say at the bottom, page 60, is that we be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success. On that basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good.

We're going to be understanding as we read this portion of the big book that no matter whether our motives are good or bad, so long as they're our motives, as so long as they're things that we want to have happen that will be contrary to our recovery, that will harm our recovery. The more we want things to happen our way, the more our recovery is threatened. Most people try to live by self repulsion.

Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show, is forever trying to arrange the lights that ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.

And I've got to tell you, one of my dreams

is to direct place and the other one is to conduct an orchestra. I, I would, I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm not very good at either one of those, but I would love to be in charge of a group of people whose job it is to, to create something that I'm in charge of. Right. And I expand this to the world. I have always been a person who believes that if his way were adopted, the world would be a better place. And I got to tell you it would be a better place. It would be based on a whole bunch of much better things in the world

based on. Now, having said that, though, I must admit that my drive to have the world be the way I wanted to has been counterproductive. And I remember, I remember when my first sponsor pointed out this passage in the big book and he said, you know, you're you want to be the director of a play that you're acting in. That is your problem. And it

hit me right in the solar plexus. That's exactly true. That's exactly what I have wanted to be the director of the play and the big book goes on. It says if his arrangements would only stay put,

if people would do as he wished, this show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful,

my daughter, if she went to school and enjoyed school, will have a better life later, you know, if if you know the politician didn't say this, it would be better if they didn't do this It would be better if the talk show host didn't speak this way. If if people were more cooperative, there weren't torture in the world. If they're, you know, I mean all kinds of really virtuous reasons why I want life to be better. I've, I've had a good life, but there are a lot of people who suffer. I don't want people to suffer. If only people didn't suffer in life, you know, and my

generally virtuous in that respect. I'm Jewish. I grew up in the, in the, in the 50s, the specter of the Holocaust was on there. And all the education I had, I went to Jewish schools,

I was taught by survivors. I mean you, you, you, you may or may not be able to imagine what that did in my growing up to my feelings about the suffering that humanity has gone through. And I don't mean just just Jews. I mean the suffering that humanity has gone through. I, when the stuff in Darfur and the Sudan happened, I, I think about it and, and, and,

and these are awful, awful things. And I grew up well, but I always have felt a need for the world to be different.

And it says he may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self sacrificing. And my joke, I think it's generally true that if you would ask anyone other than my family whether these traits applied to me, aside from the modest one, I think most people would have said that I was kind, considered patient, generous and self sacrificing. My family would have thought something different. But, but I think a lot of people would have thought that, you know, the joke, I used to be conceited, but I got over that. Now I'm perfect

then, they say. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest.

And certainly I have been like that too. I have wanted applause. I've wanted people to like me. I've wanted things to happen for my benefit, to make more money or to be given more recognition or to be the center of attention. God knows I've I've wanted that. I've wanted to be right, you know, in arguments. I want it to be to get as in schools,

in in in courses. I've wanted my daughters not to bug me.

I've wanted to be able to be in peace and not to not to have people talk to me all the time. I want to have a a huge source of income without having to work for it. I mean, these are all not quite so virtuous motives that I've had. I've wanted, I've wanted to to have relationships with women

less for having a good relationship and more for what they make me feel like. As, you know, like I, I have one girlfriend who was really quite beautiful. And when I look back in my relationship with her, much of it was, well, she made me feel handsome or worthwhile in some way. She validated my existence. She validated my attractiveness

and I'm not even sure I even wanted a relationship with her other than that having her on my arm made me feel as if the world treated me better

did she was beautiful and they did treat me better, but that and that is a lousy reason to have a relationship with anyone. As a matter of fact, it was a relatively destructive relationship

and certainly exploitative. But as with most humans, he's more likely to have varied traits. And that's true. I mean, when my daughter was 1213 years old and she was going through, you know, sort of what do they call the dissociative faith where she was

marking her distance between my wife and me and, and actually putting distance between my wife and me.

I want, and she was not doing well in school And, and I was worried about that. I had a bunch of different motives for why I wanted her to do well in school. One was to get off my back. One was to to show the teachers that I'm not a bad tutor, you know, like, like I was trying to tutor and she wasn't taking direction for me, But I wanted the teachers not to think I was such a bad parent that I couldn't teach her, help her learn this stuff.

But I, I was, I mean, aside from and I didn't want to debug my I just, I mean, there were all kinds of things she was doing that bothered me. So that's the non so virtuous, but also I wanted to do well, I love to.

I worried about her future. I didn't want her to grow up without an education, you know, all kinds of quite virtuous things just out of my love her. So there was a mixture, and very often there's a mixture in our relationships with people and our relationships with the world

were completely virtuous, but they were my own feeling about what should be going on. And that's what the big book is talking about. They go on and page 61, they say what usually happens. The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more.

He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding, or gracious as the case may be. I mean, we can be overly nice to try and have our way, or we can be more demanding to have our have our way. Many of us as people pleasers have learned how to do it in the nice way, not in the more demanding way. But people know exactly what's going on. Still, the place is not suitable. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he's sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant and

pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can rest, rest his grab, satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Isn't it evident all the rest of players, that these are the things he wants and don't his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

Certainly on a personal level that was true. The more I tried to exert my will with my wife, my kids, my parents, the the worse it got, not the better. I mean, they had their own wills, they had their own agendas, they had their own needs and and wishes. And it just got got worse. And sometimes I retreated. I retreated often from the world. And I know lots of my friends in Norway have simply retreated and given up and causes themselves in a place where nothing can bother them. Nothing. Including love. Including,

you know,

companionship there the world is flat. They the life is flat. And I, I've been in that isolated world where I try not to let the world hurt me too much. That means I can't let the world help me too much either. I just have to be alone and I'm not open. I'm not capable of loving or being loved at at that time. And that has happened to me in the midst of love, in the midst of all kinds of people who love me. I've cut myself off from people because I couldn't stand not getting my way

and I and I've isolated myself. So they start to describe this kind of person. And I don't know if this rings a bell with you or not, but it's very important from the big book perspective that you understand if you're like me, that you want life to go your way. You might say, Oh no, no, I don't want anymore. Let life go on. But there, if there's not part of you, I'd be surprised if you're like me,

that there'd be a part of you say, Oh yeah, let life go on, Let them all die, let them all kill her. I don't care. And you're just feeling so sorry for yourself that your things aren't going your way. Whether you actively try and change things or whether, excuse me, you, you just sort of give up completely. Isn't there a part of you that wants the world to go your way and despairs of the fact that it's not that doesn't ring a bell. I would be, I would be interested to know.

So they start to describe it says our actor is self-centered

egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays. Well, they did in 1939, but I don't think they'd like to call it egocentric now.

He's like the retired businessman who lols who lies about in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining the sad state of the nation. Not a particularly nice person. I guess you would say the ministers size over the sins of the 20th century. Noah. Well meaning person who worries about things. Politicians and reformers who are sure all would be utopia of the rest of the world would only behave people with very fine motives who want the world to be a better world.

The outlaw safecracker who thinks society is wronged them probably is not a very introspective person who doesn't understand

where he or she might be the blame and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up self pitting person. I mean here's a a whole spectrum of different kinds of people they're describing as self-centered egocentric. Whatever. Our protestations, however much we protest, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments or our self pities or our self pity,

selfishness, self centeredness that we think

is the root of our troubles.

You can see that all the description they've they've given up to now describes people who can be very virtuous or people who can be not virtuous at all, or a mixture of that. All of those people they're describing as selfish people who want their

now selfish in the dictionary will only mean wanting your way for your own purposes, for your own inner desires or your own needs. I mean selfish as we talk about it, and the dictionary definition is really how we talk about it. You're being selfish means it's me, me, me. You want you want things for yourself. You want more money, you want more of this, you want more that. But the big book describes people with absolutely virtuous motives being as being selfish. So that what when they when the big book describes selfishness, it's not describing only The

Who want things for themselves. It's describing anyone who wants his or her own way, regardless of the motivations. That's really important to understand because when we get to Step 4, going to be asking ourselves where we're selfish. And if you ask me where am I selfish and not wanting the Holocaust to have occurred

according to the dictionary definition, I'm not selfish at all. I don't want people to suffer. That's not being selfish according to the dictionary, According to the big Book definition, I'm being selfish and I want something to happen that isn't happening and it didn't happen. I want my way rather than God's way, if you will. So that's selfish from the dictionary, from the big Book definition, but not from the dictionary. It's really important to understand that difference.

Big Book goes on, driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking and self pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. And certainly my life is been an experience of that.

Trying to get my way has never gotten my way

or if it has it's been it's been really bad. I just want to read a just a passage from the the A 12 and 12 and Step 4.

It is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We've been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs 2 disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much.

If we lean to heavily on people, they'll sooner or later fail us for their human too, and cannot passably meet our incessant demands. And this way our insecurity grows Investors.

When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. So either we try to dominate or we're too dependent. But either way, people are going to fail us. And then come passages that just hit me. We have not once sought to be one in a family,

to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers,

to be a useful member of society. This is from the A 12/12, not from the Big Book.

We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap or to hide beneath it.

And I love that notion because I think that's so true either If we can't get to the top, we'll hide down below to the at the bottom, but we're never in the middle.

And and I always think about my previous relationships with women. I mean, how my wife ended up with me, I still to this day, I don't know. Because when I look at the women I was interested in, frankly, they were all people who could see through the nice me to the deep down innermost evil me. And they were the ones who were worthy of my respect and love because they weren't superficial. Now, people who saw down to the evil me, of course, wouldn't be attracted to me. So I ended up being attracted to people who would not be.

Seem to be a kind of a self defeating proposition,

but that was always I was always looking I'll always living a double life or felt I was living a double life. Now the big book goes on it says we know we stepped on the toes are our fellows and they retaliate and they on page 62. Sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that it's sometime in the past we've made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be heard. And this passage can easily be read

as saying, oh, yeah, you're saying that I deserved to be assaulted. You know, because somehow I made a decision based on self that allowed me to be assaulted.

Absolutely not. The big book couldn't possibly think that or say that. Charlie gives this great example. He says when he was eight years old, his father beat him black and blue. He said no, No 8 year old child deserves to be beaten black and blue. But if 50 years later his father, who is now dead, is still beating him black and blue, in his mind, clearly he made a decision based on self in the past that has placed him in a position to be hurt. That decision may be

my life is ruined. I'll never be able to live happily again because I was beaten black and blue when I was eight years old.

And if it's if it's that he's made a decision in the past that brings him to the present time, which means he's still being beaten up by his father 50 years after the event occurred.

And that concept is that we continue to allow ourselves be hurt by the past because it didn't go our way. The past didn't go our way. And we want life to go our way. We can't accept the fact that the past hasn't gone our way. Of course, the past has never gone our way, but we we can't accept it. You know, I have, I have a friend who who hates a a person whom whom I know well as well.

And

my friend is very

sane person who

can hate and then stop hating and or just continue to hate, but it doesn't affect her life. But if I hated that same person and I have every reason to have the same feelings of this other person has if I hated that same person, I would eat over it. My mind would be some so clouded, you know, there that person did evil and awful things and there's got to be, you know, I can't afford it. And the big book goes on. It says our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.

They arise out of ourselves. And the alcoholic is an extreme example of self will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we Alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us.

God makes that possible, and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we couldn't live up to them, even though we would have liked to. And if I believed in truth, love, justice and beauty, how could I hate?

Really, when you think about it.

But I did believe in truth, life, justice, beauty, and I did hate. How could I exist this way? Well, the the answer is I wasn't living according to what I believed in. That was my problem. I wanted life to go a certain way according to the dictates of truth, love, justice and beauty. And when it didn't go that way, I couldn't stand it.

Not very adult of me. But then, you know, another point in the AA12 and 12, which Bill Wilson wrote, Bill says the, the, the general maturity level of Alcoholics has been determined to be at 11 years old. How we hate that, you know, but it's, it's true and it's true for me. I remember after about six months in, in the program in, in, in OAII spoke at a meeting. I said I think I'm finally turned 14.

You know, I I'm on the verge of adulthood now.

So this is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. In other words, we had to turn our will over, had to get rid of our will. Next, we decided to hereafter this drama of life, God was going to be our director. We have to turn our life over will life. The first section talked about will. Now we're talking about life. God was going to be our director. He's the principal, we're his agent, He's the father, we're his children. And the big and the draft said get that simple relationship straight. I'm very glad they took that sentence out.

I wish they had taken a few of the other sentences out because they reading about Godfather Principal agent.

It's not language that I appreciate anyway. So they've spent a whole number of pages discussing the idea of will and life. What does it mean to give up our will? It means we aren't in charge and we don't try to be in charge. What does it mean to give up our life? It means we will devote our life to doing the will of our higher power. So if you are religious or you have some spiritual notion, it is

the notion of following the will of a supreme being of some kind. For me, it's following the notion of supreme ideas, higher ideas, or higher passions of mine. But whatever it is, it is trying to live my life according to them, not trying to live my life according to what I want out of life. And here the promise of page 63 at the top of page 63. People often think these are the promises of Step 3. They're not. They're the promises of what happens after you've turned your will and your life over the care of God as you understand God, which doesn't happen at Step 3.

I'll prove it to you in a few different ways, but the 1st way I'll prove it to you is just by reading these promises. They're all becoming promises. They're all this begins to happen when we sincerely took such a position, which means doing steps 4:00 to 12:00. I think all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer cause we've now at a certain point, we, we have, we turn our will and life over the care of God. We've only made a decision. Step three, we haven't done it yet. Step 4 through 9 will do that for us.

So by the way, we get our job description on page one O 2. I'll I'll be pointing it out to you. It says are your job now is to be of maximum helpfulness to others.

Once we're able, page 102 is past the recovery point page. It's past step 9. When we've recovered, now we're able to do God's will. Now we're able to live a life to be of maximum helpfulness to others. We're not trying to have things go our way. We're trying to have things go God's way. Whatever God might mean, being all powerful, He provided what we needed if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. That steps 4 through 12

established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new life, new powers flowing, as we enjoyed Peace of Mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.

This is the promise of the program, not the promise of step three. If you wait for this to happen at step three, you'll be waiting a very, very long time. And I know people who do wait at step three wait for God to come into their lives. And if you read the AOA 12 and 12, you might even interpret that essay on the step three is meaning that. I don't think it says that, but a lot of people read that essay as saying wait until God comes into your life until you go on to Step 4.

But the big book approach is the only way God's going to come into your life is if you get rid of the things that block you from God. The only way you're going to get rid of things that block you from God is getting honest with yourself, getting honest with another human being, and making amends for the harms that you've done. So

these promises are not the promises of step three. And I'll, I'll prove that by looking down on page 63, the only promise made about Step 3, which is a prayer. It's a decision and a prayer

in five lines up from the bottom. This was only a beginning, though. If honestly and humbly made an effect, sometimes a very great one was felt at once. That's the only promise that you'll feel some kind of an effect, and sometimes a great one. I felt different effects. Sometimes it was a great one and sometimes it wasn't, but I felt an effect. Making a decision is an important moment in my life to say, yeah, I'm going to try this. I'm really, really going to try it.

It's an important and sincere moment and and the prayer that's said here is a very significant prayer

For me. It was doubly significant because I didn't pray and to say a prayer like this was just against everything that I believed in. Funny enough, to say I believed in something, maybe a prayer difficult, but I said it anyway because my sponsor told me to do it and I did it. I changed the these and the those to use, but that was about the only change I made. I don't do that anymore, but I did it then. So let's say the step three prayer,

by the way, the manuscript that the draft used to say, get down on your knees and say to your Maker, I'm really glad they got rid of that, although I have said this on my knees at times. Anyway, let's say it, it's on middle page 63. God, Ioffer myself to thee to build with me, and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.

Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. Of thy power

that I love, and Thy way of life may I do Thy will always. It's a brilliant prayer because you know, it says

I'm offering yourself, I'm offering myself to God to do what? To build with me, to do with me as you will. I'm in your hands. Relieve me of the bondage of self. Why? So I won't eat anymore? No, so I can better do your will. Because the more I'm relieved of the bondage itself, the more I can do God's will, not my will. Take away my difficulties. So I won't have any difficulties, no. So victory over them will bear witness to other people of your power, your life and your way of life. In other words, I am to become a symbol

of the value of giving up my will. I'm to help others,

and the overcoming of my difficulties is not for my own benefit, but to help others in their quest for spiritual wholeness. That's my job in life now.

And what we find out is that even though it takes time and even though it takes a lot of effort, it is one of the most fulfilling things we can do in our lives. And we'll talk about that more tomorrow. Big Book says we found a very desirable to take the spiritual step with an understanding person such as our wife, best friend or spiritual advisor. But it's better to be God alone than with one who might misunderstand. And so this will now from this moment on, this is now known as the decision.

There will be various points where the big Book will talk about the decision. And that's what they mean, saying this prayer. But you notice that's all it is.

It's a prayer, it's a decision, it's nothing more. Understand the consequences of it by reading the the first few pages that we discussed about wanting to be the director of the play and all that. But it is only a decision and the big book makes this very clear. Bottom page 63. Next, we launched out in the course of vigorous action to launch us to prepare your propel yourself with vigor from a doc.

We didn't start. We launched out. We pushed ourselves away on a course of vigorous action. We haven't done anything yet. We've done a lot of reading. We've made a decision. We've done nothing. Now it's time to take action And, and you realize how different this is from some other ways of doing the steps from how people sometimes just wait at Step 3 for something to happen. Not, not the big book that pushes you on and on and on you. You got to keep on going or else you'll fall flat on your face. Remember, in step one, we've given up the food.

Remember that in step one we've understood that our mind can play tricks on us and it'll send us back to the food. If we don't recover and find a higher power, we're on a race. If we don't finish step 9 when we're promised recovery, our minds going to come back. And so we're in a race with our mind. Can we get recovery before our mind persuades us that it's OK to have something to eat? And I've watched people in this program take their time doing the steps and relapse.

And so I, I look at the big book and it's so obvious to me how the big book says, keep on going.

You've got to rush it, you've got to go quickly. And how the early people in a a recovered that quickly too, because it was urgent. If they didn't recover quickly, they'd relapse. That was their history. That was my history. And so that's what I say to people I sponsor. That's what

urge you to to think about. No matter how you do the steps, if you languish and delay, you will probably relapse or else you'll be hanging on and you'll be a dry drunk or a white knuckle up. Stainer

are people who are like that. They're the people who come to the meetings and they don't do the steps, but they use the meetings as tools to help them keep from eating. Hey, that's OK. I get, you know, I'm not trying to kick anyone out, but that's not what the beating is about. The purpose of the meeting is to carry the message of recovery to the 12 steps to the person who still suffers. Not that we're there for you to give you comfort.

Tradition 5. The primary purpose of every OA meeting is to carry the message to compulsive user still suffers.

That's our primary purpose. No other.

OK, so next we launched on the course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a a personal housekeeping which many of us had never attempted though our decisions. Step three was a vital and crucial step. It could have little permanent effect unless at once, at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves

which had been blocking us

from the sunlight of the Spirit, from God. Our liquor was but a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions, and therefore we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step 4. So Step 4 is starting upon the inventory, not finishing it. We'll find out that we finish it in step 9, regardless of what the steps in the wall say. We start upon the inventory in Step 4

and they start to describing what inventory is. They say a gentle inventory, a business inventory,

a business that which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial. A business inventory is a fact finding. Searching to find a fact is to search for it and fact facing fearless. To face facts is to be fearless, a searching and fearless process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock and trade. So when you do a commercial inventory, you're looking at all kinds of things. You're looking at the good things, the things that are selling, the things that aren't selling, the things that you have to get rid of, the things that you should keep, the things you need more of, the things you need less of, right.

A general commercial inventory is a wholesale, as it were, an all inclusive process. But the Big Book isn't talking about that kind of inventory. They say one object of an inventory, one object of a commercial inventory is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. That's what we're doing. We're in this inventory only looking at the damage and unsalable goods and getting rid of them properly without regret.

We don't have to look at the good stuff and, and you, you will find

people will often say, well, the inventory, you put down the good stuff, you put down the bad stuff. And I'll talk about that as we go on as to why a lot of people do that. But from the big book perspective,

the object of this inventory is to disclose damaged or insailable goods to get rid of them promptly without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. We'll we'll learn that second and third and 4th, the steps 5678 and 9:00.

But first we search out the flaws, being convinced that self manifested, showing itself in various ways was what had defeated us. We considered it's common manifestations, it's common symptoms.

So we were convinced itself was what had defeated us. We were convinced in the discussion about turning our will over. Our wish to be in charge of life had defeated us.

Now we're on to the step for inventory. And for this there are a number of forms that were three forms that were devised straight out of the Big Book by an AAR named Blaine. Blaine D used to live in Winnipeg and now lives north of here, and he counted himself as a student of Joe and Charlie. He was the guy who taught the guy who taught me the Big Book, and he developed these forms, which

I have. I've studied a lot of Step 4 forms and I've never seen forms that are as close to the big Book

and as as powerful. Having said that, if you have another way of doing step four that works for you, I'm not suggesting you do this. I'm only saying that if you have, if you've tried step forward, it hasn't given you the results that you want. This might be worth trying. If you're looking to sponsor another person, you may find this is to be a very simple way and fast way of doing Step 4.

But I will simply tell you that I have never found a better way of doing it and I've I've read

at least dozens. If not I can't sever it hundreds. I've I've I've probably read close to 100 different Step 4

methods.

I've never seen anything that's quite as brilliant as this. I want to give you the overview and then I'll go down more into specifics.

This is the overview that I that I I've developed of it.

There are three areas that you look at

and you look at them for different reasons.

The first thing you do is you have a resentment form and a resentment has to be understood in a very broad sense. It's not just something you're angry about, it's something that you wish hadn't occurred. It's basically the pest, the pest. The past didn't go my way. Here are the all the things in the past that bother me. Here are all the things in my present life that bother me. This is what bothers me. This is what I resent. It may be I hurt someone else and I think about it all the time, or maybe someone else hurt me and I think

or maybe things are going on in life that I don't like. But that's a resentment. And we go through a process and I'll describe it, in which we gradually move from what what bothers us to the part we play in that. And we find out that we have 4 character defects from that, only four selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened. I'll describe each one of them. I'll talk about each one of them, but there are four of them,

so we have only four of them. We don't have 25 or 100 of them. We don't have jealousy, conceit, pettiness, gossiping. You know, the seven deadly sins, lust and all that. We have four. They are basic, they're deep, and they are part of every single one of the things that are wrong with us, but they are the four.

We then have a fear form that deals with the frightened, one of our the one of the four defects of character, the fear part. And this fear form takes us to a process whereby we change from being afraid of something to figuring out how to deal with reasonable concerns that might cause that might have caused us fears, and also teach us to distinguish reasonable concerns from unreasonable concerns.

And so we begin, as the Big Book promises us, to outgrow fear

by filling out this form. It's it's really quite magic. So we've already begun to deal with one of our 4 character defects in the midst of doing Step 4.

The third form is a sex conduct form, and sex conduct has to do with difficult relationships in which there was some physical attraction in that relationship. Sex in 1939 was a far broader concept than it was than it is now. Sex right now has a much more basically a physical aspect to it. But in 1939, sex was a far more general thing, talking about relationships in which there was attraction.

And the sex conduct form deals with

selfishness, dishonesty, and what they call inconsiderateness, which is the other side of self seeking. To be a self seeking person, to think of yourself and not to think of others. If you think of yourself and not of others, you're inconsiderate. So the sex conduct form deals with selfish, dishonest and self seeking or inconsiderate. Those same. The three leftover defects of character that the fear form didn't deal with, right? You have 4 defects of character. The fear form dealt with one of them. The assessed conduct form deals with the next three

or with the other three and it gives you guidance. You move from where you've been selfish, dishonest and self seeking in relation to relationships where there were

there was physical attraction, difficult difficult relationships to an understanding of what you should have done. Instead. You now have guidance as to how you can act in a way that is not selfish, dishonest, and inconsiderate in difficult relationships, which should give you guidance in all relationships.

It's almost like a dry run for your amends. You begin to see the kind of person you could have been if you look back at your difficult relationships, and you begin to understand how you could have done it differently. And so as you work through step four, you're dealing with your fears and you're examining certain parts of your life in which you've been exhibited those other three defects of characters and your understanding how easy it would have been

to act differently. That then gives you all the sense of the world of the different person you can become

as you work through the rest of steps 4 through 9.

I find that absolutely brilliant because it just all fits together. And anyone who works who uses these forms will see how it fits together. We'll go into more detail with them, but for me, it's just amazing. And I never realized until recently that that is how it is constructed. I knew it worked. I didn't know exactly why, but now I see why. Each of the forms has a different object. The first form isolates your defects of character. The second form deals with one of those defects of character in in total,

the third firm deals with three of them in sort of a rehearsal for what you're going to be doing. Because then when, because those are the difficult ones. When you get to steps 8:00 and 9:00, how do you make amends in the relationships you've had with people? So that's how it works. Yes. I I can only answer briefly because I'm I'm on the tape.