The OA Big Book Study in Winnipeg, MB, Canada

OK, we're back on.

Say go on, I said. The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted.

Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept a home in turmoil. We feel man as I'm thinking when he says that sobriety is not enough. Page 83

Yes, this is a long period of reconstruction. Again, we must take the lead. Remorseful mumbling that we're sorry won't feel the bill at all. We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the passes. We now see it being very careful not to criticize them. Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are they're our own actions are partly responsible. Somewhere. I think it even says in here, I can't remember where, maybe with the family that if you live with a crazy person, you become crazy. And since we have been crazy, there's no question that the people who live with us

have had their own little craziness too.

So we we clean house with the family, asking each morning meditation that our creators show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness and love.

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.

So that's a living amend. And that's clearly what I've had to do with my wife and with my parents and with my children. It's not enough to say to you, to say to them, I'm sorry for my attitude towards them or for my actions towards them, which I have to do is live differently. And so living in men's are key. And what I'm finding these days is that what I work through amends now and as part of Step 10, which I'll be discussing I think this afternoon,

is that my amends are almost always living amends. I know enough now to say I'm sorry if I've done something, or I know enough now to make up for anything. If I've done anything wrong,

I know how to make up for it right away. I don't. I don't even pause,

but it's the living amends where I don't notice what's been creeping up in a relationship, or I don't notice that I've been Moody, or I don't notice things like that. And that requires a much more conscious effort to live differently.

And then on page 83. So we've got the three direct amends. At the risk of repetition, I'll remind you that they are eyeball to eyeball apology, restitution, and taking the public consequences. And then we have living amends. And then there are page 83. There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would write them if we could.

Some people can't be seen. We send them an honest letter. There may be valid reason for postponement in some cases,

but we don't delay if it can be avoided.

Here they describe our attitude in an amend. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people, we stand on our feet. We don't crawl before anyone. I don't know if you remember David Copperfield with Uriah Heap. I'm very humble. I'm very humble. This sort of false,

false humility. But that's not what we're like as God's people. We stand at our own 2 feet. I am sorry for what I have done.

I'm a different person now. I'm striving to be a different person, and I will make up for what I have done in the past.

In a book

discussing whether one can forgive a person for murder,

a rabbi says that according to Judaism, you cannot forgive anyone for murder because the only person who can forgive is the person who

to whom the wrong was done, and murderers have no one alive who can forgive them. But the rabbi says the only hope that a murderer may have is that he becomes a different person from the person who committed the murder. And that is always the hope of anyone, that you realize the horror of what you have done and you try to become a different person. This is part of the conversion

of faith of many,

many

faiths

in our program.

We have the opportunity to become different people by making amends. We can become different at any time through this process. And it's it's a gift that's given to us that isn't given to a lot of people because we go through this process and we realize where we're wrong and we learn how to change ourselves, how we can change. It's absolutely remarkable and absolutely beautiful.

And again, the change might be I'm not going to be a victim anymore. You know, people, people say, well, the 1st Amendment I have to make to is myself. And what they mean by that is they have to learn to say no. They have to learn to say,

you know, I can't do this for you because a lot of us have been enablers in our life and have done things with it for people that don't have to be done. I find it much more valuable, rather than saying I'm making an amend to myself, to think of the effect of my actions on other people and to think about making an amend to them. If I do my daughter's school work,

then I'm harming her ability to learn something

and my and rather than saying, well, I got to make an amendment myself. I just won't listen to her anymore. I'm just too nice and I don't want to be nice anymore,

which isn't a particularly healthy thing to say. I think it's easier for me to say I'm going to give her an opportunity to learn by refusing to do her homework for her.

I'm going to. I'm going to give an opportunity for this person to become a better person by refusing to let this person run over me.

And it's if you look at the other person rather than yourself, your motives will be far better to understand than if you look at yourself. Because sometimes making an amend to yourself can get you into a lot of self pity and self selfishness. Not always, but it can. Yes, there comes to be a reasonable time when you should take a bath with candles and incense

or when you need time to yourself, just to yourself.

Why do you need that? Not because you deserve it, but because your job is to be of maximum helpfulness to others. And sometimes people need to recharge their batteries. In order to be of maximum helpfulness to others, you have to be in fit spiritual condition. If you look at it that way, it seems to me you get the flavor, what the big Book is about, because the big book is all about other people, not about yourself. Your job is to be a helpfulness to others, not to yourself. It's not a selfish program. It is a selfless program.

It is all about being helpful to others. Because if you think about yourself, you're going to end up dying, you're going to end up relapsing. So do your best not to think of others, but don't forget that sometimes helping others means not letting them do any more harm. Speaking up, not being dishonest and saying things that have to be said. Just on the concept of being servile and humble and scraping there's. I think it's a great Jewish joke that sometimes

people laugh at and sometimes they don't. It's got a particular aspect to it, which may be cultural, I don't know. But here's the joke. At any rate, in the old stattle, the old towns, like where Tevye, the filled Fiddler on the Roof lived, Old Russian town,

there's a small synagogue

and it's the high Holy days, Yom Kippur, the highest, highest holy day in in in Jewish life. Where Jews all over the world, Religious ones anyway. I don't. But religious ones ask forgiveness from God.

And in this small little synagogue, the rabbi

suddenly says, God before you, I am nothing, I am nothing. And he falls flat in his face. He says I am nothing, I am nothing.

And the richest man in town gets up. He says God before you, I am nothing, I am nothing. And he falsified his face. I am nothing. I am nothing.

The town beggar gets up and he says, God before you, I am nothing, I am nothing. And he falls in his face. I am nothing, I am nothing. And the rich man leans over to the rabbi and whispers to him, pointing to the Tom. Beggar says look who thinks he's nothing.

Think about it.

See, it's, it's only, I mean, in some cultures they'd like a lot louder than that. I mean, the idea is because not everyone gets it. I mean, really, I have found this. Not everyone gets it is look who such a small person has the gall to think to, to say to everyone that he's nothing. Only the big people have the right to say we're nothing. You know, that's really the effect of the joke. And that's false humility, right?

And and actually, Bill has a wonderful essay

on guilt. I think it's not guilt in which he says that. Pride and guilt are two sides of the same coin.

To say I'm the best is hardly different from saying I'm the worst.

They both mean I'm exceptional, you know? And he says you got to be in the middle here. No ones the worst and no ones the best. We're all the same people. And that's one thing that this whole step 9 teaches us is that we're all God's people. We stand at all feet. We're responsible for our actions and other people responsible for theirs. And how they react to me is their responsibility, not mine. I'm now living God's life. I'm living according to dictates of my higher

now Page 83 come those promises. Here are the promises. Here are the fantastic promises that we've been looking for.

Halfway through. If we're painstaking about the space of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. Halfway through step five, we will be amazed.

We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. There's a promise

we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it now. This is really important. All the horrible things that have happened to us in our lives now become things that we do not regret, but actually become the things with which we can help other people later on in the Big Book. The Big Book says our darkest past becomes our most useful possession. We can now bring to others our experience and say we've overcome that. I've overcome this. I don't eat over this.

This horrible thing happened to me. I mean, I have friends who have suffered the most horrible kind of abuse were able to say to someone who's whining in a pity pot, hey, I had it worse than you and I'm not crying and I'm not eating over it. Work these steps and you'll have the same thing. I can't say that, but they can't because nothing really horrible has ever happened to me. Although I've got to tell you, I once those of there's some people who remember the Friday noon meeting. It was a wonderful meeting and and we used to go out for lunch. Afterwards we went to a meeting.

When? When

we had lunch after the meeting, an absent lunch, and we were all talking about how we felt during that meeting, and it turned out each one of us was sorrier for someone else than we were for ourselves. We'd all been talking about sad things that were going on our lives was it was one of those meetings and it was almost like a Daisy chain where we all felt sorry for someone who felt sorry for someone who felt sorry for, and all sort of came around. There wasn't a person in there for who someone didn't feel sorry or for than for himself or herself

because it's all a matter of attitude. You know, I once spoke at an OA convention. Why once I did speak four days after my mother died. Now, my mother and I had an incredible relationship and well over our entire life, but in the last number of years especially and but when she died, she was ready. I was ready. It was there was nothing left unsaid between us. But I remember after I spoke and I had mentioned it towards the end of my speech that my mother had died and just earlier

and someone came up to me and said how brave I was in speaking myself. Well, you know, that's not great for me at all to do this because for me it's just,

you know, I, I passed, I overlapped my life with someone I loved and who loved me. And it was a joy. And I thought, well, why? Why do why does this person feel that was brave? Well, maybe that person has issues. Is it imagining how he or she would feel if his or her mother died, You know, you know, so it's all we all have our own attitudes that we bring to someone else that we feel surreal for. It's really very, very interesting.

So we will not regress the past nor wish to shut the door in. It will remember the past and will be able to use it to help others. We will comprehend the word serenity. We will know peace no matter how far down the scale we have gone. We will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic and security will lead now. There's no promise that we won't be economically insecure, but our fear of it will leave.

I mean, none of these promises promises any financial security or any anything going on in our lives, but our attitude towards life will change. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to bathless. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They're being fulfilled among us, Sometimes quickly a spiritual experience, sometimes slowly spiritual awakening. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Mean those are promises we never imagined possible when we joined this program. They're not even promises we were looking for. We're looking for completely different promises and they are being fulfilled as well. But these are promises which should be coming to halfway through step nine. They are the promise of the spiritual awakening or a spiritual experience, depending how quickly or slowly it comes to you. Halfway through step 9. This is when the guts are having. This is the good stuff that's happening.

The volume of page 84 are the promises we came to OA for,

and they happen after step 9.

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even our killer foods, for by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in our killer foods. If tempted, we recoil from them as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.

Top of page 85. We will see that our new attitude toward our killer foods has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. Remember, we took a right turn. We came to our way for freedom from food and all, I told us, pursue God.

And so we pursued God. And how do we pursue God? We got rid of our defects of character

and suddenly we're saying it has come without our aiming for it.

We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding. That is a miracle of it. It just comes. That is a miracle that we're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.

We haven't even sworn off, it said. The problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We neither caulking or are we afraid. That is our experience, that is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

Now, that last sentence requires a lot of discussion,

so I'll leave it there for the moment in terms of that last sentence.

But we have recovered by now. By the end of step 9, the guarantee is that we have recovered. And my answer to anyone who says I've done step 9 and I haven't recovered is clearly you haven't done step 9. There's something left. Maybe you left something out of step four. Maybe you left something out of Step 5 or maybe there's a man that you haven't made that you should be making, but there's something you're missing because this is guaranteed to you.

And that's what always stands for that guarantee. We stand for the guarantee that the 12 steps give us the recovery. So if it's not working for you, you may you're missing something in the steps. I'm not, I mean, I'm not blaming you. I'm not saying it it's anyone's responsibility. I'm saying look at it from that direction and you'll find guidance as to what you should be doing and what you've left out.

Now the big book says that's how we react so long as we keep in Pittsburgh control conditions. So we have recovered.

How do we keep the recovery?

Many of you may be familiar with what is attributed to Doctor Bob Clean House. Trust God help others.

Actually, somewhere in in the book there is actually a picture of a prescription pad with Doctor Bob. Signature to Alcoholics. Prescription for Alcoholics. Clean guard, clean house. Trust God help others. I don't know whether it's a real prescription pattern or or someone made it up, but whatever it is, that is supposedly what Doctor Bob said. Step 10 clean house. Step 11, Trust God. Step 12 help others Steps 10/11/12 Keep us recovered.

So we now look and I'll talk about that more, but we look at the 12 steps in this way.

Step one is the problem powerlessness. Step 2 is the solution power. Step three is the decision to search for the solution decision. Steps 45678 and nine are the solution where we clean the house,

and step 1011 and 12 is where we keep the solution.

OK, that's the picture that the Big Book gives us.

Now how do we continue to clean house? Here's the second major mistake I made that led to my relapse for six or seven years. I told you the first reason was I didn't accept that I was allergic to certain foods and therefore I I took back a lot of those foods when I lost my weight. But there were times when I didn't. There were times when I wasn't eating those foods

and I still was relapsing.

I was on my way to relapse. Why is that?

Well, I would read step 10 off the wall, continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. That's the step 10 on the wall. When I look at it that way, I read that to mean that if I yelled at my kids, I would apologize.

If I had difficulties, I would apologize. I would make amends of some kind, but I would just admit it.

I didn't realize that the big book instructions are far deeper and they are really simply whenever you need to do steps 45678 and nine, take out the forms. Look for selfish, dishonesty, self seeking in fear. Share it with another human being. Ask God to remove the defects of character. Make amends.

Literally doing that now it's a step 10 and not a 456789.

Because after step nine, we have recovered. So we're in recovery. We have recovered, so we're doing step 10s now. We're not doing step nines. I'll prove that to you by looking at page 84, right in the middle. This thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. Not promptly admit it, but

set right any new mistakes. That already is a big difference,

because promptly admitting it is very different from setting right mistakes. One is amends, the second one is amends, the other is simply an admission.

We vigorously commence this way of living. As we cleaned up the past, as we did steps 45678 and nine, we have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow an understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resemblance. Not exactly the same words, but close enough to remind us of Step 4.

When these crop up, we ask God it wants to remove them. Steps six and seven. We discussed them with someone immediately. Step 5

and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Steps 8:00 and 9:00.

So it seems clear to me that this really says do step 45678 and 9:00.

Now, how often do we do them? Well, I'll tell you, I think it depends a lot on how life is going on with me. My experience has been that sometimes I've done a Step 10 once a year and sometimes I've done it once a week. And I'll give you an example,

at times when life has been going well,

I do my step 11, my step 12, and I'm fine. But at times when life has become really hard, I find myself needing to do more Step 10s. I have 12. I just picked the number out of a hat 12 guys to whether I do a step 10 or not. And then sort of a descending order, like if it gets down to #12 I really should have done it a lot earlier.

So the first thing I use is the concept that's found in the doctor's opinion that we are restless, irritable and discontented unless we can at once

have get the ease and comfort that we get from having the first drink.

If I'm restless or irritable or discontented, it's time for me to do a step 10.

I often miss that, but but if I realize I'm a restless, irritable, disconnected, it's time to do it

the next. So that's three. The next eight I get from we Agnostics

on page 52, and they're called the Bedevilments.

I I read them out to you. We were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear, we were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Again, if I feel any one of those, it's time to do a step 10.

And the other thing that's eight and three is 11 and they're 8 bedevilments. And the 12th one is if food becomes an issue in any way, shape or form. If I begin to become tempted, if I begin to think about it, if my quantities get high, high, if I find my belly button, it's inching up a bit. If I find my weight increasing, then it's time to do step 10. Something's going on and I don't know what it is.

So sometimes I've done them every week and sometimes when my mother was sick and my father and my mother

where my father was taking care of my mom and, and she had been always the one who took care of him and she couldn't stand the fact that he was taking care of her and he was beginning to resent it. And, and I, I would, they loved each other tremendously worried about their relationship. I found myself doing step 10 quite often because I really was worrying on a day-to-day basis about their relate, their relationship. Now

I wasn't doing a step four or 56889, but let's say the last step nine I did

was on let's just say January the 1st of 2009 and today is what is March 28th, 2009. There have been three months have passed now since I last cleaned up my past. I have three months of a past PAST.

Maybe there's stuff that has happened that I have to clean up for those three months. So that's what a step 10 is. And I literally will take out the forms. Well, I've memorized them so that I really just write a blank piece of paper, but take out the forms and I do step tense. I also have found that I do step 10 in some other situations. Oh, by the way, there is a 13th 1:00. And that is, if my children, my sponsees or my wife tell me it's time to do a step 10,

then it's really time to do a step 10. And sometimes they have had to do that. Sometimes I do Step 10 a lot later than I should be. This was a revelation to me. I have never realized. And this came from Blaine.

I was listening to tape of his where he said step 10 is in fact steps 45678 and nine done in the context of recovery. A complete revelation to me. Up until that time, I just apologized for anything I'd done. And I didn't get to the root causes and I didn't make it learn how to make amends or I didn't make the living amends that I have to make to deal with the situations.

And, and, and that's one of the reasons I relapse is that life began to be too hard on me and I didn't, I didn't make any inventory. Then I'd relapse, then I'd start the steps over again. And then I would do steps 45678 and 9:00,

and I'd feel great. The promises would come true. Then I'd go on for a while. Life would get hard. I wouldn't do Step 10. I'd relapse. Then I do 45678 and nine. I felt great. And this happened for six or seven years until I realized if I did Step 10 on a regular basis, whenever I needed to, whenever my mind was beginning to go, whenever I was restless, irritable, discontented, I wouldn't have to relapse.

And I haven't had to relapse since approximately May 1st of 1993

because I've done step 10 whenever I had difficulties. Now I also use step 10 in in other ways. One of the ways I use Step 10 is to make decisions.

I if I have major life choices to make or major or difficult decisions to make, I will put them down as a Step 10 resentment on a Step 10 resentment list and try and figure out where my motivations are bad in respect to these decisions and where they're good. Often, like I told you, I'm now a mediator, but I was a lawyer, a litigation lawyer for many years.

I wasn't always very happy in my work. I I sometimes I really couldn't, didn't enjoy it and I would do step ten of my work and it would come to selfishness.

I want all my work to be 100% fulfilling

dishonesty. No work is 100% fulfilling dishonesty. It gives you the opportunity, being self-employed, the opportunity and the financial security that you need in order to help people in OA and do other, all kinds of other volunteer work that you do

Dishonesty. What the hell are you complaining about? I mean, it was as simple as that. And I learned to accept and my attitude to my work changed and suddenly I was more willing to do that work. As life became more interesting, I was given some cases that allow me to mediate rather than to litigate. As I began to be able to help people resolve cases rather than help create conflict,

I began to see another path. And so I would put down other alternatives on my Step 10 list. I'm not happy with my work. There are alternatives and I put down, you know, sometimes

mediation as an alternative

I'd have done under selfishness. I want life to be perfect. Dishonesty. No one will hire me. I have no credentials and I couldn't make a living.

But as I went to my amends, as I worked through that and shared them with other person in step 5I began to say, well, my fear is I'll have no money. What's my what would God have me be in relation to that fear? Well, someone who plans makes a business decision to plan to get the training you need and to develop a practice and mediation.

So my fears became a strategy and over a period of time I made some decisions relating to what my work, my life would be. I have done step to end. I'll tell you, I did my step fives part of my step 10 on my job. At times I would do it with people who I thought would be able to give me very helpful feedback. I have a very close friend who's a counseling psychologist and who has done career counseling. I did a step five with him on careers

because he was able to ask me questions and guide me in my Step 5 in ways that I would not have been able to do with others. I did it with my wife because any decision I made about my career would affect her tremendously. So I did a Step 5 about my fears relating to financial security and, and, and what my life would be and what her life would be with her.

So, you know, I've done step all kinds of step 10s for all kinds of reasons. One of the things I've lately been doing and I only recommend, I do not recommend this for Step 4, but for step 10, sometimes it's of great value.

Remember in the resentment form, you write down the person and then you write down column two the causes. Sometimes I've taken those causes and put each one down as a resentment in column one. And then I've been able to what they call drill down deeper into the causes in column two. So for instance, I, I only use exam I've got Hitler down there right. So I have Hitler caused, you know, cause the death of 1,000,000 and

spawn anti-Semitism.

Instead of having Hitler and column one and those two causes in column two, I would take those two causes and put them down. In column one, I would say the spawn of anti-Semitism is something I resent, and being responsible for killing millions of people is something I resent. Why do I feel that? In column two I'd get more information and much deeper. I've done that with my wife, actually. I put down what I've been particularly resentful about her. Instead of writing down the causes, I put all those things into column one and try to understand

why those things are bothering me. And it's given me a lot of insight, so I only point that out. But Step 10 has been my lifesaver. I use it whenever I need to. And tomorrow I'll talk about Step 11 and the difference between the Step 11 evening meditation, which involves somewhat similar kind of stuff, and Step 10. But I think it it it's appropriate to stop here and

we'll see each other tomorrow at 9:00.