Workshop called

Things I want to mention to you about writing that kind of inventory

and what the challenge is at the end of it.

When you, when you write inventory about principles that way,

the net result of it is that you don't wind up, you don't wind up knowing who you are. You wind up knowing who you aren't.

And I can tell you from watching people

write that kind of inventory and from my own experience that that's that that's a little disarming when all of a sudden you're left with all this information that doesn't tell you anything except who you're not.

And the first question that arises when you find that out

is if I'm not this, who am I?

As soon as you write that kind of inventory, you go from the having this very narrow view of life to almost looking through a wide angle lens

and all of a sudden where we didn't think a whole lot of life had anything to do with us,

that it had no application to us. We find out that almost everything has application to us and that the world is a much wider place than we had ever imagined in that we have application all the way across it in that we don't have the slightest idea what we have the capacity to do.

That's a that's a very frightening place, but it's a very rewarding place and it gives us the opportunity to step out into the world and take risks with things that we would have never taken risks with before.

So don't be dismayed by what happens

when you find out there's a big empty hole there,

all right? That big empty hole is the ability of for you to or is the opportunity for you to fill it up with meaningful information about who you are. And once you get to that, you find out that the world has much greater application for you.

It may give you the courage to go out and really try things that you would have never attempted before because you were convinced that you couldn't pull it off. See, all of that's the result of the ego.

And you know, most people think the ego is a way that you flatter yourself,

and it's not at all. The ego is will give every drunk I ever met will, will, will tell you you can't succeed and you're not good enough and nothing's ever going to happen and you'll never amount to anything and that you can't pull anything off. And if you try it, you're going to look foolish and everybody's going to hate you and all that stuff. That's the ego,

OK in this destroy, It doesn't destroy the ego. This deflates the ego

and it gives you the opportunity to have a much clearer view of life

and opportunity. You know, I have people that come up to me all the time going. How did you ever do what you do

when you don't believe that the world has application for you? You will never see opportunity.

You just won't because it won't make any sense to you and you won't think it has anything to do with you. But once you decide that you have much wider application to life, then all of a sudden you'll see start seeing all these opportunities that are coming past you. And I will tell you from my own experience that this world is absolutely chock full opportunity.

And if you don't think you've ever had a chance at anything, it's because you got damn mind is close.

Thank you.

I really wish he'd quit pussyfooting around this stuff, don't you?

Hello. Don't you say what you think.

We're going to break for lunch at 11:30 and Jaime didn't think we were moving quite fast enough here, so

we'll we'll go on a little bit here

at 12:30. I'm sorry,

I'm still on Indiana time. Helen missed that by two hours.

A

I've got first step out.

The more I do, the more I find out that it's more and more important me to find out who I'm doing them with. And the only way I could find that out was by taking more than one fifth step

per inventory, if you will. There's a line in the book that says we thought well before

decide which person or persons with whom we're going to take this vital step. Uh,

suggesting we can probably take more than one step or at least as more than one person.

And my first experience with that was

actually my 20 years later. Before then, I would take them one at a time with one person at a time. And that was beneficial, not necessarily knocking it, but

when I took that inventory with Paul at 20 years sober and in a lot of pain and and a lot of foolishness. And

the biggest shame I had in that particular 5th step was that I hadn't really gone beyond the 7th step up until that point of 20 years old.

And so I'm swapping fifth steps with guys that had a great deal of experience, more than I did. First guy did it was with an Irishman with Dennis O'Brien and and his inventory sounded just like mine. The same, same stuff we were doing wrong, the same things that the misunderstanding of who we were and what we were and all that. But the time I'm done, I've done it 9 * / a weekend.

I had taken it, taking it with who had some feedback for me, not just through their inventory,

but from past inventories and things that they could share with me that they had done that fit into that. And I found then that there was many people with long term sobriety and a a who really thought they were doing the deal

and somehow it gotten sideways.

Speaking for myself. But I met several others over the years that that's been true.

So the idea that multiple fists that was, I got multiple comments about what I got feedback from different people. And sometimes the feedback was about the same thing. So hearing it from different people, the same subject with that and what they had found and what they've done about it and that sort of thing.

The result of that, that weekend of doing those fifth steps was, was real quickly. And I hate to do this now because there's more to it, but real quickly we sat down with, with, I sat down with three or four of them and or more, I don't remember. And we did step six and seven within the hour that the book talks about. And they, they helped me write in a mentalist. They had better memories than I did.

But

I think now looking back on it, the fear I had about somebody was going to know all my secrets and all that. But First off was there was a lie right there because I didn't write down all my secrets and

and that. But the biggest mistake I did was I think was really looking around because I really wanted to take my fist up with somebody that wasn't going to talk.

Can you imagine that we're going to find somebody in a it's going to keep their mouth shut. You shouldn't make

Yeah,

because it took me a long time to learn that the my secrets are what are keeping me in trouble. And the more people that know my secrets are better off I am

and they. So the solution to this fifth step stuff is right there in front of us when we talk about this for a reason. And

I have found it to be more and more helpful and all that because I could get around some of those guys that I took those fifth steps with 20 years ago. In fact, I did up at Paul's funeral. I went to the LaGrange meeting and some of them were sitting there

and we were talking and there weren't any secrets. There wasn't any catching up. Hadn't seen some of them for years

and

so the idea of the 5th step is more than that. But still takes the work that Bob talks about here, that finding out the lies in our lives and what we aren't. With that I

we used to take those fist deaths with Paul on occasion. I always dreaded his feedback.

Paul had a way of expressing things to you that you couldn't get out of. There was just no way to pussyfoot around anything he said. It was just so straight on and in your face. And before he said it, you knew you were guilty of it and it was time,

time to deal with it. And I got to where I loved that. If I went to it into the fifth step with whatever I was written, it was vague and I didn't have the answer to it after we had talked. I'll have the answer to it. And based on his experience tonight,

so, so my best advice I got about the 5th step is First off, have the inventory and be ready to go. There's something that happened to me I didn't have to spend and I've never spent a lot of time writing inventory. I'm not one of those guys that sits down and and after two weeks from a time I've started, you will not hear me say I'm writing inventory because I'm done.

And that's not bragging. It's just I'm finding all this stuff and I can't wait to vomit it. You know it's time for it to go and

quick. I've never spent a great deal. Even those first ones didn't take long at

with that. So anyway, I just thought I'd pass that on. But but the fifth step can take longer,

and it's not something you just hurry to do to get done.

Well, you got,

but I'm inclined to say that

if you're in inventory, don't stop.

Do you know when people get a little nuts when they write inventory?

You've noticed that.

Do you know why?

Because all you have is the problem.

So. So all you've seen once you write inventory is where you've been wrong

and how messed up you are, and until you move on, that's all you're presented with. So it's no surprise that you're going to be a little off balance in the middle of it.

You know what I hear a lot of people say, You know, as it relates to writing inventory, if you're going through hell, don't stop.

You know, some people want to want to hesitate and start building a house,

take a nap.

Yeah. So I mean, it's the book describes that is a fact finding, fact facing

process. And it's like commercial inventory. You find the, the what you got in, in, in trade. And if you've got some damaged goods in there, then get rid of them promptly and without regret. That doesn't mean you got to hold on to it before it goes.

It just means get rid of it, move on. There isn't a lot of drama in this. You don't have to have a lot of drama in it, just get rid of it.

So,

so when you write inventory, it's really helpful if you do it for a prescribed amount of time per day, right.

Thank you,

I feel much better now.

God

wow, now I can go home.

When I fifth stepped,

yeah, I had mentioned to you that I was not looking for friends,

and Don Pritz became a close friend, as Gary did

in. One of my worst fears was letting them see who I was, because then I knew as soon as I told him what kind of life I'd been living that they'd go.

You probably shouldn't hang around with us anymore.

And, and so when I, when I finally 5th at my first inventory with, with Don,

it was with the assumption that

when I had told him all the dark and ugly things

that I had done in my life, that he would,

he would get up after the 5th step and say, first and foremost, I don't want you anywhere near my wife or children.

And secondly, I, I would prefer it if you wouldn't let anybody know that I'm your sponsor

and

we ought to keep meeting to a minimum here in the future.

And I was prepared to be rejected

and he just threw me. He got up and he came over and hugged me. I think he even kissed me

on the cheek. Of course

you have no idea how much I used to protect my masculinity.

Oh, God.

And, and he told me he loved me

in that he was delighted that I had completed this part of the program and now it's time to move on.

I'd never never even considered the idea that someone who had seen all of that stuff

would want anything to do with me.

And we remain close friends until he died.

You know there, and I guess the thing that a lot of us get hung up on in Fifth Steps is that take it to the grave stuff.

They usually had something to do with sex,

just so you know.

There's only so many ways you can do that,

unless you know you're on a spaceship and you have a Bank of lasers or I don't. I didn't. I'll tell you one of the funniest things that ever happened to me. We had a guy in our meeting one day and we, we have regular meetings about sex inventory

and we were discussing this sex inventory and this guy just finally

became so overwhelmed by his own emotions that he jumped up in the middle of the meeting and said in anyone in this meeting that hasn't done it with a farm animal is a God damn liar.

I, I can't remember who I remember him doing that

and everybody just kind of staring at each other going, did you do that?

And what kind of an animal was it

was?

It just, you know, we think we're so unique and who or what or whatever we were engaged with

and it's all the same. You don't need to be embarrassed about it. Everybody does stuff like that and and if you get it out, you don't have to carry it around anymore. So, so when you fifth step,

it's a bit actually it's a better procedure. It's a more comfortable procedure if you take the worst thing in your inventory and talk about it first,

OK. And don't be surprised if whoever your 5th stepping was said yeah I did that.

OK. So

the trick is to unload that stuff

and so just get in there and do it. It's like a Nike commercial. Just do it,

and when you get past it, all the better.

That's all I have to say about that. Well, you're working on that.

I was going through the work with a bunch of guys and I don't know, probably about 16 years. So, and I went in to write some inventory and I sat down and it was one of those times when you sit down

and you know something's wrong,

you ask God to help to make it clear.

And when you put your your pen on the paper, you still don't know where it's going.

And I wrote down the names of three fellows that I'd been in high school with,

and

the minute their names showed up, I remembered what it was about.

And

it was something that that I hadn't thought of from the time the incident took place and

don't know where it would have showed up in the resentment list. And I guess that was the appropriate place, but

I was shocked when I'd written it down. I was a real skinny kid growing up and

when I was getting into high school they called me Bone Rack and

about what I was and all that. But I, I wanted to show them how tough I was anyway, so I tried out for football

and they just knocked the hell out of me. They just really slammed me around. And we went to a football camp and it was held up at a, at a Boy Scout scout camp in the mountains up above Laramie. And it was one of those places where where you stayed in these big eight or ten man tents and then there were community showers and latrines between place and all that. Well, we had the whole damn mountainside to ourselves. And so we just wrapped a towel on ourselves and they'll take our showers after

practice and that sort of thing. And I had done and I'm coming back

after taking a shower and these guys grabbed me and a real quick blindfolded me. And I don't know where the towel goes and it disappears. And next time I know they've tied me down to one of those army cots like that and then spread eagle on that and still blindfolded and they're dragging wet ropes over me, telling me they're snakes and all of that. And I'm just so completely

exposed,

literally, I mean, been so skinny and short bodied and, and, and all that just so so I left there and I went back and I finished the football season and I never had another thought of that until I was 16 years sober. And I was sitting there writing that inventory, and I came up and I came out

of my office and Julie was in the other room, she says.

You look like you're seeing a ghost.

So I just saw three of those baskets and

and so I told her the story and she said you never told me that before. And I said this is the first time I've even remembered it

in all those years. And that does not mean I wasn't being fearless and thorough

when I was writing all those previous inventories with that. But don't be surprised if something like that doesn't crop up

later on and all that.

Incidentally, something must have changed over the years because I've been to my hook my 40th and 45th and 50th high school reunions, and I didn't smack anyone of them. But,

and I doubt if they remember.

I doubt if they do,

but I remember sitting there and I had a group of about 10 or 12 of the nastiest redneck guys I ever knew that I had to go 5th step that with at the

in that particular workshop. And I'll never forget that

because I'm not altogether telling you guys that story. And that was put 16 from 45 a long damn time ago

with that. And so I never forget sitting there sharing that with those guys. And

that might have been horrified. The guy brought up the milk and machine or something. I don't remember where it was, but they got pretty honest in there.

Before we go, have one gentleman and tell you a short story on myself. I was in a meeting several years ago

and there was a young lady in this meeting and she was talking about how promiscuous she was when she was drinking.

And when it got around to me in the meeting, I looked at her and I said where the hell were you when I was drinking?

And she said I wasn't born yet,

and she was right.

New material for an inventory, right? So I guess we can go have lunch. Let's go eat,

OK guys?