Steps 4-6 at the Primary Purpose Group in Seaford, NY – February 12th 2011

We're secondly to share his experience on Step 4-5 and six. We have Damon from primary first gearbox.

Hello, my name is Damon. I'm an alcoholic. Okay, so

32nd recap.

I got to a place of being able to look at my experience in a different way. You know, there were lots of experiences that I had that could have or should have led to a first step over the years. But I was out there, you know, beat up in all kinds of different ways and none of that had anything to do with my first step. That was just examples of the powerlessness that I had. Not yet

identified what my problem was. I did not know what an alcoholic was. And so I could not fully concede to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. So at some point after getting to this fellowship, it was explained to me that I suffered from a, or I shouldn't say nothing was explained to me in terms of what I suffered from. And that's what I love about this book. In this program, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, well, my book tells me I'm powerless. And this book tells me I'm. This book doesn't tell me

anything. You know what our program says? What our book says is this was our experience. We had lost the power of choice. We could not stop drinking without a phenomenon of craving. You know, all these different things. They talk about them. And then I get to look at my own experience for the first time. Nobody's trying to tell me what's true about me.

There's just something laid out in front of me and I get to see for myself. Does this fit me or doesn't it? And So what I got to see in that description was that, yes, I did have a physical allergy to alcohol. I had an abnormal reaction. Booze affected me very differently than it affected any of the other drinkers that I knew.

Usually what that meant is that once I started drinking I couldn't stop. But overall, that really what it meant is I had no idea what was going to happen once I put booze in my system.

The second part of the problem that I was asked to be able to identify with is what they call a form of insanity. And it's not all the wild stuff that I did when I was out there drinking. It's I cannot see the true from the false when it comes to booze. And I got to look at my own experience and say, you know what, I can see how that's true for me. That no matter how many experiences I had of what was going to happen, the hell that was going to break loose when I put this stuff in me,

something in my mind look at the glass and said it's going to be different this time or my thought process is just didn't come. You know, somebody held out a drink to me and even though the day before or hours before I may have been swearing I don't want to do this anymore, I'm done. I said oh sure. And it's half empty before I have any idea what happened.

So that being the case, you know, I,

I was, I came to find out that that is something that no human power seems to be able to do anything about, you know. And again, I got to look at my own experience, my own evidence, and say I certainly had no reason to believe that there was any human power that was going to change this because anything that I had thrown at it hadn't worked. And the girlfriends that tried to convince me and the parents and the friends and the times that I had been in therapy and the runnings I had with the law, all these different things, nothing seemed to shift it.

I've talked last week about all the, you know, renting the movies that had to do with, you know, clean and sober in 28 days and all those things, you know, and sitting there crying my eyes out because I was hoping that something would click in me that would make me want to stop. And, and none of that stuff did it, you know, So if I'm suffering from something that's going to kill me and I recognize that there's no way out

for me in terms of human power. Well, now there's this proposal in front of me that you know what, maybe there's a power greater than human that can help you out.

And I had a big struggle with that. But suffering works its magic, you know, And eventually I had no choice but to start to be open minded because nothing else was going to shift. That was the only way anything was going to change, at least for the better, was if I started to become open minded. And I started to see that this program and some of the people in the fellowship, we've bending over backwards to try to get me to see that this is whatever my own concept is, it's whatever makes sense

me. So that my job was to look inside and try to be able to hear that voice that's been talking to me all along, you know, And I got to, and I got to realize for myself, you know, I can remember times that I was going to do something and there was this little voice that was like, that's not a good idea, you know, or

that's that's wrong. You know, I mean, the good idea, bad idea stuff usually have to do with the consequences for me. But sometimes there was like, you're about to do something that's really going to hurt somebody

and that's not right, you know, But I wanted what I wanted. And So what I would do is I'd start drinking. And I realized that that voice would get drowned out by the booms, you know? And so now this thing that I thought I wanted to do, the thing that I thought was going to get me the, the sense of connection, the sense of peace, the sense of happiness, the sense of fulfillment. I had made-up my mind as to what stuff was going to get me that. And this voice is trying to tell me different, but I drowned it out with the booze.

Or I would do something and I'd wake up the next day and have that twinge of like, oh, that was not cool, you know? And OK, let me shut that off and start drinking. So I had to make a decision. Am I willing to make the rest of my life doing what I can to try to follow that voice, to try to be able to hear it more clearly and to pay attention to it? To make following that voice more important than following the winds of my ego or than following the pressure of

my peers? Were following even what society is trying to tell me, but instead of always listening to the outside voices or the voice of the ego to get in touch with that thing. And so I made that decision in the third step, you know, I can't live life based on what I feel like doing anymore, on what I want. I had an unmanageability list. You know, I had an exercise that was to look at the unmanageability in my life and I got to see this is a mess

and this is what happens. This is the result of me saying

here's what I want. I'm going to go get it. And so I got to see it's not about like I shouldn't get what I want. It's me trying to go get it ends up really badly. And so I need to stop running around the world trying to get what I want because it only leads to trouble for me and others. And so now, OK, so I make this decision. I'm going to, I'm going to live by this power.

There's a problem, you know, I don't have the power to do that.

I can have all kinds of ideas as to what I think is good and bad and right and wrong. When I was out there

and I was trying to get myself fixed, you know, I got a lot of self help books and things and and there would be this like this plan laid out in the book of like, here's how to approach life. Here's a philosophy that works, you know, and I'd say, yes, that's amazing. Let me go do that. And I don't, I try to do it. And it I just found myself doing the same stuff over and over again. You know,

it wasn't that. Now all of a sudden I had this idea that I should be a good person and stop hurting people. I'd had that idea before.

I didn't want to run around the world hurting people, you know? I wanted to be a good son. I wanted to be a good boyfriend. I wanted to be a good worker. I wanted to be a good friend. And all I knew is every time I turned around, somebody was crying in my face or somebody was screaming at me because of what I had done. And just as much as I couldn't understand why I kept picking the drink up, I couldn't understand why I failed so horribly at being the person I was trying to be.

And now is when I started to understand, you know, the drink is down.

I can't blame the drink right now. Here I am without a drink in my hand. How am I behaving? How am I thinking? Do I do I now think that I just have the power to be this guy that I want to be? If I had that power, why would I ever have gone down this road to begin with? Why didn't I just decide to be this good person and go do it?

So our 4th step in our book, in our literature is described as like, it's like a, a business that's taking inventory, you know, and that if the business doesn't take regular inventory, usually goes broke because there's all this stuff in the storeroom, you know, there's all this stuff that the business is trying to use to operate. And there may be things in there that are broken, that are rotted, that are in fine condition, but just nobody's interested in them.

You know, it's just stuff nobody wants. And what I had to do is think about, you know, all that's all what was going on inside of me. There was a lot of stuff inside of me that was rotten or that was broken, or there was stuff that simply nobody wanted, you know, and here I am every day opening up shop and putting this stuff out on the shelves. And I'm like, why has the business failing? And so the 4th step was about me going in and finding out what in me is working and what

in me is not working. Let me look at my experience, you know, and one of the things that occurred to me somewhere along the line that I loved, you know, in the more I got into our book, the more I got into our literature. I got to see how everything sort of weaves together. And I really don't know if I believe that they like sat down and had this all planned out this way, but they were in the spirit when they worked on this book and somehow it all seemed to come together.

And So what happened is I got to see things like and we agnostics, they say we found the great reality and they used capital G and capital R, right? It's like a stand in for God, for the divine. We found the great reality deep down within in the last in the last analysis. It's only there that God can be found, right?

If God's out there someplace, then you can all get in the way. You can all block me. I'm trying to get over there

and there's things in the world, there's people, there's philosophies, there's ideas that can get in between me and that far off place that I'm trying to get to. But if God is the great reality deep within, if this power is resides somewhere within me, then there's only one thing that can block. You can't block me off from it. The only stuff that can block me off from it is other stuff that's inside me.

And so that's what the 4th step was about for me was about going in and saying,

what is the stuff inside me that has me blocked off from that deepest core, from that voice that's been trying to speak up all this time, you know, And so if it was time to drag out into the light the fear and shame and hatred, the, you know, all these different things,

I was given a pretty clear set of instructions, you know, put down the names of the people that I was resentful at. I, I, I wasn't real clear on the meaning of the word resentment.

It was broken down to me that really it's as simple as saying to feel again, you know, it's to continue to feel something after the fact. So I get to see that there were, you know, I see your face and we're talking and I'm still, I'm, you know, I'm looking at you, smiling at me. We're talking about the day. But there's something in me that like, I still kind of want to punch you just a little bit because it's something that you did three months ago, you know?

And so I'm continuing to feel these things. It's not about

a resentment is about if I'm in a rage, you know, it's not about the intensity of the emotion, it's about as this thing sticking around after the fact. Am I not in the moment here where God is? But am I stuck in the past?

So I get down those people. And then there were also things like principles, you know, which for me, some of the, you know, it could be things like materialism, racism, you know, principles, like just ways of ideas about going through the world, you know, things that, that I had issue with.

Even concepts like that,

I don't know, like, you know, like materialism that like that we need to put that, that, that someone's worth is based on how much they produce,

you know. And so that was something I had a problem with conveniently because I wasn't producing anything. I would sit back drinking, you know, So I was, oh, materialism is a bad thing.

Institutions, you know? And so that could be things like the institution of marriage. It could be the IRS, it could be the public school system. You know, I had lots of resentments, things like that. And so, OK, now I've got all these people, these places, these institutions. Now, why am I upset? You know, what's the thing? Well,

the public school system, they, I fell through the cracks, you know, they didn't, They didn't address my style of learning.

And, you know, I get, I get down to the specific thing that like when I see this person's face, this is what burns me off. And they they made me look stupid in front of my friends, you know, at that party. And so I get that thing down and now it's So what is it affecting me? You know, and I like to think of this as like the So what column, it's saying, OK, we'll hear this person did this thing. Why am I bothered?

There must be. I must feel like there's something about me in my life that was affected some way, you know,

And so I get to see, OK, well, this friend made fun of me at the party. So that affected my personal relationships. You know, he's putting me down in front of my friends. And now my friends might think less of me. And so now he's he's he's changed the state of my relationships. He's, he's altered things a little bit. And I don't like that. And so that's one of the reasons I'm upset. And maybe there's a girl there that I was interested in. And so now while he's affected my sex relationship, you know, he's impacted my ability to maybe get this relationship going

and my pride, you know, how do people see me? People are supposed to see me a certain way, you know, So there are all these different things that I got to look at and say, like, what is it in me that was affected by this thing?

And I get this all down on paper. You know, I've got people from, you know, my current life, people that are right, you know, right next door to me, right down the block, right on the other side of the telephone. But then there's people from three years ago and 30 years ago when I was five years old. You know, there's all kinds of stuff on there. It's all this stuff that keeps showing up. It keeps churning regardless of how much time has passed

and not got this all down on this paper and this list of all this stuff that these people have done to me.

All the ways that I feel like I've been affected. And what I didn't notice at first, and I wasn't really aware of this the first time I went through the four step, but I got to realize later on, there's like a page of directions, you know, after those first three columns, those first three things, it says when we finish this, we consider this carefully. And there's a page of sort of like meditation for me to step back and look at. This is all the stuff that I've got in my head and my heart.

And this is as far as I've usually gotten. And looking at it,

you know, here's how these people were wrong. And they make some suggestions like, isn't it true? Look at your experience that that hasn't stopped these people from doing these things, But they just keep doing this stuff that's got you upset until you just keep feeling upset. And sometimes you try to battle them or try to get them back. But doesn't it just end up worse on the other side somewhere down the line? You know, And

can you see how carrying this stuff around

can only lead just so that they say futility and unhappiness, you know, that, that, that to the precise extent that I permit these in my heart and in my life, I squander the hours that might have been worthwhile, you know, and it was pointed out to me, it's like an equation, you know, if I spend 10 minutes in resentment, I've just wasted 10 minutes of my life. And if I've been in resentment about something for 10 weeks, I've wasted those ten weeks, you know?

And so in that sense, they're talking about everybody. You know, they say

any life that includes this is going to be unhappy and futile, right? But then they bring it back to me and what's going on with me. And they say with an alcoholic, you know, it's a waste of your time. It's a waste of your energies, no matter who you are on this planet. But if you're an alcoholic, you've already acknowledged that your only hope is this spiritual relationship is this connection with God. And so now can you recognize that this page after page of stuff that you've got down on here, that this is the stuff that's blocking

off from your one shot at life, from your one shot at sobriety. This is the stuff that's got you blocked from that power deep down within it.

And so can you be willing to look at this from a different angle? Can you be willing to say, maybe other people in the world can afford to feel this way, but this is this is what's going to kill me, you know? And so they say, step back from the list then and look at this in a different way and say maybe these people are spiritually sick, you know,

like me though, and that's the important thing. See, I can use the maybe they're spiritually sick as just a way of condemning the people around me. But if I'm saying maybe like me, they're spiritually sick, I get to realize that,

you know, here's this person lashed out at me and I'm taking it so personally and I'm feeling so wounded. But what about how much I lashed out in my life? What about all the pain and suffering that I cause? Did I really mean it? You know, I already said I, I was just telling you tonight, you know, I didn't want to hurt these people. I I didn't understand even how it was happening. So how is it that I'm not going to give these other people that same credit,

that maybe they don't really want

to be hurting me the way that I'm feeling hurt, but maybe they're just trying to get through life the best they can, just like I was.

And maybe there is loft and as clueless as to how to do it successfully as I was. And so let me have some compassion for these people.

And then there's a prayer in there. You know what I love? In the prayer, it says God save me from being angry. It does not say God forgive me for deciding to be angry, as though I've gotta say in the matter, as though I sat down and said, I think I'll be angry about this. And that was wrong with me to save me from being angry. I can't help it.

This person does this thing to me and I want to kill them. You know, save me from that cause I've recognized it not to be the truth, but I can't do anything about it. Lack of power is my dilemma. And so I begged for a new perspective and I say, you know what? This isn't about moving from them being wrong to me being wrong with them being wrong to them being right. It's about moving from them being wrong to I don't care about them.

It's about moving from them being wrong to what am I doing,

you know? And so now I got to look at myself and say, really, the whole reason I'm doing this is to find out how why I'm blocked from that power that's inside of me. So I got to stop thinking about them. And then I start to look at the things like, well, you know what? My pride only could have been wounded if I'm walking around with pride, you know? And maybe the thing that I feel guilty about, you know, well, maybe it's because I actually did something that was wrong, you know? And so I got to go in and look at like, where are my wrongs in all these situations?

You know? Sometimes it's that I did something to bring the thing on. Sometimes it's that I did something after the fact to continue it. You know, maybe I turn around and punish for the rest of my life. I turn around and punished every person that reminded me of the one that hurt me. You know,

maybe I planned vengeance against the purse and you know, whatever it is, maybe I use the incident as the fear around something like that happening again,

to not participate in life,

to rob this world of the gifts that God has given me, that God intended for me to use for the better, for the betterment of this world and for the good of my fellows. And I use the fear about that thing to happen to say, no, I'm going to this gift is going to get furry down deep, you know,

So

I looked at all that stuff and it was not pretty. You know, I had, I had page after page of stuff and there was a there's a funny four step story I wanted to tell. And in the sake of time, I'm not going to. But if, if you want to laugh, you can ask me afterwards,

But I know I must rather talk about solution. You know, we can laugh. There's lots we can turn on Comedy Central if we want to laugh, you know. But if you're suffering from something and you don't have a way out, like places like this might be your only shot at hearing an answer to that. You know, I found somebody, you know, I knew somebody who had found an answer

and who's willing to listen to me relay, you know, this is the stuff that I found. So I sat down with this guy to share it. And one of the things that I love about 5 is it talks about, you know, it says we're admitting to someone else and we're admitting it to God, but it says admitted to ourselves. And it's interesting because there isn't like a concrete action that they say in there that like, here's how you're going to admit it to yourself, you know?

But I got to see in the experience

to admit is to take in, you know, to allow something in, to admit it. When I heard myself saying to this person these things that I had done, acknowledging the wrongs that I knew that were in there. When I heard them coming out of my own mouth, not from a standpoint of bragging about them, but for the first time acknowledging it was wrong for me to do this.

I felt it in a way that I had never experienced it before,

even though I had felt it when I wrote it down. Hearing myself telling other human being, I admitted it in a completely different way.

You know, I was at a meeting the other day where people were talking about the 5th step and people were talking about how wonderful feeling it was when they were done and a wind was clean. Wind was blowing through them. And, you know, I felt hell when I was on my first fifth step because I had just sat there and thing after thing after thing of this is I really got to see the gunk that was inside of me, you know, And it was painful, but it was a wonderful experience in the long run because I needed to

see that so that I could know what to ask God to take. You know, this was the stuff that was going to kill me and it needed to be gone. And one of the amazing things about about four and five two is, you know, it's my problems really had been caused by all the people in the world. Then that means I can never rest. I can never be at peace because I could be walking around, I could be not drinking and I could be doing everything I need to do and somebody could always come around the corner and screw my life up.

But if what was suggested in four and five is actually true, that I

'cause my own problems, that resentment, that self, the ego was really the root of all of my troubles, then that means if I'm willing to have this stuff gone, if I'm willing to have God take this, I don't have to experience pain and misery anymore. I don't have to experience problems anymore. Things will still happen, but I'll experience them in a very different way, you know? So

I shared all this with this man and, and afterwards,

you know, there's the, the hour that I was to go and, and sit and reflect on these things was my, I'm so bummed I did not talk about the fear and the sex part of the inventory.

Ah, one of the things that frustrated me so much after I had done this is being at step meetings, you know, where people were talking about their four step experience and I never heard anybody talk about a fears inventory or sex inventory. And for me, they were some of the most powerful aspects of that inventory. So again, I have left myself with not really time to get into them, but

if you're doing a four step and they're not in there somewhere, talk to somebody or take a look at our book. I got so much

help and so much insight from what came out of those. You know,

I saw all this stuff

and now I had to say, am I willing for these things to be gone? And what was amazing is it wasn't that I'm willing to go work on this stuff. You know, this, this, this was the difference between the process of the steps and all those self help books that I had been reading is the self help books were like, OK, well, now you see what's wrong? And so now here's how you're going to go work on it. Here's how you're going to go manage to be a different kind of person.

And I, and I heard in a lot of meetings that I went to people saying like, oh, and I, you know, I got to work on my, I just saw this new character defect. And I really, I got to work on this defect.

Our literature doesn't say anything about working on these defects. What they say is I've got to ask this power to remove them, to take them from me, you know, and if I'm not willing, then let me ask to be willing, you know, prayer upon prayer upon prayer, you know, but until something is able to shift and, and that was the thing, you know, I had already made the decision that I wanted to live life this way. But now there was sort of another moment of reflection that needed to

when I really understood in order for me to live the way that God wants me to live, this is all the stuff that's going to have to go away, you know, And I hadn't, I hadn't necessarily known that when I made the decision. You know, there were some things in me that I hadn't realized were harmful to others or I hadn't realized were dragging my life down. And so now that it was all out on paper, you know, am I really willing to have this removed?

Words are going at this point. I, you know, this week I feel a little blocked. You know, I feel like there's so much that I would love to have gotten across that they got left out. Maybe I'll take just a minute next week and and talk about fears and sex part of the inventory a little bit, but that's it out of me tonight.