The topic of Clean House at the Westfield Big Book Workshop of the Spiritual Awakenings Group in Westfield, NJ

Thanks. Well, I'm an alcoholic everybody.

Last week I covered Trust God. I can't speak for anybody else, but it was almost like a out of body experience for me. I'll try to behave this week.

I this week I'm going to talk about clean house and next week I'm going to talk about help others. So at least the next two weeks topics will be a little bit easier.

I find it interesting. I noticed it's, it's funny, whenever I know I'm going to be speaking, usually on the way there, my mind starts rattling through a bunch of stuff that it wants to talk about. But I always just say, you know, thanks, whatever. Because I try to kind of just spontaneously talk and not really prepare in any way. So whatever my mind saying to me on the way here, I just kind of disregard because I don't want to run the show myself. I just want to be spontaneous

and

but one thing that

I did notice is

the three topics are the only free relationships that we can have.

Last week was our relationship with with God. This week is our relationship with ourselves, and next week is our relationship with others.

And what's interesting is, is that

the steps are set up with those same three relationships that in the first three steps we get headed in the right direction with our relationship with God. Steps 456 and seven, we get headed with in the right direction with our relationship with ourselves. In 8-9, we get headed in the right direction with our relationship with others. And then in 10, we deepen embroidered our relationship with ourselves. And 11:00 we deepen and broaden our relationship with God. And 12:00, we deepen and broaden our relationship with others. So it's interesting how the program is set up.

It really gets down into it.

So clean house I, I guess I

in a, we're, we're fortunate that we actually have a, a specific outline, detailed progressive transformative program. So clean house is pretty easy to sort of overview. I guess you could say trust God is sort of the first three steps and then clean house is sort of four through 9 and then with a little bit of 10 and 11 and then help others is probably also 10 and 11:00 and 12:00 or just, you know, it all intermingles. So it's it's always hard to talk about it.

It's basically one step with 12 parts as I see it and it's circular. I find it very effective to not just work the steps, but also the rework it and revisit it.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about that tonight. I, I guess I want to start, I just, I came upon this quote and it was sort of apropos.

It goes like this. Life is full and overflowing with the new,

but it is necessary to empty out the old to make room for the new. The emptying, emptying out process can be very painful, but it is very necessary. For when you have been emptied of the old, you may experience that filling, that feeling of barrenness, of having nothing to hold on to,

of being alone and bereft of everything. You may even feel that God has forsaken you, that life is completely dead and empty with no meaning to it, and you want to throw up your hands in despair and run away from everything. Try to realize that if you are going through that, if you are going through a time like this, it is this process of being emptied out

of the olds that you can have room for the new. Never give up hope, but hold on to,

but hold on until you can start again in newness of spirit and in truth.

It's been sort of like that for me.

It's kind of interesting.

For me, the whole house cleaning process,

it even says in the book, you know, doing a house cleaning is something that most of us have never done. And I know I never did a house cleaning. I didn't I was really good at looking at you. I was no good at looking at me and, and in doing the house cleaning of four through 9.

I was rather surprised at what I found because, you know, I, I had read the steps on the wall and I had

sort of dabbled in the information in the big book and in the 12:00 and 12:00 and I heard other people talk about it. And but the experience that I had with the steps was nothing that I expected and nothing like I thought it was going to be and nothing like I had ever heard from anyone

's it's almost like,

uh, it's almost like listening to somebody talk about sex or it's almost like reading about sex in a book and then you have sort of an opinion of it and then you have sex for the first time and it's absolutely nothing like what you had heard, what you thought it was going to be. You know, it, it was completely an absolute complete different experience. And the steps are sort of like that for me, 'cause

when, when, when I started writing my inventory, I was absolutely, even before I had done my fifth step,

as I was writing my first step, I was absolutely shocked and horrified by what I was seeing. It's really interesting how the mind can really

distract you from what's really going on

and can really justify and explain away and minimize. It's amazing what the mind can do. It's amazing what the mind can do with the stupidity of how we are,

or we just put it this way, the stupidity of how I was. I'm sure nobody here can relate to it

now. One of the biggest things that I discovered as I was writing my inventory was I was pretty much pissed at everybody. If you were in my life for more than a few minutes,

you know, you were, you were already moving into the territory called You're not acting the way I want you to.

I even minor surface relationships, You know, that kind of thinking was, was already established pretty early on. And since I never looked at all of the people that I was pissed at, I just thought, you know, that it was sort of a minor thing. And then when I started writing it down and all this stuff just spewed out of me and I was just like, this is really pathetic. I'm pissed at, I'm pissed at enough people for about 5 people. You know what I mean? I was just,

and then, you know, the people closest to me, all the multiple resentments and, you know, it was just, it was crazy.

And, and not only. So that was one of the first things that was revealed was, man, this is going to be much longer than I thought it was going to be. And then the the second thing that started to become obvious was by the time I got to the 4th column

of resentments, some resentments were just dropping away before I did a fifth step.

Because, you know, like in the example of, let's say my, my first ex-wife,

you know, I had this burnt in my consciousness and in my brain was, you know, she was Satan for what had happened. And then I looked at my part and I, I felt bad for what had happened. I mean, I wanted to call her and make amends because like, I screwed her really bad and I never really noticed.

So and then as I then started getting into the fear inventory, what was really strongly revealed was, man, I got a lot of fear. I got a lot of fear. There is no aspect of my life and I am not freaking out about.

So there was a, you know, that was a real big surprise. So I was really grateful that a a had me write my inventories because I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. And then as I began writing it, and as I started really looking at it, as I started not just writing the inventory, but submitting myself to the inventory process and sort of doing the inventory almost like a meditation of, you know, letting

my intuition reveal to me

what should be on that paper, It was just absolutely horrifying. And by the time I got to my fifth step, and then before I got to my fifth step, and then, you know, just all the shame and the guilt and remorse that I had been

trying to push down of all the things that I had done that I wish I hadn't done. And all the things I didn't do, which I wish I had done. And, you know, all the Ways and Means and things that were said that I wish hadn't been said and the ways that I harm people. And I mean it.

When I when I got ready to do my fifth step, I was horrified. And then after I did my fifth step, I was more horrified. You know what I mean? Because more was revealed through another person

and and you know, my experience of that first,

4th and 5th step drove me to a place that I never would have imagined and I never heard anybody really talk about. And that was that.

I don't want to live this way anymore.

And the cool thing is, is that AA provides us with a way. It provides us with a way out, which is incredibly more wonderful as time passes, in my experience.

And, and then I shared this stuff with another human being and, you know, I discovered that I'm not unique and I'm just, you know, and, and not the first I went through the process. But what I learned later on is, is that it's not just that I'm not unique, it's that the mind is, you know, pathetically predictable. And, and, and we might have different specifics, but the essence of where this stuff comes from and the way it plays out is just very, very common.

I mean, I've listened to over 500 fifth steps and the mind is just really almost like A1 chick pony. I mean, it's pathetic. It's very unoriginal, it's very predictable. It's very

unoriginal. It's pathetic. But I thought, you know, I thought that it was unique to me and there were certain things that I wouldn't say, I wouldn't tell people. And then in the 5th step, I told somebody and it was very eye opening and it was very I, I literally felt a weight lifted off my back.

I know I didn't lose that weight. I didn't lose weight that day, but it felt like I did. It was amazing.

I remember after my fifth step, sitting on my sponsors living room floor, on the carpet, leaning against a sofa and I just sat there and I was just like wow. I just kept saying to myself over and over again, what is this? What is this?

And then finally, after probably about an hour of silence, you know, we had finished. We, we did the 5th step. We did the hour after the 5th step. We got into six and seven. And then Howard said we were pretty much done for that day. And then I sat there for almost an hour just basically in silence. And finally, Howard looked at me and he said, are you going to leave?

And I turned to him and I said, I can't figure out what this is. What is this like? What am I experiencing right now? What is this this is like? So I can't put a name on it. And he goes, you know what that is? And I said no, he goes, that's called peace.

And it was so foreign to me.

It was so different than than my whole life.

I was feeling free for the first time. I was feeling like the baggage of so many years of of crap had been tossed aside.

And it was beautiful. It was unbelievable.

And then

what had really offended me turned into a list in six and seven. What what Howard had worked with at that time and would I still work with today is a list of

character defects that can be found in the Big Book and in the 12:00 and 12:00. And

the week after I did my fifth step, I started noticing that a lot of these character defects were were there once again in my face. You know, going to work late and making excuses and taking two hour lunches when I was always supposed to get 45 minutes in.

Manipulating others and

wedding fear drive me

and, you know, entertaining the the thought of once again, you're not acting the way I want you to and the futility of living that way. It's just pathetic. It's once you get a really strong dose of of what's going on,

you can go back. You can, you can be, you can be slowly driven back to the way it was, but right after it's been relieved, it's undeniable for for a while.

Then you can either try to live a new way or you can go back

and throw it. Throw the whole experience out the window and go back to the craziness. And

I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to move in that direction

and then going out and making amends. Um,

I had some really beautiful experiences of men's. You know, it says a nine out of 10 times the unexpected happens. What's the cool thing is that nobody knows this is that it doesn't say whether that's good or bad, but it's going to be unexpected. You know what I mean? And the unexpected did happen, I would say almost 100% of the time.

I was absolutely amazed at how people

responded to my making amends.

And in in a bunch of cases, you know, I was admitting to something that they didn't know about, you know, and a bunch of

cases,

I was such a good thief and I was such a good manipulator and I was such a good whatever. I I was such a good pathetic person that, you know, people were really surprised that it was me.

Yet the whole experience of the making amends was very interesting because

you have to understand something about me. I was, I probably was a pathological liar

pretty much when I came in here. So I mean, I would just lie for no reason. Like I would say something to somebody and then think to myself, why did I just say that? Like I'm even trying to make a point. I'm not even trying to look at. I just said, well, I said an untruth. Like why am I even saying that?

And umm,

I really saw it. That was a really big problem for me. And very early on, after I had done my fifth step and was working with Six and Seven and trying to live a new way of life,

a a really strong inspired thought came to me. And that was that if you want to overcome lying when you lie, just admit it. And that does not go well with that, does not go over well with the mind. That is not a good idea.

My mind fought me tooth and nail

over that one, but I didn't care anymore. I that was another thing that came out of the taking inventory is is you know, the the seeds of don't believe everything you think. I would have never been able to put it into words at that time. Maybe some years after that I would have been able to. But at that time, you know, I was just trying to do the opposite. I was just trying to do the opposite of what of the way I had always lived.

And I was shocked at how well received I was when I would

having a conversation with somebody, let's say at work and would say something about what I did this weekend that wasn't the truth. And then, you know, a few seconds or a couple sentences later, I would just stop and I'd say, listen, you know, I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. That isn't what was going on. And then I would say what was going on. And I was absolutely shocked how people were incredibly receptive to my doing that. As a matter of fact,

a lot of the time people would say, you know, I do that too. And I wish I could catch myself like you just did. You know what I mean? It was really interesting because my mind was telling me nobody would ever trust you. That's the stupidest thing. Don't ever admit that you're lying. And as I was admitting that I was lying, people actually trusted me more because I was so upfront about what was going on. And I was admitting, you know, wait a minute. What I just said wasn't the truth. And, and you know, after you do that for a short period of time, it just becomes a whole lot easier just to say what's going on instead of saying what's not going on.

And I became a much more honest person,

and that transition was a whole lot easier than I would have ever imagined. And it certainly wasn't like what my mind was telling me.

And I was really grateful. One of the things that Harriet had emphasized, which lots of people emphasize in the book, it doesn't say that we're there to, we're not there to fix the relationship. We're there to set right the wrong.

Now, very often relationships were repaired, but I really appreciated that emphasis that I'm not there to fix the relationship because

sometimes the damage is beyond repair. Sometimes the person doesn't want to talk to me ever again. I don't force myself on anybody, but I am willing to make amends

and I am, I am I, I was a changed person and I am the changed person and I am capable of showing up different because part of what the word amend means is the change, like an amendment is a permanent change to a document. And I am a different person now so I can show up differently. And, and it's really amazing because one of the longest, my first batch of amends, the the single longest one that it took to make amends was my first ex-wife. And I couldn't find her.

So probably about seven or eight years into after I had done the 4th and 5th step,

I, I was going through a box of some of my old stuff and I came upon a letter. And on that letter, the reason why I couldn't find it was because she had been remarried. I didn't know what her last name was now and where her family used to live. They weren't living anymore and I couldn't find her anywhere. And

you know, 7-8 years later I came up on a letter that had her now

married name on it. So I went online, which is, you know, now it's a whole lot easier to find people online.

And, um,

this is really weird because I don't know how many people do this, but

when I went online, I, I, the AT&T directory thing online is called anywho.com, which is kind of neat. It's kind of interesting that AT&T chose that because that's a little bit on the progressive side for AT and TI used to work for AT&T. They're very stiff.

And

I remember going to Anywho and putting in her name. And the strange thing was, is that a phone number popped up. It was her house. It was her home phone number, but it not only mentioned his name and his last name, but it mentioned her name and their last name. And I don't know how many people have, you know, phone bills in both of their names. So it was really lucky that I had found them. And she has sort of a unique first name and I knew it was her.

And but I didn't call her right away

because if there's something that I know,

it's that especially with

extreme kind of amends that you need to make. And I wouldn't say that my relationship with my first ex-wife required an extreme, you know, type of amends. But, you know, we are like married and I really screwed her over. And, you know, it needed to be handled delicately. You know what I mean?

And you know, I, I, I got now I have the phone number and I spent a few days, maybe maybe a week or a week and a half. And I just sort of meditated on, you know, Lord, I, I want to do this

and, and please put the words in my mouth and make the opportunity right. And let me know, let me know when is the right time. Let me know when to do this. I don't want to just jump into what I want to do it your way. I don't want to do it my way. And I did that for like a week and 1/2 or two weeks. And then, and then I was at work one late afternoon and

the making of the amends just kind of presented itself. Like I just knew now, like, call her now. Like, I don't know where it came from,

but, you know, I put it out into the universe and the universe let me know. And I was like, I just know I need to call right now. And I went into a conference room and I dialed the phone number and she answered the phone. How cool is that? I was so worried that, you know, some guy was going to answer. And then how do you explain this whole thing? You know? And she answered the phone and I, I knew it was her. I recognized her voice. And I was like, Wendy, are you sitting down? And she goes, no, I'm in the kitchen cooking. Why? Who is this?

And I said, when do you might want to sit down? This is Bill Lash,

and she was really happy to hear from me.

You know, we had both moved on. You know what I mean?

And, and I did convince her to sit down and I, I said, you know, Wendy,

I've been looking at my life and, and I'm really not happy with the way I treated you.

And, you know, we got into it and it was a beautiful experience. And I cried and she cried and it was a beautiful experience.

And what's what's interesting is that

we kept in touch. She took my phone number. We e-mail every once in a while. You know, I send her an e-mail on her birthday and stuff like that.

And a couple years after that, I was in touch with her and she said, Bill having some real problems and I need somebody to talk to.

And she started sharing with me about her marriage was breaking up and she was talking to me about looking, you know, she needed somebody to talk to. And, you know, over over the the couple years that we have been talking, she knew that I had changed and she heard me talk about, you know, some of the life answers that I had found and she wanted to know more about it. And, you know, we had some beautiful conversations and and, you know, I'm like counseling my ex-wife

better marriage, you know, that promise is not in the big book. But that was something that happened to me, you know,

and it was a beautiful thing.

So that was, let's call that the first time that I went through the process of the steps

and

I began to try to. One of the things that Howard emphasized and so many of us do when we do big book studies is, you know, we need to develop this into a way of life. This isn't just about inventory in the past. This is about how to stay out of trouble in the present and how to

have tools for living when stuff comes up in the present. You know, the past wasn't the only time that I got pissed off. I get pissed off in the present and I have a four column inventory and I have the process of the the middle steps are all the steps are one of the steps or an aspect of the steps to to deal with life as it goes by. As I feel like I'm off, I have ways to get back on the beam and it's a beautiful thing.

And at that time, I don't believe this anymore. But at that time I was very much a believer of you work the steps once and then you live in step steps 1011 and 12 for the rest of your life. And I live that way for for five or six years, five or six or seven years. And I even did workshops and said that, and

I don't know if I've ever said this in front of Chris, but Chris said he asked me to do my first

presentation in front of the Bernardsville group. And something that I was saying in presenting that workshop, which what was that 85 week workshop or something like that? It was, it was,

I'm not kidding it. I'm sorry. It was actually 24 weeks. And

during that workshop, what I was suggesting was, is that everybody worked the steps together as a group. And

probably for about a year before that, I had realized that this attempt to do one through 9 once and then live in 1011 and 12, that what had happened was I had plateaued and I had been on this plateau for about a year. And you know, if you're not growing, you're you're going back.

Even if even if you're climbing a really beautiful mountain

and you find a really beautiful scenery, after a while, that really beautiful scenery just becomes old. You have to keep growing. You have to keep going. You have to keep going up the mountain. And,

you know, for the year before I started that workshop was when I started hearing about people talking about, you know, reworking the steps, which I really didn't hear much before that. And then now in front of this group talking about, you know, we're going to work the steps together as a group. And you know, I was facilitating that group and

me and my pride and my best thinking was suggesting that other people should work the steps, but I wasn't going to.

And just when I got to the 4th step,

my conscience like hit me like really hard. Like, you know, I am absolutely full of crap to suggest that other people should do something that I'm not going to do. And

I, I guess you could say I broke down not sort of an emotional way, but I broke down this belief of just staying 1011 and 12 for the rest of your life. And I saw that I had plateaued and that I needed something to catapult myself past where I was.

And the only thing I ever knew that could catapult me was a step. So I actually worked the steps with that group and did another 4th and 5th step and and

I was rocketed again and catapulted beyond that plateau that I had lived on for a while. And so I was very grateful for the concept of reworking the steps because now having reworked the steps a bunch of times,

I really see the benefit of that. And for me, the benefit of it is,

first of all, I never do a four step the same way twice. There's different ways of using the big book and there's different ways of using other sort of spiritual material to do a four step. Because I believe that if you keep doing a four step the same way over and over again, you'll always just see the same angle of the ego and you sort of need to look at it from different angles because then more will be revealed.

At least that's how I see it. And.

Also, that first time through, you know, two and three was sort of a, let's call it a Soft Cell. Two and three was sort of, you know, yes, to some simple questions and then we move on. And six and seven was sort of a slam dunk. And there wasn't really a big concentration on 6:00 and 7:00. And I was doing an inventory every day, but I wasn't really big on prayer meditation at that time. I was praying probably daily, but

even my prayer life had gotten incredibly boring.

So the point where I remember, I went for a walk one day and I had these three different prayer books that I would each morning, I would grab one of the prayer books and then I would read these prayers on that prayer book. And there were three of them. And every four days that would start over again. So I would say the same three prayer books over and over and over again. And I remember going for a walk one day and I started going through the prayer book and I would just walk and say the prayers. And I remember something from inside of me said, are you as tired of listening to these prayers as I am? Why don't you just talk to me? And I was just like, what the hell is that? Like

something from inside me said that to me. Aren't you as tired of this as I am? Why don't you just talk to me? And then that was when my personal relationship with something, anything that is outside of myself, anything that's outside of my thinking began my intimate relationship with God as opposed to the going through the motions kind of relationship.

And when I had gone through the steps this second time, now I put a much more emphasis on two and three, a much bigger emphasis on six and seven, still putting an emphasis on the other ones, but and, and put a much heavier emphasis on 10 and 11, to the point now where I haven't missed a day of meditation since

2000.

And it's very, very important to me.

So in, in reworking the steps, it's been really incredible because

the first time I went through the steps, the first time that I cleaned house, you know, there was a lot that came out of that. I would suggest that I got as much out of that as I could have. It was I, I really went for it and there was a lot that came out of that.

But now, you see, I had gone through the steps once. I had been woken up spiritually in a certain way.

And now when I went through the steps, and now as I go back through the steps again and again,

what I've discovered is that

when I went through the steps the first time,

especially the beginning part of the process, I wasn't really awakened yet. And then by the end of the process, I was. And then I took that awakening to start over again from the first step in a deeper way. In other words, I have more of an ability to see the truth. I have more of an ability to

define integrity because when I went through the first time, there were certain things that were sort of OK that when I went through the second time were unacceptable to me.

You know, like when I went through the first time, if I out and out lied to you, that was wrong. But if I conveniently didn't mention something to you about a certain situation, that was OK. And then when I went through the second time now leaving out a certain situation that was not acceptable to me anymore, because that's as much of A lie as as an out and out lie,

because conveniently, I'm not telling you the whole truth.

I had reached a standard of integrity and I had reached a standard of spirituality that that I now could go through the steps in a much more deeper way. And have, you know, a bunch of Times Now. So I see the the beauty of of being able to rework the steps and having a deeper,

more of a clearing out experience of it.

So I'm grateful to the people that started talking about that around me because I had never really heard that before.

And now let's sort of Fast forward a little bit to to sort of more current house cleaning.

It's interesting throughout the big book it mentions.

Little details of stuff that can be used as a way to clean house.

If I could maybe look real quickly, I hope I can find this right away.

I can give you one example.

I'm sorry about the recording. It's probably blank or it is blank.

Yeah, go for it. Somebody sing so that the recording doesn't get the record. The listeners don't get bored.

I don't think I want to be able to find it right away.

It talks about.

It talks about a real tolerance of others and an ability to consider what somebody else thinks without just rejecting it.

It talks about real tolerance.

That's a nice inventory. You know how how really tolerant are we of other people? And that does include your Home group.

How tolerant of other people are you at your Home group?

How tolerant are you of the person that you live with?

How tolerant are you of people that you work with?

Or is it all about you? Because I don't know about you is always all about me. I I didn't have a real tolerance of other people.

I sometimes still don't have a real tolerance of other people, but I'm much, much better at it.

And that was one of the, you know, there's, there's these little things in the book.

I remember somebody had asked Anthony Zamela one time, you know, how do you know if you're doing well spiritually? And he responded by saying that, you know, how many times in a day are you disturbed by something that's happening around you? And you know, everybody's minds like, well, you know, that's, that's, you know, 50 times at least, you know what I mean?

Well, then that's letting you know that you're not doing very well spiritually. And that's an inventory right there is when you get disturbed, noticing it immediately and seeing what is really going on here, you know, at the 11 step it talks about we pause when agitated or doubtful. Are we able to do that yet? Are we able to at the moment that it happens? Are we able to sort of just step back or does it just jump up and we grab onto it and then let it ride us for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, for the rest of the month?

There's a, there's a definition that I use for the word resentment. I know that it's an extreme definition, but

when it came to drugs and alcohol, I went about it in an extreme way. So why wouldn't I go about recovery in an extreme way?

And this extreme definition for the word resentment is

any real or imagined reason for complaint.

We could do an inventory of that on a daily basis, right on a moment by moment basis, just, you know, tomorrow

to renewatory on a moment by moment basis and see how many times your mind is complaining about something that's happening. And the cool thing is, is when we're able to step back from what is my mind complaining about now is we actually separate from it. If we dive in and grab ahold of this reason for complaint and go with it, we actually give it energy and it grows and and it's going to take a while to get off. But if we

start to see that the mind is just, you know,

bitching for whatever reason, it's, it's doing it and we just sort of look at it a little bit. We don't feed it energy in it. And, and a lot of the times it just sort of fades off and stops because we didn't give it energy. We didn't feed it, We didn't, we didn't let it grow. We didn't let it become alive. It just went through the system and kept going,

and that's a beautiful place. That's freedom as far as I'm concerned. There's this beautiful expression that we all have a Grand Central Station mind, but we don't have to get on every train that comes through the station.

And that's that's freedom. That's happy, joyous and Freeman. We're never going to. I don't believe that we're ever going to stop the craziness in our head, but we don't have to buy into it.

And that's the beauty of what this cleaning house processes has shown me.

It's really kind of interesting

as far as I'm concerned, the spiritual life, in order to grow in a spiritual way, we have to, we have to have a new, we have to have a different relationship with our minds

because the mind is the only thing that can block us spiritually. Actually, it's not just it's not the mind that blocks of spiritually is. It's believing what the mind has to say that blocks us spiritually because the mind just throwing up thoughts.

If we really look at it, it's pathetic. It's like again, you know, you come up with any original like thoughts. It's all the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over again.

But the sad part is, is that the mind doesn't have to come up with anything original because it, it knows what the hook us with. And if two or three things in a day doesn't get us, it'll just come up with something else.

And as far as I'm concerned, it's completely unnecessary because I don't have to go down that road by cleaning house. I've seen I, I, I don't, I, I do sometimes go down that road, but I don't have to.

There's a way out, and that's a beautiful thing.

And you know, I had said last week that these three topics, trusting God, cleaning house and helping others, they all intermingle. You know,

one of the things that comes up for me in regard to cleaning house is that as I work with people, as I help people, they share with me aspects of their crazy monkey mind. And sometimes it reveals or it points out something that is true about my mind that I hadn't really seen before They mentioned it. And that's a beautiful thing.

So many people that I work with don't realize how much they help me

because as Alcoholics, one thing we have in common is the alcoholic software. And that's why we identify so much with each other at meetings. You know, we tell stories and we're like, you know, I really identified. It's because an alcoholic, we as Alcoholics have what could be called alcoholic software. We, we, we think,

we think like other Alcoholics. It's, it's crazy. And that's why we identify with each other so much. It's why we can spot something and somebody as being off way before they can see it. It's why it's so important that we go to meetings regularly. It's why it's so important that we are a

accountable to somebody else and that it's so important that we get real and that we share with people what's really going on with us. Because then and only then do we have a chance. Then and only then do we have any chance at all to to somehow move past this. Because if we don't continually clean house.

If we don't continually look at what is going on,

then we just go back to the way it was, then I cannot

live with the possibility of going back to the way it was because it wasn't very pretty for me.

And then as we go, and just to put this into the proper definition with the first step is that if we do not stay on top of this stuff and if we do not develop a new relationship with our minds, then we're doomed to repeat. And that doom and gloom and that suffering and that craziness of the way it was and reliving that simply just brings us right back to, you know what? I might as well just drink, because if this is what it's going to be like, this sucks.

And at least when I drink, I have moments of escape from this.

And that's why it's so important to get involved in the process of the steps. And that's why it's so important to really look at what's going on here, because the mind will always talk us out of anything that's good for us. And the mind will always corner us into isolation, because then it's just me in the minds, and the mind will win every time.

And it's a scary place. The mind is not a safe neighborhood,

you know. That's all I got,

thanks for letting me share.