The topic of "Capturing and indentifying the elusive charachter defects" at the Nosara Big Book Workshop in Nosara Playa Guiones, Costa Rica

My name is Chris. I am an alcoholic and it's appropriate, I think, for me to be talking about character defects. So I have a plenitude of them and I have had many in the past. I

character defects It's funny when you look at you look at the process in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, you identify the problem, you come to believe that there's a solution and then you make a decision to seek that solution. Hopefully as a, as the drowning sees life preservers if you, if you're lucky and then the next, the next step is, you know, identifying these character defects. I,

I, I was exposed to a lot of processes prior to doing

a formal big book inventory. I was exposed to the Hazleton guide that was big, you know, people were passing that around and there was crazy things in there, you know, about bestiality and all this stuff. I, I didn't, it didn't speak to me. A lot of these things didn't speak to me. And then, and then I got, I got offered a, a form that was, that was based basically out of the big book. And there was an economy

to this, to this particular process.

It seemed almost too simple to work for a complicated person like me.

You know, I'm complicated. I don't know. I guess this might work for the rest of the Alcoholics who aren't burdened with a mind, you know, like me. But this can't, this couldn't possibly be, you know, the key to salvation. This is just too simple. Who am I mad at? What am I afraid of? And who have I hurt? Just didn't, didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I, I wanted, I wanted Freudian recovery Psychoanalysis,

but,

but I did this exercise because I was motivated to do so and, and it was a very, very beneficial thing for me. Again, there's an economy to the questions in the book Alcohol is Anonymous. I think the book was put together to ask just the questions we need to ask ourselves, you know, not, not, not a lot of other stuff. And that was good. I don't know about anybody else, but I wasn't exposed to a lot of therapy prior to coming in. Well, for two reasons. I

pay the money and nobody was suggesting it. They were just suggesting that I leave. They weren't suggesting that I get therapy.

So, you know, I don't know much about that. But I do know that many of us were seeking the answers to our problems for a long, long time and went down a lot of different roads. It's very easy as an alcoholic to see our problems coming at us. It's very difficult for an alcoholic to see our problems coming from us,

but our problems come from us. And once once you can get with that truth, there's more hope,

I think. I think looking in areas where we have been harmed, looking in areas where we suffer from

different imbalances of one kind or another can be beneficial, especially if there are problems other than alcohol.

But where alcoholism is concerned, if you're looking out there for your problem, you're going to be looking a long time.

When they pointed the mirror back directly on me and I started to, to actually accept some of the some of these spiritual exercises that were handed to me that came from actual big book workshops, some of these forms, I started to get some real results. Now there's one of the things that you have to be wary of

as, as an alcoholic seeking a solution is there's a lot of people that see

the 10 million Alcoholics as,

as, as potential sales targets. And I, there's many treatment centers that have these forms. There's many books that come out. You can see, you can be on late night TV and you can see the cure for alcoholism pop up on the screen. And if you've been around long enough, you know, about every year there's a pill that'll cure alcoholism. There's a pill that will allow you to take two drinks normally, you know, and

they don't understand that the alcoholic is going to take four of those pills so that they can take 8 drinks normally, you know, because that's just the way we're going to think. And, and there's a lot of medications. There's over 30 medications that have hit the market for craving drugs just just recently. And

that's fine unless you're an alcoholic. The problem isn't necessarily the craving the the problem. The problem is the unmanageability in the obsession. And there's really no drugs out there that I've seen for the unmanageability in the obsession. So when, when the book Alcoholics Anonymous was written, it used some spiritual exercises that it had pulled from the officer group. I think Bill made some of the stuff up because he was a genius at that. He, he, he seemed to,

what we needed

remarkably well

and he put together basically 3 inventories in an ideal.

And in those inventories are,

are the basic bedrock of what you need to understand as far as the defects of character that are blocking you off from God

and allowing your alcoholism to rampage through your life. And the first one is a resentment inventory. Does anybody in here been pissed off? It's somebody or something or some institution or, you know, some teaching or religion or the IRS or the cops or your family or your boss, you know, an alcoholic when, when they say that their boss is an idiot, I mean, that's typical of the alcoholic.

You, you, you just, you just know you're smarter than your boss and everybody, you know, everybody should understand. Now prior to the inventory is a wonderful, wonderful amount of material that it's basically the actor who wants to run the whole show. Selfishness, self centeredness is the root of our troubles, though we usually don't think so. And there's about four pages of material that just pin us to the wall. If you're an alcoholic, you are pinned to the wall

by this stuff. It's your operational methodology that they're talking about, and it's talking about basically being God. You know, we are playing God, and this is how we are playing God. We're playing God by believing that if the whole world would just Step 2, the way we think they should, Step 2, everything would be great. Even they would be happy.

They just need to understand that we've got the best perspective in the world for what they should be doing

and how they should be doing. This one of one of the greatest things that was ever said to me. You know, normally when somebody hits you with a real truth, that's going to revolutionize the way you look at life or recovery. The first thing you do is get pissed off at them. The second thing you do is try to discount what they say. The third thing that happens is you have to internalize it because it's haunting you. And the fourth thing that happens is you. You accept this. You accept that teaching,

you embrace it and you learn the lessons from it. That's basically what happens. And this one guy came up to me one time and I was complaining about the AAA over here and I was complaining about the people over there. And this guy looked at me and he said, Chris, if you're still fighting them or anything, you haven't recovered.

Whoa, whoa,

holy mackerel. That was a hard one to because I was a recovered alcoholic, but I was still fighting the world on 7 different fronts, you know, and, and what he said bothered me a lot. But today I can look back on it and it was a, it was a big piece of truth that I needed to learn. I needed to learn to stop fighting. It's not my fight, you know what I mean?

And and that was a lesson that I needed to learn because I was playing God. I was playing God in the type of meetings that I thought there should be. I was playing God in the type of sponsors that I thought were around my area. I was playing. I was playing God in 100 different ways.

I was playing God with my family, you know, my family, you know, needs to do this. It needs to do that. I was playing God with with my daughter, my daughters not doing this. My daughter is not doing that. You know, I had 100 forms of little instructions that I had handy to give people so that they could live their lives better, their lives better, according to Chris. You know, and, and, and so those pages spoke to me and they still speak to me because I don't believe this. The spiritual awakening

is a destination that you land on. I think it continues to unfold and it continue. It has to continue to unfold,

you know, because we need to grow in understanding and effectiveness. We need to continue to try to, to perfect our spiritual condition through work and self sacrifice for others. I, I, I, I believe very much that yes, we are recovered, but, and yes, we've had a spiritual awakening. But if you, if you study spiritual literature, you'll see that

most of most of the masters have had spiritual experiences, have had revolutionary changes in consciousness and then retreated and then had to move forward, had to go back forward again, and then had to keep practicing and had to struggle and then went through times of depression and then move forward, you know, through that to, to times of more spiritual growth. And you know, these really, really wise people tell you that

it's, it's the living in the now. It's it's the continuing to practice these disciplines and being open

to what God unfolds in front of you and living your life that is that is important. And and it's not necessarily about an event. An event can be, can be incredibly profound in our lives. But I I think to hang on to that and not continue to move forward. It is is a mistake

anyway, so that the material in the book that talks about the actor wanting to run the whole show, stepping on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate, you know, seemingly without provocation. When I started moving into the inventory, I saw how true all of this was. I really saw myself as a victim and my problems coming at me. After I got through with this inventory, it started to dawn on me that I motivated these problems

with myself. Centered Worldview

and my problems really were coming at me and I was at at at at best a Co creator of the disorder in my life, whether I thought so or not. Now when we look at the first inventory, it's a resentment inventory. And if you do it the way the big book lays out, there's three columns and then there's some information, and then there's basically a fourth column, which is incredibly important and not to be missed.

The person, place or institution that you're angry with.

Why are you angry? The seven areas of self that are affected.

Then there's then there's some material to consider to take into contemplation. There's some questions to be answered. There's a prayer. And then there's where had you been at fault? Where were you selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened. And these need to be answered for for every, every resentment I have AI have some forms that I like to use and they're as close to what the big book asks us to answer as I've seen. So that's what I use. And there's an, again, I'll say this for 1/3 time

economy to it. When you look at who have you been angry with or who are you angry at presently? And you're honest about it. Sometimes a lot of things come if you're unclear and really you haven't, you're still very ill and, and think that you're a victim. There's not going to be a lot of material. And if you have a good sponsor or someone, you know, they're going to prod you into it. This one guy came over to my house one time with six resentments, and this is his first inventory.

I said six or seven sets a bad day, you know,

you, you know, we got to start over here, you know what I mean? And, and sometimes a lot of, a lot of things, a lot of things come.

So principles, institutions or people, you know, who, who we believe have harmed us or who we're angry at. So we write down the name, you know, and, and why when I'm doing inventory with someone, I asked them to be very, very specific with the why. I want it to be as accurate as possible. I don't want it to be because they're an asshole. That is just too general, you know, Or if you, you've got a resentment against your father 'cause he was never there for you, that that's that. Again,

that's not true unless you were abandoned at birth. You know, that's not going to be true. So I want it to be true. Whatever the resentment, get down to the truth. What are you really angry at? What specific event, What caused this, this, this resentment? And get as specific as you can in column #2 and column #3. You know, what does it affect? There's manifestations of ego.

There's,

there's different manifestations of ego in in our lives, our pocketbook,

you know, our self esteem. Where were they harmed, threatened or interfered with? Now to, to make it even simpler than the big book, it's usually money, power, sex. Those are the three things that we tend to instinctively protect.

It's our security, it's our ambitions.

And when you look at harm, threatened or interfered with, that needs to be looked at too, because some things are actually harmed, some things are actually threatened and some things are actually interfered with. So it's, it's, it's, it's also a good idea to understand,

you know, whether it's harm, threatened or interfered with when you're looking at these seven areas of self. Uh,

what I found through my own experience going through this is when I truly looked as honestly and as thoroughly as possible at the third column, probably 75% of my resentments disappeared in that moment because I saw the truth about what was going on. You know, if

I actually experienced a release from these,

from these resentments in column #3 and if I didn't, most mainly in column #4 also

if I still had to resentment after I did this four column inventory, it was going to require, it was going to require further work, which usually meant up through step 9. But for the most part

of my resentments were more fancied than they were real,

and I was the cause of the confusion more than the victim of it. Now this was a startling revelation to me. Remember, you know, I, I thought that I thought the world was coming at me.

I thought it was those bastards. That's what I thought my real problems were. When I got done with this inventory, I knew I, I was closer to the truth than I've ever been before about, about this particular stock and trade

the next inventories of fear inventory.

What's your fear? Well, what fear? Why do you have the fear? And then there's some redundant questions that are asked. You know, wasn't it because self-reliance failed you? And I started to look into this fear in a deep way. And then someone shared something in a meeting and it blew my it blew my perception wide open as it, as it related to fear. And this is basically what was shared with me.

This person was sharing that they made a decision in the third step to turn their will and their life over to the care of God,

for God to have a care for them,

to do God's work and then have God protect and take care of them. So if I do my work well, God will keep me safe and protected.

And then they shared. So that's like a covenant that we make with God. So if we've truly made that decision, if that decision is truly an internal decision of ours, what is God going to let get through to us that's not going to somehow be in our best interest at the end of the day?

And my whole perception about fear and about trust in God was blown apart in that moment. And I started to see that the fear I had was actually related to my failure of full commitment in the third step. You know, I wasn't trusting and relying upon God to meet my needs and working

to help God's children the way I'm supposed to. The third step is very, very clear

that we're, we're asking God to remove our defects of character so that victory over them will bear witness as those we would help. It's all about us fitting ourselves to be of maximum service to God. And I had it all wrong. I was looking at it selfishly. I was waiting for God to just remove my fear so that I could step back out and do what I wanted to do. I, you know, I hadn't made a full commitment to this whole deal, which is a life commitment of service.

So

fear inventory, there's a fear prayer, you know, that I think is very, very important. Anyone who's doing inventory with me, I asked him to do the 1st 2 columns and then say the fear prayer. And then the, the questions do become redundant. I have the fear because I'm relying on self and not relying on God.

And when I came to that conclusion through this person sharing, I started to get it. My life run on self will can hardly be a success. My life run on what I think God would have me be and what I think God would have me do is going to be a success. And then I no longer need have these fears. God is going to keep me safe and protected.

And that I see was the basis of of faith that worked for me.

You know, a face at work. Listen, I heard 100 meetings that they talked about. You know, fear is the opposite of faith and the faith opens the door. Fear will come in and kick its ass. You know all that stuff that you hear and meetings. Well, I I started to as Peter was talking about before I started to, I started to feel and be this stuff internally.

And that was that was a great gateway for me because I'm not saying I don't suffer from self-centered fear,

but I don't suffer from it anywhere. I suffer 2% of the self-centered fear that I used to fear that I used to feel. self-centered fear kept me from being able to ask the women I was attracted to out on a date. self-centered fear kept me from going to back to college and finishing my degree. self-centered fear kept me from asking my boss for a job. Self-centered fear kept me from leaving a bad job to go find a better one.

Self-centered fear kept me in a room in my mother's house where I was

seemingly safe and protected from the from the chaos of the world out there where they would get me.

Self-centered fear kept me from making some of the amends that I finally ended up making after after it dawned on me that God was going to keep me safe and protected through this through the series of steps.

Self-centered fear almost drove me out of Alcoholics Anonymous because of the anxiety I felt going to the meetings and the anxiety I felt when I was sharing and the anxiety I felt when old timers looked at me with those eyes. Like you sick little best.

Umm, self-centered fear was going to have its way with me.

So not only was my anger and my resentment going to Take Me Out of AI, Remember I shared how just how resentful I was, there was, there was three people in a meeting of 50 that I could tolerate.

I hated you, you know, because you were different than me or you, you know, you weren't as sick as me or you were sicker than me or, you know, some stupid thing. So the resentment and the fear, we're going to drive me away from the safety of a spirit of the beginnings of a spiritual life. So that so they were deadly. So Bill Wilson, knowing how deadly they were, had us look at them right out of the gate, right out of the gate. We we need to start looking at the stuff.

It's going to block us off from the sunlight of the spirit and we're going to wither like like a plant without sun and die a miserable death.

So I started to look at this now, my first couple of times through the steps, I got to tell you it was a very, very imperfect experience. You know, I mean, if, if they gave you a BJ's and C's for step work, you know, I would add a D minus probably the first time I went through the steps. It's good that we're not graded in that way. We get past fails, folks. You know, if you do enough of this stuff, you survive.

And I did enough

to get enough relief to be able to grow a little bit more in understanding

to be able to do it again. Now there's a controversy in a, a today. I don't really see there should be one. You do the 4th and the 5th step once and then you do 10 You, you live in 1011 and 12. Now that's not been my, my, my experience. And I'll, I'll, I'll say that there are certainly people that can probably do that. And if it's your truth, God bless you. You know, keep doing it if it's working for you.

But what happens to me is I'm very imperfect with these steps.

The ego is strong and fights back slowly over the course of time. And I need to renew my commitment and renew my, my, my 4th step and 5th step on a periodic basis. That's what I've found his work for me.

I've also found that people that do multiple 4th and 5th steps never raise their hand and share at a meeting. You know, you should really only do it once. I did it five or six times and it was a waste of time.

I've never heard that share

so so I tend to believe that to air on the side of multiple 4th and 5th steps it's probably not a bad idea. But then again, I don't judge those who only do it once.

So so I've had multiple experiences with this and each time things are revealed to me that I've missed in in steps 10 and in steps 11 because I am a very imperfect person. You know, I am not the textbook example of Sept 10:00 and 11:00 every single day.

Although I have a very, very deep meditative life. I have a very deep

quest for more and greater spiritual experience. I really do. I, you know, I love studying the masters and, and putting into practical application some of the things that they teach, although in again, a very imperfect in human way. So we've looked at

our anger, we've looked at our fear. Now we need to look at the consequences

of the manifestation of our ego and our active alcoholism. And that comes in in the sex inventory. Some people call it the the harms inventory, emphasis on sex. Some people break it out into a harms inventory and a sex inventory. You know, whatever, whatever floats your boat. We just, we just need to look, we need to look at our harms, where we've caused harm out there because in an unresolved harm that we have

is going to be caustic and corrosive to our spiritual condition. If we just say to ourselves,

I don't feel like doing that, it's going to slowly if you're a real alcoholic, if you're a chronic, you know, low bottom alcoholic, it is going to be caustic to your spiritual condition. So what we need to do is we need to look at who if we harmed, we need to look at the relationships that we've had

in the sex inventory. The first question is we review our relationship thoroughly.

So what I like to do is with someone is, is I'll give him a chance to talk. Now, I'm not somebody who wants you to come over to my house with a, with a 72 hour Fista. You know, I think that I think that that's a manifestation of ego. I think that there is an economy to this stuff. Some people need to talk. But again, I am not a therapist. I am a sponsor, and that's different than a therapist.

I think my job is to point certain things out and to allow someone to unburden some of the things that they need to share.

But me judging, you know, certain situations in their past and giving them constructive criticism. Yeah, I really tend to avoid that because I, I don't think I'm trained and I don't think that's necessarily my job.

I so I'll look at the relationship,

I'll look at some of the characteristics of that relationship. You know, where did it start? Who was it with? How did it end? And then there's nine questions that they ask you to answer for each, each of these relationships. You know, where, where'd I been selfish, dishonest. And then consider it, you know, had I unjustifiably aroused jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? You know, you know what, what should I have done instead? There's a, there's a number of things that you need, you really need to answer.

And in each of these cases we need to answer those questions. It's probably a more thorough inventory than the resentment is inventory is, it's certainly more thorough than the fear inventory. So there's a lot of weight that is placed on the damage that we've done in the past to the people that we've done it too. And most often than not, the people that were closest to us got the brunt of

our destructive manifestations. If we've had intimate relationships with people, we have treated them poorly.

I took hostages.

My

my method of operation if I just wanted to get laid was this. I would find somebody who was somewhat susceptible to my charms. And that was a short list. And and I would allow them to believe that there's room in the future for us, you know, as a unit,

I would I would have my way and then I would find the the the fastest way to extricate myself from this whole situation that I possibly could.

Now, that's not a very spiritual way to go about this mating ritual. You know, it would cause a lot of harm.

You know, what should I have done instead? I should have been honest, you know, I should have said, look, you know, there's not a lot of hope for us in the future. I'm an alcoholic. I'm, I'm crazy, I'm selfish. You know, you want to get together, you know, and that would have cut down probably on a little bit of my action, but it, it would have also cut down a little bit of my harm.

So, you know, and, and if I really like someone and wanted to, to drag them into my sphere of dysfunction, you know, it was even worse for them because, you know, I would, I would have a sense of ownership about this whole deal, you know, and I, I would have certain expectations that they would need to meet. And if they didn't meet these expectations, I would retaliate in different ways and it would cause confusion and bitterness

with and, you know, if they were codependent enough to stick with me, you know, the, the pain and the dysfunction would go on and on and on. And you know, I, I did find those codependent enough to, to, to see me as some type of a catch you, you know, being even in my alcoholic state, which was bizarre.

Now, I needed to come to terms with, with the, the harm that I had caused

and I need to be clear on the harm that I caused. And those nine questions are very, very specific about about pointing to where we were at fault. I like to remember we minimize. I like to minimize. You know, I wasn't too good to her. You know, that's a minimization. No, I wasn't too good to her.

I terrorized her for 10 years, you know what I mean?

And that's closer to the truth, and I needed to come to terms with that. Now after you're done putting together these lists, you know the nine questions, you know whole megillah of all these relationships that have exploded like the Handenberg, you know, as you're done putting all these together, there's an instruction to come up with a sane and sound ideal for your future relationships.

Now,

how I interpret that today is what type of a person do I want to bring to the next party?

Because we attract what we are. And,

and if we are, if we, if we are loyal and loving and understanding and supportive and you know, and, and take care of our physical appearance. And you know, all of these things that, that you can list in an ideal, if we are willing to do that, we, we have a better chance of, of that of, of, of someone with those characteristics being attracted to us. But we have to start with

US. You know, many people see the sex ideal as a list of characteristics that they want in the next person that they get involved with. And, and I think that's kind of missing the point. I think this is an inside job. We need to be looking at how we need to change sometimes, regardless of how the other person shows up. Many people come to me in early recovery saying things like this.

You know, she's just not doing it for me anymore.

You know, it just doesn't seem to be working for me anymore. Like, you know, she was new and I didn't realize how new she was. And, you know, she, she cleaned up real good. But, you know, she's got all these issues and it's really just not working for me anymore. And I'm kind of horrified when when my guys come up to me like that because they're looking at this whole thing

incredibly selfishly, like this is not working for them.

And I say that. I say to him, well, how's it working for her?

Because you're supposed to place the welfare of others ahead of your own. You know you're coming to me with the selfish. You want me to cosign your escape route.

You know what I mean? How is it working for her? And they look at me with this blank stare like they've never considered that before in their life.

But we need to consider the other person in the relationship ahead of ourselves. Those are the directives in the book,

you know what I mean? And if we're not doing that, we're placing our own recovery in jeopardy because we're still operating from a selfish platform and foundation. So I'll give them exercises like this. I want you for the next 30 days to be the best boyfriend you can possibly be.

And they'll go back and they'll be and, and, and they'll say something like, yeah, she's really shaping up, you know, yeah, duh. You know what I mean? So we, we are so deluded because our, you know, the manifestations of our ego can be so unbelievably powerful that we really think, you know, we're, we, we really think we're, we're being, we're being generous when we're operating from self. We're we're not, we're you know, we're we're being we're being

anti spiritual when we're operating from from self.

Now this ideal,

we're supposed to put together attributes of who we want to be at the next party. And then we're to ask God to mold and direct our ideal to have basically to, to hopefully if these are good attributes, you can consider them godly. You know, if they're bad attributes, like my sex ideal is a Swedish swim team, you know, you know, that's, that's not a really great idea.

Uh, that's coming from self and that's certainly not something God is, it should be helping me with. But, but if my ideal is, is, is to be generous and caring and compassionate and understanding and, you know, to try to be supportive, you know, if those are some of the ideals that I come up with in my sex ideal, I believe

that God will help mold me into some of those and maybe some other ones that he thought of that I didn't, you know, and,

and we're supposed to be about the business of being, being a clay block that God can mold. We need to get out of the way sometimes and, and, and allow for the spirit. One of the things, you know, just as an example, one of the things I try not to do when I speak is I try not to prepare. I basically say a prayer, God, please release me from this, you know, incessant need to always be right. You know,

I say a whole litany of, of prayers and ask him to, to, if it's his, if it's his will to, to speak through me. And you know, I, I basically offer myself as a vessel and, and then I'll, then I'll go up and, and I'll try to seek, I'll try to seek the, the inspiration that can come sometimes if you're just, if you're a blank slate

rather than have an agenda, you know, and,

and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. But

the same thing in relationships. I try to be really open and really available

so that you know, it can it can evolve of its own in a in a healthy way,

because my way didn't work. My way didn't work. I mean, I you know, my last girlfriend when I was drinking was unhonest to God, Hells Angel old lady, you know, from from the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, you know, and

she could remove her front tooth and she carried a gun. And I mean, it was just it was just wrong on 1000 levels. You know, I'm a Emma, I'm a naive boy from Basagon, New Jersey. I did not know what I was getting myself into. Holy mackerel.

Yeah, so. So if I'm dry, if I'm driving the bus, I'm driving it into a ditch.

If, if I'm allowing myself to be open enough for for the spirit, marvelous things happened. Tell you tell you a quick story. Back when I was in high school. This is before alcoholism turned me into a horse's ass. There was actually some good times with alcohol and pot and you know, the light drugs of the 70s, like, you know, white cross or something. I actually had some really, really good times back then. And, and I was not a complete

all the time. And I had a friend who was a, who was a woman and she had a boyfriend and I had a girlfriend, but, but we were really close. I mean, we could communicate at a level that was just extraordinary. We could talk about anything with each other. And we went to Led Zeppelin together and, you know, we, we went to parties together and, you know, there was an age difference. So I, I never ever pushed the intimate envelope, you know, because you just didn't do that back then. And but we were very close and we

a lot of time together. And then I went off to college

and

back then there was no Internet, you know, there was no cell phones. If someone disappeared for too long of a period of time and changed their phone number a couple of times, they were gone, You know, so after I went to college and I came back, I, I tried to, I tried to find her for years. I tried to find her because this, this, this woman haunted me. I mean, there was, there was a, there was a non sexual intimacy that we had that, that, you know, I had never experienced with another woman. She was

cool on every level and and I searched for for about 10 years looking through phone books, but she had gotten she'd gotten remarried and changed change her name to Norton. You know who the hell I'm not going to look for Norton. You know, she was a Stan Cotti. You know, she's this fiery Italian gorgeous girl.

So anyway, 32 years went by. Meanwhile, I did about 19 years worth of spiritual work and you know, I overcame some of the most grievous, you know, selfish and self-centered manifestations. And I got to a point in my marriage where my marriage was not going going anywhere. It it really ended up being the best thing for both of us to separate, although she probably wouldn't have thought so at the time it.

Really was because there was, if there was anything still ill in my life, it was my, my relationship with, with my wife.

I, I on on a bunch of different levels. I was trying as hard as I could and it still wasn't working. So in the midst of the separation, I'm on Facebook and, and I'm looking through one of my high school friends friends. You know how you do that? You see if you can find some more high school friends.

And all of a sudden, there she was. Andrea Stancati. I go, Oh my God, I sent her a message. I go, you cannot believe how long I've been looking for you. I can't believe I found you. She gets the message and she screams, Oh my God, it's Chris Schroeder. And and we get together for coffee

in about two months. I'm helping her move in her house. She's she's separating from her husband. I'm separating from my life. She's moving into a new house. I'm helping her move into the house and I never leave,

OK. And we never talk about it. We never she never says you're not going home, you know, why are you still here? There was not, there was, there was, there was like a, a reawakening of this intimacy that we had back in the 70s.

And I, I've got to tell you, it is, it is the sex ideal that I couldn't have imagined,

you know, until set several, several years ago. It was like if you would have asked me four or five years ago, who is the woman you would want to be with, you've ever met in your entire life? I would have said Andrea Stancotti because of the friendship we had early on in the 70s. And I'm now with her and we are happily married now, you know, I'm not saying this is going to happen to everybody. You know, we, we, we, we all have the things that we need to go through. But

without me doing that spiritual work, I would not have been ready. I would have still been a horse's ass and she would have run like it was an earthquake away from me. You know? And

and you know, some of the promises are available if you work for them. Some really good things are not promises, but they are possible. And everything, everything is possible in God's world

if we fit ourselves to be ready to hear and if we fit ourselves to be ready,

willing, and able to be in the place where we can be.

I'm an unbelievably grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm unbelievably grateful to the spiritual teachers that I've had in the past.

My life today has a quality to it I couldn't have possibly imagined before recovery. I'm the type of person now I wouldn't have even liked before recovering. You know I'm one of those idiots that talks about gratitude.

I hated those bastards. I like the people that talked about pain and suffering.

You know, there's been a transformation in my life. The transformation in my life was triggered by and fueled by the 12 step process. And I can't be more grateful. I don't even do gratitude lists anymore because it's it becomes so redundant. There's so many wonderful things and so many wonderful friends and so many wonderful experiences that I get to have

because like, like Peter said earlier, you know,

there's a life of invitation when you get out of the way and there's there's a life that that God can make available to you when you get your selfish ego the hell out of the way. Your ego just wants to kill you and himself while you're drunk. That's all. Your ego is really good for when you do enough of the work to push the ego away, enough of the time to be open

and available. Wonderful, wonderful things can happen. So

pay attention to this and have your own experience. Don't let anybody have an experience for you experience this stuff yourself because it's, I think it's why God has us on this planet. I think at the end of the day, there's going to be one question God's going to ask. Did you have fun with the gift I gave you? You know, and I want to be able to have an unqualified yes

to that I do. And I'm in the middle of it right now. Thanks a lot.