At a Big Book Study Weekend in Adelaide, Australia

I'm Bob, an alcoholic.

Join me in a moment of silence and I want to open with a little meditation or prayer.

I am the place where God shines through

him and I are one, not two. I need not worry, fret or plan. He wants me where and as I am, and if I can be relaxed and free,

He'll carry out His plan through me.

Amen.

Some of you came back. I don't know if I would have.

That's cool.

If you have your cell phone on, turn it to silence, please. Because then, because you'll save yourself the grief of when it goes off in the meeting, everybody turning, staring at you. It's just it's squirmy.

They're just about three or four things are going through my head. I can't share any of them.

So,

so we're in, we're engaged in this process of shrinking ourselves and clearing away the things of of an in ourselves that have been blocking us from other people,

from God and from going with this flow in the universe. That is really the essence of what we're trying to achieve in step three and then make in the decision in Step 3.

So we've, we've done yesterday we, we, we talked about the house cleaning that we, we begin in Step 4

and that's not the end in itself. The next thing that we have to do is is probably the first thing in the process that has a little bit of personal risk,

not not nearly as much as step 8-9, but that's Step 5. But the book says, the book has a couple guidelines on

on what to how to pick somebody to do Step 5 with.

It says in two different places, it says we want to a closed mouth understanding person, someone who can keep a confidence. So, you know, if you go, you need to find someone who's not an avid gossip in AAI ran into someone not a couple years ago that was just whining in a meeting about how they shared. They took their fifth step with a certain person and they that person told somebody about something that was in their fifth step.

And I, I pulled him aside. I said, but are you the only one in AA that doesn't know this persons like that?

I mean, you, it was almost like they set themselves up for that to happen so they could be angry about, about the whole deal. I mean, it was everybody knew that this nice person, but they can't hold it. They, they leak like a sieve. I mean, it's not, it's not that they're, they're not malice, no malice behind it. They just do. And, and everybody knew that and they picked that of all the people they could have picked an A, they picked the one person that leaked like a sieve.

And so you really want to, you want to pick someone who's who,

who's quiet enough within themselves that they're not, they're not going around talking crap about people all the time.

And the other thing it says someone who's not going to try to change your plan.

When this book was written in 1939, the the population of alcoholic synonymous worldwide was somewhere between 76 and 83 people, depending upon the historian you talked to. Now I know it says in the beginning of the book it was the 1st 100 bell. You know, bills like all of us, it looks better to round up.

You know, I mean, I get that. But in actuality he was, he was guessing, I think when he said that in actuality it was somewhere 7670 to 83. So when they wrote the book, they made a suggestion in there because they were going to ship these books out all over the world. And the suggestion was if you're, and you're an Adelaide and you're, there's nobody sober in Adelaide yet

that you, you may have to take this with your minister or your priest or your

counselor. It gives you a little warning. It says you don't, you don't want to take especially you don't want to discuss your sexual inventory with your mate. That's not a good idea.

But then use some discretion. And that was probably a pretty valid thing to say in 1939,

15 years later when Bill wrote the 12 steps in the 12 traditions. In step five, he, he brings it a little more up to standards of what happened in the fellowship. And now he's suggesting

because the AA is, is in the thousands and it's spread all over the place, that that you might want to do it with someone who's been dry a while, someone who's familiar with your case, someone who's actually done this themselves.

And, and he recommends your sponsor might be good for this. I, I think your sponsor is ideal for this. And I'll tell you why. If you, if you take this and I'm not to people that I sponsor, come to me and they say I would like to take my fifth step

with a priest, I'll say, but you're going to take with me too. And the reason you want to take it with your sponsor is you're going to run into some problems

in the 5th step where you can't get free of certain resentments or, or you'll get back into the 8th and 9th step and you're going to need some help

on how not to shoot yourself in the foot in trying to make these amends. And you will need someone that and the person that is listened to your 5th step is the ideal to help you with your 8th and 9th.

So I and that's what he says. And he said that's that's the best, that's the optimum. Take it with someone. Why do we take this though? Why? I mean, if, if the you know, there's a place in the book, it says a real object is to enable you to connect with a power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem. OK, you can get a sense when me and God are good now. So isn't isn't that enough?

No, it's not

because of the, the tenaciousness and insidiousness of the alcoholic ego, how it will creep in and, and it, it, it masquerades itself. And we'll talk about that a little bit in step 11. Is God's will. I, I mean, I'm, I'm sure I'm not the only one in this room that hasn't imagined some pretty bizarre stuff was God's will. It really why it was really your will, but but you kind of fancy it could be God's will. Maybe you know,

hope

so. I will always need someone outside of this and outside of me to filter my

my vision of God's will. I tell the guys I sponsor. If you get inspired by God, call me. If it's a big inspiration, come on over to the house. Well, you know how? Because you know, we are right and, and, and I do the same thing. And I'm, there's a, there's a tremendous comfort

in, in balancing my vision and my, what the things I think I'm going to do or the decisions I'd like to make that I feel are right off my sponsor and, and most nowadays, most of the time. And he's really very objective and very principal oriented and he's never, never steered me wrong. I told him many years ago, I said, I'll do everything he asked me to do. You messed me up. I'm going to tell everybody. And he's, he laughed. He thought that was funny,

but I'll bounce things off of him today. And, and

probably 9-9 times out of 10, he'll say to me, that's, that's, that's exactly right. That's right, that's, that's the right action to take. And every once in a while he'll go, are you out of your God damn mind?

And when he says it and he'll and he'll start talking about it from a different perspective. It's like a veil lift. And I go, Oh yeah,

yeah. And it's usually he, he helps me to look at, at me and what I'm doing from a, from an objective outside of me point of view. And he's very, he's very big on, on trying to get me as a way of, of life and as a perspective to look at my actions on how they would speak to the newer people.

That's and he's he's that's a big piece of business in our world

as because everything, you know, we only all of this, no matter how long we're sober, even if you're sober 50 years, you only really get one vote here. And your vote is what you do. It's not what you say.

Your actions will speak volumes. Your words mean very little. And so if you're, if you're the person who comes to meetings late and some people have legitimate reasons to do that, but your actions is speaking something here,

it's speaking an okayness about coming to meetings late. If you leave your phone on and the phone rings in the meeting and you answer it in the meeting, you're really saying to everybody, I think this is good. You're it's almost like an encourage because if you're sober more than a year or so, you may not want this to be true, but I'll tell you it is the brand new people will look to you as an example on how to live your life, how to how to live their lives sober.

And he we have a lot of monkey see monkey do here.

I, I went through a well, there have been,

there are times in my sobriety where,

you know, I was where I was really self-serving periods of that. I know that somebody find that hard to believe, but and I was taking actions that I don't think are hurting anybody. And, and this is not, there's nothing really wrong with this. Until I saw guys I sponsor emulate what I was doing and then I was ashamed

because I really didn't want him to emulate it.

Not that it wasn't illegal or anything like but it's just it was not the kind. I didn't want to be that kind of example to them and Alcoholics because it was a self-serving example.

And so my sponsor has been big on that. And so I, I, I encourage guys to take and men and women to take their fifth step with their sponsor. This is a your sponsor grows

may be more from your 5th step than you do. And you don't know that until you've listened to about a dozen of them and you realize that I've gotten more out of fifth steps that I've from other people than I have. And stuff will cook out of me. A lot of the things I've shared this weekend, things that I've gotten, realizations and consciousness

consciousnesses that I've obtained by seeing myself

in a way I've never seen myself through. A guy, a sponsor. It's a remarkable thing. You're listening to a fifth step and all of a sudden you go, Oh my God, I did. And I never, oh, and I never made the amends.

Oh man, I've been buried 30 years and here I am. It's just this guys cooked it out of me right here. And I think he thinks I'm helping him. So do this with a sponsor. And the book has a couple reasons why. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on five at the bottom of 72. It says the best reason first to do your 5th step to take this risk of looking bad. So my my, my dear friend who passed away a few years ago, Vince Show used to say, sometimes

have to be willing to look bad in order to feel good.

And the best reason? First, if we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Remember drinking.

Remember it's a it's easy to forget drinking. You can be sober 5-10 years and sort of settled into, oh, of course I'm sober and you forget, forget that you have a disease that if it turns back on you, you don't have the power to get back. This is a hideous disease.

Most out that most Alcoholics that relapse themselves to death do it and they don't have a clue how powerless they actually are.

How this can get out from under you and you can't. How you can't get the tiger back in the cage.

And and I and, and people, I see people for years come into Alcoholics Anonymous and with a cavalier attitude. Yeah, I know it's bad and you know, I'm going to get sober. And but they don't really put the energy in and they relapse again. Well, they come back and they they come back. They can see, you know, it's it's not the end of the world. And you know, they'll say things in meeting like, well, it's not like I'm really new. I had that time before. You know that you can feel the ego right there, right?

And, and, and they never buy the whole package. And then one time they go out

and they can't get back.

I think sometimes Alcoholics Anonymous is like when you join a, A it's like joining the mafia. Nobody gets out of here alive,

You know what I mean, right. I mean, it's, I mean, that's a pretty cold thing to say, but

I don't know if you're a real chronic alcoholic, it's probably true.

So the best reason first, if we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.

We're no matter how comfortable you are in abstinence, no matter how long it's been since you've even entertained ever thought about drinking, you're never out of the woods. There's an old saying that I think it's kind of funny. It says that monkey may be off the bat, off your back, but the circus is still in town.

And that's really true. And it talks on page 73 about why,

why this is important. Well, actually, we'll start at the bottom of 72. It's. It's time after time. Newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Do you guys have that saying down here, you're as sick as your secrets? Yeah. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, They've turned easier methods. Almost invariably, they got drunk. Oh my God, We got a society that's throwing easier methods at us.

And you know, I'll tell you one thing that being sober a while, you know, several decades will give you doesn't make you smarter,

but it gives you perspective. You watch, you watch all the different methods and easier methods and easier ways to come and go. And they swagger and boast an AA for a number of years and the body count starts to develop.

And you know, it's funny, I came here in 1978, one of the most liberal, you know, minded. I thought everything is good. I all the 12 step programs should be together and, and, and all the therapy should be an AA And it's all good. And we should, you know, it should be, we should do it all.

And over the years stuff, the body count just cuts away crap until what's left after three, almost 3 1/2 decades is the only thing that works.

You don't. A guy doesn't go from a liberal anything goes attitude to a fundamentalist in Alcoholics Anonymous out of choice. It's out of pragmatism.

It's because it's what's left. And that's the isn't that, that's, it's really the thing here. You know, you can, you can intellectual arguments about other methods can be very strong, but it's not a matter of who's right or wrong. It's a matter who's left.

It's not who's right, it's who's left.

And if you,

if you had somewhat in your life that you really, really loved

your daughter, your son, your mate, your mother, your father, brother, sister, wouldn't you want them to get on the road that would have the maximum potential to change their life?

Would you want to, would you want to half measure and stuff? And yet we will half measure for ourselves. But if somebody we really cared about, which is indicative, I think of, of long lasting feelings of low self esteem that sometimes can go for decades and decades in sobriety. You, you get glimpses of it when when you, when you start to realize that you, you want more for the people you love than you do for yourself,

right?

How come I'll go out of my way to help you quit smoking, but I won't do it for me? How come I'll go out of my way to help you go to a doctor when you're sick, but I'll resist going? How come I'll go out of my way to help you go back to school, but I won't,

right? And as if I care more about you than I care about me.

And the great one of the great blessings in alcoholic psalmist is we link ourselves to each other.

Something happens that is greater than than us individually,

and it's sponsoring people and having a sponsor is so important. I was up in the Rocky Mountains

in the United States 20 some years ago at a little conference up there and he's we had a day to kind of sightseeing. They took me up to this place where there's this mountain lake and it was pristine. It was so pristine and so clear and pure that you could see the rocks on the bottom of the of the lake. That's how clear that water was. And I realized why. It was clear.

On one side of the lake, there was a rapid moving stream with water bubbling in,

pouring in. And on the other side of the lake there was a stream with water going out and consequently it could never become stagnant because it flowed. I need that in my life. I need a sponsor where I stuff's coming into me and I need to sponsor people where stuff's going out. And and if if you're like me and you cut off either end of that, you start, what happens is the lake starts getting stagnant, which really means is it starts filling up with you.

Basically,

and I need all of that, I need to be, as it talks about in this in the 11th step, Saint Francis per channel where things flow through me.

So the book says invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is they never completed their house cleaning. They took inventory all right. This would have applied to me at at at 3 1/2 four years sober. I'd written two inventories plus did some in treatment centers. They took inventory all right, but they hung on to some of the worst items in stock.

They only thought

they had lost their egotism and fear, the only thought they'd humbled themselves.

But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty in the sense we find it necessary until they told someone else all their life story.

One of the great things about step four and five is it's outlined in the book. This is not to discover the things you already know. This is discover some of the things you don't know.

And there there was a, a therapist

many years ago, maybe 35, four, maybe 12, probably 40 years ago, who invented a thing called the Jihari window. And it was, it was a, it was a remarkable intellectual exercise it. And what it was, is it was, it was the things about you as a person. And the Johari window had four panes. The first pane was a pain that was crystal clear. You could see through it in both directions. And that was what I, or I know I

see about me and what you can see about me. It's a clear pain. The second pain was like one of those pains with a reflective thing on one side where you can see through one but you can't see through the other. And that was the things I know about me. But I'm not going to let you see. I'm going to keep him in the shade. And then the third pain,

one of the really insidious beginning of the insidious pains, and that was things that you could see about me,

but I don't see them. I can't see me the way you see me. And this is one of the pains that's cleared, made clear, or should be partially made clear in step 4:00 and 5:00. And then the last pain is the is the pain of the things that I can't see about me and you can't see about me. These are the things when it talks about in the 12 steps and 12 traditions that can bubble to the surface later and handicap you in relationships in other areas of your life.

It's, it's, sometimes it's the stuff I don't know about me that hurts me the most.

So we have the things that come out in the open in step four and five that I, that my secrets come out, of course. And then I start to, as I start to shift in my perception, as it talks about on page 66 and 67, I start to make these realizations. I start to see the things about me that other people saw that I could never see. And, and what happens for some of us is we most of us is when you, when you uncover that stuff, it brings a little light and a little grace

life and helps cook out the stuff from the 4th pain, the stuff that you don't know about yourself and nobody else knows about yourself. It starts to bubble out to the surface. And this is an ongoing process. When it says in the vision for you that more will be disclosed,

it's because it has been closed to me and it cooks out and everybody that I know in sobriety is has that as an ongoing experience. I know the stuff. It's, it's kind of funny really, but I know stuff about myself today that I can see very clearly that I could not see ten years ago.

And there was stuff 10 years ago that I could see that I couldn't see 10 years prior to that.

Which means if I'm objective, that there's some stuff about me today that I can't see that I think is a certain way that 10 years from now I'm going to think I'm an idiot today,

right? And when you get that, it's pretty hard to maintain this position where you know stuff because you, you get to know that you don't know, right? And you don't. It's an illusion. It's it's, it's an illusion of the ego that you know something

we have our experience and that is changed by life itself continually.

And that's really all I have is that of any value is my experience. It's the power of alcohol. It's not, it's not not the things I know or the my opinions, but my experience.

And this starts to talk about this, this compartmentalization that it seems to be driven by self-centered fear. It says more than most people the alcoholic will lead double life, sometimes triple, sometimes quadruple lives there. You might some of you may have had the experience where you're one person to your minister, another one to your parents, another one to your wife or husband, another one at work, another one to your drug dealer, another one to your bartender. I mean, is it any,

most of us come here, we don't even know who we are. I mean, I don't know who I am anymore. I mean, I've been so many things to so many people. Who the hell am I? I mean, you know, I don't know. So we live this double life. And why do I do that? Because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what you'll think of me. When, when you, if you're like me and you go through life with a tremendous, overwhelming sense of not enoughness,

a feeling of inadequacy, and you cover it up behind a facade

because you, you so desperately want people to love you and accept you and you're afraid they won't, then you, you're you're the fear pushes guys like me into a position of being something I'm not

out of the fear of the children. If you knew me, you wouldn't love me because you know, I don't, not really.

So I have to be something I'm not. And, and I think we die in that abyss. If there is a hell on earth, I I think it it must surely exist in in the abyss that opens up between who I want the world to think I am and who I secretly know I am inside.

And my grand sponsor said, you used to say you cannot compartmentalize your life. You have to be one person. And and this is the beginning of unity in turn, and this is the beginning of integrity. Integrity is just means being of one mind.

It means that I'm the same guy at work that I am in the grocery store, that I am in traffic, that I am in AA, that I am, I'm the same guy, not perfect in any one of these, but the same guy. I am me in every one of these. But you know, one of the promises in step 9 is that we will know a new freedom. I think a big piece of that freedom, they're part of it is, is the freedom from fear because we're starting to trust God. But another piece of it is the freedom that comes when you just when you don't have to do anything except be who you are

are when you're trying to be something you're not. Oh my God, you're you're hostage to that up here. Now. I have to remember you. I have to remember the lies I told you last week, right? I have to, you know, I'm a hostage to that. So this is is an amazing thing on page 75. This, this is the part coming out of

out of the 5th Step experience and

it's bottom of the page, it says. Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour,

carefully reviewing what we have done.

So I come, I just finished my first step with my sponsor and I was at his house or maybe I was in a park or maybe I was took a drive in his car or whatever. And I've I've come home, I found someplace where I can be quiet for an hour. No telephone, I'm not texting anyone. I'm just just me and my 4th step in God. OK,

the first thing I do is I after I look back over the 4th step, I review carefully what I've just done.

And then after I do that, I say this prayer.

I thank God from the bottom of my heart that I know Him better.

Remember, we're entering into an. This is an exercise of

uncovering, discovering and discarding the things between me and God. Now you may because we're so because self-centered people such as myself have a tendency to gauge everything on how I feel. I may not feel like saying this prayer that I think as I know him better because maybe I don't feel like I know him better. Maybe I just feel tired. I mean, I just sat and talked about my my whole life for about four to six hours. Maybe I just feel washed out.

And a guy asked me a few years ago, he said, well, what if you don't feel like that? You know God better, what should you do? And I, he stumped me and I thought I looked in the book and what's it? I said, you know, it doesn't say we thank from God from the bottom of our heart that we know any better if we feel like it.

So maybe I'm trusting in the process and taking this book down from the shelf. I turn to the page which contains the 12 steps in chapter 5,

carefully reading the first five steps. So not only if I looked over my 4th and 5th step, I'm looking over this preceding step 1-2 and three.

And I'm there's another prayer here and this is an important prayer.

We ask anytime the book says we ask. I mean, they're they're not saying you're asking your head

you're it's a prayer. We ask if we have omitted anything for we are building an arch through which we should walk or Freeman at last at least 15 times. I imagine over the years I've sent a guy home to do what it talks about on page 75 and 76 and 45 minutes later I'll get a phone call.

And because when you get a loan with God and you ask that question, you're looking over your four step. It's not unusual that something will just cook up to the surface. Do you ever see those 8 balls where you shake them up, you ask it a question, shake it up and you turn upside and there's nothing there and then all of a sudden an answer floats to the top. It's kind of like that

and and I've had guys call me 45 minutes later I'll be sitting at home. Not unusual. Guy calls me and said, Bob,

I forgot to tell you about the sheep.

Yeah, we're going to want you to send a check to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals every month for a while. And for your men's, no,

it could be something really crazy. We, we stuff that's horrifying to us will bury it very deeply. I had a guy call me up one time. He said I forgot to tell you that I, I, I stole some money from where I work.

I said, really? I said how much? He said $450,000.

Yeah, I'd, I'd forget that too, I think.

Yeah, your ego's right ahead. Knows about step 8:00 and 9:00. I'd forget that one also. I think

all I could say to his is, oh, we're going to have some fun. I

so

the book says the top of 76, if we can answer to our satisfaction, all those questions on the bottom 75, the mortars in place, the first five steps are good, not, not perfect. We're not talking perfect here. We're talking is there anything left undone that I could do right now? So can I see anything that I could do? And if you go, no, I, I may not be perfect, but it's, I did the best I could could,

then you've answered your satisfaction. We then look at step 6. We've emphasized willingness as being indispensable.

And here is the question,

are you now ready?

Ready is a big word.

Are you now ready to let God remove from you all? I hate that word. All the things which we have admitted are objectionable, can He now take them all? Everyone,

my capacity

for self delusion is astonishing.

I I I convinced myself that I was ready to have to let go of things that I wasn't really ready to let go of.

In truth, I was ready to have God take away the consequences,

but I wanted to hold on to the attitudes and the behaviors and the thing and the what these things really are, are defective defense mechanisms that I've used to protect self in my ego for years, for years. And, and at one time,

possibly some of them worked.

At one time there was a Maybe my anger did and my rage did save me from getting in trouble and it backed somebody off.

Maybe when I was a little kid having a temper tantrum got my way with my parents.

20 in your 20s. Temper tantrums don't work anymore

and yet I'm still the guy ranting and raving and kicking stuff around when I don't get my way.

Maybe

maybe at one time in my life got being a gossip and tearing other people down gave me an illusion of being a little better than I was or of being okay. It's sort of that dumb waiter effect. You know, I'll pull you down and maybe I come up right. And maybe at one time I

there was that that might have, I might have done some something or gave me the illusion it was I was a little better.

But now, years later, it's just making me more and more alone

and, and I you know what? You know what happens to every single one of us? This isn't we. It's so funny. I go through my whole life caught in this cause and effect and I can't see it

that in the cause and effect is my action. I always end up unconsciously feeling about myself the way I would feel about someone else that was doing what I'm doing.

So if I'm I'm a gossip and I'm tearing down people, what happens is I end up feeling about myself the way I feel about someone who does that to everybody. And, you know, I never liked that in people.

And I think it's as if my ego thinks it can escape the cause and effect. It's like my my ego appreciates the laws of cause and effect. It just thinks it's above them. And it's like the speed limit. I think the speed limit's a good, good idea. I mean, it's really that's important, but I'm in a hurry. You know, the handicapped parking, that's important. There are people really need to get those spaces. But I'm only going to be a minute.

I think I'm a ego thinks it loves rules for for others,

it just doesn't love them for me. And and that's an immature consciousness that that I'm so self-centered I can't even see the cause and effect in my life. And then I wonder why I'm depressed. I wonder why I'm a depressive

because I'm doing stuff that depresses.

Why do I have all this self pity and self loathing and I beat myself up because I'm acting like someone I'd like to beat the crap out of Is what I am. It's it's right. Internally, I'm acting like the guy I

so it's and it's an inescapable cause and effect.

If

if someone would have done to my mother and father what I did to my mother and father, I think I would have killed him.

It's in any wonder why I was so self-destructive.

So we're

we're trying to become entirely ready. And this is more than consequences. The ego is willing to have the consequences removed. Bill Wilson in his story, so I heard just heard someone say this and I very rarely ever hear people in a mention this. But I was just in a meeting one night here and I can't remember who some woman said, I can't now I can't remember who it was. I was very impressed. She quoted the part from Bill's story

where he where he says he asked his creator

to take these things away, root and branch. Now, what does he mean by root? Like is there two parts to a defect? I think so. I, I think there's the, the, the branches, the thing that's poking me in the eye, the thing that's the consequences, the thing that's obviously objectionable, but there's the root. And the root is that secret illusional thing that provides value, security, comfort or self gratification or self grandism.

And I want the branches to be taken, but I want to keep the root. But it is the root. And the problem is if you just keep cutting off the branches by making amends and you never change the route, it keeps growing back, right? It keeps coming back. And that's why it's not unusual. You know, you're 10 years sober and you realize I'm still doing stuff I did. I've changed the places and the faces, but it's kind of the same because the root hasn't changed.

And this is this becoming entirely ready

is is a big deal. I, I think, I think the 6th step

is really the story of my entire sobriety.

One of the guys I sponsor, he calls step 6, the Judas step. That means if you're 10 years sober and something in your program is betrayed you, it's step six. You, you think you did it and you have it. I, I'm, I'm surprised how many times it I take guys, we go, they think they're some advanced step 1011 and 12 program and how we have to come back to six that there's some stuff here you're not entirely ready to have God removed.

You're not. You're not ready to give up yet

because there's an illusion of value in them

and there's a lot of fear.

My sponsor, he says it's a great story. He says you come to AA and you're beaten half to death by the bottle, so you threw the towel in. And then when you're a couple months sober, you have just enough self-esteem to be dangerous. You sneak the towel back

and you'll spend the rest of your sobriety ripping off when you have two little pieces and throwing them into the abyss as as like some kind of your does your tithing, you know? But nobody wants to throw the whole towel in, not once we get it back.

And so how do, how do guys like me become entirely ready?

Well, in the 12 steps and 12 traditions, it it sort of speculates, it asks that question, how come God never takes away any of all of our any for anyone, all of our defects and renders as white as snow? And then it speculates, it says, isn't it possibly because we don't hit the same desperate bottom with with lust, with anger, with judgment, with gossip, with all the other self-serving defense mechanisms that we had hit with alcohol and alcohol

and truly was a defense mechanism in a sense. It secured me in the world. I gave me the power to live. It was a great thing when it worked,

so I don't hit the same bottoms with these defects.

So what do you do?

Well, there's a prayer here. I didn't see this prayer when I, when I was a little over four years between four and five years sober and I was going back through the steps. I, I skipped the six step prayer and I said the 7th step prayer. I didn't see it because there wasn't anything in the margin with a big neon arrow that said prayer and I didn't see it. But it, it says if we still the bottom, the last line in the first paragraph, we still cling to something we will not let.

If you're still continuing to the same behavior

and maybe you've altered it a little bit trying to control and enjoy your, your deal. I think what happens to some of us is we, we just, we get smart. We think we're smart. So I, I want to continue this, but I'm going to do it a little bit different. I'm not going to drink the vodka. I'm going to stick to rum with a little bit of amphetamine so I don't black out. This will work good. This is going to be good. This is going to be good,

you know, and you just control and enjoy your sobriety.

So

we ask we ask God to help us to be willing. I didn't say that prayer. And here's what happened to me from the time I was five years sober to well, it went continued for a while. Actually,

I thought it was my job

to rid myself of my character defects.

I started willfully attacking them

because I want to be good. I want, I want to be able to go to the me. It's it's I want to go to the meeting rights and have the I want to go to the meetings and have the bragging rights of having a guy whose spirit, I want to be the guy who's spiritual but still be squirmy underneath, you know, that kind of thing. I want to. I want the reputation,

but I don't want to change. I want the relief from not having the consequences, but I don't want to change.

And I had a lot of tough, tough years. I, I discovered there's a line later on in the book where it talks about A cause and effect and it says it's, it's, it's referring to drinking.

But I believe in my experience, the same thing's true of defects of character. It says that if we, if we try to willfully do this stuff, what happens is we end up with a bigger explosion than ever. It's almost as if whatever I suppress gains torque

and it's like I'll be good for a while until I just kind of out good myself for something. I, you know, it's like it's like a slingshot effect. I'll go the other way because I put torque on it. It it's in what do you become the reformed whatever

you know, you were, you were the person who had all these terrible relationships. You were a serial monogamist or you were you slept with a lot of people and OK, you're never going to do that again. Now you go around and you're judging. You're the, the, the intolerant, judgmental person of everyone elses sexual behavior. You're just as hostage to it as when you were doing it in the Dow. It says the chains that bind us most closely are the ones we think we've broken.