The Ultimate Weekend in Morgantown, IN

So here.

Hi, I'm Karen. I'm an alcoholic. OK, so I'm gonna leave my phone here because apparently I ramble and I don't want to take you all hostage. So to keep an eye on the time.

So it's here if it pains, I'm ignoring it. But I just, I felt like it was important that I, I value your time as much as my own. I hope you all had a good rest and I had a, you know, nice morning and ready to get in here and talk about some pretty, pretty intensive spiritual concepts.

I know last night we talked a lot about the first step when we talked about it in terms of alcohol. But most of all, we talked about it in terms of ourselves. And I was, you know, in in conversation with people. We're talking about it saying that, you know, that recognizing my relationship with alcohol is my my ticket to the door and recognizing my relationship with myself, with your with you and my higher power

is my ticket to freedom. You know, so when we're look, when we talk about this stuff, when we're going to talk a lot about

the spiritual condition, we're going to talk a lot about how we, how, how that is addressed and Alcohol Anonymous. And we're going to talk a lot about

what sanity looks like in Alcohol Anonymous. And if you have any questions, if there's anything I'm talking about, you're like, you know, I'm not entirely understanding or can you elaborate? Just pipe up, man. You know, let me know because like, you know, this is, this is your weekend and I'm here to be of service to you.

One of the things that was interesting were the conversations I had was about personal responsibility and outcomes

about it's our responsibility once we recognize our condition to show up and do some work about it. That's absolutely true. But the result of what that looks like are the outcome of that is in God's hands. And that's really what we're going to get into in terms of six and seven, 8-9 and 10:11 and 12:00, you know, because I don't know what the, what my spiritual awakening or my spiritual experience looks like. My book says it's a rearrangement of essentially my personality, a rearrangement of my values of rearrangement

of my internal condition. But how that shows up in our life, that's an individual thing. And that outcome, the person I thought I was going to be and the person I had become are two very different things. And my book tells me and it says it in in working with I was working with others and it talks about it again in a vision for you. It says that, you know, that that what,

that often we underestimate the power of God, you know, and that what, what my ideas about what recovered or being recovered looks like

and what it really is are often two very different things. That God often has much more compassion and love for me than I could ever have for myself. So when I think about this and I think about saying, you know, I came here for my drinking and I stayed for multitude of other reasons, you know, it's that multitude of other reasons that is like the the variable for every single one of us. So

some of us come here and that we have this incredible spiritual experience and God uses us in ways and uses Mr. Lorenz

hasn't go speak all over the world, you know, telling everybody about his mistakes and recovering right. That's that's that's how God uses him and in multiple other ways. Some of us God uses us, you know, in in our district. Some of us God uses us in the Salvation Army Poland, drunks out of you know, out of the gutter. Sometimes God uses us, you know, and how that shows up or what our service looks like. An alcohol synonymous is going to be different for each one of us.

There's there's a there's a a book and again, it's non conference approved, but it's called a prayer to death.

And the prayer is give me more service for you, Lord.

And the prayer of what? Jabez

Yeah, yeah. And again, non conference approved. But that book really helped me to understand. It's like you could give me more ministry, give me more service instead of saying to God, give me this so that I can be happy. Instead. It helped me to serve you and by service I am happy and fulfilled.

I'm just driving funny. Does it occur? Conference approved.

I'm going to use that the next time somebody gives me crap about that

by a lot of way. I won't give you credit the 1st 10 times and then it's mine.

But you're right. So

you know what, what, what I what I really wanted to address this morning and what like what I think you know is on the agenda is to talk about that spiritual malady and then talk about how we address it. Why do you think the 4th step, and we were talking about this too, is our force that people have come up to me and they said, Carrie, when do I start making my list of presentments? Do I start when I started drinking and I said no, When you started being an ass?

You know, our inventories aren't about our drinking,

about who we are and how we show up, how selfishness, dishonesty, resentment appear show up in our relationships, in our lives. You know that we have a resentment, we have a fear and we have a conduct inventory for a reason because it it's about how I feel and behave, how I think and how those things translate into my relationships.

You know, so we don't write inventory on

are drinking, we don't write inventory, we don't keep a tally. We don't that's not an inventory that we take. The inventory that we take is on us. So that tells me that my real problem isn't the bottom. My real problem is me. So I was taught that I am my problem, you're my solution, meaning that I'm the problem, and the solution to my problem is being of service to you.

So when we're talking about this,

when we're talking about this spirituality, and there's an argument that I got into a heated debate, that's what I'm using with a wonderful man from California who told me that this is only A2 fold disease and that the spiritual model doesn't exist because once you stop drinking, you stop being a jerk.

I was well behaved. I would point out that he hadn't had a drink in some years and he was still jerk.

No, actually, he had some really good points. And, you know, and so, like, this is a bone of contention. Now, the book says that we have a malady, right? It talks about the devilments. You know, it talks about selfishness. It talks about resentment. It talks about fear. It talks about dishonesty. It talks about being driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion and self pity. So whatever label you want to put on that, that's fine.

You know, I, I, because we get into those debates and we're, we're the great debates society. We all recover from alcoholism.

Our lives are saved and we're great. So we're going to argue as to what Bill meant. And he said thee and thou, the big book, you know, we're going to lawyer it up, which is fine, except we're missing the point. And the point is, is that their spiritual freedom from doing this work, you know, and it starts out as work. And it starts out, I have to and it gets to be, I get to. And now it's I'm, I feel, yeah, I want to and I feel incredibly privileged to, you know, and this is, this is how this happens. Is that

what seems like an insurmountable thing? At the very beginning, the first time I wrote inventory, I thought I was going to find out that I was evil. You know, I really did. I believed that when I wrote inventory, and I really looked at myself that I was not going to like what I saw. I didn't. But I didn't feel evil. And they didn't find out that secretly I was an axe murderer or any of those things. What I found out was that I was a person who was driven by a lot of fear, who made some really bad decisions

and leaves. This fear ruled my life

now again. And 90% of what you hear is really, you know, me telling you what somebody else taught me because I'm not that smart. I'll tell you I'm not smart, but the truth is I'm not.

Fear and

faith

can exist at the same time. They can, because that's how we walk through fears with it. But I can't worship fear

and worship God and trust God. That can't exist because I hear people tell me all the time they were like, well, I, I have. I've heard people tell me they're like, I have no fears. I have completely and utterly gotten to the spiritual point where I'm never afraid of anything. And I think that's awesome for you, man. But I think you just call it something else,

you know, fear. Exactly. I love it.

I think everybody I have conquered fear like wonderful, you know what? Like they see the Buddha Muhammad,

I don't know they can they conquered it too, right? That's why they you know, you know, we create these ideas, we create these labels that confuse us. You know, because, and I was like telling you about the doctors have taken when we said that we create these stories in order to rationalize or justify where we are to explain ourselves to ourselves, and then they become our reality.

So when we're talking about this stuff and we're talking about these concepts of fear, you can have fear and have faith. You can I'm afraid all the time. I'm afraid. Come in here. I'm the I am socially awkward and incredibly shy. I am so shy it's ridiculous. I twitch in the corner most of the time. And then I I sit down and read a big book and and another person shows up and has nothing to do with me. But getting here. I'm thinking like, well, what if I'm stupid? Then the whole weekend? What if I don't have any interesting to say? What if I say the F

many times? What if, what if, what if? And then I sit here and I go away and God takes over mostly. And it is what it is. So we're always afraid and it's OK that we are. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't be alive. God gave us instincts and the 12 and 12. Some people who are big booked people despise the 12:00 and 12:00. I don't.

I did for a very long time until I read it

after

I used to do that. Like I hate the 12:00 and 12:00. I just mean my right. And then I somehow like it was it happened to be, I don't know how it happened, but I ended up going to this 12:00 and 12:00 meeting in my town and there was a rehab that was going there and I was, I was fishing, you know, we go to meetings to fish, right? I go to meetings to get to carry a message, right. So I was fishing at this meeting and it happened to be a 12:00 and 12:00 meeting

and I hadn't read the 12:00 and 12:00 because I resented it very long time. Only an alcoholic would present a book.

When I'm fishing, it means that I am carrying message, looking for responses,

passing out. We call it trolling. Trolling. You guys call it trolling, trolling for drugs on a fire rod. I'm fishing. So I used to go to this meeting. It was a 12:00 and 12:00 meeting. I used to go there to fish, and I was like, I'll go show them that they're looking at the wrong book.

Like that was my intention to go there and inform those newcomers that they're looking at the wrong book. And in the process of sitting in that meeting, I was hearing stuff and I was like, damn,

that makes sense.

And I realized, and then when I looked back and I said, oh, Bill wrote this at this point in time in his in his sobriety. And is it possible that these are his reflections on his experience with the steps and not the instructions? And maybe if I actually work the steps and then read the 12:00 and 12:00, it would make sense to me instead of reading the 12 and 12 and thinking about the steps. There's a difference. So when I first got introduced to the 12:00 and 12:00, I read the 12 and 12 and thought about the steps.

And my big book was a coaster. When you read the big box, you read the 1212 and go, yeah, so there's actually a thing in there. And he talks about instincts run wild, meaning that, you know, the things that we call character defects are not actually defects of character. What they are is God-given instincts that we misuse.

So when when we look at this and we look at this inventory and we're looking at the damaged and unsalable goods, when we're looking at the things that are blocking me off and my usefulness to God and my fellows. And I say, well, you know,

this thing might be useful in this place, but is not here

a certain. And I'll give you an example. I grew up in an extremely abusive household and very violent. So hiding under tables and in closets was very, very useful to me as a child. But I found an early recovery that when people would get mad, I would have the urge to run and I would find myself like hiding from angry people. Now the problem is, is I had a lot of angry people in my life. So I was forever in a closet or a bathroom

or under a table, you know, metaphorically under the table, but mostly in the closet or the bathroom. And what happened was, is I never spoke to people and told them how I felt. I didn't communicate. You got angry, I ran away. And then I just didn't ever talk to you again. Or I avoided you or I never talked about what was going on. I never addressed it. I never trusted you. And all I did was protect myself as a child hiding in a closet. When there's a drunken brawl in your living room and you know, and, and silverware and

you know, China are flying, that's a smart move. A 25 year old who's hiding in the closet because somebody's mad at her, that's not an effective move anymore. So when we're looking at this stuff and we say this belief system worked them, the question I want you to ask yourself is, is it working now?

Is it helping you to be more of what you want to be, which is to live as if you're a child of God,

or is it keeping you from being effective in your life if it's keeping you from being effective? Talking about the spirituality and subtraction, I thought the spirituality of subtraction, I used to hear that. I used to think it was God was going to take stuff away from me. And we actually were talking about that yesterday about how like I had this belief system that if I like stuff, that God is going to take it away. So my thing was to pretend like I didn't like anything. I thought all attachments were bad,

you know, because he said, well, you know, that's, you know, you're your sponsor. And you say I'm having a problem with this.

Usually when I'm having a problem with this is because I haven't written inventory nor ticketed into prayer nor so I'm just presenting you with my broken toys saying fix it without actually taking any action to address the broken toy. So I would go to my sponsor and I would present this and I would the response I would get, well, you have an attachment to that.

And I'd be like, I guess, yeah, right. I have an attachment. Is that bad? And I would get it's not good or it's bad. It is Is that attachment serving you or is it preventing you from being useful to God your fellows

and that they were a question here. Attachments aren't that The problem is is when my attachments are inflexible. I love my children. I would lay down my life for them. I don't know who I would be if I didn't have them. I love my husband. One of the things we're going to talk about and, you know, and people in my life know is I actually went through a very, very difficult time in the past five years in my marriage. And I was separated for a year and my husband and I just

got back together last the end of last August and September.

And we're still rebuilding our relationship. And one of the biggest resentments I had and one of the things I had to work hardest on is he did something. He did it. It sucked. It was a pretty icky thing to do. And I was more angry at him not for the action he took but for the fact that he took my family away

because I couldn't forgive him because it was Mickey thing he did in my mind. And

I was almost like, it was like I was either going to forgive or

any forgiven have my family, which is what I wanted or I was going to be angry or not forgive and I was not going to have my family. And what I wanted to do is I wanted to not be not forgive because I still wanted to be in the right

and I wanted my family and I couldn't have something had to give. And I for me, not forgiving was more work than forgiving. And it happened and it didn't happen because I did it. It happened because God did it. God showed me that I was working so hard at keeping the not forgiveness out of my heart, the unforgiveness out of my heart, that forgiving was much easier

than keeping him out here. That was a really hard thing to do because what happened was, was a very, very difficult thing for me to go through.

But it was that attachment to the not forgiveness I needed to be in this place. So you did something really bad to me and therefore in my mind, and therefore I was the attachment to that kept me in the unforgiveness and the anger that he took my family away with. And what I, what I came to terms with wasn't that he took my family away, was that I was keeping my family apart

from my lack of forgiveness.

But the attachments, these things that we have, that we, that we have in our lives are not bad because they need to be flexible. And when they're not working, you need to be willing to replace them on something that does

so. The not forgiveness worked for a while because it protected me.

The in forgiveness works because I have my family the way that I want it to be and I feel whole and complete. My life is beautiful.

It's a matter of being flexible with these things. And this is really what the thirst that's all about, you know, is, is turning our world, our life over the care up a power greater than ourselves, which is a guiding set of principles.

So

when we talk about this spiritual malady, we talk about why we have to do this work. There's a lot of a lot of stuff in this book that really, really touches on it. You know, we talked about the governments. Who here knows what the bedevilments are?

OK, but governments are found on page 52 and basically it's a description of untreated alcoholism. And real quickly we'll run through them. And this is something this is this is like, you know what we said? I said the big book is full of tests that like you can evaluate and say, you know,

is this my current experience or where is it showing up in my life?

And we can take this stuff and say, you know what, what do I, where can I go deeper? So on page 52, it asks us some questions, says we're having trouble with our personal relationships. Question one. Am I?

I can't control my emotional nature,

am I?

I'm pray the misery and depression.

I can't make a living. That doesn't mean money, guys. It means having the kind of life that you want to have is my life. Am I showing up and is what's going on in my life the kind of life that I want to be living? You know, basically am I living in my values? You know, that's what when we write all those ideals and we write the, you know, the 4th column of our fear inventory. When we write what, what could we have done differently

on our conduct inventory, we're creating an ideal of value, set of values, saying

this is what was happening in my life and how I showed up and what didn't work for me. And this is what I would like to be able to bring to the table. Asking God to help us to be able to make take these ideas which are in our head and translate them into our experiences, which comes out between you and I,

right. So that question am I, you know, you know, says I can't make a living. And what I want you to ask yourself is, am I living a life that's based on the values and the ideals that I have been shown through inventory?

We have feelings of uselessness. You never, ever, ever get to think you're helping somebody and it turns out you make it worse.

So it's not just that I am useless. I mean, God, we're useful all the time. But I feel like, you know, when I'm, when I'm putting my hands in it, I'm creating chaos rather than harmony, right? And it says we're full of fear. That's pretty self-explanatory. We're unhappy.

We can't seem to be a real help to other people. Meaning that the help that I show up with, you know, like I show up with, with, with a hammer when I need a screwdriver. I show up with a screwdriver when I need a jackhammer, right? So I'm showing up, but what I show up with isn't isn't creating the spiritual healing that needs to be happening in my life and others.

So this is a self diagnostic tool. And this shows us, are there any given day? Could I be in one or more aspects of this? Yeah. You know, this isn't an all or nothing. Oh, you're in the Bedouins and therefore you're bad. This is where am I at? What's really going on in my spiritual life? Because this is a description of untreated alcoholism. Notice it doesn't say anything about drinking.

You know, the book told us to leave aside our drink problem several pages ago. It says, putting aside the drink problem, we're going to look at the real reasons why we are the way we are.

And what I really love about this paragraph and in this page specifically, is it starts out and it talks about, you know, rockets, the moon. And of course we giggle and we're like, wow, man, you know, you know,

you know, at this point they're selling, you know, like trips to the moon, you know, into space as like, you know, like, you know, I'm a multi billionaire, I want a vacation, I'm going to go to space, you know. So we look at it, we said that's really funny, but I want to think about this. And it's something that that kind of like resonates with me

who here is old enough to remember what it's not like to have what it's like to not have a cell phone,

right? So we have like, no, we got no reception up in here, right? We got Wi-Fi, like in three spots,

and we're all wandering around with our phone going, do you got Wi-Fi? There was a time when it was like, they'll leave a message on my answering machine, right? So we acclimate to new ideas that work. I mean, my life is significantly better because I have access to a cell phone. In fact, we were Googling Emmett Fox this morning.

You know, I mean, like my life is better because I have access to this. Yes, it is an incredibly useful tool. So I mean, when I get this new idea, this new thing, this new gadget which allows me to be more effective and useful in my life, I grab onto it, right? We don't know who even has a GPS anymore. Exactly. We have phones. Oh, you do a couple, but most of the time, like there's a, there's an app for that, right?

You know, and like, it used to be like when I first started doing this talk or this, this specific talk, it was

who has a map in their car,

you know, and then everybody says no IGPS. Now I'm like, we don't even have GPS anymore. We don't even have a map anymore. We just have our phones, right. So when something is new and useful to us, we embrace it technologically.

But you know, when an idea or a concept or an attachment or letting go of something or changing ourselves on an intrinsic level is new and useful to us, we get really

don't mess with that because that's the attachment. That's the identity that's invested in that specific belief system,

right? So Bill says, hey, let's look at your experience. Bill is going to Bill does that over and over again. He says, look, this is an idea. It's interesting, take a look at it. You don't like it, Let's go look and see how things are working out before you without that idea, without that concept. How's that going for you? That's so good. You might want to think about it. And Bill does this throughout the book. And I really like that because he's not telling us he's not saying you should. He's saying,

OK,

you don't want to do that box you drop. It's OK because alcohol and alcoholism will beat you into a state of reasonableness. It absolutely will. And what's what's more humbling and what's harder for most of us is when alcoholism feeds us into a state of reasonableness without a drink in our body. Because then I can't externalize and say it's the booze that makes me do the stupid stuff. I do and said it's do stupid stuff

and it's my it's me. It's that hole in the soul, that sucking boy, that is inside of me

that has me do this stupid stuff that I do.

So we look at this and we say, is this our experience? This is a great tool for looking at where we are spiritually or what we need to work on. Typically when I have somebody who's already been through the work come to me and wants to do some work with me, this is the first thing I have them do before I even, you know, I do. I ask them those three questions. Do you upgrade? And what happens when you start drinking? Can you control how much you drink when you're not drinking? Are you OK?

Are you irritable, restless and discontent when you're controlling your drinking, drinking, Do you enjoy it when you're not controlling your drinking? Do you, you know, do bad things happen? You know, can you, once you start, can you stop? I ask these simple questions, very simple. Control and enjoy. Enjoy and control, right?

Once they answer those questions to our satisfaction, which is a 5 minute conversation, I put them right here because this is the stuck on the dash stuff. This is the unmanageability and this is how agnosticisms show up in our lives. It doesn't show up in a bottle anymore. It shows up in our wallet,

it shows up in our relationships, it shows up in our belief systems. So this is where we get to take a look at it. And this really helps us who may be asked in it from alcohol. Do you all get in touch with that desperateness in the first? Because the first step requires desperation. Now alcohol produces that very nicely. So does alcoholism. The problem with us as we think our alcoholism is everybody else's problem is and isn't ours. So part of what we need to do

in terms of the first step with somebody who has some experience with the steps is get them in touch with how alcoholism and unmanageability is showing up in their lives, and this is a good place to do it.

Who here has done a second step proposition?

Awesome fresh meat. OK,

now in wee agnostics on the very next page. Bill's so smart, but I told you like Gray or side Bill is brilliant in the way that he presents arguments, the way he presents ideas and concepts. So he starts out saying, OK, rockets to the moon isn't that crazy. But on the other hand,

we think that it's possible that might happen. And then he goes, well, and by the way, if you're not going to be open minded about that, let's look at how not being open minded has been working out for you. And then he finishes up and says that we saw other people solve their problems by simple reliance on the spirit of the universe. We had to stop down on the power of God. Our ideas didn't work. God ideas did That by the way, is the main idea of this book

and like if you want, there's like a handful of places where like if you said this is the sentence or main idea or like

again, non conference to prove literature. Ernest quotes not God. He said that the main, the main, the main thesis of Alcoholics Anonymous is that we Alcoholics are not God.

That makes sense because it actually tells us that over and over again in our book, by the way, you're not God. Stop playing it. Get out of the way. Right, right. But here it says that our ideas didn't work. The God idea did. So it goes on to the next page and it says, by the way, just in case you're not convinced of that,

in the very middle of page 52 or 53, it says when we became Alcoholics, crushed by self-imposed crisis, we could not postpone or evade. We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God was everything or you is nothing. He either is or he isn't. What is our choice to be?

That's a really, really salient point because we can't, you know, a middle of the road solution doesn't work for us. You know, our book said over and over again, die an alcoholic death, live on a spiritual basis, Die an alcoholic death, live on a spiritual basis. These are not easier alternatives. Unfortunately, they're the only alternatives that we have

and it says point blank that we there is no middle of the road solution, right? We're either all in or all out.

So then when we come here, we say God either is or he isn't. Now, here's the deal.

You can work the steps and believe that there is no God. Absolutely you can. And you can have spiritual experience. You're not gonna call it that, but you can do that. You can work the steps and believe that there is a God,

but when you're sitting on the fence, that's when you have some trouble.

So the real question here that we ask ourselves is how is that showing up for us in our lives? And a very simple exercise that we can do is say if where am I sitting on that fence? Where am I saying God exists in my relationship with alcohol, but he doesn't exist in my marriage? God exists in my marriage, but he doesn't exist in my relationship with my children. The question is not to ask ourselves where God exists, but where God doesn't.

Where, Where is God or where are we preventing God or spiritual experiences or the spirit of the universe, whatever you want to call it?

Where are we preventing that from showing up in our lives and write it down. So if you think about it, it's a very simple, simple prospect. A very simple thing with the second step proposition is we sit there and say what? And a good way to do it. Have you guys ever heard of something called the tornado exercise?

I love it. OK, so you know, in the ninth step when he talks about the the guy who comes out of the cyclone cellar and says, oh, Amy Grant, the wind stopped blowing, right.

So what I was taught to do with this second step proposition is to do a tornado exercise and kind of start at Ground Zero, meaning the people who are close is coming and move out and take a look at my relationships. What's my relationships with my sponsors like? What's my relationship with my sponsor like? What's my relationship with my Home group like my believing Deacon? Do I go within and take, you know, a a would be better if I run it?

I have what's my what's my marriage like? What's my relationship with my brothers and sisters? What's my relationship with my closest friends? What's my relationship with my coworkers?

Let's take a look at that. Let's look at those relationships.

If you can kind of take and literally do the spiral out. So we kind of do this and say, let's spiral out around here. Here we are, right? And we spiral out and look at these relationships and say where where are people on this grid? So maybe my husband and children are here, right? Work is over here,

my parents are over there, right? And I say, what is my relationship like with them? How's that? How how is that? How am I showing up there and my first pregnant interfered with? Is there static in these? You don't know who you'll get that thing in the pit of your stomach, right? You'll get that minute, that thing like we think,

think of somebody that you have had conflict with in the past month.

Did you just did your stomach just get a little dropping?

See, your God will tell you we have a vital success. Your guts going to tell you that's what I need to look at. So we do this tornado exercise. We take the names right and we say, what areas are that? So this isn't a force that inventory. This is sort of a live inventory and saying, OK, if I do this tornado exercise and most of the relationships that I get that little bit of a gut drop with

are in my home,

Then on my second step proposition, I put

home, I put work, finances, romances, whatever that is. And then what we do is we take the other side of it. So give you guys, tell me, what areas do you struggle with? What areas do you struggle with letting God into or allowing spiritual principles to pervade

kids? Finances. OK simple point here. Say finances will put money,

kids. So we asked ourselves one simple question. What are you afraid of? What fear prevents you from allowing or trusting God? Because remember I said that faith and fear can exist at the same time, but I cannot worship them both. So if I'm in here and there's no God in this area, then God then here is my God. So what fear is attached to money

not making ends meet?

OK, so what's the real view? I'm not making it to me. What will I have to do? What's going to happen after if I don't make ends meet? Which is

leave your home, Home,

What else? What happens if you're you leave your home, you don't make ends meet? What are you going to have to do?

Rewind other people.

And what happens if you ask for help? What would people think of you?

Those are my fears. That's why God can't come in,

kids. What are your fears? I screw up.

Why?

Why? Because they're making bachelors. Why?

Because I screw them up. Thank you.

We're going to think I'm weak and stupid. I failed and I'm going to fail

judgment,

this tells me. And this little second step proposition shows me more of my real reliances.

I said the world spiritual mirrors and that's absolutely 100% true for good and for Grant. Look,

we can all go off in caves and have spiritual experiences with ourselves. I mean, people do that all the time.

That's easy. You give me some planner beads and like, you know, a cool little monks outfit with some rice and gruel and I don't have to deal with anybody. And I get to pray and meditate all the time and do whatever it is that I do in there. I'm all good. That probably isn't being alone. My problem is being with you

because you reflect back to me my insecurities. You reflect back to me my fears. You reflect back to me my agnosticism, you reflect that to me. And the truth is, is this is you reflect back to me what I'm truly afraid of myself.

So here's the deal is I have these ideas about me, these fears that might be true. We came down here. I feel weak, ineffectual. I'll be judged. People will have power over me. I can't trust.

So what comes down to is their belief or a fear that there's something broken inside for me or that if I have to ask for help that there's something wrong with me. Now here's the problem is I go through my life editing all the time looking for you to confirm or deny this this deep down belief that I have about myself. So I walk around with these beliefs and I don't tell you I have them. I tell you on my shiny happy person and here's my big book and I'm awesome and God is great. God is great. God is great. God is great, right?

Meanwhile, deep down inside, what I'm really saying is tweets don't notice that I'm really effed up, right? So I walk around with this and I'm waiting. I'm totally afraid. I'm waiting for the confirmation that the beliefs or the agreements that I made with myself about myself are true. So when I'm in my spiritual cave, it's real easy for me to be spiritual because you ain't here telling me that I'm not.

But when I'm not in my spiritual kid and I'm walking around

and I'm getting pissed off at you and I'm reacting to you and I'm envious of you and you're prettier than me. You're Sinner than me. Your hair is nicer than mine. And I'm sitting here comparing my insides with your outsides.

What I'm really doing is I'm confirming these these nebulous belief systems that I have in myself that prevent me from relying on God. There's a line in our book. It says that we are children of God. We are not survival or scraping. We stand on our feet and bow before you know one. We crawl before no one.

Why that we are children of God is right in the book. It's in the ninth step. OK, I'll tell you the page.

It says that we are children of God. We stand in our feet. We crawl before no one.

Are you whispering? OK. Yeah. Thank you.

I have to have a teachers edition, which makes it very hard for me to find anything.

Umm, yes. So the idea here is that we walk through our life as children of God. That's part of what we need to bring to the table. The the issue that is, is that there are these belief systems that are operating inside of me, these fears, these agnostic systems that prevent me from living as if that is true now these old dogs, they've been beaten the hell out of, you know, ever like I'll come, I'll come like with this, this insurmountable problem, right?

And again, if I have an insurmountable problem, it's just because I've made-up a story that told me that this problem is insurmountable,

right? So I come and I lay it at the feet like I think I got one. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna stump that bastard. I'm gonna come up with this incredibly difficult thing and laid at their feet. And they just look at me and they say, okay,

and I'm like, well, aren't you gonna fix it? No,

that's not my job. That's God's job. And I'm waiting for the answer. And they were just like, right, the inventory, show up, make the amends. I'm like, no, no, no. This is a very difficult problem. It's very complex.

You don't understand. Just writing inventory is not going to fix this problem. And you say, well, I didn't tell you this, right, inventory. I told you write inventory. I told you the fifth step and I told you to go to God with it. I told you to make the amends.

That's not going to fix it because this problem is way more complicated than that process.

And they laugh and then I do what they tell me to do after I squabble for a bit. And then I, you know, and I just, you know, and I run the show until the wheels fall off and I'm broken. And then I come and I finally give in and I do this stupid inventory and I do this stupid face step and I do the stupid amends and the problems gone away.