The Ultimate Weekend in Morgantown, IN

So

do you all feel like you have a pretty decent understanding of the second step proposition, the bedevilments? You know,

yeah.

And kind of looking at it saying like there's, there's multiple layers of multiple ways of looking at these steps. These are not just for newcomers or beginners.

So that we talked a little bit about step three and said that it's a decision, right?

But it's a decision that needs to be backed up by action. And we talked a little bit about the actor and how that's really our 4th column. And so when we look at this one, we're asking ourselves these questions when we're reading this and it's really asking me saying like, you know, how, how is how is, you know,

Carrie's life lived by self propulsion, working out for her, you know, and where is that showing up? You know, and when we come back to this thing, and

there are some aspects that I skip when I do studies and I come back around in six and seven because I think, well, the first time we look at them, we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like anything else is like when you first look at these ideas and then you come back with an with information and experience, we see these ideas very differently.

But there's a statement on page 62 and says, though we travel, so we think our troubles are of our own making. And by the way, I correct his programmer. So that's why

they arise out of ourselves. The alcoholic is an extreme example of self will run right, though we don't think so. And that's kind of what I've been really emphasizing this weekend, is that you're going to think that you're not self will run riot. But typically if I'm in conflict with something or somebody, I probably am on some level somewhere,

you know, and think about it this way is who here does it written nightly review?

Okay. When it asks you, were you kind or loving? Do you give percentages?

Because that's a yes or no question and say they're not how much of your day? What percentage of the day were you a Jackass? It doesn't ask us that. It says were you kinder, loving, yes or no? So when we come back to this thing it says though we don't think so.

I mean, like really that's kind of we're saying is, you know, I'm not always going to think that the decisions or the beliefs that I have are causing me the issues that are happening in my life. But typically they are above, above everything. I must be rid of selfishness. We must

or it'll kill us. So

it talks about says dying alcoholic Death live on a spiritual basis, right? But

more specifically, it says it says two things, that resentment and selfishness will kill us. Says resentment has the power to kill and our selfishness will kill us. It doesn't say your drinking will kill you.

Why? I think Paul did that.

Think about that for a minute. Because if, if I again, if I'm just focused on my drinking and it's my drinking that will kill me. I miss a lot of things in my life or a lot of things that are going on with me that are much more dangerous than the bottom. My selfishness

leads me to the Bible. Is my solution. True, but we make a lot of pit stuff that are just as dangerous along the way. Even if I don't ever return the bottle, what I do is I've killed my happiness. I've killed killed any chance for a useful life, all of that thing. And if I use returning to the bottle as my criteria, I'm missing the whole point. That's why

we're talking about this and way we are. Yeah, when it said, and that's what I was saying to you, is that your alcoholism will not show up to you in a bottle. It'll show up to you in the ISM.

So how many of you guys have

I had somebody come up to you and say, you know, I'm really having trouble with this gambling, I'm really having trouble with this porn addiction. I'm really having trouble with this food problem. I'm really having trouble with this. I'm really having trouble with that. I'm really having trouble with this. I'm really having trouble with that. But at least I'm not drinking.

You might have murdered 6 grandmas and drowns and kicks, but you didn't drink today so you were a winner.

I'm too busy worrying about having trouble to drink.

Exactly so. So our book doesn't say drinking kills. It says your selfishness kills. Resentment kills

and that's and again, again, when we look at this and say like Bills real careful about how he puts things. So when he's saying this, this is a real question. A consideration I need to ask myself is how is my selfishness killing me?

How is my resentment killing me?

There's a solution of probably ten 2000 times and you know, it says in here that we we saw there's

when we were approached by those of whom the problem had been solved. And I realized that the problem they're talking about is like, yes, exactly. But the problem isn't my drinking. The problem is me.

Yeah, exactly. So when we're approached, because The thing is, is, you know, it also tells us that across the emotional pill sounds, devices. So I say, don't drink. We love you. You're such a good person. Don't. Don't you know, I'll love you too. You love yourself.

That's across the emotional feel. Now, we do love each other. Do we love ourselves? But there's some things I need to do. And that the love of me loving you isn't just giving you a hug and smoking, it's giving you a solution that has depth and weight,

you know? And that's, that's what we're talking about here. So, yeah. So when it says to us, it says it'll kill us. And it says that God makes that possible.

God makes it possible for us to be relieved of our selfishness. I can't think my way through my character defects any more than I can think my way through my drinking. By the way, you ever make a list of your character defects like the real real world, real world long list? Bill did that for us.

Very simple, hey, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear, inconsiderateness,

unjustifiably arousing jealousy, suspicion or bitterness. You know, like we like we got to be special because so I have to have a specialistic character defects because carries is effective character, you know, so I have to come up with this special special list. And quite frankly, we did that. It's called your four step. You know, people like I wrote a list of my character defects. I said so did I? It's called the inventory,

you know, So when we come back to this, when we say that there's no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid now. And this is what this is. This is where the chocolate would carry the water comes in, man.

It's my job to chop the wood and carry the water. The outcome is in God's hands. God will do this. I have to do the work. And it's it's this tactic, this agreement that I make with God. And this is where we come in. And this is where we really talk about that third step prayer and that seventh step prayer and what that really means and why we're an orange frog after we make it

so. It says that we had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would like to. And that's where I was talking about the disconnect between my ideals and what I know to be right in my actions. Because when I'm driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, and self pity,

I can't make what I know to be right in my mind a car. Because I'm hijacked. I'm hijacked by my malady. I'm hijacked by my selfishness. I'm hijacked by my resentment. I'm hijacked by my delusion. And I can't fix that. Because a delusional mind doesn't fix a delusional mind. As an undergraduate, I had to take a bunch of classes

in in, in like abnormal psychology and psychopathology and yadda, yadda. That's not important. What's important is that everyone of my professors said you're going to take this class of diagnose yourself with a million things.

We do like who here like is on Web MD all the time.

Exactly. We're always we're dying out. We're walking diagnosticians, man, right. So what he said, and this is the most important thing he said, he said, you're going to think you have all of this stuff. Don't worry, you probably do.

You said what the most important thing is that crazy people don't think they're crazy, He said. That's the thing about being crazy. And this is what God's honest truth. Because in, you know, in my life, I've actually had patients who thought they were, they were Jesus, and I had to refer to them that way. That was interesting. And it's really hard getting Jesus to clean up his room when he's gone.

So I would say to him, I was like, you know, Jesus, you know, you're the divine man. You're an example,

I said. What are you gonna do when your disciples come here in your underwear or on the floor?

But my point to you on this one is that

my sick mind can't see where my sick mind is. How do I know what I don't know? I don't know it. So when I say that that you know God, that we need to have God's help to do this, it doesn't mean that we sit here. And when we wait for God's golden hand to come down and like tap us on the head and say you're not broken anymore.

It's the, it's that inner, inner, that relationship and that inner thing that happens between you and me. It's that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a phrase called Namaste, which means a divine in me to salutes the divine in you. So when you and I are sitting down and we're reading some inventory, when you and I are sitting down and we're reading a book, or when you and I am sitting down having a cup of coffee or smoking a cigarette, or having a conversation about God or life, the divine inside of me and the divine inside of you are having a conversation you and I are not having.

I'm completely, almost at times unaware of this conversation, yet it's a card. And when we all come together and have that conversation over and over again, something happens inside of us, doesn't it?

So when I talk about this and I say, you know, that God needs to be in charge of this, that God is the one that removes it, that I can't think my way through these things because I'm not going to see them. It's me having that conversation with you, us having that relationship, sponsorship, peership. Bless you that that fellowship of the Spirit that allows us to become awake and aware to these things

and and allows these things to be removed from us. So

me trying to fix me alone with me keeps me me.

And and again it come. You know, that's why I was saying that it's really easy to be spiritual by yourself because what you're really doing is worshipping your thoughts.

It's not so easy being spiritual with somebody who's reflecting back to you the things that you don't like about you.

And that's when we're not so much worshipping our thoughts, but we're in that experience of being disturbed on the question of our alcoholism

and not about our drinking, but about how alcoholism is showing up in other ways in our lives, our agnosticism, the errors in which God is not involved because we're not letting him be. So it comes back to this and it says that we could not reduce our self centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We have to God have to have God's help. So

the first step tells me that I'm powerless over alcohol. The rest of this book tells me not only am I powerless over alcohol, but I'm powerless over me.

I can't reduce my selfishness much on my own, myself centeredness on my own. But I'm the only one that can change.

Trip, trip we can change, but I don't do it. I dig the trench.

I chopped the water I carry. I mean, I chopped the water,

you know, and, and that's the delusion. That's where a spiritual teacher of mine used to tell me all the time, you know, not to, not to worship the thing or pointing at A at the moon. Meaning that the 12 steps are a vehicle to get us to have this spiritual experience in this community with God, in the communion with each other. You know, that the steps themselves are required, leads to the end. They are not the end. So

when we started this weekend, I talked, I used the analogy of a recipe and I said the 12 steps or a recipe for spiritual experience. We can't. There's no one part of this, that process that we can take away because when we take it away, we have something less than what we intended to have, but we add and that's where 10 and 11 really talk about that. That's where they talk about broadening and evening their spiritual experience, becoming open to new ideas and concepts, being open to

what universe has to offer us.

And we don't. We don't take away the fundamental aspects of this recipe, but then we bring to the table what our spirit motivates us to bring

this making sense to you guys. So

it goes on to talk about that triumphant arch and of course, that's doorway to the to the fellowship of the spirit. That's when, when we talk about that, when we say, you know, you have entered the world of the spirit, the doorway that we're building.

And that tells us that in the 10th step doorway that we're building was built by each other sitting steps.

So when we say that this is a keystone, it means this holds up this structure, that this is the linchpin of this structure. Without it we got 2 columns.

With it, we have an arch.

So we go on to say this prayer

and what was it was important to me to realize is that this prayer needs to be witnessed. This is now this is a prayer I say every day of my life. I do as part of my morning, my morning quiet time. I say the third and 7th step prayer. But when we take this prayer in the context of going through the steps one through 9, whether it's their first time or the year 97th time, we hit our knees and we say this prayer together. And it's something that needs to be witnessed,

because if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, did it make a sound?

But thirst and prayers uttered without somebody to witness it. Is there anybody there to reflect that to me when I'm not living up to the bargain that I may have gone?

We talked about being an orange frog and I said that God will, if you make this and you make this tap this pact with God in your third step prayer and you do not back it up by being launched with a vigorous course of action, right? Or next now, right. And you don't do that. What happens?

We get the spiritual Constipation, right? We get stuck. Now if say I sat down and I deal with Mike and we said this prayer and I call them up lying and crying about whatever it is that's bothered me that I have the spiritual Constipation about. He's going to remind me of that prayer that I took with him, that that thing that he witnessed between me and God. He's going to say, well, where are you with that? Where's your pen?

Have you finished the inventory? Have you written the inventory?

Now, if I do it without bike, no one knows, only God knows, right? And I lie to myself and I think I'm God at the time, right? So when it comes down to it is this prayer works best when it's said with someone else there to witness it. And it's not because God doesn't have power. It means that because God works through us and he works through each one of us,

we are each other spiritual mirrors. So where this prayer is not showing up or this is not showing up, or we reflected back to me through you,

my awareness of it will be heightened because of you.

So it's a contract with God. We're making a deal here. We're bargaining. Bill was a lawyer. He went to law school. I don't know if he passed the bar, though. Did he pass? No, right.

But he was a white. He's an alcoholic.

Bill Wilson, Esquire mostly,

but he was a businessman. He believed in contracts, and he wrote our prayers as contracts. You ever noticed that? And he says to us, many of us said to our maker, notice, he says, and I love this. And again, we missed this stuff. Big book gnomes are wonderful. Those are the little guys who come and rearrange your big books so that you see stuff you never saw before

and says we say to our Maker as we understand Him. And then if you read the 7th step prayer, what does it say?

Migrate.

So he starts off this process by reminding you that you didn't make you and you ain't fixing you. And then we finish up this process with reminding you you didn't make you and you ain't fixing you.

I love it. So he says to us, God, Ioffer myself to you to build with me and do with me. Is that well? So I'm saying at this point, and I said that we create our own reality a lot of the time, right, because our brain tells us a lot of things. Our mind tells us a lot of things. Our alcoholism tells us a lot of things and we got relies and cryers illusion, right? We don't even have denial. We have delusion. So when

when I say this prayer to God, I'm literally saying, all right, you know what? I have been

the demigod of my own universe for a really long time.

My maker,

do with me as you will. I'm a part of your game. I'm playing. I'm no longer no longer Cartman. Screw you guys. I'm going home. I'm bringing my ball to the game. I said okay, I want to be a part of I'm in

says to us it says that relieve me of the bondage yourself so that may better do thy wall. So I'm asking God to relieve me of the bond yourself. What is your bondage yourself? Well, he just told us I love how people are like I don't know what the bondage itself is. And I said 60 to 63, man,

it's right there very clearly how I'm bound to self. I don't know. Maybe the sentences our troubles or our borough making tells me that I'm bound on some sort of bondage itself. When it tells me I'm selfish and I'm self-centered. I'm driven by 100 forms of fear and self self delusion. I'm self pity. I'm pretty sure somewhere in there is some kind of bondage of self

thinking

so that I may better do thy will. So I'm going to ask God to relieve me of these things so I can be comfortable. Nowhere does it say God will leave me of this so I feel good,

so I can do your will, because I haven't been. I've been my own higher power worshipping my thoughts for many, many years. It says take away my difficulties. What are our difficulties?

What was that? The devil? It's exactly, oh, you're picking up and I'm laying down. That's exactly it. Because when we look at the governments, really those are just how selfishness, dishonesty was out of the beer showing up in our lives, right? It has us break it down and it says like, what are the areas in our lives in which we are running the show? And it's not working out well for us.

And that's exactly it. Our difficulties that are our devilments, right? So then it says to us that victory over them, It says that we'll have victory over them,

but with a caveat to bear witness. So victory over my bedevilments isn't so that I'm awesome and everybody gives me a Gold Star and thinks I'm great. I mean, most people do because I am. That's not why I deal with them. And it says that so that people can see this and I can bear witness

to the power of God's love, his will and his way of life, His love. So when we talk about it and say, you know, we need to be the best, best version of the big book that we can be, that's what we're talking about.

My motto used to be carry a big book and hit people in the head with it and make them do it right.

Today it is Walk Softly and carry a big book, meaning that

it's how I show up in the world and who I bring to the table that attracts people to this work, that alcohol will beat them into this data reasonableness. I don't need to do that. What I need to do is be an example of what the power of God in this program is

and says may I do, you will always. This is a deal that I'm making with God. I say I'm broken, I can't fix me. You can, but there are no free lunches. I can't do this work for me. So I feel better. I do this work for you so that I can serve God.

That's the deal we're making with God

now.

Then it tells us to think about it, and we've already done it. So now we're orange fries, you know? So we ask God for something we requested from him or her or it or whatever. And we said, you know what, you know, sure ate me,

face me and I'll do this stuff for you.

So once we ask for that, God's going to do it because we asked for it. And then we get mad because it's not showing up the way we like it to, right? And we say it's not fair and things are hard and you don't know. And if you had my life and you know, I can't be the victim. And a vision of God's will and God's power and God's way of life at the same time. It doesn't work that way.

So when I ask for this, God breaks it. Now we're an orange frog. And God will prod us in the ways that are appropriate for us to move towards that solution, to take that action.

And again, the book tells us that this is something we do. It's something we do with an understanding person, right? It says that it's, but it says it's better to meet God alone with someone who misunderstands God. That's not happening anymore.

We're not, we're, you know, we're not doing mail order recovery. This big book was written as mail order recovery. You buy the book, do it, it says, have instant spiritual experience. Don't drink. Go to a hospital, grab somebody else, make them do this stuff. That's the way it was written. You know, there's no excuse for that today

and there's a humility of hitting your knees with another human being. There really is. Now I'm a Catholic schoolgirl, said Sam Neil. You know, that whole whole 9, There is something very beautiful for me and this is my experience. Do with it what you want this and say on your knees. In fact, actually the first one did that, by the way. Just saying. The first one said humbly on our knees.

That was the that was the original version of it.

But for me, there's something about that humility of being eyeball to eyeball with another human being and making this offer to God, you know, do it. Don't do it. It's not in the book. Wasn't the original version. I like the original version better. That's just me. But it's something for you guys to think about and say like, you know, really, when I say this prayer, what am I really asking for?

And then what do I do with that? Because if I'm not in the action aspect of this process, then I didn't mean anything. I just asked God to do,

and I'll tell you what, let me ask you a question. Who here has kids?

Okay, so when they beg you and beg you and beg you and beg you and beg you and beg you and beg you to cook that special meal that they really love, right? And you're making something else. You can completely defrost something else. But they ask, right? And they ask when they ask and they ask, you know, and you cook it and then they eat 2 bites of it and leave it on the kitchen table and the dog eats it. How pissed off are you

now? God's a lot nicer than us. But if you think about it and say, like, if that's my response to making grilled cheese

and we asked for something much huger from a higher power and then we waste it, is that really honoring the universe? Is that really honoring God? Is that really honoring our purpose? Is that really living by spiritual principles today? No

is lying to God and lying to myself. We lie through words and we lie through deeds. And when my actions and my words don't meet,

I'm lying. I'm lying somewhere, whether it's my words and my deeds. So if your feet and your mouth aren't aren't in the same place at the same time, that's something we need to take a look at. And this is something that we asked for in this, in this prayer. So there's something we need to do with it. And it and what it is, is a vigorous course of action

and a personal house cleaning. And I've heard many people say, well, we don't write assets. Why doesn't A A write assets and he doesn't

assets?

I point out that Alcoholics are naturally arrogant people and we're we, we, we damn well know what our assets are. And we've already made a list of they've been told you all what they are before we even did this. And

the truth is, is this is that we don't have to because of the paragraph that preceded the third step. I says this is the how and why that first of all, we have to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided here after the drama of life, God was going to be our director. He is the principle. We are his agents. He is the father. We are his children.

My primary asset is that I'm a child of God.

Think about the worst thing that could possibly happen to you in your life,

the worst thing that could be possibly imaginable.

It's pretty horrendous, right? Does that thing that you possibly imagine that might possibly happen take away the fact that you're a child of God?

I was somebody who came to Alcoholics Anonymous with a lot of the long story of why it wasn't fair and why this didn't apply to me. You know, I had been molested by the time I by the time I was five years old, I had ever been molested by three separate people, including my brother. I had been raped at 14 by

several drug dealers. I have been beaten to within an inch of my life on multiple occasions

and I mean really like chokes, head slammed onto the floor, losing consciousness sort of shed by my father. So I was hurt by the people who said that they loved me the most and I was really gosh darn broken.

And I use that for a long time to not have to trust and not have to do this to justify where I where I was and what was going on with me. And I use that for a long time to feel unworthy of God, to feel unworthy of healing. You know, I internalize that so tremendously.

And the one thing that this step process has taught me hasn't fixed my trauma. I had to go to therapy for that. And it hasn't fixed, you know, brain damage from, you know, dying. You know, I'm still just going to be a little little few, few cars short of a deck. But what it has done is help me to recognize that no matter what you do to me, you can't change the fundamental fact that I am a child of God,

that the things that happened to me in my life happened,

but those things didn't take away that fact. That is something that is an indelible thing that is constant. That nothing happens to me or at me on this earth can change that effect.

I don't need an asset list. I got it right there.

The greatest asset of all. I am worthy of God's love.

So that's why we don't have an asset list in our four step because it already told us what it was. We just didn't read it right, Right. You know I'm looking for it in the asset list, followed up by making amends to myself. Don't even get me started on the don't even get me started.

You want to start seeing me twitch?

You look like you had

question. Were you just yawning? OK, You look like you were going to say something. Okay, sorry. Yes, I've heard people use the same advice in the 12 and 12 to say there needs to be an asset. But what that price actually is is a troubleshooting procedure for somebody that's stuck not to be applied to everybody. No. And you're absolutely right,

you know,

but like I said, is like when you read this book and you read it with another human being, they're gonna point out that statement that we're doing with God, that God is our father. We're we're his child. That's a pretty darn good asset, isn't it? And when you start writing a four step with that fund, with that belief, and you know what, you're not gonna believe it when you're writing the first time you're writing it, you're gonna believe that your sponsor thinks it's possible. That's good enough right now.

Your sponsor told you that you're a child of God? OK,

it's good enough right now. You're going to find that that's true through this process.

So

what do we do? Right? It's a fact finding and a fact facing mission.

What are the facts that we're trying to find?

Are we trying to find out before step?

Yourself is showing up, Yeah. What else?

Thank you. Yes, damaged non saleable goods absolutely. And I love that it says and get rid of them properly without regret because I had I had identified lots of damage on saleable goods and then I kept them and I said, see, This is why life is not fair

because I'm so broken. I have a defective character

see I have this damage from a saleable good like petted it and I watered it and bring it out show you.

So there's that second part of it to get rid of it properly without regret.

So Bill is already starting us on six and seven before we even put pen to paper.

He's a smart character. I told you he had to write your four step in the in 60 to 63. You just didn't know you wrote it right? So all you're doing is taking the after and applying it to your relationships mostly. I mean, there's other stuff going on there, but I'm in generally. He's introducing the concept of your 4th column in In Sixties 63 and now he's introducing the concepts of 6/7, 8:00 and 9:00

in the first paragraph of your four of the four step.

Smart man sneaks it in there. I call those sleeper cells,

put those ideas in there and then you then then you get to do some work and you're like, damn, whoa, I didn't see that before. You know, that says that that if we're going to be successful, we can't pull ourselves about the values. And that's an important thing. That's the dis inherent dishonesty that we have is that we value there's certain belief systems and and that's what we said. It's like the God idea, where God ideas work,

Our ideas don't. That. I fool myself about the values of my ideas or beliefs or behaviors, concepts. I fool myself about this. I tell myself that this has value, even though it doesn't. I tell myself that something works even though it doesn't.

So a good point. And So what, when, when, when we look at the dishonesty that we're looking at an inventory, we're not looking at the fibbies. I tell you, we know that that's, that's, that's a literal honesty, That's cash register honesty. That's not what I mean. We're talking about that. But what we're most often talking about is the dishonesty happened with myself, the way that I fool myself about the values of certain specific things.

That's what we're looking for is what did I tell myself that made this thing true? What story did I spend that justified this specific idea, concept, behavior?

Because that's that's what I'm really looking for. So when we talk about damaged and unsalable goods, I'm not, I'm not just looking at saying, well, selfishness is bad. We know that

what I want you to look for when I want you to really look at is how is selfishness translating and masquerading like as like as something else and showing up in your life.

I say that that selfishness, dishonesty, inconsoliveness, fear are predators posing as house pets.

Meaning that I say

they're predators posing as house pets.

You know, because I'll say I'll put it in language that says that this thing is innocuous.

I mean, I always mean well, my intention was only to help

and the reality of the situation I was trying to control. You were feel powerful. I was playing God, I was making decisions. I was doing things that were based on ideas or concepts that were not aligned with spiritual principles, but I told myself they were because I said my motives were good.

Fuck your motives.

Fuck your motives because they're your motives, so they're.

Bottom line is headache cannot be cured with a hammer.

Me trying to figure out my motives is what were your motives? You ever hear that? Go to a meeting and somebody will say what were your motives? And I say that in meetings. I say fuck your motives. What you think about your motives is killing you.

Shine the light of God and spiritual principles on this specific situation, and the truth of it will come to you. We judge ourselves by our motives. Other people, other people judge ourselves by our actions. And quite frankly, when I'm judging by myself, by my motives, and you're judging me by my actions, I'll tell you what, your evaluation of my performance and my evaluation of my performance are two very different things.

And the truth is,

it's the footprints I bring to this world that matter. Your feelings don't mean anything. You need to feel them, because not feeling them is part of what drives us to do the crazy things we do. But they don't have to dictate your reality. We worship our thoughts and we worship our feelings like they're demigods and they're not. I have a headache that would kill a horse right now. Would you know it

did? Did. Did the fact that I have a headache dictate my reality today?

No. Because one, feelings and what I'm here to do are two very different things. And when I worship my feelings, when I worship my thoughts, when I put these things above what my job is, what serving God, I run into some trouble. Am I going to take a nap? Yeah. Am I going to treat the headaches? Did I take aspirin? Yeah. But did I say I feel better headache. So I'm not going to play today? No.

So we do this and I'm using a headache as a physical thing, but we do. We have emotional headaches all the time in which we worship,

and it prevents us from being of service to God and others. Now we take that to the other side because too Far East is West. So I have people who tell me that they're not allowed to have any feelings

because feelings are bad. And nowhere in this book does it tell us that

my feelings are not good or bad.

Simply, when my feelings are dictating my reality, I have a problem.

And that's where, again, we don't fool ourselves about the values. And this is what we're talking about. This is the upper level recovery stuff. The simple thing is I pulled myself about the value of my dishonesty. If I tell you what I think you want to hear, you'll like me. That's, that's cash register honesty, right? We all, that's just, that's just, I don't lie to, you know, I, I, I tell you what I think you want to hear because I don't want to be rejected or I want to feel loved and accepted. OK, that's pretty simple stuff.

That's like kindergarten stuff. And then we look at the dishonesty we have with ourselves. That where we start, we start getting into the motives, right? And we start spinning the tails about our motives. And that's another level of dishonesty. And then we go even further about it and we start looking at this. We start looking at the victim stances. We start looking at the at, at the, at the, the what I call our representatives. Some people call it theater, the lie, but the people in places and attachments I have that show up and start running the show. You know, the old little

many gods that I have. And then we have the emotions which say I should have none or I should have all.

And again, that's the dishonesty that's showing up. These are the damaged and unsalable goods. These are the things that we fool ourselves about. The value you ever have. Like this girlfriend who cries. I have this friend. I love her. She's wonderful. She's an NA girl. I'm an A a girl we try to stay at.

I retry really hard not to talk about that stuff because if not, I start to twitch

and I love her. She's like this hippie flowing beautiful woman, like I just love her to death in my heart. Just I just love her and I never thought I'd be best friends with an NA girl really like I was pretty sure I was going to club her over the head and drive into a big book, meaning like that was my plan. That's how I started out. My motives were not great. God had had other plans and that's right, you know, so I love her to death, love her, but she's like one of those ones that cries at everything. She's just, she's like at this spirit and she cries and she's always.

Like I I I I actually bought her a bedazzled tissue box,

bedazzled phone case. I made it match,

you know, because I love her. I love her that watch her like she just she just cries. That's just hard, right? And I'm completely different. I'm the rock and tough like my sponsor used to call me a rough, tough cream puff.

So on the rough and tumble like the only I have two emotions, anger and nothing, you know. So I'm either gonna kill you or I nothing you like. There's nothing in there. I don't cry unless I'm strangling you and I hurt my finger. You know,

the complete opposite, right? And So what I really love about having this woman in my life is that she's that spiritual mirror because she's she'll get choked up in a mirror. I remember what that newcomer

was puking in the bucket and, and she still came to the meeting and I'm thinking, you know, like and she's crying and look at her. She just celebrated 9 days and I'm like, whatever, you know?

And like, if you put the two of us together, you'd probably have, like, a really decent human being.

But we complement each other because she makes me softer and I make her a little tougher because I'll look at her. I'll be like, OK, Erica, it, it, it. It's a word. You stepped on the worm. It's OK.

Did you not have the more cheap like she buries everything, everything that dies. She went a mouse trap. She she buried a mouse in a mouse trap. I was like, Erica,

we do not have to have funerals for all of God's creatures that are deceased in your home. It's okay. And on the other hand, she makes me a lot nicer because like, you know, because she reminds me of those little miracles that we see every day. So when we talk about worshipping or I worship my thoughts, she worships her emotions