The Ultimate Weekend in Morgantown, IN

So I'm carrying an alcoholic.

Okay, so I think we've covered inventory very thoroughly.

Now it's time for our titty.

Audit.

Yeah.

Audit.

Yeah.

So I guess when we talk about it, we talk about the fifth step,

what's the value we find in the fifth step process?

Somebody else's favorites.

Honesty.

Honesty.

Somebody knows our secrets?

Someone can help us see a different place.

if someone can have us to see a different perspective.

A negative share is half.

True.

That's basic human behavior.

True.

And if you share your worst thoughts and your behavior and so forth, the feeling is

therefore out of the hand.

True.

Do you realize you ever think about the way that, you know, again, going back to how the

big book is structured?

How it works includes, you know, essentially the third and the four step, right?

And then into action is the fifth step.

Why didn't Bill include the fifth step into how it works?

In writing him with that four step, why do you think he opted to make another chapter?

Why do you think that the action part, the real action that occurs or into action starts with step five?

Okay.

Because I can write a four-step and I can hide in my trunk.

Yeah.

Doesn't become real until it's exposed to run out to light.

That's exactly it.

Doesn't become real until it's exposed and brought into light.

And I'm interacting.

Absolutely.

So I can write a four-step and I can write as many inventories as I want.

But if I don't share it, I just basically wrote a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper.

Your Catholic, examination of conference, of conscience.

Sure.

Or was it.

Exactly.

No, my first fifth step I did when I was 17 years old.

I wrote an IKEA inventory.

What that means is I wrote a three-colum inventory because I looked at the picture.

Who the A-Hole was, what the A-Hole did, and how the A-Hole affected me.

And I went to the local priest.

and I read this inventory.

And he asked me if I wanted to be absolved from my sins,

and I said, no, I just wanted to tell you it, and then I left.

I got drunk shortly thereafter.

Want to hear an amends story?

So I go back and make amends to him,

because I realized that, you know, I walked into his confessional.

He is a priest's clergy.

I walk in under the idea or under the concept that I was looking for absolution and spiritual guidance.

And what I really wanted to do was to use him as a human toilet bowl.

So I go in and I sit with him and I do a real inventory with him in a real fifth step.

And he ends up doing my prekina and he ends up marrying me and my husband.

Aww.

It's a Catholic thing when we get the kind of guidance.

It's like marriage class by clergy, which is weird because they never get married.

There's something wrong with that picture.

Well, you know, but on the whole of it, when we talk about things that come full circle,

so here's this priest that I use as a human toilet pole that eventually married me in my husband.

Think about that. That's how God's universe works.

You know, this is how this process works.

This is what we do.

You know, so solitary self-appraisal seldom is sufficient.

Right?

Now, it tells us, and Bill, there's only two places that Bill really says,

if you don't do this, you're going to drink and die.

And one of them is in the fist up.

Because that's where we broke, man.

That's where, like, you know, it's like I can know my dirty secrets.

I can even write them down and hide them in the truck of my car under my spare tire.

Right.

But it's, I sit an eyeball to an eyeball with another human being.

And sharing that stuff gets kind of scary.

But as you do it, and the more you do it, like, I don't know, like, if you become an old warhorse like me, I can do a fifth step.

Like, I love it.

I mean, I think it's like whatever.

It's like taking, it's like my daily constitutional, man.

You know?

And it really is.

Like, it's like I'll tell you, I'll tell you a couple of fifth step stories because, you know, I told you, like, my nickname and my home group was special K because I'm really special.

Yeah.

I thought they were being really nice.

I was like, oh, like after the, well, after a lot of things,

but we're going to say it's after the cereal.

And I think they meant it because, like, because I'm so special,

because I think I'm so special.

So anyway, I did this inventory, and I wanted a new experience with the fifth step,

so my sponsor directed me at one point I was about...

six or seven years sober to read inventory to five women.

At the same time, all who had completed amends but had less than two years of sobriety.

Because you know those people, we love them.

They think those sponsors, those people,

they make people like me

who sometimes get tired, enthusiastic

because they're on fire.

And God is working in their lives.

And they're seeing God, and God is showing up.

And God is showing up in these incredible ways.

And they're just like enthusiastic,

and it's new, and they're exploring,

and they're learning things, and they're growing.

They're like, I can do this.

And these things are happening.

And look at this.

And look what I learned.

and they're just, it's precious.

And I'm an ungrateful little shit

that sometimes forgets how awesome it is

to just be breathing.

Right?

And so these beautiful on fire people, you know,

like kindle my spirit.

But they also, when you're reading inventory to them,

they're like, damn, you still do that?

That didn't get fixed.

It's very humbling.

And so I sat in this diner, it was actually in Summit, New Jersey, was after this meeting.

We all sat there and I read this inventory.

And like, all I wanted to say is when you're seven years crazy, when you're seven years sober, you'll be this crazy too.

And they kept going, but the big book says, the 12 and 12 says...

Bill Wilson says,

Mark H says,

that's not what it says.

Why aren't you doing what it says?

And I...

Because it's really hard and I'm lazy and selfish.

And sometimes, you know, because we rest on our laurels, you know,

and I did that inventory.

And it was a hard inventory because, like, they're pointing stuff out and they're on fire.

And don't forget half of them I've heard their fifth step and yet half of them I brought through their own inventory.

Yeah.

three out of the five women I sponsored,

and the other two were sponsored by the

women that I sponsored. So I had my

grand sponsorsies and my sponsorsies.

They had stuff. They were like,

you know what? Six months ago,

when I called you on this 10-step thing,

and you told me, and then

you did it, can you consider

that you're a hypocrite?

Yes.

I can consider that I'm a hypocrite.

But...

The humility in that.

The freedom I got from that.

Because it was still like, this is my four step and it's very precious and this is my fifth step.

And I'm only going to tell people who understand because I don't want you to think less than.

Mm-hmm.

and so I'm sitting in this diner

with a gaggle of girls who were like

I can pay carry back for every time she told me to write

inventory every time she told me to pray

because my sponsor had this deal that was if you call up

and you start going into your drama du jour

you've got one question

did you write inventory

second question did you take it to God

And if you answered no to either one of those questions, you heard a dial tone.

Because my sponsor really believed that, you know, that reliance of dependence upon a human being to help to,

basically by listening to me, go through my stuff, it enables me to stay in the problem rather than in the solution.

And so my sponsor firmly believe that.

So when you kind of have a sponsor who hangs up on you,

if you haven't written the inventory or prayed on it,

you kind of tend to do that, right?

Because it would be cool, like your sponsor.

So these are some of the girls that would get that did you prey on it?

Did you write inventory on it?

No.

Call me.

I don't have a hand out.

I was at least nice to say, call me back when you do.

Click.

So they tore into me like a pack of hiitas.

And...

I had a white light spiritual experience as a result of that step as a result of that fist up.

I drew home from the diner and I'm twitching.

It's like 2 o'clock in the morning.

You know, I read this piece, bit of inventory.

I read, you know, all three inventories in my ideal.

And I got home and I was like, I was about 45 minutes from my house.

And I knew I was really, really tired, but they also knew this.

And this is something that we cheat ourselves, that quiet hour after the fifth step.

You know, we're like, I'm tired.

I'll do it tomorrow.

Right?

But it doesn't have the same impact as that raw vulnerability of having just,

taking your guts out, putting them on the table, and let people stir around in them, right?

You know, you start, your ego already starts to rebuild by the point you,

by the time you sat down and did your quiet hour because you were too tired to do it.

And I knew that.

So I figured my self-preservation instincts would come in, so I took the quiet hour in the tub.

Because I figured I needed that hour.

I needed to do that because I really believed in that.

But I also knew that if I just sat quietly, I probably would fall asleep.

So I went to tub.

And I figured, like, well, at least I'll start drowning if I fall asleep or something.

Okay.

And I remember, you know, taking out my inventory and I remember looking at it and I asked myself those questions.

You know, those questions that construction metaphor, there are two themes that go throughout the book, with one of which is faith without works is dead.

Bill repeats that over and over again.

The second is this construction metaphor.

in which we sit and ask ourselves like, hey,

and essentially what I'm asking myself is,

how did I do with the first five steps that I leave anything out?

Is there anything that I missed?

Is there anything I need to take a look at?

Do I have any agnosticisms?

Do I have anything that I withheld in terms of my understanding of sets 1 through 5?

And you take that quiet time.

You know, and what I was taught to do was to take that inventory that you just read.

between you, God, and another human being, and sit with it with God.

To look it over, to really ask myself, like, hey, you're going to listen to things or anything I need to see in this God,

is there something else that I need to be made aware of?

And really take that hour.

So I took that hour, and something happened.

Like, I just, I needed to put pen to paper again.

And I thought it was because there was a piece of inventory that I missed.

And I just started writing.

And I started writing about...

How powerless I felt to know what living on a spiritual basis looked like,

but how I kept failing to show up that way in my life.

And how grieved I felt about that.

How grieved I felt about the fact that, you know,

I can know in my heart and believe in this program with all my heart

and love God with every fiber of my being,

yet there are times that I absolutely fall asleep to that fact

and I do things that are not in line with what I know to be true for myself.

And how sad that makes me that I can fall asleep to that fact and get so disconnected without any real warning.

There's plenty of warning, but I'm not catching it, you know?

And about how much I dearly wanted God to be a part of everything that I was and everything that I did.

Like I felt an incredible thirst, a hunger, a spiritual hunger that I don't think I've ever felt in my life.

Yeah.

before. And so I started writing. And I wrote this article. It was called, The Head to the Heart.

I mean, somebody named it. I just wrote it. And then I actually gave it to a spiritual advisor.

And I said, I don't know what the hell this is. Can you take a look at it? And you stole it.

And it's just been everywhere. And that's kind of actually how I started doing stuff like this.

Is I wrote that. And somebody was like, this is incredible. Can you come and give a talk on this?

And, you know, that was, I was seven years sober.

13 years later, my butt sitting in a chair doing a conference that some of the people that have saved my life and changed me on a fundamental level have sat.

And some of these people are in this room.

That's an incredible thing to me.

But it was because of that experience

because somebody said, hey, why don't you try this?

Do a multiple fist step.

What do you afraid of?

Try doing it with somebody who has less time than me.

Try doing it with somebody where you're not going to explain or defend.

You're simply going to be there and be fallible and be open and be vulnerable.

I can see every ugly part of the room and stand in God's grace anyway.

And it was a truly beautiful thing.

And what came to me...

was there's in in we agnostics it says that says that and I'll kind of walk you through this a little bit

on page and this is what came to me in that quiet time said on page 44

As if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life are sufficient to overcome alcoholism,

many of us would have recovered long ago.

We found that such codes and philosophies did not save us.

No matter how much we tried, we could wish to be moral,

we could wish to be philosophically comforting.

In fact, we could build these things with all our mind.

But the needed power wasn't there.

Our human resources is marshaled by the world, we're not sufficient.

They failed utterly.

Thank you.

Lack of power is our dilemma. We had to find a paragraph which we can live and has to be a power grade for ourselves.

Obviously, but how and wherever we found this power.

So I'm sitting in the bathtub, doing this quiet hour, and this paragraph from the big book,

comes alive for me. And I say, that's what's going on here, man.

I'm writing the same tour, it's seven years, having worked the steps for five years.

you know, back to back, doing inventory, doing the deal in the fire lines, carrying this message.

But there's a disconnect here.

There's a blockage, and I don't even know what it is, and I'm so powerless over it that I realize,

I wake up and realize that I'm on autopilot and I don't know how I got here.

And that power to fix that disconnect wasn't in me.

And it wasn't something I could do on my own.

And I finally realized on a deep, deep fundamental level that when I'm writing this inventory,

when I'm sitting there making that amends or when I'm doing my interview,

when I'm sitting here doing this deal and carrying this message,

that the thing, that spirituality that we talk about, that thing that operates inside of me is exactly this.

I can know what the right thing is to do, but somewhere between what I know and what I on my own power can produce, it gets distorted.

And that conduit, although I know it, and I know that it's distorted, there are times when I believe that it's not, but it is.

And that's not a kink or a distortion that I can fix.

And it's something that I have no power to change except for allow the change to occur.

And it's a matter of allowing and surrendering and being moved rather than demanding and shaping on my own ideas and thoughts.

Because I kept saying, well, God, if you fix me, I'll stop being so resentful.

You know, it's God's fault my character defects haven't been removed.

I ask, you just ain't doing it.

You ever say that?

I've been asking for God, I've been working on this.

We say it all the time.

I told you always working on my language.

Not really working on my language.

I'm just aware that it prevents me from being effective in my life.

On some level, my language helps because it makes me approachable.

On another level, it pushes people away because it makes me unapproachable.

So instead I ask God to take care of the job and I open my mouth and most of the time

I land in that nice little place where I can make a penis joke and still be approachable.

I try to like that

because I'm a naughty girl

and I'm okay with that

but if I showed up here

and I was snow white

and I had all the little chirping birdies

and I told you how wonderful I was

and I was pristine and awesome

the guys would be bored

and her women would stab me

with all kinds of implements

when I wasn't looking

and

you know so this this paragraph became it was like imprinted in my soul and I understood it on a level

that I don't think I understood up until that point and so then the other parent the other references to it

the references that we see in how it works when it talks on page 62 that you know so our troubles were our own making

I begin to truly understand what that was because I felt it.

And more than anything else, what I felt was that it wasn't something that I was going to do

that was going to change this.

It was something that I was going to allow.

And I'll explain that to you.

When it's something I do, there's an action I take and I have some level of responsibility

or some level of expectation and outcome.

So when I said, you know, a lot of times we do the work to not do the work, meaning that I do this work because I want to be something, or I think that there's some sort of outcome or some sort of goal that we're supposed to achieve from doing this work.

So I set that out in my mind and I say that I don't have it, but I really do.

And then I do this work and I completely miss the point, which is a surrender.

and a surrender, not in a surrender like, you know, you surrendered or win.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about that attitude that we take in the third step.

When we say, you're my director, you are the principal, I am your agent, you are the father,

I am your child. When we say the word, my maker, my creator, this is what we're talking about.

We're talking about a surrender that is not on the intellectual level.

But a surrender that's on the spirit of the soul, where we recognize and we truly understand,

and we understand it with the deepest parts of us, that I am not my own maker, and I am not my own creator.

And then I have very little to do with the person who's sitting here today.

And very little to do with the person who's sitting here today.

I have very little to do with the woman I've become.

I've simply shown up.

And I kind of look at it like the Grand Canyon.

You know, there were some rocks, and there was a river.

The river did what it did, and the rocks did what it did.

And we have this beautiful, spectacular, incredible thing

that anybody who looks at it feels awe and feels magnificent,

and it feels small and huge and connected at the same time.

When you look at that, there's just something about it that makes you feel as if...

This world is a beautiful, wonderful place, isn't it?

You just think about it and you feel that way.

I am the rock and God is the river.

And this is what this process does.

God uses this process.

God is the river and I am a rock.

The rock isn't doing anything but being the rock.

The rock shows up as the rock.

The river shows up as the river.

If the river thought that it had any control over the rock,

and the rock thought it had any control over the river,

we'd have the Hoover Dam.

Right? Because that's what that is, right?

We've got the rock in the river, man-made,

got a dam, beautiful lake meat.

People in late Vegas have water.

Bob Darrell is now taking a shower because of the Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam.

We're all good with that.

But what I'm talking about is the allowing, the not demanding,

the not controlling, the simply being,

and allowing God in this process to do what it does,

and accepting whatever the outcome of that situation is.

That's something I didn't understand until that moment,

that what I thought I knew about what this process was,

was not what this process was at all.

But I was still looking for an outcome.

I was still looking to manage well.

and in a deep level and I had this moment and I had this thirst and this want for God

and I literally naked got down on my knees got out of the tub get down on my knees and begged

and you said God I just want you I just want you I don't ever ever I need you in every aspect of who I am

because without you no matter how I show up I still show up now

And I just, I need that.

And I had this moment where I truly wanted all of God and all of me.

And it was a beautiful thing.

And I was never the same again.

And I know I was never the same.

Because I went to the DMV in New Jersey three days later and I was not angry.

And I thanked people in stuff.

And it was really nice and it was July and I was there with two kids.

And I'm like, thank you.

That's so nice.

And I just walked out and I realized when I looked around

and I had this profound thing and I was like, okay, this is kind of cool, right?

Like I didn't get it.

Because like you really don't get that stuff until after, right?

Like you have this thing, I'm naked, I'm praying.

And I'm like, God, this is weird.

I'm seeing myself do it naked on the floor of my bathroom

begging God.

Now that's happened before naked on the floor of my bathroom begging God for something.

Right?

In that moment, you know?

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, that's kind of weird.

I'm not really going to tell anybody about that.

I don't think actually I've told anybody that that moment was when I was naked until today.

I don't think I actually included that detail.

I have no idea why I just did that.

But anyway, it really is true.

I just think I left that out.

For propriety, I don't know.

I mean, told you I...

prostituted for booze, but it's not okay to bed got naked. I don't know.

Okay to bed for booed naked, totally.

Anyway.

Nothing he hadn't seen before.

True. Absolutely true. But anyway.

So, you know, I, yeah, so I didn't even think much about it. I had this thing. It was kind of like, that was weird.

I'm not really going to talk about it, right?

So I kind of tell my husband a little bit, I leave out some details,

and I'm going to, he's just like, that's weird, right?

And then they go to the DMJ.

And I walk out smiling into July sunshine, having sweaty and disgusting with screaming children, thinking,

I really have a good life.

This is awesome.

I can't believe that.

And I, oh, by the way, and I didn't get anything done either.

Like, they were like wrong line, wrong paper, wrong everything.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You know?

And so I walk out of there after having spent four or five hours in a sweat standing in line with two children in July, happy.

I'm like, what the hell just happened?

Yeah.

And I realized, I'm like, I better not tell anybody about this because it'll go away.

But I, but, and it's starting to filter through.

And that experience in itself, like, really sustained me for about two years.

You know, in terms of, like, sometimes we have those experiences that are so sudden and profound

that we arrange so much of who you are.

Yeah.

that, like, you know, for, you know, years afterwards, they are just, they inform, you know, pretty much everything you do.

You know, so that was a profound experience I had as a result of the fifth step.

I didn't happen because I had an open mind and I was willing to do what was suggested to me.

In the same way, I was willing to drink whatever you told me to drink.

And I was willing to do whatever you told me to do to get your acceptance approval in love.

But sometimes that willingness, you tell me to do this or write that or do this, and I say, nope.

Nah, that's inconvenient.

So when I ask you to come to this step and I say that this is a step that definitely the process that occurs from that fifth step until you're knocking on doors with the nine step, which is, by the way, how long between the fifth step, the end of your fifth step and your nine step?

How long does that take?

A couple days.

Okay.

Quiet hour.

Hit your knees.

You got a list from your A step.

Shit, if your sponsor doesn't leave your house or you don't leave your sponsor's house,

you could be done in a matter of an hour and a half.

What are your thoughts on that, Gary?

Done with this step?

I said from the end of the fifth step till you start knocking on doors making amends.

How long is that?

Yeah, you get you into choice for me.

What about those immense you're old that didn't make there anymore?

What ones might those be?

The ones that we missed because it didn't show up?

What about them?

There wasn't any resentment. There wasn't any real feelings about them.

But I had scolding people, I had borrowed money from parents and in-law and that sort of thing,

deceitably.

Mm-hmm.

I wouldn't agree with it, they didn't show up on your resentment.

But that's why we have that conduct inventory.

Huh?

That's why we have the conduct inventory.

Those are the people we didn't sleep with and we didn't resent, but we still screwed over.

That was well before I heard about the gun that people were going to have to be anything that's screwed around.

And you're right, though, that when you make your A-Step list, there will be stuff that comes up.

Absolutely.

That's part of why we do the quiet hour.

You know, because there will be things that come up while you're sitting in that quiet hour that you miss.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But in terms of a timeframe, from the time that you finish your quiet hour, you start knocking on the doors.

If you take that quiet hour and you hit your knees after that quiet hour and do your six and seven step,

which takes all of five minutes because you've been working the six and seven steps since step one,

all that is is a reconformation of what you knew when you started this process, which is you're broken and you can't fix you.

That's that's that's six and seven man.

Five minute man.

Yeah.

You can go start knocking on some doors.

My sponsor insisted that before I go out and stop, start knocking doors that I do three five index times.

Yes.

And we go over them because I wasn't always ready to go out on my own and start making ends.

Trip!

True!

And you're absolutely right on that.

The first handful of times of bringing people through the steps, I have them do three by the odd cards.

What I have to do is I don't make them, and this is the thing, I don't make you go over all of them all at once because you know what, we're all procrastinating pains in the ass.

I tell you to take five.

We do five at a time.

You give me five amends you're going to start with, go out and do it.

So that's something I can do right after that quiet hour, because I don't leave.

You take your quiet hour and I take a quiet hour because I just heard a bunch of duties.

And I need to clear my decks as much as you need to clear your decks.

Plus, probably listening to your inventory has brought up some things that maybe I need to look at myself.

So maybe there's some inventory I need to be writing.

So I take that quiet hour just like you do.

So you take your quiet hour, I take mine.

And then we take six and seven together.

Take five harms from your inventory.

Put them on a card.

Take five cards.

Go start knocking on some doors.

That's my thing.

So do you do your footsteps at like 8 o'clock in the morning?

Because my fifth step was a lingering long during the process.

And it was like 10 p.m. at the time.

Yeah.

We call back to the seventh step prayer.

Yeah.

There are times, and I've done them multiple ways.

I've done them where we've done marathons.

I've had people come to my house on a Friday, leave on a Sunday on their immense.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

There are times, I have done, especially with people when it's their first time through inventory,

I have them write their first and second columns and I have them write their third and fourth.

Because they're going to lie anyway.

Seriously.

No offense, but like, you know, my idea is selfishness and a newcomer's idea, selfishness is very different.

So I figure rather than have them spend all that time writing stuff than to just rewrite it with me.

So I have them write their first and second column.

I have them come with first and second column done.

We do their third and fourth column together.

You're writing your third and fourth.

You're reading your third and fourth column with me or writing it.

We start your fear of inventory.

You come back two days later, you read that piece of inventory.

You come back two days later, you read your sex inventory or your conduct inventory.

We have a list of amends.

You do your quiet hour.

We add more amends that come up from the quiet hour.

Then we got this A-Step list.

We got it from writing inventory.

We put them on three-by-five cards, and we get rocking and rolling.

I try to make it pretty easy for somebody who's new to do this,

because we make a big deal about nothing, you know,

and the men's are so scary, and this stuff is so scary,

and everything's so scary.

So I try to make it easy on them, because, you know, the truth is, is...

God doesn't make too hard with the terms with those who seek them.

But if you've been through inventory process and you're still balking, we need to take a look at that.

But yeah, like I hold their hands.

So sometimes it is, it takes me a whole week to get through a fifth step with somebody because I'll be multiple appointments.

Sometimes if you've been through inventory before and you have it all written out and we'll go bam bam, thank you, ma'am, we'll do a 12-hour deal.

Sometimes you'll come and I'll say, okay, look, man, bring it overnight back.

Okay.

We'll do it Friday night, we'll go to sleep, wake up in the morning, do it.

Because the idea is, I don't want to give you time between your fifth step and your eight step and nine step.

Because that's when, like, you know, you start negotiating.

You start the plus and minus.

I hate that.

When people put the plus and minus on their, I'm willing to make it mix this one, but I'm not that one.

Put a bottle next to your big book and ask yourself, which is easier, die and alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis.