Step 4 at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Conyers, GA

Well, welcome to the afternoon session on your

favorite topic, the 4th Step.

Is everybody just thrilled about that?

OK, It's a beautiful day out there. It's just gorgeous around here.

But

we'll talk a little bit about inventory in the fourth step.

The big book handles it really well. It says though our decision talking about the third step was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect

unless at once followed by strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us.

Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions. And here's where it talks about liquor being a symptom,

but it's only a symptom of our problem, and it talks about getting rid of the things that are blocking us. My own personal experiences, I hear a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous about people writing inventory to find out about who they really are.

I don't think that's true for in my case. I think what we write inventory about is to find the lie that I'm living my life, the lie that's going on in my life so that I can, God can remove this stuff and I can get closer to being the kind of man God wants me to be because it's just so lost. So anyway, it says here, therefore we started upon a personal inventory. This was step four business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke.

So then it tells me in here that the reasons why I should take an inventory and it tells me resentments, the number one offender, and there are three parts to inventory. There's resentment,

there's fear, and there's sex, right? Why do you think it's those three things?

Manifestations of self,

that's what it's all about. And so

you've got these three parts, inventory. And I come from a group that that

believes in writing regular inventories. We don't write 1 inventory and then move on and life's good and live in Nirvana for the rest of our lives. It just doesn't work that way. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you my experience with with writing inventory and exactly how I write inventory. And then Dave can share some of that of how he does it. And then if you guys want to pick up any of the things that we're talking about,

please do. The book has sort of a, an example here. And my sponsor was a

inventory guy who he had a, he had a knack for, for getting, keeping this stuff fresh. And one of the things I learned many years ago, which is we got to keep this stuff fresh even 10:00 and 11:00. If it's not fun, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do what I don't want to do very long. Trust me,

prayer and meditation for me, I keep it, I keep it new, I keep it different. I do it. I do it every day. But

I have to keep it up. So inventory. Just couple things about inventory. For those of you that are new and have never written an inventory before. It's not really about doing it perfectly. It's about finding out what the things are that are blocking me. I personally always get a little edgy when I'm writing inventory because what am I doing when I'm writing inventory

and focusing in this way, Right. So the first part of inventory is the resentment portion. The big book says this is the number one offender

those more Alcoholics than anything else resentment. It also starts most new groups. It

it does a lot of things all right,

but we cannot carry resentment out. And it says in in the book, and I'm not going to read it all the way through. So you're going to have trust that it's in here, but it talks about that. We write inventory on people, principles

and institutions, right? So people is sort of easy. I don't like Dave because he snubbed me over here or

yeah, that's true statement. I don't like Dave because he's a Raider fan and I'm a Bronco fan. All right, So that's fairly easy to figure out. What are a principle

like? What's the definition of principle? Yeah, self defeating belief system. Exactly.

This is where we write belief system inventory. What is belief system inventory? Belief system inventory are the beliefs that I carry around in my head that don't work anymore. OK, give me a couple ideas of some belief systems.

Exactly. I gotta be cool. Exactly. I'll tell you a good place to start if you can't come up with some. Start with If you're a man, a man should be.

If you're a woman, a woman should be right?

These are belief systems that I live my life by. And I, I brought this up before that, that

my first few years of sobriety, 5 people I'd be writing inventory about, but it was always the same thing that they did to me, right? And So what I had to do is get down to the cause and the condition of what was pissing me off about all this stuff, right? And that's belief systems. So I got people, I got principles. Now I got institutions, institutions, IRS, credit card companies, computer companies.

Give me some more ideas,

Army. Exactly

legal system

exactly. So we write inventory on these things. All right, So what I have my people do is the first thing I do is I have them right out of grudge list and basically a grudge list is really simple. A grudge list is you put the person, belief system or institution in the first column you write out why you're mad at. But I make sure that they do not generalize. I don't want to hear.

I don't like so and so. Why? Because he's an arrogant jerk. I mean, that's not specific. We got to get down to some causes and conditions, so it's got to be specific. All right? I don't like so and so. Why? Because he snubs me, whatever that may be.

When we get done right in the grudge list, then I have them transpose this from one piece of paper to another. Same thing. First column, second column. You know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about columns. I mean, those of you that are doing it understand. But is there anybody doesn't understand what I'm talking about when I say columns?

No. OK, good. So you take your first and 2nd column, which you've already done in your grudge list and now you got, you get to go to work and you put it in a form. And my form actually, is there an eraser here or is it a napkin?

That's alright.

Thank you.

Here's the marker, Mike.

All right, So I'm going to put up the name on my page.

I'm going to put erase the numbers up there. Mike, if you need more room, OK,

I'm going to put the cause and on every single page of my inventory. Can you give me a napkin or somebody? No, here's one

all right up here. I always write a prayer. Why do I write a prayer?

We'll find one at work. There we go.

I agree. Here's my belief. My belief is there is no Amen at the end of the third step. Prayer, right?

Where's the Amen placed? I'm in prayer when I'm writing inventory. This is a prayer, right? So what I do, I'm not very good at this, but OK, I have the name,

I'm going to do this one.

Why? Because he's a Raider fan and he texts me every time they beat the Broncos.

It's been a long time,

especially since we got paid right? Okay so I write this up now I am going to do a third column and what my sponsor used to have us do is draw a line.

Draw another line, and this is my third column, and here's my 4th column.

All right. Now in Denver, there's a big fight going on about there's no such thing as a fourth column inventory,

huh? I am a big believer in four column inventory. I mean, because why would you write this without seeing where you're at fault, right?

OK, third column, the big book says that we ask ourselves, how did this affect certain things in my life? Right? So how does it affect

myself? Esteem SC is what I put down. Self esteem? What is self esteem?

Who do you think you are in that situation?

Right?

Let's take another example. Anybody got a problem with anybody at work?

OK, who? Who are you mad at at your job?

You want their name? Just first name

make up one. I don't care if they're in the room. Fred. Why are you mad at Fred?

Because

Brad is not performance job the way I would like. Are you his boss?

No,

what's his self? Estate.

Best right?

Best employee

self esteem. Again, I know better than anybody else, right?

See what I'm saying?

Do you? Couldn't you have a dual self esteem going on? Like I'm the best employee and at the same time I'm the worst employee?

You can really get caught into that one. I'll tell you where I found it was the first time when I was writing on my marriage, when I was married is I could be I'm the best husband. And then all of a sudden I started getting real. Oh, I'm a really horrible husband. So I got both those things going on all at the same time. So you can have numerous self esteems, right? Estimation of self. Who do you think I am?

All right now? Next thing is PR

is how does this resentment affect my personal relations? Right here's how we do it or I do it. I have APR one. I know Bob doesn't do it this way.

I do it this way

and we have a PR2 and here's the difference. PR 1 is How does this resentment affect my relation with Dave?

How? How does that resentment about Fred not doing his job affect your relationship with Fred?

Oh, let me come angrier, Fred.

You think he knows you don't like him?

OK, all right, but how does this affect my relationship with Dave? Now, I love Dave, but let's just say I quit talking to Dave because he's a Raider fan, right? So I would put that under personal relations 1. Personal relations 2 is how does it affect my personal relations with everybody else?

You see why I got to look at that?

That's what I do. Some people lump them, Bob lumps them. I don't. I spell it out a little bit more because, for instance, let's just say Brandons, my boss, and he pisses me off, right? And I'm married to you. And I come home and I walk in the door and you say hi, honey. And I go, what? They, you know, and I get all pissed off at you,

right? Quit talking to me. We get in a fight. Why? Because he pissed me off, right?

So how does it affect my relations with everybody else? Then comes Sr. sex relations. I do SR1 and SR2. If this is a woman I always put in there, how does it affect my sex relations with her if there is? If there isn't, I leave it alone. How does it affect my sex relations with anybody else

and everybody else? And you can get pretty specific in here.

All right. I had in my own inventories female boss for a while back in the commercial real estate days, who she liked making it much harder on men because in my estimation, there were very few women in commercial real estate. So she really liked the hammers, right? And I had to put in my inventory when I wrote on her about

my belief systems with regards to women bosses. And it changed my whole outlook and attitude

about all kinds of things. She was actually very right, by the way.

What's next?

Ambition. Ambition. What's ambition,

What I want to happen, what you want to happen in this situation? I want Dave to realize that Peyton walks on water and that he should become a Bronco fan, right?

One hit away.

Don't mention the Super Bowl. We now have a defense. All right, so I got sex. Relation ambition. What did I say earlier? Drunks live to be what? Secure. How does it affect my security?

I write it up

OK and I start to see just how self absorbed I really AM and how every little thing that pisses me off has to do with me. That stuff that you read about, about if there's something wrong in me, that something's going on out here, it's always in me. It's really not in them. I am a firm believer that it isn't what I go through, it's how I choose to react to it.

I'm a firm believer I'm a human being at the same time. But

you cannot really harm,

right? You really can't harm me

unless I allow it in my head.

And then last but not least, Pocketbook.

I'm really bad at that. OK,

so I get all of this down on paper, so give me some ideas. Is there anybody that writes personal relations differently?

Well, we've written personal relationships about the gender. If I'm writing a piece of resentment inventory about a man and I get the personal relationships,

it might be my deep seated belief about

how a man should show up in this relationship. And then with sex relations, it's going to be the opposite sense.

That's one way every written in multiple ways. I've seen different things with good, that's good stuff. Anybody else want to bring up anything?

Do you? Well, I see a lot of how selfish I am. Yeah. Yeah, that's OK. You can do that too. Add that in. Do not do pride.

Haven't gotten there yet, but what is pride,

right? Yeah. So that's we. I do that in the fourth column.

So I read out all this stuff, self esteem. I think I'm the best at this, for instance, all right, personal relationships. How does it affect my personal relations? Well, I quit talking to the guy. Or how does it affect my personal relations with others?

Well, I blew up at so and so because this person got me pissed. Sex relations. How does it affect my sex relations with date? Well, it doesn't, all right. It's not my type, so

it's a little rough, rough sex.

Hey, what'd you say? Broke back mountain style.

I was doing it. It was helping us through some inventory at once. And he

had a

he had a real bad inferiority complex when it came to women. And he had a similar situation with his in a very domineering mother growing up. And it was almost like

Joan Crawford, kind of like mommy dearest thing, you know, everything had to be perfect. And so he always was catering to and he had a situation with his sibling female, a sister, where it broke his broke his spirit so badly that he would come home and take it out on his on his girlfriend. And it was like this. He didn't see that there was a sex relation issue with it. And I helped him. Wait, hold on. Let's let's look at this. You know, it's like

you're your girlfriend's paying the price for your sister's actions,

you know, because he would come home and he would be indifferent or he would be, you know, the difference between making love and having sex, you know, and it was like he couldn't be intimate in that moment. It was a very physical action for him. And so I could see how like frustration with Dave, my take it home and take it out on your significant other. And that could be a situation like that. It's like, you know, I'm so pissed off, in fact, that my team lost with so and so is rather than my face.

You know, I was like, as you said, though, it hasn't happened for a number of years,

you know, but but if I see something like that catapult where I may never stop thought to look at it in this area, right, you know, and be able to take it and have it affect other areas of my life and never been and been asleep to that.

No, absolutely true. You see this stuff. I've had people who have gone through the steps with me and they go, I had no idea how to do so much writing OK, But when they get done with it, they really and truly start to see what's blocking them from having a good life

really and truly do. They start to see what's blocking them from God and where their dependencies really and truly are. Now once I get all that down and I have written on every person,

institution, which are belief systems and in people, then I come over here and I do a fourth column.

All right. What goes in the fourth column?

Fear, dishonesty, selfishness, self seeking. Where am I being selfish?

Right?

What is selfish?

Selfish is I have it.

You're not getting it.

Any of you ever have used the silent treatment with a significant other?

Ever.

And the last 10 minutes,

that's selfish.

Withdrawing affection, withdrawing myself is because I'm not getting my way for Big Frankie, say drunk, throw temper tantrums. That's what we do all right.

Dishonest.

Where am I being dishonest?

Give me some examples in your own life of what you've written down under. Dishonest,

not facing reality. That's good.

That's real good one.

The Dolphins should always be the Raiders. Yeah, well, that's true.

What else?

What about not showing up is who I am?

Is that dishonest

in in his example, if he's being nice to the guy he's working with that he's pissed at, that's dishonest.

Yeah, absolutely. This isn't about becoming a St., you know. It's about seeing the truth.

Selfish, dishonest, what else? Self seeking, right? What's self seeking?

Selfish motives? Self seeking? Yep,

you got it. I'm taking it,

you got it. I want it right. Where do most of my resentments come from?

Expectations.

I expect you to be a certain way according to my world. Remember what we read in the book on the third step? That's what I expect. So self seeking is you got it. I want it from you.

OK, now fear.

This is where pride comes in. This is where I have guys look at how others perceive them, how they're so afraid. Drunks are notorious for wanting to look good, and it never fails to amaze me because we crawl into the program of Alcoholics and then we want to look good to everybody, right? We can't make a mistake.

Then I write it out here on fear. OK,

everybody getting an idea of how I do it.

Do you want to talk now or do you want to do belief systems or what do you want? OK. So that's how we do it and that's how the guys that I work with do it. The

couple of things I just really wanted to bring up before I turn it over to Dave is belief systems.

Do you understand the importance of writing on belief systems?

I'm so sorry.

She's thinking I've got to write another inventory. I was working, I was working with a guy and he was a very fragile dude, man. I mean, he really, he had drank himself right down to the gutter and the whole thing and he started to get his life back together again

and he was just that. He is one of the nicest guys I know in a A and he,

he decided that about 2 1/2 years of sobriety, unlike most people in a A who want to go out and start having sex right away and,

and plan and partying and all this. He just, he didn't want anything to do with it. You know, he was so frightened of rejection from the opposite sex

and this guy could not date. He could not get out in his life. He could not do that kind of thing because if a woman just said no to him, it would shatter him, right? We had him write a belief system inventory and he got to see all of the reasons that he believes certain things about himself that just were not true. Because what's the truth about the what's the truth about the four step inventory? The truth about the four step inventory is what I'm

looking at is all the crap. I believe that's a lie. And I get to start to see how self-centered I really am, right?

How I'm thinking about

me. This program takes me from thinking about me and points it back out to you, back out here to the world.

Any questions?

You guys are all bunch of inventory writers.

This is a good group. Usually I do these things and people are asking all kinds of questions because most people don't write any kind of significant inventory. They just sit on write an asset or defect, let you know inventory and I go ballistic and

I've never written the belief system

inventory. I don't really know.

Tell me.

Well,

well, you ask yourself, you know, just you look at your life. I mean, what are you angry with? Do you, are you not living up to your own expectations? You know, a woman should be a you know, a wife should be a mother should be a ploy should be just start looking at stuff like that and see if there's any kind of belief systems that are blocking you from going out and living a good life.

I'm done,

David. Alcohol.

Umm, it's interesting, you know, you start working with somebody and

you want to go through step one with them and they're in your face talking to you, but they want to just obsessively take up your time and talk about how sick of an alcoholic they were.

Describe themselves as a lino dope fiend. You know,

as you go through step one and

so full of shit

and then they want to argue with you in two and three about God and relationship with God and ad infinitum and keep you up till 12:00 midnight doing it. And and now you could come to these instructions about launching

and I'll and you know, in all this time you're hearing all about all this obsessive compulsive behavior and it's tied into all their unmanageability and all. And then you can actually get to the action step

and also in their obsessive compulsiveness goes away

all sudden. They're moderates, like they moderate,

you know? And so it just seems to never fail.

A girl,

umm, at the bookstore saying she's looking for a cocaine meeting. Should she be sent over here?

Bring her in for an inventory meeting? Yeah. I really want to join this group. Thank you.

Thank you,

she marks about they thought of stuff work

where you going?

Yeah,

so, so you got these directions have launched and vigorous and and at once. And it's like, like when the cop says to freeze like at once or getting a squad car at once, it's like, you know exactly what that means, right?

If you don't know they show you,

but also when you come in a A and we have this directions is at once and we like mean like

right now,

you know, not like 3 months from now take a vacation because that decision was a pretty big deal. You know, and,

and this thing about strenuous effort, I

people that don't do this and hear us talk about it in a meeting or in workshop, you know, they always want to say, man, just keep it simple, right? Don't we? Don't people like us hear that a lot?

Take it easy. Easy does it, you know,

And keep it simple.

Just because it requires effort doesn't mean it's complex,

OK? It's the effort part. This requires a strenuous effort if you want to get free it, this requires strenuous effort. And if you're writing inventory in the manner that might just describe that the books describing, it's going to be strenuous effort. OK, And

some people will take issue with writing. Why? Why the self esteem or how the self esteem was affected that that comes from the people have been doing it a long time, a lot longer than the people that actually wrote the book. Now I can tell you why right off the bat as someone that listens to a lot of fist steps

sometimes when they're just putting the term self esteem or, or, or personal relations or whatever, depending on how long it took them to wreck the inventory by time you actually sit down the 5th step, half the time they can't even remember why they put self-esteem in the 1st place. So it's really about efficiency in doing your step work. And when you get to five, they actually, they can actually tell you because they got already got it on paper. It's really as simple as that.

Now, what comes from that obviously is more information. You know, how free do you want to be, right? How free do you want to be? Now, when I look at, when I, when I look at my first column and, and, and my second column as well, I don't work with just the word resentment. Another word that is thrown out there is anger. There's other three other terms that's thrown out there. It's tied into the third column,

but I use it to look at

who should be in the first column and and the cause in the second is hurt, threatened, interfered with because I'm 20, I'm 20 years sober. I don't get resentments anymore, right? Because I'm so spiritually elevated.

But if you ask me who's interfered with me,

my list looks like everybody else's list, right? OK, so I work with some different some different terms that are presented there in the book. One of the things I like that Mike talked about is that some people write this inventory to know themselves better or to understand themselves better and to see my patterns and, and put labels on how I was feeling and all this other stuff. Look, I am a product of a psychological approach that did not work.

I spent eight weeks in a psychiatric ward going through all that.

You're not getting that shit by me. OK? That is not an A inventory.

We already have stories up to this point in the first part of our book of guys that understood themselves well. They went to the top psychiatrist in the world to understand themselves better. They sat with people that were already sober in the Oxford groups and went over the, the, the, the problem in the in the solution and, and, and what made them tick and their triggers, right?

What happened to all these people that understood themselves better, that knew themselves so well?

Didn't they all relapse? And what did we make a decision to do?

Turn on Willow in Willow Knife for the care of God as we understood Him. And what are we doing here? Getting stuff out of the way so we can understand God better? It's not about understanding me better. I understand

we understand ourselves pretty good and with written on the back of this thing, right, narcissistic, egocentric, right? It's it's understanding God that we're having a problem with, right? It's going to God that changes our attitude towards liquor. We're not changing our attitude towards liquor,

right?

If you notice, there's nothing in the instructions about writing all the good stuff about yourself. It's just not there,

OK. And sometimes people will want to do it anyway. They'll show up for their fist steps and they'll have it in there anyway. And it's such A and it's I just saved the joke. I saved the joke until we get to seven. Because when we get to 7:00, you got to turn it all in anyway, good and the bad. So write, write all that stuff that you want to, because the joke's on you when we get to 7, all right?

So

can we just follow the directions,

right. And

those are just kind of the

lady in the back.

I was the first person in my town, a community to hear and actually take directions from Bob about writing principle inventory. And I didn't know where to look. I listened to it, I heard it, I understood it. I even, I mean even listening to him, I understood what what MM described, that all my resentments towards people and institutions come toward come from these principles that I live by.

And if I can get free of the self defeating principles, then probably my resentment towards people, institutions are going to reduce. And that's true.

I mean, I think most of my inventories now are about 25% people and the rest of his principles it seems like, you know, so, so I didn't really know where to look either. And because some of these things are embedded so deep,

I didn't, I couldn't just like reach out and grab it, right? People are easy, institutions are. I didn't know where to look. So I just I I wrote inventory trusting God, asking God to show me

when I'm

when Mike was writing the third column.

Self esteem, personal relations, sex relations, pocketbook, ambitions, security,

those are my ideas.

That is the life I'm trying to live by.

That's the life I want you to validate. I want you to. I'm trying to get you to validate.

I want you to see me as I see me, right?

I want you to give me what I want, what I need, right? I want you to be the. I want you to be the family member. I want you to be

OK And I have ideas about that and so

get into self esteem on the best employ.

I know better

and it starts and I start seeing this in every and every person I'm writing about. I know better. I'm the best. I'm I'm this, I'm that, and I start.

Do I really want to continue to walking around this planet with the idea that I'm better

line you?

Do I like that? Where's that getting me?

And so

so I start seeing that and that is those are belief systems. And Bob said challenge your belief systems and having written prior inventory, I know that everything, the third column is a lie.

So everything is subject for scrutiny, analyzing, analyzed, utilized. Don't analyze, right? Yeah, you'll never see that in the book. You'll actually see three steps to talk about analyzing 24 and 9:00.

OK, so

so when I once I started to see

right through writing out

self esteem and all that stuff in the third column, I start seeing my ideas.

This review page, on page 66, it's realization page, review page, whatever you want to call it, it talks about us trying to have our own way,

right? Is that what it says?

But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the matters, the worse matters got.

So where am I going to find me trying to have my own way? I haven't written the 4th column yet.

Me trying to have my own way is what I have written in the third column

makes sense.

Now, some people will say that the stuff I write in the third column is out of whack and it's what I want to get back. Like myself, esteem is out of whack and I want to get that back. My ambitions are out of whack and I want to get that back.

I don't. I don't see it that way and I don't think that what the books say

umm self esteem right? It's an over high opinion of my of how I see myself usually.

OK,

have ever considered how maybe God wants me to see me

with ambitions

what I think I want?

Have ever considered what God wants?

I don't want. I don't want back what I want. I don't want. I don't care how. I don't care how nice it looks once I'm supposedly spiritually fit. I'm not. I don't because it's still what I want. Have I ever considered what God wants? Have ever asked and if I ask that I listen for an answer and I got an answer. Did I follow through?

Same thing with security. What I think I need.

Why would I want to continue to live on a basis of what I think I need? God knows what I need before I even ask. I just need to ask,

have you bothered? Have I bothered to listen? Same thing, right?

What do I need?

Umm,

personal and sex relations.

Later on, we're going to get a right ideal, right?

So

maybe, maybe it's not necessarily just getting it back to some sort of normalcy, whatever that is. OK. It's really about what's God want there? What's God? How's God want? What's God's idea about myself? Esteem, about ambitions and security and so forth.

This me try to have my own way. It's the resentment is born out of a conflict. You and I are having a conflict with

with me not

getting my own way.

OK, one of the things I started doing in the second column, he actually

is ask is asking myself

what's the conflict? What's the belief system I have behind like like with Mr. Brown or something, right?

Mr. Brown is attention to my wife.

That's wrong, no doubt about that, right?

But why am I so wrapped up about that?

Nobody pays attention to my wife like that,

right?

Nobody looks at another married woman like that,

and he's and Mr. Brown is now come in conflict with that belief system.

OK,

OK,

down below on page 66 in this realization.

Second and last paragraph

this is we turn back to the list for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. Angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrongdoing of others, fancied or real, had the power to actually kill.

So at the top of this,

I'm trying to have my own way, right? I'm fighting with you about that.

And at the bottom of this, I'm actually

handing over the power for you to play God in my life,

right?

So I can get my own way,

right? I play God by making you God in my life.

And this is where murders happen.

Because when you don't fulfill that and I have actually given you that power,

right? And it doesn't and you do not provide and validate who I think I am and how I think this relationship should be. You are threatening my life.

You are threatening my life. And if that goes away and I am empty enough, there's going to be retribution, right? There's going to be payback. There's going to be retaliation. We're going to step on the toes of our fellows,

OK? Because you have threat. You have made a life death threat to me because I've given you so much power. I've given. I have so much wrapped up in what I believe about myself and how life should be. My ideas, Alpha and the Omega, you, you. And you just stepped on it.

You didn't validate it.

OK

Anything else? Yeah. OK. Now we've pretty well covered resentment or inventory. There's two more parts to inventory. And there's also a really actually a pretty cool prayer here about how to treat people that have wronged us. Right

at the end of the inventory here in the book, it says this was our course. We realized this is 66. At the very bottom, we realize that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick,

though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us. They, like ourselves, were sick too. Have you ever noticed how much more tolerance you get of other people after you 5th step? Because you start to see that you're not Mr. Miss Perfect like you thought you were, right? So it's it it gives me this prayer here that if I'm really pissed off at somebody, and I've actually used this quite a bit,

it says that we ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity and patience that they would cheerfully grant a sick friend.

When a person offended, we said to ourselves, this is a sick man, how can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done. See, Alcoholics Anonymous is really an interesting thing. Most people see a problem or have a problem, they attack it. Those of us and Alcoholics Anonymous do it somewhat differently. We have a problem. We go to God, then we

have to go this way. That's the difference. That's where the whole difference comes in. Now

there's two other parts that we haven't talked about, fear and sex inventory. Who wants to tell us how they write Fear inventory?

Anybody.

Yeah, sure.

But what about like I have beliefs and they might not necessarily be bad. Do you write those down too? I personally don't write those down. The ones that are working for me, I don't write down.

I do

Patty another

like what if I sleep, they're working and they're not working.

What what what if? What if in self esteem

I write I am a child of God?

Would you challenge that?

No, but I would no. Why not? But in the third column, it's alive.

What? In the third column it's a lie. There's something defective about that.

Well, we could. You know, I've written down many belief systems. I mean, even if if I have no regrets, I totally understand what he was saying. That really makes me weird.

I've written down many belief systems that I'm not resentful at, or something's still working for me. I have done that just to look at how I operate. Doesn't hurt. And to get another perspective, right? Because I've learned working with a sponsor,

I mean, if I hadn't written everything down, like I would have been like slap awake. Like holy shit, I never saw that. Because I thought, you know, like I'm a child of God and I never thought of it from any other angle,

right?

If we go back to the third step requirement where it says any life run on self will hardly be a success, I always use that as I'm rolling into this inventory because that's what's driving my resentments. The faces that show up don't matter. You know, I have a belief that says I have to defend my need to be right. It's a principle that I live by, this idea that I have to defend being right. So it's a self defeating principle. I look at principle as any idea or belief that I live by