Mark H. and Dave F. at the Fellowship of the spirit convention at St. John's University, Queens in New York July 27th

My name is Mark. I'm an alcoholic.

I thought it was great

how Dave took off their seat. We spend this whole weekend talking about the precise, specific, clear cut instructions in the big book that is designed to do one thing, bring power into our lives so we can do the kind of things that he just spent talking about. I mean, I was sitting here thinking to myself, as usual, we get the cart in front of the horse. We spend the whole weekend talking about methodology, when in fact we're supposed to be living our life

yet yet at the same time, if we don't talk about

the precise, specific, clear course of action, you don't have any power to live the life. Anyhow, I think what would be fabulous would be a whole weekend

on all right, we have power now how do we live That and workshops on money, workshops on relationships. You know, it's a lot of the stuff Dave talked about sanity, the 10 step soundness of mind. See I, I'm, I'm a single man, but I have a will. I left enough debris around when I was alive. I, I live in Texas. There's no immediate family anywhere without a will. If I died the first I've got I've created harm immediately. Like what do we do with this stiffs body?

There's there's nobody around, there's no and all the states involved and and you know, it's just

it's just soundness of mind. All the stuff he talked about. I was laughing to myself. See some of your probably sooner saying, well, geez, how I mean, how does he do on his power? He just gets drunk and is an idiot. See,

he, what he is sharing with you is, is he took this course of action and was given power and now he comes back and he's reporting on, on how God demonstrates through him in his life, his relationship, his relationship with his children, his job is his is all of that. So

you know that, that we, you moved to the 10 steps soundness, sanity. See everything he just described. If, if you're going to be married is about sanity, you know, life insurance and medical insurance and, and you know, does the car running, is it tuned up? And what we do is we take the power that has been given to us into our doll mundane lives and we're able to live lives based on spiritual principles within, within the workplace, within our relationships,

you know, in all those areas. So, but I, I, so I was laughing about how God does this because he, he takes off and he's talking about all this and

what he's talking about is the life he's been given. But you see on his own power again, see, he can't do any of that. He's talking to a lady earlier on the break. And one of the first exercises I like to give people is there's it where there's what's called the spiritual law of order. If you walked in into my home, my closets are very, everything is very well organized in my house. About every three to six months. I go through everything, including books. And if not using, I give them away.

I didn't. I didn't have the power to be able to do that

just the simplest things. But you, you get given great gifts in here. But most of all, power to do those things to, to be able to use the spiritual law of order in your home. See the the ego always operates in the premise that mother is going to come along and clean up afterwards, you know, walk you. So there is a spiritual law of order. There is just so much work to do in your own home, let alone going out into the world, right. I mean, start with that which you can impact immediately. When you leave here this weekend, I'll throw out a challenge.

Look at your home. Is, is it cluttered? Is it messy? What Emmet Fox says that my whole life, everything in my home, my car is an outward manifestation of my inward life. Don't worry about getting enlightened. When you go home today, worry about, is your bathroom straight? You know, is your living room clean? Is there clutter everywhere? Are you doing what I did for 15 years, which is I move, take these same boxes that I've never opened and put them in storage again.

It's like I have to have power to let that go. You know, I last time I went through, I realized I had I gave away about 10-12 pairs of shoes. Ten of them I hadn't worn 10 years. Every move I make, you know, and it go to the container store and get a shoe rack for a pair of shoes you haven't worn. It's like I don't even have the power to give away shoes I don't need any more yet. So he when when you leave here, begin to work with this in the in the place in which you need to work with it with which is within

own home within your own sanctuary. Start with simple things, you know, use the spiritual law of order. Organize your house for some of you. I'm talking here probably about a three to six month project

and you're sitting here about see, you will transmit what you have. If you have a lot of clutter in your life, that's probably what you're going to transmit. So go back to to again, becoming a beacon with within your own begin to look at your home and, and and literally go into every room and ask yourself is it is the spiritual law of order going on? I can walk into a person's home and, and really get a feel for their spiritual life, if you will,

you see, because everything gets connected in that sense. But

everything Dave was talking about is, has been a manifestation in his life of what happened as a result of taking the action of the steps that he and I are here talking with you about this weekend. So I mean that that's what this whole thing is about is there's only one reason why I'm going to do the work in one through 9 and work with 10:11 to be able to live the kind of life that I Live Today to, to from the time I get up in my dull, mundane life,

my home is in spiritual order. And, and, you know, you go work out and, and, and I get involved with this company that I, that I work with and these people that are there. And,

and then I go back home at night and then I have some people I work with an AAA. And that, that's what this has been designed to do, getting this power, this process of the steps. So I thought you thought it was great how, how we kind of took off there. But this, this would be, I think, a fascinating whole weekend devoted to now that we've done the steps and have some power. Now let's talk about, well, how do we make that work? Simple things like what does your house look like?

Financial workshops. You know that the stuff that he talked about when we begin stealing steal, it's the same. When was the last time you had a physical

a what? Yeah, a physical, you know you, you know, you a physical you're, you know, you. We're, we're amazing. We, we sit here and we get all caught up in, in all this enlightenment in, in the most stuff right in front of her face just trots on bias. And we, we don't pay any, any attention to it. But having said that, let's, let's talk. I want to talk a little bit in the 5th step by virtue of time. What I'm just going to share with you is experiences

here would be a great consideration

if if the power evaporated all big books today. Could you transmit this message?

Great question, right. What I do in a fifth step, whether I'm reading it or or otherwise, I like to read from the bottom of page 70 to 75 and I read it in first person because that's preparation and I get very clear and why I'm doing a fifth step.

As Dave and I found out, who you do a fifth step with, I don't know if it's critical necessarily in your first one, but you get a little time in this program. Who you do a fifth step with is very, very, very, very important. I look for people who understand and improve what I'm driving at. I look for people that have experience. I've worked for several years with multiple fifth steps. I take a piece of inventory. I read it to two, 3-4 different people. I've done two fifth steps with men of religion. That's a whole, whole different experience.

My experience is the big book is, is absolutely right. It says the 5th step is about life and death. It's about the death of my selfishness. It's about the life of my spirit. And so I I read in a review all that stuff and then it gets down till we pocket her pride and go to it, eliminating every twist of character, every dark granny. I close the book and then I begin to read the inventory. Now, whether I'm reading or listening, let's say that I'm listening to a fifth step. I am very actively involved in that fifth step.

I ask God to guide me. I ask a lot of questions. I am very actively involved and not a passive listener. I've also learned when when Dave and I did that, when I was asleep, I had no idea of this concept of energy and what happened in people. I do a fifth step and for about a week I felt like I had ick stuck to me. And So what I do now is I always burn sage and I purify the house and purify myself. And then once that individual leaves, I turn around and I do that again.

There's there's a ceremony, some of that I learned from Native American for me, there's a ceremony and all this stuff. When I do it and I always follow the ceremony. I like to begin with seven to 10 minutes of meditation. I burn sage to purify myself and the individual Pate read pages 70 to 75. And then they start talking a couple other things that that I do in fifth steps when I'm listening. Let's say you got 100 resentments. If you believe that I'm going to sit there and listen to four columns of resentment inventory about

you are wrong. What I am going to do is listen to about 10 or 15 of them and we're going to go at it every way in the world so that I can pull you away from me. Go wake you up so you can see yourself, your false sense of self. Thereafter, I'm going to have you read a few names, read the second column and I'll say to you, tell me the lie in that you'll tell me we're going to move to fear inventory. I'm not about to give your ego more entertainment value. I had my years in which I would spend

12 to 990 hours listening to 5th steps and and I I realize how insane that was.

I have a selfie self-centered human being, and I'm going to give him 24 hours to talk about themselves again.

No, no, I don't think so. I I missed something. The intent of inventory in the 5th step is to examine the exact nature of your defects. I don't need to listen to 100 resentments to identify that. I mean, if you just work with the seven deadly sins, which are a part of you, all humans that I know of, that's probably good enough. So you begin. Some people use the term pattern. All it is is the manifestation of the defect, and you'll begin to see it in a repetitive fashion over and over again. All it's changed is some name in the first column, but it remains the same.

And so we go into to those 3 inventories.

You know, I read those. Excuse me. At the end of that, I like to ask the question if you admitted something. It's always sexual

every time or if I observe that the man is real jittery in the front end, I say to them, why don't we talk about what it is that you're nervous about? Weren't going to probably tell me about now so that we can get it out of the way. And

again, it's normally sexual nature. I ask a priest one time, do you ever hear anything new? And I said, well, I don't either.

There's only so many ways, you know, you can chase chickens and do all the other stuff. You do you. I guess the point I want to make is any one of us sitting in this room get get over yourself in terms of no one else has ever done that. That's probably not true. And here's what's funny about that is I'm afraid to tell you about something I did when I was asleep dreaming. I was awake and couldn't have done any different.

You see what I'm saying?

So that's what I do on 5th step. So it is important to me who I read to.

And the longer I'm sober, the more important it is because my ego just has new faces. You know, you, you like Dave and I. And it was critical that he and I swapped fifth steps with each other based on our experience in, in so far what had happened to us. Because he and I both needed someone with a lot of experience to wade through this, this stuff and say, wait a minute, look at this, look at this, look at this.

So that's how I handle that when I get done with that process, The 6th step, which is about taking a look at your defects.

The tool that I work with is called the Sacraments of Penance. I can't believe I didn't bring any with me.

I have a book in my car with that I got it from. And all the sacraments and penance are they're an Episcopalian Catholic tool. They take the seven deadly sins and they embellish them in a way I'd never seen before. In other words, it's a tool to look at your character defects, if you will. So once I get done

doing my fifth step, I take a timer and the book says I'm going to sit for an hour and I'm going to answer some questions. There's a series of questions in the bottom of page 75 and I like to sit with each one of those questions. It starts out and saying that I'm going to carefully review what I've just done. So I like to close my eyes and I like to review this inventory that I've just read and I do that for about 5 to 7 minutes. Then the next question is, I'm going to thank God from the bottom of my heart that I know God better.

Now that's an interesting statement that the book is making

that led led me to a logical question. How am I supposed to know God better after reading this pitiful inventory? Well what I came to discover is as I read the inventory and it is in the 5th step, you begin begin to get disconnected from ego. It's in the So then I begin to know more of God because really I'm discovering who I'm not. My inventory is a reflection of who I'm not.

And that's how come I thank God from the bottom of my heart that I know him better after reading the 5th step. And I haven't even talked about the 5th step promises. They're some of the most incredible ones in the, in the whole book. There's nine or ten of them when you get done with that fifth step. And then it talks about again, turning to page 58 and you're going to review these first five steps proposals and ask yourself, have I left anything out? And I like to sit with each of the five and go through them in my mind. Then it begins to ask you some very, very

interesting questions that, unless you're a construction worker, make no sense.

Unless someone's taking you through the book that has experience. It says crazy stuff like this. Are your stones properly in place?

I can't tell you how many people I've worked with longtime sober, and I'll ask them about their stones and they just give you that flatline look. And because the second step is my cornerstone, the third step is my keystone. And if you've gone through the work and someone hasn't pointed that out, that sentence makes absolutely no sense. And they ask you another construction question. Is your foundation in place? Have you tried to make mortar without sand? I mean, you're sitting here trying to have a spiritual experience and they're asking you building questions, right?

But of course, that's what we're doing, aren't we?

And when I get down to answering those questions, you turn the page and then I like to pull out the sacraments of penance once my hour is done. This is pretty much what I do And let if I'm not real exhausted, I will immediately pick up the sacraments of penance. And they will start with, say, pride. And they give the definition of pride, putting self in the place of God,

ETC. And all I do is based on the inventory, for example, that I'd read to Dave, I just go through and I say guilty or not guilty. I pronounce myself based on that inventory. Am I guilty of placing myself ahead of God? Guilty. And I go through that whole process because it is such an incredible tool to help me identify the exact nature of my defects. For any of you that have any semblance of spiritual pride, it's a great tool because it'll pull it from you,

it'll strip it from you. And I'll tell you what the sacraments of penis did for me in the sixth step that no other tool ever used. I somehow would do a six step and leave away from there, beating up in myself that I'd fallen short or I somehow that was the feeling or the experience. I would get behind it. And from the very first time I used the sacraments of penance to this moment, what happened for me in the sixth step is I saw that here's a man who loves God with all of his heart

with great intentions. And I saw how much I fall short and he loves me anyhow.

And if that happens for me, that happens for every human being on the planet earth. And my God, I'm sitting here walking around being angry at people who are just like me, who fall just as much short in thought, word, indeed, every single day, just like me. And how there's this merciful God that loves us all in spite of ourselves. And what would I be if I did not have God in the face of what I'm seeing? You know,

you, you. I want to go to God, as I said, in Halo and white robes. I mean,

you know, and, and Dave and I do this thing and, and, and I'm sure he had the same experience I did. You know, I go to God with tears in my eyes and say, you know, where is this coming from? You know, forgive me, help me, you know, given this thing, my very, very best shot. And that was a tool in which I stopped beating myself up and saw my nature and saw why I need God so much. And and I begin to develop so much compassion for myself and for you.

I mean the, the arrogance of me getting upset

with, with another human being who's just like me with these basic things that are inherent in them running loose.

Uh, it seems like the longer that I embrace spiritual living, the less. See the firing mechanism for your character defect is what? What's the firing mechanism for our character defects? Ego S will selfishness. The more that the firing mechanism gets removed, the less the defect manifests. This is what came to me about two years ago. I don't know. As if a single defect that lies within me has ever been removed.

I begin. I'm beginning to believe that the firing mechanism for the defect is no longer there. So you don't see it

and I don't experience it

because everything that I've ever read tell me that every human being, the nature of who we are,

is going, we're bound up in these seven deadly sins. That's the nature of being a human being. You know that the ones the book talks about, by the way, sin just means miss the mark. For any of you who get uncomfortable hearing that word just means miss the mark. That is inherent, those seven, pride, greed, sloth, lust. And you know, that's in every human being that I've ever met. That lies within me. And I'm beginning to see that what the steps have done in meditation and getting out of myself

done is the firing mechanism has been removed. But yet they're there. The reason I say they're still there. If I fall asleep and you put me in a certain situation, you're going to see a defect you follow. So that's what I do with do with the six step, seven step for me, I like to get down on my knees. It's and and I like to say that seven step prayer. By the way, I do not play with six or seven or analyze. God either is or he isn't it.

If it's to be removed or if the firing mechanism is diminished, that is either happened or it has not happened. I have ceased fighting anybody or anything, including what gets removed and what does not get removed that is not within my jurisdiction. Ioffer that to God. I I'm firmly convinced sometimes yourself will run riot as God's will for me.

You understand what I just said. Sometimes another human being self will run right? Is God's will for you? So I don't play games with what gets removed and what doesn't get removed. I'm absolutely convinced my defects have probably brought more people to God than my virtues.

Well, here's what I mean. A lot of times the reason I write inventory is because I got to live with another person's defects. And boy, it got me to God because I got so damn mad I picked up a pen and paper and wrote some inventory.

Did step 5678 and if I had to win, made a man's you follow me. So I don't know. I guess we need to be as thankful for the defects as we are for the virtues, you know,

which is probably in the seven step why it says Ioffer all of myself to God. I think there was another great thing that happened for me in the sixth step. And this has to do with

the realization that every human being that that I, that I know is giving me their best shot based on how a spiritually awake they are.

And and if when you begin to understand that you get free of judgment, you totally get free of judgment,

in my experience is you get taken to a place where you begin to love people exactly as they are. Needing nothing in them to change

who they are is just fine. See, if I can't love you in the way in which God loves you,

then all that's involved again is my selfishness. I must love you as God loves you. And in my experience with with God, who is nothing but love and power, the great I am is that He loves me exactly as I am, and absolutely nothing to me needs to change. So that better be the way I love you. If I'm not loving you that way, it's not love. It is absolutely not love. It is more along the lines of what I call emotionalism. Or even more importantly, if you'll only change

on one of the brakes. I couldn't help overhear someone was talking about how they wanted to do all this and do all this and do all this in the relationship and the other person didn't

so. So if they didn't, that's who they are. God bless you. Go in peace, hit the door,

move on to the next one, right? You understand the point that I'm making. If I cannot love you as exactly as you are, if I'm not in condition to do that, then I just need to move on down the road because that person is doing just fine. That's the piece I've come to understand. See, that's how God loves. Nobody in this room has to change anything. God loves us exactly as we are. So I need to love you that way, free of judgment, understanding you like me. You're giving it the best shot you got

with with your sense of spiritual understanding and wisdom and those types of things.

See, the other thing that can happen is when you reach the place where you don't need anything from anybody, then you can love them.

You see. See, Dave and I don't need anything from anybody. We're here to give to you. And then here's the paradox. When you no longer need anything and all you're willing to do is give you get back more and you can handle. See, I'm like Dave, I've experienced so much love from you all this weekend, just so much love. I mean, one of the reasons he and I've been moved to tears so much is and you, I don't know as if you're conscious of this, but he and I have been experiencing incredible love from you guys,

Incredible love.

And we that happens because we didn't need anything from you. We're just here to give, give, give, give. You know, everywhere you go. And then see, that's the paradox of this whole deal. When I show up with with no Modi but but to give and to love you and to try and understand you, I get back more than I ever bargained for.

But if I show up we expecting or wanting to get something, Therein lies the paradox. Then it's not going to happen.

So that's what I do with steps 567.

Thanks Mark. I'm not on.

OK, here we go.

Wow,

what I was trying to do here just a second ago. The the place, there's only one place that I know of that still prints the Episcopalian prayer book that marks talking about. It's a place called Holy Cross Monastery up in New York. And I was told that the area code changed and I couldn't find the area code. So I'll try to get the number for you. So you guys have a way to get ahold of the it's called Saint Augustine's Prayer Book.

That and the Catholic version is the Augustinian Prayer Book and that was printed in Villanova

and it was a limited printing only for priests. So, I mean, I've tried the bibliophine, I've tried all over the place and I ended up having to go to my wife's uncle who's a Catholic priest and he got ahold of one for me. Tough to find that 17 area inventory. The descriptions in the top of the top lock comes from the sacrament of penance for each of those. I'm currently in the process of writing. It's a, you know, Mike always laughs at me because

he says a, A for me stands for Anal alcoholic.

When I was writing this inventory, this 17 area inventory, that because Mark had given me the idea for it and to try something new. And I was actually in the act of writing that inventory, taking it for myself. And I was sitting over in a hotel room in London and for three days in a row, I could not stop obsessing about this inventory. And and I'm going, God, I don't leave me alone. I'm trying to do my inventory and driving me nuts. And I kept getting this vision of taking the Sacramento dependence and turning an inventory. So it's

there's 70 principals in the sacrament of penance. So it's, it's a 70 area inventory and it's on 30 pages

and it's going to end up being hardcore. And so I don't know if I'm ever going to take it. I don't know if I have that much guts, but you'll be hearing more about that somewhere down the road. Mark talked about the principles that I've been talking about this weekend.

I think early next year you're going to see a workshop happen up at the Wilson House on exactly that. It is not going to be a workshop though. It's going to be a spiritual retreat and it's going to not going to be anything like I've ever done before. It will be we get together, we pray and meditate. You're not going to hear me talk a whole bunch,

talk a little bit, give a little bit of background and give you a homework assignment. So you got 30 minutes, be back in 30 minutes with the work done, Boom, up to your room. You do your deal. We come back, we pray and meditate, give you another assignment. Go do it. Boom. And we're going to work through the steps that way. So there'll be more out on that. If it when God's time. I don't know that it's going to come to pass, but it would if it were going to happen to pass. My calendar looks like it's going to be early next year if it happens up at the Wilson House.

Second thing, I can't emphasize what Mark was talking about enough. I moved from one house to another.

I had been to my new house for seven years and it's seven years. I rented a dumpster and went down and took anything that was in a box that I haven't used in seven years. I took whatever was of value and gave it to you to the church next door or took it down to the Salvation Army and everything else went in the trash. I moved, packed up and moved garbage stuff that I know is broken, that someday I might ever attempt to fix this and repair it in a garbage. Boom. Done

cleaning up your life is is a good deal and and you can take it down to the NTH degree. I mean, there's people here that were talking about on the break about finances because I mentioned finances. How is the money in your wallet?

Is it all crumpled and stuffed into your pocket? That shows you the value of it. You know, I got to the point where my sponsor said he saw me taking crumpled money out when I was new in recovery. You know, I was all wadded up and he's like, you probably lose more money than you've got. So he had me start and it sounds very anal, but it's, it's really got me into getting order in my life. All the money is in ranking order, right? I used to be one of those guys where the biggest bill was always on the outside of my money clip.

Now the biggest bill goes on the inside of the money clip. So nobody knows how much money you've got. All the heads go in the same direction, right? So when you're flipping through you'll, you'll, you'll pick up on the fact is, if you used to see in the backs and the fronts all mixed together, you can't tell. You may grab two bills and send it out at the same time. If all the it's just good financial principles so you don't make a mistake, give away too much money. You know, when you're paying for something, just simple things like that. And

yeah, is is it anal? A little bit, but let me tell you, you get your life into order

and then, you know, what's that pony that marks riding? You got to get into that, into that order. There's got to be some order. And if we don't start with practice, what you practice, you become. That's the deal.

As far as fifth step, the construction references that Mark was talking about that you're going to need in a quiet hour, they're on page two of the guide. All right. The 5th step stuff is on page 17 of the guide and there's a lot of instructions in the big book and I'm not going to waste a whole bunch of time.

I start out with the five with the 5th step warnings. Bill Wilson gives us 7 warnings for if you don't do a fist step, you're not going to overcome drinking, you may not learn enough humility, you're not going to learn fearlessness, you're not going to learn honesty, you're going to be plagued with egoism and fear. You cannot expect to live long and you're not going to be happy. Is that important? Kind of got my attention. You know, you break that lace little paragraph that everybody just kind of skips through into sentences and take a look at the meaning of what he's saying in each sentence and it changes your life.

You know, on the break I was given a tremendous gift. A guy came up to me and I get one of these every time I do a workshop. What do I start the workshop off with? Listen to the message and not the messenger. And without fail, God gives me this gift and it was wonderful. It comes up to me and he says, you know, when you first started hearing the first night you were a pompous, a hole, you know, and he says, and then I started to hear what you were saying and not listening to your presentation of how you were saying it.

And I started to get touched and my mind started to open up and now I can hear what I need to hear. God came into his life. Mark's talking about the tremendous love we get back. A lot of people had questions and I could see it in your faces when I started talking about the mirror. Hopefully you now know what the mirror is because you've experienced it. We throw our love this way and you throw it right back, even if you don't see that you're doing it, you know, Have you noticed that most of the people's eyes in here have started to change? There's more sparkling eyes in here

by far than when we started.

Most everybody's been smiling. Most everybody's been laughing. There's people doing inventories. There's a guy over there at the table right in his sex inventory, barefoot. Bill came up to me and says, yeah, I was dozing off last night. Some guy came pounding on my door. I want to do a fist step. You know,

there's a woman in the back. She flew up from Virginia and I hooked her up with somebody to do inventory because she had some real stuff. They were up till 4:30 in the morning. This group, some a member of a A worked till 4:30 in the morning to hear a fist step. She's a different woman here. I'm driving down the road and I see her and I bait him and I waved her on the way over here this morning. She comes in the next red light and the window rolls down and she's like, it was a bomb. A bomb went off. I'm a change person. She's screaming out through the window.

You know,

people are changing in this room. Can you feel the presence? You know, who do you do a fifth step with? Somebody who's got experience. There's nobody in this room unless is there any merchant Marines in here,

any submariners that go in the submarine and for three months under the ocean.

There is nobody in this room that qualifies for not doing a fist step. And if you do fall into that category, the moment the boat docks, the big book says you go out and seek somebody do your fist up with, you know that line in the big book about the Eskimo coming over the hill at the North Pole. I fly with the military up to the North Pole. There's a fantastic meeting up at the North Pole. You know, I'm serious. There's an A, a meeting up there. It's, it's, it's a really great meeting at the Bay Air Base at Thule, Greenland. You know, so there's really no excuse today to not be able to get yourself to a meeting, not be

to hook up with somebody you can fist up with. There's I've fist up with clergy. I mean, don't knock it till you tried it. That's the basic principle. If you want to knock your socks off, go do a multiple inventory, sit down, take one piece of inventory, read it to five people, change your life. You want to go to the next level, take your inventory, grab another guy and swap fist steps. Change your life because not you are you just hearing it? You're sharing your stuff and you know, and your ego want to start doing 1 upsmanship. Well, I can beat that.

You know that kind of sick stuff and you know, having laughing and have a good time. You want to go to the next level, grab somebody that your that your spiritually connected with. Set up an appointment to swap footsteps and each of you bring a new guy with you guy of three months. One of your responses because the other guy, you guys are spiritual buddies and he doesn't want you to really nail him and you really don't want to nail him that you may something might slip through the cracks, but I guarantee if your sponsee has an opportunity to pin your ears back,

nothing's getting by. Nothing.

You know, I did that a while back and this guy's wife was downstairs and she swore for days that we weren't fist stepping because we were upstairs just laughing hysterically and itching and scratching. Is having a good old time. We read an inventory. It was hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.

The 5th step rule. It's on page 18 of the guide. There's three rules in a a believe it or not, come right out of the big book and this is the fifth step rule. It applies once you've taken a fifth step. This rule applies for the rest of your life. We must be always be hard on ourselves and always considerate of others.

Period.

Especially when you come into amends, you can't save your skin by dumping your problems on somebody else. What came full force in this inventory was that I had been scumbagging people huge in this inventory. I can't run up to you and you don't know that I've been scumbagging you and run up to you and say, you know what? I've been scumbagging you behind your back. I'm really sorry because I just dumped a big load in your in your lap. Now the hamster's on your wheel going, what was he saying? Why did he say this? Who did he say it to? You know, so I'm sitting with Mark telling him I'm scumbag and I want to go make these amends. And he said, whoops, stop, stop, stop.

You got to go back to every single person you scumbag that person to and make amends to each one of those people.

Oh, oh, and in that process, one of the guys that I went to and I made amends with, he happens to be sitting in here in the front row laughing hysterically. He looked at me and he said, you know, I understand that, you scumbag this other person. He says from this point forward, whenever you see him do something right, I want you to publicly acknowledge that.

So instead of tearing them down, I want you to build it up. Man, did he raise the bar on me.

I had to sit with that. I'm still sitting with it. It's changing me. It's changing how I think. I'm just an alcoholic. You don't believe that I'm about to bring that home for you. Just in just a second and you'll see how sick I really can be.

A quiet hour. Anytime I do step work, I do a quiet hour. When I leave this workshop, I go back to the hotel room. I spend a quiet hour. I go through the construction references. I look at my steps, I look at my stones. I thank God because I know I'm better than I pray and meditate and then I go to bed. That kind of deal.

Don't miss the quiet hour if you're so last night I was so emotionally drained, you know, doing one of these workshops, it's like 150 people sticking a straw up your butt, sucking everything out of you. You know, emotionally, I'm, I'm energetic up here until the moment I put the mic down, I walk out the door and then it's like somebody hit me with a baseball bat in the abdomen.

You know,

Even so, I'm so tired. I go home to the quiet hour. If I'm so tired that I can't even do that because when you share your fist step, it's a lot of energy. You burn energy doing that deal. If you can't do it that night, do it the next morning. First thing. Do not miss the quiet hour. I've had more spiritual experience and change occur in the quiet hour than any part of a fifth step. Extremely important. All right,

to show you guys that I am pompous and egotistical

and to show you what this deal is really like, I want to share a piece of inventory with you. Because this is what, at almost 20 years of sobriety, we're still all the same. I'm just another alcoholic. Get me off the spiritual beam. I will lie, I will cheat, I will steal. I will drink

if you get me far enough off the spiritual beam. So column one, over dependence. Most

Alcoholics don't know how to write about principles, so I chose a principle for you guys. The longer you're sober, the more principles you'll be writing about when you first newly sober. It's all people. They did it, they did it, they did it. The longer you're sober, you know you're not supposed to be resentful at people. So you'll write that inventory in your ten step. But the principles creep in, right? So the principal is over dependence. Column one. Column two, why I'm angry when sponsees act over dependent and call way too much. It wastes my time and disturbs my family.

Can you? What character did you just hear?

Alrighty, we got the victim right? Self esteem. I deserve not to be hassled by their inadequacies. My time is valuable and they don't need me to nurse made them. I know they want what I have, but they have to do their own friggin work and get it. I'm not their mother