The 9th Fellowship of the Spirit NY in Queens, NY

OK, OK.

I, I thoroughly enjoyed Mitches story and some of the history that that was, that was absolutely phenomenal. I, I've been interested off and on in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous myself. I think one of the reasons is, is my life has been saved by Alcoholics Anonymous. So it it was almost natural for me to want to learn a little bit about it. And

the fact the fact that Mitchell is, was

sponsored by Clarence Snyder is amazing. Clarence is one of the great characters of, of early A a I've listened to a lot of Clarence's talks on tape. And one of my favorites is he gets sent to doctor Bob out in Akron. He's drinking, he's on the skids. He's, you know, his family. Is this like a last ditch effort to try to get him help? And they send him to Akron, OH, because there's a there's a doctor out there that can fix drunks.

This is what Clarence is saying on his tapes. So he gets out there and he walks up to the door. And what it says on the door is Doctor Robert Holbrook Smith, proctologist. OK. And he goes, well, here's something I haven't tried yet, you know, for, for quit drinking. And the first thing he noticed is when he meets Doctor Bobby, he's got these really big hands, you know, So he's taking, oh, man, I'm in trouble here.

But

certainly some some great lessons are to be learned from from early, early Alcoholics Anonymous and some some of the some of the first people I'm looking at the cast of characters over on that on that display over the pictures of a lot of these early a as and that is a cast of characters. Let me tell you,

you know, in this day, I got sober. I got sober in the 80s and back in the 80s,

you couldn't shake a stick without hitting a rehab. I mean, rehabs are all over the place. The insurance companies were playing ball and there was people in there. This is my 14th rehab, you know, and a lot of that stuff was going on. I, I got to tell you that insurance companies for, for good or for bad

insurance companies have started to decide that it's not money well spent, you know, putting somebody through one of one of these things unless it's a successful place. So a lot of the, a lot of the places that that really weren't doing a good job, a lot of the places that didn't have your permanent recovery as a goal for you, a lot of the places that would just churn you through for the insurance money are gone.

Probably

there was a period of time in like 1993 where over 600 rehabs went out of business in the United States. There was a lot of them in my area. So a lot of the ones that are still left are, are more successful and doing a better job than than when I was coming around. My experience with my experience with rehab is I don't remember much from it really.

I do know that. I do know that I, I went in there with the certainly with good intentions

and they had a lot of lectures and movies and things. And, you know, our book basically says self knowledge is not enough. Self knowledge will avail us nothing. So I can know as much as I, I can possibly know about Alcoholics Anonymous, about recovery, about the steps, about traditions, about everything. And just knowing it is not a sufficient defense against the first drink.

I need to have an experience. So there are places out there these days that as well as the education

they're, they're really trying to offer, to offer experience, also recovery experience. Also, I know there's AI know there's a place where where I volunteer, I shouldn't say volunteer. I, I, I outside, I'm a lecturer there on recovery off and on for the past 10 years.

And when you're released from the place, you've got a set of immense cards. I mean, you're, you're up to amends and, you know, you're going out and you're making amends. And that's different. I got to tell you, it's a lot different than when I, when I first came in, really the only thing they asked me to do in rehab was to write a life story. So I got a chance to do my, my twisted psychotic autobiography, you know, being, being high on the Librium, you know, detoxing,

you know,

I, I found that like a couple of months ago and it's, it's, it's like, it's like on 4 pages and it's this tiny print. Unbelievable.

Oh man, tiny print. It reminds me of a story. I got it. Sorry I got to tell this story now I'm going to probably break 7 traditions telling it but I don't care. I'm this is like, it's like mid 1970s, OK.

And there was a lot of non conference approved substances out there in the mid 70s that were available for people like May. I mean, alcohol was certainly always there, ever present,

but every once in a while there would be these, these other substances that would get me away from me. You know, it was always a, a, a mad dash away from the reality that is Chris and I bought some LSD down at the park. You know, I'm going to have a have a good time. I don't know if anybody here has experience with LS Dammit.

You take it and then you have about an hour to get someplace safe, someplace someplace conducive to, you know, like the last thing you want to be like is, is it like Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Millie's or something? You know, you want, you want like a, a, a pretty safe place to be. So, so I take this Alistair, I, I'm going, I'm stopping at the liquor store and then I'm heading home and it's going to be black light posters, headphones and Led Zeppelin, you know,

so that was my plan. So I see this guy in front of me. He's a buddy of mine and I think

I know what I'll do. I'm gonna tap his bumper with my car because he doesn't see me. We said do crazy things like that. So give him a little bump. So I gave him a little bump, you know, and he, he, he's shocked, he turns around, he sees who it is and we wave to each other and he goes home and I go home. I've got the headphones on and, you know, listening to Zeppelin 2, as was my want, you know, with the hallucinogens. And all of a sudden the phone rings. What happened was he went home and he's got one of these like military type fathers who reconnoiters

car every single time he comes home from driving and he saw a little bit of black rubber on the back bumper from where I hit him. So he made him call the police and file an accident report. So all of a sudden, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm just more than a kid and my mother starts banging on banging on the banging on the wall. Chris, Chris, the police are on the phone. They want you down at the station now. Now

I'm like, Oh no, because I'm seeing Disney World,

you know, and in my room and I'm. So I walk there cuz God forbid I'm gonna drive. And I remember walking up to the police station, the big, the lights are on, it's dark now the doors are like 40 feet tall and we're walking into this police station and you know, there's cops. And I mean, you can see that their pores on their faces. And

I walk in and I remember going up to the going up to the desk, Grizzlies, there's an accident on where you guys call me and they go, OK, get here.

He hands me this, He goes draw the intersection where this alleged action takes like, and he hands me a bit. So like,

enjoy. This thing is like the size of a postage stamp. I'm drawing this thing and he's looking at me like. And he goes no, and he grabs it away from me. He rips it up and he goes here and he starts drawing the intersection. I'm like, no, it's not that big. I mean,

I was almost ready to like, confess, you know, You got me. I'm tripping,

but I'll tell you what. Next day at school, I wanted to kill this kid. You know what did you What? What did you Why did you tell him it was me? Oh, it's just off. Oh, it was awful. And that was back when it was working. You know what I mean? It was back when I was

no thought of moderating or giving up entirely at that period of time

anyway.

You know, the, the lessons that we can learn from from the people in the past. We can make our own mistakes or we can pay attention to the mistakes of others and try not to make them. You know, in, in Alcoholics Anonymous today, they used to say there are no teachers in a a that was another one of the lip flapping oral tradition things That really is not true. There's nothing but teachers

in a, a today. Some will teach you, teach you what to do, and some will teach you what not to do. And you know the law. The more experience you gain with recovery and the longer you're around, the fewer people there are out there that will teach you what to do and the more there are that will teach you what not to do. Now there's a

There's always a problem hanging on to old timers.

There's always a. There's a. There's a,

you know, it's really an issue. Look at it this way. If everybody that came into a A stayed, the same amount of people would be celebrating 23 years as you're getting celebrating 90 days. But you know that's not true. Pay attention at your Home group next time and see how many people celebrate in the early part of their recovery and how few actually are celebrating. Twenty 30-40 years.

They're growing rarer and rarer.

And somebody told me about a study that was done a long time ago and that they tried to find out where these where these old timers are going. You know, I don't believe they all drink. I think some of them do. But I think some of them, you know, drift away just because they can't take it anymore in the meetings, hearing about the crap that gets shared in the meetings, they just can't take it anymore.

They're years recovered, years recovered and they have to.

They have to constantly

hear about the insanity

of somebody's life. And, and you know, if you, if you frequent as many discussion meetings as I do, sometimes the same people are sharing the same thing year after year after year. Nothing is changing. And all they, all they want to do is, is come in and lay their drama out. You know, somebody told me that if I shared my problems, I'd walk away with half of them. Well, if the if your math is correct on that, that means now I've

bottom OK and I don't appreciate it.

Why don't you take your problems to your sponsor? That's what you're paying your sponsor for, you know, Well, like,

and it's just, it's a, it was talked about earlier. It was talked about earlier. We don't want to ruffle any feathers in alcoholic slots. We don't want to, we want people to like us. The alcoholic ego. We, we, God forbid somebody thinks poorly of us. But I'll tell you what, it's important. It's important for Alcoholics Anonymous to stay vital and to stay strong and to be the place where you're going to get exposed to recovery.

I've got a very, very good friend who, whose mother was just tragically alcoholic. He's, I'm not sure if he was alcoholic or not, but he drank with me. So that's kind of a clue. And he went through some hard times and he went to a couple of Amy, Amy, there's a couple of a meetings and here's why. Here's what he told me why he didn't stay. He goes, those people were more screwed up than me.

I mean, you know, do we really want to appear more screwed up than the newcomer?

I don't know. It says in our book that many of us set aside one meeting a week where a newcomer could share their problems, where we could find newcomers, where we could expose them to Alcoholics Anonymous and, you know, and help them out. Where it became. We set aside 360 meetings a week in our area for the newcomer to share their problems. I just don't know how that happened. But again,

one of the concepts that

that's in our writings that Bill Wilson would share quite often, especially from the podium, is the good is sometimes enemy of the best. So is it good to show up in an AA, meaning raise your hand and share your problems? I guess it, I guess it can help you know, if it's a, if it's a pro. The best would be sharing your problems with a sponsor who can then help you apply the spiritual principles

to ensure that those problems aren't regenerating on a regular basis. OK,

Is it good to incur pat somebody on the head and encourage them to keep coming? Yeah. But wouldn't it be better to actually try to engage in a conversation with them and bring them along with you on an experience with recovery? That's the best. You see the goods sometimes can be the enemy of the best.

And you know, when I when I'm kind of feeling with this weekend is I'm kind of feeling a challenge for all of us. Not, not, not anyone is particular, but all of us a challenge for us to do better when we go back to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or wherever we're from and to just try to try to try to find ways to help Alcoholics that are still suffering.

Now, how I describe the still suffering alcoholic, I used to have the picture of the still suffering alcohol, like if somebody who's drunk out of their minds or hungover out there. I believe this.

I believe we find the still suffering alcoholic in a lot of AAA meetings. You know, I mean, if I go to a beginner's meeting every Monday night in my area and

the format of the meeting is this. For the first half hour, people with under 90 days share where they're at, what they're going through, any questions or any challenges they're having. And then for the second-half of the meeting, people who have experience, people have time, people who've been through the steps

are able to share their experience on how they were able to get through that and what possibly might have been their solution for for things that they relate to. And I get to see in that meeting, I get to see the challenges that the new people are making. And

the guys that I sponsor are very, very active in grabbing them after the meeting, shaking hands, getting their phone number

rather than saying here's my phone number. I know you're not going to call, so I'm not worried about giving it out. You know, how often do we do that? But getting their phone number and trying to engage them to the point where they would be willing to start the steps,

you know, whether whether it's the steps that will provide permanent recovery for you or not. I really think it's willingness coupled with action,

coupled with the action. Again, you know, you don't get ABS and C's on how you do the steps. It's a pass fail. And you know, if you pass, you recover. If you fail, you continue in an, in an unrecovered state. But the the motivation and the actual determination to take action so often sometimes brings us the relief and the results that we're looking for from recovery.

Now

where I stopped this morning, I was just touching on Step 5 a little bit this morning.

I covered very, very briefly

a few of the parameters of Step 4 as it's laid out in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what we have as a basic text. Now I know that they did it different ways in the early days. I'm I'm sure of it. I've even heard from from some of the other historians that there was about 1000 pages written on the 4th step by Bill and edited over and over and over and edited and edited and edited. And there there are some existent,

there is some existent papers on

some of the earlier

writings on the four step prior to being put in this book. But I think that they struggled. I think Bill Wilson struggled very, very much trying to put something together that everyone would agree on in in this book. And I think that this really does cover the type of moral inventory that an alcoholic or someone with an addictive illness really needs to look at. I think it has it all in there.

You know, are there things that we can do? Are there is there exercises and therapeutics and spiritual disciplines that we can get involved with after we get through the steps? Absolutely. That's what's really great about Alcoholics Anonymous. It's like spirituality 101 and we can, we can take these things and build on them and really go,

go to real links as far as our

our spiritual disciplines are concerned. But I think it's very, very important to do what's in this text.

To mess with the directions is to mess with the promises. If, if instead of doing what it says in this book, you kind of alter it a little bit to fit your own unique personality,

what you're doing is you're making it.

You're taking away the assurance that you're going to get a specific promise. A lot of these action steps have promises after them. You know, 10 step promises are wonderful. So there's some 12 step promises. There's warning promises too. Like if you don't don't do this, you know you're going to be on the balls of your ass. That's an actual quote from one of these chapters. I don't remember which one.

But you know, so, so being very specific and very,

you know, following the method in here I think is I think is important because so many people have done it and nobody's come back to me and said, Chris, I did every single thing in this book and I'm still a mess, I'm still drinking. Nothing happened. I've never heard that, never heard that. So, so again, I think, I think following this as a as a guide to recovery is important.

After I've done my inventory, I need to find someone to share it with.

How I did it was I picked my sponsor because it was my sponsor that was telling me to do a four step. Now

we're looking at middle of 1990. I'm telling you in my area, you weren't told to use the big book as a guide in my area and there was step meetings everywhere. So how did I do my four step? Because back then you would ask a question

and these were the the oral tradition guys, OK, they'd been around a million years and this is a typical answer for them. You'd raise your hand in me and you'd say, geez, I'm confused about this four step. I'd like to know how to do a four step and one of the old timers and answer. They'd go, kid, you do a four step with a pencil.

Thanks for the help. You know, I, I learned later that the only reason you would give an answer like that is because you've never done one yourself. But you know, you've got like 15 years. You're not going to be admitting that all too soon.

But I mean, you know, my sponsor gave me no direction. He said, Chris, just do a four step. Just do a four step. Just do it. So what my first one was I got a 12 and 12 out and I don't know about anybody else. There's some great information in the 12 and 12 on Step 4 about the seven deadly sins. And a lot of the things are very, very acute perception about the alcoholic mentality. You know, no one, no one understood the alcohol

mental process is better than Bill Wilson. Nobody. But he wasn't writing the 12 and 12 and as an instruction to go through the steps. But it's hard to know that because it's called the 12 steps and 12 traditions. So how do you how do you do a four step? You go to that step book and that's what I did and I wrote this convoluted forcep. Here's basically what it was. It was part,

part personal history,

part The Dirty little things that I did that I'd never admitted to anybody and part

part of

how do I put this

character traits that I had. Like

I, I noticed about myself that I would be resentful toward you for something that I possessed myself. So like if I was resentful for you before being selfish, I knew that I had selfishness in myself. So it was like a pattern that I had recognized. So I wrote down these patterns and I hid it underneath the car of my trunk in in my trunk, you know, because in case anybody would find it, because,

you know, we talked to Peter and we talked about attachment. I was so attached to what people would think.

I really thought that it was like planet Chris and you were all satellites orbiting around my, you know, my sphere and, and you were all very much involved in like what I thought and what I did. And I mean, you know, it was just like crazy.

So I was always attached to what, you know, what people would think and what is he going to think of me when I read this? But, you know, he, I had some faith that this is something that would help me get better. And I remember going to the park with them and reading this thing. Now,

it wasn't a fist step based on the instructions out of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. So I didn't get the Alcoholics Anonymous promises, but I got the promises of, you know, a confessional, which which is basically what the forcep was. But I started to, started to feel a little bit better about myself. I it started to take a little bit of weight off my shoulders.

Up until the time I shared this stuff with my sponsor, I really thought

I was a scumbag. I mean, I had done 15 years worth of uninterrupted selfish,

tragic behavior, you know, just just raping and robbing and pillaging across, you know, just me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, you know, and, and if you do that for 15 years, you're going to have a warped sense of self. You're going to have a, you know, yourself esteem is going to be a little bit damaged because you're going to know you're a scumbag. I'm a scumbag. So, so I read this thing and at the end of it, here's what he says. Phil goes to me,

Chris,

he goes, I believe that you were an alcoholic from the get go. I'm one of the guys who believes that you were born in alcohol. And he goes here, here you were, you were like a campfire with the, with the, the, the embers, you know, the, the embers that were just sitting there smoldering. And once you took a drink, it was like throwing, it was like throwing gasoline on that campfire. All of a sudden it flared up and it burnt everybody, you included and everybody around you.

That's that's how I picture your alcoholism. And what he was kind of saying to me was that I did, I had a condition, you know, whether it's a disease, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get involved in that debate. But it certainly was an illness. It certainly was a condition, a malady, this alcoholism that I had. And I started to feel like, you know, yeah, maybe maybe this isn't 100% my fault, you know,

maybe maybe I was caught up in something that was a little bit bigger than me.

And I started to give myself a little bit of a break. And that's the first time I felt like I could, I could reenter society or I was a part of society again, you know, because for so many years I thought I was a scumbag, not a run-of-the-mill scumbag. I was special. I had special attributes. You know, I wasn't just any scumbag,

but I was definitely a scumbag. But I was a special scumbag.

That's how I thought about myself.

Wonder why I couldn't get any dates, you know?

Anyway,

so I did this fist step and it says in this book, the instructions to this book is to go home where you can be quiet for an hour and really review all of the steps that you've taken up to now and ask yourself, is it complete? Have you missed anything? Bill likes to talk about it as an arch, and the architectural

way he he likes to describe it. Have you skimped on the mortar? You know you're putting all the blocks together, right?

Because if you, if you've held anything back on the 4th step or the 5th step, if you, if you haven't been thorough, what you're doing is you're sabotaging,

You're sabotaging the spiritual experience, you're sabotaging the recovery experience. I can't tell you how many people have relapsed who've done done a lot of this. Lot of these steps with the guys I work with or around the meetings I go to, or me who held back on something

on the 4th or the 5th step who just didn't want to share it. What it was was it was a corrosive thread that they allowed to be put into the fabric of their recovery.

And until that's dealt with, it can it can be fatal. You know, it really can be fatal. Some of these things that we don't address. There are no, there are no small issues with with the 4th and the 5th step. There are only fatal ones if we allow them to, to remain hidden under the rock. Now, there may be some things that there's the statute of limitations, you know, and you're, you're kind of being,

you're kind of being guided by,

by some people or by your inner conscience to, you know, is it really a good thing if I go to jail for five years or whatever?

It gives us some leeway in the 5th step. I think it gives us leeway to do the first step with a priest, someone who has the ability to not, not be questioned under interrogation or, or be forced to testify. I mean, if that's the way you just have to go, I think it's important to share this stuff. It's more important to share this stuff

than to find reasons to not share it. However, I I suggest to anybody that I'm working with that they share this material with, with a sponsor or someone with experience with the steps, someone who's been through the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous, because the feedback that you can get is, is a lot of times better. You get a lot better feedback from

from someone who's experienced this stuff. You know, if you share it with a priest, they may, they may just say, well, go on my son. You know they're not going to say I did that too.

You know, they're not going to say I did that too.

You know, you puked on a cop. I did that. You're not going, you're not going to get that. And I like, I like the, the, the feedback. It talks about in some of our literature that they'll be a little give and take during the, during the 5th step. And there was, there was give and take when, when I did mine, my first one, my sponsor shared a couple of things that raised my eyebrows, I'll tell you. And I think he was doing that just to say it's OK, it's OK,

whatever you have to say, go ahead. Sometimes when I'm working with guys and I see that they're a little nervous,

they're fumbling with their four step and they're, you know, they're getting ready to do the 5th step. I'll say, OK, you came here convincing yourself that you weren't going to share something with me. Let's start there

and out, you know,

because I'm an alcoholic. That's how I know. So go ahead

shared fine, whatever it is. There was one time though, where this guy, this guy was, was working with me and he did a he did a four step. He had about 10 minutes on resentments. He had about 5 minutes on fierce. Then he had eight hours on sex inventory. I got to tell you by the time he got done, I said I got to call my sponsor. I go, I go, Gary, get over here. I need you over here now.

And he comes over and I go tell him what you just told me. You know, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know. Oh my God. So he did. He shared it with my sponsor too. And, you know, that was that was how I was guided to do it at that period of time. It was a it was pretty bizarre,

but a lot of times, a lot of times in this, you see,

it's almost like you have a knapsack filled with rocks

when you walk into your first footstep. And as you share more and more and more, you're you're able to drop them out of the knapsack and you get lighter and lighter and lighter.

And that's it really does. It sets the stage for

the next series of spiritual proposals that are in our book.

I became willing to have God remove these defects of character. Now, Bill Wilson uses a lot of different terminologies for defects of character. He uses sins, he uses roadblocks. There's just a lot of ways

that he puts it. He was kind of taught in English class

that you don't use the same word over and over again. It makes you look stupid. So instead of saying defects again in the next paragraph, he'll use shortcomings. I believe it's all the same thing. And if you get tied up in the semantics of it all, I think you lose sight of the true objective, which is we need to, we need to become willing to have to engage in the process because we need to be willing and we need to participate. But we need to be willing

to have God remove these things that are blocking off, blocking us off from a relationship with God, a vital relationship with God, from a relationship with ourselves and from a relationship with our fellow men, the the other people that were inhabiting this planet with. We need to become willing to do that. I don't know anytime

where it's it's it's actually better for us to be conducive to the to the removal of these things. And after a fifth step, you've just you've just inventoried everything you can possibly think about it, the reasons why you failed at life. You've now shared all these things. You know, I mean, it's not something that you just can't wait to do. I think when you're a newcomer, Oh boy, I can, I can I share every single thing I've ever done wrong, you know, with you later today.

I can't wait. It's not something that I've seen people really, really looking forward to because it's an ego crusher. I did, I did a one of the fist steps I did it was it was a monster. I had about 106 resentments. I really got thorough, really was motivated to get thorough during this one time. And it had to happen over the course of of days. I think it took like a week or two to get this thing done because it was about 15 hours worth of

of fish step material. My ego was so, so smashed. I mean, I was so humbled

that was I willing to have God remove these defects of character? Absolutely. I truly recognize them for what they were. They were blocking me off from the sunlight of the Spirit and without the sunlight of the Spirit bearing down on my head. Great line in in the 12:00 and 12:00.

Who among us wishes to admit complete defeat? Glass in hand? We've warped ourselves to such a condition that only an act of divine Providence

can restore us. Divine. You know what divine Providence is? God shining down out of the sky on your ass. That's what divine Providence is.

I mean, that's significant.

So am I willing to have these things that are blocking me off from that divine Providence removed? I hope so. I hope so because the because the other option is not something I'm willing to tolerate. Because when I came in here, I was done. I wanted to be done so bad. I was done because alcohol was just destroying me. It was eating, eating away my brain at the end. I mean, I, I could handle losing the family. I can handle three DWI.

I can handle waking up in jail not knowing why I'm there. You ever do that? Wake up in jail, not know why you're there could be any. And I found out one thing very important. Don't wake up your bunkmate and ask him, OK? Sometimes they don't appreciate it.

So I mean,

I was done. I was done. So I was, I was willing, I was desperate. Am I ready to have God remove these defects of character that are blocking off from a successful life now? My ego myself is still grabbing on to anything it can grab onto at this period of time. Chris, you won't be that unique self that you are. You'll, you, you'll lose your uniqueness if God removes these character defects. You know what if God removes removes lust first,

you'll never get laid again. I mean, you know, all these things are going through my mind

during these periods of time. You know, what if, what if, what if you're, you have to wear a turban and sell flowers at the airport, Chris, What if that, I mean, I, I, I have to just trust in this process. And there's a lot of us in Alcoholics Anonymous today that will tell you, you know, it, it's, you're not going to lose, you're not going to lose the good things about your nature. You're going to lose the bad things. The, the alcoholic ego, the alcoholic self

that has been running your life into the ditch for all these years is the thing that's threatened. The, the self-destructive characteristics of your, of your nature are what's being threatened and your ego and yourself, they're going to fight to the end on this. So that's why we need a lot of encouragement. That's why we need vital Alcoholics Anonymous. That's why we need good sponsorship because we need all the help we can get sometimes.

Then sometimes we have to pray like crazy for the willingness for some of this stuff. But I got to tell you the the other option is, well, they give us two options. Live, live life along spiritual lines or die in alcoholic death. I don't see any door #3 there,

you know,

I, I don't know. I, I looked for door #3 like, go to two AA meetings a week and, you know, not drink no matter what. And there was nothing behind that door. Not for me. So live life along spiritual lines, Die in alcoholic death. Gee,

you know it's funny. One of my one of my favorite speakers tells this story. Anybody in here old enough to remember the Jack Benny Radio Hour?

OK, Jack Benny was absolutely classic for this one. He was so cheap. He still had the first nickel he ever made. You know, that was part of his part of his personality that we loved so much. And he was doing this skit on the radio, and you hear him walking down the sidewalk, and all of a sudden, you hear a robber come up and robber goes your money or your life. You can hear this in the background. And all of a sudden there's silence,

and the silence goes on. All of a sudden, the studio audience kind of catches on a little bit, starts laughing,

and finally the robber goes well. And Jack Benny goes, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know, And that's that's the joke. Well, a newcomer will come into Alcoholics Anonymous and oh, God, I was drinking. I burned the house down, crashed the car, lost the family all. I just got a detour. So. OK, well

come on over to my house tonight. You know, we'll sit down with the book Alcoholics and I'm so we'll get started on the steps because there's there's a recovery process that's,

you know, you really need to get involved in recovery to remain separated from alcohol and for you to be able to put your life back together again. So can you make it over at six?

And then the silence starts

and finally you're like, well, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know, I mean, that's how strong sometimes the ego is. That's how strong sometimes your, your, yourself wants to, wants to maintain control over your life. I mean, you're dying, but go to somebody'd house or work the steps,

you know? I don't know. I mean, we're crazy sometimes.

So am I willing to be to have these defects of character removed? I'm about as willing as I can get. And you know that what? There's a prayer in this step that if you aren't completely willing God, please help me to be willing for these removals. And then there's a then there's a prayer for for God to take these character defects away. Now I got to tell you, I'm a God guy, OK?

I not only not only have I personally experienced the power of God in recovery, but I see it in the people that I work with.

The power of God is alive today. Now if we were the ones that were supposed to remove our defects of character, it would say became willing to not engage in any of these character defects anymore and stopped engaging in these character defects. That's what the step would say. Now,

you know, we want to hang on to the control. You know, we want to hang on to the control. I've heard a lot of people say

that Step 6 and step 7 is stopping doing what you shouldn't be doing. Now, let me tell you, if I could do that, I'd have done a better job by now. You know what I mean? How many of you have struggled with character defects and honestly wanted to not engage in those defects and yet engaged in them anyway? Yeah, Yeah. No kidding.

All right.

I believe that the desperation that we brought to God with our alcoholism, if we can summon up that same desperation and that same surrender with these character defects, I believe that the power of God can help us overcome these character defects. I do. I do it. It's based on our willingness. It's based on our commitment. And do we have to participate?

Absolutely. Again,

God will not render us white as snow without our cooperation. How then do we participate in the removal of our character defects? How do we do that?

I've found no better place. I've found no better spiritual atmosphere, spiritual climate for the conducive removal of character defects than to become willing to make amends, direct amends to those we had harmed because of these character defects,

which shifts us again into a whole nother realm of spiritual possibilities. Am I willing to make amends to the people that I've harmed because of my character defects? Tells us in the book to make a list. It also tells us in the book that we've made a list when we did inventory. So any anybody sponsors that tell you to burn the burn your four step after you do a fifth step?

Oops,

hope you made a copy.

What I find is column #4 in the resentment inventory,

certainly some of the questions that we need to ask in the harms to others inventory. And I've even, I've even, I even send people back into the fear inventory to see if the manifestations of their fears have harmed anybody else

for this list. And how I asked them to do it is how I was taught, which is immense cards

put down, put down the, you know, start, start a stack of immense cards with, with the things that we've done to other people. Now

don't edit the 8th step because you're absolutely positive you're not going to make the amends in the 9th. I'm not even going to do a I'm not even going to do a card on that son of a bitch because it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever go back and make him exam.

Do it anyway. Make up the card anyway. Make up the card anyway.

This is about freedom. This is about freedom. The difference between the difference between capturing everyone, every institution, every person that we have harmed on these eight step cards that were consciously aware of is very, very important because it's going to it's going to mean

it's going to be directly proportional to the amount of freedom that we get. And again, I've seen people leave a couple of people off of their A step list and not do immense and get drunk.