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

I'm Pete. I'm recovered alcoholic

and we would settle in here and

approach the far turn today,

OK.

One of the things we need to consider as we're moving through the work, and I think I touched on this Friday having to do with Step 456789

where many of us run into some problems, the re emergency of ego in Step 9 where any lens is now on my terms and not what was given to me.

One of the things we need to take a look at and consider, we show up to Step 1 willing to go to any lengths in order to recover from alcoholism when we do whatever the sponsor tells us. And we're out there and we're writing and we're reading and we're getting to meetings and we're sharing, going to any lengths each and every day. And then I move into two and some considerations with three and I start writing my inventory and some of us who get to the inventory get into 5 and so on and so forth. Well, here's the consideration.

The further I get away from step 1:00, AM I getting further away from step one?

And what do I mean by that?

What's obvious as we move down the chart,

as far as proximity goes, we're moving away from step one. Step 9 is a lot further away from step one and Step 2 is

but from an emotional and spiritual place if you will. Am I moving further away from step one or is the work driving me further into step one to see my need for power because I lack power when it moves me away from step one, what happens is I forget about my first step experience because I've gotten wrinkles out of my belly. Everyone in a A knows me. I've made a few amends. I'm starting to feel good

and I get attached to my emotions.

Gotta feel good all the time. Go to meetings that make me feel good. Hang around at people and make me feel good. Go out with them because they make me feel good. And I sought to worship my emotions rather than a power that's keeping me sober all along. And I've moved further away from step one,

see if I'm still suiting up and showing up and willing to go to any lengths and seeking his power with the desperation of a drowning man. And I, and I'm still touching step one through this work which will move me from step to step to step as I move through step nine. I'm real as I get to make this amends because without the spiritual basis of life I'm living in or else. And I get driven further into step one with no power, choice or control. And I need power,

need to do this, get to do this.

Moving away from step one is really

displayed. It will be manifested in our behavior. It'll, it'll show up like, well,

I'll make amends tomorrow. I'll pray when I get around to it. It's only two weeks since I called my sponsor

and I'm not working on anyone, but that's OK because I need some downtime.

You see, That's how it shows up.

And then my thought life is manifested in my current reality and it never looks good.

Re emergence of ego, my ego starts doing the thinking for me. Instead of being moved by God, I'm driven by ego and fear.

Back to what I opened up this morning with is my recovery based on absence or in spirit? And we go from starting off with recovery base and spirit now is just about really just about abstinence in reality, just about absence. There's nothing to do with spirit anymore.

My behavior resembles nothing of that,

and we keep telling everyone I'm willing to go to any lengths, I'm willing to go to any lengths, and I haven't visit any lengths in a very long time,

Right? Really, the depth of my willingness is manifested in all my actions.

What are you doing? How are you doing?

What's it look like

when we get to inventory? Lots of Chris talked about this. We right away get an idea of what this is going to look like. The things I'm going to write these awful things about myself. Why is my sponsor doing this? We start to experience contempt, pride, investigation, cause ego now needs to breathe. It's fighting for its life and it knows if we put pen to paper, there's a really good possibility that ego and different manifestations of self are going to die and it has to fight for its life. And we're pretty upward junkyard to Take Me Out of that. It has to, that's its job.

What I don't know, I fear, and what I fear I dislike

Approaching this four step for the first time. You listen to some of our contemporary A meetings. You're not ready for that yet. That stuff is going to get you drunk. No, you're going to get me drunk. The 4th step will get me recovered

all right.

What I don't know I fear, and what I fear I dislike.

So I generalize, conceptualize, listen to belief systems about the work, about the people in the work.

My sponsor is the greatest guy in the world. He just gave me a fourth step. I need a new sponsor, right?

And I don't know, I fear and what I feared this like. So we show up to this fourth step, step one will move us through it. And one of the things I found I share a personal experience. What happened to me with step four, I was willing to do anything. I showed up to the four step willing to do anything. And I start to write, but I did it without prayer, before writing, without getting still, before writing.

And so I would sit down to write

and not right.

I would sit down to write and say, well, that's not important. I really don't have a resentment with with him or her. And sponsors should know about that one right now. My first fourth step I had right before I got sober, I was literally living in the back of a a filthy hallway on a Lower East Side. I was living on rooftops and abandoned buildings. I mean, I was really in in serious condition And then

little by solely, I start to kind of come around and

I get this apartment, this little studio apartment, one of these joints you got to go outside to change your mind. But there it was right and

was really clean. It smelled nice. It looked good, had my a a bump as thick as on the door. I had a thing of my higher power above the door, my big books. And you know, it was like a little paradise for me coming from where I did. And I approached this 4th step. Now I'm living in a hallway the way I was just short time earlier with roaches and rats. I mean, you got the drill, right? And I go to write this 4th step and suddenly I think, well,

I should vacuum the rug first.

Little lint over there

and they always tell me take care of myself. So I'll vacuum the rug. I didn't have a vacuum clean. I'm, you know, you sweep a rug, what that's all about, right? That took about four days to do.

And so then I sit down tonight and he says, well, wait a minute. This is going to be a long night and people in a, a coffee drinkers. So I'm going to be a relay. I make myself a pot of coffee and I just be like this all night. And then I would say, well, it's going to be a long night. So I should eat a little make eat something, make a little sandwich. So I make a sandwich. Well, now I need to digest my food before I write this inventory, right? And then I fall asleep,

and the next day would start again, without prayer, without getting silent, using me to write the inventory right. I would go through that justification and rationalization and never get anything done. I write a little bit, get tired to close the book

and I start to get sick. And I went to my first sponsor and I clean up the language a little bit.

But he reminded me of going to God and everything goes through God and without God's power, I'm getting drunk.

And so he sat me down and I had to write a prayer. He showed me how to write a prayer across the page, and it's very simple prayer.

Father, thank you for the powerful allowing me to be searching, fearless, immoral.

My next instruction was to pray.

Pray before I write. Turn into God for the power to write this inventory, because that's who's writing the inventory. My pen is a spiritual translator,

and you know how that happens when you're writing inventory. Go where this come from. I forgot all about that. And when you don't want to write it, it's writing

searching fools or moral God's given me great power and what my heavenly Father is doing is saying, listen, you turn everything over to me to get free. I'm going to give you the obstacles that are blocking you from experience, all of me. So here it is. This is what's in your way. This is what you've accumulated Anything we that shows up within inventory and Step 4 inventory, I don't care what it is, is coming from the creator, therefore good because it's stuff that's going to get us free.

The pen is the spiritual translator. Father, show me how to get free from this thing called alcoholism because it's killing me.

I need to experience you. I need your power. OK, Here's what's in the way. These are the obstacles. So when we're writing inventory, we're going to get disturbed. We ought to be disturbed. If we didn't, we'd probably be sociopaths. You know, robbing from Mom and Dad doesn't make anyone feel good. Robbing from our children's Piggy Bank should not make you feel good. Looking at some of the things we did should not be pleasant. It should disturb us. Everything's coming to the surface,

all good, all good, but coming from the Creator.

How do I get free? This is what's in the way to uncover, discover and discard the obstacles in our path,

right And so we pray and I would pray and I would get silent, open up the book and start. And what I did was I would sometimes we go across the column a name cause effects where I was at fault, etcetera. The shifting is gets difficult. So I would write a name list of names, resentments, right? And the first time through the work is changed a little bit since I've gone through the work a few times since then. But the first time was my

my assignment was to we went back through our lives. Our book says

my alcoholism started before my first drink went back through my life and I had stuff on air when I was four and five years old all the way up to my current date. I just list names, mom, dad, you know, grandparents, Uncle Joe. My job was not to figure out at this point. Well, do I have a resentment with them or not? Second column will reveal that to me. As I've gone through the work over the years, I've looked at current inventory to have the book, the work, meet me where I am and list my

sentence. God has given me that much awareness to list my resentments. And there's times when names come to me that I already wrote about.

Put them down again. My job was to not deny or censor the spirit. It comes to me rather than from me. Therefore goes on paper. The pen is the spiritual translator,

and so I'd make a list of names

and the last two names. Every time I wrote inventory, the last two names I put down were self and God. I remember writing God down for the first time. I thought I was going to get swallowed up by the earth, you know,

but it was coming from God. God knows I'm angry with him. Put my name on paper.

It's OK. And so I would write this prayer out, get silent and begin. And you know what? I didn't have to break for coffee. I wasn't concerned about vacuuming the rug or any of that stuff. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote

and I remember I had a bookshelf. This apartment, my first apartment had a sleeping bag for a bed. And when I first moved in, an AA member gave me a sleeping bag and I had my big book and some other books and my bumper stickers and, and, and I even have a phone yet and there was nothing in a place, but I had a, a bookshelf that I made into a desk with an old chair and I'm writing inventory. I was in paradise.

I didn't care to look at the things that was coming out, but there was something a connection and I didn't

knew something was happening then. But looking back on and I can see how real that was.

I remember I had a looking out this little pomp and window and looking at the little don't know how to room with the view. Like I had a little tip of the Verrazano Bridge is why I'm living high on a hog now. There's the Verrazano Bridge if you look closely, you know,

and each night I would write inventory and write inventory and write inventory. And then when I got done for the night, the spirit will move us so long we know we're done. close the book and give thanks. So I put that away. No need to walk around with that.

My 4th step ought to be disturbing in order to shake me up, to wake me up a little bit, but it's all good.

What I found, what

part of what the 4th step will allow me to do is get unhooked from me,

kind of unhooked from self for a moment to take a view our books as we're prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. So here I am in this maze of resentment and fear and everything, and my book allows me to kind of like take a different view, look at my life at a completely different angle. Why? Because I get unhooked from self for a moment.

It's the 1st shift in perceptions that we really get to experience in writing inventory through all of this. It's kind of like walking down a Manhattan St. in rush hour Times Square trying to go from like 40 2nd St. to 50th St. You're trying to make your way through. Or if you're in a traffic jam, you're trying to make your way through. Where do all the traffic people call the traffic from? Up in helicopters. Because they look at things from an entirely different angle With my life, God kind of lifted me up and say, oh, I see how things have been going. I see my patterns. I see

they reacted the way they did. I see my condition to sick spiritual condition. God allows me to do that with a pen, a paper, and a big book.

The Age of Miracles are certainly with us.

Just the idea of getting an alcoholic to sit down and write and take our own inventory is a huge miracle

because most people out there, like me, are pointing at you because it's your fault that I'm in this condition and my book switches it around completely.

The other thing I found out about writing inventory, and I wasn't aware of this the first time. It was about the third or fourth time going through the work that it was Some new teachers were put in my path and they showed me what really goes on. In this fourth step.

We have a resentment column, all the names of the second column of 'cause we don't write a story,

resentment with Joe, 'cause he snubbed me out a meeting. Resentment. My wife, she always burns dinner.

Resentment. Mom, she was an alcoholic,

OK,

to the point, not resentment. Mom, she's really a good person. I remember one time she took me to the park and I really felt bad for her, but she was a fall down drunk and I didn't want anyone to know. I've gotten second columns like that, which is long things and what happens is we turn, I become more right and you become more wrong when we do that stuff right. So to the point the cause why I'm angry the guy in column one or the woman in column one come to the third column

get some areas of self were talking about here. Pride

how I think others value me. No one should see me this way.

No one should know my mom was an alcoholic. No one should see me with an alcoholic mom. You know why? You'll think less of me if you think less of me. You won't like me if you don't like me. You'll go away if you go away. I'll be alone if I go. If I'm all alone, Oh my God. I feel like I'm going to die. So now I need you around. I need your approval. I get to see my attachment to you and opinions of others.

I get to see by writing inventory how I'm playing God in basically every area of my life. I'm trying to control and manipulate everyone so I could feel good in here. So I feel whole in here, connected and one with God in here. Now that's not the actual thinking process, but that's exactly what's going on. I assign you a role. I assign you a role. I sign you roll. I sign God role. I give me a role. Now everyone go play nice.

Well, you should have said it a little different. Now I'm angry with you. How could you do that to me? You should have been quicker. What's wrong with you?

And when I'm collision with everyone,

everything everything would a pulse Amin collision. Because I'm trying to control and manage.

I write out this third column probably personal relationships, what I think this relationship should look like.

We should be loving and supportive and caring of each other, How I think this relationship should look. And I'm in conflict with you, so it doesn't resemble what my mind says it should look like.

By the way, you're wrong and I'm right.

Not really. I'm only kidding. That's a joke.

Self esteem, How I see you feel about myself.

Here's what was pointed out to me again about the third or fourth time going to the work

high self esteem, low self esteem. My most of my inventory is self esteem. I'm a loser. I don't deserve anything good. I deserve everything bad. And the story call it a day and my current sponsor show. Is it possible it's high self esteem? I'm a step worker. I'm how I see or feel about myself, right? Not necessarily what truth is I'm a step worker. I'm a spiritual person, I'm caring, I'm supportive. If I see me that way,

then how could you possibly harm me?

How could you act anything less than that towards me if I'm so wonderful towards you? It's a setup for a resentment

security, my motion security, what I need to be OK. I need you to do exactly what I think you should be doing all the time.

How could you disappoint me? How could you do that? How could you say that? You know, if you know relationship, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How could you do that? I would just say that. Don't you know better? You know it goes on and on and on. Why did you say that to him? For

I'm playing God, giving you a role, giving you a role. So I feel OK. It's really all about me,

my ambition, my goal, what I want, what I want. How is any of this stuff hurt, interfered or threatened? How's my ambition? Threatened me a few times and I was placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.

Couple times I got a little uncomfortable

first few times Father moved me through this and I I'm no longer feeling dirty

or without dignity.

Miracle.

So I know my God loves me.

I write out my 4 columns and what I get to see and I found this around third or fourth time going through the work

one of my teachers showed me was

when we look at what we've done in column four, us on paper holding a mirror up to us. This is me. Manifestations of self causes me to be in collision with everyone. It has nothing to do with the person in column one. The more you notice every time you write inventory you have a list of names and causes. They just change in seats.

Angry with Joe today, Frank tomorrow. He didn't do this, he didn't do that. It's always going to be there. It really is. What's going on with me. So what was pointed out to me has nothing to do with those people. It comes down to a couple of things. The 1st 3 columns really are a lie. But I need to get there to find that out.

I need to do all that work to find out. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with me and I'm angry with God. That's where the funnels into I'm angry with me and I'm angry with God. And for my own personal experience, if I dumped every fourth step I've done into a funnel, one word comes out of the whole thing. Fear. Fear the evil and corroding threat. Fear.

Fear in every area of my life. That's why I resent you. You didn't do what I wanted. You said something that offended me. Why people can think less of me. You didn't do what I wanted. I'm losing power, choice and control. Fear. Fear over and over and over and over and over again. Riddled with fear, driven by fear. And it don't stop until it's ready.

My choice in here is to be driven by fear or move by this power

and I would write out the sex inventory and I write out the when I was doing the resentment inventory, the sex inventory, a fear inventory list of fear. Why had it self-reliance fail me? How did I set the ball rolling right? Usually going back to the thinking mind and listening to that right

fear of getting attached to an outcome.

And as I'm writing this, I'm little by slowly becoming more and more and more unhooked from me.

I get to see very clearly what's going on. I get to watch me on paper, and I come to step five. And the first time I went through the work, my sponsor, I thought invented Alcoholics Anonymous.

I, I mean, this guy was it my first sponsor in AA. And he, he, the best way to describe this guy is remember to show Taxi. Remember the character Danny DeVito played? That was my first sponsor.

His method, the Methodist madness, was to pull no punches. And he would use every earthy word he could to make his point. And what I, what I've shared sometimes with guys I work with is what one of the lessons he told me. I will not let your illness interfere in me talking to you. And I will do anything to cut it out. And if it involves ugly language, I'm going to use it. That's what he did not care. And if you got angry with me, tough. Go work with somebody else. You asked me to sponsor you. You know what I'm about. Gentleman was asking me before

getting people taking them to the work, they've got to go through the steps. They don't want to go through the steps. They knew what they wanted when they showed up to your door. They're not doing the work next

and that's what this guy did.

I got to show up to his door at my fifth step and I had like 4 spiral notebooks.

He thought a lunacy Commission should be appointed for me but I remember on the way there I'm thinking I can't share all this work with this guy. I have a sex inventory in here.

This is not good. And who is this guy anyway?

Now

I wish you guys knew my dad because my daddy's voice start talking to me instead of God. You know this guy,

You know who's vouching for him, You know I.

And I was suddenly went from God to Goodfellas in about two minutes

and.

And I hit my knees and I prayed, Father, what do I do? And I showed up to this guy's door and I began. And here's the love of God. One drunk work with another. How? When we hear those of us who have heard fifth steps, we take the time to listen

and we know how intimate and tender that is. Whether we have to bark occasionally, pull the covers occasionally, or just be gentle occasionally, we sit and we work and we know what that drunk is feeling and we listen and we instruct and we teach the love of God. And I sat down next to this guy and my current sponsors done it with me and I just do more. More fifth steps down, multiple fifth steps.

And not once that any of my teachers and Alcoholics Anonymous judge me like, wow.

Well, that's a wrap for today, Pete. You know

none of that.

They listen. They even anteed up about this is what happened to me, very similar.

You know, the stuff that happened to me was a kid. One of my teachers says it is what happened to me,

This is how I move through it. It's OK, You know, the weight came off the shoulders. I wasn't so inferior. I felt less dirty. OK, somebody else. No, I didn't notice about him. Now I notice about him and we met. See, the neat thing about the 5th step is we get to give away some compassion and love,

whether compassion is hey Danny, you're full of baloney, take a look at this, you're protecting ego or I understand and I'm going to walk you through that compassion.

Great stuff in Step 5.

The neat thing about in Chapter 6 with step five, it says, umm, we've been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our created to discover, discover the obstacles in our path. We have admitted certain defects and have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is. We put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. These are about to be cast out now. A lot of our meetings talk about working on my defects.

I heard one guy. I had to be nice because we're having dinner together,

he says. I embrace my defects.

I'm trying to imagine what that looks like when you're alone with your defects and say, come on, defects, let's go have a healthy relationship, right?

We're not going to work on them. We're not going to deal with them or require that or implies self-reliance. They're going to be cast out like bad garbage. We don't let garbage sit in our kitchen for a month to see what happens

right out

goes out to be replaced by really what's already there, the Spirit of God.

On page 72 it says,

almost towards the bottom it says we will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first, if I skip this vital step, I may not overcome drinking. And what our book does is make sure we don't get too far away from step one, because it takes us right back to step one with that statement

and off we go. And what I do with people when they're working with me is I'll do some meditation and prayer before they show up. And I'll read some of this chapter 6 to them that I understand why they're here and what they're about to do. And I'm honored that they picked me, sponsor or not.

And then they begin

when I hear a fifth step. What I have in front of me is a notepad in a pen. And I let the prospects no pay no attention to that

because the way God's going to move you through this after we make some prayer together, God's also going to move me.

And I have no idea what's going to come up, but I get organized and prepared with a pen and paper and I start to hear

and we heard this before. There it is again.

This will enhance the experience and allow that person to see things clearer for six and seven when they're quiet for an hour after five. Oh, we talked about this way back with mom. Now we're like 20 years later. You see this, the thread running through all of this and I have it in front of me.

I'll listen to what they're not telling me. See I'm present at that moment after my after my practice to be of service to them. It's a huge responsibility. What are they not telling me as they're reading to me? I even go so far is I'm going to watch the shift in our body language and when we start talking about some things.

Let's go to section inventory.

My first sex inventory, all my inventory was written in block letters. This Big Joe, he did this to me. Sex inventory needed magnifying glass to read it.

I watched that.

I'm the teacher now. I need to work with them through that. And we sit and listen, and when we're all done, I'll talk about some of the things that came to me, some of the things that reveal to them. And then we have an experience like this.

Working with the guy. Just never happened to me since. Never happened before. But I'm working with this one guy, and I'm battling ego for the entire 4th step.

Get to the 4th column. Yeah, but let me explain. Get to the first column. I'm mad at Joe. Let me explain about this second column. Let me tell you. Let me tell you what happened.

You know we get that. Let me explain, right? It's really his fault. I

and over and over and over again and I'm like, I'm kind of getting to the edge of end of my rope and I says, listen, Joe, let's take a break. I go in the bathroom, I throw cold water on my face and God, what do I do with this? I'm, I'm stuck. I can't get past this guy's ego.

Sit down at the living dining room table and I still don't know what's going to happen. And what comes out of my mouth is this.

Joe, all I want you to do is start reading to me. The 4th column

looked at me like deer in the headlights. Like what?

Loved the sound of his voice. So he wanted to read everything right? I just know I want you to read just the 4th column, fourth column, fourth column only. And he started reading the 4th column, flip the page, 4th column, flip the page, 4th column, flip the page over and over and over again. And then something happened. I knew those words came from God, not from me. Because what happened to this guy? The guys ego split right in front of me. And what came out was this this new person.

My words do an injustice to this experience, but I saw something happen to this guy right at my table.

He got it. He was waking. He was waking up right in front of Maine. I mean, this is great stuff. And he began to read the rest of the work. This guy has not looked the same or sounded the same since. And he was a guy who would find every single loophole in this book. Sponsors many today, works with a lot of people.

Happened right in my right in my house. The words that God gave me,

some of the considerations, it says on page 75.

We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twisted character, every doc cranny of the past. We stop there. That's the first half of the fifth step,

and then we start to read. When we're done, we have our fifth step promises. Once having taken the step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. I can look the world in the eye.

I can be alone at perfect peace and ease. How's that looking?

My fears fall from me. I begin to feel the nearness of my Creator. Where I may have had certain spiritual beliefs, I now began to have a spiritual experience. And it may be the infancy of the spiritual experience, but it's there nonetheless. My own personal experience was that these fifth step promises didn't I didn't wake up to them or experience them until six and seven. And certainly into nine they weren't immediate. When I got done with my fist up, I was just, it's over.

There was a sense of relief. I didn't know it was really liberation I was experiencing.

It's we feel that the drink problem has disappeared and that will often come strongly. We feel well on the broad high. We walk in hand in hand with the spirit of universe. And when I get home, he says I find a place where it can be quiet for now and the only time my book tells me to rest

and the resting is no rest

because I'm going to review the 1st 5 proposals.

If I try to skip sneak something through the archway, am I really clear on my first five proposals? And my fifth step that I try to sneak something through that no one's going to know about. They ask me some questions and what I did I always like to read these is I broke this down

it asked me to read the 1st 5 proposals. Am I clear on step 1234? Been clear in step with Step 5.

Do I believe on palace over alcohol my life is unmanageable? Do I believe I have no power, choice or control before the 1st drink and after the first drink? Do I believe I cannot manage my own life? Do I believe my mind will take me back to a drink or anything that's killing me?

Do I believe that my body is quite as abnormal as my mind? That my body will experience a phenomenon called craving if I pick up a drink, right?

Do I believe I was still experienced a strange mental blank spots without a spiritual revolution? Step 2:00 AM I still willing to accept spiritual help? And if not, no, I will experience the bitter end.

Am I willing to have God restore me to sanity? Am I still in that place of willingness like I was in step one, down in Step 5 here, ready to move into 6789?

Do I believe God can and will relieve you of my alcoholism?

Am I willing to believe in or do whatever this power directs me to do?

Am I still convinced that my life on on self will can hardly be a success? Step 3:00 AM I willing to quit playing God in every area of my life?

Am I clear that turning my will in life over the care of God means that my life is no longer any of my business?

What an order can't go through with it.

And Step 4, have have I been thorough or have I tried to sneak something through the archway like God's not going to know?

They give us some questions on the bottom of 75 going into 70, page 76, into step six and seven. They ask us some questions, a lot of analogies about the cement in the mortar building, this archway,

and we answer these questions. And here's the shift on page 76 with regards to those questions. It says if we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at step six. It doesn't tell me what does your sponsor think about this? What does your Home group think about this? How do you feel about answering these questions? How do I feel? Can I answer them to my own satisfaction that I haven't skipped on the cement, I haven't skipped on the foundation, I haven't skipped on the ingredients

in this archway? There's the shift. They're saying, OK, what do you think? We're waking up

and if I can answer those questions satisfactory, it tells my move into step six. One of the assignments I've done each and every time with step 6 is get a list of these defects that were revealed to me in Step 5 and write them down

and I list the opposites. Dishonesty, honesty, suspicion, trust, jealousy, trust, hate, love.

Right. And what I would simply do is make an offering, a humble offering to my Heavenly Father. Father, this is what was revealed to me.

All the stuff that's been blocking me.

Thank you for the opposites. Knowing full well that there are things in there that God is just going to tweak. There's things in there God is going to completely remove, but as a child, Ioffer this up and let Him do with what what he thinks he needs to do or just a humble offering. That for me is truly the humility in this step is Father, this is what's revealed to me. I know I'm not perfect, but Ioffer this to you and you do what you want. My hands are off off the steering wheel.

Lots of times in our meetings I'll hear this with six and seven.

While defects a character, I'll always have defects of character. I'll never be perfect. I'll always be imperfect. Or perhaps,

but are you telling me that I can't say

that if God wanted to come down this afternoon and tap one of us on the head and say from here on out you are going to be perfect, that that's not possible?

I have to answer yes, if God is everything, because if I say no, that's impossible. Have I just limited God's power? And I'm using I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm putting God in a box. I'm judging God based on all my knowledge and all my experiences, which amounts to a grain of sand on the beach.

If God's all loving, all powerful, if God's everything, then is it possible that one of us could go out from here being totally perfect until we go home to the Lord? I have to say yes to that. That kind of sets up how powerful this God is.

Six and seven overtime has become my first step for life. It's what what's what's left of the of the of the of the wreckage. All the defects of character that manifest in my life have caused a lot of my my dilemma.

Leaving the drink question aside, this is me, my defects.

It was my first step. It was a surrender to what's left. This is my life. I surrendered out once again

and Ioffer that to God. Do with me as you will, my first step for life

and we leave the results here to God. Well, if you're going to take my.

Grow up in certain areas.

Don't talk too much, don't say too much. A little dishonesty is good.

Even though you're going home, tell Joe you're going there because he may follow your home and rip you off. A little dishonesty is good. Little dishonesty in a relationship with her is good.

I mean these are things I was brought up with right? One having collision of my relationships. Never be totally honest with anyone, right?

And Ioffer this to God,

fear kicks in saying, wait a minute, you have to be a little dishonest. You have to be a little manipulative. What's this going to look like when I get to the other side? Oh my God, you're going to remove all my dishonesty. I'm going to be completely honest. What an order. I can't go through with it. And all we need to do is know this. We suit up and show up to the altar with a spirit of willingness. And God will do the changing, God will do the growing. And God will nurture me every way. And wherever I land, it'll be perfect. A farmer does the planting, God does the growing. A doctor does the surgery.

God does the healing. I shoot up and show because of my circumstances in step one. Father, Ioffer this to you wherever I land. I don't know, but I know it's going to be glorious. Take me. Take me in the condition I am,

I'm scared to death right now, but it's got to be better than where I was. And I had that experience a few a few years ago. Going through the work again, I get to step 6:00 and 7:00