The topic of Sex harms and Harms done to others at the 10th Fellowship of the Spirit, NY at the Graymoor Spiritual Retreat Center in Garrison, NY

Hit it. You bet about 15 minutes on this and then I'll just pick it up and do 15 and we'll do 15 a piece on 5-6 and seven. See if we can wrap those.

Going to get some more battled water. Do you guys want sodas or anything while we're at diet soda? What kind? Diet Pepsi or Coke? And how about you?

My name is Bob Darrow and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Bob.

Well, now we're going to do sex right here in this room.

Happy you woke up. The other half wanted to run.

Bottom of page 68 starts the section on 6. It says now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there, but above all, we tried to be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the track here. We find human opinions running to extremes, absurd extremes. Perhaps one set of voices

cries that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex, who bewail the institution of marriage, who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that it isn't the right kind. What does that mean? I want pictures. They see its significance everywhere.

You said you'd be good. I know one school would allow man no flavor for his fair and the other would have us all on a straight

pepper diet, cayenne pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy.

This is a controversy that's been going on and cycling through our our society for for centuries. If you track that, if you if you were to do if you were to track sexual morals in society over the last several centuries, you'd see it goes from 1 extreme to another. I mean, if, if any of any of you were little kids or even remember from watching Nick at night, that the, the sexual

morals of the 50s, I mean,

TV shows didn't even have bedrooms. I mean, it was like, I mean, there was like, whoa, it was oh, or even the first ones with bedrooms, they had separate beds, right? It was like, and then what happened? The first couple shown in bed together on television was The Flintstones.

That's right. There had to be a cartoon,

right? And then what it would follow that would follow that that dig the 60s where my God, it was free love, or at least it was reasonably priced or so you know, I was like, I mean, it was like where there were orgies and lovings. And I mean, I mean, even the most pathetic of us had a chance in those days.

And then we, we just, it's society is cycled like that through Lizabeth. And I mean, just, it's cycled like that from 1 extreme to the other. And why would why would the pendulum go like that? Because neither neither extreme really works.

People get hurt in both ends,

the book goes on to say. We're not to be the arbiter. We must not be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We're not going to. When this isn't about sex, we're not. We don't even have an opinion of where you are in the spectrum of sexuality. It doesn't matter. The inventory we're about to engage in is not about sex. It's about exactly what it said it was about in the beginning. We're looking for the manifestations of self which had defeated us.

It's about selfishness. It's about inconsideration. It's about manipulation through arousing jealousy, suspicion, bitterness. It's about this honesty.

It's about all of that.

We don't want to be the arbiter of anyone sex conduct. And that's, that's good news to some of us. Most of us. I think, you know, I've talked to a lot of people over the years. I've heard a lot of fifth steps. And I'll tell you something that's I think is, is amazing. And no matter where you were in, in the scope of sexuality as far as frequency, et cetera, no matter how bizarre you were, whatever,

everybody on this on the spectrum feels bad about themselves.

The people who were so locked up sexually that there only had two people on their whole sexual entering, they had to be drunk in both cases felt there was something wrong with them. And the person had had 400 names, felt there was something wrong with them too.

Whether you no matter where you were, we all come in here with a feeling that we're not quite right, a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling of not enoughness. I live in a city

with a a a billion dollar plastic surgery industry that feeds off of people who tell themselves a lie and the lie is as is God made. You ain't enough.

And the more you believe that lion feed it, the stronger gets.

I I know, I know a woman in California, good gal. She's had 27 plastic surgeries, everyone. And she, she got to the point at one point she looked like a model in a magazine. Then she she went so far past that she started looking a little odd, actually almost cartoonish after a while.

But it was never enough. It was never ever. She could never look in the mirror and and be comfortable with what she saw, no matter how gorgeous she looked.

And the problem was not in reality. The problem was is in here.

So we don't want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We have everything in Alcoholics Anonymous that is exists in society, that's existed for every, for every nation on earth. We and every from the beginning of time we have, we have heterosexuals, we have homosexuals, we have bisexuals, We have, I have a friend who says he's a quattrosexual. I said, what's that? He says all. I'd have done anything with anyone at any time for 1/4

right

transsex. We have everything in alcohol, everything that there is. We have an alcoholic sinus and we're not the arbiter of anyones sex conduct,

but we try to be the arbiter of your spirit. There's an old there's an old adage about recovery

is, is that we must become right with ourselves.

Whatever that, whatever you find as you clear away, everything that's not you is what you're left with. And you have to be right with that, whatever that may be,

whatever that may be.

We all have sex problems.

That's really true. I know some guys, I run into guys every once in a while, they're new and they they want to tell me about their how oversexed they were. My friend Charlie says it. Bessie says you're not oversexed, you're under secure.

We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about them? Well, here's what we do and we're making a list again, just like we did. I, I believe I'm a list guy. It says reviewed our conduct over the years past. So I was instructed and I and I tell my guys that I sponsor you, make a list of all interactions where there's sexual energy. Even if the sexual act isn't actually consummated, if it is aroused that deal in you,

you want to see how self centeredness manifests itself when those instincts are aroused.

And in the 12 by 12, it talks about the three basic instincts, the 3S S, the instinct for security,

both both emotional and material, the instinct for sex and the instinct for a place in society. In other words, how what we think other people think of us, we want to feel comfortable with our place in society and in the sexual arena. It's the one area where all three of those instincts can be threatened severely, especially in a long term relationship. You're in a long term relationship, a marriage, especially if it's a Community property. State

your Your material security is in danger.

Your emotional security is in danger,

your position and society is in danger because I don't know anybody that wants to go back to their family or Home group or church or anywhere where they have the friends and have to tell their friends that I failed again at another one, right? I don't know anybody. And then your sex is is threatened. So because of that, I think that there's more self-centered angst

in the sexual arena than any other arena. That's why it makes some of us so crazy. If I get a phone call from a guy at 4:00 AM and he's thinking about drinking or sticking a pistol in his mouth or in somebody else's head, it's usually because of a sexual relationship that's gone sideways on him.

It makes him insane. Because all three. Because the the greater the self-centered fear, the greater the insanity,

right? And it's the one area where you can have self-centered fear because all of your instincts can be threatened.

And So what do we do? It says we list those relationships. And I ask myself these questions. Where had I been selfish?

Well, when you do that through your whole life in every relationship, man, it's just, it's just it's stance starts. You start man, every single time is that the truth was even though I dressed it up and I could be so loving and attentive and all this other crap, the real truth was it was all about me.

I could act loving in other centered and altruistic, but the real truth was I want something. I want your love, I want your attention, I want your I want to get laid. I want don't. I don't want and I want not to be alone. I want companionship.

It's all about me. And I realized, I looked back through and I thought, Oh my God, I'm such a me first person

selfishness, self centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles. And the second question, dishonesty, I, I found that most problems in this arena come from dishonesty. And it's, it's often a delusional dishonesty where we don't even get that we're being dishonest. It's that we, we, we try to write checks we can't cash. It's a psychotic wishful thinking.

I'm really, it's really not this way, but God, I wanted to be this way so badly. I imagine it is

when it's not

right. I think I run into guys all the time and I think there's a little bit of this in everybody. Everyone of us, this hole inside of us. We misinterpret what happens when you take the alcohol and drugs out of your life and your two years sober and you haven't worked the steps and you got this big vacancy. It starts looking a little bit easily like a relationship shaped hole,

right, Doesn't it? You start thinking, you know what? What's what's missing?

When you get that, all of a sudden you start looking around your Home group,

looking around the gym, looking around work,

driven by self.

It's really a God shaped hole.

You know how you know that? Because you can try to fill it with an endless series of people and it never gets full.

It's always the same thing over and over and over again. I heard a guy years ago say something I thought was very true. He says you can't. You have no hope of having a healthy relationship until you no longer need one,

all right? If all you're bringing to the table is vacancy, then that's all you're bringing to the table.

Relationships are for whole people. They're not. You can't make a whole person with two crippled children.

You can't do. I mean, it's it's a nice dance, but

it doesn't work.

I'd say a couple kind of types of dishonesty. I heard this many, many years ago, this story about this guy and this gal both got sober around the same time and their sponsors had both told them not to be sexually involved with anybody for a year. Some of you going to find this hard to believe they actually did that.

But by the time the year came, they were kind of over ready, you know what I mean? And and for the last two months they've been making cow eyes at each other across the Home group. You know how you you've seen that in a you see it in a, you know, in one day at the coffee bar, at the break in the speaker meeting, they, they bump into each other and go into heat. You can get a suntan stand around somebody like that, you know,

and you know, they go into that, they start dating and they're in that infatuation stage

relationship. It's like you took some amazing drug, man. It's like you ever know when you're in that infatuation, the skies bluer than it's ever been. Oh, she's so brilliant and funny and lifes God really loves me Now. You know, it's it's Greer nuts. You should be should be locked up, man. I mean, you're crazy. It's but it's a wonderful drug man, I'm telling you. And they're in that infatuation station one weekend, one Saturday afternoon. He says to. He says, sweetheart,

what are you doing tomorrow afternoon? She goes, oh, I don't know, what are you doing? He says, well, the big football games on, I don't know if you like football, but if you come over, watch the football game with me, I thought if you like that, would you like to do that? She says, oh, I'd love that. Yes.

Well, she hates football, the truth is. But at that stage in their relationship, she'd have gone to a rock fight with this guy. I'm I'm, I mean, and been glad to get hit with stones. You know,

he loves me, you know.

Well, let me say I'm not just guys are worse. So if you think I'm tired of women, guys are worse. I'll get to that in a minute.

So

so they eventually end up living together and are engaged to be married and everything's wonderful. And 1A year later Sunday morning, she says to him, she says, I want you to come to the mall this afternoon with me. We got to get pick some stuff out for the place. And and he says, oh, sweetheart, not this afternoon. The big game's on. I thought we'd sit in the sofa. I'll make some popcorn, watch the game. And she flips out. She starts yelling at him. I hate that football.

And he's looking at her like, who are you?

What did aliens steal? My girlfriend? I mean, who are you? And she never set out to to lie to him. We don't lie because we're liars. We lie because we're afraid. We we write checks we can't cash, hoping that maybe it would be true. Guys are worse. There's a time, oh God, there's a time in a relationship between a man and a woman where they've been dating a while and they haven't slept with each other. And then that night comes,

you know, feel it in the air, you know it's gonna happen. And there's a there's a point about

a minute out from the consummation of the sexual act where a woman can stop a guy and say, sweetheart, before we go any further, do you really, really love me and want to spend the rest of your life with me? And the guy will go, he's like the like the Alpo, like the Alpo dog on the commercial that they haven't fed in a week, you know, like,

and you can put him on a lie detector deal. What he's saying yes, it'll say he's telling the truth

Square business. I have a friend who that he who's in that spot in a day or two later, she pulls up to his place pulling a U-Haul. She got rid of her apartment, packed her stuff up and he's looking at the U-Haul going what? What's that? He said? But you said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me.

And he's going oh, yeah, I did, didn't I? Oh, man, I have a friend who's he doesn't, he doesn't go to AA anymore. He's but he's very involved in another 12 step program and he tells his sponsees, look, you can, you can sleep with him. Just don't talk to him because you're going to probably lie

and what is what do? Where does this come from? It comes from this self-centered fear, this fear of not being loved. The fear, I I just like fears and resentments.

These are judgments that I must try to dismantle, that are part of this ego that has told me things, that are part of my old ideas, that told me things like as you are, you're not enough.

Nobody's gonna love you as is. So what happens is you have to write checks, you can't cash.

You have to be something more than what you are.

I know a gal and a guy that fell in love and they were engaged to be married. Before they got married, they had the money talk, a very, very important talk where you talk about finances and debt and everything. And the guy asked her, do you have ever had a bankruptcy? And she says, Oh, no,

she was working on her second one. Matter of fact, if she didn't marry this guy, she was going to be in one pretty quick because her credit cards were maxed out. He said, do you have any credit card debt? She says, oh, no, I don't believe in carrying a balance on my credit cards. Because she had heard him talk to his sponsees and tell him about how you don't carry a balance. That's a that's a sucker bet. You always pay things off right away. You can't, if you're in a, a, you can't go bankrupt because you're, you're using a technicality to beat somebody out of something. You're spiritually bound to make

that right. And so why did she say all that? Because she believed in old lie. And the lie was if he really knew these things about me that aren't right, he probably won't love me. The problem is, is that they, they got married and of course all of that stuff comes to the surface. Of course it does. You've, you're financially mixed yourself with someone. Eventually it comes to the surface. And now it's it's it's eroding the foundation of the relationship.

And when the relationship fell apart, her ego said, see, you were right. When he found out about your imperfections, he didn't love you. And that's not the deal. That was her mistake. She mistooking the truth from it. The truth was if she would have, I know this guy, if she would have said to him, sweetheart, I'm I'm I've screwed my life up financially. My credit cards are maxed out. I believe he would have said.

OK, I love you. We're going to work with this. I think I'll handle the money, but we're going to work with this.

And she could have. She was this close to finding out. The sweetest thing she could have ever found out is someone would actually love her as is. But her ego told her the lie and she believed it. And when when the marriage fell apart, see, the ego said, see, when he did find out about you, see, And that wasn't the truth.

And how much we reinforce that stuff in ourselves over and over again.

I want to go for a few. I'll tell you for a minute. Trust is a yes or no question.

Working with a guy right now who has done some financial things that he hid from his wife and then he finally had to admit it and now she thinks he's having an affair. He's not He's not, but she has no reason to trust him. I don't trust you in all these categories, but not in that one. Trust is a yes or no question. Before I go on, I want to put in a plug for I don't know what happens at this particular retreat, but you don't want to miss my wife's talk tonight. If you're not in Al Anon, don't miss it. Anyway, she's got some fabulous stuff.

The other thing is, I want to remind you that we're going to start tomorrow morning at 8:30, not 9:00 as the schedule says, because if I don't write this stuff down, it don't happen for me either. A couple of pieces here. Strangely enough,

I went to my mentor and I said this thing about we don't want to be the arbiter of anyone sex conduct. I said help me with that. What do you do with a new guy? He said, well, if he's, if he's married, pretty clear if he's single. This is what I say to him. I'm going to ask you to leave the women alone until I get you all the way through the 12 steps. There are two reasons for that. The first one is that I want your time and energy on this step work.

The second one is as sick as you are healthy women generally run screaming from guys like you.

Now you may currently have one fooled that does happen, but generally they run screaming from guys like you. If I can get you through these 12 steps, one of the things that happens is we get you healthy, put you in a position to have a chance to attract a healthy female. It's one of the side effects. But our, our, our old friend Keith used to say that two newcomers dating us like having two ticks and no dog. They just suck at each other dry. And I, I think that's just about right.

And

two Dicks. Yeah. And and I really took that from my teacher and I said, you know, that makes perfect sense to me. So I present that to the new guy. And I said, now you can choose to this is some more from him. You can choose to ignore my, my recommendation in this category. And I won't, I won't drop you as a sponsee for doing that, but don't bring me the problems you create for yourself in this category. I've always already told you what I think you need to do. See. And that solves my problem,

right? And then the truth is I'll handle the first one with him

and pointed all of these facts. And then after that, you know, I really don't want to hear it. I've already told you, you want to keep, you know, the first rule of holds. It's when you're in one quit digging. If he can't quit digging, I can't help him in a category anyway. What I like to do is like he said, a column inventory. It just says we got this down on paper and looked at don't tell us how I like to use whom had we heard for a first first column works pretty good. So obviously just thought it's inconsiderate.

Last column is where were we at fault? What should we have done instead?

And I'm going to share mine with you for a single reason, as there may be people in here will die if I don't. Part of what happened for me in this process is I became comfortable enough of my past in God's hands for him to use it. And part of what keeps it clean and and and light and airy instead of having the stench it used to have as my willingness for him to use it. So I'm going to share this with you. My last column only has three entries and it says I should have told her the truth.

Or it says I should have left her alone. It says I should have told him no. That's what it says. I had my last homosexual experience when I was 19 years old,

raging heterosexual. I never liked it. My father had beaten me down South hard psychologically that I was unable to tell anybody no for any reason for anything. I was 19 when I was able to do that. I'm not attacking homosexuals. I sponsor a homosexual guy who the worst thing he ever did was try to have a heterosexual relationship. OK, I understand that, but that's just how it was for me. I have a therapist friend who says somewhere around 50 or 60% of adult heterosexual males have had a homosexual experience of some kind.

Bob and I have compared notes. We believe between us we've heard around 300 footsteps. We think the numbers in the 90s. We spoke with a lady friend of ours who sober over 40 years and we asked her about women in the 5th step she'd heard. She said it's around 80%. So if that's the one that's eaten one of you guys come talk to me, I'd be more than happy to talk to you. That's usually the one they can't dump in step five. It's the one that's killing you. Do you observe me that I don't change any when I shared all that stuff with you?

Can you see that there's no weight on that for me anymore? I believe that's available to everybody, not just that particular instance, but whatever it is, whatever it is, that that's what this thing is about is a new freedom. The old freedom was four shots of tequila. This is a new freedom. It has to be new and I have to do other things to get it. And then it tells us in this next paragraph, why are we doing all this? It's just the shape of sane and sound ideal for our future sex life.

Was it selfish or not? And

and says we ask God, Oh my goodness, we're going to talk to God about sex. Well, I have news he's the one that invented it.

Do you ever think about that? Nice job. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that. I really do. And so I'm going to talk to him about my ideal. And so I asked this guy I'm sponsored talk to God about your ideal, and I want you to write it down. The ideal, by the way, does not have to do with her dress size or the color of her hair. It has to do with your behavior

given your current set of circumstances today. For example, if you're currently single, we don't need to know what it would be if you were married with temporary, temporarily separated but not legally separated, but you thought she had a boyfriend, but you weren't sure. We don't need that one, Stanley. You're working too hard. Let's get the Today word into this thing. What do you think God wants you to do? Slash. Not do in this category today? Mine is simple. I'm married to a spectacular woman. Miss Linda's supposed to get all of my sex energy,

said Sam. I'm 65 years old. I have some good news for you guys who are afraid you're going to be live to be 65. I have some really good news for you.

But and then I and then I tell a guy. I tell him if you want to read me your sexual, your ideal, I'll be happy to hear it, but I don't require that. But I'll tell you when you're writing it. If you go past about 3 lines, you didn't understand the concept, but let's get it on paper so you really know what it is.

Not to be used lightly or or or despised or loath. And then we're supposed to be willing to grow toward this thing. It's it's OK if I make a couple of mistakes. Actually, not anymore, it's not. But when somebody is new, I think it's OK if they make a couple of mistakes. That's what it says here.

And and we're asking God in meditation what we should do about each specific matter. And here's the willingness again to to make amends if we've done harm. Sounds again like step 8.

On page 70, it says suppose we fall short. That paragraph sums up and what it says very simply is if you're doing things in the sexual arena that are hurting God's kids, you're going to drink. That wasn't maybe. And if I see someone I sponsored doing that, I tell them because that's what it says here. If they continue to do things that are harming people, I can't, I can't help. I can't work with them. If somebody's doing something that's going to take them back to the bar and they won't stop it, I can't help them. They've proven to me I can't help them. That's what I do. I'm not recommending that to anybody.

And then it says to sum up about sex. We're all my goodness, we're praying again for the right ideal for guidance in each questionable situations, for sanity, strength. To do the right thing of sex is very troublesome. We throw ourselves the harder into helping others. Some friends of mine and I as we do our 2 pages, we read 2 pages a day in the big book. We started tracking all the places in the book that reference helping others. We found over 60 so far and that's not in the stories. That's the early Roman numerals through 164. And if you want that list, if you'll e-mail me,

happy to send them to you.

We throw ourselves a heart on helping others think of their needs, work for them takes us out of ourselves and quits imperious urge when the yield would mean heartache. And then this next paragraph is what pilots call a checklist. It says if you, if we've been thorough about our personal inventory, we've written down a lot. If you've written all of the things that we discovered today that are written in step four and you've never done an actual four step before, probably you've written down a lot. Then it says we've listed and analyzed their resentments. We covered that, didn't we? We had a list. We did a lot of analysis.

We covered that. We've begun to comprehend their futility. Futility and their fatality. Yeah. We killed you 7 times under one page. We've commenced to see the terrible destructiveness. We covered that, didn't we? We begun to learn tolerance, patience and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies. We look on them as sick people. We covered that, didn't we? We've listed the people we've hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past We can. We found that at the end of the resentment inventory. We also just found it toward the end of the sexual misconduct inventory. I would propose to you if you've done something that somebody else

to you as a four step and you can't answer yes to all everything in that paragraph, you might try the real four step. I think you will find it to be a life changing experience. It is. It was for me and for the men I've had the privilege of working with where we began to dig the poison out of the soul. There's a tremendous cleansing that comes from laying down those resentments, beginning to outgrow the fears. To step out into the sunlight of the spirit on this sex thing and do it the way it's supposed to be does a whole different ball game.

Whole different thing between making love and getting later different

and I didn't know that.

And then it says in this book you read it again and again. Faith did for us so we could not do for ourselves. We hope you're convinced now that God can remove whatever self well has blocked you off from him. If you've already made a decision, that would be the third step decision we talked about and an inventory of your grocery handicaps. That's what we covered today. You've made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. I studied biology. I know what happens after swallow and digest, right? That stuff's out of here,

and Step 4 is about out of here.

It's about out of here. Powerful, powerful stuff.

We're going to move on. I'm going to start on five.

When do we end? I forget quarter after. OK, we got 30 minutes. You want start on file. Good. OK, we make this up at the brakes.

I said one thing. We really do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a friend of mine says that, look, I don't have an opinion on this. He says that looking for a mate in alcohol exonomous is like shopping in the dented cans section of the grocery store.

You might get a good set of niblets, but you might get Botulism too. We don't know.

Yeah, at my Home group, we say dating before you've actually done the 12 steps is like pouring Miracle Grow on your character defects.

Yeah, it'll just make you absolutely crazy. Moving on to page 70,

at the end of the first paragraph it said this brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery. So there's a, I'm sorry, 72, the 72. That's a reference to the fact that this is our program of recovery again and about four lines from the bottom. The best reason, first, if we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. So that's a reason to do Step 5. Fairly decent one. I think

on page 73, first full paragraph, more than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He's very much the actor to the outer. This is the actor thing. Remember we talked about on the page 60, He wants to run the whole show. Now he wants to run what they think of him. But it's the same actor presents a stage character, the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows that his heart, he doesn't deserve it.

That's my story. Bottom of the page. We must be entire. We know we're skipping a lot of great stuff here. Our mission isn't to cover it all.

It's not our mission

if we expect to live longer happily in this world, and we think well before we choose the person to whom we're going to give this first step. And I think we all know that there aren't any rules in Alcoholics Anonymous. The first one is mentioned here on page 74.

At the bottom of the page you see, the word notwithstanding count up three lines above that. The rule is that we must be hard on ourselves, but always considered of others. I can't do my first step with somebody that may harm.

Can't do it. I've seen so many people go out to make amends and they dump their fist step on their mother or their wife. It's a horrible thing to do, horrible thing to do. Be very careful. I've gotten heard a discussion about who should hear it. The men I sponsor free to do their fist up with anybody they want to and me,

I'm going to be there and if they need to deal with the priest and so on, I'm great with that. I don't have a problem with it. I plan to be there. This is an experience out of my past. My sponsor used to run a treatment facility and I was doing some part time stuff down there and we had a guy come in on Monday morning, just devastated. On Saturday he had done his fist up with his preacher. On Sunday morning, his preacher had delivered his first step to the congregation, with him and his wife sitting there in his name, tied to it.

So do what you need to do.

Yeah.

And I saw the blood on that floor, and I don't know how that guy's doing now. I have no idea. But I'm telling you what that I anyhow,

so I got to be careful about who I choose. And this thing about being considerate of others, Bob made a point when we were doing one of these a year or so ago. That's an awfully good way to approach step nine too. And just for fun, while we're doing rules I, I think there's one on maybe 101102 somewhere, 102 maybe. Yeah,

Sarah, no, bottom of 101.

Yeah, yeah, paragraph near the bottom. So our rule, we have any rules? Here's the next one. Our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking if we have legitimate reason to be there. It goes on to say that and make sure my spiritual house is in order.

And then the other rule that I've found here is on page 118

in the chapter 2 wives, a guy I sponsor says it's only misprint in the book, TO2 wives should be TW 02 wives. That's the average

page 118

paragraph begins in the middle of the page with we women. Count up three lines above Live and let live as the rule.

Just for fun, back on page 75, we talked about the fact that this is a life or death thing.

And what I see is a is A1 sentence direction on how to do Step 5 says we pocket our pride and go to it illuminating that means to shine light into illuminating every twist of character, every dark granny of the past. And I'd like to ask him before we start, are you nervous if a guy's doing his first fist up? Are you nervous if if he says no, we're wasting our time? Does he already knows what he's not going to tell me? And I shared that with the guy. Sponsors had about a year and a half and he's going to hear his first fist step. And he said to the guy, you're nervous.

No. And Rick said to him, you already know what you're not going to tell me. Said the guy came apart balling, snot slinging and told him the whole truth right there. They were done with that fist step very quickly because it's that simple. If he's not nervous, he knows what he's going to, what he's not going to tell me. If he's nervous, he's either going to tell me or he's not sure. I'll take either one of those.

I'll take either one. And we're going to sit down prayerfully. We got the phones turned off. We got some Kleenex, we got some drinks. We had restroom. We're by ourselves. And I'm going to ask him to pray for clarity of mind and courage to say what he needs to say. And I'm going to ask God to make me perfect.

The book says I can do that on page 13,

last full paragraph, 4 lines from the bottom of that paragraph. Never was I to pray for myself except as my request borne my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive, but that would be in great measure.

Can I ask him to make me perfect? When I said to hear a fist step, I find no directions on how to hear a fist step and all I have is what my lineage passed to me and my lineage. We don't hear fist steps, we exchange them

and and we do this prayer thing. And then I say to him, I want you now to tell me the single worst thing you ever did. I want it right now. And when he tells me that, I tell him when I did that and the odds are good I did. And then I want the next worst thing you ever did. And I tell him when I did that and he may hit one that I didn't do. And we do that until he can't think of one. If he misses one of my big ones, I make sure he hears that from me. And then we reference his force that look around and see if he's missed anything. That's just how

do it. Fist steps are running somewhere right around 2 hours these days. They can go for days and days and days. If we do the freeform thing and just, you know, tell me about it, it can take forever. Especially a guy not sure he's going to tell it all. He can take forever getting to the big stuff. And I found if I get the big stuff out early, it happens pretty fast.

I then like to read him when he believes he's finished and I believe he's finished. I ask a series of questions.

Have you harmed any human being or have you heard an animal? I'm surprised how many of us have beaten dogs. There's a big number on that. Have you had a homosexual experience? Even if he's already given one, I ask if there's another. Have you had sex with an animal or a family member?

And, and please don't read between these lines. OK, I'm going to talk about something here that's politically a fairly hot topic these days. I asked him if he's been involved in an abortion. There are a lot of people who are just fine with that

and that suits me fine. I don't have a comment on that. There's some of us that that's the heaviest load we're carrying and some of them have got it buried down South deep. They can't even find it. And so I asked that question and, and then I asked him if there's anything they had decided not to tell me. They were unsure whether they would tell me either of those. And then if I think he's finished and he thinks he's finished, I read him the

first step promises here on page 75, which is the balance of that paragraph

and tell him that he's finished the first half of Step 5.

And then the book says, returning home. We find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. I want you to go home now. If you don't have a home that you can go to, that's safe, you can stay here. This will be your home for now. If you drive home, I don't want you to turn your cell phone on. I don't want you to turn on the radio. I don't even want you to listen to one of my C DS. I mean, this is this is commitment. This is commitment we're talking about here. All right, I want you to mentally hold the space.

You go home, He says. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. Because I also tell him at the end that I forgive him, that I believe God does, and that by the time we finish step nine, I believe He will have forgiven himself.