Step 4 at a Big Book Workshop at the Fellowship of the Spirit conference in Queens, NY

Something will be done

and we'll pick up tomorrow after the talk and go for about two hours. Chris Raymond. Yeah, they said no, I don't know.

Yeah, OK. Thank you all. So here we go

now, the third inventory, which is the sex inventory. The book says now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. OK, this is my piece. Do we? Where's that Mike? Where's that floor mic? Do we have that this bill around? Do you have that floor mic? Let's just do this because it's so cute that we just have to do it. We have any auto mechanics here?

Anyone.

There he is. He's our man in the back. Yeah. What I need, I need for someone to explain the difference between an engine overhaul and a tune up.

And you're the man.

There's a big difference. Well, please explain it now. The book says

many of us needed an overhauling regarding sex.

Well, if you're going to overhaul, if you're going to overhaul an engine, you're breaking down the whole engine, starting from scratch,

rebuilding from the inside out,

tune ups, just all around the outside. OK,

that's good. That's great. Yeah,

OK. Did he say scratch?

Yeah, yeah, start from scratch, he said. So, the idea being that many of us need to redo the whole thing.

Let's see.

Above all, we tried to be sensible on this question. It's easy to get way off track here. We find human opinions running to extremes, absurd extremes. Perhaps one set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature based necessity of procreation. Then we have voices cry for sex and more sex. They bewail the institution of marriage

and 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. They see its significance everywhere.

One school would allow man no flavor for his fair, and one would. The other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. Here's the deal. We do not want to be the arbiter, the decider of anyone's sex conduct. OK, you ever heard somebody say no sex for the first year? They don't say that. They say don't get into a relationship in your first year. OK. My sponsor told me I wasn't ready for a relationship,

right. You ever heard that? You ever said that?

I did

OK. I did and then freaked out on the power I had over this guy. He didn't have sex for a year. And I thought, all right, one out of about 28, you know that actually the the old story is we don't know if it works because no one's ever tried it. But at any rate, but that's that's in in in direct conflict with what the book says. It says we do not wish to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. It's none of my business what you're doing sexually. But I will tell you that if you're hurting somebody and you keep on,

you'll probably get drunk. So knock yourself out, baby. You know, that's, that's all I know to tell him.

A Okay,

we all OK. We do not want to be the arbiter of sex conduct. And this is a great one. This is a wonderful one. If you've never seen this, we all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. All all you mean all I mean all what? What I say to these guys is, are you, are you a human being?

They go, what is this a trick question? No, it's not a trick question. Are you in the human condition? They go, yeah, Last time I checked, I was. I said, well, welcome to the human race. You're going to have sex problems. The book guarantees us that we all do. So if you do, you're in the right place. You know, you're you're on planet Earth. Human race. Good for you.

You ain't unique. No matter how unique you think you are, you are not OK. We reviewed our own conduct over the years past

and here's what we look for. Where had we been selfish, dishonest. There's nine questions that they ask. I, I have people write them down or I write them down for them so that they can review it. And what what what I do is especially, you know, if you've never done this, I have you write every sexual situation you can think of, especially the one you don't want to write down. That's the one you have to OK. And they go, well, do you mean like sexual intercourse? And I say not necessarily. It's like, you know,

was there a flirtation?

Was there a sexually charged thing, Juanita? And with her girls, she uses misuse of sex powers, which we'll get into. That's a whole other deal.

Well, I'll tell that story quickly.

This drives me bananas. But we have a huge Cottonwood tree outside of our house and it fell down a couple years ago. Most of it, half of it fell down and it fell over some live wires. And the electric company came in and they're removing some of the tree. But they've got their equipment out there and I don't know why they can't remove the whole damn limb that fell. You know, seems to me they could. So I say to Juanita, hey, you know, those those guys are out there, you know, and why don't you go out

and just, you know, just ask them if they had removed, you know, their Hispanic guys. You're Hispanic, you know, they're guys. You're a woman, you know, like, like do do the thing, you know, do the woman,

she goes, no, we don't do that. That's a misuse of sex powers. I go,

my God, aren't we carrying this a little too far?

Where does this end, you know? But anyway, I came back and I said, how free do you want to be yet

anyway? So anything that you can think of, you know, obviously, you know, affairs that you've had one night stands, whatever a little sentence, not AI don't want to hear the whole I don't want to hear any of it really.

You just have to, you know, but but just a sentence or something, you know, on, on what happened and then

take that situation and ask these questions. OK. Where had we been selfish? Was I selfish? Was I dishonest? Was I inconsiderate? Whom had I hurt? Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Somebody asked me. I can't. I think actually it was Robin who asked this years ago. You're not going to like this answer that I got.

OK, well, I got the answer Robin asked. Years ago. I wanted 678 years ago, something like that,

she said. What's unjustifiably and what's justifiably so I asked Don. I always went to him with this stuff, he said. Anybody who's asking that question is trying to get out from doing this work. They're trying to evade something.

So anyway, it's it's if you're arousing jealousy, suspicion or bitterness, it's rarely justifiable. I mean, different people have different takes on that. But just don't worry about that, OK? Just ask yourself, did I arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault? There's that one again. We love that one. Right. OK. And I write about where was I at fault? And then this is the one that that my little group uses over and over again. We use it in the resentment inventory, but it's from the sex inventory. What should I have done

instead? OK, and and here's the deal. Not what could I have done instead, OK. Because could I have done something different? I would have. You get what I'm saying. We for years and years, Mary Fair used to say to us, if I'd have known better, I'd have done better. If I'd have known better, I'd have done better. And we that sounded good. It was like a mantra. And we would say that. And one day I looked at Juanita and I said, you know, I knew damn well better than what I was doing. I just couldn't do any better.

I knew better. I was raised better and I couldn't do better. I didn't have the power. And she said exactly. So knowing what I now know based on what I've seen, based on what I now have seen about myself in this inventory, what should I have done instead? And that's my values, That's my value. And that's the value I've gone against my whole entire life. It's it's kind of like, what do I wish I had done instead of what I did do? OK, now knowing what I now know we got this all down on

and looked at it in this way we truck. In what way? In this way? What does that mean? In what way I think it means in the way of what should I have done instead. OK, I look at all my what should I have done instead? I see what my value is, my morals and values and principles around sex, what they are OK And in that way I try to shape a sane and sound ideal for my future sex life. I subject each relation to the test. Was it selfish or not?

We ask God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. That's another prayer. Because whenever we're asking God, that's a prayer. We remembered always that our sex powers were God gathers that powers thing that she likes to hit me with all the time. We remembered that our 6 powers were God-given and therefore good. Neither to be used lightly or selfishly, nor to be despised and loathed. OK, whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it.

We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. OK, tell you a real quick story on this. When I first went through the work, I'm a child of the 60s, we were all loaded. We'd get together in bars or different places and, you know, behave like rabbits, I guess. And and so a bunch of this stuff came back to me on my original inventories. And I remember say I was fist stepping with Mary Thayer and I said,

well, I had this one night stand with the scale, but it wasn't a big deal. I don't nobody got hurt. I I said, I don't even remember her name. And there was this pause, okay. And, and I knew something was up,

she said. This is what she said, the most sacred act, one of the most sacred acts that a human being can perform. And you didn't even know her name.

That made me feel great,

especially a woman telling me that, you know, But anyway, so then that was a little crack in the facade and you start to, you know, that starts to let you into it. OK, so

I'm on A roll here. Don't mess with me. So so we've got this fictitious situation. This this situation. I had a one night stand. OK, what were the situation? Well, the scale and I met at a bar. We went back to her house,

You know, we kind of fell in the hay, and that was the end of the story. And no one was hurt. Oh, really? Was anyone else in the house? Well, she did have two, two sons, you know, And yeah, they they were there in the house. Well, did they see you there? OK, Well, as a matter of fact, yeah, they saw me in the morning come staggering out of their mother's bedroom. Do you think they could have been hurt? Well, maybe. Maybe they could have.

Was anyone else affected by this? Well, I remember her mother called and I answered the phone

and I could tell her mother didn't like some strange man answering the phone at her house. That probably got her in some trouble and I maybe it hurt the mom. Okay, well, is that all that happened? Well, as a matter of fact, her ex-husband came over that morning before and I'm there drinking coffee, bleary eyed and, and he knows full well what happened. I remember he slammed the door on the way out. So then, you know, we, we talked about extrapolation. The the kids go out, they kick the dog, the dog bites the cat, the cat trips the mailman,

the mailman goes home and yells at his old lady. And where does it end? You know what I'm saying? My take on it is nobody got hurt. It was just a one night stand. OK. But when we look at the ripple effect, it's incredible how far out this thing goes. Thank God that when we make amends, there's a ripple effect on that too. And if we have enough time this weekend, we'll talk about that. That's that's real important stuff. Your turn. So sex powers.

Couple of years back to the steps I had this woman taking me through and she when we got to this, she, you know, it was a standard thing, you know,

whoever you've been in a sexual relationship with, well duh, you know, it's not a long list. And I said well that'll be easy. She says, well, hold on a second. She says. Is there anyone that you have been,

you know, who has interested you sexually or who, you know, there's just been any little flirtatious stuff going on? And the truth was there wasn't.

But then she added the kicker and she said the book says that we're not to use our sex powers

lightly or selfishly in order to be despised nor loath. And she said so

have you used your being a woman? Have you used your femininity? Have you used

these things in any way with men or with women? So I went home and I thought about it and I wasn't too thrilled with this assignment when she gave it to me, You know, I wanted something quick and dirty, quite frankly,

not quick and dirty. That's not the right way.

Scratch that. Take that off the tape.

I wanted to get through the sex inventory quickly and

I had an inkling that maybe that might not happen. I, you know, I have, there's a lot of people in my life. I know a lot of folks. And I remember at a time that I'd taken my, my car to the Toyota dealership and it was about 5 minutes of five, You know, the guys are standing out there at the end of the day and they're wanting to go home. And I drive up in my car and I've got the front running lights that aren't working. And I get out of my car and the guys come over and they said, you know

what's going on? And I tell them, and, you know, I put on this little helpless act,

you know, can, can you guys help me? You know, I'm, you know, I'm anything but helpless, believe me, you know, but sure enough, the guys help me. And, you know, so it's like I use my being a woman. And that's what she was talking about. And then she said, well, what about, you know, with, with any women? And I thought, well, no. And then I started thinking, you know, I know a lot of I work with a lot of lesbian women. There's a lot of lesbian women that I know of some good friends of mine. And every once in a while I just get a little charge knowing that there's just this little

tiny bit of like, you know, hey, how you doing? You know,

and it's not that I want to do anything or anything like that, but it's just like,

you get the picture anyway. So it's like, you know, we don't use this stuff lightly.

It's not used lightly because it's God-given. And I don't use it selfishly and I don't despise it and I don't loathe it. So that was the deal that Tom's talking about.

And I put those people through those same questions.

Then she said to me, I want you to write a letter to God.

And that sounded pretty easy. But when I sat down to write a letter to God, I felt really stupid doing it. You know, it's one thing to sit and prayer and talk to God out loud, but to write a letter, I mean, come on, give me a break. But I, you know, but I said I'd do it. And so I did it. So I started writing and I wrote Dear God

and this is after prayer, you know, I would say a prayer and I write a letter to God and dear God, you know, here I am. I'm your, you know, little child and I need your help. Please. I don't know. I do not know what my sex ideal is. Please grant me a Satan sound ideal for my future sex life

because I don't know what it is.

Love your child, Juanita. And then I sat in quiet and I wrote what came to me. And they were maybe like 12 words, 13 words. And some of it was the same stuff that I had written down in other ideals. And then there were a couple of others that were added on. The point being,

every time I sit down and ask God to show me what my sane and sound sex ideal is, it's always just a little bit different. The first time I did it, it was about monogamy. I'm a married woman. I got one guy. That's all I'm interested in. And the beauty of this program and the wondrous grace of God is that

ever since then, I have never been attracted to another man. He's the He's my heart's desire.

He is my heart's desire. He truly is.

I know, pretty corny, but it's the truth. So next time I sit down and do this with my sponsor and we get to this,

we were talking one time, this was my first sponsor, Kay, and she and I were chatting and I was telling her about, you know, this guy who I'd gone to the I'd gone to the gym and this guy was there. And I think I was probably like maybe four years in the program, three or four years in the program. And I was telling her and I said, you know, and he asked me out and, you know, there's a little satisfaction as I'm telling this story, you know, it's like,

and so I'm telling her this. And I said, but then, you know, what happened the next day? I, I told him, no, thank you, I appreciate it, you know, thank you. I'm going to take that as a compliment. And the guys got his hand on the stair railing and I pat it and I said, thank you, you know, thanks for the compliment. You know, but I'm married the next day that I go to the gym and he comes to me and he says, you know, when I asked you out the other day, he said, and you patted my hand, He said, and you let me down South gently. I went home and I started thinking about and I thought

maybe there was more to it. Maybe you didn't mean that you wouldn't go out with me, you know, so, you know, would you? And I said, no, I'm still married, dude. You know, I'm not going out with you. But you know what? It stroked my ego. You know, it stroked my ego. I dug it. I dug it. And so I'm telling my sponsor this, you know, and I'm saying, you know, it's, you know, guys coming on to me and you know, what do I do? And you know this is about.

I don't know, 17 years ago, 2025 lbs less. And she looks at me and she gets very quiet and I, you know, obviously sponsor gets quiet. Watch out because you know something is going to happen. She looks at me and she says, well,

you don't have to dress the way you do.

And I thought

you bitch,

you old bitch,

you old jealous bitch,

right?

Yeah,

I kept dressing the way I did for a while until my new sponsor and I sat down and we talked about the sex inventory and she asked me, you know, about the way I was dressing.

Mm-hmm. And umm, I realized, you know, And so that entered in my sane and sound ideal,

and it wasn't what she says to me about the inventory. Regardless what part of the inventory it is, she says this is about finding out your values. Not your parents,

not societies, not your friends, not mine.

Your values. Your values.

So I had another time through the steps when I was looking at the sane and sound ideal, and I realized that

Tom and I had a great relationship. Really, our relationship had come so far,

great relationship between us, you know, really good sexual relationship. But what I wanted, what I realized as I did my inventory, the resentment inventory.

I realized when I looked where I was at fault was that there was a piece of Maine that I was withholding from him, even though we had become so close. Out of my fear of being vulnerable and out of my fear that if I truly revealed myself to him

as who I was completely,

my fears, my innermost thoughts, desires, I was afraid He would use them against me

at some point when we were having a fight and he got angry that he would ZAP me with it.

So I was withholding this piece of me

out of that fear.

So when I did my sane and sound ideal, I asked God

to open me up fully to this man

that I love and who I want is my partner for the rest of my life.

Now, you heard him say at one point not too long ago, I think it was when we were talking about the resentment inventory, he said how big is your God?

See, that was my next question. How big was my God?

Because God's got to be pretty damn big to take care of me if if he were to whip out his little zinger

with the complete vulnerability that I've shown him.

How big's my God? Is God gonna take care of Maine even if he does?

Good question, don't you think?

Yeah, so there was that. Then the next thing, one time we were up at a workshop, we did a we went to a sex workshop. It really was, it was a sex inventory workshop up in Towson, New Mexico. And we got, yeah, Satan Sound ideal workshop. And we got this little piece of inventory that I really like to give that I've used, that we both have done and that I use with the people I sponsor.

And what it is, is, well,

he told you when he told you about us when we first met, that we fell in lust. Well, we did. I never bothered to figure out for myself what kind of man I wanted to be in relationship with

it, you know, I just jumped into any relationship. They were interested. OK, right. I didn't bother to ask myself, am I interested? I mean, am I really interested? It was like, I fit myself to them

or there's a guy, I want him. That's it. Physical appearance, forget you know who he is really. So it was kind of like we just fell into relationships. And I, I remember a young woman

where I live one day at a meeting not too long ago, she said, I went out with this guy, nice guy. At the end of the night, he said to me, I really like you. I'd like to see you more. And she says, I found some words coming out of my mouth that I never said before. And the words were, we'll all have to think about seeing you again. She's 'cause I realized I wasn't sure if I liked him.

And I thought, Oh my God, to have the clarity of thought

to even consider that because my thing was you like me. OK, off we go, You know, into the sunset we ride. So I gave we were given this.

I'm I'm a sick individual, Karen, Karen G in LA, she said. Pat me on the head and my pants fall off.

So we were given some things to think about. So when I'm looking at who I'm want to be in relationship with, I ask myself about four things. And the first is qualities

that must be 100% present,

100% must be present.

Qualities #2 that must be 100% not present

3. Qualities that are very important

and the 4th it would be nice if in these following areas activities, age, behavior, children, cultural interests, family, finances and money, friends, health, home interests, leisure time, physical attributes, recreation, sex, spirituality and work.

I'm gonna keep on

so same again.

Get a copy of it from her Activities, age,

qualities, which must 100% be present, 100% must not be present. Qualities that are very important and it would be very nice if it would be nice if then the air in the following areas. Activities, age, behavior, children, cultural interests, family, finances and money, friends, health, home interests, leisure time, physical attributes, recreation, sex, spirituality

and work.

First time I did this was with my first sponsor. I was bitching at her about something he'd done. And she sat me down and she says, I want you to write down everything you want from Tom. Oh my God. Now I could tell you what I didn't want and I could tell you what he did wrong, but I didn't know what I wanted from him. But I sat down and I wrote all sorts of stuff, right? So I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm writing. She left me there a little too long. And as I looked at my list, I realized when she when she came back, she asked me, So what do you think about your list? Did you see anything there? And I said, well, you know, it's very interesting.

She said, what I saw was I want him to do all these things, but I realized that I'm not doing them myself. See, I wanted him to be the first one to do the stuff. I didn't want to do it because I didn't want to waste my time. I didn't want to give and then not have him give back, right? So anyway, that was my first clue. Now I liked one of the things that I put on that first list was I like to play board games. I think they're fun, but

he didn't play board games. And so I was upset. And as I looked at this list, I realized I was depending on him to play board games with me. And because he wouldn't, I wouldn't play. Now, there were a lot of people who loved to play board games just like I do, but because he wasn't doing it, I wasn't playing. The emphasis is board games

he plays on occasion.

So we sat down and we did this. Now,

what happens if you're already in a relationship with somebody and you do this stuff and they don't measure up? Oh, scary, right? See, I have to write this list without anybody in mind.

So I wrote this list down one another time. I've gone through it several times,

changes. It does change. And one of the things that came on there was absolutely must not be present as violence in our home.

No violence 100% must be present in the person I want to be in a relationship with. Sobriety

100% must be present. They must have a God of their understanding and be growing towards a relationship with that God. OK, now when I hit children and we have grandchildren in common, we have, we have kids without yours, mine and ours. When we got together, he had two boys. I had a daughter and then we had a daughter between us. They're now old,

way too old, and they have children and we have 7 grandchildren.

And I sat down and wrote this and I thought, well, you know what? I want the person I'm in a relationship with to treat my blood grandchildren the way I treat their blood grandchildren. And I thought, he ain't doing it.

So I looked at this a little bit more and I'm getting a little pissed off, you know? And I've already written resentment, so here I'm going, you know, And what I realized was you know what?

Again, the inventory is mine and not his.

I look back as to how I was treating his blood grandchildren. How I was treating his blood grandchildren.

And what I realized as I sat down and I looked at this was that

the way I was treating them, I was treating them in a way so that I could teach him how to treat mine.

You get it.

That is one of my problems as a family member. I think I have to teach people how to behave. I come to a stoplight and the light's yellow and they're zooming by, and they're zooming by and they're zooming by and I'm thinking you all ought to watch me because this is a yellow light. Stop like I am, you know, stop. It's yellow.

It's not. It's not green. Green means go. Yellow means caution. You stop,

you know, you get ready for the red. I think I got to teach people

who am I, who gave me that job, who gave me the job to teach him about how to treat, you know, my grandchildren.

The truth is, it doesn't matter how he's treating him because I was at a place where I was hyper vigilant. Now, if I'm hyper vigilant about watching somebody behave, you know what? I'm going to find something to fault them on every time. Every time. Now they may do something 100 times

but do it wrong once, and that's what I latch onto, not the other 100 times that you do it a certain way.

So what I realized was that you know what? It ain't your job to teach. He's doing just fine being the grandpa to all our grandchildren and I'm the fish I got to catch. And what am I up to? So even though I write down what I want, my question is always am I giving it?

What am I doing? And I can't put anything on this list that I want to have from a person that I'm not willing to give. When we first did this, it's, there's a couple of big book fanatics up in Taos, NM, Carl and Sharon F who were doing this as a adjunct to the sane and sound ideal, you know, and, and so they do like 1/2 day workshop on it. And we went up and did it as we'd heard about it for years.

And so everybody was writing down their ideal, you know, frantically writing down what they wanted from from a mate and everything. And right in the middle of it, Sharon goes, oh, oh, I forgot to tell you everything that you want from this person, you've got to be willing to give yourself. And everybody went back there raising it.

Oh, kind of a deal breaker, you know,

Anyway, that's we could go further into that, but that's enough on that. I'll just tell you when I do, when I do, when I set someone out, give them instructions on what I want them to do, writing inventory, two pieces that aren't technically in the four step part. I take an ad in and one is the dark crannies that comes from the fifth step.

It says we we go to it illuminating every dark cranny of the past, and everybody's got dark crannies.

Dark crannies are just the stuff that I'm going to take to the grave rather than ever talk to anybody about. OK,

so we have a special little subheading in the inventory for dark crannies. The other thing I do, I don't know what page it is.

Let's see,

I think it's 76. Yeah. It says we have a list of all persons we have harmed into whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. And so I, I take that as an instruction and I have them take one page and in their inventory in their 4th step, written four step. And at the top we put harms list. OK. And so as they're stirring that psychic pot of a fourth step and the stuff comes up, the little gilts

and you know, the little you're tweaked a little bit here and there. But someone you might have harmed or someone you know, you did harm or someone that you had ill feeling towards or someone you owed money towards, it just comes up because you're stirring this pot. You write it down on that list and that's the beginning of your eight step list you're going to do later. But it what it does is it quiets your mind a little bit about it. You're saying to you subconscious, I intend to take care of this. It's on the list. OK. And so I put that in there because later it says we had the list. We made it when we took inventory.

On page 67 it says we admitted our wrongs honestly and we're willing to set these matters straight. So it begins talking to us about the 8th and 9th step and then on page 69 it also says I

no I just lost it. What where it is about? Oh,

oh, it says on the bottom of page 69. Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. Then it says we must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing so again one more time it talks about, you know, the amends and becoming willing to do that.

OK. It tells us that we treat sex like we do any other problems in meditation. We ask God what we should do about each specific matter. Then the promise on this is that the right answer comes if we want it. And that's been key in my prayer life. Do I really want the answer

or am I just saying the prayer and not really want the answer? I don't know about you, but I've been at meetings and I've dealt with my sponsees and I've been there myself where I pray, but I don't get an answer. They come to me and say, I've been praying, I've been praying every day. I pray, you know, throughout my day. And I, you know, I ask God, what do I do about this? And finally I asked them, do you really want to know what to do about this? And they said, well, I'm praying. I said So what?

Who cares if you're praying? Do you really want to know the answer?

And as we talk, what I end up finding out is that they don't.

They're praying because they think they ought to be praying, but they really don't want to know the answer, because if they know the answer, they might have to do something about it.

So do I really want to know the answer? This book tells me that if I want it,

it being the answer, I will get it.

I will get it. There's a little hidden instruction in here. It's what Juanita's talking about and says. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it and why. I say that's hidden because if you read it backwards, it says that we in a, a, any problem that we have, we, we treat it the way we would sex. We take it to God. In meditation, we ask for the right answer, any problem that we have, and if we want the answer, it'll come

another promise. OK. We, we're not going to have time this weekend to go into this. I want to throw this out really quickly, though. There's a guy in Redondo Beach, CA JS. I've been. Yeah, JSJ is his first name. S is his last initial and he's a he's a, a, a historian and he's a member of the Oxford Group. What's left of the Oxford Group, the present day Oxford Group,

and he's got a ton of great information. Have you ever can run into him? He's just a great, great guy.

Now I've completely forgotten what Oh, so anyway, what he was telling me about two things that that he impressed on me said the Oxford groupers. And this means that Bill and Bob and all the early a as did this. They believed in what they called guidance. And they kept a little book, a little guidance book and they would ask God specific questions and then they would write down whatever they got, you know, in in meditation, what what came to them. And then they would take the four absolutes, which are absolute honesty, absolute

of absolute unselfishness and absolute purity. And they would subject whatever they wrote down to that test of the four absolutes. If it passed the test, it came from God. If it didn't pass the test, it came from ego. And they disregarded it. But they kept a guidance book and it was a big deal with these guys. The early, early a as in the Oxford groupers. And a lot of people are are swinging back to doing that. They're trying it out. It's I'll just throw that out. I'll, I'll challenge you to try that. The other thing that Jay told me that I wanted to mention?

Weekend is that he believes that through workshops like this through the Internet, the the fact that more and more a as are are kind of networking and getting together and sharing information, that we're getting better and better that we have more and more information and that we have the potential to make a a stronger than than it was ever able to be made because we used to be in these little isolated communities and we're now starting to come together. And I think he's right. I think that's, he's absolutely on the mark with that.

We have the potential to make AA stronger and better than it's ever been through sharing with each other on a larger scale. And I I think that's terrific. Is that it with the inventory? That's pretty much it. Yeah. OK. What, what time are we supposed to break for lunch? I mean, for dinner.

Six. OK, is that it? Six. OK. Yeah, we have a question.

Yeah, absolutely. The four absolutes. Absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, absolute love, Absolute honesty,

honesty, purity, unselfishness and love.

OK,

all right, moving right along. There won't be time to tell the story on myself. Thank God for that.

Into Action Chapter 6 Having made a personal inventory, what should we do about it? We've been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our Creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. We have admitted certain defects. We've ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is. We put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory, and now these are about to be cast out. This requires action on our part, which when completed, will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being

the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter. This perhaps difficult, especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we've done well in admitting these things to ourselves. There's doubt about that. This is the line that always gets me. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self appraisal insufficient. This. This goes much deeper for me than just the fifth step when I sit around thinking and mulling things over

in my head and I come up with with some solution or great thought or something and I don't run it by someone else. 9 times out of I have a friend he says my solutions are problems yet to happen. OK, that's kind of the way my brain works. OK, so a reasoning things out unless I run it by somebody else and talk to them about it and pray about it, it's it's not a good way for me to work it. I have a damaged mind.

OK, so solitary self appraisal of me

always falls short of the mark. I need to talk to somebody else. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. Best reason first. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they've turned to easier methods. Almost invariably, they got drunk.

Having persevered to the rest of the program. They wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housekeeping, their house cleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear. They only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty in the sense we find it necessary until they told someone else all their life story. OK,