Steps 6 and 7 at march through the steps in Wilmington, DE

and going to introduce our speaker on six and seven.

It's going to be Chris.

It's really, it's an honor to have Chris here for sure.

He's definitely, and it's an honor because he's helpful to a lot of good friends of mine.

He's gotten, he came very close over the last, I guess, year and a half with good friends of mine and mean a lot to me.

And when I was, before I moved to Delaware, my sponsor in California, I don't know, I know now why he told me to do this, but he said, if you ever feel a certain way or,

If you ever have any questions, ask the person that you want to ask.

Like, you ask the person at a meeting.

Like, go up to them and ask them what you want to ask them.

And I've done it with Jack.

I've done it with a couple people here.

And there was a night that I was doing a Zoom meeting, and I saw that Chris was on.

And I don't, I mean, I put these people on pedestals, and it's just the truth.

Like, guys that I've listened to.

And so there was a break real quick where someone wanted to share, and I alcoholically looked to see if Chris was on, and he left.

And I was like, oh, what's up?

And so I reached out to him after the meeting.

I was like, hey, man, what's, how you doing?

You don't know me, but I just wanted to know, did I say something to, and he said, no, man, I had a hunger meeting.

But I needed a follow-up question.

So I said, hey, I was like, so how, you know, I get asked to do this a lot, so how could I become a more effective communicator?

It's a very similar conversation I've had with Jack.

And he gave me some good tips, which is stuff I had heard before.

And then the next morning I hooked up, and it was like 45 text messages, like talks to listen to.

And to be honest, I mean, that's that kind of stuff that has made me incredibly useful.

So I'm grateful for you, and I'm grateful that you came to be here with us today.

So with that, I'm going to give you Chris on Step 67.

Chris Alcoholic.

What a great couple of days this has been.

I've absolutely loved every single talk.

It's had monstrous amounts of depth and weight.

There's a spirit in this room, too, that I really appreciate.

You know, we're all struggling to recover from alcoholism.

You know, we're all heading in the same direction.

And when you think about where we all came from, imagine if we were all still drinking.

There wouldn't be enough cop cars.

You know?

So I'm really grateful that we're sober and we're all hanging in there.

I'm going to start with a bizarre reading because I feel like it.

And this is from page 139.

It's to the employer.

This was the Hank Parker's chapter, right?

And he's talking about, all right, you want to try to be helpful to the alcoholic in your organization, you know, and he's giving you some tips and he's giving you some advice.

And he says this, when dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance.

That a man can be so weak, stupid, and irresponsible.

Even when you understand the malady better, you may feel this feeling rise.

I have been perceived, believe it or not, in the past as weak, stupid, and irresponsible by most of the people that were close to me.

That would just happen, right?

But I wouldn't feel weak, stupid, and irresponsible.

I would act weak, stupid, and irresponsible.

But my ego wouldn't allow me to take credit for being weak, stupid, and irresponsible.

But, you know, as I started to work with other alcoholics, as I started to sponsor people, I started to think, this idiot is weak, stupid, and irresponsible, right?

So there's a lot of growing that happens in alcoholic synonymous.

You know, I really don't feel that way anymore.

I know about what we're up against.

We're up against alcoholism.

And is somebody that we're working with going to come off as weak, stupid, and irresponsible?

Yes.

But are they really?

I don't believe that.

I believe alcoholism is a condition.

That's what I believe it is.

And I believe as part of that condition is an extraordinarily difficult relationship with self.

And that's part, that's an aspect of the illness.

And, you know, I'll be working with a new person and

You know, I will, you know, I'll be taken aback at some of the behavior or some of, you know, some of the thoughts that are coming out of their head.

And once more, I'll remember, you know, really what we're up against.

Alcoholism is cunning, powerful, and very baffling.

It's an enormously impactful condition to have.

Nine out of ten alcoholics die from alcoholism.

You know, we're going to die with alcoholism, but hopefully we're not going to die from it.

And we're a lucky small percentage of people that's afflicted with this.

We've got a chance to pay attention to the things that we need to pay attention to and do our job as Alcoholics Anonymous members.

Now, I'm going to do another couple of readings that have little or nothing to do with 6 and 7.

And I'm going to give you the bad news first.

You know, if you're new, you'll see this is bad news.

Unless each AA member, this is from page 174.

Bill hid this in Tradition 9.

He really was careful about who was going to be seeing this.

It says, unless each AA member follows to the best of their ability our suggested 12 steps to recovery, they almost certainly sign their own death warrant.

Uh-oh.

I mean, think about that.

That's serious, right?

That means we need to be doing our job with these 12 steps.

Or we're not expected to stay sober.

We're signing our own death warrant.

And then it says, this is my favorite part, it says their drunkenness and disillusion are not penalties inflicted by people in authority.

They result from their personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

I know in my heart, if I get drunk again, it's going to be directly related to my personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

Don't you feel somewhere in your heart that that's true?

You know, I want to say I got drunk because she left, but I got drunk when she showed up.

I want to say I got drunk because I lost my job.

But I got drunk when I got promoted.

You know, it's not causal in that way.

It's attached to my relationship with spiritual principles.

Now that's the bad news.

Here's the good news.

This is from the forward to the 12 and 12.

12 by 12.

AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

It's my favorite paragraph in any of the literature.

So let's unpack that a little bit.

The 12 steps are a group of principles that are spiritual.

These are spiritual principles.

The 12 step exercises come from spiritual traditions that come from religious traditions and they've been around a gazillion years.

And that's what our principles are.

And if we practice these as a way of life,

They'll expel the obsession to drink.

They'll keep us safe and protected from the next drink, which I would say is important if you're in this room.

And enable me to become happily and usefully whole.

That's the brass ring.

I'd do it if it just kept away the booze.

But it not only keeps away the booze, it enables me to become happily and usefully whole with a W. That's what I always wanted to be.

I always wanted to be happy.

I feel like crap.

I'm going to buy a gallon of vodka.

That'll make me happy.

I always wanted to be happy.

Useful.

I'm going to get some cocaine.

And then, you know, I'm going to go to work and I'll work choices hard.

Always wanted to be useful.

But I was operating from self, you know, which is really, that's the wrong platform to be coming from.

You know, if I practice these 12 steps as a way of life,

I'll be happily and usefully whole and the alcohol problem will be removed.

I believe I've been released from alcohol.

I don't believe I quit.

I believe I was released.

And the things that I do in Alcoholics Anonymous and the spiritual principles that I engage in very imperfectly and try to practice, that's an expression of my gratitude from the release.

You know, I don't do these things to stay sober.

I'm sober.

I've been released.

I do these things out of an expression of gratitude.

You know, I've been reconnected to you.

I've been reconnected to God.

And I'm happy and I'm useful and I feel whole.

You know, before I even started drinking and when I was drinking, I didn't feel whole.

There was something drastic that was missing.

Sometimes I couldn't even describe what was missing and what I didn't have and what felt empty in me.

But I wasn't whole.

You know, today I'm whole.

I just I don't need a lot.

You know, I need, you know, I'm I'm pretty cool just motoring through life.

And and that leads me.

I want to I want to start.

On a paragraph, the paragraph before the big book moves us into steps six and seven.

Because I see this today as a true contemplative spiritual exercise that I missed.

The first half a dozen times I went through the steps, I missed this.

You know, I'm impatient.

You know, I want to get on with it.

I want to check the box.

And I miss this, and I think it's very, very important.

And it's the returning home exercise, okay?

Returning home, we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done.

We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better.

When it says we thank God, we is us, you know?

Self is a condition.

But when it says we, it means you, right?

uh so that's a prayer directive we're supposed to say that prayer taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we've omitted anything for we're building an arch through which we shall walk free now

Now, I'm supposed to go into an hour's worth of quiet contemplation about the details of the first five steps.

I'm supposed to go over them.

I'm supposed to ask myself, is there anything I've left out?

Is every single stone overturned?

Have I done my job with this stuff?

So how I do that is every time I go through the steps, I re-examine step one.

I re-examine step one.

If I put alcohol into my body right now, do I know what would happen?

I know one thing that would happen.

My body would want more alcohol.

I look at the obsession of the mind.

Am I able, using my own willpower, able to stay away from alcohol by deciding to?

My whole life's experience shows me that no, I can't.

Deciding not to drink is a good thing, but it's not going to keep me from drinking.

So I look at that.

I look at.

The manageability of my life.

What am I trying to manage?

It's really funny.

You know, I've done inventory with a billion people.

And I got to tell you, it's always work, it's always family, and it's always relationships that show up in the four-step inventory.

And that's always the stuff that we're trying to manage.

You know, so so I look at it.

Is my life truly, truly only manageable by seeking direction and power from God?

I need to I need to look at that.

Am I willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity?

I need to look at that.

And today I can actually say I'm not willing to believe I know.

I know there's a power greater than myself.

I may not know every aspect of that power.

I may not be able to describe that power adequately to you.

You know, if you ask me what, you know, what God is.

But I know because I've got an experience with God.

I've got an experience with God doing for me what I could not do for myself.

So I look at that step, too.

And I also look over step three again.

Did I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God?

Did I make that decision?

Did I mean it?

Was it just lip service?

Was it just me doing the prayer?

Or was it a real decision to move forward with this body of work?

Was that really what my decision was?

And then I look over the fourth step.

Have I left out any resentments?

Am I worried that if I put a resentment down, my sponsor's going to make me make amends to the son of a bitch?

You know?

Have I left that one out?

Oops!

You know?

Am I really being honest with this inventory?

Have I really shared everything?

Did I share Tallahassee 77 with my sponsor?

The thing that I swore I would never tell anybody ever.

Have I been honest with my sponsor or someone about that?

Then it basically says, if we can answer to our satisfaction, if we can answer what to our satisfaction?

That we've gone into contemplation and we've looked over the first five steps and we can say, yes, we've actually done the best that we can do.

Whatever state of mind we are at the time, we've done the best that we can do.

I can say yes.

If I answer to my satisfaction, then we look at step six.

We've emphasized willingness as being indispensable.

Willingness is everything.

Step six is like the whole ball of wax.

It really is.

I need to become willing to look at my alcoholism and admit to my alcoholism.

I need to become willing to look at the possibility of a power greater than myself solving my problem.

I need to become willing to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.

I need to become willing to do a four-step inventory.

I need to become willing to do a fifth step.

So willingness has been a part of all five of these first proposals.

And it's a part of all the rest of them too.

And what is my willingness based on?

What is my willingness based on?

My willingness has to go back to step one.

It has to go back to powerlessness.

It has to go back to alcohol.

Alcoholism is a progressively fatal illness.

I've got to attach it back to that for me to be willing.

These steps aren't something I was just about to do before I showed up here.

You know?

They go counter to everything that I've believed about myself.

They're clumsy.

They're uncomfortable.

They may not be necessary in my case.

Have you ever said that about a step?

Raise your hand.

Everybody.

I know what that step is.

I know what you're talking about.

But I don't think that would be necessary in my case.

Got to be willing.

Got to be willing to do it, even if it's not necessary in your case.

You know how you become an AA member in good standing in Alcoholics Anonymous?

When your sponsor tells you to do something that's stupid and won't be necessary in your case, you do it.

That's how you become an Alcoholics Anonymous member in good standing.

Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things that we've admitted are objectionable?

Now, when I first looked at this step, right, I thought, you know, this is kind of a cop-out.

You know, just give it to God?

You know, let God remove it?

You know, don't I have to get character defects for dummies?

You know, or something?

Isn't there like a whole lot of work?

You know, that's going to... And...

You know, I don't believe that.

Then he goes, you know, can he now take them all, every one?

If we still cling to something, we will not let go.

We ask God to help us be willing.

So I don't know about you, but there were some things I didn't want to let go of.

You know, like if you want me to let go of lust, I may never get laid again if I do that.

You know, hold on a minute.

So there's some things that I have to pray for the willingness.

When ready, we say something like this.

My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me good in bed.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding.

So looking really closely at this prayer, this isn't a prayer that...

You know, this isn't a self-prayer.

You know, you can buy all the self-books that are out.

Go to the self-help section.

Oh, my God.

You know, without alcoholics, there wouldn't be all those books.

There's self-help books.

This isn't a self-prayer, you know.

I remember one time, you know, my sponsor showed up at my house.

It was the first time he came unannounced.

You ever had a sponsor show up at your house unannounced?

Hey, hey, Phil.

And he goes up, you know, we go up to my room and I've got books.

I got books.

I'm a reader.

I've always, I used to read in blackouts.

You know, it was good because you could read the same book a lot.

But, you know, and he's looking through my books, you know.

He's like one of those sponsors that wants to, you know, like pry.

And he goes, Chris, man, you've got a lot of self-help books here.

You've got a lot of self-help books.

I'm like, yeah, Phil, yeah, yeah.

He goes, can I ask you a question?

I go, sure.

He goes, where's your help others books?

And I go, uh...

I'm unfamiliar with that category, Phil.

Where would you find those in the Barnes and Noble?

Isn't that just like us?

I read everything.

The Joy of Resentment, How to Win Friends and Influence People Through Tyranny.

I had them all.

I'm okay.

You're really screwed up.

I had every one of those books.

And you know what they would do?

They would make me feel a little warm and fuzzy and kind of, you know, comfortable for about five minutes until my selfishness bulldozed over any concepts that, you know, I gained intellectually.

They were never of any help.

So this prayer is about fitting me to be useful.

Here's the thing.

I truly believe this today.

I believe that these steps and the spiritual awakening that's resultant from these steps does not make me a perfect person.

It does not render me perfect.

And I'm glad of that.

Okay?

Anybody in here ever have a perfect person show up at your house?

You know what I mean?

Like...

make you look bad you should be more like Harry he's going to law school he's got a nice girl screw Harry I hate Harry so I'm glad it's not going to make me perfect sometimes our imperfections is what makes us lovable I know that sounds crazy but it's true you know what this stuff renders me

It renders me useful.

Some of the character defects that I became released from early on were the ones that were blocking off from me being able to communicate and be helpful to you.

Those were the ones that were the first to go out the window.

Do I have some character defects that are still hanging on?

Yeah, of course.

I think most, if not all, of us do.

But enough of these character defects have been released for me to be really, really useful today.

And the thing about going to God with this, listen to this, it says, it says this,

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding.

Amen.

We have then completed step seven, period.

End of statement.

We've completed step seven by saying this prayer.

I thought that was kind of an irresponsible thing too.

Okay, I've just thrown it at God.

God, here's all the crap.

See you later.

Isn't there like tons of stuff I need to do?

No.

And and so I've given this to God.

Why?

Because there's nothing else.

That's why.

That's why there's nothing else.

I can't change this stuff.

You know, I'm prey to misery and depression and self-centered fear and anxiety.

I'm prey to that stuff.

Someone was talking about being prey to that stuff, right?

If I could have done a better job, I would have.

I believe this today.

I believe this today.

That I'm not responsible for all this stuff, but I must be accountable for it.

If I'm driven by alcoholism, if I'm driven from self-will, if I'm powerless over alcohol, what else could I have done but what I did?

But I need to be accountable.

And it starts right after it says we've then completed step seven.

It starts to move us into the accountability phase.

that I feel is the real change agent for us as going concerns.

I really do.

It's a crazy thing.

I've heard some examples.

I'm going to share them with you now.

They're not mine, but you know how we steal in Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's not really stealing.

We're borrowing.

So I've borrowed a couple of things.

And one of the things I've borrowed is this.

All right, let's say you're really serious about this character defect stuff.

You know, you want to be useful.

You want these character defects to be removed.

Here's what I would like you to do.

I would like you to go to 10 of the people that know you the best.

10 of the people that really know you the best.

Family, close friends, bosses.

And I want you to go to them and hand them a notebook and a pen and say, I'm involved in a spiritual program and it's life or death.

This really, really is really important.

And for you to be really, really honest with me is going to be really important to whether I survive this thing I'm going through.

I would like you to list out every single character defect that you see showing up in me.

There's not a one of us in here that's going to do that.

Okay?

So what I'm trying to say is we don't even want to know sometimes what our character defects are, let alone, you know.

So why are we going to God?

Why are we going to God?

Because of stuff like that.

You know what I mean?

Here's another one.

I got this one from, I got this one from, I think at the power of now.

So little Joey is, you know, 12 years old, right?

He's on a, he's on a baseball team and he starts to get, he starts to get, he's got a big game tomorrow.

He starts to get a toothache.

Now, what his experience is, is when he goes to his mother and he says, Mom, I've got a toothache.

She she grinds up some aspirin, gives him some aspirin.

It takes away the pain.

And that's good.

You know, that's good.

But he doesn't do that.

OK, what he does is he waits for it to go away.

You know, it'll go away.

It'll go away.

And and as the day and the night progresses, it starts to get worse.

And he goes to bed just hoping it's finally wakes up in the middle of the night.

He can't take it anymore.

He goes into his mother.

He goes, Mom, I got a toothache.

And she grinds up the aspirin.

She gives it to him and and he's able to go back to bed.

Why did he wait?

Well, he waited because he knows, yeah, she'll grind up the aspirin and give it to him and his toothache will go away.

But tomorrow there's going to be an appointment with Dr. Mengele, the dentist.

And he's going to go to this dentist and there's going to be a big bucket for the blood and a needle about this long and a drill that's going to smoke and there's going to be all this pain and he's going to walk out with a straight first drill and he won't be able to talk.

You know,

All he wanted was the pain to stop.

You know, he didn't want his tooth to be perfect.

And he's going to walk out with perfect teeth after he goes to the dentist.

So many of us are like that.

You know, we don't want the perfection of God's vision for us.

We just want the pain to stop.

You know?

And this particular step is taking care of that problem.

We're asking God in.

You know, in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, they would make a third step decision, right?

And we thought well before we took this step, it says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

And there was also some mention earlier on about, you know, how significant a decision this was, especially in the early days.

And it's because when you ask God to take direction and control of your life and your thoughts and all this stuff, there's no going back from that.

You know what I mean?

You've invited God in.

God's going to come in.

There's no going back from it.

I hear all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous, I gave my will, I took my will back.

There's no taking it back when you do the third step.

There's no taking it back.

If you drink after you've done a third step, it's part of that third step decision and part of what you're going to need to experience.

There's no going back from that third step.

That's why we think well about it.

We've invited God in and now God has to be part of this experience.

You know, God has to be front and center in everything.

In this Alcoholics Anonymous experience.

Why?

Because there's nothing else.

We're beyond human aid.

You know, we're beyond human aid.

So, so step six and step seven.

They talk about humility.

Bill Wilson, as he matured, he was maybe four or five years sober when the big book was written, and he was maybe 15 or 20 years sober when the 12 and 12 was written.

Well, by the time he started penning the stuff in the 12 and 12, he was talking a lot about humility.

Humility, as I see it, everybody's got a different definition of it, right?

Humility, as I see it, is an accurate self-appraisal.

Something I could not do before I experienced recovery.

You know, I would always get it wrong.

I would always be worse than you or better than you.

You know, I never had an accurate perception of where, you know, what kind of a role I'm playing on this planet.

I just didn't.

But with the awakened spirit, sometimes, you know, we can see things clearly.

And part of that is an experience of humility.

And I believe humility is

Being able to accurately appraise where we fit into the puzzle of life.

I had a guy who was very important to me.

I know he's very important to Peter and a lot of us in here.

His name was Mark Houston.

In some of his workshops, he would use this book when he got to step six and step seven.

Because a lot of times I think it's helpful.

I don't know if it's necessary, but it's helpful for us to recognize the real problem.

The more we understand the problem.

When I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was working on the wrong problem.

I was basing my whole Alcoholics Anonymous experience on separating myself from vodka, doing it myself.

And that was working on the wrong problem.

The wrong problem was I had alcoholism.

I had toxic selfishness and self-centeredness.

And I'm working in an AA program based on separation from alcohol.

So if you work on the wrong problem, sometimes it's not good.

So I'll tell you a little bit about this book, St.

Augustine.

He lived, I think, in the 400s.

So that would be, what, 1600 years ago?

Jack, you know the math?

You know, a long time ago.

He's an old geezer by now.

And what he was, was he was one of the desert fathers.

There was these mystics back in the day.

And what they would do is they would renounce everything and they would go out into the desert where they couldn't be influenced by the debauchery of the day.

And they would set up like a spiritual encampment somewhere where...

where they could go deep in, really try to get an experience and a connection to God.

They were the mystics and the desert fathers.

And this guy, St.

Augustine, started this...

It would look like a commune to us today, but he started this group of people out in the desert, right?

And he had a lot of sponsees, okay?

He was like the religious leader and he had all these guys that were coming, you know, just like somebody that sponsored 50 guys.

And they were misbehaving.

Can you imagine?

They were causing trouble.

Anybody in here sponsor 10 or more people?

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

There's like mass misbehavior.

And so what he did was he put together a bunch of stuff in a prayer book.

And basically what it was, was it was spiritual exercises for his disciples.

sponsees to take so that they could recognize what kind of horse's asses they were.

And why I like this book is because it identifies about 30 character defects.

And then it gives a really accurate description of what those character defects are.

I'll just read a couple.

All right, Pride.

You know, when I say pride, something will pop into your head.

This is how he describes pride.

Pride is putting self in the place of God as the center and objective of our life or of some department thereof.

It is the refusal to recognize our status as creatures dependent on God for our existence and placed by him in a specific relationship to the rest of his creation.

That's a cool description.

And was I operating opposite of that?

You're darn right.

I'll read a couple more.

Envy.

Envy is dissatisfaction with our place in God's order of creation manifested in begrudging His gifts and vocation to others.

Arrogance.

Insisting that others conform to our wishes, recognize our leadership...

accept our own estimate of our worth, being overbearing, argumentative, opinionated, and obstinate.

Anybody guilty of any of this stuff yet?

Yeah, so, if I could have done better, I would have.

You know what I mean?

God, please help.

So the whole process of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, it helped me so much really looking as deeply as I could into the history of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What really were Bob and Bill and all these guys, what were they really doing?

You know, where did they come from?

It really helped me.

Because they went from self-dependence to God-dependence.

They knew that was going to be the solution.

You know, one of the books Bill read and was really, really influenced by was their Varieties of Religious Experience.

That was a book that was written in 1901 or something, you know, and it's tough going through.

If you've got less than a year, you know, let your sponsor give you a synopsis.

45 feet long sentences and stuff but I just recently went through it again I tried to read it with like two years and it was just you know how alcoholics read they'll actually be reading and thinking about something else what did you just read?

I don't know you actually did read it but you were thinking about the Mets or something

So I really tried to concentrate, and I tried to get through this just in the last year.

And it's interesting.

Chapters 9 through 11 deal with people like us.

And there was an example in this book that I think Bill Wilson was very much inspired by.

And it was this preacher called Billy Sunday.

And Billy Sunday was this preacher in the mid-1800s who'd do the tent revival things, and he specifically went after drunks.

He went after drunks and he'd bring you up and you'd declare your faith in God and you'd do the whole like Billy Graham crusade-esque kind of a thing.

And then hang with him for a while and he was producing a lot of recoveries from alcoholism.

The Oxford Group.

The Oxford Group was the same kind of thing.

The Oxford Group was a group of people who took first century Christian spiritual principles and tried to live them.

you know, really, really tried to live them.

And they weren't a church, so to speak.

They were more of like a group of people who decided, okay, we're going to go through the steps together.

It was kind of like that, you know.

And these people from the Oxford group would do things like witness.

They would do restitution.

They would do surrender.

And there were all these principles in the Oxford group