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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 844 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: chris-r-steps-4-and-5-inventory-and-action-in-cocaine-anonymous-ca-date-unknown-archive-844.mp3 Duration: 00:49:34
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My name is Leila. I'm a recovered cocaine addict. Welcome back to the special meeting group of Cocaine Anonymous. We're moving on now to our third segment, which are going to be about Steps 4 and 5. I'm just going to read a really quick blurb. It's like summing up what Chris was talking about, the open-mindedness to a power greater than ourselves and making the decision in the third step. So when they're talking about here, though our decision, what decision? The decision in the third step.
So they're saying that it's a crucial and vital step. It can have little permanent effect. This is on page 64. We're about to launch into a Step 4. It can have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor or our cocaine or a crack, whatever, fill in the blank. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.
Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step 4. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. It goes on talk, but we did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. Being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us. We considered its common manifestations. So to talk about those manifestations and the solution to them, please help me again to welcome Chris R.
Thanks. Look, some people actually came back. This is good. You can tell the little thumpers. A couple of things to say real quick. My name is Chris R.. I'm a recovered drug addict. I'm looking for a word. I sucked at charades too. I mean, I can't. Somehow, sometimes, because I get feedback from a lot of you guys and I get feedback through e-mails and phone calls and internet, nice long letters and blah, blah, blah. But sometimes we get this idea that my place in life is to come into a room and stir up a bunch of controversy and piss a bunch of people off and be a henchman.
Well, that is so not what I want to do. I know I have done that in the past. I know just like some of y'all have done that in the past. We're going to talk about some stuff this afternoon that a lot of people hold near and dear. One of the things we'll talk about in the next hour is working with others and trying to help other alcoholics and drug addicts get on this spiritual path. I know some of you guys are so…
Well, my sponsor says this. Well, rock on. I'm not going to sit up here and argue with your sponsor. My counselor said this. Rock on. I don't think in seven years of Alcoholics Anonymous, in and out, when I was trying to get sober, I don't think any one of those people ever tried to hurt me. I've been in therapy for ten years before I got sober and I don't think anybody ever intentionally tried to hurt me. Make sense?
Every hospital I ever went to had my best interest at heart and I'm not going to take away from any of that. I'm just saying that some of us in this room need to start unlearning some things. The question that my sponsor asked and I've heard several of y'all mention it here is, let me ask you the question, how's it working for you? Because if it's working for you, just ignore what the little one-eyed guy is saying up there on the podium.
Don't worry about that. I mean, if you're happy, joyous and free and you're kicking butt and you've never worked the 12 steps, man, I said it when we started this, I'm not here to argue with anything around that line. Go ahead. My heart goes out to the people that have been dry for a period of time in the fellowship. They're bone powder dry, they're four years sober and they're talking to me about suicide.
Now something's wrong here, guys. Something's not right. And that's, my heart goes out to them. What they're dealing with is not clinical depression. What they're dealing with is untreated alcoholism, untreated drug addiction. And I've got to say this again and we can move on. Nowhere in the book does it say that going to meetings will treat alcoholism or drug addiction. Going to meetings is not going to do it.
I know some of you guys, little cat earlier, you know, well I know you're saying some opinionated things. Listen, I'm coming straight out of the big book. With the exception of me taking in a group's inventory, I am not sharing any opinions with you. I'm sharing what the book tries to tell us. And the fact that some of you haven't read the book is not my problem. I don't know what to tell you. Having said that, we're fixing to talk about 4-step where you can put my name in the first column.
[00:05:00]
I don't want to. Because I love you and the last thing I want to do is make anybody uncomfortable. I'm just saying you can do this, okay, but just this idea that you, the thought that you can come into Alcoholics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous, any of the 12-step fellowships and do it any way you want is ludicrous. Do you follow? I mean, I think the steps are so open and roomy it's not even funny. I've got to say this right, Doth, going in the door.
I think the steps are a lot more lenient than a lot of y'all give it credit with. I mean, I don't care if you stand up and do a third-step prayer or get on your knees and do a third-step prayer. Do you follow? You're splitting hairs. What the book gets critical about is, one, let's make sure that the newcomer understands what the problem is. There's 100 pages that outline the 12 steps in the big book.
100 pages. 60 of those pages are about the first step. Bill Wilson was pretty clear. You get some bozo coming in, just coming off a big old drunk. Oh, I know I'm an alcoholic. You don't anymore know than the man in the moon. You know you've got a problem with alcohol. You with us? Back in the back of the book, Dr. Bob, there's a line in there that says, he had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic, but he didn't really understand fully what it meant to be an alcoholic.
And this is the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody, we can get detox coming in our hospital. We can ask them, oh, I'm an alcoholic. I'm a dope fiend. Until about four or five days later when their ego starts to rebuild. And now you can't get their nose that far away from that. Girls, you with us? I mean, it's just like all of a sudden they're waking up and they're not showing up to group on time.
They're not doing anything. Why? I thought you said you knew about alcoholism and drug addiction. That you were one of us. You follow? Once you have a first step experience and you know nothing's going to get in the way with you in recovery. Y'all understand that? Nice little housewife and she's there and she's fixing to go to a meeting, right? She's got a sponsor she's going to go work with. And the husband looks over and says, I don't think you need to go to a meeting tonight.
I think you need to spend a little time with me and the kids. And she looks at the husband, tells him to kiss her butt. And she gets her book and she goes to a meeting. This is a woman that's had a first step experience. Y'all follow? If she's doing that every day, now we've got a problem. Because now she's ignoring the family in place of the meeting. Our fellowship was never intended to pull you away from life.
It was intended to allow you to reenter the mainstream of life and go out there and kick butt. If you've got to go to a meeting every day to stay sober, you're not recovered. If you want to go because you want to go, that's your right. Make sense? But if we're painting a picture that you've got, uh-uh. The problem, we were talking at lunch. The problem is that we end up picking a lot of people too green.
Y'all know that expression? We get you before you're ready. We start jamming this down your throat when you're not ready. And that's why we have such few people stay sober. And our success rates are through the toilet is because we have too much going on with that. If you're not ready, we're going to be here when you are ready. Rock on. But I'm not going to waste my time talking to somebody that just wants to argue with me 24-7.
In this last hour, we're going to talk about working with others. And that's what we're going to speak about. I'm just saying this again. I just want to apologize if I've stepped on anybody. If sitting in these rooms without a spiritual contact and you're managing to stay sober, I'm just saying it again, you're so welcome in our fellowship. Thank you for coming. Please don't share your experience with any newcomers because you may kill the real cocaine addict sitting next to you.
And it's not your right to do that. Make sense? The good thing is this. You don't have to do it my way. I guarantee you. I've said it from a million podiums. We don't need any more Chris Ramers. We've got one. Thank you. That's enough. Now let's move on. Because God is just like we were talking to earlier. God's going to use every single one of you in his, her, its way. However you're supposed to be used, you're going to be used.
If you suit up and show up, that's what's going to take place. So the problem is we've just got to get you in the trench doing it. One of the problems that we have, I think I need to make myself clear on this because we're fixing to talk about four-step. And there's nothing that will raise more controversy than that because everybody seems to have their own way. I've got dozens. I mean, I bet I've got 40 fourth-step packets in my office at work.
Everybody seems to have another way. Hazleton had their way, and we had our way at the hospital for a while, and AA does it. Of course, the NA guys, oh, Jesus, they've got a whole book. You know, we've got a 90-page guide on my desk right now somebody gave me for a fourth. Can you just imagine coming back in here, you still smell like a crack pipe, and somebody says, Come on, let's talk about this four-step business, and they drop a 90-page full club down in front of you.
Oh, my gosh. I'm having trouble remembering to unzip my pants when I go to the bathroom.
[00:10:02]
Y'all understand this? And you want me to filter through a 90-page packet? Guys, it's not that complicated. If Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob talked about working the steps in a real fast clip, then why is it that we've taken these very simple steps and turned it into what we've turned it into, which is a very confusing thing? I got to… This… I don't know how to explain it. A fourth step and a fifth step is an inventory.
It's a fact-finding mission. We just read it. It is not therapy. It is not a journey through your past. I know what the book talks about. I know where it's going, but if you'll read it, not take it out of context, it's talking about looking for some facts about myself. I don't need to know every detail about your life in order to find these facts out. You follow? And what happens is we murky up the water to such a point that we can't see the facts we're supposed to be looking for because we're too busy looking, going through the drama.
The book says we launched out a course of vigorous action. What we're trying to do is look for the areas of my life that I'm off in. Where have I been dishonest? Where have I been fearful? And where have I been selfish to the core? Because that's the stuff that's blocking me, and that's all we're looking at. I'm going to say this, and I don't want to offend anybody, but understand me clearly. This fifth step thing is not confession.
I know you think it is. It's not. It's a part of it. Y'all understand this? This is a part of it. We need to share with somebody our darkest secrets. I'm with that. But guys, if confession was all we had to do, why do we have so many Catholics loaded? No, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the Catholics. I'm saying we get their priests in our treatment center all the time. Not knocking that.
They have a disease just like us. But just talking to somebody about the crazy stuff we did under the influence of alcohol and drugs is not what this is about. If I'm doing a fourth and fifth step the way it's supposed to be done, and you've done a fourth and fifth step the way you're supposed to do it, you with me? You've written a fourth step. I can sit down and listen to your fifth step and never blanch because we ain't talking about sex.
We're talking about the stuff in here where we were dishonest and selfish. How did I treat the opposite sex? With disrespect. I don't have to go into a thousand details about that. Disrespect is disrespect. Y'all understand where we're at? I'm not suggesting you do that. I'm saying we could do that. This idea that all of this is is confession has got to be smashed because we're not getting down to the cause of the problem.
This is what we're going to do. I'll show you. If we had a board we could write on it. But if any of you guys want me to send you, it's a straight little diagram straight out of the big book is the way we do a fourth and fifth step business. A guy comes to me and wants me to sponsor him. I'm going to sit down and we're going to get him through this first three steps. We'll do a third step prayer. And then it says next we launched out.
That means we're going to get up and I'm going to do the same thing those guys did to me with some discernment. One more time. If the little guys detoxing like a big dog, I'm going to be careful how much I drop on him. But if he's past the detox and usually the guys I get are detoxed. You with us? They're past that. But they're coming apart at the seams. And so what I'm going to do is I got a little notebook and I'm going to show them we're going to get started immediately on doing this.
When he asked me to do this and I give him the information, I'm going to immediately look at my date planner and I'm going to set up. I can show you my code in the book and I'm going to set up a day to do a fifth step right then and there. Well, I don't know when I'm going to have time to do the fifth step. Then I can't help you because I know when I got time to listen to your crap and I have to schedule that in.
You'll follow. I'm not going to be there at your beck and call when you finally get around to doing this thing. Means I'm going to give you two weeks to do it. Two weeks. If it takes you longer than two weeks to do an inventory, you are pissing in the wind. You are making a big deal out of nothing. And I will argue with anybody about this. And I mean, I watch these people at this group and they come and they pick up these big notebooks and I'm going to go work.
What are you working on? The All-American novel? Or you think you're Satan or what? You're going to draw all this stuff? How many people do you hate? We're sitting in these meetings. I'm working on a four-step. I'm working on a four-step. I finally went over there last night, the night before last, before I got on the plane. I said, buddy, listen, I'm sick and tired. You've been working on a four-step for six months now.
But I'm working on it. I'm working just let me submit something to you one. You're not working on it You're talking about it, but you're not doing Jack. You probably haven't picked the paper up in weeks to do it
[00:15:00]
Let me ask you the question. What is it about this thing that you think you've got time? You've got six months to mess with this What part of the first step didn't you understand? What part of the second and third step in that window of opportunity didn't you get? Because when the obsession comes back, brother, I'm telling you, you're gonna get loaded. And the book is quite clear, quite clear. If you don't finish this house cleaning, you're gonna get loaded.
So why are you messing with it? Obviously, you don't think you're one of us. And then we have the conversation. It's not a conversation. I'm talking. You've got two days to finish it or I'm done messing with you. Because I ain't messing with somebody that ain't gonna play this game. Y'all follow? Just get this done. I'm working on a fourth step. I'm working on a fourth step. Here's how you do it. You say, God, show me the people I'm pissed at.
Thank you. And then you start writing. And when the names stop, God, show me the institutions and the principles I'm pissed at. IRS. Government. You with me? They stop. Thank you. Second column. Guys, if you're given a couple of days to think about this, rock on. If you have to think more than that, I'm gonna put something on the fourth step of a name of a guy that I haven't even thought of in 20 years.
What are we doing? Why are you writing about somebody that you haven't even thought of in 20 years? This person's not bothering you. Do you not like him? No, I don't like him. But he hasn't been in my mind in 20 years. Then move on. We want to get down to the big ones, guys. What are you waking up in the morning grinding your teeth about? Because that's what I want to know about. That's what's blocking you.
Not this guy. Here, listen. You go to see this room. That's not true. That's not what my counselor said. I don't care what your counselor said. We're not going back. This is not retrogressive therapy here. We're gonna go back to the day. You're back in your mother's womb now. Now come out. No, no, no. We're not gonna play that. We're not trained to do that. We don't want to play that game. Who's pissing you off?
Guy comes up with 15 names. Good. You ready? Let's go. Let's get this thing finished. Oh, my counselor said if I didn't have at least 200 names on my inventory, I wasn't doing a thorough inventory. Your counselor's full of it. This is ridiculous. You don't know me. Some of you guys in this room learned to deal with resentment better than others. Some of you may have 200. Some of you may have 1,000.
Some of you may have 20. Who cares? If you deal with it, you've done a good job. Ain't that true? The man that's got the most resentments down, guys, is not the guy that's doing the best four-step. The problem is that we did a four-step incorrectly. The problem is that we didn't do it at all. Make sense? If I got a guy that's struggling, I want him to do this four-step, and I want to get this stuff out in a fifth step, and let's get on down the road with this process.
Don't want him to take his time. Like I said, he ain't writing a novel here. I'd rather see him get 20 of the big ones out, and we can deal with it, look at the character defects, start making amends, and get on down the road, then allow him to sit in his own juices for six months while he does this. You follow? I was at a deal over in Tacoma not long ago, and there was this old geezer named Bill who's since passed away, but he was an old street little urchin from Los Angeles, and he came back up to Seattle to get sober, and he was in a logging deal, and his sponsor comes up.
He's three days sober, right? He's come in, he's got three days sober, and his old sponsor comes up in the logging clearing there, and he comes up to his truck and gives him a notebook and says, here, I want you to start working on your four step, and he says, start writing the people down you hate, and he put it, and the guy put it back in his car, and he split, and it's like, and I'm sitting there going, and the room is like this.
There's at least this many people in there. It's in a wonderful Indian lodge there, there in Yakima, Washington, and everybody's laughing. It says, oh, that's the funniest thing I ever heard. This guy's three days sober, this guy's, because I'm looking at the little thumpers, and we're saying like, what the hell's the joke? The joke is the cat that thinks he's got time to mess with this. This is fact-finding stuff.
Why is it that I keep doing the same crap over and over? Same stupid jobs, same stupid women, same stupid circumstances, over and over and over. If you would look at the inventory, you could see some truth, and then stop doing that stuff. I'm fixing to go to God in six and seven and ask him to remove character defects, but I don't know what these character defects are. I've got to go make a whole bunch of amends to people that I've harmed, but I'm not really sure exactly how I harmed them, but I know I did, but I'm not going to find out unless I do this inventory.
So everything's backed up in this log jam of a four-step. And everybody wants us to take our time.
[00:20:04]
Remember, we're having a spiritual experience as a result of the steps. No ifs, ands, buts. So let's get it done. I make a list of the people I'm pissed at, and I make my columns. You can do a three-column inventory. You can do a combined four-column inventory. You can do an expanded eight-column inventory. I don't give a rat's butt how you do it. Just do it. Y'all understand? It's like it's open and roomy.
The steps are quite forgiving. Stop worrying about the minutia of this. Just do it. I wish I'd come up with this. Nike beat me to the punch for about… We could have been rich with this thing. I guarantee you. And AA. But that's what we need to do. Get off your butt. Start doing the work. Stop talking about it, and do it. Make a list. First column. Who it is. Second column. Why are you pissed at these people?
Institutions and principles. I'm a big CNN junkie. I have an opinion on everything out there. Political? Oh my gosh, I'm out there. I mean, I can just get ravenous about this. You with us? Right to lifers and the anti-blue. And I'm in the middle of it. And it blocks me from the sunlight of the spirit. And so I mean, these are principles and institutions that we have to write down. You with me? The simple idea that a man can tell a woman what to do with her body just freaks me out.
The fact that any woman on earth would ever allow it to be that way freaks me out even more. I'm glad I shared that with y'all. I'll get the emails around that one. I put the person in the name first. Second, why I'm pissed at this person. We want to try to be very specific in the second column. You guys avoid generality. She was never there for me. That's a lie in your new age. If you lie in the second column, you're going to be off the page in the last column.
Dig? So let's get specific. Often when I needed her, she wasn't there. You with us? Get specific. Don't lie about this. This is an inventory. I've got to get specific in the second column. Third column, how it affected me. There's seven areas in there, guys on the pages. You can look in the bottoms. I'll show you. There's seven areas. Did this affect my sex relations, my personal relations, my pride, my self-esteem, my ambition?
Y'all with us? All of y'all know this stuff. But we can show you later on paper. But you go in there and that's the areas in the fourth column. This is in the third column. Excuse me. This is a numbers game we're going to go back to. How did this little resentment affect so many areas of my life? And now I've got a bunch of resentments and now I start to see that, gee whiz, I really have been a prisoner.
The people in my life are controlling me. This person's been dead for 20 years and they are still pulling my chains. And we've got to stop this. You with us? Once I can see it, though, I can get past it. Fourth column is the toughest piece. Fourth column, I get to look at my part, my end of this thing. Now, if I'm working with Kate and she's a little fried and she can't get this all lined out, then I can help her in this fourth column piece.
Because this is where we start looking at our stuff. But I want to at least make sure that they do the first few columns themselves. You with us? None of this stuff, I don't know how to do this. This is real simple. You're going to do this inventory. Then you get to the fourth, I'm going to help you see your part. Everything you cats are cranky about, you play a part in. I didn't say you caused it.
I didn't say you… If I can see that I played this big of a part, I can get free. If I'm coming at you as I didn't have anything to do with this, you will never get free of that resentment. You will remain a victim. I got to tell you something, guys. Victims do not stay sober. You hear me well. People that were victimized get sober every day. Y'all understand the difference? Guys, we've all been victims in this room.
We've all been victimized. We've all been hurt. Don't hear me say that that's not the case. It's the case. The part that's killing us is that we're hanging on to this stuff like this is who we are. And this is not who we are. The problem with some of you guys in here, it was for me, is that we begin to believe that… Guys, I had a dumpster in Houston, Texas and did some stupid stuff. But that's not who I am.
That's just crap I did in my disease. That's not who I am. I'm becoming gradually the person that God wanted me to be in sobriety. But if we continue to hang on to the bad stuff, you with us? We're not going to ever get past it. And if you can't get past it, buddies, two things are going to happen. One, I say it again, you can't stay sober. And two, you can't turn around and help somebody else. I still think today that's why God let some of us go through such horrible things, is so that we can turn around and help somebody else get through the same crap.
Gee whiz, if we hadn't survived it, got to the other side…
[00:25:04]
Share your experience, not your knowledge. So I think that's why we survived it. Now we can turn around and carry the message back. But if you're still playing a victim to something that happened to you 30 years ago, you can't help anybody. You're just as sick as the new person coming in the door. Make sense? It's your right to stay there. Such a waste. Such a waste. Can you hear it? Well, I was molested.
I suppose that's my fault too. The fact you're still chewing on it is your part. I've only been angry enough to fight once in my 20 years of sobriety, and it was around this topic right here. I had a drug sanctimonious knucklehead who wanted to hang on to the past so tightly it hurt. And he got offended with me because I suggested that possibly they could get past it. If you want to carry that kind of baggage around by yourself the rest of your life, rock on.
But I happen to know thousands of men and women in this fellowship who have gotten through to the other side that would be glad to help you carry the load. We're not saying it didn't happen. We're not saying it didn't affect you. We're saying stop making it yours. Let's move on. Again, guys, if you can see your little part in this. I'm mad at my boss. Why? He fired me. Fourth, third column. Sucks. Everything. All seven areas.
Sex. Anything. Sex and checks, guys. Let's cut to the checks. Everything affects the pocketbook or the peepee. One or the other. And then we look at the fourth column. What was my part in the deal? My part in the deal? Well, I didn't show up on time. Had he told you before? Yes. Did you know you were supposed to? Yes. And he fired you. Yeah. Oh, I see my part. Yeah. Well, I guess he didn't fire me.
I guess I just asked to be fired. Well, now you're getting it. Now you're getting it. You with us? Move on to the next one. The next one. The next one. You follow? This is how we do it, guys. Nothing takes precedence. The molestation is not talked about any more than the guy being fired. Next. See your part? Next. See your part? When's that? Seven years old when that happened. You're 57. You carry that long by yourself?
50 years? You see that? I shouldn't have. Did you talk about it? No. That's your part, little brother. That's the dishonesty around this. That's the selfish self-centeredness. This, bless your heart, you didn't… Come on, buddy. I got you. I got you. I see that. I see that. You with us? Next. We go on to the next one. The next one. The next one. If you need therapy around this stuff, let's get you a good therapist and let's continue to talk about it.
But you can't do that in this. Because that's not what this format's about. This format is not therapy. It's an inventory. You with me? This guy's dumping it. I finished with him in the resentment inventory. Then we're going to do a little two-column fear inventory. I've got… Again, I've got another deal… I've got eight-column fear inventory. Now, I don't understand it. The book asked me to answer two questions.
What's the fear? Why do you think you got it? You won't just write about it. Go ahead. But what's the point? Book sums it up. Isn't it because self-reliance failed us? I'm fearful because I think I'm going to have to have all the answers and do everything. And buddies, when I stop doing that, I stop being so damned afraid. Is God in charge or not? Well, yeah. Then what have we got going here? I'm going to suit up and show up with some new power.
I'm going to walk through this thing called life. I'm going to kick some butt and take some names. Whatever comes at me, I'm going to be able to handle with grace and dignity and come out the other side. It doesn't mean that everything is going to go my way and perfect. It means that I'm going to be able to deal with it when it happens. And I get to see a sheer numbers game in the fourth column. Excuse me, in the fear inventory.
I get to see how many areas of my life I'm afraid of. My sponsor, when I first started working with Mark, he said, I want you to write a fear inventory. afraid of nothing. You know how that does with the guys that we've done and I looked up and I said, what? He said, I don't know. He says, why don't you just start writing. He said, are you afraid of getting AIDS? I said, whoa, geez, yeah, well, yeah, I guess that one. How about your folks dying? Well, yeah, I guess I am afraid about that. How about going broke? Well, shoot, yeah, I guess about that. He said, shoot, geez, how about women? Oh,
[00:30:04]
that's a cheap shot. Okay. I said, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, and I wrote the thing down like that. He says, why don't you just make another list? Forget that list. Why don't you make a thing that you're not afraid of? It'll be a much shorter list than like that. Little bunny rabbits? Okay, I can put that down. He was being facetious and a little bit of a smartass when he was saying that, but you all understand where he's at.
I'm riddled with fear. I wake up in the morning, and there it is, standing at the end of my bed. Fear. And it's going to drive me all day long. I can't live like that, folks. You can't be happy, joyous, and free and be full of fear on a regular, on a constant basis. You just can't. I sit down and do my fear inventory, and then I do my sex inventory. The sex inventory asks no details about any kind of sexual stuff.
It asks me some specific questions with the opposite sex. Where have I unjustifiably aroused jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness? There's nine areas in there. What should I have done instead? It's asking me specifically, how did I treat the opposite sex? You with me? I have to still do, when I do a four-step again, I have to do a sex inventory. Well, you're married. I know. I may not even get sex then.
I understand that. But I still have a flirtatious relationship with people. I still have to pay attention to what I say and how I say it. Am I being too abrasive? I have to pay attention to what I'm doing. Make sense? I'm looking at my behavior towards the opposite sex. And I jot that down. And then we whisk off, get with my sponsor. You with us? And we dump this crap. Quick, fast. I'm not even going to ask how many of you guys spent eight hours doing a four-step.
That was the most meaningful eight hours of my life. Trust me, I was suicidal listening to it. You give me two hours with you. And I can guarantee you, I can find you some truth that you can sink your teeth into. And I don't need eight hours of listening to you go on and on. Guys, this is what we expected to happen. And this is why we have so many people. Can you hear my fifth step? No. Because in my mind, I said, I don't have the time to do it.
But it shouldn't be that way. Who's in charge? The sober alcoholic. And I'm going to regulate this thing. This is not a dumping ground. We're not going to sit there and just let you ramble until you get tired of rambling. Oh, I had to do it in three sessions. What? It just takes the breath away. No wonder nobody wants to sponsor anybody. Make sense? Got to go quick. Got to go quick. We're going to sit down.
While you're giving me this information, I'm paying attention. Because once you see your truth in the fourth column, in the resentment inventory, we're moving on to the next. We're not going to talk about it. You follow? If you're having a little trouble, I'll share a little bit with you. I'll get you off dead center. And we're going to keep this thing moving. I got a piece of paper outlined. And what we're going to do on this piece of paper is I've got one side for character defects.
Because we're going to need it in an hour. I'm going to make a list of the character defects that I hear coming up. If you're judging somebody, and who in the heck of us haven't been judging somebody in this fourth step? You know what I mean? I hate his guts. Oh, you're judging this guy a little bit, aren't you? I say, yeah. You're being selfish. Selfish and self-centeredness is the root of the problem.
So you can just write selfish down. So I'm going to list these character defects. Judgmental. Full of fear. I'm going to list this stuff down on the side. On the right-hand side, I'm going to make a list of the people that I hear you talking about that I think that you might owe amends to. I'm not saying that you do. I'm saying that you might owe amends to. Y'all follow? Y'all cool with that? We're going to do the three inventories.
You're going to tell me all this. I'm going to hug your neck. We usually read the little fifth step promises on page 75. Then I'm going to give you directions on six and seven. We're going to get quiet for an hour. We're going to go back through the first proposals. Do I really believe I'm a cocaine addict? Do I really believe I'm a drunk? Do I really believe this stuff? Or is this just shtick? I'm jumping through hoops about.
Do I believe there's a God out there that gives a rat's butt about me? I'm going to go through the first proposals, the first three steps. Have I been thorough in this fourth column, this fourth step business? Or have I left out a little something? A little something, something. What I did out there under the influence that I'm not talking to anybody about. That I shouldn't have to talk about if I wasn't so embarrassed about it.
But the fact that I'm so embarrassed about it means I need to talk about it. Y'all follow? It's just like standard operation procedure up to this point. But now because I'm guarding it, I need to talk to somebody about it. Have I left anything off? And I'm going to ask the cat right now. Own it. Own it. Let's talk about it. Because I'm going to tell you something, folks. This is private and confidential stuff.
And we ain't going to the law about anything on this. This stuff about sponsorship and about hearing a fist step is absolutely sanctified as far as I'm concerned. It's no different than priest and this. I'm not a lawyer. And I'm going to tell you this. I'm not your judge. I got no right to judge any human on this earth. I hear people all the time talking about this business. Constant conversation in the fellowships about justice.
Well, I don't think that's right.
[00:35:01]
Well, I don't think that's right. Listen, folks. This program is entirely about one thing and one thing only, and that's mercy. Mercy. But isn't that the truth? And I'm going to sit here and judge you for something you did? Oh, geez, guys. I should have been in prison for the crap I did. Would have been if I had gotten caught. No. No. I answer to one being. That's God. God can judge me any way he wants.
But you don't have any right to judge me, and I don't have any right to judge you. I'm here as an instrument, and I'm allowing you to tell another human being and get this stuff past your lips so that you can own it. It's the secrets that are killing us, buddies. It's this stuff in the quiet of night that is rattling around in our head, and you think you'll never get past it. You won't if you leave it there.
But if you start talking to people. I'm an open book. There was a day I would not have told you about any of my past because I was so afraid of what you thought about me as a person. I'm going to say this today. I'll tell you about anything. There's stuff I won't talk about from the podium because it's not appropriate. But one-on-one, if you want to talk to me about some stuff, I'd be glad to talk to you about it and what I did around it.
Thank God. And that's what the men in this fellowship have done for me. That's what the women in this fellowship have done for me. You've got a safe place to come talk about your stuff, and let's move on. Make sense? The guy says, OK, well, there was this little furry animal one time, and we go, oh, no kidding. And so we get this little piece out, and then we move on down the road. Dig? He's going to get quiet for an hour.
He's going to go off by himself. Sometimes I stay with him. Sometimes I don't. But either way, we're going to double check on this. You're going to get quiet for an hour. You're going to go back over these proposals, and here's what you're going to do. You're going to open the book to 76, and you're going to do the 7th step prayer. Done? Dig? You're going to read these two paragraphs, and we're going to ask God to remove the character defects that stand in the way of my usefulness to others.
Part of my smoking was around that. Part of my lying to you guys about my exercise program was that, character defects. Part of my cussing from the podium was left. You'll follow? The stuff that stands in the way of my usefulness. Some of you in this room have known me for years, might have known me for years, a bunch of you all, and just a handful of you that I've known since the first trip to Toronto.
And you know because you've eaten dinner with me and tried to have a conversation how shy I am. I'm not here. Over here, just I don't have a lot to say. Tongue tied, I just don't. This shyness almost killed me. This shyness was the stuff that was getting in the way. And I had to go to God in 6 and 7. I couldn't sit at the table with you guys in meetings. You with us? And if you asked me to, could you read how it works?
No. And I had to get up and leave because I was too self-conscious about what was going on. And I had to go to God in 6 and 7 and ask God to remove these character defects. You with me? I've asked God to make me a softer, gentler person. And in certain areas, He's been able to do that. I've been able to approach more people. In some areas, He hasn't. I'm still an asshole. So I don't know what to tell you.
But some of you guys need that. Some of you guys need just the straight in your face to get it. And I think God uses me sometimes to do that. Y'all follow? God's going to remove the character defects that God once removed. You're not going to go, poof, be this perfect person. But you're going to pay attention to these character defects, and you're going to look at them, and you're going to go to God, and you're going to ask God to remove these character defects.
And what needs to be removed from me may not be removed from you. You follow? That's why I don't want this idea of sanctimony. It's because we're recovered. We don't do any of this other… I had a guy bust my chops because he heard me say on a CD one time that I go to Vegas. I love to play the slots. We take $200. We piss it away in the slots, Patty and I. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. It is so much fun for us.
We've never had a problem gambling. You follow? Well, that doesn't sound like recovery to me. Screw you! Don't come. You don't have to come with us. I don't know what to tell you. We get quiet. We get on our knees. We do a seventh step prayer. We're done. Say this and wrap this up for the next session. Guys, it's so funny to watch. So many… I'm working on six and seven. I'm working on six and seven.
I was just asked to share a podium with a guy that does a seven step deal. He does a six and seven. He spends a weekend, all Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday morning doing six and seven. It's like… It's two paragraphs. I don't understand. Y'all understand? Let's get this done. This is not an obstacle course. It's not something that we have to work on. Who does it say is going to remove the character defects?
God's going to remove the character defects. All I got to do is ask him. Now let's move on.
[00:40:00]
Because the more important evidence, the book says, is making these amends, which comes up next. Y'all with us on that one? It'll be fun. We're going to touch on those amends and we're going to hit real hard on the next one. We're going to talk about working with others. So y'all come back. You want a question? Question and answers. Hi, Rob Emmett. In my awakening, spiritual awakening, and relieving of the obsession, one of my main things I found, so I wouldn't obsess about the past, was to forgive myself for what I did to my own body and mind by using.
If I can forgive myself for that, I can't see how I can still hold or begrudge other people. How can my sponsor be convinced that I'm doing a proper job if I don't feel that I hold any grudges or resentments against anybody? I have to go through that with myself. You have no resentment against anybody. I have in the past. But if I did that to myself, you know, and I was able to forgive myself for that, how can I say, oh, that dealer jabbed me with a sharp stick and cut my stomach open?
I partly got that on myself. But I was willing to put drugs in my body and practically kill myself and lose everything I owned and my job and everything, right? How can I not forgive that person? Myself. So I just don't know, how is my sponsor going to know that I'm really, when I'm talking about doing a real personal inventory, as, you know, do you know what I'm saying? Your sponsor might not think that you're doing a proper job.
We see it at the hospitals all the time with people coming up and they will say, well, I don't have any resentments against anybody. There's only two things that could happen. You've lived in a vacuum all your life and you're psychotic. Okay, so here's the question. Does that mean that I don't owe amends to anybody? No. Okay. Because that's what we have to look at. Could the truth be that you have less resentments than most people?
Could be. There's some of you guys that just learned how to forgive and forget better than others. There's just no giving, maybe one or two out there. But I've never known anybody that didn't have a couple of barn-burning, gut-wrenching resentments. I've just, I've never, they're in there, perhaps. Maybe not. Maybe you'd be the exception. I'm not sure. But where it'll come out is in the eighth and ninth step.
Where it'll come out is making the amends. A lot of people don't want to write anybody down in the fourth column in the inventory because they know they're going to have to go make amends for their part in the eighth and ninth step. So we conveniently get really good really quick. And we can't do that either. Just look at the truth and see. If it's not, it's not. Good question. Chris, thanks for coming.
I had a quick question. In my addiction, sex and cocaine kind of went together like peaches and cream. Now you take the cream away and those peaches kind of freak me out. Is there any strategy or something? Because it doesn't say a lot about that tied together in the big book. It's just all connected with so many of us. It's just all connected. Time has a tendency to heal so much stuff it's not even funny.
And if I go with this thing with an open heart and ask God to take me to a different place, it's like people, again, we talk about the pendulums. Everybody swings to this. Well, because I'm in recovery now, I can't do this and I can't do that and I can't do this. What's wrong for you may not be wrong for somebody else. And it's the same kind of stuff. We were talking about it several times about it.
I've had to kind of narrow my scope of what's acceptable today and what's not acceptable. And, buddy, I've got to tell you, that's changed a lot for me later in sobriety because I justify why I could do this without any problem whatsoever, without getting specific. But it's just like if I deal with it in a fourth step and a fifth step and I talk about it and I get honest about what's going on, it's like I watch a lot of people get tangled up in cocaine especially because the problem was primarily the sex, not the cocaine.
And we get a lot of relapses around that, especially with men. Statistically, not so much with women, but with men especially. Because under the influence, we can get away with doing certain things that we couldn't normally do. We need to go back and look and see what kind of upbringing do we have here that we have to beat ourselves up for thinking about sex. I mean, that's what the book talks about.
This is all God-given stuff. We could do it. Interesting. Half this room is sitting on the edge of their seat. Everywhere they pass them, they're looking really uncomfortable. So I'm afraid we're going to go someplace we're not supposed to go. Bottom line is for each and own, you know, one-on-one to talk to your sponsor about that and and move on I ask God the shape and my same sound sex ideal I mean I do a I do some inventory where we do a little workshops around that cocaine anonymous just specifically about that What is my same sound sex ideal? A lot of you guys in this room right now are having trouble in relationships because you don't know Yourself what once I'm going through the divorce I have my sponsors got me doing all this writing about this
[00:45:51]
Is there such a thing of me harboring a resentment that I have no part in? That I have no part? If I was just bad timing, I got, stand there, there's a drive-by shooting, I got shot, so my part is that I'm chewing on it. Did y'all hear him? Because this question gets asked a lot. I've never been in a workshop that that didn't get asked. Is there anything that we are completely victimless about? Not if I'm hanging on to it. That's my part.
People hear me say, they, I get emails from all this, they hear me say, if you're resentful at it, you caused it to happen. Boy, I'm not saying that. Some of us were in the wrong place at the wrong time and had stuff happen to us. But the fact that I, for 20 years, I've ground my teeth and taken this guy's inventory, you with me? I badmouth him to anybody that would listen. That's my part. And if I can see that, I can get free of the resentment. If I can't, I'll just remain a victim.
And that's a bad thing to go with. Just a little piece you've got to look at, not the whole piece. What you got, huh? Hi, I'm Amy. I'm an addict. I'm working on my step four and I'm having trouble. I'm having trouble turning my will over to God and all of my affairs. So I've asked my sponsor, she thinks I should go back to step three because maybe I'm not willing enough yet. And she said that I should continue on the course of rigorous action. And so I'm wondering, like, does my willingness grow as I go through these steps or am I, should I go back and do step three or look at it?
Like, I don't know what I'm doing. That is, I really just am struggling. Honey, you need to move to Texas. Do you realize you could pick up any man in the state of Texas? I just need to pass that on. You're as cute as a bug's ear. Follow what your sponsor is saying because that's the truth. This idea that I'm just going to turn it over, you know, and I've got to get it right, it's like the same thing as I've got to know what God is and what His plan for me is and then I'll move on.
It's the steps that get us connected spiritually. The only time I would say go back is if you're sitting there thinking that you can drink and drug. And obviously you have a first step situation here. And now we've got to go back to first step. You'll follow? But I want to, I want to, it's like when Kate relapses and the first thing I do, I'm going to talk to her again about first step. We're going to make sure.
And then we're going to move back on. What part were you dragging? Was it something in the fourth step you messed around with or men's or what was, so we're going to go find out. It's the whole piece, one through twelve, that gets us connected. Guaranteed to get us connected. Just move on. So it's okay that I'm half, I'm not fully willing as long as I'm continuing to do the steps? Yeah, but don't drag it out too long because if you're going to drag it out for more than a few weeks, we're going to go back to first step.
I wish I'd seen the look on her face. Yeah, let's go, let's go. The sense of urgency, guys. How many of you guys were ever on some really solid ground and then you're driving to work and all of a sudden the thought crosses your mind, one rock. You with me? And all of a sudden the stink of obsession is on you and you can't think and you can't focus. You with me? In meditation it was so nice and the little birdie was talking to you and now all you can do is think, smell, salivate.
You follow? It's a horrible place to be and nobody needs to be there and you will go back there again if you don't finish this work. It's not a scary story. That's truth. Make sense? Let's get this thing done. It's just the bottom line. Any other questions? Y'all go pee. We're going to come back for one more hour.