Don P – Tanglewood Big Book Weekend (2003) – Workshop Part 7 – Date Unknown

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Source: Don P – Tanglewood Big Book Weekend (2003) – Workshop Part 7 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: don-p-tanglewood-big-book-weekend-2003-workshop-part-7-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:19:57

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See, he knew one of them would. There's always somebody around. Well, my first day out was one of those remarkable days. Went back into federal court, and the same parole officer that put me in said to the judge, he's been going to AA. Let's put him on the street and watch him. We'll know within six days whether he's going to make it or not. Let's just put him on the street and watch him. So, to everyone's surprise, my parole was reinstated. Now, what that meant is that every night I had to report to the state parole officer, and once a week to start out with the federal parole officer. Okay. He and I had a talk, and this was on a Memorial Day weekend, which was a long weekend. I had $17 left of the $25 kickout money, and a size 80 suit that had a flashing neon sign on the back that said, Just Out. Convict Beware.

That's what it felt like. And we decided to leave me in jail. He and I concluded, just stay in jail over the weekend, because a long weekend in that shape is not a very wise thing to do. So, I spent the weekend redoing what we're doing here. I relooked at my life. I broke the steps again, if you will. I got spiritually fit, because I had no job and no place to live, and $17. And that's all I knew. And as I went out the tier, when the federal guy picked me up on, I think it was a Tuesday, because we had a Monday, picked me up to take me in for processing. As I walked by the cells, one of the guys I had known said, You're going to need a job. And handed me a slip of paper. He said, If it gets real bad, go see this guy. And I put that paper in my pocket, went down, and the feds processed me. This was fairly early, 9, 930. They finished processing me and took me over to the state parole office. And he was real clear. He said, Either have a job by tomorrow, or back you go.

That's clear. I don't have to interpret that. What does that mean? It means, Have a job by tomorrow, or back you go. Since I started listening to the voice of God, it's always been very clear. So, I left his office and went to get on the bus, because I knew I could get a job at Burger King, out in Aurora. I knew the guy. We had history. He'd put me to work. But there was a new sign on the bus. It said, Have exact fare. Drivers carry no change. I could not get on the bus. Couldn't do it. And I'm in fit, spiritual condition. And I'm ready and willing, and I can't get on that bus. I couldn't risk the possibility of not having the right fare, and being asked, in front of all those people, to get off that bus.

God uses whatever's at hand. Okay? As a result of that, I got this piece of paper out. And it's just down the street, three blocks. Minute Man Employment Agency. Jack. See Jack, it said. So, I walked in. And I did what you all have taught me to do. The cards play like they're dealt. I'll be open. If you can't take me as I am, I don't want to be here anyway. So, I walked in. I said, Jack, my name's Don. And I'm an alcoholic.

And I've had some drug problems. And I just got out of state penitentiary. And I'm on parole. And I'm on federal parole for smuggling marijuana. And I need a job. What do you got? He got excited. He said, you're just what I've been looking for. Okay? So, he took me over to Dixon Paper Company, with my size 80 suit and all that. And Dixon told us that they don't hire ex-cons. That did not bother me, because I'm not an ex-con. I'm a man. And I've been to prison.

And there really is a difference. Ex-cons get hassled and hustled and end up going back. I don't want to do that.

[00:04:59]

But Dixon did say, we can use him loading boxcars, as long as he stays on your payroll. Suits me. I don't care who pays me.

[00:05:08]

I just need a job, so I don't go back. And that's about 11, 1130. We're coming close to lunchtime. And Jack said, you want to work the rest of the day? And I could tell he was hesitant. I said, yeah, I really do. I just stay busy. And I don't believe God ever tests me. But he does use whatever's at hand to help me become aware of who and where I am. He got me a hotel room. Got me a pair of Levi's and a t-shirt and some different shoes. Those prison shoes are just the worst things. They're just not good shoes.

They're what the Navy makes for Navy guys that are rejected by the Navy and sent to us. Anyway, he took me out to Abbott Laboratories for the afternoon to unload a truckload of dope. Abbott Laboratories makes the stuff I liked the very best. Dioxin, methamphetamine, hydrochloride. If I had a drug of choice, that would be the one. And I'm working alongside a kid that's got a bandage on his arm. And as we chat, it turns out that he gave himself a bad shock the night before. He's a speed freak. And here I am.

And I became aware that day unloading that stuff, all of my obsessions had been removed. I didn't want it. I worked hard that day. I had no desire whatsoever. I became aware that God had done what was promised for me. My head was clear. I worked so hard that day, the dock manager offered me a full-time job. And the spirit intervened again and I heard my mouth say, no, I don't think this is a good place for me to work. What a day this was.

Went back to work for dicks and paper, unloading boxcars. I'm just going to shoot the shit with you for a while because I love this run. I'm excited. You'll enjoy this too. After I got through that day, I went to York Street to the meeting. I did exactly what I was told. Long set of stairs up to the top. I walked up and I'm scared. I don't know anybody. And at the top of the stairs is Reed. I'd only seen him a week before and I'd been dealing with him for over a year. I walked up to him and said, Reed, you probably don't remember me.

So I fell. And he laughed and said, welcome. I talked with his wife one time and she said that was really an unusual day. He came home from work early and said, I don't know why, but we need to get to the club. She said, we never went to the club that time of day. He said, we need to get over to the club. And several other times in my life, Reed and Dottie were there at crisis points when I needed family.

So start looking for your Reeds and your Dotties. So anyway, I ended up unloading boxcars down here for Dixon and I was able to get jobs through Jack for some of the other bums at York Street. Coming in off the street, trying to get sober. Need a few bucks. Well, Jack's running that kind of agency, so I helped get little jobs for him. And Al needed a job. Al was about, oh, maybe four weeks sober. And it's a hot day in July and we're unloading stuff out of a boxcar. I'm inside and he's putting it on pallets.

And he hollered in, he says, come here for a minute, please. He said, look down the tracks and tell me what you see. I looked down the tracks and waddling toward us was this big, ugly green parrot. I said, well, Al, I may have some stroke, but I see a big, ugly green parrot. He said, thank God. I thought for a minute, I was having DTs. He says, now, you know, we've got to catch that bird. Because we're both going to tell this story at the club and if we don't have the bird to show them, they're going to think we're crazy.

[00:10:03]

And Al kept that parrot until I lost track of Al. It was an ugly thing. And that's what I did for a while. And then one day they called me in and apparently there'd been a change. They may not hire ex-cons, but it turns out they do hire men who've been to prison. They decided they want to put me on their payroll, working on the dock loading trucks. And what this meant is that I had to fill out a job application.

You know how those are. They want your last 10 years work history. Okay. Ditch room, Colorado State Penitentiary. 1966, drug smuggler. And so on. And I did. I just put it down there. That's what you told me to do. Well, that's what I did for a living. Dispatcher called into his office the next day and he and I had become friends. He's got my application and a really funny look on his face. He said, did you really do that?

I said, yeah, Ed, I did. He said, did you get it across? I said, yeah, I did. I got turned in later, but I got it across. He says, well, I've been thinking. We've got this little delivery truck that delivers paper to the print shops in downtown Denver and then goes out east of Denver to deliver sacks to some of the stores. And that's a tough little route. But it seems to me that you have the skills to get stuff from here to there under difficult circumstances.

Do you want the job? Well, of course I wanted the job. On my route every two weeks out east, two things occurred. I was the one driver that didn't know when he was going to get off work. Part of my job at the end of the day was to take the packages over to the Greyhound and the Trailways bus station. And there's a line of trucks out there. You never knew for sure. And this was just a little pissy inside, just a little agitated.

Everybody else gets off, I don't. And one day I'm sitting in a line waiting to drop the packages. And remember my friend Jim who had killed some people in a blackout? He's the one I do the first step with also. Two prison guards come in with him. They're shipping him back to Florida. Now the chance of he and I ever meeting again is infinitesimal. But here we are at this crossroads in time. We were on time, both of us, to spend five minutes where we each knew because we got pretty close.

He's okay and I'm okay. We had our little chat. And I've not heard from him or seen him since. But God lets everything come full circle. I don't have anything lingering even in the back of my mind about Jim. He's okay. We talked. The place that gave me the cowboy boots and the shirt was on my route. Every two weeks I dropped sacks off. I've been taught to pray prior to making any amend. I stand ready at any time, anywhere to get it done.

But I'm to pray ahead of time because while I'm trying to set my life in order, this is not an end in itself. My real purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God knows about me. So pray ahead of time. Now I've got a job. I've got the money in my pocket. $10.95. Easy money. And I pull up out front before I take the sacks in and I pray. If this is the day, somehow let me know. I'm ready.

For a couple months nothing happened. And then one day I'm standing here. He's really busy this particular day. He signed the invoice and it just came all over me. This is the day. Do it. I asked him for a couple minutes of his time. He said, I'm really busy. I said, this is really important. My life is at stake here. He didn't know who I was. He'd seen me as 130 pounds of walking death. I'm a chubby little truck driver now with muscles.

A different kind of glint in my eye. So I laid it all out to him, who I was, what I was, why it was so important. was, what it was, why it was so important that I get straight with him, and that I really did need to get straight with him.

[00:15:04]

And I could see as I was talking to him, he didn't know what the hell I was talking about. But this is a kind man. He got down on his knees, hands and knees, under a counter and went through some old shoe boxes of receipts pretending to look for mine. That's pretty kind. Finally stood up and he said, well kid, it looks to me like we wrote that off, so can you. I stopped by that store just before Christmas every year to update him.

Because he was interested, how the boys and I were doing. And, oh, it's been ten years ago now, I went by and he had died, and his son was running the store. So I took the boy aside, boy, hell, I took him aside and told him the story and watched his face. He said, yep, that was my dad. It goes so far beyond, I'm sorry. Those kind of events touch me deeply in my soul and in my heart. They are the kind of stuff that's the meat of this way of life.

How can you have a flat spot when you meet kindness at that depth? So I really think, more and more I'm beginning to understand that this is about kindness. Came home to me in real depth a year and a half ago, October. I had to go in for some surgery, and the surgery was very successful. They took out what they needed to take out and it was so successful they sent me home the next morning. And at 2, 2.30 in the morning, Jackie's rushing me back to the hospital because I'm in serious trouble.

Now, please hear this. Before I went in, I know that in a hospital setting, somebody along the way is going to give me morphine, and I won't even know about it, it's just the way it's going to be. I'm not a drug addict, but I also know morphine is not a good thing for me to have. I think I'd probably like it. Don't know, but I've got a clue. Now, early in sobriety, I would have simply asked God to protect me during that, because one of the girls in our little group, when we were early sobriety, had the same experience.

Went in and she said they'd give her a shot, and she would simply say, well God, they've hooked me again, would you please relieve this addiction like you did the last one? And she walked out free. So at the time, that's what I would have done. At my present state of consciousness, if you will, my sense of God's presence, I started to make that prayer before I went in and it hit me. I don't need to ask for that.

I need to acknowledge that. I know I will be protected. I need not concern myself with it. I will be protected. So we're back in the ER, and they're doing some things that hurt. Even their funny stuff goes on there, you can laugh at anything. This one nurse, what she's doing is causing me to scream terribly. Jackie said she didn't hear a word. She should have been in here. Oh my God, this hurt. And all of a sudden, my head went…

And I said, what did you do? And she said, I just gave you a shot of morphine. So I threw up. I guess that's what you're supposed to do with your first shot of opiates. I did, anyway. And they go ahead, and finally this nurse said to me, sweetie, I'm so sorry I'm torturing you. All I can think of is, you're not my sweetie. Don't call me sweetie. That's what waitresses call customers. You ain't… Morphine didn't touch the pain.

I don't know, it was 10 minutes or 20 minutes, short period after that, and my head goes… I said, did you just give me some more morphine? She says, yeah. I said, well, you can stop, because it won't do any good. Didn't touch the pain. Nothing they did touched the pain. But I'll tell you what got me through it. Jackie rubbing my head. That touched it. That's about kindness.

[00:20:00]

And this staff was so kind to me. They really were kind. We got through the crisis. No need to go into the bloody details. I just, I don't want to do that again. So what do you do when you get somebody like that? You can't touch their pain. When nothing you can do can touch the pain, and you want so badly to help them, and you know you can't, you just comfort them along the way. We forget sometimes that comfort is more important than solution.

We kind of sometimes lose track of that. Solution is okay. Bill warns us about it. Sometimes we start them off too soon. They may need a nurse for a while. I learned that with Chuck. You love Chuck. About five foot two, mean as a snake. Hated everybody. Chuck had been sober eight years, and then went to work at Hazleton, and then somehow or another was taken drunk. Then he'd gone to work for a couple other places, and he'd have a couple years here, and he'd get drunk.

And this had happened often enough. By the time he got to Denver, nobody could stand him, so they sent him to me. Literally. Sent him to my group, looked me up, and he gets right up in my face and just dared me to say anything meaningful. And he said, don't give me that big book crap. I tried that and it didn't work. Okay. All I could think of to say, well, Chuck, what do you think of God? Oh, I hate this son of a bitch.

I understand that someday down the road, we all get a couple minutes with him, and I can't wait for my turn. Tell him what I think of this shitty deal, and I'm going to hell with my friends. I thought, well, this is good. He believes. He's got a really bad attitude, but he believes. We can work with that. Would not call me a sponsor. Hated AA. Hated everybody. There's no way I could do anything for Chuck.

He was in pain. This was a desperately wounded animal. Came from a bad home to start with, and his own attitudes made it even worse later. Chuck was not unemployable. He'd had 300 and some odd jobs by this point. Chuck was easily employable. He just couldn't keep a job because somebody would say something he didn't like, and he'd… That's the noise he makes, by the way. Not to do it. So I prayed, what do I do with this one, Lord?

So I had him come over every day, and my work was such that I drove around town a lot. I was in the roofing business. So I just threw him in the van with me, and we drove around. And he spewed hate. I don't care. Right on out the window. I don't care. And we'd come home for lunch, and we'd go out and he'd spew some more hate, and we'd begin to go to some meetings. And he was hateful. He's the kind, when he walked in a room, people literally backed up.

He didn't have to say a word. Just the energy just came off of him. I've got to tell you the truth. I like that kind. If that gets turned, you've got a new missionary ready to send into the field among the wild animals. It took nearly a year of just nursing him along. Going to some meetings. I wasn't his sponsor, but I was his friend. The only one he had. We established that somewhere along the way.

And he would listen to me a little bit. And he liked coming over to the house. And one of the things to get him involved, we had to set up a job at our group. We'd set up the chairs and make the coffee. And eventually, Chuck was trustworthy enough. I knew he wouldn't put arsenic in the coffee. We started letting him make it. And then we'd clean up and I'd drive him home. This one particular night, a lady who was about 10 years sober came in.

She was not in good shape. Her son had just had an overdose of drugs and she was angry. She was angry at A. And she made the mistake of starting to pick on me personally.

[00:25:02]

It didn't have anything to do with me, but she had to lean on somebody. And I'm the only friend in the world he had. And the only resource he had was to defend and protect me. And he started sputtering and trying real hard. And he finally said, Oh, F you, lady. Stomped out the door. And I know he's going to drink because we made a deal at the beginning. Our deal was this. If he was going to work with me, he reserved the right to one more drunk.

He said, if it doesn't work this time, I am going to go drink myself to death. And I won't show up unless you agree to that. And he tested me on that three times. Called me from the bar and said, I'm sitting here with an open beer in front of me. And all I could see was, Chuck, I wouldn't stop you for the world. I think it's stupid, but I won't stop you. And he'd always end up at the house. A couple of members of the group went following him because right down the street's a bar.

I didn't chase him. We had a deal. After the meeting, he comes back in. Goes out to the kitchen and cleans up the coffee. Damn near breaking the cups. And on the ride home, I'm quiet. I'll wait for it. You don't stir a rattlesnake when it's shaking its tail. Just leave it alone. And he said, you know, I was going to go drink, don't you? I said, I know. I remember our deal. I promised to never stop you.

Yeah, well, I was headed down there to the satire. I was going to get drunk. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. I made that coffee. It's part of my job. I ought to go clean it up, and then I'll go drink. Came back in, cleaned it up. And he said while he was cleaning it up, he thought, it's my job. It's my group. I'm not letting that bitch run me out of here. That's a spiritual awakening. A while later, we came by the house, and Jackie had baked some chocolate chip cookies.

She loves to bake. She was the top pediatric administrative head nurse in the CRC at the University of Colorado Hospital and Children's Hospital. But can she make cookies? She can't program the VCR, but she can make some cookies. Anyway, we came in, and she gave us each a cookie. And little Chuck says, that was good. Now, to a cookie maker, that means, oh, have a sack. And she gave him a sack of cookies.

And we got out to the car, and he just broke my heart. About a year now, sober, just beginning to come around, he said, why would she give me a sack of cookies? Good question. I was able to say, well, it's just because she thinks you're a member of the family, Chuck. And I swear to you, that's the day he changed. Not through intensive step work. Somebody thought he was a member of the family. So we got cooking.

I love to talk about Chuck. He called me before we came out here and asked me if I was going to talk about him again this weekend. We're getting there. We finished the step work. He started becoming a damn near decent person. People didn't run from him anymore, and he dropped FU. It was still colorful, but he dropped that one. Came over one day. This is a little short guy. His dad had died, and he inherited a little bit of money, and we used that to pay off what amends he had.

And he said, there's one last thing I didn't tell you, and I think I need to tell you. But every time I've ever told anybody this, they've laughed at me. Because we had taken the time to form a relationship, I was able to say, Chuck, you know I will not laugh at you for anything. And he knew that was true. He had tested me. I said, you know what? All I have ever wanted to be was an actor.

[00:30:05]

And the spirit went to work. I know some actors. I are one. But I know some people who get paid to do that. And he also talked about never having any fun. Part of what I did with Chuck along the way was I gave him a little VCR and started feeding my Abbott and Costello movies at him one at a time. So he could laugh at least once a week. To this day. He got in trouble about a month ago in his head. He said, I'm just going to go home and put on an Abbott and Costello movie and go to bed.

Beats the hell out of whatever else he had in mind. So I said, look, let's do this. Right now, you've been fired again, so you don't have a job. You got a brand new little truck that's in good order. And you got a couple grand left over. And you told me that one of your harsh desires was to go to Disneyland. Why don't you go to Disneyland? And while you're out there, I'll make a couple calls. I want to introduce you to some actors.

And they will be able to tell you what the price you'll have to pay to become a professional actor. So he did. I hooked him up with one of the folks on the Murphy Brown show. And they take him out to Universal to show him around. This is a good AA member. And while they're looking at the lot, the producer of Murphy Brown shows up. And this guy introduces Chuck and just mentions Chuck would like to be an actor.

And the producer said, well, we can use him right now as an extra if he wants to go to work. He's out there less than two weeks, and he's already on the Murphy Brown show. Called me and said, what the hell's going on here? This is the kind of thing I've come to expect. This is the kind of thing I've come to expect. Then he got hit by a truck on the freeway. And was out of commission for a couple years.

And had a terrible, terrible experience. At the end of the depression that he had, he fell in love with a cocaine addict. Got a $94,000 insurance settlement. Married her to save her. And in three months, both the girl and the money was gone. And so he decided to keep his promise and drink until he was dead. And discovered he couldn't. Terrible condition. Did his best. He took some pills and drank some stuff.

And nothing happened. He tried. He just tried. He called me up. He was so pissed. He couldn't even drink himself to death now. Because he'd made a commitment to God for help and service. And that's the way it works. And he's been sober for a while now. He's one of my giants. That's how I learned. What a joyous thing to watch somebody come from I hate this son of a bitch. To maybe God isn't doing this to me after all. Maybe I'm doing it.

Got a new job. They're going to let him back in acting school. One of the funniest things that happened to him is that he got a job in a couple of plays. He's really very good. He has a natural talent. They got him into the right acting school and they began to develop it. And he picked up a couple of plays there in Hollywood. And the first part he got, and they tell me he played it like nobody's ever played it, was a fundamentalist preacher.

Wouldn't you know it? He had to talk those lines. And they tell me he just played his heart out. Anyway, just shucking and jiving. It's about time they shut this down. I don't want you to miss these kinds of things. This is what's here. This is the fun of it. I'm getting a film. By the time I get home, I'll have a film from another young fellow. That came to me, what was it, six years ago? A couple of years over.

A professional college student from the Birmingham Langley's. A young rich kid out of Birmingham, Alabama. Never had to work a day in his life. Spoiled rotten. He'd gotten into a sponsorship line where you had to call every day with 10th Step. Where you were out, and if you didn't have any you were crazy. He was just going nuts. And he stopped me after a meeting.

[00:35:00]

And told me what was going on. He said, I'm praying regularly, I'm calling my sponsor every day with this 10th Step. And after we talked for a while, I said, well, do you want me to tell you what I would do? And he said, yeah. I said, well, first of all, if I were you, I'd stop praying. Because I'd ask him to describe God to me also. It was pretty scary. He said, I'll die. I said, well, now wait a minute, let me ask you this.

Is that who you want showing up? He said, no. I said, well, then quit inviting him in. Quit calling his name. Well, what do I do then? I said, do you have anything else to pray to? He said, no. I said, well, then quit praying. Oh, but I'm told I'll die if I do. I said, you're dying anyway. You want my advice, stop writing inventory. I said, what do you like to do, Shelby? He said, well, I like good food, I like movies, and I like girls.

I said, well, Shelby, you go back to Boulder and ask a girl out for dinner, get laid, and then call me later. Now, he didn't do that part of it, because he had some principles, but I thought, we've got to crack him somewhere. But he did go out for dinner and to a movie. And he spent a couple weeks lightening up. My message to Shelby has always been, lighten up. He's intellectual, he's intense. Lighten up, Shelby.

Lighten up, Shelby. He called me back in about two weeks and he said, you know, I really need to have God in my life. I said, good. Here's what we'll do. Don't ask me about God. If you want to know about God, ask God. And we began some stuff that has led him to New York, where he has already produced a couple movies. He's studying with Tom Noonan, I don't know if you know who Tom Noonan is. Incredible actor.

Tommy likes his work. Next week, we're getting a film that has been entered in the film festival and will probably win some awards from this kid. Because he got free and decided he's going to be who he is. And he is so funny. He's one of those that calls, and when he calls, I just start playing free sale on my computer. Because we've got about 20 minutes of stuff that I don't have the slightest idea what he's babbling about.

Intellectual in and out of Mars and Venus. And then we get down to business and I stop playing free sale. We talk for a couple minutes and then I say, that's enough, Shelby. Okay. Tomorrow morning, if you wish, we will go through the rest of this recovery process as I see it. It won't take that long. You all have big books, you all know what to do technically anyway. But I have some views that have helped me along the way to lighten up.

I've been a big book Nazi. I've done all of that. How to lighten up. And still do this precisely the way it says here because it will reveal some stuff. Then we'll talk a little about amends, I hope. Because the making of amends is an incredible walk. And then whatever else you want to talk about. I don't know what time you want to get together. I know we have to leave here by, what, 1 o'clock or whatever.

When you're tired of me, we'll leave. But if that meets with your approval, that's what we'll do in the morning. Because I really do have some things to show you here that over the years I have learned that make this an easy walk. An easy, easy walk. So I don't want to stop. You touched my heart and I just want to, it was in the heart of heart mountains in Germany. What time do we get together tomorrow?

What's happening? This fine, fine, upstanding fellow here is going to tell us what's going on. That's the first time I've seen the baby awake. That's the first time I've seen you all awake. That's nice. Thank you. I've been asked this morning to cover a little of the inventory process, which I'm more than happy to do.

[00:40:09]

Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. A lot of good information there. The only thing ever blocking me from God is me. It's the stuff within me. And I would like this to be permanent. Not the bang, but the sense of spiritual beingness.

Where I am, God is. I'd like that to be an all-time thing. I've watched a lot of spiritual people do their thing. And one of the things I always admired about Billy Graham is that we didn't get to see much on those big TV things. But after the altar call, immediately the folks that came down were taken around back and began a house-cleaning process. They were assigned mentors. Because it was fully aware that the emotional experience is nice, but it will fade.

It's like being in love. A marriage that's based on just being in love is probably going to run into trouble someday. Because that feeling, that sense of just the emotional thing will fade away or just won't be there on some days. There has to be more than that. But this is a good start for us because we can go back to being sick real quick. It's comfortable there. Familiar territory. So everything from here on, based on spiritual principle, is at once.

For the rest of my life, everything is at once. Spiritual life is based on being here now. So everything is immediate. And this is where it starts. The great promise here that led me, or let me actually, made it possible for me to look at the things that devastated me, was face and be rid of. If you will face it, honestly and truthfully. You can be rid of it and not ever have to do that again or be that way again, ever.

That's the great promise here. Our liquor was but a symptom. Our liquor was but a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions. Quite a departure. All of a sudden, alcohol itself is no longer the problem. It's only a symptom of the problem. So we start on a personal inventory, which is a fact-facing and fact-finding process. I will learn some things I didn't know. And I will face them clearly.

One purpose of any inventory is to disclose unsaleable goods and to get rid of them promptly without regret. The goods may be perfectly fine. Jesus loves me. But I had to get rid of that because of what I do with it. It becomes unusable and unsaleable promptly and without regret. Letting go of attitudes. I remember Carl Jung talked about ideas, emotions, and attitudes, which once governed the lives of the men are cast aside.

Attitudes have to change. Now, I'm a word mechanic. I love to play with words. The English language is wonderful because one word can mean 20 different things. Our granddaughter is learning Spanish. Her dad spent years in the barrios in Los Angeles and speaks Spanish. So they're learning Spanish. When she was about four, her dad said to her one day, Te amo, Jana, which means I love you. And she said, Te amo dos, Daddy.

Two. I love you too, Daddy. She hadn't gotten to also yet, but she had a word for two. Now, that's cute. But think about that. I'll hear you say something, and you mean one thing, and I've got another meaning for it. So we have communication problems. It's the same thing with my relationship with God. If it's going to be a relationship, we will have communication, and I have to get rid of my prejudgments and my attitudes about what these words mean.

[00:45:07]

My attitude about reward and punishment for me had to go. It still exists. The universe is so structured that if you screw up, you're instant. It's all built right in. I don't have to wait for some sort of heaven sent special angel to whack me in the head. If I dive too deep in the ocean, I will get cramps. If I dive too deep in your head, I'll get hit. So, anyway, we're going to look for some of those things. What are the things that are blocking us? My attitudes, my motivations, these are what are blocking me from the relationship with God.

And I presume that's what it means, what's been blocking us, because it says the most important fact in my life today is the consciousness of the presence of God. So that must be what I'm blocked from. Not from an understanding of, but from a consciousness of. It's all about being conscious. It's about waking up. Now, when I do this with people, I'll just walk you through for about the next hour just what I do with folks.

We are now into a spiritual activity where there are very precise, specific instructions on what to do and when to do it. This now is a textbook. So I use what I call a checklist method when I'm working with people. As we read now, we come to a place where it says something, and the question is, have we done that yet? It's very simple. If we haven't done that, we probably won't go any further until we get that done. Except to look, maybe they give us some instructions.

So let's see how that works. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. 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. Have we done that yet? No. Because we don't know how. So maybe they'll tell us how. We're now in a learning stage here. My mind is open. Being convinced that self manifested in various ways is what has defeated us, we consider it as common manifestations.

Are we convinced that self manifested in various ways is what has defeated me? See, there's no need to go any further. If we haven't come to that conclusion, why bother with the rest? It isn't going to come out right. And so if we are not convinced, well let's talk some more then. What other convincing do you need after what we've already been through? And we're stubborn. It takes some time. Are we convinced that self is what has defeated us?

Yeah, I think so. Sunday morning in a fly-ridden 4-H camp, listening to a garrulous old man. I'd say you're pretty well convinced there must be something better than what I've been doing on Sunday morning. You're convinced. Oh, watch him. That's a very dangerous man now. Decided he'll do anything to keep from drinking again. Look out. I'm glad I'm getting out of town. Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.

From it stem all forms of spiritual disease. You hear that? This is the granddaddy of all spiritual diseases. It must itself then be a spiritual disease. Now we've been asked to ask ourselves what these spiritual terms mean to us. What does that mean to me? Well, let's look at what resentment does. First of all, if I resent you, you own me. You don't even have to be alive or in the same place with me. You are running my mind.

I'm truly a slave to you because of my resentment. And I'm frankly tired of being owned by people that piss me off. Resentment separates me from you. Anything that separates me from the children of God separates me from God. And so while I can't deal with the whole God concept, now I can deal with something. I suffer from a spiritual disease that causes separation and I can deal with you.

[00:50:01]

I can put down why I'm angry with you and it'll be the same thing that will be blocking me from God. Do we grab that? We've got a spiritual disease. I didn't know you could be sick spiritually. Of course you can. Did I tell you about Gert and what she told us about sickness? When she was really sick, she used to look down on people. She said, now that I'm spiritual, I look down on people who look down on people.

It doesn't change much. From its stem all forms of spiritual disease. For we have not only been mentally and physically ill, we've been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. What a wondrous thing. That just turns me completely away from any other kind of method that I might have been trying. I need to solve first of all my spiritual malady, my separation from God and his children.

It's that easy. I'm living proof of that. Certified sociopath. I love that. I have a number of terminal illnesses that I've walked through sober. Still carry one of them. In fact, I carry two of them. One is hepatitis. The other is growing old. Both are terminal. I just hope the one gets me before the other. But I straighten out mentally and physically. Despite those little things, I've had to learn that isn't what we mean by straightening out physically.

And I've straightened out mentally because I'm no longer a sociopath. I don't think like that anymore. Those things are gone. Now you'll notice if alcohol's been a symptom, then alcoholism itself, while that's a condition I have, I can't start blaming all my bad behavior on alcoholism. I can't start blaming all my bad thinking on alcoholism. Because it doesn't have anything to do with it. But we'll get off into that.

So you want to straighten out mentally and physically? I've got a real investment in being sick. Spent a lot of years perfecting that. Put in many, many hours working on it. It works. One of the first things I learned as a small child is people really don't like people who are successful. They're very kind to people who fall on their ass, who fail. Now that's a misperception, but it's a perception based on an observable truth.

So I've got an investment in not being successful. Started real early. If I do something correctly, you're going to expect me to repeat it again tomorrow. For whatever the reason, I won't. I either don't know what I did the first time, how I did it, which is normal, or I really don't want to step out from the pack. God's looking for leaders. For people who step out from the pack. Make some discoveries and then come back to the pack and say, we don't have to grovel in the dirt, guys.

There's some really good food over here. What do you think a sponsor is? It's a spiritual leader. It's a person who's willing to take on the burden of helping you overcome a spiritual malady. That's a leader. Can't give it to you, but is willing to take on that burden. And it is a burden. You all sponsor people, right? What a pain in the ass. It's wonderful. There's absolutely nothing better. What a pain in the ass.

I buy them books and I buy them books, and all they do is eat the covers off of them. We come to a simple little truth. Yeah, but. Oh, shit. I'm telling you the truth week after week after week, and you don't get it.

[00:55:03]

And some doofus comes through town and couldn't find his ass with both hands. Says the same thing in the same words, and you come running to my house saying, what I got today. Just how about that? And I absolutely adore them. The worse they are, the better I like them. So in dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. What is this? I'm a high action, high drama guy. There must be at least some primal screaming involved here.

Somebody get out to Tom Tom and build up. We got to do something. No. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. How wimpy can you get? Have we done that yet? No. Because we don't know how. Be very cautious about setting it on paper when you don't know how. Putting things on paper makes you real. If you're just describing a condition, you will make it even more real by describing it. You identify with it.

Be careful. So let's see if they can tell us then how are we to set this on paper since we haven't done it. Well, let's see. We listed people, institutions, and principles with whom we were angry. If I'm sponsoring you at this point, you get to go home. You no longer have an appointment with me. We have a test to complete. Have we done that yet? No. You go home and make your list, and I'll make my list, and as soon as your list is done, we'll get back together again.

Call me. I will be instantly available. With larger groups of people, we don't do that, but that's where it starts. We've done all three columns first. We've done all the ways. This is the one I find most useful because it instantly breaks any dependency you may have on me. You are now involved in your own life with me as just a guide, and I'm doing it with you, and I promise you my list is going to be a lot shorter than yours, so don't dawdle because I don't have any tolerance left for psychic pain, and I'm not going to fool around with this.

I can't. Don't dawdle. Three years ago, I finally got the hooks into one of our old-timers. He was 33 years sober, had never worked the steps, was a power in AA, and going stark raving mad. He had gotten past the grace period, but we all get a grace period when we first get here, and you get to stay in that for about the same length of time you were sick, and he finally left it. It took a couple months to get this far because about half of each session was me having to chop down everything he learned in 33 years of AA so we could get to the childlike view that I'll just do it.

Show me what to do, and I'll do it. Had a wonderful third-step experience. I think even my wife downstairs felt that one. It was a goody. Sent him home to make a list. Didn't hear from him for several weeks. Right after Christmas, he called to apologize to me, but he'd gotten kind of busy at Christmas. Hadn't gotten the list done yet, and I said to him the truth. One name counts as a list. One name counts as a list.

You may have to do more later, but that counts. I haven't heard from him since. It's been three years. So it is. I am not going to call him. That's not our deal. One name. Come on. Just give me one name. Anyway, go home. Make your list. People, institutions, and principles. Well, what's a principle? Wouldn't know it if it hit you in the face. Don't worry about it. Do the best you can. One of the principles will be my name on the list.

Because I'm asking you to live by principles, and you don't know what the hell they are, even. What's a principle? Pretty well defines what's wrong with my life, doesn't it? Pretty well defines what's wrong with my life, doesn't it? I don't even recognize principles. Anyway, when that's done, then come on back. What does it say to do next? We ask ourselves why we were angry.

[01:00:07]

In most cases, we found that it was self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships, including sex, were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were burned up. All of a sudden, this gets easy. I can take a drinking drunk this far if all we're going to do is inventory. Who am I mad at, why am I mad at them, and what's that doing to me? That's all I'm thinking about anyway. God uses his own hand. That's so simple.

On our grudge list, which is what this is, we set opposite each name our injuries. There's a nice little format here. If you look at it, I use it. I've discovered that even though it's laid out in print here and hasn't changed, most people don't quite get this. So I bring this along so that they can see what this looks like. Oh Lord, that's bad inventory. I'm going to share a piece of it with you. Some people, here we are. Whether it's four-step or ten-step, it truly doesn't matter to me.

There's no numbers on it. It's inventory. And I do this the same way I did it at the beginning. But I'll share this little piece with you so you can see how this actually works in real life. So there we are, what we call the three columns. And it's real simple. What does it say I'm looking for? What aspect of self is being hurt, threatened, or interfered with? That's the only time I get upset. It's when my life is being hurt, threatened, or interfered with.

And that, of course, extends to my family because they're part of my life, or my friends are part of my life. Depending on how broad your circle is will determine how angry you get by world events. If the house next door gets burglarized, that's a by-God shame. We ought to tighten things up around here. If mine gets burglarized, call out the National Guard. We're going to get that son of a bitch. And I get first crack at him before they put the chains on him.

Now a lot of people add a lot of different things to it. I really don't. Do whatever works for you. I don't analyze at this point. All I'm supposed to do according to this is label. Discover. This is the discovery portion. And I'm one of those people who, while I use the big book and inventory regularly, I believe the most important part is not in the writing. It's in the attitude changes that are described in between the writings.

We have this down. Who I'm angry with, why I'm angry, and what's being interfered with. That's what that looks like. That's all there is to that. My son-in-law, why I'm angry with him, and what is being interfered with in my life because of his behavior. That's where the question in the back of the mind goes to work. Why would your behavior upset me? If it does, we're separated. You're going to love this when we get to it.

Then the directions say we go back through our lives. That's good. Because I've got an alcoholic mind. Should I start when I was two or three, or where should I start? Well, we go back through our lives. Start here now. Generally, I really do expect him to start on me. Because if I haven't pissed you off by the time we get this far, I'm not doing the job. I don't mean to do that, but I've laid some truth on you. You're going to be upset with me.

And here's the main reason. And this is all deliberate. As we're to grow in effectiveness and understanding, I've learned some effective things. Up to this point, we have an appointment at six o'clock on Tuesday morning, and there's no slack in that. I will be there, and you have ten minutes on either side to be there, or don't come. And if you don't come twice without a really good reason, you don't get to come anymore.

That's Nazism. And then all of a sudden, you're going to have to make a list. You don't have an appointment with me anymore. That'll shake your tree. It's meant to. Because if you don't get responsible for your own life somewhere along the way, you're going to die.

[01:05:00]

You'll die spiritually. You become dependent again on things that will let you down. And when they do, you will get angry and frightened, and you will drink again, and you will die. And I know that. So my name really should be close to the top of the list. What do you mean I don't have an appointment anymore? I mean, you don't have an appointment anymore. As soon as you finish this, call me, and I will be instantly available.

That's a rash promise to be making. But I've never not been instantly available when you're ready. Because I trusted God to cover the whole deal, including me. Anyway, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. Now is when the important part of resentment inventory shows up for me. The first thing apparent is that this world and its people often were quite wrong.

There's an attitude adjustment I have to make here. They're still wrong. I'm going to go look for where I was wrong. But the world and its people are often quite wrong. And my concern, my ego's concern, is that if I admit that I was wrong, that'll make them right. No, it doesn't. We were both probably wrong. The world and its people really are often quite wrong. But that's of no consequence. First of all, I picked them.

Okay. To conclude, others were wrong as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome is that people continued to wrong us, and we stayed short. Do you know why they continued to wrong us? Because we keep going back to the same one, trying to get them to not do it. And it's their nature to wrong us. And every time I go back, whack, we get it again. I see a lot of heads going, yeah, that's the same.

You're not a bitch. I can never make it right. So one of the things I do with it, that this covers, is after a while I quit going back to you to get whacked. I stay away from you and replay it up here, trying to make it right. Now, when this happened, if I'd have said this, then he'd have said that, and then I'd have said this, and he'd have said that, and I'd have… That one looks pretty good. Let's try this one.

And so now you own me. And the sad part of that is each time I do that, I'm further and further away from what really happened, until a time comes when I'm devastated and dying over an incident that never, ever even occurred. I'm too far away from what happened. Sometimes it was remorse, and then we were sore to ourselves. That kind of sets a precedent for putting my own name on the list. My sponsors wouldn't let me do that.

If you need to do that, fine, but I don't do that. If you're going to put your own name on the resentment list, put it way down at the bottom, because one of the things resenting myself for is the assumption that I'd have had power to do better, and I did, and I don't, or I wouldn't be here. But sometimes it is remorse, and we are sore to ourselves, and it's fine to put that down there. The main reason for doing this inventory is not for me to find out who I am anyway.

It's to find out who I'm not, so we can get rid of it. And the second main reason for inventory is to help me find out what wrongs I have done, and to who, and come up with a plan for making that straight. Now, we're reviewing what we just did. It's plain that a life that includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. Is that an acceptable statement? Yeah. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile?

And I love Bill's choice of words. That's the perfect word. Squander means conscious, deliberate, knowledgeable waste. You gave me, I got the winning lotto ticket, and I show it to all of you, and then I tear it up. That's squandering. I've been given these life resources, and I squander them.

[01:10:04]

Wonderful thing. Resentment squanders my spirit. Deliberately, consciously wastes it. Did you ever get pissed at somebody else and decide, I'll show them, I'll starve to death. I'll run out in front of a car, they'll be sorry. But with the alcoholic whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found it's fatal. For while harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit.

You all are very lucky up here. You don't have to interpret that word. You know what a harbor is. You've got some great ones out here. That's the place where everything gathers. And that's what we do with these hates and resentments. We gather them. We harbor them. We make sure we've got plenty on hand. Don't want to run out. When a great storm comes, like somebody finally facing me with the truth of what's going on, I've got to have a harbor full of stuff that says, ah, no one should get past me.

The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us to drink is to die. That's part of the review that I get to go over here. If we're to live, we have to be free of the anger. Anger is a natural and normal human response to certain events. And I don't think Bill's talking about that, except in this form. Even if I correctly respond to a situation with anger, I cannot harbor it. I must be free of it.

I've got to do something right away to get done with it, because it will fester in me. It's like that punching bag. Normal psychotics can punch the bag and get free of their anger. Not me. I punched the bag and I really like it. Let's do that again tomorrow. Get a bigger bag. Okay. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. Man, you're taking away all my toys here. Anybody here brainstorm? Hurricanes and tornadoes all at the same time.

Oh, man. Don Quixote. Build the windmills and then go tilt them. They may be the dubious luxury of more normal men, but for the alcoholics, these things are poison. Anger causes me to be self-centered. Fear causes me to be self-centered. Pain causes me to be self-centered. They make me aware of self. And the minute I'm aware of self, I become self-centered. And then I begin to build these things and make them larger than they really were.

So I have to accept the proposition that I need to be free of anger. You may not be able to do it yet, but are you willing? Either not become angry or be willing to become unangry when it just isn't fair. Remember, just because I'm wrong doesn't make them right. So we turn back to the list. We're held the key to the future. I'm in the second edition of Big Book, and it says here we were prepared to look for it from an entirely different angle.

If you have a third edition, it says we're prepared to look at it. This was a typo. I've got to tell you, we spent hours in our little young people's group figuring out what was the difference between for and and. The best we could come to was it's all about the same. But we had wonderful hours dissecting for and at. We're prepared to look at this list from a different angle. This is my list. One name, one person.

I'll give you the story in just a minute so you'll see how it fits. just a minute so you'll see how it fits. We began to see the world as people really dominated us. If I resent you, you owe me. And in that state, the wrongdoing of others, fancy to real, had the power to actually kill. Like a dummy, I asked Bruce, well, how do

[01:15:03]

I know the difference between whether it's fancy to real? He said, if you're involved in it, it's fancy. That's true. Yeah. If I get involved in it, it isn't what's really happening, it's what I'm responding to. And I'm making it all up. Man, no wonder I feel weird most of the time. I am. How can we escape? We saw these resentments must be mastered, but how? We couldn't wish them away anymore than we could alcohol. This is our course.

I do not get over resentment writing inventory. I must write the inventory to get clear enough to take this new attitude. My whole mind changes. You want a little revolutionary change in your thinking? Here it is. This is wonderful stuff. We realize that people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. I may not know the reason they're behaving the way they are, but suddenly there is one. They're not after me. This is, they're behaving according to their own nature. They're spiritually sick. And what does that mean to me? When I'm spiritually sick, I am without power and I feel separated and angry and I don't behave well. Maybe that's why they're doing this. Maybe they're feeling separated and angry and lost and they're not behaving well, perhaps. And I don't get to say that's a sick son of a bitch. I get to say, perhaps, like myself, this person is spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick, too. My solution?

We ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, patience, and pity we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. The answer to all of my problems is prayer. And here's where it begins. Isn't that something? What an awakening I had with that when I realized that I am so petty and so small that I do not grant sick people patience, tolerance, pity. They frightened me. There's only one possible interaction with someone who is sick. I say to them, is there anything I can do for you? And I can't do that because they might ask me to do something and I am busy. They might ask me to empty a bedpan. Or more seriously, would you read to me for an hour? Man, I have people to do and things to see. You got it. Yeah. I can see it in your eyes. I'm that petty. I have to ask God to show me how to take sympathy for someone who is sick. That's how sick I am. Good. Great awareness. Doesn't feel good, but that's a great awareness. Left to my own devices. I remember visiting a friend who was in the psych ward because they'd taken too much speed and it whacked him out. And I went and visited him and took him a present. Some more speed. Well, why not? Got a hell of a reputation around Denver for that. I'm the guy who got dope into the psych ward. Well, that's easy.

They think it's hard. You put it in your pocket and you walk into the psych ward. They don't search in a psych ward, they search in prisons. Terrible stuff. Can you imagine that? That's how I took pity on people. You're jacked up so you're locked up? Let me jack you up so you can bear being locked up. Thing don't work. When a person offended, we said to ourselves, not to them, to ourselves. This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done. What are you laughing at? Did you have it backwards?