Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Big Book Study Disc 4 Scottsdale Arizona
- Speaker
- Debbie D. and Kent D
- Date
- 2017-03-31
Transcript
Source: Debbie D. and Kent D – Big Book Study Disc 4 Scottsdale Arizona – 2017-03-31.mp3 File: debbie-d-and-kent-d-big-book-study-disc-4-scottsdale-arizona-2017-03-31.mp3 Duration: 01:12:07
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Came up. I was having fun talking to Chris, and I wanted to talk about some of those things that came up. One of the fellows I sponsored was a vet, and when we went through his fifth step, talking about those kind of things that twist the character and dark corners of the past, he completed his fifth step with some pretty horrendous things. I mean, just kind of shocking, pretty much amazing that you wouldn't—anyway, like a lot of people will do. But when I asked him, Was there anything else?
you know, he said, No, not really, which is—there is, but he's not going to say it, right? And so when he called me the next day, as I would hope he would do, he actually told me that being a vet and taking care of animals and loving animals the way he does, and he really truly, you know, is that caring, loving vet that'd do anything for an animal, he said when he was a young boy, he, in a fit of anger, he kicked his dog and hurt his dog, and the dog had to go to the vet because of the damage he had done, and that was what was eating his lunch.
That doesn't fit in any of those categories, but it's definitely the kind of thing that I talk about. Please turn off your cell phone. Those are the kind of things that I'm trying to find that, you know, that are going to kill somebody. There was a fella in England that I didn't know the man, but the story that I got was that, you know, his wife found him. He had, you know, killed himself, and going through his car were a whole bunch of men's-sized women's clothes, and he couldn't tell anybody what his life was really about and what he was troubled by. And even though he was sober several years, he never got out that he was a cross-dresser, and he couldn't accept that fact, and he took his life as a result of that.
I mean, that's just wrong, you know. That doesn't fit in the categories, but, you know, it was enough for him to take his life when he was sober. That's why he drank. The other thing that I wanted to mention about sex was that there was an occasion where Debbie and I were supposed to get together, like on Saturday night, and it was all planned and scheduled, and somehow or other something came up in the middle of that, and it was pretty obvious that we're not going to get together on Saturday night, you know. And I've been anticipating this, seemed like maybe even more than she was. And so when it was pretty obvious we were not going to be able to get together, I turned to Debbie and I said, Well, we're not going to be able to get together on Saturday night.
And Debbie says, Well, there's always next Saturday. Now the guys understand what I'm talking about. Because Chris's response was, Well, I can make room this afternoon. I mean, I'm busy, but I can clear it. And a woman thinks, Well, there's always next Saturday. So we do think different about sex, and I think we need to accept and realize that, you know, especially being able to talk about these kind of things, born included.
That's it. I'm going to pass it to Debbie. I know that we moved quickly over Step Five and that there would probably be some remnants in our thinking, so this is where we're kind of finishing up on some of those thoughts. I shared with you how I kind of walked through the resentment section. On the fear section, I'd like to also, even though they've written down that list of fears, when I listen to it in Step Five, we look at, okay, is there something we can do about that fear?
Do you know where it came from? Do you know where it stemmed from? So a common one that I hear about is, I'm afraid my mother will die.
[00:05:02]
Okay. That's, you know, we reviewed that that's probably the nature of things, that the cycle of life is generally the parent will pass on before the child. So if that's one of your fears, let's review the relationship you currently have. What is it? Are you in communication with each other? Do you see her on a regular basis? Or is it something that you're going to be very dramatic about when she dies?
And you've wasted a lot of time having a current, active, loving, engaged relationship. So what's the fear coming from? Oftentimes, it's we're kind of worried about money because Mom's helped pay the rent. Oh, well, that kind of puts a different spin on things. Okay, I'm not canceling out that you don't love your mother, but you've got an alternative motive here. You've got an agenda that needs to be met.
Why don't we focus on how can we be self-supporting? Let's do that. That way your relationship with your mother is for free and for clear. It is not of indebtedness because you owe her money. It is not of obligation because you need her money. But it is a for free and for clear loving relationship, regardless of what a potential financial outcome looks like. So again, liken that resentment. We can kind of drill down a little bit, peel back.
So do we know where that came from? Afraid of dogs. Okay. Do you know why? Sometimes it's just an innate fear. Sometimes there was a reason. A three-year-old got bit. Okay. Understood. Do you want to overcome that fear? How do you think that would look? What would you think would be a good way to do it? Maybe you don't. Maybe you do. So we can again expose those to the healing process in Step Five. We expose them and then we can review, is there a process to get past that? Because maybe.
The man you married is very much a dog person. Shows dogs, you know, has a pack of them, you know. That's part of his package. It's very unfair for me to say it's the dogs or me, baby. So now, I mean, I came to Kent with four pets, two dogs, two cats, as it turns out. That established the four-pet limit at our house, okay? If I'd have known that, I might have added a few more for balance, but we have a four-pet limit. We've been less than, but we've never been more than four.
And so— The fish. Okay. The fish. I shared that one time that I have a four-pet limit, and somebody said, Well, how many fish does Kent have? And I thought, you know, that's a good comparison, because there's about 25 fish in there. I could have some more fur in the house. So anyway, that's what we do about those fears. And then again, let's walk through, okay, we've heard your sex conduct. What's your ideal? And then every time you do start dating somebody, kind of compare it up. Is there anything on your ideals list that matches?
Maybe there's some things that are not big deals. Maybe there's some things that are big deals. Are you going to compromise? Are you going to go for the good instead of wait for the best? How are you going to honor yourself? I know that as the result of doing the work on that sex conduct part, That I had to take a look when I saw it was riddled with selfish and self-centeredness I had to make. And the fact that I kept doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, I had to start to apply new actions.
And I did a little education. I read a couple of self-help type books, and it gave me some good guides as to what I would do differently. For example, one of the things was that I did not kiss anybody for the first 30 days. And when I shared that to the women I sponsor, they all go, Oh God, really? I mean, for them 30 minutes might be a long time, right? I said that was just for me because, first of all, every time you move to the next physical engagement, what happens is
[00:10:03]
my mind loses reality and moves into fantasy. What he's going to be like, what he's going to do. It's the goodness instead of the realities. And I don't see the red flags. I kind of put a wall up again. Oh, that's just, you know, don't pay attention to that. And those first 30 days give me an idea of who is this person. I mean, I used to give everything away without thought, without care because I wanted them to like me, and yet I would lose myself in the process.
And that had to stop. I wanted a different result. And so I began to take new actions. And I began to keep my self-worth and my self-esteem by making some of those changes. And if you want to know what else, I'll be happy to share them with you. But my point was— To get to treat it with honor, and to, who is this guy? How does he treat people? How is he on the freeway? How does he, what kind of a family relationship does he have?
That's part of the dating and getting to know each other experience, which I had never taken the time to do. Now, the first people I dated, the first four people I dated with this new plan of mine, it didn't mean that they were the guy, but it meant that when it ended, I learned from it. I would take my own inventory. What did I do well and what didn't I? Okay, what were the red flags that I chose to ignore?
And I began to build tools and maturity as the result of that. Another point with the fourth step, we have the hour behind that, that, you know, Kent says he books into that. I also recommend to them, plan to go to a meeting that night, especially if it's your first fifth step. There is something about that, even if you didn't get the glow of the promises of the fifth step, there is something. It's like this invisible stamp on the inside of membership, because so many people will never do an inventory.
And if maybe if they do, they don't do step five. There's just this, and you can say, I did my fifth step today. And there'll be people in the room that know exactly what that's like, and there'll be others who haven't a clue. I remember being a little over four years sober. I moved to Atlanta. I'd been sober in Minneapolis the first four years. I moved to Atlanta. And in my home group, the Skyland Group, my sponsor was a man there named Joe. Joe was 27 years sober, longer than me, and had the most beautiful pulse of present-day AA I'd ever known.
He wasn't one of those guys that was, Back when I got sober in '49, this is how we did it, and then lived there. He lived in the now, with all those years of experience. He was present. And we had started a step study on this Friday night. There was the regular discussion meeting, and we started a step study. So he said to me, he says, So what step are you guys on tonight? I said, Well, be on the fourth step. He says, Oh, it'd be interesting how many people have done those. I'm like, Joe.
It was like, What are you saying? My gosh, of course, you know. So when we opened that meeting, there's about 15, 20 of us in there, and we said, So how many people in this room have done a fourth step? Four of us raised our hand. I was shocked. I was ignorant and shocked. And there were, at four years sober, there were a number of people sober much longer than me. And I thought, Wow, what an insight to that.
And so the next time, happily, many more hands were raised when we asked that question. But it was a real eye-opener to me. Four out of 15 to 20 of us in that room that night. So to not take four for granted. Just to verify, she got a ring before I got a kiss. Yes. And when I was trying to explain to her mother what the story was, her mother even said, Well, I wouldn't buy a pair of shoes without putting it on first.
But I didn't get any support out of Debbie. The other thing… The other thing—I got
[00:15:04]
the mic. So, because this is a Big Book study, I think you probably have gained some awareness that for Debbie and I, this is a tool book for sponsorship. I mean, we can study this all we want to improve our own lives, which we have truly done. But what we really are talking about when we go through the Big Book, the Big Book is to help people find another way of life. So our Big Book study is really obviously a lot about sponsorship.
So I just want to clarify that. We're not going to do the intellectual analysis, just repeating that. We're really going to share our experience, not just with what it did for us, but our experience with working with others. So, thanks. The last thing I'll say is don't destroy your fourth step written inventory. That's very Hollywood. It's very theatrical. Set it on fire, give it blessings, whatever you do, because you still need that for the four more steps.
So unless you have then at that moment still somehow written down, identified your defects of character and writing your A-step list of amends people and what those amends are, you're not done with that yet. So the physical piece of paper will help remind you of things. So don't destroy that the second you've finished your step. I don't do that, and I really don't recommend it. You can do it later on. But not right after the inventory.
Just another thing is that, so everybody is different. And even though we are generalizing what we do, we're going to change this from one person to another. We were talking at breakfast about a guy, 12 years sober, he's a cop, ready to shoot himself in the head because he's never been through the steps. And somebody takes and grabs him, and I don't remember how long, it was like minutes or days or something, in a very short period of time, within a week, they took him through all 12 steps, and it saved his life.
Now, obviously that is not what we tend to do, but in that case, that was truly what needed to be done. So what we're saying is that we've got lots of experience with different things, and this would be a general way of going about it. But it isn't like in every case. I mean, there is no absolute right way to do this. The right way to do this is whatever is best for the person you're working with. So I think we've covered all that we want to say about Step Five.
And now we're going to move in. Now all we have is information. Sometimes you're going to feel pretty crappy after that. Some people do. Some people feel uplifted, get the load off. But if you don't continue, all you've got, you're loaded down with this look at self. Now what are we going to do with that? Well, we're going to go, we're going to start going north. We're going to start going up, and we go on to the Sixth Step.
When I looked at Step Six, now the way I remember where Steps Six and Seven are is they are on page 76. Just in reverse. So on page 76, it gives us two paragraphs, and I went, uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, onto the list. When I was doing the inventory steps again at 6.7 years, nine years of sobriety, and I've heard this many, many times of people in that six and seven years sobriety slump, if you will, complacency, struggle, it's steps six and seven that are the game changers.
These are the ones that rose to the top and glared at you, and that's what they did for me. I looked at these steps, and this is where I really jumped into the 12 and 12 with, because it opens with, This is the step that separates the men from the boys, and I interpreted that as, It is time to grow up. I'm chronologically 24 years old. I'm over six years. It is time to grow up. You are making decisions based on four-year-old immediate emotional desires, and you're behaving that way too.
I am so sick of the selfishness and self-centeredness, and step six would make that
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change. As we say in the Big Book, it's asking me, Have you answered to your satisfaction those questions on the prior paragraph, the bottom? Is my work solid so far? Have I skipped anything? Okay, that's what that hour is about. If we're ready to go on, okay. Now, we're let to God remove from me. This is topic 76. All the things which I have admitted are objectionable. What's that mean to me? That means, what are the things that I learned in that inventory, my personality defects that cause me and/or other people problems.
They usually would cause you problems way before they cause me problems, okay? My defects don't bother me as much as they'll bother you. But in that inventory, I see some of those things that are constantly in my face. Am I willing for Him to take them all, every one? Well, so when I look at steps six and seven, it is important to me to break them down one at a time. So, and it was so funny this morning at breakfast, Tab and I and Kent are talking, and he talks about how he does six and seven.
I'm like, that's, you know, I was just shocking how we do it the very same way. So what I ask the gals to do, and I'll share some of mine with you, is take a piece of paper, put a line down the middle, and on the left-hand side write six, and on the top right side write seven. Now let's focus on what do you think, what do you find objectionable about you that causes you problems? And the first one I put down there was self-righteousness.
I saw how that plagued me. To all of my memory. Judgmental. I might not voice it, but I'm thinking it. And I hate the fact that I will still do that today. And I don't even know their name, let alone know anything about the person, and I will make judgments based on my visual or what I'm hearing. Intolerant and impatient. Now, I learned a long time ago, I don't pray for patience because you always get opportunities to practice it, okay?
I don't do that. And so I found that it was a matter of identifying what are these things that are causing me problems, that I find objectionable, that I would like to be rid of, and then having the willingness to, am I willing to let these go? The 12 and 12 is such a beautiful writing. And sometimes I would get from people that you just, well, God's going to remove those in seven. Okay, there's—I'm not going to debate that or not, but I am somebody who needed to make the note of it so I could, in the next step, have something to focus on.
I felt I wanted to be perfect. I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I didn't want to be somebody who did anything wrong. Wants to be perfect. Thank you for the clarification. I want—yeah, sure. You're saying not past tense, current tense. That's what you're saying. Okay. Okay, we'll work with that too. But I've accepted my humanity much more. I still want to do the right thing. I still don't want to hurt people's feelings. I still want to behave appropriately, etc.
But what it is, is that I had to come to grips with—I, and this is not meant to be silly—it really was something that when I took that inventory at 27 years, that I needed to come to acceptance of being human. I am not a robot, and I will make mistakes. That I had to be okay with being human. And again, that might sound kind of silly, but I so wanted to do the right thing. But I only have learned from my mistakes and my errors, and I had to be a little forgiving on those.
I could forgive yours, but I had zero tolerance for me allowing me to make mistakes. So when I looked at my defects of character and made a list of them, I also knew that it just felt like I've got to have some, some
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responsibility for these. And on 65 in the Twelve and Twelve, this helped me to—and while I don't mean to touch on Seven, this may be touching a little bit on it, but it is on Step Six. On 65 in the Twelve and Twelve, it says, If we ask—and again, I'm going to put this in first person—God will certainly forgive my derelictions, but in no case does He render me white as snow and keep me that way without my cooperation.
That is something I'm supposed to be willing to work toward myself. He only asks that I try as best as I know how to make progress in the building of character. And in the next paragraph, it says that this is the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job. The reminder that these defects will always be right under the surface. They’re never going to go away, but perhaps through the continued application, they just won’t come up as often. They won’t last as long.
They won’t be as harmful. They won’t be as painful. But that self-righteousness is always going to be a part of my DNA. There’s going to be times when it comes up a lot more, when I’m not feeling well, stressed out, overwhelmed, just feel like I’ve been hit on all sides. And those are like miracle-grow on those kinds of things. And so it goes on to say, this does not mean that I expect all of my character defects to be lifted out of me as the drive to drink was.
A few of them may be, but with most of them, I shall have to be content with patient improvement. Okay, so it’s going to take a while. It’s not going to just poof, go away. But I have something now that I’m aware of, the list of those shortcomings that I admit are objectionable and that I would like and am willing for God to have them be removed. I’ll save the rest for Step Seven. Thank you, Debbie.
When I first took Step— Six and seven, I put them together, and I thought, hey, now I know what I'm about. Trust me, I'm ready to have God take them away. It was kind of like I got in the rowboat and just said, okay, I'm ready. When they're gone, I'll be happy. But I'm not going to have to do anything because I'm ready. God can take them away, and I don't have anything to do. So if I still have them, you know, he hasn't taken them away yet.
That was a nice justification for bad behavior because as time goes on, I became more and more in pain. Aware of my own arrogance was one of my overriding defects of character. And so arrogance would keep coming back, and it was like, well, if you didn't believe that you were smarter than everybody else, and if they would agree with you, then everything would be fine, but they're just not smart enough.
You know, if you go on living that way, you're going to be paying a very dear price in all sorts of different ways. And that's exactly what happened to me until I got to the place where my life is so painful because of my own defects of character, I'm going to have to address it. Along with that, for me, was that whole area of lust. It's like lust could take my efficiency and destroy my ability to do anything for days.
And so now I'm thinking, you know, I am not enjoying my life. My life is not doing so well, and I'm talking to my sponsor about all of it. And so I'm not hiding any of this, but he makes it pretty clear that either you've got some further amends to make, or maybe you should go back and revisit Step Six and Seven. And when I went back to look at Step Six and Seven and realized. Six and seven, and realize that, you know, my willingness
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to be ready for God to take them didn't include at that point the fact that, can't, are you really doing everything you can? Are you preparing yourself to be ready? Are you looking at where it is that you are arrogant and what you can do? You know, when are those occasions, and when that happens, have you figured out some way to, you know, not act out that in that way? Are you addressing it? Are you, are you on a daily basis taking a look at your defects of character?
Because no, I was not. I was sitting back there waiting for God to take them away, and they weren't going. So now I get to live with them and the results of keeping them. So when I went back to step six and was serious about it, it's like, okay, what kind of work can you do? Well, it was that same kind of list that Debbie put together of those are, here's your defects of character, and here's the alternates that you might practice.
And all of a sudden then step six was probably the most work I have done on any step. I did a lot of amends, but I have not gone back to one step more intensely than I have to step six. And it was really to, okay, where is it? Okay, so you just had a blowup. It just happened. So what was it that you did that led to that? What could you have done different? You see the effects. For me, what I do is I do something that I'm embarrassed about, and then I hate myself for it because everybody knows I'm a fool, I'm an idiot, and I've publicly made a mess of myself, and now I get to shower myself with all this humiliation.
That's how I feel. I want to drink. So I know for a fact that if I don't do something, continue to work on that, then I will, because I don't like these feelings. I don't want to feel like a loser or, you know, miserable, you know, that everybody's judging and I'm feeling like crap about. I have to do something. So my effort then became to analyze every single occasion where that arose and go through it with my sponsor, and we would talk about, well, where did it get started?
And in every single case, it's like, this is just for me, I was right about the objective. The only thing that I didn't do was to think about how that might affect other people. So I am totally ignorant of looking at it like, well, how are other people going to respond to what I'm trying to do? So I now have a clear picture that I am, I go through life with blinders on. I see an objective, I plan out where I'm going to go, and I don't give a damn who's affected by it or how they're affected, because I never think about that. So now my effort is to do something about that. And for me, it really came down to, well, can't what you might want to—I mean, this is years of addressing the same issue—is like, instead of, you may be right about what you want to do, but what you might want to check with is a few people before you take the action.
And so now I have alternate behavior to practice instead. Well, now, I don't know, does that make sense? Are you seeing that I really am—it's the same thing with lust. Okay, so lust is going to be with me forever. I love this morning's reading that says we're going to have these defects of character the rest of our lives, and I'm thinking, oh, you know, I really was hoping that at some point I would practice these steps well enough that I would be perfect and that I wouldn't have to deal with these. I would find the answer, and it would be done and over with. It would be gone, and I'd be great.
But, you know, that really is not the case.
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So the key ingredient was, to me, turns out that I had to accept my— Defective character, and I had to be willing to put in the effort. So if I didn't accept and look at that defective character, and willing to do work, you know, it seemed like Step Six didn't say anything about work. I know it was in that chapter that said work, but it really is, to me, it means work, work, work, work, work, work hard in a persistent way. So the spiritual tool for me ends up being that willingness to accept and continue to work on it, and knowing, like, I'm not going to be perfect.
So that's all I have on Step Six. We can move on to Step Seven. We're a whole lot—I thought we were a lot different on Step Six than we are, but, you know, it's kind of fun to hear what she's doing. So we've both changed over the years on what we've done. When I'm taking somebody else through this step, I really want them to get some clue as to those—what, for me, when I got embarrassed, I wanted to drink. And I got embarrassed because my arrogance led me to doing things that embarrassed myself.
So my alcoholism is tied into my defective character, and if I don't do something about my defective character, so I want the guys that I work with to understand. That drinking is just the symptom. Underlying all that, that's, that drinking is what you do to cover up what you hate about yourself. And if you've gone through what we've gone through up to this point, you've got a pretty good idea, finally, about what it is about yourself you're going to have to deal with. Now, are you really at that place where you're aware that this is going to eat your lunch, and if you don't do something about it?
So I want them to identify at least one of those biggies that is the core of their alcoholism. I thought when I got here it was resentment about my ex, but as it turns out, that wasn't it. It really was that kind of arrogance that led to all sorts of other things. So, what a revealing program. Thank you. As we, yeah. I haven't. It was just my solution that masked the defects and the inability to learn, to know how to live life.
It was just really the symptom, as it says, liquor is but a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions. So that's how I've looked at it. But we do have an ask-it basket, and we would encourage you to put some stuff in the ask-it basket so we can answer those questions later. So, yeah, please do. Yeah, a reminder about that ask-it basket. With, I have this written by our co-founder, Grapevine 1960, Three Choices.
The immediate object of our quest for sobriety, freedom from alcohol and from all its baleful consequences. Without this freedom, we have nothing at all. Paradoxically, though, we can achieve no liberation from the alcohol obsession until we become willing to deal with those character defects which have landed us in that helpless condition. In this freedom quest, we are always given three choices. Now, I'm numbering these. The numbering isn't in there, but here's number one.
A rebellious refusal to work upon our glaring defects can be an almost certain ticket to destruction. Number two, or perhaps for a time, we can stay sober with a minimum of self-improvement and settle ourselves into a comfortable but often dangerous mediocrity. I relate to that. Three, or finally, we can continuously try hard for those sterling qualities that can add up to fineness of spirit and action, true and lasting freedom under God, which moves us to step seven.
I just think that's a wonderful segue into, yeah, I can say, Well, yeah, I got
[00:40:01]
those defects of character. So what? It's your problem. Or I can say, Wow, I do not want to keep affecting people like this, so negatively, so selfish, so self-centered that it's their problem. No, it's not. It's my problem, and I don't like the results of my behavior on that. So we move into step seven, and this is where we take that piece of paper again. I got my list of my defects of character. I just gave you a couple of them, not all of them, but just some examples.
And on step seven, the step seven side, I write, what is the contrary action to what I see? Now, I don't give my gals the answer. I want them to see what. So the question becomes, what do you think is the contrary action? And let's say, anyway, my first one I told you was self-righteousness. On my list, the contrary action is shut up. Shut up. I have saved myself countless amends because I've shut up.
I stopped giving unsolicited advice. I stopped straightening people out that needed straightening out, needed my input on that. I have saved myself tremendous embarrassment by spouting off on something I know nothing about, giving opinions instead of experience. Shutting up has been a great savior to me, my integrity, my self-worth, my respect from others, and my respect for myself. Let's say judgment. That's often on their list as well.
I'll say, what is the opposite of, what's the contrary action that you see? Well, not being judgmental. Okay, that's the topical. What would be something a little deeper than that? And I'll share for myself, it is, even though I see that person, never have even shook their hand, and I've— I've not given them great kudos. I've given them kind of low bottom-ish kudos. I haven't put a bunch of respect on there.
I make judgments based on no information at all. So when I find myself making that judgment, I have to stop. I bet these are really—this is a really cool person. I bet they've had a really interesting life. They're fun. Let's why don't you go say hi and get to know them a little bit better. But that's a forced action. I have to force myself to second thought and not end it with first thought. So when I look at that, I don't like those defects of character. I want them to go away forever.
But I look at them also like Step Ten talks about the daily reprieve. And where I get kind of confirmation for myself in that, in Step Twelve and the Twelve and Twelve, there's the longest paragraph in the world, okay? It's the one that's reviewing in a nutshell all eleven steps. And I remember when I took my second inventory, and I was doing with a dear friend, and I'm 109 days sober longer than her, Rita, Rita from Pacific Group. Dina and Allison know her.
And we were doing the steps together, and when we were reading this, I mean, it was like urching breaks, it was parades, it was like, what? And it says in Step 12, this is on page 108, then in Step 7, again in first person, I humbly asked God to remove my shortcomings, which is basically the wording of the step, humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. This was the part that rocked me. Such as He could or would under the conditions of the day I asked. That clearly indicated to me this is not a poof removal, never have to worry about that again.
Under the conditions of— Again, under the conditions of the day, I'm asking that. It's a one day at a time. Am I demanding He remove this?
[00:45:03]
Do I have any humility about the removal of this? Am I willing to have it removed? Step seven in the Twelve and Twelve is real clear. We kind of like some of those things. I mean, I relate it. I kind of like, in my own mind, feeling a little superior because they just annoy me, right? I don't like that, but that's a reality. That feeling a little one-upsmanship, a little better than. Part of me knows I'm not, but part of me feels different, and I don't like that. And so my behavior is going to adjust the way I think.
We've learned long ago you have to act your way into right thinking. You can't think your way into right acting. Sometimes the pause, Do I really want to go through with this? No. Sometimes that will move me into a better action because my sponsees are watching. If I act as if my sponsor is always in the room, that's really helpful. I want to look good in front of my sponsor behavior. And so I can use different tools to not act out those defects of character.
But it's for me to look at what do I think is that contrary action, and then on a daily basis, something to shoot for. I really do feel I have a responsibility. It can't be, well, if I get angry and lash out at somebody, Ooh, I guess God didn't remove anger from me today. No, you didn't pause. Take responsibility. I'm a blamer. I'm ready to play. You had nothing to do. You were miles away, but by gosh, I can find a route to get to you and blame you.
And there's no one to blame. It just happened. And yet my mind automatically goes to, if they hadn't have, if that last phone call hadn't come in, I would have left on time, blah, blah, blah. And so about taking responsibility, that's why I say six and seven for me were just like, it's time to grow up, and are you ready? Yes. Yes, I am ready to grow up. Now, I don't always know about your defects of character and what's supposed to be removed. We know, and clearly it says in our literature, it's not like they're going to, whoosh, they're going to be removed and we're the hole-in-the-donut kind of person, right?
It says real clear, we have never seen that happen. Don't worry about it. Because we really feel comfortable, for some of us, some of the women I've worked with, that anger or that resentment, that is their sense of empowerment. It feels good to have the angry at that person. It's power. It's a negative, dark power. Let's move into a light power, a white power, a God power, an empowerment through getting lighter.
Are you, you know, it's in those resentments. Are you going to be willing to lug around rocks or do you want to start going with feathers? Are you going to stay heavy or do you want to fly? That's all a decision up to me. And if I'm going to trudge—now, trudge we kind of look at as a negative, and the way I said that sounded negative. Trudge is walking with purpose, more of like, am I going to sludge my way through a happy destiny?
I don't always know what your defects of character are to be removed. And the story that I learned that from, I was about 12 years sober. I'm sitting in my home group at the time, Bellflower Big Book Group, and the room was set up in two five sections. There was a main room that had four quadrants for aisles, and then there—this is at the stage if you're looking out—and then there was what we called Section Five, or the half measures room. You found a lot of newcomers in that section because it was—you could still see the speaker, but you wouldn't catch alcoholism, okay?
It was far enough out there, but you were still in the ballpark. And so this particular night, there was a woman named Gloria, Gloria R., and she had been a member of that group for a long time. She was back to see somebody take a cake or something, and so she was invited to share 10 minutes. So she talks about how she came to her first meeting, was there with her husband. Her husband—well, he was the real alcoholic.
She was just there for support. Now, they were mirrors of each other, right? But he's got the problem. So they're back in Section Five, and they're listening to the two
[00:50:02]
10-minute speakers that night. And she said the first person got up there, and it was this woman, and she had her hair all nice and her makeup on, and she really spoke well. And Gloria says, I'm sitting there back there thinking… I could never be like that. And then the second 10-minute speaker got up, got long hair, ripped jeans, every fifth word's the F-bomb, and she's like, Wow, I really relate to this guy. And she goes on to tell her story as it goes.
Now, at that point, I was stopped in reflection. And I listened to how she spoke as a newcomer and heard those two 10-minute speakers and her thoughts about them. I'm sitting there 12 years sober, and my take on it is I would have approved of the first lady being a good representation of Alcoholics Anonymous, cleaned up her life, put her act together, is representing AA beautifully, and I would have judged the second speaker with, Good God, we're not in the '70s anymore.
Can you cut your hair, Jesus? Come on. We're not in a bar room. Clean up your language, for God's sakes. Haven't you learned anything here? That would have been my mental judgment, and kind of was going on as she's telling the story. But what stopped me in the reflection was her statement of, Wow, I'm really relating to this guy. I might not have had I heard those same two speakers that particular night, but what I learned is God reached out His beautiful, loving hand and grabbed her gently and brought her into Alcoholics Anonymous by what I perceived as someone's defects of character God used as her lifeline.
I'm, how many times have we taken a newcomer to a meeting? Please let there be a good speaker, right? Please let there be somebody. And like I'm supposed to know who they're going to hear. I don't know who that is. They, I may have thought, Oh my God, yay, it's so-and-so, and they're like, meh. And vice versa, right? I'm like, Oh, Jesus. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm hooked. Not for me to determine. It's not for me to determine.
We one night had, at Bellflower, we had a speaker come and talk. He was from out of town. He happened to be in town. He was becoming very popular. And so he came to share at our group, and the timer, we have a timer that holds up cards to help you stay on track so that, you know, I mean, we do have an ending time to the meeting. And it's a very convenient, you know, it's a 45-minute main share and kind of the old thing that there's no souls saved after nine o'clock or something, you know, I mean, you get fanny fatigue. And so this speaker was informed of the timing, and he got up and he started his share and he says, You know, I've talked all over this country. And now there's a lot of people in that room that also share their stories all over the country.
So this is, we're not impressed, okay? We're like, Okay, that's fine. So do a dozen of us in this room. And he says, And I've never been told when I have to quit talking. And we laugh, and we think that's just so funny. Because all of us are aware and are respectful of, you know, when's the time to quit, you know, when do you want me to wrap up? And he says, So you know what? That's about all I have to say tonight.
And he walked off the stage. And the leader that night, the way it was is it was on up on the stage and there was curtains. So you, for convenience, instead of walking, tromping up and down the stairs, you sat kind of off to the side of the stage. He got up and he looked over to the founder of the group and said, just kind of mouthed, Participation meeting? And he goes, Yep. Now, I wouldn't, in brain froze mode, I would not have thought of that, okay?
So he goes to the podium and he starts calling up people. Now, we're still all in shock, you know, we've never seen anything like this before.
[00:55:02]
So one by one, people get up and nobody is addressing the elephant in the room, okay? It's a big elephant. It's a really weird, awkward, first time only I've ever seen it situation in 41 years, the only time I've personally ever witnessed this. Each of them gets up. The last person he calls on is probably my least favorite person in the group. If you would have seen the words serial killer, you would have saw his picture next to it. That's what he looked like, okay?
Just kind of a creepy, oily, icky, ugh, you know, kind of guy. But of course, we don't show that kind of information we have in our mind. We still applaud and we pay attention. And God gave me the most beautiful insight from that guy. He gets up and he says, Well, I've never seen that happen before, where somebody sat down. And we all, like, at the end of the meeting, the ice is broken, right? We laugh. And he says, But you know what?
I was looking around this room, and I'm thinking, everybody in this room has a story. Everybody in this room has a story. We didn't fold up because the only storyteller in the group sat down. Everybody in this room also has a story to tell. And what, again, my judgment—thank God the tools that said, No, no, no, you gotta—open-mindedness, be open-minded. Let's hear what you'd like him to hear what you had to say.
He gave me such a gift. Well, now the meeting portion's over. We go into the seventh tradition, and I was the treasurer at the time, so I'm walking down from the front row, and I'm going to cross that aisleway that separates the half of the room. I'm getting, Do we thank the speaker? I said, You bet we do. He told us more about him in five minutes. than the 45, 50 minutes he would have been given. And I learned from that experience many, many things.
I am no big deal. I am not special. I am not unique, and I am not someone who doesn't have to abide by the respected autonomy guidelines of the group. That don't ever get so big you start believing your own press clippings, the adorations that might come from, Oh my God, you changed my life comments. I know I did not. I got used through a power greater than me to maybe put words to touch you, but I am not the power.
I am the messenger. And so these are some of the examples of Step Seven to me about the examples that I don't always know what your defects are to be removed, because I learned a great deal from the things that I had just shared with you. Thank you, and I'll pass this to Ken. Thank you, Debbie. When I first—well, before I got sober, if you told me I was arrogant, I would have done everything in my power to prove you wrong, because even though that might be true, I didn't want to admit it, and I sure as heck didn't have a solution.
You know, I'm sitting here listening to Debbie, and she's describing, you know, critical judgment of others is a defect. It's a crippling defect. It can actually destroy your ability to enjoy life and have relations with other people. Yet you can see someone who carries that defect successfully in her life. She's found a way to live comfortably with that defect because of a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. That whole thing that was, you know, she's sitting in critical judgment of anything and everyone, and yet, you know, Debbie's been able to succeed.
So for me, I want to do that with the guys that I'm working with too. I want, in my case— If you were to say, Well, critical judgment. Well, quit judging others. Well, that might be nice, but that may not be—well, you just don't turn it off. You have to come up with a way to… Turn it off. You have to come up with a way to actually deal with that. In my case, with the arrogance, you know, my solution that was not, well, quit being arrogant, which is what some guy walked up to me and my sponsor made me go
[01:00:04]
make amends to somebody, and he said, Well, quit being so damned arrogant. I was so angry with him, and I went back to Glenn and I said, God, it just pissed me off when he said that. He said, Well, then you'll have to go make amends to him. I'm like, I am on fire now. I said, Are you kidding? He was the one that said that. And so now arrogance is what I have to live with. I've got to come up with a way, and the way I've done that is instead of taking the action, I'll get other people's input.
So I've come up with a way to have that defect that I will have the rest of my life, but I've found a way to do it. So with the guys I work with, there's different things, and they don't come out of the always out of the resentment spheres and sex conduct, although they're the crippling parts of self. There are other things. One of the interesting characteristics that's going on right now is one of the fellows that I work with is going through the phase what I believe anybody who stays in service is going to go through: bleeding deacon.
And you have to go through bleeding deacon before you become an elder statesman, because after a while, you know, and you need to tell people because you do know. And besides, they need to protect this group and not whatever, you know, and so they start running the show and telling people what to do. And so how do you take and get someone to be aware that this is going to be a painful journey and it's going to take a while to get through it? And I'll be there to help you do that.
There's another fellow that I'm working with whose, you know, down deep kind of thing is that he, when he gets stressed, he has, he uses negative humor. And negative humor would be pointing, you know, laughing at something or making some foolish joke about someone else other than himself and really putting somebody in an awkward position and trying to make it look like funny. And it's not going to serve him well in the long run.
And so how is it that I can spend the time with him? In our book it says, you know, we ask when we're doing a fifth step, we search out an understanding friend. But I think it's pretty clear if I have heard someone's, gone through their fourth step and done their fifth step with them, then there's a whole lot of information that I can gain to be of value to them. So when somebody asks me, can I go do it with a priest?
Of course, I say it's in the book, go right ahead if you feel that that's what you want to do. And I did have a fellow who wanted to do that. And he did die sober, but it was that just didn't come clean with me anyway. He may have come clean with the priest, I don't know. But I always felt like from that point on, he was at a level that he stayed at. He didn't want to grow beyond that. So step seven.
I can remember, we were, there was a, we had a room that had the door, the door was here. That was the only door in and out. And the parents were sitting over here, and the child was running like right between the speaker and the audience. And, you know, it was pretty clear to me that that little shit had to go. I was right, but I probably wasn't the right one to be doing anything about it. And so in my process of, like Debbie said, probably one of the best spiritual tools is shut your mouth, you know.
I didn't say anything and brought it up at the business meeting. And so it was discussed numerous times, you know, changing the format of the room, you know, doing all sorts. But what came from that was everybody's input on what to do came up with, like, when that occurs, the secretary can say that one of our home group members has the authority to take the child or the parent outside and have it, because it could be a disruptive drunk in the room as well.
But, you know, that all of a sudden our group addressed the issue in a way that would be successful as a group decision instead of, like, Kent getting up there and
[01:05:03]
grabbing that little shit, taking him outside and hitting him. Anyway, I'd have straightened him out. But, so. I think that's all that I wanted to say on, add on. You know, again, our kit of spiritual tools, you know, is like to identify that, you know, you probably have some kind of a, at least one defect of character, like my arrogance or Debbie's critical judgment of others, that we're not going to get rid of, that we're going to have to do everything in our power, Step Six, to do something about it.
But really, it's going to be accepting the fact that we have that and waiting on God to, you know, resolve that in its own time. We're not going to be the ones that ends up, okay, if I do this, I've got it fixed. It really is that reliance on God. So my, there's several of my littler defects of character being, you know, having a problem with time, and I came up with then my prayer was that I pray that I do what I should do when I should do it.
And I had my list of prayers that went along with my defects of character. One of mine that I still say today is that I ask God to help me practice humility and self-discipline. And I do that on a daily basis because that is my way of treating my arrogance, because that is the alternate behavior. And I still, I can remember there was a time I was between five and ten years sober, and I had been reading this seven-step prayer every day, and I just said, Hell with that. I ain't going to read that seven-step prayer anymore, because if you read it carefully, it says, Leave me with those defects that are of value to other people.
And I'm thinking, I'm not really interested. I want to be perfect. I don't want those defects. So I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows implies that I get to keep those defects of character that are of use to my fellows. And in fact, that is absolutely true, that I really have been given those defects so that others can identify with me.
You know, I can help other people because those that come to me with the same kind of arrogance, I can say, I identify. I understand. I can help you. So, with that, what time is it? We've got just a couple more minutes. We will close sharing the Seventh Step prayer, which is on page 76. And I just wanted to share a couple things on something very similar to what Kent touched on there. The Seventh Step prayer for me was one I also saw over the years, the part of it got bigger because I only saw certain words.
I understood the my Creator, I'm going to a power greater than me. I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I liked it all. This is the sentence that I saw in parts. I first saw it as, I pray that you now remove from me every defect of character. Period. So I can be more wonderful, more perfect, more whatever. Then I read every single defect of character. So I added the word single, so that did not imply they're all going to go poof away. But it was still all about for me and my growth and my benefit. It wasn't until I got the rest of the sentence, why I'm asking for help on this, and to leave the ones that might be useful that I don't know about, every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.
It's my backup to the Third Step prayer that I say every morning. It just gives it a one-two punch about, help me to do what you need me to do today, what you want me to do today. Guide me, nudge me, put those thoughts in my mind, guide my words on however that's going to be. And it's really a beautiful prayer that closes with, Amen. So have you all taken a moment to think about what is that kind of like?
I always think arrogance is the umbrella that all of my other defects come from. If you can identify what that is, it'll be incredibly helpful in Step Six
[01:10:01]
and Seven, because that is that underlying—I mean, the reason I get embarrassed by doing something stupid is because I'm so arrogant that I'll do that. And it's because I'm so embarrassed that I want to drink. So my—I don't know if that makes sense, but if we can find what that is, it really is a key ingredient to your long-term sobriety. So we're going to go ahead and close in a minute by saying and sharing together.
We'll circle up and do the Seven Step prayer. A friendly reminder that if you are interested in the set of CDs, it's helpful for them to know in advance. So let Rusty and Carolyn of Smile God Loves You know. We also have the ask-it basket. There's paper and pens on the table. There's a blue bowl right here in front. We'd love to share our experience on any questions you might have. And we'll break for lunch, coming back at one o'clock.
Okay, so lunch—we'll meet next this afternoon. We'll resume at one o'clock. Want to thank you so much for your time and attention, and we'll close with Step Seven prayer.