# Big Book Weekend, location undetermined — Step 4—Fear and Sex

- Archive ID: `DP-2003-WORKSHOP`
- Source: https://storiesofrecovery.org/downloads/BBA/DonPritts-BBWorkshop-Step4FearSex~2003-05.mp3
- Duration: 00:43:41
- Audio SHA-256: `b3711c0729170e95ea8a0584ee0dea3446aae741efc0dc38cc9bb1c3acc7d0f7`

> Automated timestamped draft (faster-whisper base.en). Names, specialized terms, and unclear passages require human review.

## Transcript

**[00:00:01]** To thank you all, we have never been able to do this with this many thousand people in the auditorium.
**[00:00:18]** Welcome tree people.
**[00:00:21]** I was very fortunate.
**[00:00:24]** The thing the Mandela said has been so powerful it was life-changing and it is AA in its spirit.
**[00:00:31]** I diminished it because I didn't say what he said. I said what I heard him say.
**[00:00:36]** I would like to read it to you.
**[00:00:40]** Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
**[00:00:47]** It is our light not our darkness which most fightens us.
**[00:00:52]** We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
**[00:00:58]** Actually, who are you not to be?
**[00:01:02]** You are a child of God.
**[00:01:04]** You are playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
**[00:01:13]** We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
**[00:01:17]** It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
**[00:01:26]** As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
**[00:01:34]** That's good stuff.
**[00:01:36]** And if anybody ever had a reason to be pissed, it was him.
**[00:01:41]** And he wasn't. He came out smiling.
**[00:01:54]** So thank you for your indulgence. That is what this whole thing says to me in my heart.
**[00:02:00]** Don't be afraid to let you light shine.
**[00:02:06]** How are we doing?
**[00:02:11]** After dinner?
**[00:02:20]** Well, first roll.
**[00:02:27]** Line up on the left.
**[00:02:29]** Sex inventory is one of the finest things to use for all of life.
**[00:02:45]** I was two years before I was able to get my first sex inventory done.
**[00:02:51]** My memory wasn't that good and I was so screwed up in that area.
**[00:02:57]** When I finally got it done, it fit on a three by five card.
**[00:03:01]** I was amazed that I ever had children.
**[00:03:04]** But the way it is in the big book, it's a conduct inventory. It's not a pornographic inventory.
**[00:03:15]** And technically it's important.
**[00:03:20]** The resentment inventory says make a list first.
**[00:03:24]** The sex inventory does not.
**[00:03:27]** Let's walk into that.
**[00:03:29]** Bill talks of course about all of us needing a little overhaul there.
**[00:03:35]** Some people think we ought to have sex all the time.
**[00:03:39]** Some blame the whole troubles of the world on it.
**[00:03:42]** We have a myriad of screwed up ideas about this deal.
**[00:03:46]** We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sexual conduct.
**[00:03:50]** That means I'm not to be the arbiter of my own either.
**[00:03:55]** One of the most profound things I ever heard was a person who, in giving directions for the
**[00:04:01]** inventory, told another person, we don't know yet whether God wants you to be a whore or a muck.
**[00:04:09]** So forget what you think you know about it because it doesn't.
**[00:04:12]** Now he hasn't made many of either in AA that I've seen, a few.
**[00:04:17]** So we reviewed our own conduct over the past.
**[00:04:24]** It says it's real important because this is specific.
**[00:04:27]** I'm to review my conduct over the past.
**[00:04:31]** Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate?
**[00:04:35]** If you answer those questions, the list will make itself.
**[00:04:39]** If all I do is make a list of the people I've had sexual relations with,
**[00:04:44]** I'm going to miss most of the meat of this inventory.
**[00:04:48]** This is about power.
**[00:04:51]** The withholding of sex is as much a harmful thing as indiscriminate sex.
**[00:04:57]** And we'll miss it if I just make that list.
**[00:05:00]** So where have I been selfish, dishonest, and inconsiderate?
**[00:05:03]** The list will make itself.
**[00:05:05]** Whom have I heard?
**[00:05:06]** That doesn't need to interpret it.
**[00:05:08]** I make, well, who am I heard?
**[00:05:11]** Did we unjustifiably rouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness?
**[00:05:15]** Of course.
**[00:05:16]** How did I go about that?
**[00:05:18]** That, by the way, is a standard business practice.
**[00:05:21]** That's a manipulative tool in many areas of life.
**[00:05:25]** And in this arena, particularly, you're not giving me enough attention.
**[00:05:32]** So I indicate there may be a little dalliance around the corner,
**[00:05:37]** and you start giving me more attention.
**[00:05:39]** It's a manipulation.
**[00:05:41]** Okay.
**[00:05:45]** Where will we at fault and what should we have done instead?
**[00:05:48]** Oh, my.
**[00:05:50]** The very question indicates that I probably know the difference between right and wrong now.
**[00:05:56]** And the question, what should I have done instead is almost anything but what I did.
**[00:06:02]** So.
**[00:06:03]** Okay.
**[00:06:04]** Don't have to get fancy with that one.
**[00:06:10]** But can you see how clearly this lays out for me where my amends are going to come from?
**[00:06:15]** What should I have done instead?
**[00:06:18]** That's what I have to clean up, both directly and in my life.
**[00:06:22]** We got all this down on paper and looked at it.
**[00:06:28]** So this is another written inventory.
**[00:06:31]** I don't have a copy of that because I've got to be honest with you.
**[00:06:35]** I haven't had sexual aberration for about 27 years.
**[00:06:41]** I married a horny Italian woman and everything's just fine.
**[00:06:51]** We make light of that, but it's the truth.
**[00:06:54]** Yeah.
**[00:07:02]** I have a question.
**[00:07:03]** Please.
**[00:07:04]** I don't, not at first because it doesn't say to do that.
**[00:07:13]** I'm just following the directions here.
**[00:07:15]** It says, I start out by saying where have I been selfish, dishonor, inconsiderate, and the
**[00:07:22]** list then gets made right there.
**[00:07:24]** Made there.
**[00:07:25]** As I answer the question, I don't make a list ahead of time because I'm going to leave some
**[00:07:29]** things out if I do.
**[00:07:31]** See, we have the mistaken idea that sex is intercourse.
**[00:07:35]** That's just the picnic on the journey.
**[00:07:38]** We got locked into the picnic and we missed everything that happened on the journey.
**[00:07:42]** Most of the harm comes on the journey.
**[00:07:46]** So men particularly were stupid.
**[00:07:53]** We are genetically driven.
**[00:07:56]** Ladies that doesn't let you off the hook, so are you.
**[00:08:00]** But in a different direction.
**[00:08:02]** But we're stupid.
**[00:08:05]** The problem I had with women most of my life is that I had learned about women from men who don't
**[00:08:09]** know anything about women.
**[00:08:13]** What I know about women today and what I know about sex today, I learned from my wife.
**[00:08:18]** That's all I know.
**[00:08:19]** She doesn't think that's true, but it's true.
**[00:08:22]** I was a virgin when I came to her spiritually.
**[00:08:31]** Well these guys that sit behind you make me nervous.
**[00:08:40]** In this way, in laying it out this way, we try to shape a sane and sound ideal for our
**[00:08:46]** future sex life or for our future business life or our future play life.
**[00:08:51]** Whatever it may be, answering these questions helps me set the new ideal.
**[00:08:56]** I don't have to get fancy with it.
**[00:08:59]** It's not to find my ideal mate.
**[00:09:01]** It's to determine my ideal for my own conduct in this world and in this arena.
**[00:09:07]** What a marvelous tool this is.
**[00:09:10]** All I have to do is look at what I did wrong and the opposite of that will be the right.
**[00:09:17]** It was in this that I made some interesting discoveries about myself.
**[00:09:22]** I am not super stud.
**[00:09:24]** Never have been.
**[00:09:26]** Never wanted to be.
**[00:09:28]** There are other things in life that interest me almost as much.
**[00:09:34]** And the older I get, the more of those there are.
**[00:09:38]** I still believe that God created anything better than that.
**[00:09:40]** He kept it for himself.
**[00:09:43]** But I also have to admit, if he hadn't made it fun, we wouldn't do it.
**[00:09:47]** It looks really dumb.
**[00:09:51]** Hey, it's so weird that we won't even let children watch it.
**[00:09:55]** Okay.
**[00:09:57]** So, you know, really, we subjected each relationship to this test.
**[00:10:13]** Whether it be sexual or any other relationship, business relationship, whatever, this is the test.
**[00:10:19]** Was it selfish or not?
**[00:10:21]** Boy, you got me because in some aspect, absolutely.
**[00:10:25]** Yes.
**[00:10:26]** But was it selfish or not?
**[00:10:29]** We asked God to mold our ideals and help us live up to them.
**[00:10:34]** Same prayer we had been saying, what would you have me be?
**[00:10:42]** Now, I carry this into my marriage.
**[00:10:44]** This is good when you first come here in your sexual maniac.
**[00:10:48]** This will guide you and help you.
**[00:10:51]** But how about a marriage?
**[00:10:53]** The fact is that I did marry a lady who really enjoys me and our activities and that includes sex.
**[00:11:00]** That does not mean that I have proprietary rights over her body and we can have sex any time I want.
**[00:11:06]** That's selfish and would be selfish.
**[00:11:10]** I listened to anyone who has something spiritual to say and it was an old assembly of God and preacher used to commit to that penitentiary.
**[00:11:22]** And I could never have that experience.
**[00:11:25]** I made myself available to it time and time again.
**[00:11:28]** It just didn't happen for me.
**[00:11:29]** But I did discover some things.
**[00:11:31]** I love old hymns.
**[00:11:33]** I love to sing.
**[00:11:35]** If we can get a chorus of we shall gather at the river, I'm with you.
**[00:11:41]** I just love it.
**[00:11:43]** And this little man was a truly spiritual man.
**[00:11:46]** It didn't matter what he called himself.
**[00:11:48]** We knew that and we would sit with him and let him talk with us and ask him questions.
**[00:11:54]** And he mentioned one day that there were times he had doubt and I still had the spiritual illusion that all spiritual people,
**[00:12:00]** there's no more doubt or temptation.
**[00:12:03]** It's, you know, you get your tweed jacket with the leather patches on the elbow and the house up on the side of the mountain with the
**[00:12:12]** overlooking veranda where you sit listening to Mozart coming out of the back room and dispense the little wisdom to the peasants as they go by.
**[00:12:25]** He had doubts, he said, and temptations.
**[00:12:28]** And we said, well, what do you do?
**[00:12:31]** He said, when I am in doubt or when I have temptation, I take the master by the hand.
**[00:12:37]** And I say to him, if I go do this, will you go with me?
**[00:12:42]** And if I don't get a solid yes, I just don't go.
**[00:12:47]** I'll either get a solid yes or a solid no.
**[00:12:50]** If I don't get an answer, I don't go.
**[00:12:53]** It takes a solid yes to go.
**[00:12:57]** Now I was awake enough to know that God is always with me, but the idea was clear.
**[00:13:03]** And I've got a stronger test than that for you, the one that I put myself to because I'm weaker than that preacher was, I think.
**[00:13:12]** If what I'm about to do, could I be, would I be able to do that?
**[00:13:16]** If my wife were watching, my mother were watching, my granddaughter were watching, or my daughter's watching?
**[00:13:21]** That's my test.
**[00:13:26]** We don't let our daughters watch our intercourse, but they watch me trying to seduce their mother on a regular basis, and they love it.
**[00:13:36]** They know how deeply I love her.
**[00:13:39]** I've patter on the rump for blowing her ear.
**[00:13:42]** I've been known to fall to my knees in front of her and say, thank you, Jesus, thank you.
**[00:13:47]** I mean, I'm blatant about it because that's playful.
**[00:13:52]** And the daughters have got good attitudes about sex.
**[00:13:55]** There's nothing to be afraid of, and they know I love their mother.
**[00:13:57]** We're not going to let them watch. That's private.
**[00:14:02]** Besides, I'm fat and ugly.
**[00:14:04]** We need to always remember that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good.
**[00:14:20]** Neither to be as lightly and self-esteem or to be despised and loathed.
**[00:14:26]** I'm to take kind of a neutral thing here, and the key was God gets to be in on this deal too.
**[00:14:33]** I'm to practice these principles in all of my affairs.
**[00:14:38]** We've been married in, I don't know, two or three years when it occurred to me that I never consciously prayed about that.
**[00:14:48]** So I stopped for a minute. We're getting ready to go to bed and make love.
**[00:14:52]** And I just stopped for a second.
**[00:14:54]** And my own head quietly said, if I go do this, will you go with me?
**[00:14:58]** And within me I heard, oh, yeah.
**[00:15:01]** Why not?
**[00:15:09]** It's his creation for goodness sakes. Why not?
**[00:15:13]** And it has changed our regular life and our sex life.
**[00:15:19]** There's nights I have a headache.
**[00:15:22]** There's nights she has a headache.
**[00:15:25]** It doesn't matter anymore.
**[00:15:27]** It's part of the journey, and the picnic is a great part of the journey, but it's just the picnic.
**[00:15:32]** The fun part is 24-hour-day seduction.
**[00:15:37]** That's the fun part.
**[00:15:39]** I adore her. I let her know that.
**[00:15:42]** I have found all of her little weak spots.
**[00:15:45]** My favorite is when she's busy cooking to kiss her on the back of the neck because it makes you go, ooh, better than cookies, man.
**[00:15:55]** Anyway, did you get the idea? Find your own way into this.
**[00:16:02]** And have fun with it.
**[00:16:04]** Our Eskimo friends, their word for sexual intercourse is, let us laugh together.
**[00:16:13]** Let's go laugh together.
**[00:16:17]** Because this is fun.
**[00:16:19]** Ooh, whatever the ideal is ought to be, we must be willing to grow toward it.
**[00:16:29]** Again, willingness is the key here.
**[00:16:33]** My strength comes from my weaknesses.
**[00:16:36]** If I think I am strong, then I will give in to my weaknesses.
**[00:16:43]** If I admit my weaknesses, I get strength.
**[00:16:47]** It's just the way it works.
**[00:16:50]** So I need God more here than anywhere else because this is the second most powerful power source of the human condition.
**[00:16:59]** This is the one that drives the whole damn planet
**[00:17:04]** and can either be used for good or it can destroy it.
**[00:17:08]** Everything we're trying to build.
**[00:17:11]** We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm than so doing.
**[00:17:21]** Counsel with others.
**[00:17:23]** Counsel with sane people though, if you can find any.
**[00:17:30]** In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem.
**[00:17:33]** Holy mackerel, do you hear what that says?
**[00:17:36]** What's common next is the solution to every problem I may ever have.
**[00:17:40]** That's what it says, every problem.
**[00:17:43]** And here it is.
**[00:17:44]** In meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.
**[00:17:49]** The rule book just goes out the window.
**[00:17:53]** Now I live by principles, not by rules.
**[00:17:57]** What worked last week is a rule may not work this week.
**[00:18:01]** In any activity I have, but the principle, will this cause any harm?
**[00:18:06]** That works every time.
**[00:18:09]** The right answer will come if we want it.
**[00:18:12]** What should I do about each specific matter?
**[00:18:15]** I can apply that to every activity of my life.
**[00:18:20]** And I've done some bizarre things with that.
**[00:18:25]** I believe in practicing prayer and practicing the presence of God.
**[00:18:28]** So when I got out of the penitentiary where they were feeding me, I had no choices there.
**[00:18:33]** I used to stand in front of the bread counter at Safeway and practice.
**[00:18:41]** I would say in my present state of health, which of these should I be eating?
**[00:18:46]** Because I don't know.
**[00:18:48]** And then I let everything go out of focus.
**[00:18:51]** And whether it came back into focus first, that's the one I bought.
**[00:18:54]** Now that sounds silly.
**[00:18:56]** And I don't think God necessarily takes time out from his day to say, oh, get the rainbow white.
**[00:19:02]** I believe it's the practice that was important.
**[00:19:05]** I got used to asking God in each situation no matter what it was.
**[00:19:12]** What should I do here?
**[00:19:16]** And it becomes a habit.
**[00:19:17]** You don't even think of it anymore.
**[00:19:21]** So the first time through you got a lot of housecleaning to do because we are all sexually weird when we get here.
**[00:19:29]** We are.
**[00:19:33]** Yeah.
**[00:19:36]** Not necessarily terribly sick, but weird.
**[00:19:40]** I don't know where you grew up, but where I grew up, we didn't talk about it except on the street.
**[00:19:47]** With guys who'd never done it before either.
**[00:19:51]** And girls wouldn't talk about it with us.
**[00:19:53]** What the hell are we going to know?
**[00:19:55]** So we get weird.
**[00:19:56]** Some of us come from an old Quaker background where that's really bad news.
**[00:20:01]** I have been beaten severely in this arena with rubber hose and things like that.
**[00:20:08]** And many of you have had the same thing because we get some weird stuff in this country.
**[00:20:12]** Forget it.
**[00:20:13]** It's all lies.
**[00:20:14]** Ask God what should I do about each specific matter.
**[00:20:18]** So I have to learn how to meditate, don't I?
**[00:20:27]** If I'm going to go in meditation, I have to learn how and later on we get taught how to do that.
**[00:20:33]** This whole business is about prayer, isn't that lovely?
**[00:20:36]** But suppose you mess up.
**[00:20:39]** Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumbled.
**[00:20:42]** Does that mean we're going to get drunk?
**[00:20:44]** It depends entirely upon our motives.
**[00:20:46]** If we're willing to straighten that out and be taken on to better things, probably not.
**[00:20:51]** If we're not sorry and we continue to harm others, we will surely drink.
**[00:20:56]** So what is it that will cause me to drink?
**[00:20:58]** Not a crisis.
**[00:21:00]** Harming others is what's sure to make me drink.
**[00:21:03]** Anything that separates from me from you is sure to make me drink.
**[00:21:08]** Whether it be resentment or fear or conduct.
**[00:21:12]** If it separates me from you, I am sure to drink.
**[00:21:16]** If I harm you, I am sure to drink.
**[00:21:18]** What a wonderful tool God's got.
**[00:21:20]** Enlighten self-interest.
**[00:21:23]** Okay.
**[00:21:26]** I don't get to even pray for myself anymore except as those prayers may affect how it works with you.
**[00:21:33]** But I found a way around that one, by the way.
**[00:21:36]** Or I found a way to get into that one all the way.
**[00:21:39]** And I'll give it to you.
**[00:21:41]** I need to be filled with a sense of the presence of God.
**[00:21:47]** It's all I need.
**[00:21:48]** And I know that.
**[00:21:49]** And I can't ask for that for me.
**[00:21:51]** It's what this says.
**[00:21:54]** So here's what I say to him.
**[00:21:56]** Please fill me with your loving spirit and let it flow through me and into the lives of others.
**[00:22:03]** And you know what?
**[00:22:04]** As long as I'm willing to let it keep flowing, I'm full.
**[00:22:07]** What a neat trick.
**[00:22:12]** Don't get rid of your, you can't get rid of your scheme or anyway.
**[00:22:16]** Let it work.
**[00:22:21]** To sum up about sex or any other problem, we earnestly pray for the right ideal.
**[00:22:29]** For guidance and each questionable situation.
**[00:22:32]** Again, Bruce, I don't know what's questionable.
**[00:22:35]** If you're involved in it, it's questionable.
**[00:22:39]** Not necessarily negative.
**[00:22:41]** Anytime I have two possibilities or more, it's questionable.
**[00:22:45]** Which should I do?
**[00:22:47]** Don't have to be negative.
**[00:22:49]** Every situation is questionable because life is made up of choices.
**[00:22:53]** Go left or go right.
**[00:22:55]** Go up or go down.
**[00:22:56]** It's always questionable.
**[00:22:58]** So pray all the time.
**[00:23:04]** It gets to be fun.
**[00:23:07]** For sanity.
**[00:23:09]** Insanity in here is described in the story of the car salesman named Jim as lack of proportion
**[00:23:15]** in the ability to think straight.
**[00:23:17]** So sanity would be proportion, proportion, and the ability to think straight.
**[00:23:23]** What does that apply here?
**[00:23:25]** My genes tell me my whole purpose for being on Earth is to repopulate it.
**[00:23:29]** So many females, so little time.
**[00:23:32]** I'm driven with that genetically.
**[00:23:38]** I can get clear out of proportion with that.
**[00:23:40]** Okay?
**[00:23:41]** This means it's saying I understand that's not just my job.
**[00:23:44]** I need to share that.
**[00:23:46]** Frankly, it's too big a job for me anyway.
**[00:23:49]** And I get distracted by good music sometimes and forget it.
**[00:23:55]** Oh, I do.
**[00:23:57]** You can laugh if you want what I do.
**[00:23:59]** Strengths to do the right thing.
**[00:24:03]** There's my deal.
**[00:24:05]** I know the difference between right and wrong.
**[00:24:08]** What I lack is power, or in this case, the strength to do the right thing.
**[00:24:13]** Once I know what the right thing is quite often, the feeling I get is, oh, I'm just a little
**[00:24:20]** kid.
**[00:24:21]** You're asking too much of me.
**[00:24:23]** I don't have the strength to do that.
**[00:24:26]** And by admitting I don't have the strength and by asking for it, suddenly I get the strength
**[00:24:31]** to do the right thing.
**[00:24:34]** And if I'm busy trying to get the strength to do the right thing, I don't have time to
**[00:24:38]** do the wrong thing.
**[00:24:39]** This is written for children because that's who we are.
**[00:24:45]** So it says we're children of the living creator.
**[00:24:50]** You know what I think is funny?
**[00:24:52]** What is the children are supposed to do most of the time?
**[00:24:55]** Play!
**[00:24:56]** We get serious about this.
**[00:24:59]** Lighten up.
**[00:25:01]** It's only life or death, God.
**[00:25:09]** If sex or any other problem is very troublesome, we throw ourselves a harder into helping
**[00:25:17]** others.
**[00:25:18]** We think of their needs and we work for them.
**[00:25:22]** This takes us out of ourselves and acquires the imperious urge when to yield would mean
**[00:25:28]** heartbreak, both for me and for other people.
**[00:25:31]** I can't stand one more of my own heartbreaks.
**[00:25:37]** Along the way here in this, I began to learn the difference between guilt and shame.
**[00:25:41]** And there's a very real difference.
**[00:25:44]** Guilt is what happens to me when you catch me breaking one of your standards or rules
**[00:25:49]** or laws or whatever, then I feel guilty.
**[00:25:52]** And it's very easy to take care of guilt.
**[00:25:54]** I just shut up and wait for you to tell me what I have to do to pay the debt.
**[00:25:58]** How much time I have to go, how much money it's going to be, what humiliation I have to face,
**[00:26:04]** takes care of the guilt.
**[00:26:06]** Shame is when I've just caught myself violating one of my own standards, one of my own principles,
**[00:26:12]** and there's no payoff.
**[00:26:15]** There is no payoff for that.
**[00:26:17]** The only way I can ever get rid of shame is to become the kind of person who could no longer
**[00:26:21]** commit that shameful act.
**[00:26:24]** And that's the transformation we get here.
**[00:26:26]** I can't deal with shame.
**[00:26:28]** I just become somebody else.
**[00:26:30]** You can't do that.
**[00:26:32]** That sounds high and lofty, and it is, but it isn't.
**[00:26:37]** I don't know how many of you have ever heard of Gert Bahann.
**[00:26:40]** Gert was raised here at the Waldorf.
**[00:26:42]** Very, very rich old lady.
**[00:26:45]** Bad drunk.
**[00:26:48]** 62 years old, she had a Christian conversion experience and stopped drinking, set herself
**[00:26:56]** up a little trust that would keep her alive.
**[00:26:58]** She said she wished she would have remembered about inflation, but went down to Arizona
**[00:27:03]** and began working with drunks.
**[00:27:06]** And those that she couldn't take care of, she'd send to AA.
**[00:27:10]** And six years later, in her sobriety, she realized she was sending people someplace where she
**[00:27:17]** hadn't been, so she went and became an AA member of the highest standing.
**[00:27:25]** Gert was one of those people.
**[00:27:27]** The first time I saw her talk was in a cathedral in Denver.
**[00:27:30]** Little old lady, late 70s or early 80s.
**[00:27:34]** And I knew I was looking into the face of God.
**[00:27:37]** That's what she put out.
**[00:27:39]** She had that going.
**[00:27:41]** She traveled the world just talking about God.
**[00:27:44]** Kind of like Fatima does.
**[00:27:46]** And if you know Fatima, you're going to hear about God because she doesn't know anything else.
**[00:27:51]** And we had Fatima out to our correctional facility.
**[00:27:55]** Let her talk to the guys for an hour.
**[00:27:57]** Took over two hours, and when she left they asked me to bring her back again tomorrow.
**[00:28:02]** But Gert, one time, we were talking about this spiritual stuff, and she was laughing at us
**[00:28:07]** as most people do, young people.
**[00:28:09]** She says, being spiritual isn't all that much different.
**[00:28:12]** She said, honey's, she called us all honey's.
**[00:28:16]** When I was sick, I used to look down on people.
**[00:28:19]** Now that I'm spiritual, I look down on people who look down on people.
**[00:28:23]** I think that much different.
**[00:28:26]** And began to make it real.
**[00:28:28]** And that's what's going on here.
**[00:28:33]** My ideal is that I keep my promises.
**[00:28:39]** If I'll do that, I probably won't cause you harm.
**[00:28:42]** So I'm very, very careful about making promises.
**[00:28:45]** I used to make ones I had no intention or no way to keep.
**[00:28:49]** And my dad, one time near the end of the road, gave me this lovely tidbit, as a standard.
**[00:28:55]** He said, Don, there's only two things that a person really needs to live a good life, an honorable life.
**[00:29:00]** You have to have enough honor to keep every promise you ever make, no matter what the personal consequences.
**[00:29:06]** And enough wisdom to not make too many promises like that.
**[00:29:11]** Okay.
**[00:29:13]** So if I want to keep my promises, if I want to have integrity with you,
**[00:29:18]** it means we must communicate.
**[00:29:21]** There must be an exchange, a negotiation, if you will.
**[00:29:25]** Well, we both come to an agreement.
**[00:29:27]** This is how we will behave toward one another.
**[00:29:30]** Jeez, that makes my marriage pretty easy.
**[00:29:33]** I will stay faithful to this woman, to the end of the road.
**[00:29:38]** Very easy.
**[00:29:39]** All got to just keep the promise.
**[00:29:42]** And she makes that very easy.
**[00:29:46]** But I have to keep that view.
**[00:29:48]** Okay.
**[00:29:49]** Now, one of the things that's done for me, quite honestly, has made me a safe man.
**[00:29:56]** Some of you ladies who know me long enough know that.
**[00:29:59]** You can hug on me and you're safe because I'm safe.
**[00:30:03]** And it's a wondrous thing that happens because it lifts it to another place.
**[00:30:08]** Some of you guys know that I'll kiss you right on the mouth if you're not careful.
**[00:30:13]** Because that's non-sexual.
**[00:30:15]** Okay.
**[00:30:16]** I'll shake your hand.
**[00:30:17]** I'll hold you by the arm.
**[00:30:19]** I'll hug you.
**[00:30:20]** I'll kiss you on the cheek.
**[00:30:21]** And if you're loud, I'm going to kiss you right on the mouth.
**[00:30:24]** Loud is a friend of mine from Seattle.
**[00:30:27]** A lunatic.
**[00:30:29]** Lunatics need to be kissed on the mouth regularly.
**[00:30:33]** All right.
**[00:30:36]** Have you met Loudy?
**[00:30:38]** He's an old rock musician.
**[00:30:40]** He's stark raving mad and I just love him.
**[00:30:43]** He and Gwen just had another baby.
**[00:30:46]** That's two.
**[00:30:48]** Oh.
**[00:30:49]** At least likely father that you've ever considered and he's thriving on it.
**[00:30:54]** Just thriving on it.
**[00:30:56]** Anyway.
**[00:30:58]** So there's another ideal.
**[00:30:59]** I would like to be safe.
**[00:31:01]** I would like to be a safe person.
**[00:31:04]** In whatever activity I need to have enough integrity that you know you are safe with me.
**[00:31:09]** And you know how I do that?
**[00:31:12]** That's easy.
**[00:31:13]** I rely upon God and I'll let you know that right out front.
**[00:31:16]** I don't need anything from you.
**[00:31:20]** So I'm not going to be negotiating for my benefit.
**[00:31:23]** Because I don't need you.
**[00:31:25]** I don't need anything from you.
**[00:31:27]** I need you more than ever before.
**[00:31:30]** And these are the ideals that over the years begin to come.
**[00:31:34]** I want to be a good father.
**[00:31:37]** Well one of my early sponsors when I had seven children.
**[00:31:41]** That was an experience.
**[00:31:44]** And I got busy in AA.
**[00:31:47]** There's a difference between being busy and being active and I had gotten busy.
**[00:31:52]** Pulled me aside when Danny said you know we're supposed to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
**[00:31:56]** And that means we have to practice them at home too.
**[00:31:59]** And in order to do that you got to be there once in a while.
**[00:32:05]** Have you ever listened to children?
**[00:32:07]** You want to be a good parent?
**[00:32:09]** Stop raising children the way most of us do it.
**[00:32:11]** It's a criminal activity.
**[00:32:13]** We keep trying to impose ourselves and our dreams and our ideals on them and make them into something they aren't.
**[00:32:20]** And so stop that.
**[00:32:22]** Start listening to children.
**[00:32:24]** That's what I've learned.
**[00:32:26]** You ever listen close to children?
**[00:32:28]** You know what their biggest bitch is?
**[00:32:30]** Nobody ever listens to me.
**[00:32:33]** You want to make friends with a child?
**[00:32:35]** Sit down for a minute and listen to them.
**[00:32:37]** They have very short attention spans.
**[00:32:39]** They're not going to take up much of your time.
**[00:32:41]** Okay.
**[00:32:42]** Pretty soon you're dull.
**[00:32:44]** Don't go do something else.
**[00:32:48]** But listen to them.
**[00:32:49]** Isn't that all of our...
**[00:32:50]** My ideal is to become a listener.
**[00:32:55]** And God has made me a listener and I think you're funny because you asked me to talk.
**[00:32:59]** But I'm a listener.
**[00:33:01]** It'll be effective in working with people.
**[00:33:03]** Don't figure out what they need.
**[00:33:05]** Listen while they tell you what they need.
**[00:33:07]** Because they will.
**[00:33:09]** You have to really learn to listen because very few alcoholics ever say it straight.
**[00:33:13]** But they're saying it.
**[00:33:15]** Listen to me.
**[00:33:17]** You don't hear of what I'm saying.
**[00:33:20]** I heard that from my older boy and it broke my heart because he was right.
**[00:33:23]** I wasn't hearing what he was saying.
**[00:33:25]** I was hearing what he was saying.
**[00:33:27]** Anyway, by praying for those ideals and all of my affairs, I can have affairs.
**[00:33:36]** As long as I don't have more affairs and I have principles, I'm fine.
**[00:33:40]** At work.
**[00:33:42]** Very important at work.
**[00:33:45]** Don't even want to go there right now.
**[00:33:52]** Maybe tomorrow.
**[00:33:53]** Tomorrow morning is crying time.
**[00:33:55]** I'm going to tell all kinds of emotional stories.
**[00:33:57]** All of us that just bring you to tears.
**[00:34:02]** Oh yeah, it's going to be a three-hanky morning.
**[00:34:04]** My ideal is, according to this, God is my employer.
**[00:34:18]** So for many, many years, I've never worked for anybody but God.
**[00:34:24]** Now he's given me numbers of human supervisors that paid my check.
**[00:34:30]** He has to find some way to get the money into my hands.
**[00:34:33]** But I don't work for you.
**[00:34:35]** I work for him.
**[00:34:37]** And you know, I've had amazing experiences there.
**[00:34:41]** I went to work at a correctional facility and the first thing they did was take me out of the matrix.
**[00:34:47]** I was not subjected to any of the routines that all the other employees had to do because I worked harder than any of them.
**[00:34:55]** I worked for God.
**[00:34:56]** That's a 24-hour-day job.
**[00:34:58]** So instead of coming in at nine, I found that I could come in at seven and get more work down between seven and nine than a good all day.
**[00:35:06]** And I don't mind that. That left me free time to actually work with people.
**[00:35:10]** I don't want to go clear off into all that, but that's what comes out of these prayers.
**[00:35:14]** What should I do about each specific matter?
**[00:35:18]** Very important.
**[00:35:20]** And then I'll pass this on.
**[00:35:23]** I work with a lot of people.
**[00:35:25]** Little Chuck was not capable of getting into the big book for almost a year.
**[00:35:30]** He was so badly damaged, I just kept him with me and rode around in my car and let him spew his hate and couldn't get into it for almost a year.
**[00:35:42]** So I'm very patient with those kind.
**[00:35:45]** Not too long ago, a fellow came to me who'd been 17 years sober, relied entirely upon his sponsor and the 12 and 12.
**[00:35:56]** And it never worked the steps thoroughly.
**[00:36:00]** His sponsor did something that made him mad and then died.
**[00:36:05]** Now, God was gone. He was mad at him.
**[00:36:09]** There were no directions, so he drank. So at 17 years, of course he drank. He had no power.
**[00:36:15]** And he and I had met him in Los Angeles on an airplane coming back to Denver.
**[00:36:21]** One of those crossroad deals about five years before, and we had talked.
**[00:36:26]** So he called me and asked me if I would take him through the steps and work with him, help him.
**[00:36:34]** And we were going along pretty good, but he couldn't stop drinking.
**[00:36:39]** Now, he's a holistic chiropractor.
**[00:36:41]** And the way God works is I get my information through strange ways.
**[00:36:45]** An Indian friend of mine wanted me to go to a holistic chiropractor for my feet.
**[00:36:50]** And this chiropractor suggested I take some adrenal cortex.
**[00:36:54]** I'm a label reader. I'm responsible for what goes in my body.
**[00:36:59]** It's 80% alcohol. All those herbal medicines are.
**[00:37:05]** And he's telling me that he doesn't understand it because he can't seem to get healthy.
**[00:37:09]** He's taking his own herbs and all of that.
**[00:37:11]** No wonder you haven't quit drinking. You haven't quit drinking.
**[00:37:17]** Pointed out to him that he quit drinking.
**[00:37:21]** And the craving went away and we went along pretty good.
**[00:37:25]** Had a good third step experience, sent him home to make his list.
**[00:37:30]** And he made his list. And we set up an appointment and he missed it.
**[00:37:35]** This is about two years ago, Christmas.
**[00:37:38]** I didn't hear from him for a while.
**[00:37:41]** Called me back after.
**[00:37:43]** Now he's got a habit of drinking, coming back, starting over, drinking, coming back, starting over.
**[00:37:49]** Called me and he said, you know I drank over the holiday.
**[00:37:52]** And I said, I know you did. You want to know how I knew?
**[00:37:55]** Well, you didn't show up. That's how I knew. Not a no-brainer.
**[00:38:00]** He said, what should I do now? And I prayed for this specific instance.
**[00:38:07]** And said, Ali, I think what you need to do is keep drinking.
**[00:38:12]** I think you need to drink until you discover for yourself that you cannot not drink.
**[00:38:18]** And when that day comes, call me back.
**[00:38:23]** Well, I found out the other night he called one of the guys I sponsored when he finally got to that place.
**[00:38:30]** And John said, well, what do I tell you to do when you got there?
**[00:38:34]** He said, call him. He said, well, then why don't you call him, not me.
**[00:38:37]** And he called me. He said, now what do I do?
**[00:38:41]** And I prayed again. And I said to him, finish what you started.
**[00:38:45]** You got your list. Now it's time to do that second and third call.
**[00:38:49]** I've shown you how to do that. When you're through with that, call me back.
**[00:38:53]** Months went by.
**[00:38:56]** Because he knows I mean it. Don't call me till you're through.
**[00:38:59]** Well, then in the last month, we have had one of those rocketing into the fourth dimension experiences.
**[00:39:06]** Are we running out of time again? Go!
**[00:39:11]** Ten.
**[00:39:15]** About a month ago, he called me and he said, I'm through with the first three columns.
**[00:39:25]** And so I became immediately available, had him come over that day.
**[00:39:29]** We went over that business in between, taught him how to pray there,
**[00:39:35]** and then go home and do that fourth column, which he had never done before,
**[00:39:42]** and had resisted. In less than two weeks he was done.
**[00:39:47]** I mean he was really done. He was finished.
**[00:39:50]** So I had him out the next day and we began his fifth step.
**[00:39:54]** It took two sessions to get it all done.
**[00:39:58]** Because it was fairly likely. I'm going to do two or three hours at a time because that's all I can do.
**[00:40:04]** I've got it all done.
**[00:40:06]** He sent him home to do his own amends list, if you will.
**[00:40:12]** Because I'm all in experience, I know that he needs to become willing on his own
**[00:40:21]** to know precisely what he did wrong and what he thinks he can do about it,
**[00:40:25]** and then have a mind open enough to say he may have missed something here.
**[00:40:30]** So he can be open to any feedback the person needs.
**[00:40:34]** We got all that done and he came back and he's got the whole eight step thing written out.
**[00:40:38]** I mean he's really, I wish he would all behave like he did.
**[00:40:44]** And at the top of the list is one he's not really wanting to make.
**[00:40:48]** Not wanting to make. It's going to cost him some money and could even put him in jail if it's not done right.
**[00:40:54]** He's harmed somebody on a house fire deal. I don't want to get in any detail.
**[00:40:59]** But he harmed an agent by making her look bad in front of her boss.
**[00:41:06]** Trying to get some money that really wasn't doing him.
**[00:41:09]** It was one of those things that was in the gray area.
**[00:41:12]** He had a lawyer and he's pissed off because all he's going to get back is a thousand dollars
**[00:41:17]** and it's already costing nine hundred and eighty dollars for the lawyer.
**[00:41:21]** And he just doesn't want to make this one. So I prayed about it.
**[00:41:26]** I said you might as well go home.
**[00:41:29]** Because if you're not wanting to do this one, none of the rest of them are going to make any sense either.
**[00:41:34]** There are other people I would say just pick one and get started and you'll get the power.
**[00:41:38]** But in this case that's what came out.
**[00:41:41]** He said do this. You go home and write a letter just as if you were willing to say what you're going to say to these people.
**[00:41:50]** Then bring it back and let me take a look at it.
**[00:41:52]** In the meantime, pray for some willingness. That's what it says to do in the sixth step.
**[00:41:56]** Pray for the willingness.
**[00:41:59]** It took a couple days but he called me up and he read the letter to me.
**[00:42:05]** It was a masterpiece.
**[00:42:08]** He had already cut out the things that would make him look like a good guy and just laid it all out.
**[00:42:13]** The agent can't talk to him because he has a lawyer and the insurance agent is not allowed to talk to him.
**[00:42:18]** So he can't make it personally and I keep insisting you hurt her face to face.
**[00:42:22]** You got to see her face to face.
**[00:42:25]** But he's done. He got it all done. He's laid it out on the line. He's fired his lawyer and he's free.
**[00:42:31]** Now the rest of them are going to go shoo.
**[00:42:34]** We're going to have a tiger by the tail.
**[00:42:37]** It's going to shake everybody in Dandere because they've been watching him for years and he's a go out and start over.
**[00:42:43]** Go out and start over. Go out and start over. He is on fire.
**[00:42:47]** I am in love with the way the process works.
**[00:42:50]** All I did was pray at each juncture.
**[00:42:53]** What do I do here?
**[00:42:55]** Because that's what I've been told to do here.
**[00:42:58]** Each specific instance.
**[00:43:01]** The next guy I may say here let me help you with that.
**[00:43:04]** Let me go with you on this one.
**[00:43:07]** You never know so stay open to that.
**[00:43:09]** I try to use the principles not the letter of the law but the spirit of the law.
**[00:43:15]** Because I don't want to kill anybody.
**[00:43:17]** Now I've yammered long enough on this kind of thing. I know these guys have a good deal to say.
**[00:43:23]** We want to push on because we've still got to make some amends.
**[00:43:26]** That's a tear trigger.