I like to take advantage of the notes function in my phone. That show and Charlie, I'm taking down notes at meetings sometimes and taking now notes because you never know what you're going to see or hear that's going to hit you. And Steve and I had something that somebody shared at our meeting last night that hit both of us and what that was, is sometimes I trigger somebody else's character defect. Steve, what's going on? Welcome to the program.
Yeah, everything's good. that meeting was good. We were both talking about it before this. do think that we both were hit by this. This comment of our character defects triggering other people. I know it went me, it made me pause and go, Oh, yeah, that's true. And still can happen today, right? That's the whole point, right?
Oh,
I,
yeah,
I hear about it all the time that my character defects are still something that I need to deal with. And if I'm not in the right place, then those character defects can certainly trigger other people's behavior around me. And then I could, you know, I can easily look at their behavior and go, Oh, look at that jerk. And not not really acknowledge the fact that I had something to do with how they're behaving.
I had to think long and hard about that when I'm feeling like a victim. And I looked back of what the people who really bothered me, who pissed me off that I fought with. How much was this? Me triggering them and getting under their skin.
don't think there's any question, like I said. And you know something? I think what happened last night was it's not something that was unknown to me that I can't cause people. But the way he shared it, you know, sometimes you hear other people say something and they say it in such a way that it just resonates with you. And for me, that's what happened. And a little bit was because I was in
in a great spot last night. I mean, I had a couple of things going on, and I think it made me think, Huh, um, I wonder if my behavior is causing some of the things that are going on outwardly or subconsciously, right? I mean, it's like I may not realize and this is the whole point to beauty of our program, ri? The beauty of our program. And last night, right in this meeting is a big book meeting. But when we get into the chapter of how it works, we sort of break it up into steps.
So we did the steps eight, nine, right. And when we talked about doing amends, writing that list and then doing amends and and then we start, you know, next week when we go, we'll we'll talk about ten, 11 and we'll talk about ten. Right. Doing those part inventories, doing those. Don't take the taking of view of our day and the beauty of this program is that we get to do that if we want to. We get we have a we have a way that we
get to do that. So when somebody says something like that at a meeting, then I could go home and go, Hey, do I want to put that suggestion to use and start looking at myself? Or, you know, do I want to ignore it? Because when I find that when I do that, when I put it to use that my life, my life is just all it's just so much better. Mm hmm. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We all get narratives of what something is, you know, And we have our own perspective, our own point of
view on it. And I was taught the same way, is that I should always ask, is there anything I missed or is there anything else or. Or some type of follow up question that allows whoever you're making the comments to go, Yeah, there was this other incident or yeah, there's this other thing that's been bothering me because if you're going to spend that time to do that amends, then you know, do
it, do it right. Try to make sure that all everything is clear when you walk out of there and and yeah, you know, I think I think something you said is that this person is new to this meeting. So it is new to me. I didn't know him before this meeting, even if I've been in other meetings with him, I sort of never stuck out to me. So that's helpful. Sometimes when a new person shares is you, it was
a very good share. And this meeting that you pay attention to it, you know, we go to our meetings and we get the same 15, 20 guys there sort of people have a cadence of how they share and you may sort of block somebody out, right? Like you said, if you're not if you're not open, if you don't go there with the with the idea that I want to learn something tonight, that I want to be open to hear something tonight, then it's
just human nature. Certain people could start talking and you can just shut them out. Right. You know, you're listening, right? You can just really shut them out and go, Oh, so and so to share. And again, I've heard this story and miss out on some very important stuff. So the fact for me and, you know, again, I'm talking about me, but fact for me that he was new, I really paid attention to what he was saying. And it was it was impactful. Yeah, it is.
Yeah. Especially when we get to this portion of the meeting, when we're going through this portion of the book, just for those who are familiar with the big book, the first hundred and 64 pages. And where this meeting works is we read right from the beginning right to 164, and they rotate right, right through. And then the last the last Monday of the month, we read a story. So we're constantly going through
that. 164 But when we get to this, how it works, and then even the next week after that, we're basically going through the steps. most of the people at this meeting have gone through the steps, right? So obviously they all have something to share on it. So but like every meeting, you know, it can get difficult. But, you know, get back to what we're talking about here is the,
you know, character defects. And for those of you who may not be familiar with the 12 step program, right, we're talking about, you know, something that comes out of doing the steps of four or five. You really determine what your character defects are. And then, you know, you start doing some other work on them. You ask for some help and six and seven and then in eight and nine you start doing some amends where you harmed other people based upon your
character defects. So what are some of the character defects that I have? Well, me personally, it's selfishness and self-centeredness that was it for me, everything. And still today, I could I could fall into that trap. Like I said, if I don't really watch it, I can get very selfish and in much smaller ways than I used to and a much less damaging ways than I used to. more problematic, I mean, still problematic even to this day. So I have to be on guard
for those type of things. And for me, the way to be on guard is to openly take a look at that to, you know, through prayer and meditation, ask for help on that on a daily basis or whenever, you know, certainly on a regular basis and then talk about it, you know, make sure that if I'm finding myself going down this slippery slide of selfishness and, that I need to bring it out into the light and tell somebody about it. Yeah, Yeah, right. Try it out. Yeah. Yeah. All right. mm Mm hmm.
Yeah, you're right. Now, that's. I'll tell you something. That's a great thing. You know, we did the same thing. My wife can't cook. She tends not to cook as much because being a control person like I am, I like to take control of those things. And typically today, I'll do most of the cooking. And and it's funny because, like I said, my wife can cook. Fine. But like anything else, she's gotten a lot of practice with it. And I
struggle too. And I've worked really hard that when my wife decides she's going to make something to stay out of the way and not touch it and show up and tell me I don't need any. I don't need any your help on this and I have to back off on it. But she's the same way. And I've said to my wife, my wife has lots of arthritis and stuff, so she likes to go lay down and relax and she'll put same thing.
She'll put a timer on and go lay down in the bedroom and you know, and won't check it until the timer goes off and I'm different. And I've always said to her, like, you can't cook from the bedroom. That's my statement, or you can't cook from the bedroom. But I also have to learn to let that go, right? Just like you. I have to learn like, okay, it's not up to me. Or if I forgot to give her instructions on something not to let. That
bothers me. And I don't know if that's selfishness or self-centeredness, but whatever it is, it's a little bit exactly is what we're talking about. The few snap at her, then what happens? I know in my relationship, if I snap, snap at my wife and two things happen now. One, she's going to say, screw it, I don't want to do this anymore. Right. Which would be even me more. I don't want okay, know, you do it yourself or whatever. Or number two,
she's going to snap back. I mean, we're going to end up in a fight over it, right? It's going to escalate into something more. So it really is. It's been on guard for those type of behaviors. And they're just so important to me.
We talk about, you know, one of the things we read last night in our reading, right, we took we the the ninth step promises and we talk about how that when we when we start to do this type of work, when we start to really start to uncover our character defects and try to figure out what's really what's making us tick. R. What made me think one of the things that our our book tells us is that alcohol was but a symptom. Okay? And I and I struggled with understanding
that. But once I started to do all the work, I realized what it meant is like I have a I had a bunch of character defects. I had a a lot of fear in my life. I had a lot of selfishness and self-centeredness in my life that caused me to drink to excess, right? And so once I started figuring some of that stuff out and I cleaned up that mess, then it opened me up to see some of the nicer things in life, some of the promises that we're told in our and our reading that will happen to us.
And all those things have happened to me. You know, my wife and I were driving last week and we were getting ready. I guess, to we went down to see the grandkids in New Jersey. We had a great weekend with them. And I just said to my wife, I said, you know, we live a blessed life and we don't have a perfect life by any means. There's a lots of we have he right. We have human issues, right? She has her issues. I have my issues. But we make them work. We're committed to each
other and we make them work. But we have a blessed life. And you know, when you know, when it was cold, we lost power for a while. And I told my wife, I'm like, Yeah, it sucks. We lost power for the day before Christmas Eve for about 10 hours during the day. And I'm like, you know something? But we don't live outside. We're not in a homeless shelter, right? We have food, we
have everything we need. So and that's because I go to meetings and I'm able to listen to somebody like this and get something that I could take from that meeting and help me today, tomorrow and into the future if I choose to put that to work right, right. Wow. Wow. Right. Absolutely. It's possible. And I said a long time when people struggle and I say this to people who have asked for my help, not for themselves, but maybe for a loved one, for for a
husband, for a brother, for. And listen, I had I have family members, right? And I've said it before, lots of people get sober in prison or in jail. They do. They get sober. That's where they start. My Friday night meeting has several guys who came out of that, you know, came out of Corrections Institute actions, whether, you know, and and they've gotten sober and is because they went in there and they were in jail and certainly you can find contraband banned
in jail or in prison. But it's harder and but they they actually took that time, just like you said, Matt, they took that time to start a process and start to fix some things. you're right. How do you how do you come out of that without making amends for people? Right. How do you how do you do that If you can't if you can't come out then and make amends and try to fix those situations, chances are you're not going to be successful. Right. That you're going to end up back in prison.
Yeah, I Right. that was the second part of the share. And I think it was the same person who was sharing that, who said, You're right, who said, I have to be prepared to go in there and have that amends, not to go the way I planned and which is what you're saying, Right. Because we're going in there to make these amends because just like you said about last night, your own personal thing, it wasn't about all that's important. It wasn't about fixing what you did with
your wife. It was about how you felt right. And it was about like, wait a minute, I have this uneasy feeling about this. So whether she needed that or not, you needed to clean that up on your own. Now, I I've had that happen with my wife not recently, because, again, that things are better, but there's been times where I've tried to make amends to my wife and she wanted to hear. She wanted nothing to do with me. It was like, I don't want it. She would tell me, I don't want to hear it right now.
Right. And she just she wasn't ready to hear it. I still said it, whatever it was. Hey, I'm sorry about how I behaved. I was being so whatever it might be. And she would just say, I'm not. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to talk to you. And I have to be ready and I can't walk away from there all pissed off. I tried, right? I can't walk away from there. Oh, I tried to be here, you know, screw you. So I always have to be ready for that, too, that something gone bad. And again, I haven't had
that experience. My amends have all been good, you know? and at least not problematic where people have thrown me out. Even one, you know, one of the biggest amends I had to make was to my ex-wife. And I'll tell you, if she was as gracious as anyone can ever be for what they put that woman through, she gave me a lot of time that day. We spent some time together. We walked over an hour, over an hour to do an amends with her and spend some time with her. And I was
forever grateful for her. Give me a She could have just said, Nope, I don't want to do it or whatever. And but she allowed me to do it and that was it. Yeah, we were done yeah. I would agree with that.
The big the key part of that is if you've changed your ways and I, and I get that this is different for certain people, there are people who have harmed people in such a way that it's hard, it's hard or, you know, people who have given somebody chance after chance after chance that they could get fed up and decide that they don't want any part of it, which doesn't mean they're going have to be nasty about it. Maybe they just don't
want any part of it. So but I agree that most of the time, for most people that I've heard and again, this is just to the data that I've heard, is that most of them go, okay, they're not they're not terrible. There's certainly has been some where people have been thrown out of offices and stuff like that, but that's few and far between. right, right. I yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah. That's a nice way to put that to work right. You know, to put it to use as in a work
situation. Right. Is to try to carry this program which is one of the other things we do when you get to step 12, you hear that carry these principles into, you know, the rest of our lives and in all aspects of our lives. So it's a great way to take this program and then use that to build a foundation at work. And not only that, but again, that's it. This is where the promises
come in, right? All of a sudden, you know, and I remember this like when I really came into this program, all of a sudden I hated my job for a long time. And I don't know about maybe that's a little bit strong, but I work in a really, really high pressure sales job for the last probably 15 years of my life and of my career. And and I got to the point where, man, I dreaded I was it was like always. I always had to be on. I worked long hours, I worked home. My wife used to complain we'd be
going somewhere. I take the day off and I'd have, you know, have my phone or for a while my BlackBerry at the time. And, you know, and I would be doing work. And my wife used to always say, Oh, we're supposed to be off.And I used to say, I'm never off, honey. I'm never I especially my big customers. I was a salesman. One of my biggest customers call me. I'm not often that customer ever. I just I just rely on them
too much. But I remember when I was able to bring some of these aspects of this program to work and that all changed for me. And I can remember where I didn't hate it anymore. And I remember were there where I was able to put my work life in perspective, too. That was the other thing that happened. I was able to put it in perspective and things just became easier for me. So this program is such a wonderful
program. If you're out there, if you're struggling, if you're trying to wonder, you know, figure out how you know, why life, I know I did, why life, why, why is life kick in my ass? That was my question. I thought to myself, Why is life kick in my ass so much? Especially when I had stopped drinking like there was a lot of things I didn't drink for a long time. Like why am I still get my ass kicked by life? Well, if that's you out there listening to this, then this could be a way out for
you. This could be a way for you to fix some of those things. Uh, take some work. It's a simple program, but not an easy program. And it'll take some work. But I know a lot of people, and the people that we hang out with are people who have been through some really, really difficult stuff and came into this program, put these principles, got some help, got a sponsor, did these steps with the help of a sponsor and turn their lives around, turn their lives right around? right.
Mm. Right, Yeah. I is one of the things one of the things I was gonna say is that the nice thing about our program is, is that not only is that we have a place to go and talk about these things to another person, we have another person who understand who's been where we've been and they, and they understand or somebody within our group will have, will understand the problem that
we're going through. You know, if you're not in a group like this, if you're not in some type of organization to have the house, these these these rules and these tools and these recipes, if you will, then how do you find that person that does by this point I'm trying to make, like, how do you find the person that you can go to and tell them like, hey, you know, I
think about that. You can walk up to some person that you work with our friend and you know you're having a drink in a bar and say, you know, I think I'm being selfish and self-centered. Try to have that conversation with somebody and, you know, I mean, maybe you find the right person to have it with, but you have that type of conversation with somebody in the rooms of AA, they'll know exactly what you're talking about. I do not.
yeah, right, Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is a statistic that's out there, especially about males, is that they're males right now, today in this age are lacking really close personal relationships, not only with other males,but with the females. One of the things I'll tell you is that I had some close relationship ups with some very good friends, high school friends I met, some really good friends. I became really close with a bunch of guys in high school, and we're
still close to that. Just there's less, less of us because we're getting old and and some of them are dying. Some of us are dying. But, um, but what happened was my alcoholism right then separated me from those people and then my recovery again, separate. And then also some of the stuff I moved away and I went to a trade school. So all these guys were carpenters, which is what I went for, and I ended up going to get an engineering degree. So think our lives changed too. So I fell out
of touch with these guys. And it just like you said, like I became this person that I'll tell you something, I didn't have a male friend who I could go to with any real problems. Probably a couple guys, maybe if I really if I really needed to. yeah, you know, I'm not sure I was really comfortable having those kind of conversations with too many people. Certainly not like I am today. Like you and I both know. Like, yeah, you and I will talk. We'll talk to each
other. We make phone calls when something is bothering me today, I have no problem picking up the phone and talking to a slew of people about it, like a slew of people, you know, probably a good dozen people. I could feel like I can call them up and have a conversation about almost anything, man, what a blessing that is today to have that type of have that type of network available to us. Hey, Matt, thanks for having me. And have a great night and we'll talk to you. I'll talk to you soon.