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August 17 – Clearing a Troubled Conscience · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Hey guys, this is the Daily Ripples. We got Pastor Mike and me,
• 0:07
  Corey, and today is August 17th.
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  Clearing a Troubled Conscience. The Stone: What I continue
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  to carry in guilt often reveals what I'll still see to address.
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  Ripple 1 Practical: Today I'll pay attention to the people and situations
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  that repeatedly come to mind. If a past wrong still
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  unsettles me, I will not dismiss it as insignificant.
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  Honest amends bring a freedom that avoidance never can.
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  Ripple 2: Spiritual. As I attend to the unfinished
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  business the Holy Spirit gently brings to my attention,
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  He leads me toward healing and restoration, not condemnation.
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  The Father desires freedom for me, not a life weighed
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  down by unresolved guilt. And Jesus teaches me the value of
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  reconciliation and the peace that follows obedience.
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  And you know what I mean? I got a lot of stuff. And one thing
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  I put some parentheses, because it says in the
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  spiritual part, it says, as I attend to the unfinished business,
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  the Holy Spirit gently brings to my
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  attention And I was thinking about that just a little bit,
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  and I was thinking like, you know, because sometimes it is gently,
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  but you know, in the 12 and 12, it kind of
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  refers to our, like, going back through the inventory kind
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  of in like a, uh, uh, what is not quarterly, but like
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  a yearly, like kind of like a yearly deal. And I've
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  never went into an imp— like went back through the work in
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  a, uh, I mean, I guess I've been open to it, but it's been It's
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  that nudge, you know what I mean? I don't know if you know, like when
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  you were coming from being an atheist to being a Christian and
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  you started welcoming in some of this— the thoughts of that,
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  was there like a grind? Sometimes, you know, sometimes where,
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  you know, I would hear something maybe that I'd heard a long time ago,
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  but I'm trying to hear it in a new fresh way. And sometimes it was
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  still great on me. Right. Like some of the old phrases and
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  things I always felt were a little hypocritical. So yeah, most definitely.
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  So I feel like that inner feeling of like that prejudice feeling,
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  right? That thing that pushes me is the same thing that pushes me away
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  from doing inventory. Does that make sense? And like looking deep down
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  within, because it's this thing that I think, I think it's probably a thing
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  in the culture of recovery rooms that people start saying
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  that feelings are bad. Right? Because I like,
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  if I get a bad feeling, man, I might drink. But,
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  you know, I think if you look back and like your different prejudice
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  you've gone against, at least for me, my sake,
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  I found peace on the other side of it, right? Yeah. For me,
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  where I have the discontent is
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  when I try to shove those feelings down and not address them. Right.
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  You know, when I don't, let them come to the surface because the
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  way that I am is I'll just keep shoving down resentments
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  until all of a sudden there's a blowup. And the blowup is usually disproportionately
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  worse than what the issue was to begin with. Oh yeah, it always is.
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  And then the other person on the other side of that, usually that would be
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  my wife, is like, where is all that coming from?
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  And then I start bringing out the receipts. Well, there was this, and there was
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  this, and then there was that, and then there was the other. And I know,
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  and I've learned that that's not the way to do things in
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  this program. I mean, this topic today is about
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  clearing a troubled conscience, but also just clearing away any
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  troubling or conflict situation that's going on,
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  especially in relationships with other people. That's part of that healing and reconciliation
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  though. That's what I was getting at though.
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  With, like, for instance, on page 62, it's like
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  self-will run riot, though I usually don't think so. Right, right. Because I'm
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  always right. Right. And so when I'm in it, man, like,
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  and I don't— I find, you know, and I haven't had the
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  opportunity probably any, I don't know, about 8, 7, 8 or 9
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  months to go back through another inventory. But I
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  was thinking in my mind actually the other day, maybe I was thinking about
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  this and that was the guiding force behind this. But it was like, Man,
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  it's probably time to— because like, I don't— not having anything, I'm not really blowing
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  up, but I'm staying at peace, and I like that. And I would
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  rather not let it go to the other side of that where I'm running and
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  then I'm hitting everybody though, you know what I mean? It's a good sense.
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  So I think like keeping it for me, because my ego builds up so
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  fast, builds back at least for the most. Yeah. So I
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  think about like that, you know, that yearly— or I think— I can't
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  think of what the wording is. It's like, uh, what's another word for world yearly?
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  Uh, annual. Annual. That's what it says, like an annually annual
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  house cleaning. And you know, that's just talking about on the 4th step, but there's
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  so much the guiding force behind that for people that might be,
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  you know, kind of newer into this is you got to go make some amends.
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  And that's the, that's the, that's the complete house cleaning, right?
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  And at first it's just putting on paper. Um, one thing I was And
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  kind of talking on the same thing on page 70, bottom of 73
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  in the big book, it says, we must be entirely
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  honest with Sambhog if we expect to live long
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  or happily in this world. Man, that's a big deal,
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  right? Like, I must be, I must, the must is circled
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  in there. I know you love those absolutes in the book. Right, I do.
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  Because there's another side of the absolute of must too, and there's like will nots
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  and Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a lot in there.
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  Like, so if I do this stuff, it says— and the other side of that
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  is, if I do this stuff, it says I will live long and happily in
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  this world, right? If I'm honest. And so I think, you know,
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  that goes against my nature as a human. Well,
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  I don't know, we could like, you know, maybe disagree. I mean, it could be
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  a disagreeable thing for someone not like me. I don't know.
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  You know, some people might just be an honest person. I didn't—
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  I wasn't always like that. I didn't come in just like me and
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  our friend Paris were talking about. We're talking about 5th steps.
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  And I was telling him, I said, man, you know, I didn't just pop out
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  of the womb being a closed-mouth individual that
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  could, you know, you could tell me something, I would keep my mouth shut.
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  You know, it took going through this process of me telling somebody
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  else all my stuff and then, you know,
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  giving them, putting that out there. And then after listening to some
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  footsteps and telling some dudes my stuff, then I found
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  this thing with me and God and them that it was sacred.
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  And it was a sacred thing to be able to be told something about something
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  that I had no business knowing. Right? Right. And I think that's,
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  you know, what a cool thing and the privilege to be able to do that
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  with another man is cool. And the other thing, you know, with information like that
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  is that Um,
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  sharing that information with somebody else, so gossiping
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  about it, you know, if you were to do that, that doesn't add or enrich
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  anything about your program or your life. No. Versus, like you said,
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  having the honor of sitting down with somebody and, and they openly share,
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  you know, their deepest, darkest, you know, moments, character, you know, all that kind of
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  stuff without being judged, you know, and kind of carrying that
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  you're serving that person by helping them work through their steps. And there's definitely
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  spiritual rewards that come from that. I was thinking about in
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  the practical thing where it says, if a past wrong still
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  unsettles me, I will not dismiss it as insignificant. And as you were talking about
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  how you're relatively at peace today most of the time,
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  I think it's because as we work through these steps in
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  recovery and we actively are working on our character defects and not repeating
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  mistakes, and if we do make a mistake, making amends and correcting it quickly.
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  As we live that way, we gain the ability to
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  see the turning point of our nature,
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  I guess, earlier. So what I mean by that is I
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  can tell that when Corey showed up 3 minutes late
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  to our recording session today, if I don't say something— by the
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  way, that did not happen, but I'm just saying as an example. I was early.
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  Yeah, yeah, you were early. So yeah, flip it around. So Corey showed up
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  early. I wasn't ready for him yet.
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  But I could say something like,
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  hey man, I wasn't quite ready. If you could wait
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  just a couple minutes, that takes care of it. Versus if I don't say
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  anything, like back when I was drinking, I wouldn't have said anything. I acted like
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  everything was perfect. And then you'd have done it a second time and then you'd
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  have done it a third time. And then the fourth time I'd have been like,
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  you know what? I'm not even answering the door until 6 o'clock.
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  That dude, he shows up early every time. He knows
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  that that bugs me. Now again, he doesn't know because I never told him,
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  but he knows it bugs me and he's just doing it anyway.
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  Well, that was when I was active drinking, but as I'm more spiritually fit,
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  I can rewind it and realize where honestly sometimes my
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  own little OCD tendencies are more at play. I can't
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  handle my schedule being thrown off by somebody being early or late, which by the
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  way, if I truly live that way, I don't think I could ever make it
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  as a pastor because somebody's always early or late or, you know, interrupting the day,
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  right? But just as an example, that's kind of where my mind,
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  you know, goes with that, is that I, I've gained through working the steps
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  and through trying to apply these principles in all my affairs the ability to most
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  of the time see much earlier where a trouble or
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  a resentment could build and grow if I don't,
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  you know, take accountability and responsibility for it much earlier
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  in the process than what I used to do. You know, that's on that same
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  sentence. The only different way to look at that, it says,
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  you know, so if a pastor— so it says, if a past wrong
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  still unsettles me, I will not
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  dismiss it as insignificant. But you know what I see
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  through a lot of different people that have a different moral backing than me,
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  that they— a lot of people steal from stores. I've never stole
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  from a store. Yeah. And they mark it off as, oh,
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  that's insignificant because, you know, it's owned by this corporation.
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  They have money there. But, you know, if I look at that, that's God's business
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  too, right? So it says, uh, in the
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  Big Book on page 79,
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  it says, reminding ourselves that we have decided
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  to go to any length to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be
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  given strength and direction to do the right thing.
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  No matter what the personal consequence may be,
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  we may lose our position, our reputation, or face jail,
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  but we are willing. We have to be. Have to be is one of those
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  absolutes too, right? Yes. And then it goes, we must not shrink at anything.
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  I found in between the pages of 676 and 683,
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  there is hardly— there's not very much wiggle room
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  for not making that amends. There's a little, but there's
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  not— I was going to ask you about the wiggle room because it's the whole
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  part I know that people go through a lot about, except when to do so
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  would injure them or others. They're like, well, making a
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  financial amends to a store might injure me, right? Because I might end
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  up in jail. Right, right. Well, yeah, I mean,
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  however you want to look at it, but I mean, I think I can
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  justify more in my head for not doing it Like,
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  so like when I, when I read just the short version of the amends,
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  right? To me, 76 through 83 is the
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  fine, the fine print of the actual what it means.
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  It's not just the thing that's read at the beginning of every meeting,
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  right? Because I mean, like, there was a point in my sobriety in the last
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  time that when it said, you know, them or others, right? I was others.
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  Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, and that's kind of what I mean
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  about the direct financial amends. I can make it into me. Yeah, exactly. Oh,
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  man. What's going to happen to me? Well, I've been worried about me
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  my whole life. Let me worry about some of these other people that are God's
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  kids, and maybe through that process God takes care of me.
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  Well, what about if I tried to argue I'm your sponsor and I say,
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  well, I can't make an amends at the store because it might injure the
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  clerk who always looked the other way when I walked out with product?
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  You know, well, I would probably take them back to the place and how it
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  works. Yeah, on how it works on page 58.
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  You know, I'm not too good at that because like, I mean, we're just thinking
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  of all the excuses and letting Corey dismantle them right now. So yes,
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  this is fun because it says on page 58, right, and how it works and
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  everybody reads it. If you have decided you want
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  what we have, are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're
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  ready. What? Oh yeah. Oh, so I think that's the thing,
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  right? Like, you know, I— and like, if anybody ever wants to argue with me,
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  please, you know, I— we have a contact email. I love
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  talking AA and I love talking this work because I have
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  some amends too that, man, I've made them and I thought they were impossible.
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  I have some more amends that I still think are impossible,
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  but I know that God's going to let me take care of them. I just
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  haven't found the right— I've been procrastinating myself.
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  I push some things. I do this too. But yeah,
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  it's about procrastinating less,
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  on major issues in my recovery than I
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  used to, right? Like, you know what I mean? So it's— and it's that whole
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  thing, and I know you love the slogans about progress over perfection,
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  right? I mean, and so if I'm procrastinating less,
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  I'm making more of those amends, I'm more willing to fess up when I do
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  something wrong. Like, look, there's still things in my life, amends that are still in
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  progress, I would say, because there's relationships that are not fully reconciled
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  and healed. And for what my part is in those, that means that I still
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  have work to be done, you know, and amends to be made. And so it's
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  an ongoing process. Well, I think the biggest thing— well, we got more, we got
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  plenty of time to talk. Oh yeah, we're here all week, folks. We'll go,
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  we'll end this with the prayer.
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  Father God, help me face what I've been carrying through your
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  Holy Spirit. Give me the courage to make things right where I can.
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  Shape my life through the example of Jesus and
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  lead me into peace that comes from honest reconciliation.
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  Amen.