10th Step; do you use this throughout the day?

[McGowdog]

10th Step.

I hear that this is the Step we are to use once we turn the door knob and the game is on... or throughout the day stuff.

So, if Watch, Ask, Discuss, Turn, and Carry is to be used throughout the day or between "On Awakening" and "When we retire at night", then can we mix it in with , "as we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful..." and "humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done'"?

So that's like 7 things we can do from pillow to pillow, right?

[keithj]

The quality of my sobriety on any given day is largely proportional to how closely I follow the directions. Just like it says, it means to literally pause when agitated or doubtful, to literally say humbly, many times each day, to watch...

You get the idea. It's amazing how simple this thing really is.

[McGowdog]

It's amazing, but not simple. It's a bunch of work.

Go ask somebody who recently went back out and drank if they had a choice in it. If they say yes, then tell them they must not be a real alcoholic or are confused on their 1st Step.

An alcoholic doesn't have a choice. The drink chose them... so to speak. They weren't spiritually fit, the day they drink.

If you're spiritually fit, you won't drink, "even if you would." If you're not doing 10, 11, and 12 and you're staying sober, what's the deal? Lucky? Non-alky?

If you want to comment about your current experience with "agitation and doubt", let's hear it.

Heading into a meeting this morning, I had agitation and doubt. I prayed. I found out in the meeting that my hours got cut back to part time, no vacation or insurance or 401K benefits, a cut in pay... and I'm relieved.

God and I and my wife will make lemonade.

I have a meeting tonight that I'm chairing and the 10th Step is sort of the topic. Simplicity will not be in my share. But thanks.

[stone]

I think of the step 11 "when we retire at night" as checking what you missed with step 10 during the day so in theory if your step 10 was perfect all day then you would have no step 11 to do at night.

[McGowdog]

That's bizzare. I'd rather be stuck in 11 than 10.

We need prayer AND meditation. We may have a pretty spiffy "When we retire at night", but what about these?

On awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking...

Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision.

We relax and take it easy.

We do not struggle.

Conclude the meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be.

Ask for freedom from self will.

We may ask for ourselves if others will be helped.

Be quick to see where religious people are right.

Make use of what they offer.

Pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.

"Thy will be done."

I personally know some people who admit they don't do much of a nightly review, but they wouldn't leave the house without doing "On awakening". They're still sober, so...

My question, again, is what to do from On awakening to When we retire. That would seem to be;

• Watch

• Ask

• Discuss

• Turn

• Pause

Well, it looks good on paper. I'm gonna start using this and seeing what comes of it. If it helps me be more aware on my "When we retire at night", I'll let you know.

Have a good rest of the day! I'm off to a meeting.

[stone]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

We may have a pretty spiffy "When we retire at night", but what about these?

When we retire at night, we constructively review our
day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do
we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves
which should be discussed with another person at
once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could
we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves
most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could
do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of
life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry,
remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our
usefulness to others. After making our review we ask
God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures
should be taken.


Sounds like


Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment,
and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to
remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately
and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can
help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.....

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent
on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every
day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s
will into all of our activities"

Doesn't it?

So I just meant that that part of step 11 is like the final inventory of the day, the same inventory we should have been doing all day for step 10.


Quotes from 1st Ed. Alcoholics Anonymous.

[bballdad]

if I put enough energy into step 11,it makes step 10 mighty small
when necessary, I pray
God please forgive me and take me to better things,and I go try and be of service.If amends are needed,I make them and get on with living...and doing the next right thing

works fine and is very simple

[Boleo]

Hinduism/Buddhism/Taoism/Existentialism/Epistemology all say the same thing:

ALL thinking is prone to delusion.

"when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

I find myself suffering from WRONG thinking about 500 times a day. I use steps 10 & 11 to compensate for Delusional Thinking:

"we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives"
(page 86)

[freya]

In my family of origin, we were raised to "do step 10" in the morning when we get up and look in the mirror. Of course, no one called it "Step 10." What they said basically was: "When you get up in the morning, you need to look in the mirror and see someone you respect. If that person did something the day before that makes that hard, then you better figure out what you need to do to fix that so the next day you can respect that person easily. There is nothing worse than looking in the mirror and seeing someone you can't/don't respect."

So, for me, this is still my "major" Step 10 practice. A couple of things that program has added to it, however, is, as other have mentioned, to stop whenever I start to feel stressed/confused/agitated/disconnected take time to connect with HP and ask "what is the next right thing." (I like "next right thing" rather than the increasingly popular "next indicated thing" -- indicated by what or whom????? If it's indicated by HP, it's the next right thing -- and if it's not indicated by HP, probably best if I just pass!) This makes things easier because it means I usually have a lot less stuff that needs to be made right.....and when there is stuff I usually notice it earlier.

And the other very important thing that program gives me is knowing that I have the help and support of my HP whenever I am trying to make anything right. When I was growing up, the impression I got was kinda like "Well, we need to do this and God is going to judge us based on if and how well we do it." Not that God was necessarily punishing or malevolent -- He was "just," but He sure wasn't easily accessible or very helpful either. It's such a gift to have access to a HP who is there both to show me the way and give me as much help as I need to be able to walk it as best I can.

So, yeah, Step 10 type work is actually quite a bit easier -- and less burdensome -- now than it was before I came into program.

freya

[Rob B]

Originally Posted by keithj

The quality of my sobriety on any given day is largely proportional to how closely I follow the directions. Just like it says, it means to literally pause when agitated or doubtful, to literally say humbly, many times each day, to watch...

You get the idea. It's amazing how simple this thing really is.

Yeah, what Keith said.

[McGowdog]

Good for you, Rob.

[jimhere]

I do believe that watching, pausing, asking, and turning are interwoven.

As you go through your day, try this: Try pausing when you aren't agitated doubtful. Pause between each task. Pause during breaks and lunch.

[McGowdog]

Well thank you Jim. That's a useful, honest answer. Not a smarmy judgemental one.

The meeting went well btw. We had 10 people and that's a lot for our Monday meeting. We used a timer the whole way and managed to fit in
about 20 minutes of crossfire. We had two people who had been literally kicked out of their homegroup. There is actually a restraining order for them to not be at this club/meeting place they used to attend. The guy is a War Vet and Manic Depressive. But he's been sober 38 years. You can see the anger in his face. When we went around the room to introduce ourselves as alcoholic only, he said, "What? No andas? Beautiful." They loved our meeting and found it refreshing to be able to discuss steps 10 and 11.

The way I lead the meeting, I kind of blended the use of 10 and 11 together.

We had two guys from out of town; one from Denver and one from Albuquerque.

If anyone is wondering about my comments on the front, feel free to PM me and I'll gladly discuss them with anybody.

[keithj]

McGowdog, what's up?

I don't want to derail your thread, because I appreciate you posting it. From your posts, I think you practice my kind of AA; follow directions, from the book. I'm guessing you'd fit in well with my home group. But I gotta tell you, comments like this put me off a bit.

Originally Posted by McGowdog

Well thank you Jim. That's a useful, honest answer. Not a smarmy judgemental one.

I don't know how you intended it, and I'm not so into myself that I think it's about me in any way, but I fail to see the point. The implication is, that other posts have been smarmy and judgemental. And I just don't read that tone in the other responses.

You got a bug up your *ss or what? Because when (not if) I get a bug up my *ss, I trust that my real friends in the program are going to ask me about it. And I hope you'll forgive me if I'm way off base with this.

[Rob B]

I'm pretty into myself and felt that was directed at me. For clarification, I was reiterating what Keith said, often, there are guys on here I look up to that express their practice better than I would, so I either thank the post or quote it and say ditto, yeah it's lazy, but I'm of the mind some things are worth repeating.

If you have a problem, send me a pm and we can work it out, or better yet put my name in column one. I like you Patrick, I hope you know that.

[stone]

I thought it was about me but I wasn't being smarmy or judgemental.

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by keithj

McGowdog, what's up?.

Thanks Keith. I was a little put off by your seemingly oversimplified answer. I've been doing 10th Steps for 16 years. I'm not waiving that in an egotistical way either. The point being, I was just trying to engage in "conversation" of "what are you doing today?" How's it going with prayer and meditation? What's your current experience? What's working? What's not?

I feel like I spilled my guts out and gave an honest current testimony to the Power of God. I got put on part time, my mom and dad were told they will work 5 hour days and we all lost our insurance, vacation, 401K bennys, etc., but I was able to walk away from that meeting with relief.

I 10th Stepped it walking in and was frankly glad we weren't told to pack our stuff and go home. We still have jobs... albeit less pay. Failure isn't much of an option, as my brother is the owner and my parents are too old to find jobs elsewhere and too poor to retire.

So I paused when agitated or doubtful. I prayed for the right thought or action.

When I saw your post, it seemed like a lecture to "keep it simple" or something.

I'm sorry if I took it the wrong way.

Patrick.

Originally Posted by Rob B

If you have a problem, send me a pm and we can work it out, or better yet put my name in column one. I like you Patrick, I hope you know that.

Thanks Rob. It's all good. We just found out we had no water today and got paranoid that it was because we hadn't paid the bill yet. Turned out it was just a temporary stoppage.

I'm just punchy lately. I feel paranoid. I feel like people are attacking AA, attacking people who have guided me and shown me, and they seem to do it with malice. Not you guys! I know we are headed for the same goal and live with the realization that we're all one. We're all connected and when I hurt, we all hurt. When you hurt, I hurt.

[keithj]

Whoops. Guess it was me. I couldn't agree more with you on the topic, Dog. I regularly have to remind myself that I'm no longer running the show. It's amazing how easily I can forget that. And what a difference it makes when I actually follow the directions. Despite my morning ritual of thinking about my day and asking that my motives be divorced from self-seeking, dishonest, or selfish motives, I still get agitated from time to time. And I get doubtful and fearful. When those things happen, I ask God for direction. Nothing more simple or more complex than that.

For the past few months, I've really focused on trusting my mental faculties. That means after seeking direction from a higher power, I try not to stay in that uncertainty. I try not to second guess, but rather trust that my thinking is on a higher plane.

So, it kind of is that simple for me. Can't tell you the number of times a guy I'm working with has called with some crisis, and I tell him he sounds agitated and ask him if he has paused. Hmmmm. Never thought of that.

I appreciate your willingness to communicate.

[McGowdog]

Thx Keith. It's not you, or Rob or Stone. The negative thing is in me.

I had a pretty good weekend with my wife and her folks this Father's Day. We came home and she had found out I forgot to water her outside plants and put the towels in the dryer. She went off on me because one of her plants was dead. I rejected her assessment of the situation and it turned into the stupidest full-on fight. She left the house in tears.

I got in my truck and drove to the reservoir... a hill above it, actually. I listened to my Chuck C tape that I recorded to my MP3 and he was talking about some garbage. I got the notion that it was time to call her. I swear, I picked up my EnV, hit the green "send" button, her name came up as it was the last dialed, and I pressed it... but my phone rang first. It was her calling me.

I started to head back for home, as she probably didn't feel any better sitting in our home alone than I did. We would reconcile... our huge life-shattering difference! Our fight can be so "world shaking!" But I felt bad that I yelled at her. Defended. Refused to submit. Before I attempted the call, I did a quick prayer... inspired by Chuck Clancy... I know... it's corny.

But something else happened as I crawled along that bumpy rutted steep dirt road... Chuck C was still playing... and he said that "God willing... he and his wife would celebrate their 50th anniversary (must have been about 1976 when he gave this talk... he was about 29 years sober at the time and got sober in about 46 at the age of 43...) on June 24th.

My wife and I, God willing, will be married 9 years tomorrow.

[Cubile75]

Happy Anniversary Dog

[Rob B]

Damn, so it wasn't about me after all. Guess I'm not as special as thought. LOL

PAtrick you are a good man trying to do God's will, more will be revealed, go a bit easier on yourself, (mind you this is not a suggestion to get soft with the disciplines, but just go easy, quit fighting those who don't agree, )
Jim says all the time, truth doesn't need defending, once I stopped defending I found out he was right.

[jimhere]

Patrick,

Happy anniversary.Nine years of marriage is a big deal.

This deal is about living, not morbid introspection. Here's a quote from a guy named Kenneth Leech:

"Self-examination is not morbid introspection or self-condemnation, but an honest and fearless confrontation of the self and its abandonment in trust to God."

One of my favorite activities is reading the book out loud to alcoholics. I love it because it keeps me growing. After this is a liftetime job and in spiritual growth, the job is never done. It's not an overnight matter.

I strayed a bit there, one time I was reading the Tenth Step directions on page 84 to a guy. It talks about cleaning up any new mistakes as we go along, commencing to clean up the past and making this a way of living. I had read that probably hundreds of times before, but this time it got me excited. Fear of making mistakes kept me from living for a long time, now I get to go and live. You can't fully live and not make some mistakes, so it is saying to me go and live! A few pages later it talks about relying on intuitive thought and inspiration, but not being inspired 24/7, I'm gonna make mistakes.

Like Sylvia K. says in her story, this is a program that allows for limitless expansion. I first met Don P. when I was about a year sober. He told me that I had been given a gift that I had the rest of my life to grow into and all I needed was a willingness to grow along spiritual lines. Those spiritual lines go into infinity.

I've been doing this a while and the best years of my life lay ahead of me. I'm still a novice. I've only barely scratched the surface and I've got a lot of room to grow, a lot of room for improvement, and a lot of mistakes left to make. That means I've got a lot of living left to do.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

[McGowdog]

Good stuff, Jim.

That fear of making mistakes has been on me lately. Fear of failure. Not about the big stuff so much. The annoying little day to day stuff. Stuff I should be working on... stuff I can become aware of.

A friend from my Monday meeting asked me if I was still doing Rick Warren and I said, "No!" Maybe again some time, but I'm done there for now. I've fired that bullet." I need something new and fresh. Yet the Book has been so alive for me lately.

I was very uncomfortable today as I went to a meeting I don't always go to. It used to be a strong closed book study. This one gal who was running it for a way long time has finally stopped going and I was there waiting for people to show up and it was a minute after and no meeting. Some counselor lady came in and has a bus full of guys from the Fountain Ft. Carson... addicts, maybe alkies, many PTSD guys... so finally a few guys show up and I said, "These guys want a meeting. Should we 'open' it up?" "Sure."

So that meeting went on and I felt really uncomfortable Here we were in "More about alcoholism", a chapter I can really get into, and these guys just didn't seem to be connecting. I felt like I could just not identify with them nor them me. Since so few of them wanted to talk and we were kind of light on participation, I rapped the thing up with a sort of quick trip through all the 12 steps and what makes the 12 Step process so awesome... trying to show them some hope.

I talked to an old guy about the thing after the meeting and he gave me some ideas... some insite. He said they suffer from tramas that can hit 20 at a time or when just 1 hits, they can have a bombardment of these things seem to hit all at once. I started to wonder why these guys can't take our twelve steps and start some kind of PTSD meeting and get through it. I talked to the counselor about 12 step vs other recoveries for them and she feels the 12 step is still the best hope.

So I was a fish out of water. But you should have seen me trying to keep water spashed onto those other fish.