Step 5 - Admitted Our Wrongs

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Show podcast on addiction with Dr. Chip Dodd and Phil Herndon. This is a new weekly podcast recorded at the Center for Professional Excellence. Hey, everybody. Welcome back in to the Sage Hill podcast. This is Phil Herndon along with Chip Dodd. Hey, Chip. Hey, Phil. You're family new now. Well, you know, it takes a while to get going. My goodness. This is our tenth take just on the introduction, so if you're wondering. This is a disaster, sorta, finally. But, so we've been, talking through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, And, last time we did the four step, we talked about walking in the territory of kind of making a shift chip over to, me and others. And, four step, I really when I did my first one, I didn't realize typical for me in that day, especially, I didn't read ahead. And I thought after I did the inventories of the four step, I was done. Like, this gotta be the hardest part. I'd had no idea, literally, till my sponsor said, hey. Let's do your fist up. Okay. Let's go. And then he informed me what it was. Yeah. So, you know, it reads formally. Most of you probably know this, but just for a refresher, we admitted to god, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. So that's when you really start moving into getting it off the grid literally Yeah. And into

another person's world. It's one thing to actually dare to even face it, say it, feel it towards myself Mhmm. Even the man in the mirror sort of thing. There's so many times I've heard people say I've heard so many guys, ladies too, I'm sure, but guys sure say, I never look in the mirror because I'd rather I'd rather believe what I think I look like than to face what I do look like. So, I mean, the fourth step is a mirror, but the fifth step is going outside the house. Uh-huh. You know? In so many ways, the fifth step to me, fourth and fifth, is about finally running towards what makes us wanna run away. Uh-huh. You know, that phrase, we put you know, most of our lives or a lot of our lives, we spend, you know, running from what we what we don't wanna have to feel, we don't wanna have to face, we don't wanna have to what we call relive, which really reads which really means remembering because when there's no such thing as reliving something Uh-huh. Because it's gone. So, really, it's called remembering, and we don't we don't grasp the great paradox. We're so fearful of reliving something or so fearful of facing something that we actually remember something, and remember actually remembers us. Mhmm. It puts us back together. So, in so many ways, the the fifth step is actually about stepping out and saying, here I am. This is where I've been. This is what's happened, and this is what I've done with it. Uh-huh. And and and it's not this is where I am now so much, but it's this is what I've done with it, and I wanna go somewhere else. And the the irony of that is I have to run to what I don't wanna be close to so that that can be transferred from shame and guilt to, new possibilities, new frontiers, new relationships. I moved from, judging who's hearing my first step and judging that God is going to judge me and finding out that I, most of the time, I find kinship. I find somebody who knows what I'm talking about. I end up bumping into a person who shows me a god that can meet me where I am and take me out of having to be god, which means fix myself, and face face that I'm in need of being repaired. Mhmm. And actually believing that through relationship, whether we, you know, intended or not, if it's through relationship that we do get repaired. Mhmm. To me, that's the beauty. We're really running towards what we wanna wanna wanna run away from. And what's amazing about that is that that in the beginning, you you and I can both remember that if we give up that thing that lets us experience being connected even though it's false connection, we're pretty sure that we will we will we will die and live the cursedness of loneliness. We do not realize that recovery is not about subtraction, it's about addition. And it's not about division, it's about multiplication. Mhmm. That when we do the fifth, sixth, and seventh, which we'll get to, but one when we actually step into the doorway of the fifth, we're actually stepping into a a doorway inside ourselves in the fourth step, and we found out that there are many more rooms to this house we've been living in, and we've only been utilizing about 900 square feet that we find presentable or that we think we can manage. You bet. And then we've go been going into the external world throughout our French doors to try to make the world be our home. Mhmm. When actually, there's a door in our house that we've been denying, neglecting, ignoring. The fourth step opens that door, and the feelings that we we've talked to feelings are lanterns, you know, their their their passwords, lanterns, and keys. Mhmm. But really and truly now, the the fourth step and the fifth step, it's like going in the fourth step, and we use keys to open doors that we wanted to stay locked forever. Not only is it, locking the doors on those things that are humiliating, embarrassing, or for which we have tremendous secretive guilt for which we need to make amends, but also feel often we have to open, doors that have hope in them. Because, you know, as as the addiction process works, we're also running from hoping again or believing in the possibilities that good things can come my way without me earning them. So we find that when we open these doors, we even find that there are some rooms inside the house of ourselves, the home of ourselves that that, have fresh flowers in them. Someone, I believe god, has been leaving fresh flowers in vases, on tables in there every day waiting for our return. All we have to do is walk in and take the sheets off the furniture and start living again. So so in so many ways, it it's multiplication, like I say, in addition. What we're sure when we let go of things, it's gonna be curses and death, actually ends up being life and prosperity. Mhmm. So that that fifth step is is is rejoining the human race and depending upon the God who made the human race. And we're we're kinda out of the rat race and into the human race, which is a people group rather than a competition. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I do

know there's a I don't know. Narrative's kind of an overused word these days. I'll just say it. Narrative that says, when hey. Hey, Chip. When you say run towards something, say, wait for something. Alright. That means man up, try hard, pull pull up my pants. Let's go. That's not what you're saying. Yeah. I'm talking about turning around turning around and facing, where I'm headed won't work. There's gotta be something different and taking a step towards what I've been running away from. Uh-huh. That's a very courageous step. It it ends up really facing powerlessness, surrendering, and accepting that I've got nowhere else to go. And if God doesn't do for me with this person here with me as I rejoin fellowship, you know, I I ain't gonna make it. There's there's there's no life in life. And I'm telling you, man, there is, there's this you you would know it even more fully than I do, but I remember in Deuteronomy 30, and I'm and and I'm talking about the most amazing book in the world relationally. Most amazing relational, most sophisticated relational book in the world that that talks about same thing Bill Wilson talked about, self, others, and God. Mhmm. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses is speaking to the people, the great leader. And he says, you know, he says, this thing that God asks of you, that wants for you, he said it's not up in the skies, up in the heavens that you have to, like, build a ladder and climb up to it, ascend to it because you can't. It's not across the seas so that you build a boat and and paddle over, sail over to it to go get it. He said it's in your mouth, and it's in your heart. It's made to be spoken. He said it's already in you to be spoken, and he said choose you this day whether you will have curses and death or life and prosperity. Mhmm. Choose well, he says, because it's already in you to be stated. So it's amazing that that we spend our lives hiding out to avoid having to cry out. And the fifth step is a highly organized cry out. It's like, can you hear these things about where I've been, what I've done, and even where I am sitting here in a password, ALanternOfFear? Mhmm. Can you accept me? Sitting there in a password of admitting the depths of loneliness that I didn't even know I had. Can you sit here and accept me recognizing that I'm exposing things about losses and regrets and things that I've historically believed there's no mercy for. Mhmm. I'm always having to defend myself instead of be myself. So the the fifth step is a cry out having given up, hiding out. And that's what I mean by we find out that all these doors open, and, ultimately, the fist step is beautifully leading towards rejoining, like I say, the human race that takes us to really having to contend with, maintaining a mansion that the square footage that we've been given by god, the potential to live lives that we didn't even know we could have, is available to us. And, yeah, it's it is a greater responsibility because we burn with more hope. We, experience deeper desire. We face longings we can't control. We have needs that have to be attended to, and we're needy ourselves. We're not just independent practitioners of of living in isolation for survival's sake, which is crazy. And, to live the freedom we we're we're we're we're live the liberation that we receive requires a a level of responsibility of attending to the gifts we've been given, to give them to to to to ourselves and others. We we expand our territories, really. Yeah. Just by starting with facing, it's in your mouth, and your mouth is made to speak what's in your heart, and that leads to life, which is and then prosperity. It's like Mhmm. Don't make any sense. I'm not saying it makes sense. Right. I'm really not. But there's, there's an order to things that we didn't design that we have to return to fashion design. And by the way, there is a beautiful statement that a lot of people the the the fifth step is it is honestly and truly and you can tell me if you agree with this, but it really is a turning away, a final turning away from where I was headed to where I'm made to be. And the biblical word for that is repentance. Mhmm. It's to repent. In other words, my penance is of of paying the price of sufferings over, And now I'm I'm turning back to a way of life, and and I turn around and face the person who can help me see that it's available. Mhmm. That's the beauty of having it done with a person. You just don't sit inside. It's to do it with God. You open your mouth and tell the truth about what's in your heart to another person who knows what hurt is, sadness is, loneliness is, fear is, gladness, shame and guilt and anger. They know these things so we can be received into the, fellowship of living as emotional spiritual creatures, not just robots. Mhmm. You know? Yeah.

You know, I remember telling a guy one time, one of my early sponsors, one of the very first one, the infamous guy. There's people heard me talk about another guy. I said to him, I said, I'm not buying I'm not buying that this is gonna be worth it. I'm not buying it's gonna do me any good. He looked right at me. He said, well, I'm not selling, which was a kind of a country way, a West Texas way of saying, this is really he didn't say these words, but this is a repenting. This is a turning. I'm not selling anything. I'm not making you guarantees that once you get this fist step over with, quote, unquote, that it all goes great from here. Yeah. What he was saying to me, and he expanded on that, but, I mean, basically, like, I'm not selling, and here's what's important about you realizing I'm not selling you something. Because I don't know the outcome of this ultimately Yeah. Other than a deeper experience of your recovery. I just know that there's something real big about moving from that paper to talking to me about this.

Yeah. So it really is a lot about there's talking and there's being involved. Mhmm. Spectating versus participating. You know, a lot of people have associated stuff we talk about, the things that we believe as being negative. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Sad. Yeah. Yeah. That, downers. Yeah. And yet, to me, this is all about equipping to live a daring life. I remember my youngest son was talking to me about, he was really down, just down. What's the point? What's what's what now now I know, that you know, I I know what first world problems are. I got I got that, but this he he was having a real down place, while he was succeeding. I mean, doing very well in law school, but he has pictures and dreams that are bigger than law school. Mhmm. Like, dude, come on. Can't you just kinda be settled and satisfied with how far you've come, all those sorts of things? Right. But finally, I said to him, listen. You you have set a course of dreaming that is pretty extraordinary. I love it that, you know that you have, abilities and gifts and desires, and you're actually applying yourself towards them. And guess what? If you're gonna reach really high up on the shelf or if you're really gonna climb to heights, dreamers fall farther Mhmm. And therefore hurt more. I mean, you're gonna have really sad days. Now that's not negative to us, to me, to you. We we talk to people a ton about having the tools to be able to live your life fully, to expand them deeply, to be able to love more completely. What's negative about that? Right. But we're saying the moment you truly love someone, you have signed a contract even more, truly, a covenant Yeah. Of pain. And so I mean, because the phone call at midnight, the the celebration of a wedding, I mean, all of it is beautiful, and yet the more you love, the the more losses you and I are gonna experience. To me, us being able to, have the full range of bandwidth of, tools to experience life allows us to climb mountains and fall pretty far and have the feelings that go with that. Because I'm telling you, I'm I'm not telling you, but I'm telling me and you and anybody else who's listening, tragedy is absolutely tragically a part of living. Inevitable. And so guess what? Get prepared by being able to love well Mhmm. And live fully. I mean, is it to me, the the only people who to me are are really, were worth paying worthy of paying attention to let me say worthy of paying attention to because they've earned it, are people who have, done a fourth and fifth step. Yeah. I mean, in other words and and and, guys, the the the life is bigger than AA. I mean, the the the the AA didn't invent the fourth and fifth step. Yeah. I mean, the idea of telling the truth about myself and to another human being has been around for a long

time. A guy named James wrote about that a lot. Absolutely. So god could could restore us. So we're talking about something very, very positive. So I trust people who, have a story and the feelings that go with it about being human Mhmm. And and running into god a bunch, even daily. And then I I I listen to people deeply who, have been able to keep their tears while they also also know keep their laughter that doesn't run away from tears. Mhmm. So those are the two groups of people I pay attention to. Everybody else is shooting the crap. I mean, they're they're hiding out Yeah. To avoid having to cry out. So I'm not I'm only paying attention from the context of what you don't have and how you're a danger and how I can help you, which sounds pretty patronizing, doesn't it? Now I'm serious. I'm listening to, like, what to danger, What I can discern from you and also how I might can help you because I know good and well that you don't have what I what I could offer and you don't have what I have. Yeah. And that sounds very arrogant, but guess what? That arrogance that you might call it was birthed in loss and then birthed in defeat. Yeah. And so therefore, if that's negative, then bring more. I guess I've got a little sore spot on that. Then I got I got some anger because the people who do or the Pollyannas, the people who are always, hey, man. It's just another day of paradise or hard things happen, but you don't have to feel them or faith will carry you through Mhmm. Which is a catchphrase for don't feel it, and if you do, then something's wrong? You lack, trust in God? Yeah. To me, that sends people, to the liquor store. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Definitely. That that don't have the security of recovery

or trust of their own hearts and God. There is a reason that there's a whole you you talked about it last time. You know, there's a lot of folks out there one dissertation away from a PhD. Yeah. There's a whole lot of people this step right here away from having more than they could have imagined. Oh, boy. That's well said. Man, that fifth step is a it's a gulf, and it's also like the others. It's, you know, preparatory to the sixth step. And it's not a pill. No. It's not a pill. It's it's it's it's more, ability to walk the path. You know? Yeah. I knew about walking the path and just kinda start start looking at wrapping up today. What what would you think this is by the way, we you know, we don't peep no one's gonna be surprised. We don't rehearse questions before we start doing this. Right? So you don't know those questions. It sounds like we're reading from script?

How well It doesn't. I think so. I thought it was that good. No. No. Here here's my question, though. I wish I had somebody ask this question too years and years ago, but we're talking about vulnerable territory, scary territory, repentance territory. Deuteronomy 30, Hey. Is it gonna be blessings in life or cursing in death? Or what what's it gonna be today? What would you say to someone who's either doing another one or about to do one, or they're just listening to this, and they know they need recovery, and they're about to walk in their first AA meeting. Who whoever it might be. What does a person need in a sponsor or someone walking with them? What does that person need to have on board to to listen to a fifth step? Who's the who's the person that you need to be telling this to? Yeah. You you you speak to that too. K. But

I think two things. One is they they they really do have humility. Meaning and and and the humility, they they don't shirk running away from saying things like they really are. Mhmm. They seek justice. And at the same time, they believe in the God that has done for them what they never could do for themselves, so they love mercy. And those two things, are not running away from the facts, reality, and the truth. At the same time, they grasp that we're made out of dust Mhmm. Believe in regeneration and and and restoration, and allows them to walk humbly with God. In other words, I'm not God. I'm made by God. So humility is huge. And then courage, which means this person has full hearted participation. Humility allows me to face that life is you know, those four realities we've talked about plenty of times. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. Mhmm. And I'm gonna be practicing doing it, and it's it's it's life on life's terms. I'm not gonna escape, and I'm gonna be clumsy too. In other words, that person's somebody I can talk to. Yeah. And then they're not running away from life. They're they have courage. They have full hearted participation. And, you know, they they'll admit their limits, but they're saying I'm showing up. I don't I can't fix it for you, but, by George, I ain't running from it. To me, god, I honestly feel like for a man, that's like a daddy. Yeah. You know? And for a woman, maybe like a mother or a father. I don't know. But it's like it's not I know they're not the parent, but they have the qualities of being a grown up. Yeah. Exactly. Courage and humility. What do you what do you go with there?

I love that answer, by the way. And I I had not thought of it either until, as you were talking, actually. You know there's a guy in the book of Acts named Barnabas and son of encouragement. You know, he was called, and there's something said about him when they were gonna the church in Jerusalem, they're gonna send him way far off to check out something, to see the validity of something. Mhmm. And, Barnabas is described as a good man, full of faith and full of holy spirit. If you work backwards from that, full of holy spirit is just a man who recognizes powerlessness. His power is found in spirit. So he's a man who who is real good at the first step. Secondly, full of faith means a man is really, really, really discerning. It means he does fear well. He listens to fear. He follows what's happening inside of him around his fear so he can be discerning. And the word good man means what we would think about. He's good guys, good neighbor, doesn't steal stuff. He's, you know, good guy. It also means, a man of a non censorious spirit. And Barnabas is the kind of guy that would be so participatory in listening to another human being. He's not interested in correcting them, how they say it, what they're doing, doing it right, doing it wrong. He's a man interested in the human being speaking to him from the other side of the table, so to speak. Mhmm. So to me, I I'm I'm drawn to those people. Like, you know, I I want a Barnabas, and you've heard doc doctor Hendricks and others have talked about having a Barnabas. Some of something, you know, that, some have just find it as someone who loves you but isn't impressed by you, you know, who'll take the truth. Now think about as you were talking, I was thinking about a a person who that, you know, that I know through the pages of scripture that who who is courageous in you I know him.

You know, Barnabas. Yes. You. Oh, no. Well, thank you. But Thank you. You're turning what? Red. Yeah. Well, it's true. There's some guy there's some guys who hear this who say, I know that man, and his name's not Barnabas. His name's Phil. So you just you could take it or leave it. There it is. Took a turn I wasn't expecting. That one, though. No. For sure. It's true. I I know I know you like that. That's good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. But that that really I just remember my first sponsor was some of you CPU guys know the story about this guy, but another guy really was a sponsor slash guide. And there's a guy here in town that you and I both know who has walked with me like that, an older man who goes to my church who just really is an example of someone who will truly listen because he recognizes a person across from him to do that.

So so fifth step. I don't know the guy. You know him. Okay. Maybe I do, but I know you for sure. Deal with it. There that is again. So step six. No. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate that very much. So fifth step, as we've said before, are the steps, as we've said before, are gateways to the next. And let's, we'll move to the sixth step. We're making that firm decision to have, character defects removed. That's great. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Phil. Thanks, guys.