Drop The Rock: Removing Character Defects, Steps Six and Seven

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One morning, while I was at Hazelden’s Fellowship Club in St. Paul, Minnesota, I awoke very early and knew it was time to make that beginning. I took out the list of defects, read it over, and asked myself two questions: Why are you holding on to these things? and What did these things ever do for you? (I may choose to hold on to them for fear of letting go, but holding on to them for years and years led me into alcoholism.) So I got on my knees and recited the Big Book’s Step Seven prayer, which asks God’s help in replacing our willfulness with His will for us. The Twelve and Twelve calls that replacement a basic ingredient of all humility.

God give me the courage and strength to know who I really am, to act accordingly in my life, and to refrain from diverting my time, energy, and interest into my character defects.” Step seven is about asking God to help me change the thinking, actions & behavior that stand in my way. Authenticity is being true to a vision and purpose. We are authentic when we choose to act and feel and choose to behave in balance with the higher values and principles we’ve chosen for our lives. If those principles and values are not fully in place and manifested, it doesn’t make us phony. It makes us human. If we feel the conflict between who we are and who we would become, it is good. It signals that we understand the difference between reality and fantasy and are moving toward reality.” If you are seeking drug and alcohol related addiction rehab for yourself or a loved one, the SoberNation.com hotline is a confidential and convenient solution.

Sloth is the thief of time. The character defect of putting off actions “until things get better” is one of the most destructive detours we can make. Delays never make problems “go away;” they only make success harder to attain.” As we’re taught in the Twelve Steps, the chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear. Mainly fear that we would lose something we already possessed or that we would fail to get something we demanded. Living on the basis of unsatisfied demands, we obviously were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, we are taught, there will be no peace unless we are able to reduce these demands.” It’s a thorough, multifaceted perspective on 6 & 7. If you don’t feel Inspired to press through working these steps this book will inspire and motivate!!!! Then you can push through The new material in this second edition has been added as a result of comments received from individuals who have read the first edition and knowledge I have obtained throughout my recovery journey, which has now moved into its twenty-sixth year. When I first joined AA, I thought the Big Book’s program of action was saying a thousand things. I slowly began to understand that it is saying a few simple things a thousand times.

As a young drummer, Joseph came up under the direction of his father’s baton in a wedding band. Joseph wanted something different than his father’s workaday approach to music making. Eventually, the drummer made it to New York and found success in different groups, including those of Kevin Hays, Brian Charette, Binky Griptite, and Michael Bates, in addition to working with Tony Scherr, Chris Potter, Gregoire Maret, and Steve Wilson. A reminder to not quit and enjoy the journey because that is where the freedom lies- NOT in reaching a destination In this ongoing process, the Program is asking us to go where none of us has ever been before—into lives of lessened fear, diminished anger, fewer resentments, and genuine self-esteem instead of self-pity. There is a price, however: the willingness to challenge and change patterns of thought, speech, and behavior that may have gone unchallenged for ten, twenty, thirty years or more. —By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU. Before its discussion of Step Four, the Big Book says, Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions. A thorough inventory reveals those causes and conditions; the Fifth Step allows us to share them with God and another human being, and so remove the inner pain they have caused in our past lives. The project was delayed for some time due to the pandemic but was finally realized in July 2022 when the group was able to assemble at The Bunker in Brooklyn, New York, Goldings coming right from a tour with James Taylor and Cardenas from a rare tour of Chad.

If we are humble, we are open to new ideas and new ways of seeing things. Open-mindedness is a very important part of humility. We don’t know it all. There is still more we can learn. And maybe even more important, some we need to unlearn.” This book also features opinions from various members of AA, men and women, and how they approached working Steps 6 & 7. The audiobook narrator has a great voice, but he doesn't do voices, so when a woman's story is being read, the narrator keeps his same voice. It is a toss up whether this is good or bad. Audiobooks are presentations, and in this case it should not be considered entertainment. Thus feigning a female voice by a male narrator might be considered inappropriate. Your mileage may vary. Prayer is of no use when it is not used. Prayer is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of practice. We can’t get caught in the trap of dogma or method. Prayer is not about right or wrong or “should” or “only.” It is about a personal or individualized way to talk with God or our Higher Power or Universal Energy or the collective unconscious or whatever we want to call it. Prayer is not about someone else telling us how to pray or what to say. It is about communication.”For those familiar with the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step program, this book focuses on Steps 6 and 7. That is, "6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character," and "7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." So, after completing Steps 4 and 5, one's inventory of personal character defects becomes obvious. But if God removes all of one's character defects, many of us would be "the hole in the doughnut". What would be left of us? This book goes through the fears one might have before asking one's Higher Power to remove one's character defects, and (as is implied in Step 7) becoming of service to one's fellows... not just one's fellows in AA, but of service to everyone. It seems like a lot of work, but compared to the disaster an alcoholic leaves in his wake and the work it takes to clean up that mess, the spiritual work seems an easy trade. When you identify these shortcomings, you want to write down each individual character defect into list form. Once you have finished compiling this list, you will want to write next to each shortcoming or defect a corresponding positive trait that will replace the negative ones on the list. Keep in mind there is no set number of shortcomings that need to be included; the list can be as long as needed. Prayer is seeing answers and direction in life. Meditation is listening for answers from a Higher Power and developing the ability within ourselves to accept the answers.” The recording begins with Goldings’s “Mozam-BBQ,” a challenging boogaloo piece that exists in that space between straight and swung eighth notes, highlighting Joseph’s melodic touch. The trio captures the slow burn, pulsing groove of Stax’s soul sound on Hey’s “Sauté.” The beautifully sanctified “Nina’s Lullaby” interprets an improvised lullaby that Joseph’s daughter sang to her pet fish, Crabby. There is a flamenco tinge to Golding’s “Paco’s Theme,” a piece that swings naturally in a 5/4 meter.