Corey opens with a well-worn point about self-centeredness, that if trouble is everyone else's fault, he'll happily take other people down with him rather than carry the blame alone. He traces it back to a story he's told before about his father's cancer diagnosis and a girlfriend's Xanax prescription, and comes clean on a detail he'd gotten wrong in earlier tellings. It wasn't given to him. He took it from her purse without her knowing, and for years the softer version felt better because it meant he wasn't the only one responsible.

From there the two of them dig into the Fourth Step's fourth column as the real training ground for the Tenth Step's daily practice, and Corey describes watching a sponsee's whole outlook shift the moment he wrote his part down in black and white rather than hiding behind vague language like selfish or dishonest. Pastor Mike ties it to the difference between a reaction and a response, and to learning how to actually listen instead of just waiting for his turn to argue back. It closes with Psalm 51, David's prayer for a clean heart after being confronted by Nathan, and the shared conviction that neither of their hearts started out pure, but both are far purer now than they used to be.

The stone for today: Freedom begins when I stop trying to change others and instead allow God to change me.

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Letting God change me | reaction versus response | the fourth column of inventory | Christian recovery | 12-step faith | Psalm 51 | self-will run riot | Big Book study | sobriety devotional | addiction recovery