Principles and the Steps – Practicing These Principles Workshop – Part 1 of 5 – Michael E.

Thank you. My name is Michael Earl and I'm a female alcoholic and it's wonderful to be back in Minnesota. The very first conference I ever spoke at was in Duluth, Minnesota and so a lot of familiar faces and people that I've known for a while are here and that feels really good. I just had surgery so I'm full of stitches right now and so I'm going to be probably sitting up and standing sitting down and standing up because I'm a little bit uncomfortable but I couldn't cancel because I canceled last year because of surgery and I thought no I can't do that again bad karma so this is I've been struggling a little bit for a month because I had a complication with the surgery and they had to go in and do more which was unexpected I thought I'd be well in time for this conference so I apologize but I'm here it feels good to be here I feel being with you is the most healing thing I can do for myself and it just uplifts my thinking and my attitude. So applying these principles in all my affairs or all of our affairs. I went to this dictionary, this is a dictionary on words that are in the big book, it's really a nice piece of work but it's not AA approved, it is not conference approved and I also looked up the dictionary he used to come up with these words and he used a dictionary from 1999. And I was thinking, boy it would be nice to have a dictionary form 1937 and see what Bill was really meaning with some of these words. And so I have a sponsoree that went out and bought me a dictionary that was from 1937 so someday I hope maybe I can look up some of those words and compare them to what they were in 1937 if they've changed at all. anyway under principles the definition he has is a basic truth law standard quality assumption or code of conduct and so for me applying these principles in all my affairs is a code of Conduct this is you know a way I'm going to live for the rest of my life all the solutions all of my solutions lie within the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I hear things in fact I've got two lists here I'm going to read to you. I hear things in rooms where, and I've heard a speaker stand up at the podium and say the principles are not the steps. The principles are honesty, purity, love, and selfishness, and giving you a list of what his interpretation of the principles were. And I believe all of those things are embodied in the steps, I do believe that. But according to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, principles means the steps and he uses different words. You know, Bill doesn't like to use the same word twice So he uses different words. He calls them principles, he calls them proposals, he calls it spiritual tools, suggestions, you know, anything he can call but they still all, you know apply to the steps. But these are some of these, these are two lists I found that's printed matter that you can buy it at any AA conference that has those little stores that sell stuff. But these were two lists that are printed and one of them says step one is acceptance, step two is faith, step 3 is surrender and trust, step 4 is honesty, step 5 is courage, step 6 is willingness, step 7 is humility, step 8 is forgiveness, step 9 is freedom, step 10 is perseverance, step 11 is patience, and step 12 is love and charity. And then the other list says step 1 is honesty. Step 2 is hope. Step 2 faith. Step 2 courage. Step 5 is integrity. Step 6 is willing. Step 7 is humility, step 8 is forgiveness, step 9 is trust, step 10 is perseverance. Step 11 is spiritual awareness and step 12 is service. And I think all of these attributes are wonderful and I do believe they are embodied in the steps but principles are the steps. And so that's basically what we're going to talk about. How many of you heard my story? Okay, not – excuse me. I wasn't going to share my story, but meditation, I do a form of meditation in the morning where I really try to blank my mind out. But after the meditation, you know, something just told me I needed to share my story because my story really is a story of applying these principles and all your affairs. And everything I am today and everything I hope to be is the direct result of applying this principle in all my affairs. So I'm going to show you a little bit of my story. Then I'm going to talk a little bit about principles. We'll pull out some stuff that's in the big book on principles and then I want to talk a bit about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and how these principles came about. And then we'll get into step 10, you know, and step 10 is really how we get to apply these principles in all our affairs. And I really do believe if I'm doing a step 10 every day, I am applying these principles in all my affairs on a daily basis. So anyway, you know, the book talks about great events will come to pass. And one of the greatest events that has come to past for me is my marriage. You know, I was speaking in South Carolina and I just met the most wonderful man. You know he is a southern gentleman and he just swept me off my feet. And I know I would not have been ready for this marriage one day sooner. You know I had to go through all the things that I went through in my sobriety to get ready for his marriage. And we just celebrated eight years of marriage which is a miracle. I've never been married for eight years, and I've been married four times. And I'm not proud of that, but when you get married at the age of 15, you can rack up some marriages. So this man is just a gift. You know, he's an absolute gift, and you'll get to meet him later on. He'll poke his head in right now. He's going around with Patty, seeing Minnesota or seeing Minneapolis. And he's sick of hearing me talk. He's just sick of it because he comes with me all the time. And we drive a lot to conferences because I was getting on airplanes, leaving them every weekend. And I don't want to do that. You know, he's 67 and I'm 55, and I just don't wanna be leaving him. We don't have that much time, you know, that we can be together. And so we just don'T want to be separated. He's now retired. And we just get in our van and we go to these conferences and we bring our dogs. and one of our dogs, we call him Spirit and he's registered under the name of Sunlight of the Spirit which is perfect for this group and our other dog, her name is Promise she's registered as Extravagant Promises and the license plate on the back of our van says Big Book so I want you to know we are really corny we love this program so much we just do AA 24 hours a day just about, we really do And so we have to, Ted and I have to work on applying these principles in other areas because that's all we really want to do is AA. And we haveと really force ourselves to apply principles and participate in the family and participate в the community. But that all goes along with what we'll be talking about later on. Anyway, so we got married. We met in April when I gave a talk. and he came to california in july for the san diego international we spent a week together i made two trips up to georgia and my second trip up to Georgia he was waiting for me at the airport with bouquet of flowers and he proposed to me you know it was just so romantic you know I mean I've never been courted you know i'd be I always took hostages I just never had somebody pursue me and court me like he did you know and I think distance was wonderful for us because we didn't have the complication of you know sex interfering with getting to know each other and he turned out to be everything I thought he was through his letters and through his phone calls and anyway so we got married in September you know it seemed like such a long time April to September but now it looks like a whirlwind romance that's five months and we're married but anyway we got married on the beach in Edisto South Carolina where we met and it was just unbelievably wonderful we had all AA people we opened with the serenity prayer, closed with the Lord's prayer, went upstairs and had a meeting afterwards. But there, you know, when we were closing with the lord's prayer out in the ocean, we're six dolphins, you know? Just frolicking around. It was just, it was just a sign that this is just, you know,, going to be the perfect marriage. And all I can tell you is we did not live happily ever after. That first year was really tough. You know, it Was just really tough for one thing. I went into menopause and all I Can say is menopaus what an order my husband just can't go through with it. And I didn't even know what was happening to me. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. That's what I thought because I just didn't have a clue about menopause. I just had no idea it had anything to do with that. I just thought, you know, I'm in a small area. Yeah, I wasn't in Atlanta. I was in Evans. If I had moved to Atlanta, it might have been different, you know, because I'm from the Los Angeles area and I'm not used to rural areas. but anyway in Evans it's October and everybody out there are deer hunters or there's some kind of hunters I've never seen a hunter I've never seen again and I've ever seen a dead deer I've never even seen a real live deer and and I'm an animal lover I just love animals and you know every time I turned around there's a truck driving by with dead deer in it and we have trees and we had a lot of squirrels and one day I was looking out my window at the squirrel that was crawling up my tree and he had this pecan in his mouth and he was just so cute and all of a sudden the man next door shot the squirrel I was so upset you know he shot my squirrel but it had his pecan and his mouth so he shot mice world and I told Ted I said well at least in Los Angeles we don't shoot the animals and he said no you just shoot each other a little bit of truth to that but anyway it was very very difficult I thought I'd made a mistake. I just didn't think I'd ever adjust to Georgia and, you know, I'm ashamed to say this. Well, it's not my doing but AA out there was not real friendly to me. They were and they are today. All these people are just, we're just great friends and I love them dearly that at that time, you now, they had this attitude that I was a big California hotshot speaker and I was coming there to change their AA, you know. And so they were not nice to me and they were not receptive to me and I'd never experienced anything like that. And so applying these principles in all my affairs, all I could do was find newcomers to work with that didn't have any preconceived notions of who I was or what I was. And I just was true to myself and true to my beliefs, you know, and I just started going to treatment centers and newcomer meetings and handing out my phone number and assigning myself newcomers, assigning them that I was their sponsor. You know, they're newcomers. They don't know they have a choice, so it worked really good, you know. So I ended up sponsoring all these newcomers and we started having newcomers move in with us. And, you Know, over a period of time, all these people that had these notions about me just started coming around, you know, and befriending me. And it's just because I was true to who I was and true to my beliefs. And just recently I found out why some of those women had a resentment. I married the only eligible bachelor out there in Evans. And they really had a real resentment about him getting somebody out of the state. So, but it's good today and we have really good AA out there in Evans, so. Anyway, I just wanted to go back to California. You know, I had talks with Polly And Polly's my sponsor. And I said, Polly, I'm just having a nervous breakdown. I mean, I was having panic attacks and I couldn't sleep and hyperventilating all the time. And I just knew I was Having a Nervous Breakdown. And I was begging Polly to let me come back. And this is where sponsorship is so important. Polly basically reminded me that I made a commitment to marriage. And I made this commitment as a sober woman. And I wasn't one year sober or two years sober. You know how we make those commitments. I was you know almost 16 years sober and I made a commitment to marriage to a wonderful man and basically she said I could not come back that I had to stay in this marriage and I had to apply the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in this step and the tradition in my relationship and you know I told Polly I said well he wants me to go too I'm sure that he feels the same way and she said that's fine you tell him you are not leaving and if he wants to leave he can And that's what I did. You know, I said, I just told him, I said, i've made a commitment to this marriage and I'm staying. And if you can't apply the principles in this marriage like I'm going to try, then you're welcome to leave. But you will have to be the one that does it. And he made the decision to stay. And we did. We worked the steps and the traditions in our marriage. And I can tell you the last seven years have been absolutely the best years of my life. and my husband feels the same way, and I am just so thankful for sponsorship because I would have just dumped this down the toilet, and I just can't wait for you to meet him because he has this beautiful smile and he just wins you over just looking at him wins you over, and i just love him with all my heart and all my soul. So anyway, I stayed. I made that decision. My husband and I are very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. He's passionate about it as I am passionate about it. We always have newcomers living with us. we have anywhere, and we're in a position to. If we had children in the house we wouldn't be doing this but we don't. We have a four bedroom house and it's just my husband and myself so we always have newcomers. We have anywhere from one to six newcomers living with us and we are trying to keep it down because when you have six newcomers live with you it is real insanity. I mean we've had insane households and I'd say 50% of these people stay sober and 50% drink again. We don't take them in unless we really see that they're trying. We don't take anybody in. You know, the book says that we're to use discretion. And so we use discretion and we watch people for a while and we talk it over and if we think that they might benefit from living with us, the one benefit that the women get is they get to see how a husband and wife interact in a loving way. My husband and I are very kind and very loving to each other all the time. And, you know, they get to witness this and I know that is something that a lot of women need to see because they've never seen that in their lives at least the ones that come into our life so and same thing with the guys you know same thing with but we have a lot wonderful stories about some of the people that drank again you know I mean we had this one woman that that drank again and I mean she was in her 50s and we thought she was staying sober we thought she was doing so good and and her daughter called us and she said I know know my mom's drinking and I said well if she knew if she was drinking I would know about it she is not drinking and she said yes she is every night I talked to her she is drunk so the next day Ted and I went into her room to see if we could find any signs of her drinking and there were at least 12 bottles this big vanilla extract she was just drinking vanilla extract and we noticed how she had this smell about her you know we thought it was her perfume this huge vanilla perfume so you know you just never you think you know when people are drinking and you think can spot a drunk and you know that's not always the case but we have a lot of wonderful stories about the ones that have stayed sober also we work with a treatment center and it's one of the last treatment centers I know in Minnesota you have a lot of treatment centers but in a lot states were losing our treatment centers and George is one of them we just don't have them anymore there's a few that ran by churches but other than that insurance companies will not pay for treatment anymore we are having to detox people in our homes and we have detox a lot of people in her home two people one had a grand mal seizure the third day after she quit drinking and another person just looked like she was going to die right on us you know and I had to make calls to some of the old-timers and do some of things that they told me to do and I didn't have anything in the house to drink but I did have vanilla extract that I was getting ready to throw down somebody's throat you know to bring her around but anyway we got detox these people in in the home but we do have this one treatment center that's still left and it's one of the military treatment centers and it they only have two treatment centers left this one's in Augusta it's called Fort Gordon Navy Army Marines Air Force they all go to this treatment center and they can be anywhere from a private to a colonel major a lot of doctors military doctors go through this treatment center and Ted takes a newcomer meeting in there to get them you know to learn a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous because what they get there is not AlcoholicsAnonymous it's a lot of cycle babble and I don't mean to put that down because that has a place it really does you know the book tells us if we need outside help do not hesitate to seek it you know and it has its place but he gets him really familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous and then on every Wednesday night we have permission to bring these guys into our home and what we do is we have a big barbecue we want to show these guys that were not a glum lot that we can have fun and sobriety and then we go into what I call my AA room and we just get to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous I've got four Wednesdays that I can have them they're there for 28 days so the first Wednesday as we get into the history of Alcoholic Synonymous I think the history is really important because a lot of people who have trouble with the God concept come to believe when they get into the history. Sometimes when you get into the history, somebody that's getting burned out on AA that loses their enthusiasm gets into the History and they get their enthusiasm back and that's what happened to me around 10 or 12 years as I got into the History of Alkalics Anonymous and all that enthusiasm came back that I had and it hasn't gone away since then. We go through the first three steps out of the big book, first step, second step, third step, have them on their knees, all these soldiers on their knee saying the third step prayer together and then they're started on their fourth by the time they leave in hopes that they will get a sponsor wherever they go and continue on but i want to tell you this one um this one experience uh one of my favorite sentences in the big book is bottom of 14 top of 15 it says for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others he could not survive those certain trials and low spots ahead so that sentence tells me two things first of all it tells me if I'm not working with others I fail to grow spiritually I can pray I can meditate I can go to church but if I'm working with others I failed to grow spiritual and then it also tells me if I am NOT working with other's I'm NOT going to survive those trials and low spots ahead we are guaranteed try trials in low spots you know life happens on life's terms even if we're sober so people still get sick people still die accidents still happen and what is going to get us through these things is working with others and one thing that I've gone through in the last few years is I've had a lot of health problems I never had any health problems except for some sinus problems until I moved to Georgia that's not saying anything about Georgia or my husband or anything it's just all I can say is getting old is not for sissies and I've had a lot of surgeries and some of the surgeries were a result of a bad surgery and I had to have a few corrections so but I just you know I sometimes I get angry at God and I have my fist cut and I think look at how much I do for it and look at how I try to work these principles how come you let me be sick all the time and you know one thing I've learned for me is one of my character defects which I really truly have got a handle on today is being judgmental. And I have found when I'm judging you, I experience your experience to get over the judgment and that is a heavy price to pay. And that is something I did with my mom. My mom was always sick, she was always having surgery, she's always taking pills, and she was always drinking. And i thought she was a hypochondriac. I didn't believe that she was really sick. I thought these were excuses for her to take pills and for her to drink. And so today I'm walking in her shoes experiencing her experience to know that some of these things were real. And I have, that judgment I had about my mom I no longer have today and I just love my mom and I embrace her even though she is deceased today. I just have such more of an appreciation for her that I didn't have back then. Anyway I had this one surgery. It was on a Tuesday and they send you home right away And so I went home, and I had a very bad fever that night. And I have stitches, and I have bleeding and blood loss. And I woke up Wednesday morning, and I felt awful. And I told my husband, I said, I just can't meet with the soldiers tonight. I just don't have it in me. And as the day went on, I just had this antsy feeling. And I just kind of knew that I'd be better off. And I can be sick in that room as I can be sick and bed. And I would probably be in a better place if I put myself with a bunch of newcomers and so that's what I did. I just showed up and we were on step two and there's about 35 people in the room. There's a soldier right here and he just jumped up and he got my face and he said if there's a God it's going to take a burning bush to prove it to me and I'm not feeling good anyway. I'm intimidated about this guy towering over me and I think oh god i'm out of burning bushes you know what do i say but you know he told me his name was lee and that inspired me to tell him a story about another man named lee that wrote me a letter about a spiritual experience he had during one of my talks and it had nothing to do with me if it hadn't been me it would have been another speaker it was his time to have a spiritual experience that was between him and god so i am not taking any credit for this but anyway it was in um alabama and the name of the conference was Gulf Shores Jubilee. So they had a big neon sign on the stage that said Jubilee and this guy didn't really believe in God and he was trying to make the decision whether to drink or commit suicide and for some reason he decided to go to one of the meetings which he was not registered for the conference and he just happened to go into my meeting you know and he sat down, the very first person to sit down and if he'd sat down in any other chair he would not have had this spiritual experience. God had to lead him to this chair, and he wrote me two years later because he doubted his spiritual experience, but he told me that the whole time I was sharing my story, he just looked down at the floor and was thinking about him and didn't hear a word I said until I was closing my story. And I always close my story with how I came to terms with God, and it was through tragedy. You know, my daughter was three years sober. I was four years sober. She was leaving an AA dance, and she was kidnapped, brutally raped, and almost murdered. And both of us just had a lot of anger, and we couldn't understand God. This is a spiritual program. I mean, she was leaving in AA dance. I managed to stay sober, but my daughter drank again. And it's something that took us a long time to work through. It took me nine years to work through the things that I had to work though to come to terms with God. But what I can tell you today that i know for me about god is that god is good and good as god and if it's not good it's not of god there's a difference between man's world and god's world and that rape happened in man's world and so this man wrote this letter that i was sharing i was saying the words god is good and good as god and he said a force started to pull up his chin and no matter what he did he couldn't keep his chin down So this force is pulling up his chin, and by the time his head came up and he went to look at me, the speaker who's saying these words, my body was blocking the whole part of the neon sign that said Juba, and the only part of The Sign that he could see was Lee in neon lights, and that was his name, Lee. And I'm saying God is good, good as God. He looks up, and here's neon lights. Lee! And so for him, that was His spiritual experience, you know, and his life progressed, you Know, for two years, and he wrote me this letter. So I just shared that story with this man named Lee who's sitting here. This is the honest-to-God truth. We had a bush identical to that one in the corner that sat right next to the couch, and we have to shove everything to get all these guys in, so we shoved everything against the wall. So this bush was shoved against the neon light and neon lamp and, no, what kind of lamps do you call those? Halogen lamp, yeah, a halogen lamp. This is honest-To-God Truth. I'm saying God is good, good as God. the halogen lamp caught on fire and a flame went up from the bush honest to God truth and this soldier just came out of his chair he was just white as a ghost and he's just screamed out o-s-h-i-t and I totally forgot about his burning bush I'm just worried about my house burning down that was my focus my house is burning down so I'm screaming about and plugging the lamp getting the lamp out getting the fire out and so we managed to get the lamp out and the bush out and some of the smoke out we all sat down again and then it was just I mean the whole room it was like oh my god the whole room had a spiritual experience you know he demanded a burning bush and we all witnessed it you know and this group of soldiers was so transformed that i mean the whole group was so transform they went back to the treatment center the treatment centre was so impressed that they started busing them to our house every wednesday night so every wednesday night a big white prison bus drives up in front of our house and drops these soldiers off you know so it's but the real thing is the gift that I received you know I could have missed out on that I could've used my surgery as an excuse to stay in bed and I would have missed out because there is not any kind of a high from any chemical you can put your body that equals the kind of high I felt with that spiritual experience and that lasted me for a whole week I didn't feel my fever I didn' t feel my stitches I mean I was good to go you know it was good to go and that lasted me for a whole week so that's why i i always no matter what i'm going through i know one thing that's going to get me through it is working with others it's going gonna get me though anything if i can get out of myself long enough for god to get in there you know the situation is taken care of when i crawled through the doors of alcoholics anonymous over 23 years ago i had a formal ninth grade education i didn't know how to work i lived on welfare i was reduced to prostitution and i was a thief and all of that was before i took that first drink at the age of 25. i always swore i was never going to be an alcoholic like my mom how do we have any newcomers in here anybody with less than six months oh i'm so glad you're here welcome Now I really like newcomers to know that the absolute highest you get in Alcoholics Anonymous is sober. It is not a speaker, it's not a GSR, it is not delegate. The highest you can get is sober! I'd like to welcome those of you who are not so new but are having difficulty with this program. I saw a sign in an AA club that always gave me a lot of hope and that sign says you're not a failure unless you quit trying. And I really believe that to be true. So please, whatever you do, just keep coming back. But I was told early on in this program that this program is not for spectators. This is a program of action, and those actions are the 12 steps as laid out in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, Dr. Bob, one of our co-founders, said if you simmer those 12 steps into two words, those two words would be love and service. And before he said that, he said, I want to emphasize the simplicity of this program. Let's not louse it up with Freudian complexes that are interesting to the scientific mind but have little to do with our actual AA work. And I see a lot of things drifting in and out of AA today, and they might not be Freudian, but they're just as useless. And what they do is they just complicate this very simple program. It's not an easy program, but it's a simple program I like talking about Dr. Bob because I come from a line of sponsorship that comes down directly from Dr.Bob. And there's just one thing different that we do. We do the steps according to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. But this is where you really need to know the history of Alcoholic Anonymous, then you really can understand how the book was written and some of the things they used to do and why the 12 and 12 goes in on some of these things that were missed out on the big books. You know, we actually broke off from a religious affiliation called the Oxford Group, and they had a set of principles which the drunks started numbering into steps. And the drunks getting sober in this movement, you know, when they broke off, it was the start of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we did take their principles. But for spiritual reasons, Bill wanted to stretch those. They had those principles numbered into six. And he wanted to stretching them into 12. But they always had actions they did at what they called step three. You know, the moral inventory was step three and they took the actions of going over character defects with their sponsor at great length because they really did believe that some of your character defects would drive you back out to a drink. They said their prayer to have those defects of character removed with their sponsor, and the sponsor helped them make a list of restitution ways and means that they were going to go about making their amends. Those were actions they always took at The Moral Inventory. Bill took those three actions, and he numbered them and gave them steps, step numbers, and now they are our steps six, seven, and eight, and they're vital, vital steps. But in the big book there's only one page. All those are on just one page, just little paragraphs, hardly anything on them. And so in the 12 and 12, that is my favorite step in the 12 and12, is step 6. And what it tells you is that God will not render you white as snow without your cooperation. It says the man that repeatedly works on his other defects of character grows in the image of his creator. And I hear a lot of people say that they don't work on their character defects. They don'twork on them because God knows what they are, and when God's ready, he's going to remove them. It doesn't work that way. You know, I wish I could say, okay, when God's ready for me to be thin, I'll be thin. No, there's things that I have to do. You Know, I'm going to have to quit eating and start applying these principles. And there's Things I Have to Do, you know, to get thin. And especially if we're not even, you Know, owning them. You Now, how's God going to remove them if we are not even owning them? So, you Now, I was taught right from the beginning that, you know, I had to do my part. There's things I have to do to help God remove the defect and that they'll be removed in the exact portion that they're interfering with my life. And the one thing, and I'm so thankful I have this kind of sponsorship. I'm så thankful. So when I did five, we did six, seven, and eight all at one time, and that's how I sponsor today. The big book says after doing step five, you go home, take the book down from the shelf, you look at the first five proposals, ask God if you've left anything out. I mean, I feel like that's important, and so So I have my sponsories do that in my home. You know, home can be in the heart. They don't have to physically go to their house. And hopefully their big book's not on the shelf. You know? Hopefully. So I just leave them, you know, in what I call the AA room. And they do all those instructions that are in the big book. But then I get back with them and we immediately do six, seven, and eight. I was not trusted to go home and contemplate on my own character defects. And I don't trust my sponsorings to. I know a lot of people just that six and seven, and they just kind of just skip over it. But there's one character defect I would have missed that my sponsor pointed out to me. She told me my main character defect was self-pity. I mean, wait till you hear my childhood. I really thought my self-pitied was justified. I mean I had an awful childhood. My sponsor told me alcoholics could not afford justified self- pity. You know she gave me that old cliche pour me, pour me another drink. I can honestly tell you today, because of the work that I have done, applying these principles in all my affairs, self-pity has been totally removed and it's been replaced with overwhelming gratitude. Even when I'm angry at God because I'm sick, I still don't drift into the kind of self- pity that I used to have. I still feel overwhelming gratitude for where I am today and the things that through God I have accomplished in my life. Another character defect that I knew all along, and she didn't have to point it out, was prostitution. You know, she basically told me, you know, I was going to have to give up prostitution or I was going to drink. The last time I prostituted I was six months sober and I was on my ninth step and I did almost drink over it. You know that's one thing I could not do, you know, but I had never worked. I didn't know how to work, you know but I did almost drink but at that point you know I totally gave it prostitution another thing that was habit for me to do was steal I wouldn't even know I was stealing and I would steal and so my sponsor helped me with that she gave me you know a plan of action you know what I did every morning is I had to call my sponsor and commit to her I wasn't going to steal from the day and then at night I would have to call her and tell her if I was able to keep my commitment and I can tell you from that first call to today I have not stolen anything since I've been in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I cannot believe I was that person it's hard for me to even identify with that person because I am so transformed today you know I am just you know not that person today and it's very important for me get up here and share my story and share what I was like because it's easy to forget you know. I stopped doing the things I did when I first got sober and i started resting on my laurels and at 10 years of sobriety i almost picked up a drink you know and i forgot what it was like you know that 10 years i forgot what it really like and that's why about 11 years sober and I started sharing my story you know it was really important for me to get back and you know to where I came from to really appreciate what this program you know has offered me in the big book under doctor's opinion it says many types of alcoholics do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach So I'm here to tell you that I'm one of those alcoholics. In fact, so is my mom. We both tried to recover from this disease through the psychiatric effort. Different times, but we went to the same psychiatrist. Of course, the result was no. But today, the good news is that today, that very same psychiatrist is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. My mom and I both tried recover from the disease through the religious effort. Different times and different congregations, but the result is the same. And believe it or not, today, that very same minister that counseled me is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I like to joke around and say I think we drove these two men to drink, but the truth is, and this is the truth, my mom slept with the psychiatrist and I slept with The Minister. Now, my sponsor told me that was not exactly AA's idea of a spiritual experience. But one thing I know for sure is that psychiatrist, that minister, and myself are perfect examples that AA works when other things fail a little bit about my background i'm irish german and cherokee i'm illegitimate uh i'm born out of wedlock and being born out out of wedlock today is just not a big deal you know but when i was a little girl growing up it was and my childhood is pretty appalling so in my mom's defense i want to share with you a little Bit about her childhood because as bad as mine was my mom was worse and this program gave me the ability to have a very loving relationship with my mom even though she couldn't quit drinking my mom came from an alcoholic background and first of all I want you to know that as a result of this program I was also able to practice these principles in all my affairs when it came to my mom being sick you know my mom came down with cancer and she died about ten years ten years ago and you know I had the ability to you know apply these principles and I had the ability to take care of my mom took care of her on nights and on weekends my sister took care over during the day I had the ability to get in bed with my mom hold her all night and just love her unconditionally and I had to watch her drink on top of morphine up until the day she could no longer swallow and it's probably one of the hardest things I've done but one thing I learned from this whole experience is that my whole life growing up I was so focused on the things I hated about my mom the things that I didn't want to be like that I missed all of her wonderful qualities my mom had a lot of wonderful qualities and I really miss her a lot today as I said my mom came from an alcoholic background and when she was 13 her mother was murdered in a drunken brawl a drunk slit my grandmother's throat so that left my mom out on the streets at the age of 13 trying to raise herself at days of 14 she had her first baby which she gave up for adoption then she had me and she did everything in her power to keep me she later met this man got married had three boys we all moved California that marriage soon ended in divorce and my stepfather moved back to Colorado so that left my mom in California trying to raise four little kids we were raised on welfare we were raising extreme extreme poverty always having lights gas telephones turned off always being evicted even having to sleep in cars and then I had to deal with my mom's prostitution I had the dough with her alcoholism I did deal with all of her suicide attempt when I was 12 my mom got pregnant again and this time she sent my three younger brothers to live with their real dad in Colorado now my three brothers were my very best friend when you're sleeping in cars and you're always being evicted you don't have an opportunity to make friends so my brothers were friends so at the age of 12 I feel like I had all these feelings that I later brought with me to Alcoholics Anonymous and those feelings were of low self-worth low self esteem not equal to and just not good enough and that was a direct result of all that poverty the drunken psychiatrist pointed out to me that I had issues of abandonment you know I never knew my real dad my stepdad went away my three brothers went away and my mom's always trying to kill herself and because of some other childhood experiences I would say I'm a fear-based person I've always been afraid of people places and things and the two very important things I learned when I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is first I learned that feelings are not facts and all those things I used to think about myself were not the truth. And best of all, I learned how to walk through fear. And I learned every time I walked through fear, I'm actually exercising faith. And this last 12 years I've walked through one of my biggest fears and it's getting on airplanes. It took me twelve and a half years of sobriety to finally get on an airplane. And I found out that I'm not afraid of flying. I'm afraid of crashing. My sponsor told me I'd better be clear what my fear was when I was asking God to remove it. But I hear a lot of things in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that are not necessarily in the big book. And the one thing I used to hear all the time is that you could not have fear and faith at the same time, that if you had fear, you didn't have any faith. And I just couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong in my program because I had worked these steps as hard as I could work these steps. I've had spiritual experiences, but I still had all this fear. And I finally went over to one of these AA gurus who used to make this statement, and I asked him, I said, what am I doing wrong in my program? Why do I still have all this peer? And he told me in the most arrogant, smug way, he said, well, it sounds to me like you haven't taken a thorough third step. Today I know I had taken a thoroughly third step I mean, to take a thorough first step is you have to follow up with the actions of four through nine. I mean, have you ever asked yourself, how do you turn your will and your life over to God? How do you do that? You know, for me it was a process. And that process was the actions of four through nine. And how I continue on a daily basis of turning my will and my life over to care of God is I live in 10, 11, and 12. And we'll be going over step 10 a lot later on today. I want to share a story with you about that sister of mine the one that slept in the dresser drawer because when I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I used to blame my alcoholism on my mom's alcoholism and I blamed the way I turned out on the way i was raised and after I got sober in this program I took a good look at that sister mind because she came from the very same background being illegitimate and everything. My sister was literally forced to move out of the house at the age of 16 because my mom's alcoholism has progressed, and so I would say her years with her were worse than mine, and mine were pretty bad. So she was forced to moved out of house at age of sixteen, so she quit school and she moved out. But what she did is she took that high school equivalency test and She had to take it three times until she finally passed it. With this test under her belt, under special youth program, she went to work for the city of Long Beach. At the age of 26, she retired from the city of Long beach, she took her retirement pay and she bought her own business. She later married the head traffic engineer for the City of Long Beac and 10 years ago at the age of 30 my sister was awarded Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. You know, and even today sometimes I still don't get it. You know same mom, same background but different reactions. And the difference is, my sister is not an alcoholic. My sister's not bodily and mentally different from her fellows. My sister reacts to life situations differently than I do. So today, I get to accept responsibility and I can just no longer blame all those people, places and things. Yes, I am an alcoholic and I do have a disease but today I have a solution. And for me, part of my solution is being accountable for my actions, my past actions and my present actions. So anyway at the age of 15 I got married. At the age 17 I did have a baby. At the 18 I had to get out of this marriage because this man took me through a whole new phase of alcoholism that I never experienced with my mom and it's called physical abuse. And he never abused me unless he was drinking but he abused me to the point of cutting me up with a knife and I had surgery to repair the damage. So I got out of that marriage at the age of 18, and I feel like that's when I started doing all the things I swore I'd never do, being all the thing I swored I'd never be. Hadn't even taken a drink of alcohol yet. I always intuitively knew if I took a drink, I'd be an alcoholic. But it started out with me being a single mother living on welfare. My whole life growing up, I swor when I grew up, I wasn't going to live like that, and there I was. Now on page 23 in the big book, it says the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. we're talking about the main problem being the mental obsession and not the physical allergy so I know for me I practice my disease of alcoholism way before ever took that first drink because I've always had the mental obsession part of this disease and I practiced it in the form of compulsive overeating I would shove food my mouth instead of alcohol then I discovered the wonderful world of diet pills and that's back in the days when doctors gave really good amphetamines methadrine dexedrine it's illegal today so I went on this diet for 16 years when I finally took that drink of alcohol at the age of 25 I immediately had the physical allergy from that very first drink I had the phenomena of cravings from that first drink I had a personality change dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde you read about that in the big book is a big book refers to that as a real alcoholic and I personally am so physically allergic to alcohol. When I consume alcohol, I break out in a rash, welts and hides all over my body. And I was always too drunk to have a clue that that wasn't normal. And if I'd had a clue, it wouldn't have made a difference. But from that very first drink, I drank morning, noon, and night, and I did not draw a sober breath of 25 to the age of 31. And this is not an exaggeration. I had a huge spiritual experience way before we got to this program. And there was equivalent to the one that Bill had in Bill's story. Now, in the big book, it says, as a result of the spiritual awakening, you'll have a change in psyche, a change in attitude. It says you'll has this huge emotional displacement rearrangement and this spiritual experience I had was not enough for me to achieve that. And I believe it's because I did not have a plan of action to go with it. But it was enough for to come to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. So what I did with this experience is I went to this church and I counseled with this minister and I told him all about my spiritual experience I shared with him all my character defects and all my shortcomings and he assured me if I got really active in this church and I read all these inspirational books, I did all this positive thinking and affirmations that I could be everything that I ever wanted to be. After I got to this program I heard a speaker at the podium say if you're alcoholic you cannot think your way into right actions. He said if you are alcoholic you have to act your way in the right thinking and I am absolute proof of that because I got really active in that church. I even became the secretary of that church and I struggled reading those books because I could barely read. I did all that positive thinking and all those affirmations and the only thing that resulted is I ended up having a torrid affair with this minister and it absolutely infuriated his wife and the rest of the congregation wasn't too thrilled about it either but the one thing I'm going to share with you now is the one things I thought I would take to the grave with me. As secretary of the church my job was to handle the money and when I handled that money, I stole part of that money. Now at that point in my life, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt, my only hope was God because I just had a spiritual experience and I turned to God for help and I ended up seducing his minister and ripping off his church. So I truly know the feeling of hopelessness that they talk about in the big book. I'm going to share two stories with you while I'm on the subject of the minister. And I like to share this first story because it's the first time I was ever able to laugh at any part of my alcoholism. I always heard that laughter was healing but I always thought my story was just much too serious and when I got here I used to hang out in the back of the room and I have a friend named Teddy and she calls the back-of-the-room that has measure section or the denial section now I didn't hang out back there for either of those reasons I hung out back there because I couldn't read very well and I was terrified that they would ask me to read something and I literally could not say the word anonymity for over six months so I'd always hang out the back in the room in California is very theatrical anyway so we had some very funny theatrical speakers and speakers would get up the podium share something funny in the room was just burst into laughter and at first I was absolutely incapable of laughing but one day after I had about two years of sobriety under my belt I caught myself in the back of the room laughing too but right after this huge belly laugh I found myself thinking well that might be funny for you but there is nothing absolutely nothing in my life I could ever laugh at then about 12 years ago I I was speaking in Seal Beach 11 or 12 years ago. I speak in Seal beach, California. It was just my second time to ever get given a talk. I never shared my story till I was 11 years sober. My daughter heard that I was thinking and she wanted to come hear me. I told you that my daughter 15 years, she got sober at 18 years old. She was kidnapped and she drank again. And because of her turning her back on God, she was in and out, in and Out, in and OUT of AA today, my daughter's 37 years old and she has almost 11 years of big books. sobriety and for you I am truly thankful because of myself I could not help her but anyway she heard I was talking that many years ago and it was around the end of her drinking and she wanted to come hear me and she brought some of her program girlfriends over to my house before the meeting we sat down we had coffee and my daughter proceeded to tell her friends my drunk log and it Was just the first time I was ever able to laugh at anything for some reason it It was a little funnier coming out of her mouth than out of my head. But, of course, she's telling these girls about the minister. And I never thought about how some of these things looked through the eyes of a 9-year-old. She was 9 years old when I was running around with this minister. And so she told these girls that the one thing I used to do with her all the time is I would preach to her about the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule. I drug her off to church every day. But one day she came home from school at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. She opened the bedroom door, and there naked in bed with her mom was the married minister of the church. Now, when she first said this, I just felt all this shame, embarrassment, guilt, all those feelings. And I just looked at my daughter in the most sympathetic way. I said, God, honey, that had to be a terrible shock. And my daughter just looked up at me and she said, No, Mom, I don't know what shocked me the most, seeing that minister naked or seeing his artificial leg on the floor. up until that time I totally forgot he had an artificial leg I don't know how I forgot it it was a huge leg and I'll tell you the visions in him hopping on one leg to the bathroom I mean it was the vision I don t know how I forgot it but I can tell you that this man in ways that count was no way disabled after I got to the program of alcoholics anonymous and I started working those 12 steps I found for me the most important step was step 9 aside from the 12th step the most importance that for me with step 9 I call step 9 the freedom step this is the step that truly freed me from the bondage of my past and it's just not a coincidence that in the big book those promises come after step 9 it says before you're halfway through you're going to know a a new freedom and a new happiness. It said, you won't regret the past or wish to shut the door on it, and so on and so forth. And I did not have to wait to get halfway through step nine. That happened to me with my very first amends, and that was going back to that church and telling that minister I used to steal from the church funds, and he told me he knew that. And I set up a payment schedule to pay back the church. Then I had to tell him that I used steal out of his wallet when he was in the shower. He told me that he did not know that. So I made restitution to him, but the neat thing about this experiences he shared with me with me at that time he knew exactly what I was doing by the time I got to him he had two years of sobriety in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous when he lost his leg in that motorcycle accident he was an alcoholic and a drug addict and he actually died on the operating table so he had a near-death experiences which for him was his spiritual experience and that's what led him into ministerial school and becoming a minister and even he could not get sober in church I'm not putting down churches and I'm not putting down the psychiatric effort because the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous makes it real clear that this program owes a lot to both of these institutions and in the big-book it says if you need professional help do not hesitate to seek it but I have to tell you for me it was all about that miracle that happens when one drunk reaches out to another drink so I'm kicked out of this I'm picked out of this church I'm 27 years old I'm full on into my drinking I'm living in an apartment I'm being evicted from normal mo lights and gas had been turned off for a long time but I still had a telephone it was one of my working priorities I got got this call at 11 o'clock at night and I could not believe the man on the other end of this phone it was my real dad now I barely knew his name was on my birth certificate and he wanted to make amends to me and he wanted to get to know me and you want to get through my daughter so he offered me an opportunity to move to Colorado and get to know his whole family and I didn't have any desire to go I didn t have any desire to get to know him but mostly I didn't want to move through the snow. But at that point in my life, I didn''t have anywhere to go except for out on the streets. But deep down inside I had this little hope if I did this geographic maybe I could change. So I made that move to Colorado. I lived there for three months and in that three-month period this man and his family could not wait to take me out of the state of Colorado. In that three month period I ended up having affairs with the bus drivers on the way over there getting pregnant having abortion, flying down the stairs and breaking my leg ripping off his medicine cabinet ripping off his booze cabinet, ripping off his money. So they literally kicked me out of the state of Colorado. So my real dad was second on my list of amends to make when I started making my amends. I wrote him a letter and I told him I was sober in the program with Alcoholics Anonymous and I wanted to make restitution for my behavior up there. And I sent him a check trying to set up a payment schedule to pay him back. But basically what he and the family did is they sent me the check back with a little note that said they didn't want my money and they never wanted to hear from me again. I was working with a sponsor, so of course I stayed sober. And with my sponsor's encouragement on just trying to be a good daughter, on every Father's Day and on every birthday I would send him an appropriate card. And I would tell him I was still sober in the program at Alcoholics Anonymous, and I still wanted to make restitution for my behavior up there. And he would never acknowledge me. And I did this for six or seven years. Finally, in 1985 or 1986, I just sent a card out. And shortly after that, I got a reply back. And I cannot tell you how excited I was when I saw the return address on this envelope. And I ripped open this envelope, and the only thing that was in it was a picture of his tombstone and the obituary out of the newspaper. He had just died. And that was the family's way of telling me not to bother trying anymore. And there are no words to express the kind of pain I felt. You would have thought I knew him my whole life and I didn't. But I took it real, real hard. And the people in Alcoholics Anonymous pointed out to me that I don't make amends for approval. The big book tells me, I don t make ammends to be forgiven. I make ammens to clean up my side of the street. I make them in so I can stay sober. So all I can tell you is that the actions I took worked, because not once, not even once was I ever tempted to drink over that rejection. I'm just so sorry he didn't get to know the person I am today. So anyway, living back in Long Beach, California, I did a lot more things drinking. My drinking even took me, I mean, disgraceful things to my daughter. My drinking event took me to a point where I drank vodka down so fast that I stopped breathing. I don't remember the paramedics. I don' t remember being rushed to the hospital. I don''t remember being brought back to life by the time I had any memory. And I've never had a blackout. I'm a drinker that has never had blackout, so I've heard speakers say if you haven't had a Blackout, you're not an alcoholic. Boy, that was an excuse for me to walk out the doors. and then somebody told me about this experience where I stopped breathing he said well that was a blackout there's a difference between dying and blacking out I stopped grieving and I had to be brought back to life and by the time I had any memory when I came to her woke up I had both arms were strapped down to a hospital bed a nurse had just slapped me in the face I guess because I was screaming obscenities at her because I was very mean and vile drunk but this experience did get my attention this time I'd almost died under the influence of alcohol you know and I really didn't want to die out there so I finally started listening to my daughter my daughter used to tell me on a daily basis she would say mom it's the alcohol and if you wouldn't drink he wouldn't do those things she said just smoke pot so this is my only experience smoking pot and I didn't have any friends of my own so it was right after the death thing when I died drinking so I smoked this pot with my daughter and her friends and afterwards we're walking down the street and I have my hands in my pocket, my pants are real real tight and I don't know if I tripped over a crack or tripped over my own foot but I just tripped and I started to go down. I don' t know if you've ever been on pot but for me it was different. First of all I had the feeling I was in slow motion. I had this sensation that the cement was coming up at my face and no matter what I did I could not get my hands out of my pockets so you have to picture a grown woman laying with her face smashed the cement her hands are still sticking out of her pockets and all these gang members around me were laughing hysterically they were absolutely hysterical my daughter was running with the gang and as I was laying there I could hear their laughter and you know I hear you laugh when you're on pot but I know I wasn't laughing but I could them laughing and as i heard that laughter I had that moment of clarity I knew right then and there beyond a shadow of a doubt that pot was not the answer and I I went right back to my drinking and I drank at the same pace for a while longer but I finally reached a point you read about in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's on page 151 talks about facing those hideous four horsemen it wasn't all the awful things I did out there that got me here it was the way I felt you know I couldn't stand to feel that way one more day I woke on my woke up on my front room floor one morning one more time I felt those feelings of terror bewilderment, frustration, despair. I was laying in a puddle of fluid. I don't know what the fluid was. I took the first three steps. I didn't even know what the first three that's work but I knew that as powerless over alcohol and that my life had never ever been manageable. I already believed that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I just didn't think he would because of what I'd done for the church and this is my way of turning my will in my life over the care of God as I just got on my knees and I just said, God please, I don't care how you do it but please just get me sober and I managed to get to a telephone I called a prayer line that was affiliated with the church I was in and I asked them to pray for me because in my mind I thought if God wouldn't listen to my prayers because of what I'd done to the church maybe God would listen to their prayers and they prayed for me for 30 days and within 30 days I was sober and it's just a series of those God coincidences that landed at me in my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because I would never have come here, never, because my mom was in and out of AA for years and she proved to me it didn't work. Today I know my mom did not work the program of Alcoholic Anonymous. The last drink I ever had was the first meeting I went to and that was on November 10th, 1979. However, I don't celebrate my birthday until three months later, January 23rd, 1980, because when I quit drinking, I continued to do those diet pills. AA, 10th tradition, has no opinion on outside issues, right? Right, yeah, so I kept doing those diet bills. But I started working my steps really fast. You know, when you're on diet pills, you can do them really fast! So working my step, God revealed to me that I was not sober if I was abusing these pills. So I gave those up three months later. But, you know, I continued to celebrate my AA birthday on November 10th because I really did think that 10th tradition. You know, and when I was 10 years sober after I almost took that drink and I recommitted to Alcoholics Anonymous, I got a new sponsor. And, you Know, my sponsor had an opinion, you now, and she didn't care about that tradition and she made me change my sobriety date by three months. You know? That was really hard. That took me out of a decade. I had to leave 70s to go into 80s, you Now, it sounds so silly now, But back then, it was really hard for me to give up those three months. But today I celebrate my birthday, January 23rd, 1980, and it feels right. I was six months sober. I was on my ninth step. My sponsor told me I had to get a job, seventh tradition. I had be self-supporting through my own contributions. And I don't know how to work. I went out there. I got my first job, and that's where I learned how to do it. How to work, I learned. How to get there every day, how to get around time, how to only take a 30-minute lunch break, how not to leave early. I did not know how do those things. I learned them here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I worked my first job full-time for eight years, I stayed on another two years part-time after I took another full- time position. So I was there for a total of ten years and when I left that job I had worked myself up to assistant administrative and in that first eight year period I went back to high school. I was not smart enough to pass the GED. I had to go back to high school and I graduated from high school in 1985 and I was 36 years old old and I graduated with a cap, a gown, a real ceremony and 450 18 year olds. But I fit right in with them they were all, thank you. These were all the gang members that were kicked out of day school and they went to night school so I just fit right in with him. What I did for the next six years is I went to work for musical theater industry and I started out at the very bottom in the accounting department and within In a period of time, I went back to school and I had worked myself up to business manager at this multi-million dollar corporation. And as business manager, I dealt with millions of dollars. And this is the honest to God truth, when I got to this program, I didn't have a clue how many zeros were in a million dollars. I have participated in union negotiations and I have been invited into some of the homes of some of most famous people you see today on stage, screen and TV. And even today sometimes I'll see myself in a picture with a very famous person and I still can get overwhelmed. And I just think how did I ever get from the gutters of Long Beach to being invited to some of these places? And how that happened is I worked the last part of that twelfth step and I applied these principles in all my affairs. Okay we're going to take a break, thank you.