Steps 6 and 7 – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 9 of 25 – Linda P.

Hello everyone and welcome to the quarantine celebration number two. My name is Ned and I'm an alcoholic and I have the honor to kick this event off for day two and to introduce our first speaker. I would like to introduce out first speaker Linda P from California who has an amazing experience to share us you know with her experience on step six and number seven. And so without further ado, take it away, Linda. Thank you, Ned. Hi, my name is Linda and I'm an alcoholic. And it's really great to be here. Daniel, thank you so much for asking me. You know, I have to say that I have been absolutely amazed how Alcoholics Anonymous has embraced this Zoom movement. and you know I it's a change it's different but you know how else could you be in California in the morning Colorado in the afternoon in Australia in the evening only by zoo and it's been difficult it's been challenging but the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous have helped many of us step into zoom and embrace it and I'll tell you that I was one of those who in the beginning contempt prior to investigation on not doing zoom and then I run around with a bunch of newer girls and they came to me and were like oh my god we lost our job what are we gonna do and I hung my head and I said well we're gonna go to zoom and we'll be all right and we will stay sober and that's what we did. We sewed masks and we went to Zoom and they all stayed sober with me and they went back to work and I fell in love with Zoom now, now I can go all over the world how amazing is that. Daniel I really enjoyed the lineup of speakers yesterday I'm looking forward to the speakers today it's quite an honor to kick off a you know any event like this I'm very very blessed I'm here to talk about step six and step seven the big book has a lot of information on six and seven. There's pages and pages of information in the big book. I'll reference those pages in a few minutes, but what I want to do is I want you to identify for about five or ten minutes so that if there are new people here in Alcoholics Anonymous, if you don't relate to my story, you'll listen to other stories and somewhere you will relate. I can tell you that I don't look like my story, and I'm very grateful for that because of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, a loving God, and good orderly direction from a sponsor. I don' t live the way I used to live, but I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a liar. I was a cheat. I was a con, and I was a thief, and I'll tell you that those character defects have not left me they are still there God has not uh decided that those stand in the way of his usefulness for me so they're still there but Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me how to not act on them they might still pop into my mind but I've also been taught here, it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what I do. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't think I belonged here. I wasn't like you people. You guys had way big problems. You know, my life wasn't that bad. It was just a little bit off kilter. And the truth is, is that I was married at the time. I had two of my own children, two of his children. My little 10 year old was attempting suicide. My 15 year old son was being arrested on a weekly basis. My stepson was stealing cars, beating up on people. My 17 year old stepdaughter was pregnant with twins and my husband was barricaded in the bedroom for two and a half months with the doors and the windows screwed shut with a loaded semi-automatic rifle. And I didn't belong in Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't like you people. If my life got as bad as your life, I might check myself in. I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous with a tremendous amount of character defects and I had no idea how to fix those character defects. I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous at the age of 35, and I can tell you I've spent years in therapy trying to fix those character effects. I've done a lot of work on changing me, and I always end up right back in the same place. Those character defects seem to manifest themselves in my life, whether I'm drunk or sober, in therapy or out of therapy, with a new man, not with a man. It didn't really matter. Those character effects hung on like a little pit bull that wasn't going to let go. and you know in uh the big book of alcohol it's anonymous on page 76 it says are we now ready to let god remove from us all the things which we have emitted our objectionable and for me the real key thing is are we ready to let God remove these from us and um you know if you don't believe in god you believe in the universe or a higher power or whatever works for you is fine i'm gonna talk about god and um i didn't know that i needed god to change my character defects i didn's know i needed his help i um i recently heard a speaker um a few days ago who talked about like he thought michael's sponsor actually um he thought that he needed to change his character defects with god's help and um what he came to realize is god needed to chance those character defects would with his hell but the one piece of that that is um difficult as it talks about in the seventh step prayer that um that god's going to remove the defects of character which stand in the way of my usefulness and some of my character defects do not stand in The Way of My Usefulness God has seen fit to use my character defects to help others that manifests itself when um i'm at a meeting i'm talking to a newer girl and she says something like uh i can't stop cheating on my husband and i say yeah i i can relate to that i didn't stop cheated until i was uh a little over four years sober and um and she looks at me and she's like are you serious I said yeah God just decided that that wasn't standing in his way and those aren't things that I am proud about but those are the facts that is how it worked for me I came into Alcoholics Anonymous believing that um if a man didn't hit me if he had a job and he had a car and the last two were always negotiable that he was a good guy I couldn't determine what a good man was um if he was covered in tattoos and uh been to prison he had a good resume like I thought that was a good idea I didn't like my men to work and you know that stuff stayed with me long into Alcoholics Anonymous I came in as a biker chick I was beat up I was rough I was tough and I you know I just was a mess and um I can tell you that the very first time that God removed my character defect is when he kept me sober but it took me a long time to see that. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't have a drinking problem. I was pretty sure I had a man problem, but I didn' t have a drink problem. I could stop when I wanted to stop, but why would I want to? I had never had a morning drink. I'd be blackout drunk by 9 a.m., but that is not morning drinking. I don't know what I thought morning drinking was, But I had never gotten a, I don't know what they call it in Australia, but drinking and driving. And I never got drinking and drive-in because I never get caught. That's the truth of it. I drive in blackouts and I just never got pulled over so, but I saw all those differences. So I didn't believe I belonged here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And the very first time that I knew God had removed one of my character defects, I had my son. He was 15. He was fresh out of juvenile detention, they call it here. He had been there for nine months. um he had a uh police ankle monitor on his leg and uh oh we used to go to 50 cups like that boy didn't respect me he didn't listen to me he did not you know he just was wild so i just knock him upside the head you know you should listen to my mom i'm his mom and uh that never worked he just got more disrespectful. And my sponsor would tell me, if you want your son to respect you, you have to respect him. And I'd say, he's a kid. Like, I don't have to disrespect him. He's got to respect me. And My Sponsor said to me, you can't lay a hand on him anymore. And, uh, I said back to my sponsor, I, I dunno how to do that. Like I dunno know how to then discipline my kid and so she had me lock myself in the bedroom when I communicated with my son behind a locked door so that I wouldn't go to fisticuffs with him and uh you know that worked we did pretty well for a while and then one day I was standing in the living room and he came to me in that aggressive stance you know his shoulders are pushed forward and his fists are clenched at his hips and his chest is popped out and he's like I want to go somewhere and uh i'm ready to clock them like that's my solution i'm not behind the locked door now so how dare you speak to me like that and what fell out of my mouth was a whisper and i said to him you may not talk to me like that and I watched his hands unroll and I watched his shoulders relax and he leaned back against the wall with one shoulder cocked his hip out and said okay mom no problem and I turned around and walked outside, and my mouth fell open. And I got chills right now. A friend of mine was with me, and he said to me, what was that? And I said, I don't know. That had to be God, because I was going to caulk that kid. And that, to me. Is God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself? and that's how it works for me in six and seven you know i believe that the big book of alcoholics anonymous has two paragraphs on six and four reason because my character defects can only be removed by god my job when i came to alcoholic synonymous is go help god's kids period the end yeah i get to try and practice new behavior god will put the people in my life that will help me practice new behaviour when he believes that i am ready up until i was four years sober i had affairs with married men i didn't care it didn't bother me i um i wasn't married if you can't hang on to your husband that's your problem ain't my problem i'm not doing anything wrong i'm sponsoring a few women and uh i started to get a conscience and i started getting a conscience because i knew if those women found out that i was having affairs or i lusted after their husband they may not want me to sponsor them and there was a girl in one of my meetings who came to me and she just said hello how are you doing and what fell out of my mouth is um i can't stop having affairs with married men it feels like it did when i was trying to stop drinking i don't know how to change this behavior. And she said, come with me and I'll help you. And she did. And, um, you know, by God's grace, I got to change. And I'll tell you that it wasn't easy. Um, you don't, some people come to Alcoholics Anonymous a little more well than others. I was a sick one. And um, and that haunted me. I had a sponsor and, uh, I would call him and I would be crying my eyes out. Like, I don't think I can do this. You know, abuse was a big part of me. And, um, and I didn't know how to walk away from abuse. I didn'T know how to not provoke a man to beat me up. I DIDN'T know how to not wake up with black eyes and i would call my sponsor and i would say i'll pay someone to beat me like i cannot handle these feelings and my sponsor would say um he he would get really quiet on the phone that always scares me and uh he'd say um linda that's kind of crazy and i said well i know it's crazy that's why i'm telling you But that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me is that if I'm not willing to talk about it, it ain't going away. And God can't bring the people I need in my life to help me with those character defects. If I'm now willing to let anybody know, I'll just keep doing them even though I say I'm Not. And he said to me, how many women are you sponsoring? I said, i don't know maybe five or six he said go sponsor some more women and i was like what does that have to do with this problem that i have and he said you go and sponsor more women i guarantee that problem will disappear and then i said to him well how the hell am i supposed to get more sponsors you know you put a sign on your forehead i'm sponsoring because i'm sicker than most and he said you just make that decision and it'll be all right and he was right you know I started sponsoring this woman and she had this husband who um he would throw her stuff away and she would call me really upset and I would say to her why don't you just ask him if you could have a little place in the house that you can put your stuff and he won't touch it there. And I knew she was going to come back and tell me her husband wants a divorce. How dare she ask for a space in the house? But she would do that. And then she would call me back and she would be so excited. And she would say to me, my husband said, no problem. That's a great idea. And what started to happen is she came to me with this terrible husband and as she changed her behavior, her husband became a great husband. And I was fascinated by that because I couldn't do that. I mean, I was sure this man was going to clock her every time I would give her some direction. And what I learned was how to communicate to a man. And I learned it through sponsoring her. And I learn how to change. And then I got married here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And wow, was that a trip. I've been married a few times, but I don't date. I just see you. I like you. Let's move in. And I find out your name later. i lived with a man for seven or eight months i have no idea what his last name is never found out you know it didn't matter but this guy asked me to well first off he asked me on a date and like i said i've been married before but i've never been on a day i don't know what dating is so i gotta go to the women in alcoholics anonymous and i have to ask them because i don't know and god puts these people in my life and these women tell me you know dating he comes he picks you up he takes you out he brings you home and then he goes home and i was like uh all on the same day like what and they'd say yeah that's how dating works and I thought that's stupid like why would anyone want to do that but I want to be different you know my sponsor said you want something different Linda you have to act differently and this guy like he he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous but he wasn't my type you know he didn't have a spot of ink on him he uh went to college he had a job I don't know what that's wrong with him he was just a sweet guy of Alcoholics Anonymous and I knew something had to be wrong with Him if He was asking me out on a date and I went on this date with him and I did things the way my sponsor asked me to do them and I came home from that date and I said I ain't going on another date again like this was very difficult for me and my sponsor asked me what happened and I sad you know we got to the movie theater and he said to me as I went to get out of his pickup truck. He said to me, I would like to come around and open your car door. And I thought, all right, Harley, I don't need my car door open. Thank you very much. I can do this myself. I don' t want you that close to me. I'm not relying on you like that. But the women of Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me enough. I d want to have to go back to them and say on my first date I got into fisticuffs with this guy so I let him open my door but I'll tell you it took him a long time to walk from one side of the car all the way over to the other side and that's what I told my sponsor and my sponsor said well I put on lipstick while I'm anointing. I'm like, I don't wear lipstick. She said, yeah, try and it'll grow on you. And I don' t know how lipstick changed me but between lipstick and God, I went on to marry that man. And he was a good guy. He would go to work and he would come home from work and he would call me on the phone and he'd say, honey, I'm home early. I' m going to go to the market what would you like and i would say i'll call you back and i would hang up on him and i will call my sponsor and i would say he's doing it again he's being nice to me and i don't know what to do with that and she said ask him for a carton of eggs and a gallon of milk i said i don'T NEED A CARTON OF EGGS OR A GALLON OF MILK She said, ask him anyways and say thank you at the end. So I would call him back and I would say, okay, please get me a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs and thank you very much. And I'd hang up the phone and I'd say my sponsor is lucky we don't have a gun in our house because I would shoot that man. And I learned to like him being nice to me. Fancy that. and then unfortunately he decided to drink and I can't handle alcohol in any container and I got a divorce. But here was the difference between me and my previous character defects. God saw fit to change something in me and I divorced that man and didn't speak to another man for two and a half years because I needed to heal because I had to cry because I had to mourn that losing that marriage was like losing my Cinderella dream I was mad I had done this the Alcoholics Anonymous way and I should have been okay and the truth is I am okay and the one thing that saved my life through that was service work because I knew my character defects would be up and ugly and i just got busy in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous and it talks about that in the big book you know if sex is a problem throw yourself even harder into alcoholics anonymous and um you know that has saved me but i'll tell you i believe that my character defects are not miraculously uh removed from me they sometimes God just sets them to the side a little bit and uh when I was 19 years sober I was in court one day and I met a bank robber that day in court and that kind of piqued my attention a little bit uh I thought wow a bank robbery that's like hot sexy stuff there and um about 20 minutes later I got a phone call from the police and they said you need to come home and I went home and uh the helicopters are circling my house and there's a whole bunch of police officers there and police cars and they extract my son out of my house and um he goes to prison and you know i've had a very tough path with that boy of mine and i got pretty traumatized from that and i decided that hooking up with this bank robber was a good idea you know he had really broad shoulders and dark complexion and he looked scary and I was a little scared of him and I didn't pay attention to anything else and I started running around with him and I had just left my corporate job after 19 years and sold my house and Iwas feeling really untethered everywhere in my life and I thought this man will protect me and I kid you not I heard God say to me you have to trust me and I said back to God I can't I'm too afraid and I moved in with this bank robber after knowing him about six weeks and then I left for Scotland for six weeks and when I flew back home I was home for about two weeks and I realized it ain't gonna work with you in this bank robber but the problem is is that in order to get together with this bank robbery I had lied to my sponsor and I had hid the fact that I got in a relationship with him and she didn't even know we were living together and I'm 19 years sober so I go to that bank robBER and like a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous I say to him, look, I made a mistake. I'm really sorry. I'll pay to get you your own apartment. This really isn't going to work out. I'll play for the moving van. I will take care of everything, but I don't really want to live with anyone. And he said to me, no. And I thought, oh, wow. Gee, gee now what and for the next three months I tried to talk that man into moving out and he wasn't having it and at the end of that three months i knew that like what are you gonna do linda like run away in the middle of the night like you used to do and i went to my sponsor and i said look i'm sorry i've been lying to you i deceived you i didn't tell you i moved this man in with me and uh i don't know what to do now and she gave me a few directions and i took those directions and uh that man moved out like two days later and the direction she gave me were really no different than what i have been doing for those three months but there's god 100 no doubt in my mind there was god because i said the exact same things to that man that i said in those three months but because it came from my sponsor because i surrendered because i went to god and said okay i can't do this i need help god fixed it that man moved out And two days later, he took his own life. And I'll tell you that I have to live with that now. Now, I didn't have anything to do with his suicide, but I had absolutely everything to do with the fact that I moved in with this person who I didn'T know at 19 years of sobriety. That I put him in a bodyguard position and I didn' t ask him how he felt about it. That's character defect. That's a character defect i thought was gone long ago like i haven't moved in with men i didn't know since i was drinking what happened and it shook me up i got scared i went to my sponsor i went to someone else here in this meeting and um and i asked them if they will walk me through the steps again because something's wrong with me like what kind of human does those kind of character defects at 19 years of sobriety. And what that person taught me is that sometimes when our back is up against the wall and we're in tremendous amount of fear, the only thing we know how to do is pick up a character defect. But the one thing that can help us as God. And with that man's help, I found freedom from my guilt. I made amends to that man's daughter. I'm still friends with her today. And I sponsor a bunch of women here in Colorado who are early in sobriety and have messy relationships. I're much better helping them than I am with me and that suits me just fine and I'll tell you that um that situation with that bank robber has helped those women here in Colorado and the thing that the big book promises me is the things that I feel the most shame about will become my greatest assets when I use them to help others in Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I first started telling those women about this story, I didn't tell them to, you know, I just felt shame when I told them. But they were saying some pretty wicked stories. You know how crazy we are at a year sober or six months sober or nine months sober or me even at four years sober and I told them these stories so that they could relate so that They could see they're not the only ones that there are people here in Alcoholics Anonymous with long-term sobriety with character defects and we can stay sober no matter what and those women got hope and they would say to me if you could stay sober through stuff like that I can stay sober through this. And I'll tell you, those two kids of mine, you know my son, he's picked a very tough road for himself. He's just turned 38 yesterday, I think. Yesterday he turned 38. He'd been homeless or institutionalized since he was 15. He was damaged because I'd go to 50 Cups with him. But you know, that boy, even though he's homeless, he's a man now. He'll call me from the streets. Mama, I just wanted to call you and tell you that I'm alive. And because Alcoholics Anonymous, every time I end that phone call, I'd say, I love you so much. I don't lecture him. I don'T tell him you got to get sober. I don't tell him you know all the things I want to tell him what I know is that may be the last time I speak to that man alive and what Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me is love and light no matter what whether he gives it back to you or not whether he's able to respect you or not you respect him and that's what I do that's that's to me that's love and I've been taught that here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And, you know, that little girl of mine that I told you about when I got sober, she wanted to take her own life. She's 10 years old. Like that's a baby. And that little girls went off to college and she married this man in colorado and um you know that man loves her he buys her milk and eggs and she don't even have to ask they just went on a little journey and i watched them they've been married now four years they've spent together eight or nine and her relationship with him baffles me they're so kind and sweet and gentle with each other she compliments him all the time he is protective of her and I look at her and i'm like like this blows my mind how did you get a relationship like this like how is this possible you were raised in a home full of violence we punched holes in the walls we painted graffiti all over how is it possible and that little girl will tell me mama you taught me and i was like well unless you do the complete opposite of what i'm doing hell at 19 years of sobriety i'm still getting together with bank robbers she said you know before i left for college i sat there and i would listen to things you tell your sponsees. And when I went off to college, I practiced those things. And I have the life I have today because of the things you told your sponsor, or you told your sponcees. And I realized not only was Alcoholics Anonymous and God fixing me and those women I sponsored, fix my daughter. And I didn't do anything but sponsor those women. I took care of God's kids. I was a service. I did the things that Alcoholics Anonymous taught me to do, and God removed her character defects. That's amazing. That is an absolute miracle. That' s a big deal. I'm going to end my story with a I'm gonna end my talk With a story of my dad So my dad and I We had a tough relationship growing up But Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me To forgive And love and spite And when I got sober I wanted a relationship With my dad But you know he wasn't the nicest chap So I wouldn't monitor The amount of time I would be with him and I would schedule a lunch with him about once a month, and he lived about five hours away, and I Would drive out there, and I WOULD have lunch with Him, and I wOULD keep it light and polite, and we WOULDn't talk about too much heavy stuff, and then I Would say, I love you, Dad, and I Wood leave, and I'D schedule another one, and I'd call him in between times in that month, And I'd spend five or 10, maybe 15 minutes on the phone with him. And then I would get off the phone because it just was tough. One day my dad called me and he said to me, I'm in trouble, kid. I need you to come. And my dad is that man who taught you, you don't ask for help from nobody. And I knew that this was bad. and I drove out to my dad's house and he had been diagnosed with stage four cancer and he said to me I want to fight this kid but I need your help and so I said alright no I didn't do that because I'm a good virtuous person I did that because Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me you suit up and you show up these are amends that you have to do this person has asked you for your help and you have to say yes to the best of your ability they gave my dad six months to live every week i drove five hours to him i took him to chemo and then i drove five hours back because he was not happy that his snot nose little brat daughter had to come and take care of him and he told me that and my dad was the type of man that he said when i got to his house you walk three steps behind me you keep your eyes to the ground and you don't open your mouth and i thought wow no wonder i picked bank robbers i forgot i was raised like this i've been taught this i didn't do this all by myself it was a huge revelation for me and it was hard you know my dad would yell and scream at me and beat his hand on the table and call me names and i would call my friends back in california and they would say you got to tell him to stop talking to you like that and I thought oh yeah no no that's not a good idea so I decided I'm going to do it the Alcoholics Anonymous way and I decided I was going to love that man no matter what because I want to be a good daughter and it didn't matter what he did to me it didn' t matter what he said to me, it didn''t matter how he behaved with me I was going to love him like a good daughter should love her daddy. That's Don. In the last month and a half of my dad's life, he lasted two and a half years. Stubborn old coot. It was hard. The last about six weeks of that man's life I'd go to leave and he would say come here kid and I'd walk over to him. I was always afraid when my dad said, come here, kid. Because when I was a kid, that meant he's going to clock me. And I'd kind of slither over there and, yeah, dad? And he would put his arms around me. And he will hug me. And he Would say, I love you. He said, thank you. Thank you for coming. And I would have to pray to stand there long enough to let that man hug me because it would freak me out and my dad uh I left one day and he got airlifted to the hospital and I came back and I moved into the hospital room with him and I knew he was dying he started seeing uh you know I don't know angels dead people somebody people in his room who weren't there and I said to him you want to go home dad he said yeah I said come on let's go and we got in an ambulance and we went home and we had a hospital bed there and he laid in that bed and that night he said to me get in the bed with me and i was like no no way no way i can do this and i heard god say to me it'll be okay and i got in that little bed with my dad and he was skin and bones he said put your head right here on my shoulder and i did that and he wrapped his arm around my hip like a daddy would love a newborn baby and that man held me for that night and the next morning he slipped in a coma and a few hours later he died and this is what i knew that that man knew without a shadow of a doubt that I loved him. I loved Him no matter what, but the biggest gift of all that I didn't expect is I knew without any doubt without a shout of a dot that that Man loved me and it forever changed my life. And from that moment forward, any abuse from my childhood I could feel it like a bird flying out of my head going away into the universe and what was left was the good things my dad had taught me. The way he taught me to be upstanding even though I couldn't do it. The Way He Taught Me To Be Hard Working. the way he taught me how to have integrity and to be you know honest with your word and when you said something you did something and all of a sudden all the things that Alcoholics Anonymous had instilled in me I remembered my daddy teaching me when I was a kid wonder he whacked me upside the head so much I fought him every step of the way and now i remember the good stuff i remember that man who loved me in the end i have so much respect for my dad today how is that possible how isthat possible i let god work it out i can't fix that it's absolutely 100 impossible for me to fix that i did what god wanted me to do You go show up for your daddy, you be a good daughter. You love him no matter what and I'll take care of the rest. You know, I'm 21 years sober. I moved to Colorado last August. I had a stroke and my daughter came to LA. She said, you're coming home with me. I didn't want to come here. I was afraid. You know? I don't know this little girl. she's got a normal life here in Colorado. She belongs to a book club. They had a little blind dog. You know, they're just like weird. They're just, like, weird. She paints daisies on the wall and her and her husband, like they do love each other. And I came here and that little girl started opening her heart and her life to me. And all I did was helped women here, and I would come to my daughter's house, and I'd fold her laundry or wash her dishes. I would call her and say, Would you and your husband like to come to our apartment for breakfast on Sunday? And she would come for breakfast, and she would say to me, Ma, all i want is your time i just want you to spend time with me and i realized that you know i just came here and did what the next indicated step was and god fixed the rest he always does so much better than i do and i'm super grateful for that today you know alcoholics anonymous has made me into the very thing I've never ever wanted to be a lady thank you Wow thank you so much Linda that was that was moving I love what he said is all I want is your time I wrote that down