Conscious Contact With Higher Power – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 12 of 25 – Olis S.

My name is Alice, and I'm a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for my life. Just to be asked to do it, and I love you, Teresa, so thank you so much. And Ali came to the Bronx Big Book, which is my home group, and set it aflame. And my sobriety date is May 21st, 1987. my home group is the Bronx big book. Um, I don't care. I'm not going back to the in-person meetings. I'm sticking with that. Um, so I want to just talk about, um, how I felt. I wantto tell on myself before I start sharing on the 11th step. Um, Teresa came to support somebody at Bronx big books and yelled out at the end the meeting as we were saying goodbye. Alice, you have to share. And I was like, yeah, call me because I was good luck. And then she called and then she gave me a date. And then I saw her again and she was like Alice, I got a book you to share and I was oh good, she forgot. I'm going to just lay low because after I said yes to her, I asked her what the format was and she was like you share for 40 minutes and I got that and then there's 40 minutes of Q&A And I was like, get the fuck out of here. I ain't got 40 minutes to answer. So I had a fight with God because I want a nice, quiet life. I don't want to speak. I don'T want to be in the light. I DON'T want TO BE PUBLIC. I'M THE BOOKER AT THE BRONX BIG BOOK AND I LOVE THE BACK. I LOVE BOOKING. I LOVE TALKING TO PEOPLE. I LOVE LISTENING TO THEM. AND I GOT YOU FOR TWO MINUTES AT A TIME. BUT HERE I AM. And so me and God had a fight and I surrendered because that's all I know. Honestly, and truly for me, the third step is the backbone of my 11-step practice, right? If I had not made that decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, like I wouldn't be here. And when Teresa called, I have an ear infection. And so I was like, oh, sure. Yeah, because I've been trained to say yes. And I just got the 12 by 12. And I'm really, I'm a big book person, but I got the 12 by 12 was close. I got to 12 by twelve. I opened it up and this was literally the first sentence that I was like, let's do that. And in reflecting on it today, it makes a lot of sense because it leaves us a broad highway to talk about the 11th step. And I want to just read the sentence again and tell you my understanding of the sentence. prayer and meditation is our principal means of conscious contact with God. So the point is conscious contact With God. And it doesn't say that prayer meditation is the only means. It doesn't Say that prayer, meditation is in and of itself the goal. It says that prayer and meditation is a good way is a primary way is A principal means to getting conscious contact with God. But however you want to get conscious contact with God, if it works for you, it works for me, right? The point is to get there and to have it and to be in constant, for me struggle to keep the, I think Ralph W calls it the receiver, right, to keep the connector between me and God clean. So I will certainly talk about prayer a meditation, but I want to just make sure that I'm clear up front that what really is important to me and what I want share my experience around is how I have conscious contact with God. And it may not make sense to other people. It is a God of my understanding. It's a relationship of my own choosing. And that freed me. That helped me free myself from the bondage because if it had to be white Jesus on the cross, I was in trouble. I was never going to make it like that. I was never gonna surrender to that. Never, never. I'd have died. I couldn't do that. And so when I got here and I read it, and it said, as you understand, it opened my mind to well, what do I think God is? And what relationship would I want to have? And how do i talk to god how do i listen to god and it hasn't been a yogi experience for me right like if if you need me to say at 33 years i meditate and levitate in this 30 minutes a day log off now i don't do that that's not what i got to offer you what i can tell you is that the god that i understand doesn't care how i get there the god so i have a fight with god in the shower this morning, this afternoon, because I don't want to do this. Right. And then it's not just this right now. I want to be super humble and grateful for the opportunity to share anything I have that's of value to anybody because I am able to have it because someone gave it to me and I'm able to keep it because I give freely. That's, that's it. Right? but i mean can i do that sponsoring somebody can i do it in a two minute can i come on now because then leslie hit me hey share oh i never did nothing to y'all why you want right so it's just where i'm at right and i i fought with god about it and of course i lost right and in it and i have to think about why why don't i want to do it right this is the way conscious contact works i look at myself i look at how i behave and i ask myself why why do you feel like that why are you doing that why are you having that reaction what's your motive what are you really uncomfortable with what's up under that and what i find when i continually grill myself right in the book they call it self-examination the book actually talks about self- examination and prayer and meditation foundation together, those things together lay a solid foundation. So it's that examining myself, right? When I find myself on page 52 in the bedevilments, I got to ask why, why, why, Why do you want to get up in the middle of night and go get ice cream? Why do You want to talk to this person that you really not really interested? Why? Right? And I have to get honest with myself, because God knows the God of my understanding knows the truth. the god of my understanding is waiting for me to get to the truth um so okay that's my confession about this and don't y'all ask me no hard-ass questions because Teresa told me I could say I don't know so how about that I don' t know um so let me let me talk about my 11 step lived experience um I'm hoping that I can tell you a little bit about why I committed so deeply to an 11-step practice, what that practice looks like and when that practice happens for me. So let's talk about why, right? On my own power, under my own steam, my own will, I burnt my life to the ground. To the ground, in 26, to the grand. ashes not even a frame ashes and um people ask me when i work with new people that they ask me lots of questions but i always go to two things consistently, the book and how it felt. The book and how it fell, right? Because it doesn't matter what I drank. I had my first drink, Schaefer beer at four years old. I drank scotch, Dewar's White Label and J&B at eight. At 13, I was drinking in the bars, a fucking train wreck. Train wreck. At 13, my boyfriend was 24 years old, none of the adults said anything was wrong with that. I was molested by a parade of people. I needed God. So by the time I got here at 26, my soul was on fire. I didn't have any friends because I couldn't be a friend. I couldn'T keep a job because I couldN'T work. Like there was, I couldn'T pay my bills. I was disconnected from everything, including myself. so why why do i have an 11-step practice because on my own my best thinking burnt my life to the fucking ground and i can never forget that i can never never you know i say nobody gets here in a good day right so if you're here and you're new and you can't stand and be in your own skin you're miserable and you know that we're idiots because there's no way out from the hell you find yourself in welcome we've been praying for you we've been holding your seat because that's exactly how i felt when I got here. You couldn't have told me there was a way out. I'm a smart girl, I thought it through. And what my 11-step practice helped me do was to understand two things. I really don't know. The God of my understanding has a plan for my life and a vision for my life and things that I need to be present for. And I need to do, especially when I don't want to. I didn't know that when I got here. When I got here, I thought, you know, I've read the steps. I was like, okay, I'm gonna pray. I'm meditate. I'll do these steps and I'm going to do a move and I'll go on and have a life. Right? When I got here and people had been here 20, 30, 40 years, I was like, well, are they stupid? Like, why are they still here. Like surely you figured it out by now, right? And I didn't fully understand that what it meant to have conscious contact with God meant that I have to always be striving, always be reaching beyond my own selfishness, beyond my self-will, or I can go back to where I came from. my misery is refunded to me all the time i find myself living in the bedevilments all the top it's either conscious contact or the bedewelments it's not i don't my life i don' have a lot of space like i don''t get the rosy things are happy i'm coasting along and it takes a while for me to hit pain pain comes for me pretty quickly um and so why i have an 11 step practice why i did the third step in the first place that surrendered that allowed me to see because i can't have conscious contact with something i don't believe in something that i'm not surrendered to like i gotta do that first right you can't i could not have just come here i needed to see again self-examination prayer meditation together are a foundation in my life and I needed to gradually see myself thank goodness when I got here it wasn't all revealed to me immediately right because that would have been too much for me that would Have been too much and as I got more serenity and peace from my conscious contact with God god would reveal additional things to me about myself about my purpose you know and it took me a while to find it but but my real purpose is hidden on page 77 it tells me to fit myself because i'm not fit to fit yourself to be of maximum service to to god and the people around me so there are two more reasons why so you know reggie white who's on here um told me that every time I'm on a meeting, I'm eating. Excuse me. Fuck you, Reggie. Yeah. Every time I want to meet. I mean, it's true. I get in the meeting and again, makes me hungry. Right? Because I have a lot of feelings, right? I'm listening to y'all. The feelings are coming up and I'm like, let's eat. Let's have something to eat. Right. And like I feed my body and my body reminds me that it's hungry. My soul reminds methat it's hungry too. Andlike I feedmybody, I have to feed myself. I have to. And when I don't feed my soul, like my stomach growls and I get hangry, like I know the signs of I need physical food. But over the years, I've learned the signs of spiritual hunger, like what it's like to be spiritually hungry. And I wish I'd learned them sooner, right? If you're new, I hope that you can take this and focus on it and start to identify what the signs of spiritual hunger are for you. Because when I go without eating spiritually too long, I will have a spree. I'm going to do something. I'll buy some stuff I don't need. I might sleep with somebody. I will eat something. For sure I will cuss somebody out. For sure. Absolutely I will do that. When I get spiritually hungry and I don't feed myself, I act out and all of us will act out in different ways but they're sprees right they're sprees and they let me know that I am restless irritable and discontent that I've weakened I've allowed my conscious contact with God to get weakened and now outside realities are affecting my internal space here's a news flash Jesus it took me decades to figure this out. Ready? This is the shortcut to happiness for the new people. Joy and happiness have zero to do with what's happening in your life. Joy, joy, and happiness are decisions. You can decide job, no job partner, no partner, air conditioning, no air conditioning trip. Well, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter you can choose to be happy and the choice is for me easier the stronger my contact is with God because I believe that my God wants me to be happy the misery and suffering yeah sometimes this teach me a lesson because I didn't listen often usually most of the time right and if i continue to seek god what happens is over time the bad things that have happened reveal themselves to me as gifts they reveal themselves as gifts now i know that sounds crazy so i'm going to give you an example um you know and i just started sharing about this at a group level um recently um when I was born my mom abandoned me at birth and um the neuroscience tells me that that's had an impact on my ability to attach and that's probably true I have a hard time attaching to people um and the woman she left me with when when she didn't send money I think she got busted, took me and dropped me off with my mother's family. And my aunt, my maternal aunt, who's 12 years older than my mom, had a boyfriend who was a cab driver and a reverend and a trumpet player. And from the time that I was a toddler, and I know this because I asked my sister who's 11 years older Than me, he sexually molested us. From a toddler? Who does that? Like, how sick and suffering are you, baby? But more than the sexual violation, he loved me. He had a love affair with me as a child. And so he would send me these love letters, and he would come get me. It was sick. It was a sick, twisted, really not good thing. And it had an impact on my notion of what it is to be loved, sex, just a bunch of like, and so then it made me vulnerable to sexual predators because it turns out that sexual predators can see or feel on a young woman that she's been molested. I don't know how. And so then I got molested by a parade of people, a parade. And at 13, my boyfriend was, and I'm remember first drink at four or five Schaefer beer switch to Scotch at eight in the bars drinking, ordering my own drinks at 13 often running. I'm in the eighth grade, by the way, at 13. I have a boyfriend who's 24 when I'm 13. Right? And I didn't know there was anything wrong with that. And all I wanted, and all of us come with a different, I think, a different thing that we're struggling with. I don't struggle with, oh i hope you like me i mean it would be nice but kind of like i'll never have to see none of y'all again fuck all y'al like that really honestly that's how i feel no disrespect but y'All liking me is not what motivates me in life right i would like you to like me and i'm real nice but that's not my thing that's going to drive my life what drives me is that can someone love me is it possible for another person to love me and I actually believe based on my trauma that it's impossible, and so I'm always seeking God to work around that. I'm Always Seeking God to Shrink That, because, right, my AA hero Ralph says less of me more God, less of mean more God. And I've got to be constantly seeking to try to shrink that down. Chip away at that, right? Mountains are washed away by waves. Chip it away, chip it away. All of us got something. That's my something. So the boyfriend that I had at 13 and we're drinking, we're smoking, we are all of that. I don't even go to the eighth grade. I skipped the whole, I just don't even go. And, um, he gives me a sexually transmitted disease, but I don't know that like I really am a little girl. I'm in eighth grade. And by the time I get sick and figure that out, I'm sterilized. Right. And I carried that forever. I can't tell you how many fourth and fifth steps I carried that through. How many, I can't tell you how long I carried that. The shame that like I had done it. But because I don't expect that conscious contact with God makes me perfect. Only God is perfect. Conscious contact with God helps fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people around me. And I'm going to make mistakes. You know, Ali came and shared for us at Bronx Big Book. And he said, my life is peppered with mistakes and the resurgence of ego. Right? That's my story. Why are you telling people my business, Ali. Why? And on the journey, what happened for me recently is I got relieved of that because I realized that in my woundedness and my desire to have someone love me, every man that said hello and smiled at me, I'd have had a baby. I'd had a baby. And then I would have been my mom, right? A bunch of kids I couldn't love and I couldn'T care for. And THEN it'd be another burden to carry. So when God removed that from me, because I wasn't capable of managing my reproductive right. I wasn'T capable. I didn'T have the emotional, spiritual maturity to make good decisions around my own body because of what had happened to me. And God removed it. And I don't feel no way about that no more. I see it now as a gift. Thank you, God. Thank You for not allowing me to create more suffering and let letting me be available to women who are also suffering and say to them you can be free from anything you can Be Free From Anything with God with God not with me I can't I can depending on which day you catch me you don't know what you're gonna get but with God right with God. So I have to be committed to this relationship, conscious contact, prayer and meditation is a strategy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'll talk about that, but I've got to be submitted to conscious contact which is the point of the step for me because that is what allows me to be of service to myself and to others. And like I feed my body, I have to feed my soul. And, and so I want to also just talk about I want To Talk About What It Feels Like When I Get Rebellious Because I really am it. I'll be 60 the end of this month. I still behave like I'm five. i still behave like i'm five right i went and got in my mercedes-benz and drove the palisade parkway to look at beautiful leaves to complain about some shit just a gift right i still be like a five-year-old and i know that about myself right And so what I have to do is quickly, as quickly as I'm capable of say aloud the things to God that I know are crazy, right? If they stay in my head, they kind of sound okay. But when I say them aloud, when I can hear myself say crazy stuff, when i call you and say the crazy stuff in my head, then I can see that it's me. Because the problem is me. Somebody posted today a picture of a crying child, a meme, and it said, I called my sponsor and they told me that all my problems were of my own making. Right. Exactly. My problems are of my on making. And 11 helps me avoid either making the mistake that creates the problem or minimize the negative impact, right? Or minimize the suffering that I have. I guess I want to talk now about prayer and meditation, right? Let me just say that when I'm out of touch with God, honestly, the things around me, right, the serenity prayer tells me that i have i need to know the difference right i need to know what can i change and what can i not change what can i change in crazy you don't know the difference like it's a struggle to know what the difference is you can have courage about some stuff that's none of your business i have courage about stuff that's none of my business i'm courageous and wrong um and so i wanted to say that for the new people physical hunger i know what that is. Spiritual hunger, when I'm irritable, when I am fussy, when you get on my nerves, when I can't see the God in other people, when I live in a development, it's like living in a senior community. No, really? Which I guess is appropriate given how old I am. but like, this is like old, old people and they are cranky often. Right. And when I'm connected to God, it's okay. I hold the door. I help them carry the packages with a happy, happy, grateful heart. Not like in a patronizing, Oh, let me help you. Like I'm genuinely happy to be of service. And when i'm not in touch with God, I want to hurry up and push the button so they don't get elevated with me, right? That's how I know. When I can see the God in other people, it's because I'm connected. Let me talk about my prayer meditation practice, which when I got here, I really thought that meditation was for yogis, right, like it was all of the spiritual people and, you know, they had the music, they have the white sound machines and they were doing something and I was like, what are they doing? Why are they still there? And And I tried to do it and I couldn't stop the movement. Right. I couldn'T stop the, and I was like, focus on your breath, focus on Your breath, focus On Your breath. And thank God I went back and read the book and write people helped me see what the big book says is that we wake up upon awakening and we think about the day ahead. It don't say nothing about follow the breath. It don'T say nothing About it. It says before you jump out of the bed with your best plan which is probably horrible stop think about the day ahead and ask god okay god how am i going to deal with this what would you have me do today tell me guide me show me the way who can i be helpful to it also tells me you can't transmit what you haven't got when i get to the vision for you, right? I got to have something to give. But that's my meditation practice. If a strong 11-step practice is self-examination, prayer and meditation, I got that. If it is prayer and medication, right, and thank goodness it's not just about prayer and meditation. Prayer and meditation towards what? When I go to God for what? Can I see myself honestly, because God can see me honestly. Am I standing in the full light? Right? Am I willing to be naked with God? Have all of me. How are you going to have all of me if I'm not willing to share and show you all? Have All of Me, good and bad, right? All of me And I've got to be willing to have an honest appraisal of myself, a flattening of my ego and my pride, and then take that into prayer and meditation. Example, I had this big time job and I thought that I was big time. And it broke me, broke, broke. And I was really of service to lots and lots of people, mostly self-will, but super of service to the people around me. And when I came to the end of my capacity and I couldn't figure out how to stay and maintain my sanity. It took me almost three years, but I transitioned out of that job. And I don't work now. I'm retired. So to be... I grew up in the projects in New York and East River where you got on the elevator and you had to stand in the corner away from the piss that was in a puddle in the middle of the floor. You know what I'm talking about, Teresa, right? I grew up, right. That's how I grew up. I grew up. The phone wasn't never in our name. It was always a hookup. There might be food. There might not be food to people dispossessed us. That's when the sheriff come and put all your shit out. I was dispossessed. Yeah, that's where I come from. And I don't live like that anymore. Right. And if you've been poor, you know, it's always amazing to me that people are like downwardly mobile. I don't need to do that again. I did that. I did That for a long stretch. I'm good. I know all about that. And so I was super careful about how to plan my way out. And I sought God and I sought god and I saw god and my friends would be like, what'd you do last night? And I'd be like I found all my spreadsheet. I have an Excel spreadsheet. I fondled it until just sitting with it meditatively, sitting with it, asking God, what would you have me do? What is the path forward? If you want me to stay here, I'll stay here. I don't think this is what you want. This is awfully painful. I'll know that I'm being useful, God. What do you want my to do? How am I going to do it? What's the path ahead? And then suddenly the numbers made sense. And I transitioned out. I bought a little apartment. a gut rehab that I love a gut rehab and I have a good life but I have the income property right in one of my apartments to people pandemic right they moved out and right and here's my meditation this is my prayer meditation practice and practice I should be worried about that no really I should be worried no I refuse because God's got me and that's what 11 step has done with for me God's got me. I don't have to worry about anything, nothing, nothing. Not my health, not money, nothing. God's got me and I've been here 33 years and I'm seeing it over and over and over again. Two years sober, no sponsor in New York, sister dying of AIDS. This is back when you don't know, like, am I going to get it on the doorknob? I'm going to a meeting on the Upper East Side. And I put my hand up over and over and again. Every day at lunch, I go to that meeting and put my hands up. And every day those people look right by me. Every day. And you know what I said? Y'all can't have my sobriety. You can't have my date. You can't have my date. And I made a decision. I was gonna go to the meeting and just start talking. Fuck it, what they was going to do, put me out? I just started fucking talking. You know what I tell those people? When you see a new person of responsibility pledges talking about me, I am the person that you need to put your hand out for. My sister's dying, dying. And you won't let me talk. You will let me walk. You won't Let me talk today. I am talking now. Over and over again, God carried me. He carried me that was I didn't have that. I was folded, carried me carried me so now I'm not worried. The people moved out. I'm not worried I get an agent. I'M NOT WORRIED. The apartment's not even vacant a month. She's They're like, we got a tenant for you. Done. I'm not, I don't have to worry. Which means I'm available to do the job that I've been given and the job that I'd been given the responsibility that I feel like I'm going to be given in this sacred society. I tell people that Alcoholics Anonymous is my spiritual practice. It is. I'm Not Like Some of You. I don' t have anything else. This is it for me. this is what I got I got this I'm working this so when things get rough I surrender you know I might have a fight in the shower with God you know I might act like I'm five but ultimately I know I'm going to surrender I know i'm going go to God because I know that God has me and I say what is it that you want me to know what is that you what me to learn in if I don't get an answer in meditation if i don't get an answer i just keep moving because and when i say i keep moving let me be more clear until i get an enter i don t move on that issue but while i m waiting i m moving my twelfth step i practice the principles in all of my affairs and i help somebody else i move in the job that I know that I have. I move in the clear direction that I know that I have I move in the responsibility the obligation the duty that I have now I wish y'all would not ask me to never do no shit like this not if people gonna have some fucking questions but anything you ask me to do I'm gonna always say yes because this saved my soul my mother sold pussy for a living right i have such dignity i'm going to say this and stop so part of my 11 step practice i certainly upon awakening reflect on my day and at night i certainly hit my knees i'm trying to be more consistent with like the little okay hey, did I have a resentment? I'm not consistent with that, but I'm working on it. I'm workin' on it, but the other thing that I do is I listen all day for God's voice, all day. I'm always listening for God. I'm listening for his voice. I called Teresa to book her. Man, Teresa gave my ass the runaround too. I called Theresa to book she and we started talking about my last relationship And I said to her, you know, I'm still not any good at it. And she was like, well, tell me more. And I told her more. And we got to the end of that and God spoke through her to me. She said, what sobriety, what emotional maturity you have to say no, to let go. And it gave me perspective. The conscious contact with God when I don't see what God wants for me and I talk to people that I trust around me they can help me see that even if I'm not getting what I want it's never about what I want. I may be getting exactly what I need. I maybe more evolved emotionally and spiritually than I even appreciate or understand. It may be the sign that I really have opened a pathway to God is I can't tolerate certain kinds of things. My soul doesn't tolerate certain kinds OF things. It just, I canít. Iím not so smart, but I donít tolerate people talking to me crazy. I donít tolerate people being unkind. I donít tolerance inconsistency. I just donít tolerate it. And it's not that I've made some decision. I want to be clear about that. God moves in my life in a way that I, at 33 years in, require a certain peace and grounding in my soul. I need it. I need It. And things that upset that, they might got to go. They might gotto go. if they don't sit well in my soul maybe that's not for me and that's okay because if it doesn't work right if it does fit into the life that god has shaped for me then that tells me that there's something better coming so i don't know what questions i may answer this is about to be hilarious but um thank you guys for allowing me it's a deep honor to be here Donna J Brooklyn come on up please Olus Olus you know how I remember your name I just think of Hollis Queens and I get Olus sweetie I just love you I am just so grateful that God put you in my life and there's some shares that I don't need to ask any questions but I want to thank you for your honesty and your open mind your openness about your life um but I do totally identify with when we don't know we don'T do and the only thing I can do is just continue to rely on God and be of service to God and like you there are some days that I have no music in my apartment I have no tv going on and I'm just listening and it's so important that, you know, Bill W. talks about the worldly clamor in my head. See, I get this program now because I have to get all that stuff removed out of this thinking mind of mine so that I can hear God. But I just love you to death. I have no questions because you just laid it all out. So love you, my friend, and thank you. Thank you, Donna J. Vanna, come on up. hi can you is it good can you hear me you're good come on all right yeah uh i thank you for coming out and participating uh in all of our recovery i started meditating about probably about a month now i don't know whenever theresa told me i should not meditate and i was like i'm gonna meditate and so um it's been about a month but it never occurred to me that um that i could because i i'm like you you know i don't understand downward mobility i came up in the slums you know and um and i i mean i never occurred to me that i would be able to meditate on this stuff i got a to-do list that's you know I'm like i gotta get my real estate license so i could buy that apartment that apartment don't have to pay for that and you know oh man you know I did excel sheet oh I'm in love with excel sheets I taught myself how to do an excel sheet you know and uh I do my own taxes any given year I'm like oh I got two schedule c's and a couple of w2s you know but it never occurred to me to relax and meditate and ask God in front of the excel sheet what a beautiful place to be in front of an excel sheet well so thank you all right that's it for me thank you thank you vonna don't be shy with the questions shaban come on up please hi everyone i'm an alcoholic my name is shaban thank you so so much it was incredible i do have a question but i do need to do just teeny weeny comment first, near the end when you were talking about you not always getting what you want but what you need. When my sponsor and I were doing book work this week she actually played the Stones song of that because I was throwing a little bit of a pity party but I was like oh yeah okay I get why you just did that. So you talked a lot about surrendering on a daily basis and um how you have a lot of contemplative work I was just wondering about like how what some of your steps are when you do fully surrender like how do you go about it essentially you know I think that everybody probably has a different um practice around surrender. For me over the years, it's gotten more and more simple. I don't know if this will make sense to you, but when I come to a place where it's clear that I'm in self-will, I simply say, okay, God, and that's my full admission that I're in self will. And there are only two places I know how to be either trying to run the show or surrendering. And so when I say, okay, God, like I usually physically am like, okay God, and I'm hands off. And that's, that has over the years grown into my practice. I no longer need that. I mean, there were certainly in the beginning, writing things down, putting them in a pile, burning them. Like I've done a range of things And over the years, I can, I really do think it's the self-examination part. I can see my crazy so much more clearly. My, and it is crazy to fight with God when God has my best interest every time at heart. And so it's gotten for me as simple as, okay, God. And there were, it took a while to get there. It really did. It took lists. It took praying over things. It took burning them. It took a whole bunch of stuff. And now it is as easy for me as, okay, God. And admittedly, I might have to surrender over and over and over around something. It will pop up in a different place and I have to surrender again. But I don't have a ritual other than, okay God, which is my ritual now. Thank you, Siobhan. Leanne Winnipeg, come on up please. hi thank you very much Otis or Otis I'm not sure how to pronounce it for your sharing um I was giving a lesson today and I'm so grateful for it it came out of the blue I'm very good in prayer people call me a prayer warrior but I'm not too good at listening and being able to calm my mind at meditation waiting for god to speak do you have any words of wisdom to offer except for patience can you repeat the question what is the question do youhaveanywordsofwisdom that you could share about meditating and listening for God to respond besides patience I mean I have a devotional space in my house that was that's been actually really important to me and really helpful a place that I go is the side of my bed I know that that's the space that I pray in and so having a physical space has been helpful for me um that and you know you call it patience but persistence I know that if I keep going to God and I keep asking, God will answer me. Sometimes the problem is that I'm blocked. I'm thinking about something else. I want God to give me a certain answer. When I clear away that stuff and I sit quietly, the answers always come. Thank you, Leanne. Tara, you come on up, please. hi thank you so much um i'm tara i'm an addict and um getting to encounter people like you and to hear you tell your story makes me feel so grateful to be an addict and um to be in this life but my question for you is um you had talked about some of the signs of being disconnected from higher power and you talked about getting irritable and anxious and that kind of thing um do you ever experience just feeling empty inside and if you do um where do you go from from there thank you that's a great question um i haven't felt emptiness for so long i can't pinpoint the last time that i felt that way i emptiness isn't one of the things that comes up for me certainly um rage and anger and you know resentment and fear and all of those things will come up for me but emptiness isn't a thing that comes up for i'm sorry i don't know that i have anything to contribute um to that i can't even think back to a time where that was true for me thank you tara others thank you for your honesty see i hope i'm pronouncing right is this yeah Come on up, please. My name is Sia. I'm a recovering alcoholic, Olive's girl. You know, I had the privilege to have you in my life when you first moved to New Jersey. And, you know, your passion for recovery is amazing. But it's not just recovery. It's for service. you know at the Sahara Club when Alice moved here one morning I go in there and she's changing all the furniture she dropping everything and pulling it aside and taking them to the washer I mean she made that place look like a VIP party room you know but that's your heart for service that's your heart for people and that's your gratitude for how uh grateful you are for your sobriety and you do anything for it so my question would you i see how in a over the years i've seen how you have grown in your spirituality and sometimes my question is sometimes you work with people you know um i mean i'm one of the people the lucky one and also not just luck i think it's fear um that if i go back out i will either be in jail or uh i would die so that fear literally keep me from not taking thinking about going back out but how do you help um women that you could be helping in in your circle that i had this issue of in and out in and now how do you help them to understand uh get the spirituality that they need to stay sober how do you go about that thanks sia that's really a great question you know i think without a um without a god right without three it's i think it's fairly difficult for people to have any long-term or inequality recovery I don't know that you can be recovered without having a spiritual experience and I love that this meeting reads spiritual experience as a part of the readings and you know in there it says like it's a personality change right it's it's more than that but that's it says it's personality changing and I don'T KNOW THAT WE CHANGE ON OUR OWN I THINK WE CHANGED BECAUSE THAT WE HAVE GOD AND SO THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF THINGS WHICH I'M HAPPY TO SHARE OFFLINE WITH you also, Sia, that you can do to help women really think about God. Write a wanted ad. Like if you could have a God, what would that God look like? Write it down because you can have any God that you want. You can have a god of your own understanding and conception. So I think it's important to really help women shape a God that fits them and fits their lives, that gives them the freedom and the power to choose a god of their own understanding but the truth is that god is the solution and we're simply messengers and not everybody that comes is going to get sober you know in the old days when when they were really rocking and rolling uh of the people came and really tried the book tells us 50 percent of those people got what i think of as struck sober, 25% more after some relapse and the other 25% kind of like hang on, hung around and life got better for them, I think the book says. So if that's a 75% rate in the best of circumstances, that means that not everybody's going to get sober. And the question is, what can we do to help increase the possibilities for people? Because ultimately it's their journey. thank you sia hazy i believe it is come on up please how's y'all going like uh mashallah alice i mean mashallah i'm just so amazed by you mashallah and um you know everybody talks about the spiritual experience and going through the steps and i'm wondering if you had those spiritual experiences even if it's something very tiny after you've prayed or meditated on something um you know an example of that doesn't have to be super big maybe a daily thing because i feel like when it comes to spiritual experiences we're waiting for this like big bang and it's really how present are we with god and how much have we communicated throughout the day with that god of our understanding thank you yeah you know um first of all thank you thank you for being my whatsapp friend I just adore you um you know I am the educational variety right I'm not a bright light person like the heavens didn't open there were no angels singing like that didn't happen for me and it just slowly gradually I looked up and I was a different person and I think it was really about faith. I believed what people told me, if you act like a good person, eventually, you'll actually be a goodperson. If you do things that are good and right, and you know, all the little things, keep your word, make coffee, give back the wrong change, like the little things, the little things, over time I looked up and I was somebody that I hadn't been I was a person that I could trust and that your question was in little things, in contemplation and prayer and meditation do you get bright lights? And that happens all the time. I was listening to this woman Nancy C., Nancy Cook and she spoke at pockets of enthusiasm recently. And I went to listen to Ralph W and he kept saying Nancy was really great. So I hit the host and said, did you record? Can I get a copy? And I listened to Nancy. And after I listened to Nancy, like I got on my knees and prayed and I had this awakening like this bright light about my relationship with my niece and yeah she'd done some things that were just despicable but I had done some Things That Created That and I now understand that I owe her an amends um so it happens all the time thank you Hazzy Justin G come on up please hey I'm Justin I'm a recovered alcoholic all this i don't even have words i had tears streaming down my face for most of the entire time because i felt your pain and i know that there's a reason that i know you i know that god placed you in my life for that reason you know i wrote down when you talked about you know your trauma and you said your trauma tells you that you will never be loved you need god to help you do that and for me i suffer with a lot of sexual trauma whether it was my fault or the other person's fault. And this is kind of like a two part question. The first part is, is like, you know, how do you let God help you with that trauma? And then the second part is is like how, how Do you recover from that knowing that you are responsible because it wasn't like I could say I was drunk and I was drugs. I was sober and yet this stuff was happening. So I think that's why I'm having such difficulty moving from that. Thank you. Okay. Great. Two-part question, Justin. And I think I'm going to take them in reverse. One is that it was clear to me at some point I needed outside help. I needed somebody to help me therapeutically kind of get a better understanding of what I was reacting to and to frame it for me. That was really helpful. And the book tells me, you know, sometimes you need outside help and there's no shame in that for me. The other thing is, once I came fully, truly to believe that the God of my understanding wanted what was best for me, that really everything in my life, even the mistakes, even the trauma, even that was preparing me for abundance, for blessings. I was being readied like all of the trauma that I've had makes me perfectly well suited to be of service to women in this program, in this fellowship in the sacred society and once I could begin to see the things that had happened to me, not as bad things, but as gifts that, you know, outside. Rumi says that we are cracked open because it's that openness that allows us to have love. Like I need to be broken. I needと be shattered. But for burning my life to the ground and being shattered and cracked open, how could I be who I am? How could I have the relationship with God that I have? How Could I have the relationship with the people in the fellowship that I Have is only through my brokenness. My brokenness is not a bad thing. My Brokenness is my gift. Thank you for your question. I kill come on up by the i'm an alcoholic music you uh thanks a lot for sharing surrender every day that's a really powerful something i struggled with i didn't surrender for a while and i really didn't start working to the step until this time around so now looking back i realized that it is a great thing and this step has really helped with my problems outside of AA and that helps me realize that I can be helpful and that once I pray something long enough, someone or something will come to me through my higher power. You know, like this evening, my brother called me and we went out and we talked and we had a good time. If you had asked me if that could ever happen 10 years ago, I would have said no because, you know, the longest time I thought my brother was in a hole, we used to probably catch him in the dog's room. But through this process, I'm starting to develop a good relationship with him. And I can only thank these rooms and my higher power for that. So happy you're coming. Thank you. thank you for being here akil eileen come on up please just gotta unmute yourself there we go oh i'm sorry one more time one more time cool god i guess god wants to keep me quiet tonight huh um i'm eileen green recovered alcoholic i'm so great Alice oh my gosh holy God above uh you know amazing and I'm so happy to know we are on the same path sister because I do the same I feel at like I can feel God with me all day long now um and I I know loneliness that I think two two questions ago they were asking about aloneness um I have felt that um drunk and sober and um that's gone now it's gone um and I totally attribute it to my spiritual life I mean I work on my spiritual light you know um the one thing I tell my girls my my um my my sponsees is if you work as hard as you did getting dope and get you know hiding drinking and doing all this stuff you are bound to get sober and stay sober am I right. I mean, that's how we are. Right. I mean, even half of the, even a half of that would keep you sober a long time. And so that's how I work on my spirituality. I mean, I went up to church today at four 30 to sit with all the old Polish ladies while this Polish priest was praying in Polish. I don't speak Polish, but I sat there because you know what? Something's there that makes me feel great. So I go to this, this thing all the time and I'm up there with the old ladies doing the rosary on Saturday, you know, and you know what, if you asked me what I'd be doing this 10 years ago, are you joking? No way. But you know what, I get goosebumps up there when I'm sitting there. Because I have to go somewhere quiet. I also my quiet is beside my bed on my knees every night I pray. You know, and and and I you know, I pray a lot. I pray to the Blessed Mother. She was my God for a long time because I could not speak to a dude God that had no idea what it's like to have some grumpy old guy walking through the door and you know three kids, you know asking you for something all at the same time right who's going to know about that but another woman nobody so that's what that really she helped get me sober no doubt about it but um thank you so much for tonight you were just amazing thank you very much thank you thank you eileen great to see you you too mike come on up please and um alice uh thank you so much for your uh for your honesty and for your real talk you know this uh this jersey boy can can definitely um identify with that um and yeah some of the things i really identified with you know you talked about not enough to get with you know like the white cheese on a cross um so um you know and i i um mark sorry brother i think it's your internet man i'm just going to mute you for a second there uh can everyone hear me yes yeah okay mark i'm gonna mute you for a sec in there brother hopefully your internet will fix and i can't mute him but anyways uh while we have a well we have no hands up i just wanted to i was just really moved to Thank you, Eileen, for touching on that. Tara, if you're still here. One second, please. While we're waiting for the floor is open for your hands to come up, just wanted to address something. Tara, my sister, I heard you. I've been thinking about you and feeling you. Just to know what, and I never do this. I'll just move to this. What Alice said is that she hasn't felt that in a long time and that's a testament to this program. okay but you're not alone because i know the emptiness that you're talking about the emptinessthat for years i tried to fill with outside things you know and the confusion for me was that all those outside things they made me feel emptier and it wasn't until in the program i started to uh i start to realize that emptiness can only be filled with one relationship and only one relationship with a relationship with this power you know through trusting god cleaning house and helping others the paradox is that all this this this path emptied me of the desires of external things slowly you know day by day basis and i've never been so full you know and once in a while this ego grabs a hold of me and i start to make those things god in my life and i feel that emptiness once again so just to let you know you're not alone and you're on the right path just keep doing what you're doing my sister god bless you all right floor is open ollie thank you for that you know tara that i haven't felt in a long time yeah i think he's he's spot on and i really want to appreciate ollie for saving that for me like it doesn't mean we've not all been there it just means after 33 years i can't even find it in me like you watched me think like i can even find it in me it over time the things that dominated my life the pain and the misery I can't even find them inside they're really removed and so welcome to a new life beautiful thank you for putting a ribbon and a bow on that one Kathy come on up please i'm kathy i'm an alcoholic and thank you everybody i love this meeting so much i've been coming since august olis um wow you know and what i wanted to say i could say so much but the thing that really touched me was when you shared about the losses, and how they felt like losses, the things that God took away. And that you saw the wisdom, God's wisdom in that later, and it prevented maybe somebody else from suffering. I have very specific similar feelings, you know, similar trauma. And well, you Know, the beauty of this and needing outside help. And none of this would happen if if I hadn't hit a bottom with alcohol and the grace of God brought me here, you know? And, uh, Oh, I just, I just loved the meeting on your share tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. You're welcome. Clarabelle come on up please. Hi, I am Clarabell and I'm a blessed recoverer alcoholic. Um, you knows very emotional to see Alice. She actually is part of my network, too. And since I met her and she moved to New Jersey, I wanted to hear her story. And tonight, God has a sense of humor because I said, let me go into the meeting. And when she was talking, I was like, oh, my God, I could identify with that. Oh, my god, I couldn't identify with That. Because I have invited Alice before, but I didn't have the chance to hear the story. And I guess today I was ready and chasing, you know, the next check running for the next and not being able to be still. I identify with that today. I don't need to be running today. I don'T need to BE chasing people, places and things that never gave me satisfaction spiritually. and thank you alice for your story because wow i never saw things that happened to me before the way that i could identify with the way you said it today because i have so many things in common that happen to you they happen to me too and i really didn't see it that way so i really thank god for putting me here tonight i love you so much today i don't have to look for fake love out there and if I tell you I love you I really love you from deep inside my heart. I send you prayers and I send your joy spiritually, I send you a lot of abundance because you deserve it and I see you in the good, you know you are walk to walk you're an amazing soul and I love you and thanks for sharing your story. Thank you thank you claire bell tanya t come on up please hi i'm tanya i'm an alcoholic hi alice thank you so much for your share your transparency um my backstory is that I had 23 years and I relapsed and um I have eight months over now and I really identified with your crashing and burning and burning things all to the ground that's a pattern with me um only this time I took it all the way to the ground. And I thought 23 years, no one really cares. It doesn't matter. And I drank. How do you stop the downward burning? I mean, I was sleeping in a tent on the streets. So I'm used to downward spiraling because I grew up poor and I know how to do poor and how do you stop yourself from burning your life to the ground or if someone says no to you when you have money then and they won't take your money so then you just go spend it all mm-hmm thank you tanya thank you so much for the question and thank you so much für your honesty i'll put my number in the chat for you and um i'd love to have you be a part of my network you know it's only because of the conscious contact that I have with God. It's only because I've turned my will on my life over to God that I can see, you know, the 12 by 12 talks about us being able to have a glimpse of how we fit into God's overall plan. And it's like eating an elephant, like bite at a time, bite at a time. If you hold yourself up, then you know how to do it. And I really am a person that believes in a really aggressive combination of surrender and action. And I know that that sounds like a paradox and um I want to say that I think that all of my recovery is a paradox I think That Alcoholics Anonymous is a Paradox I think all of it's a paradox I have to admit that I'm powerless to find power I haveと admit that i'm defeated to win I have it's all a paradox and so action and surrender while maybe paradoxical has always been my way out I can stop burning my life to the ground at any point in any moment I don't have to wait for tomorrow I can start right now I can say I deserve better God loves me God wants me to have something better and begin planning my path out to the life that I want. And I can have a plan and pray and God, I might not get that thing that I'm praying for, right? But God will lead me to where I'm supposed to be. So I'm going to put my number in the chat for you. Okay. Thank you, Tanya.