Mentally and Bodily Different – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 22 of 25 – Polly P.

in this Teresa thank you my goodness thank you thank you my name is Holly pistol and I'm an alcoholic and by God's grace in a program called alcoholics anonymous I haven't had a dream since April the 11th of 1977 and for that I am eternally grateful I have a home group and that's the West connect group in Jacksonville Florida and if you're ever in Jacksonville I just invite you to our home group it's a very enthusiastic very active we are one of the most active groups and Jacksonville and I just invite you come see us I have a sponsor my sponsor has a sponsor and I sponsor and the women I sponsor sponsor and am an active member of the rooms of alcoholics anonymous so that is kind of my credentials and I am so honored to be at this meeting and I've always loved Teresa I've known Teresa for well ever since the first I've no I know who she is I've heard her speak but we got to meet and begin to know each other at the first Woodstock West oh I just and I love Teresa and I just thank you so much darling for inviting me and we just had Ralph in Jacksonville so that was it that was a really delightful thing and Ralph is on here and I'm looking at this gallery and I have to say I have I have some of my favorite people on here I just can't get over this I have some women I sponsor I have some friends and I have my spiritual the woman I consider a spiritual leader in my life and that's Mildred and I just got to hear her on Sunday and I loved it because she was talking about one of the things she says everybody doesn't do this but I meditate 20 minutes twice a day now I know for sure that she did that when the weekend I stayed with her because I did it with her so I know that and I just it's just it just absolutely just makes my heart smile and I love step 11 and one of the things I kind of like to do is talk just briefly about my journey my spiritual journey to on I'm going to talk about on awakening to Teresa but I Teresa said pray about it and I prayed before I came and I just that's kind of what came to me is the spiritual journey that I've had from a very fundamental religion to where I am today and I started off by being raised in a Southern Baptist Church in Texas and I so I started up with a God who I thought was very angry and very punishing and I was just a little girl and I would hear these preachers they'd get up behind the podium and their faces would be red and their veins were sticking out and they were screaming things like you're born a sinner you're gonna burn in hell and all of these things and I just you know I just always felt and I always had that feeling but you know that I think is inside all of us who are mentally and bodily different from our fellows whatever that something is that just makes me feel different from the rest of the world and I can remember when I came into alcoholics anonymous and i said oh i just feel so different and my first sponsor looked at me and said honey you are different that's why you feel different and we are we're different the book says i am mentally bodily different from my fellows so i always had this feeling inside of me so of course when it came to spirituality or religion religion was what that was when it came to religion i never measured up and not only that i was in the baptist church and one of the things that would screamed also was thou shalt not drink and i didn't till 18. and when i was 18 years old i took my first drink and i married an Air Force officer, and I took my first drink. I was 18 when I married him. I took the first drink at an officer's wife's lunch. It was a very wussy drink. It was sharing, but I can tell you to this day that drink is implanted in my brain. I can remember that drink. i remember how it felt. I remember how warm it was. I remembered just being able to take a breath and I had two little boys my husband was gone for years at a time he was a bomber pilot it was during the Vietnam War he was gone for years of the time and I have these two little boy in my care and what happened for me is as I became a very abusive mother I would throw my kids into the wall. I would hit them, I would scream at them. I was very abusive physically and mentally and emotionally. And the other thing is I was neglectful. And what happened by the time my son, my oldest son was 10, I could no longer put my children to bed and I could get them up in the morning. They had to get themselves up for school, they had to put themselves to bed. i couldn't show up for them i also had a husband who was 100 disabled from the military we feel like he was a victim of agent orange we don't know for sure that was a long time ago and um but he had congestive heart failure at age 36 and his heart was so enlarged that he could hardly breathe than walk. And so he was about 80% bedridden, and my sons had to take care of him. And I just want to put that in there because one of the things I want to talk about is my journey to God. And one of things that has happened is my youngest son is 36 years sober and AA. And one of the things that he says, I knew AA worked because it transformed my mother. And that's what I believe has happened. And Marian read that. I feel like because of the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and the spiritual journey that I have had has absolutely transformed me from that person. From that person who would harm her children, could not take care of her husband. My father was dying three hours away in Abilene Texas of colon cancer and I couldn't get there to see him. and I'm his only child. I'm an only child! These are the facts of my life when I came to the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the spiritual journey that I have had in this program. I also feel like that God gives us what we need god has given me what i need and one of the things that happened is as i ended up in a detox center in uh euless texas i lived in hearst texans that's the that's we call it mid cities between dallas and fort worth and that's where i was in that area and the director of this detox center uh had been a priest he had been a captain in the navy and he was an only child and he ended up 12 stepping me out of a motel in euless texas and bring me back into that detox center as i relapse and that's a little story all its own but i'm not going to go into that tonight and i forgot to start my thing so anyway i always do that um anyway um when i i ended up being my husband ended up being a i would ended up trying to take my life because i just couldn't stand who and what i was most of all i couldn't face who and why i was around my children and what i did is i ended up trying to take my life that'll get the attention of the authorities i was carted off to a psychiatric hospital for 72 hours and i ended up being court committed and he which was enough time for him to get a court order my husband to court commit me to treatment so that so what has happened since the beginning i ended off having a friend look for me when i tried to commit suicide and she said something came over her i know that was god she's the one that ended up calling 9-1-1 i was 12 stepped out of that motel by the man who would become my first sponsor and my husband obtained a court order to court commit me to treatment and what i want to say is as god has been working in my life many many times without my permission so i know that god is there i didn't want to go to treatment i didn't ask to be saved in fact I didn't want to be saying but God has interfered has interferred in my life many times and continues to do so continues I pray for God's will and I and I truly believe that he he interferes and guides me when I think I need to go this way I can I can sit I can pray I can do some readings and the next thing i know i'm going this way and god has been directing me for a very long time uh frank had been a priest and i had a lot of problems with god i knew there was a god i knew god was there i just didn't know god was the god i know today i didn't know that God was love and compassion and compassion the highest form of spirituality to feel no matter what for another person to feel that to feel with them till and not to enable but to feel and love with them and to care what's going on just care I can't fix but I can care and I feel like that through these steps and through the God of my understanding I have developed some compassion and I love that I love to care about what's happening to another person okay I like to be able to help and be able to serve I had a beautiful sponsor by the name of Dottie Harris and she died five years ago and I had it for 33 years and I used to always say the last thing she would say as she would honey I love you and pray for a servant's heart and that's what I think about so much I have a woman today by the name of reena k and she is an amazing woman and she has that same grace and beauty that uh i love so much the same as my is my spiritual hero mildred i love that grace and dignity it comes with the love of god and then i call it god anybody can call it anything they want but i call it god and what frank did is frank began to take me through the steps and and i learned so many things from him because he was a priest and one of the things he also told me is he said polly i did not find god in the catholic church and i'm a priest i found god in the rooms of alcoholics synonymous. I found a God that loves me no matter what and knows and does not want to punish me and he just wants to teach me and love me. That's all he wants to do and that's the way I feel today. I feel I have been through lots of problems with self-pity and shame. I did more shame to myself the first three years I was sober that I that I know a lot of shame to myself for what I did to my children but I brought so much shame to myself in early sobriety because I was just and I had a sick husband and I was having all kinds of affairs and Alcoholics Anonymous I thought every alcoholic man was just adorable and I paid a big price for that I paid a big shame price for that but of what I'm so grateful for as I knew a man when I first got sober I knew him after I met him when I was six months over and became my best friend but I didn't have an affair with Dave and when I would three-and-a-half years sober Dave came to me and he says Polly I don't want to have an unfair with you I want to marry you and I want you to know by God's grace and this program that Dave and I have walked together we will be married on October the 27th 40 years and I just I cannot believe I have been given such a gift and one of the things that I always loved and I first learned it from Frank is I love the 11 step I'm gonna go through all the steps I'm going to stick with the 11th set saw it through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God and one of the things that I love and I really love I try to carry it on too and I know Mildred carries it on and she carries on the thing that Chuck always said that we all have just one problem and that's conscious separation from God in there and what I'm here to do is make conscious contact with God and man. And as the years have gone by, I don't know that I've gotten any more sophisticated with step 11. I just know that i have become more disciplined with step 11. And I am consistent. And i have a whole regimen of what i do in the morning. and i'm going to do that and then i'm going to talk about some other things about this step but i'm going to kind of talk about something that i've been doing since i got sober and there's a couple of things that i do that every single morning one of the things that i have done of late and this has been going on for the last five years most of the time I wake up and I open my eyes. I thank God that I'm still here. That's one of the, I'm like so amazed. I'm here. Good morning. I'm hier. And I'm going to grab my stuff and I have different places. Right now I'm out on a patio in the condo I live in. I always have a little spot that I go to. And that's where my spot is today. and now I've had another thing that I say first before I get out of bed gather up my stuff and go sit down and that is I thank God for my health because my husband is very ill and he has been for the past five years and I'm his caregiver and I pray every day that I continue to have good health so that I can care for my husband and you see i love body used to talk about we get to have uh we get to be able to have corrections we get repeat for correction all of the stuff that we did along the way that we're ashamed for that we are sorry for god gives us an opportunity or at least he's given me an opportunity to repeat for correction i could not take care of my two boys i couldn't care for them and so what happened is is god has given me five grandchildren and um and i am a i'm a fun grandma now they're all grown now but i had at different times have kept my grandchildren and what happened their parents their parents would leave me with these kids and go off on vacations leave me with their children no forgiveness and nothing like the forgiveness I have been given from my two sons I am so blessed that I have given so much forgiveness At any rate, and the other thing that's repeat for correction is I never could take care of my first husband. I was so selfish and self-centered, I was incapable of caring for him. And today, I get to care for my husband. And not only do I get the care for him, it's an honor, it a privilege, it is a privilege that I get to do it. And I'm so grateful that I have been given that kind of grace, given the grace that I had been given. And what I do is I go sit down and there's a couple of things that I've never quit reading. And I pick up different books along the way. But there's one book besides a big book, I say the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer every morning, and I stay the 11th step prayer. And what happened that there's, I've changed other books along the way, but what I've never changed since I got sober was reading around the year with Emmett Fox and The Big Book. And I even use and say Emmet Fox because Emmet fox was such a huge contributor to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And his spirituality speaks to me. And it has, just like the big book, has spoke to me ever since I've gotten sober. I was introduced with that by Frank. He introduced me to that book and I have had it at my side. I've had many copies of it along the way as they just get ragged and tattered. And I've had those opportunities to have those books and read. And I have changed different spiritual readings along the way. And one of the things that I do on awakening, I try to do, as far as I'm concerned, when we retire, I'm going to do two things. One of the things I call the 10th step for me, so that I can kind of keep 10 and 11 separate. I call 10 the 24-7 step. That's the one I'm going to do all day long. And when, you know, I'm gonna do the 10 step. And when I'm, you Know, I've got a at once, I am going to try to make amends. I am gonna take a quick inventory. Well, I want to take your quick inventory if I can't get a hold of my sponsor. i can usually get a hold of a sobriety sister or somebody i sponsor i have no problems with talking you know i walk shoulder to shoulder with the women i sponsored so i don't have any trouble calling someone i sponsor and say can i read a quick inventory to you and do that and make amends at once and then at night when i lay down at night i do an uh i do a nightly inventory i would do my day and then i try to see did i leave anything out on what i would you know in that 10 step and then on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead and that's what i do i said i have a i have this is my little paper of stuff i write down i use uh i use this i use one of these um yellow pads that i and i i write down list let me um waking in let me think about the 24 hours ahead so i have everything do i have those doctor's appointments down i have a list of the call-ins of the women i sponsor who do their call they call in on whichever day they call in on and i have that down and i haven't things that i can do now i need this list more than ever because i'm older and i don't remember so well so those are the things that i'm trying to keep myself aware of so because if not i'm going to i'm gonna forget and so we consider our plans for the day before we begin now i do that i know that i have certain people that are going to call if dave has a doctor's appointment and i cannot make that appointment it's my responsibility to call and say i'm so sorry i can't make that call i had a friend that called me today who's become a really good friend and alcoholics anonymous and i couldn't get to that phone call today now that will be one of my first phone calls tomorrow is to call him because i want he's a friend and i don't want to not do that i want to be accountable, to return phone calls. I think that's a really important thing for me to do is to not ignore phone calls but I try to keep, I also know that the women I have scheduled a call deserve my time first and that's what I do. So also with my list I have to prioritize always the first thing that is important is what do I have today? What are my responsibilities to him does he have a doctor's appointment do i need to help him get ready for that appointment what do we need to do so that's what we consider i said consider my plans before i begin we ask god to direct our thinking that's my prayer help me especially being asked to be divorced from self-pity dishonesty or self-seeking motives now i can tell you sometimes i have to kind of proud you know prod long word fraud day long come on we gotta get dressed we gotta go we gotta do this and i just hate to be a nag and so we have to do this but i know that this is my responsibility that's what i'm supposed to do and i've just asked god for me not to be short with him and not too bossy because i can be you know i can be a little bit bossy and i have to remember that this is my husband and so i have to say a little prayer god help me i i am forever praying for patience praying for patients and uh so that's one of the i just always say that little prayer just i just ask god to direct my thinking and help me be divorced from self-pity because i'll be honest with you when dave first got sick five years ago my whole life changed too i was running all over the world really doing things i love and i can't do that anymore and a little part of me had a lot of self pity about that but i'll tell you one thing i'm running all over the world right now, and I don't even have to get on an airplane. And it's absolutely fabulous. So I think it's horrible that we have COVID-19, but I love Zoom. I'm getting to see people that I don' t normally get to see. I get to hear people I don''t normally get to hear. I got to bring Ralph to my home group. How about that? It''s a meeting in Jacksonville, Florida and Ralph White speaking of my home group that's what you get to do when you have zoom it's amazing so but I did have self pity and a lot of self-pity because I I knew that my life had changed her but thanks to the thanks to these steps and thanks to prayer and thanks for guidance from a spine for from a sponsor, and all the help I get from the women I sponsor, I have realized that I have a privilege and that self-pity has drifted away from me. And today I see that what I get to do is an honor. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties. i can sit down i can read i can pick out something i can do whatever maybe i need to read something different because of where i'm at today i have all kinds of books i'm a big i'm a big fan of chuck chamberlain i do i've read a lot of stuff that he does i read a lot of things that sandy's had and a lot spiritual giants i've loved in alcoholics anonymous i read a lot of their stuff i may listen to it i may listened to a cd i may put up you know i may go and get something on my phone and put the earplugs in and walk around and do whatever i have to do whatever i need to do to get right i try to get light because my day can get hard and i can get short tempered and i don't want to do that i don't want to do that uh with assurance for after god gave us brains to use our thought life and this is a promise this i love this promise our thought life will replace on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives and i can tell you i can get all kinds ideas in my head and I don't need them there and one of the things that I do is also on my little yellow pad is I do not believe God wants me sideways with anybody I mean I don' believe that God wants me sideways and one thing is that I want to just quickly say how many minutes do i have i forgot to set my thing do i have about 10 13 13 okay thank you um one of the things that i there's two things i want to talk about before i finish but one of things that i had happened to me two years ago is i got the worst resentment i had felt very betrayed i felt something was taken from me that i loved with all my heart i had put my heart and soul in it and i felt that it was taken from me and i had this huge resentment and i knew that i cannot the book tells me i cannot have these feelings it was it'll just chew you up and eat you up and i hadn't had a resentment like that in years and years and i was re i was inventorying inventory and talking to reena oh my gosh i've got a sponsee on this meeting that i was talking to constantly and i was talking to her i mean it was just absolutely eating my soul eating my soul and what happened was and this has just been in the last six months maybe even less this is how soon i have come through this resentment i've done the work i kept doing the work and i get a little relief and then here come the wave again and hit me and knock me over again and i'd get all that icky stuff going on again and i was i was just sitting in meditation i'm not i'm not a really good meditator but i always have a quiet time i always write some things down and i sit and i just pray and that day something just came over me just absolutely washed over me and what came into my head and what i saw so clearly is how abusive a mother i had been to my two little boys and how they have forgiven me have forgiven and all of a sudden i thought i did a thousand times worse to my little boys than this person ever did to me how could i not forgive this person and resentment was just washed away and i thank god every day for it to be removed i haven't stopped thinking because it hasn't i haven t gotten another way so i just keep thanking god that that resentment has been removed next thing i'd like to talk about in the time i have left is uh the prayer of saint francis i love this prayer i read this prayer every morning and i this prayer speaks to me and um i am so grateful that it's part of our literature because i had never heard of this prayer before i came to alcoholics anonymous and i absolutely love it lord make me a channel of thy peace that's what i want to be i don't want to be full of resentment i don t want to be full of hate i don' t want any of that i want to be a clear channel and i feel like one of the greatest gifts that i've been given in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous is i have been able to sponsor women and i have remained and those I feel like that is a gift and I'm grateful that I have people in my life that will help me keep that channel clear and I asked and I ask God let me be a channel of my peace and sometimes maybe one of my sponsees has to call me on something and I feel that's one of the things I'm really big on is walking shoulder-to-shoulder That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring a spirit of forgiveness. And what happened was until I could reach that place of forgiveness with this resentment I had and I can see you know sometimes I think sometimes we get to experience things so I don't forget that that's the number one offender. That that's the thing that's going to cut me off from the sunshine of the spirit if I'm sideways with any of God's kids I am going to be cut off from the sunshine and the spirit I have thought to have a clear channel now where there is discord I may bring harmony and one of the things that I my very first sponsor told me Holly you can tell anybody the truth if you tell it with love but if you do it with anger people can't hear you they can't hear you all I can say is is just I do my best if I have any discard with anybody as to ask God how I can approach this with love because I know that that's where i have to come from and one of the gifts i today can be so grateful for is that my parents i didn't even understand this until i had quite a few years of sobriety but the greatest gift my parents gave me was the gift of love i was given the gift of luck and i didn t even understand it when i was being loved i was so cherished as a child and i didn't even know it and today i am so aware of the love that was given to me may i bring truth that where there is doubt i may and may i brain true i try really hard no matter how hard it is as if i have to tell somebody the truth i i pray about it i ask god to help me help me be able to tell the truth and to tell it with love that where there is doubt i may bring faith that where there is despair i may bringing hope one of the things that happens a lot of times is i get to sponsor women who have been child abusers like me are have been very abused children and one of the things that i can help them with especially if they're very have been very abused children when they're doing a fifth step with me or if they read any kind of inventory and it has to do with their parents i usually can put my arms around this woman and say i was your mother that's who i was but because of the program of alcoholics anonymous i'm not that woman anymore i'm not her anymore i know she sits here i know she's here and i know that i have to work this program as hard as i can work it i have to be of as much service as i convey i can never let up i can the book tells me i can never let up on the spiritual program i have to work this program diligently at all times and i only get a daily reprieve i can't rest on my laurels i just whatever good i did yesterday i have to do it again today i can lean on that wall i have to do something this day i may bring hope that where there are shadows i may bring light and where there is sadness i may bring joy lord grant that i may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted help me to be relieved of the bondage of self and let me be a channel to you let me reach out to another person and give them this program the greatest gift we can give is to share our experience strength and hope with another person i am so grateful that i get that experience there's nothing like it there's nothing in the world that makes me feel more useful and more whole than to be able to work with women that I sponsor. Or anybody, male or female, but I get the opportunity to share what has been given to me in this program and they share with me what's been given to them. To understand then to be understood. That was one of the things I used to say all the time you don't understand me well you know your job isn't to understand me i can i can definitely remember what chuck said chuck my god taking care of me is god's business taking care about kids is my business it is not my you don t need to understand me I need to understand you God will take care of understanding me the love than to be loved for it is in the self-forgetting that one finds and is that forgiving that one is forgiven what happened is and kind of worked the opposite with my little resentment that I had because what washed over me that day as how my sons had forgiven me because i was having trouble forgiving i couldn't i had a hard time forgiving and what happened is because my sons had forgiven me so much i was able to forgive it isn't by dying that one awakens to eternal life and i truly believe that that's exactly what we read in the spiritual experience. It is in the dying that we are awakened to a new life and we are transformed to this way of life in the rooms of alcoholics and on. Thank you.