Step 10 and Spot Check Inventories – Spiritual Maintenance Workshop – Part 3 of 5 – Terri K.

Hi everybody, my name is Tali and I am an alcoholic and it's so great to be here still. What a great group. My sobriety date is April 26th of 1990 and I will not forget this time. I forgot earlier, James, I apologize. We're going to do the serenity prayer. So take a moment of silence and God grant us the serENITY to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference amen okay so i'm here to uh terry is going to speak about the 10th step and i was uh the 10 step is um the 10 steps suggest that we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any mistakes um and i'm going i chose a couple lines here to read and we have ceased fighting anything it's on page 84 in the bottom and wehave ceased fightinganything or anyone even alcohol for by this time sanity will have returned and now i'mgoing to turn over the meeting to terry terry thank you thank you my name is terry cruz and i am an alcoholic can everybody hear me okay let's get a thumbs up okay let me um switch screens here okay so anyway i want to start by thanking paula for asking me to do this and i want to thank mike um for putting this together again mike has been doing a lot of this stuff i see these flyers floating around facebook all the time and i have actually been able to attend a lot meetings because i'm seeing these flyERS and i'm really really grateful for that so i just want to say thanks um funny thing so i said to my sponsor a couple of years ago because i'd call her yesterday you know because i've only known for two days that i was going to do this and so i had to call my sponsor uh last night actually finally got a hold of her and i said oh my gosh we're never gonna believe this i'm giving a talk on step 10 oh my god and she was like terry um aren't you the girl that said nobody ever asked me to do like a Woodstock type event. Like you never get to do it, uh, talk on the staff and now you're getting to do a whole talk on step 10. And I was like, yeah, I guess we need to be careful of what we ask for. Um, I am so tickled to be here. I, um, I don't know about you, but this pandemic, um things are shifting, things are changing. And it's really weird because I was just thinking the other day about the acid test um that it talks about in our literature um the acid test that comes in our lives are we well prepared have i taken out enough insurance against the next drink um where am i really at in my recovery and so the acid text it just seems to me for alcoholics anonymous has been this pandemic when all of our churches and the places that we would go and meet um have been closed and were asked to quarantine and stay home and so this has been an acid test for i think alcoholic synonymous as a whole um the body and um i i can't even tell you you know aa can thrive in any conditions um and i believe it's because it's got anything that's god's will um it's been my experience is usually easy it just kind of comes naturally and um i don't know if zoom came naturally it doesn't come easy for me i gotta tell you i was in a panic mode not 10 minutes ago wishing i had a millennial in my life um and i go through this every time and i don' t know why i mean it's not that hard i bought a computer i have a chromebook on its way um i dont have it and so i'm using a tablet that i typically fly with and i dont fly anymore and so the tablet is just um for watching movies and the little button to join the meeting it's always there and of course 10 minutes ago all of a sudden the button's not there so thank you paula for suggesting that i power it down and power it back up and magically the button appeared so um these just have been trying times and uh because the world is changing um last night i did a thing i i colored my hair which was not that big of a thing because i've done that before lots of times and i cut it i have not had my haircut since back in February and desperate measures times call for desperate measures so I cut my own hair last night and I'm sure when I do get back to my hairdresser she's going to get in there with a comb and she will see the error of my way and whatever I did my best I can't handle it hanging in my face hanging in my eyes and so I actually cut quite a bit off so anyway I'm here you're there i can't see you this is the weird thing for me this was the awkward part about um the zoom in thing uh i'm used to having an audience in front of me when i speak as we all are and uh this has definitely been a learning curve the technical part and then the speaking out loud alone by myself in my well right now i'm in my little aa room um inside my house so this room actually is a very special place to me it's got a very social energy in this room the walls um covered in things that i've received along the way um from members of alcoholics anonymous um there's a bookshelf of some really great literature over there and um oh when i listen to cds and let me get done because i don't want any interruptions i'm so sorry i got the phone nearby just in case um uh things go south for me again and um hopefully it won't make any more noises so anyway i'm really glad you're here so step 10 so what did i do to prepare for step 10 Well, the first thing I did was call my sponsor. And I said, Janet, you know, I told her what happened. And I sent to her because I always want to be organized and to be well prepared. I said do you think I ought to read maybe what the big book says about step 10, step 10 to 12 and 12. And then I was thinking maybe I should call Rena which is her sponsor, my grand sponsor. And thenI said maybe I'll call Polly because Polly does these step things all the time. Which do you thinK I should do? She said, I think you should do all three. I thought, oh, God, I'm all messed up. So I did. So last night I read the literature. I made some notes. I called Reena. She didn't answer. I left a message. I called Polly. And she did get back with me this morning. And I'm really grateful to have a group of women in my inner circle who care about me, who tell me the truth about myself when others are afraid that they might offend me. they're not afraid at all to tell me the truth about myself and I need that, I really appreciate that. I'm on this journey to grow, to be a better person and to give away what God has so clearly given to me and so that's how we're able to keep it we're unable to keep up by giving it away and so we just keep chugging down the path and I managed to string together by the grace of God and pure steadfastness of doing what you guys told me to do and just following a trail that's already been blazed by the giants that have gone before me. I've managed to string together 26 years of sobriety. My sobriete date is October the 17th, 1993. And the last 26 years has been an incredible journey. It's been an incredibly incredible ride. And for me, I want to throw a disclaimer out there real quick before I go too far into this. I've done a lot of workshops over the years when you go to these conferences sometimes we'll ask you to do a workshop and so whenever i do one of those i always always um throw a disclaimer out so what i want to say um to disclaim myself if i say something that is in contrast to what your sponsor has told you if you hear me maybe make a suggestion or hear me share something that doesn't jive with what your sponsor has told you, I'm wrong. And your sponsor's right, I would want you to follow their direction over anything that comes out of my mouth. The only thing that I really have to bring to the table is my own experience, where I've been and what happened and where I'm at today. I'm just a girl from Woodville that really, really screwed her life up. I just burn it down to the ground. And I didn't just burn mom life down to the groundbreaking somebody else. And I don't know if we're going to get into that or not because I really do want to take this opportunity to step out of my box. You know, my comfort zone, my box is my story. I've been telling my story for years. I mean like decades. I have been telling my I know my story inside and out and it's my comfort zone and so to be able to give a talk on one of the steps is an honor and a privilege. And it's a true delight for me. So I hope that I will be a good ambassador of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that I Will bring to the table something of value. So I want to talk a little bit about before I get too far into that, I do think that it makes sense for me to qualify myself. I am a real alcoholic. And how do I know that? How do I know I'm a true alcoholic? I know it because what happens to me when I put alcohol in my i have a different response i do not respond the way that normal people respond to alcohol for instance janie might have a glass of wine and she might get about three quarters of the way through it depending how petite janie is and janie my notice that she's feeling a little bit tipsy and janey would say something like i'm feeling a little bit tipsy she might even say i feel like i am losing control and she'll set that down and she won't drink any more of the wine and my alcoholic brain goes what's wrong with jamie i'll finish that and then give me the bottle and like i drink and i drink and so i respond differently than normal people do i i can't stop like it's kind of like the latest commercial for the potato chips you know you can't have just one i can'T HAVE JUST ONE BEER i have to drink and drink and until i'm in a state of oblivion and i um i don't know about you but i'm a blackout drinker and when i'm blacked out obviously i have no control i have no idea um it is during the blackout states i think during my career that i've done the most harm um so let me so i want to talk about step 10 i for me step 10 is one of the most important steps in my life today it's one of three maintenance steps what are the three maintenance stats 10 11 and 12 so these three maintenance sets um of these three 10 being the first one we continue to take a personal inventory and we will wrong promptly admit it now i want you to do it now Why would I keep doing that? Because when I take a personal inventory, it allows me to settle with my past. Right. And my past might be 26 years ago or it might be twenty six minutes ago. But it allows us to settle up with whatever it was that just happened. And this is an ongoing process. We do this. I do this every day. I am constantly, constantly asking myself, you know, self-searching like a business that does not take an inventory would typically go belly up. Why? Because they don't know what their assets are and they don'T know what they're deficit are. And so I'm here to tell you that we are not saying there are so many things in my life that I need to work on. and nobody's more aware of my issues and the things that I need to work on than me. And nobody's harder on me than me and I take my own inventory but I like to take yours too. Why would I take your inventory? Well, because when I could look at you and see what's wrong with you. It's been a long road to get here. I do want to talk a little bit about um where i came from um this little town woodville you might see in my little name on the bottom this little community of 2 000 people is where i grew up everybody in woodville knows everybody um you can't fart woodville everybody knows you farted doesn't matter what you do and good or bad you know and we stick together i will say that about wood villains um we do look out for um but i did something that was really really really bad i caused a fatal accident under the influence of alcohol and i'm not going to get into all the details of that i'm going to give a different talk today i'm Not Going To Give I Don't Want To Tell That Old Story I'm Going To Tell What Happened From A Different Vantage Point Because I Want To Put My Energy And My Attention on step 10 because that's why we're here right so i caused this fatal accident um and not during a blackout i want to preface that i caused This Fatal Accident and um it was as bad as it gets now at that point in my life i was 28 years old i had been drinking for 12 years and i would say for sure 10 of those 12 years alcoholically for sure and it was all about me and you know i'm just self-centered by nature i am it's all about me i think about me first you know the ego is that voice in my brain that speaks first and it speaks loudest and it's where i turn my attention and um when i let her have the wheel get all twisted up right i just can't i can't live that way and so anyway you can only get away with it for so long and i managed to get away within 12 years and it finally caught up with me and so the next thing i know um their life has completely forever changed my life is upside down people that i love my mom my sister the people that are in my inner circle which by now 12 years into my drinking career is about that big right i don't know about you did you ever just push everybody out of your life you know just like they see me coming and go the other way oh god there comes jerry you know and uh people didn't welcome me in like you know i look at my life today when I go places and how people treat me versus 26 years ago when I would go places and how they treated me. And I think that we teach people how to treat us, and I think it is by our conduct what we send out is what comes back to us. And so what I was sending out 26 years a go was not very pleasant. And so with it being all about me, all about me, that self-centered nature eventually I bit the dust. And so I ended up in the penitentiary doing a 410 and a maximum security prison and early on in my incarceration I developed these quirky behavior patterns and then my hair and my makeup became very important because I would think, oh if I could just fix up that outside i would fool you and you would think i was okay on the inside and i was dying on the insight of untreated alcoholism and i didn't know i didn' t even know what was wrong with me um that i was suffering with the disease and better yet there's a solution right there's solution to my problem i think that i'm deficit that i was just born messed up that i was just born with something wrong with me i am a social introvert i do not do well in a circle especially a circle of women i couldn't stand women i wouldn't know what to say i wouldn'T know how to conduct myself but we'll be in a circle of men right and what's crazy was um you know it was cute back in the day i was cute and i would i'd use my good looks like to manipulate men um to get beer one time i got a car um from this guy that had won the ohio lottery that's a whole other story we won't even go into that you know i think i should probably make an amends to him now that i think about it i hadn't thought about that but um yeah right that done um so anyway um just sick sick behavior and so in the penitentiary i had an opportunity time out be still it was like god just putting his thumb on me like the hand of god put his thumb on me and sat my butt down he said you're just going to be here just be still at least i couldn't hurt anybody else and hurt myself um and i'd have an opportunity to learn and grow and um everything that i knew had been stripped away from the people i knew the places i knew the things that i had my children um all of it in a flash gone just like that and i put myself there and i did play the role of vicky victor i was just this oh my god this is so horrible i'm just this nice sweet girl from the country i would never hurt anybody i'm not a criminal the right I would just like talk myself right out of it so I'm just not that bad when I was like the boy that the you know the big book talks about that boy that whistles in the dark to keep his spirits up right that's who I am I wouldn't just whistle in the darkness because I'm dying on the inside and I don't know that there's a solution and I'm looking outside me to feel better and all I can see is 2,000 women the worst of the worst in the state of Ohio in barbed wire an employee that don't give two threats you know what about me and I put myself and so time went on and I wasted a lot of time I've wasted precious time you know the older you get I don't know about you, but the older I get, the more I realize how precious time is. And it really is the one commodity. It's the one thing. As you get older and you start to lose time and it starts to dwindle down, like how important it is to not waste it. Like, I don'T want to waste any time. I DON'T want TO waste a day. I DON't want to Waste a moment. What do you think about all day long? what what occupies my mind right this is kind of where i'm at here we are 26 years later and it's like what interests me today and when i think about today and where i am at today is like totally opposite of where I was in what I was thinking about and what I was doing 26 years ago thank god right because it doesn't have it's not all about me right it's just not all about me and so time then um back then uh i was in my late 20s and i didn't know i didn'y know anything about alcoholics anonymous i i knew that it existed i thought that you guys would teach people how to maybe teach me how to drink like a lady right like i that's how little i knew about alcoholic synonymous and i started going to some meetings for all the wrong reasons in 1994 or 95. In the penitentiary, right? I was going to the meetings in prison. It wasn't because I needed something to do. I was gone to the meeting because they take attendance and I had a pro parent coming and I was thinking that maybe the Ohio Pro Board would see that I had addressed my alcohol issue and that they would let me go home. But little did I know that that boy's family got in a car and they drove from Toledo, Ohio down to Columbus prior to my pro-hearing and they sat down and they had a one-on-one meeting with the Ohio Pro Board and they begged them to not let me out. They begged them on my 4 to 10 to give me the whole 10 years day for day. That's what they did. And I'm a parent and I'm an grandparent and I get it. I get that. And so I had this pro-hering in May of 1996 and how Pobor gave me the whole 10 years day for day in one fell swoop. You know, they didn't incrementally give me two years and then I go back and get two years and then go back to get one fell swoop. Boom, 10 years, done. And they stripped me of all the good days I earned and set in place if I couldn't earn another one. And, you know, I look back on that. I couldn'T even cry. I was so detached from my feelings and from what had happened that I could not even, I couldn't cry. And it wasn't because, you know, I didn't know. I think that I was just, I think I was in a state of shock. Then there was this arrogant side of me that was saying, don't they know who I am? Right? i'm just this nice sweet girl from woodville i came from like a halfway decent family i thought right and you're gonna give me 10 years i don't even have a criminal history and um that's how detached i was from reality because you see i don'T see things the way that they really are i see thingsthe way that i am and that's the way i saw it right it's all about me, all about me. And it's always been all about me. And so I end up in a treatment program, thank God, through a series of strange coincidences and weird things. You know, five years into my incarceration, I was pretty much settled into a groove. There were certain things that I did every day. I went to work Monday through Friday, like most of you do. I had a normal job kind of sort of. I worked in the administration building. I Had my own office just a few doors down from the warden's office. I was across the hall from Lieutenant Wasmar, who was my boss. I worked for the count office. The count offices where they document the counting of inmates, which happens like six times every 24 hours. And it was a big job. It was a pretty big deal. and i had all them fooled and they all just thought oh she's just this nice sweet girl from country right i had a high school diploma and if you have that thing in the penitentiary that thing is like gold you will not sling a mop or flip a soy burger if you have a high-school diploma they will find a real job for you and they found a real job for me working up in the wardens area and so um one day i had typed up all these bed moves and it was getting to be late in the day and i hadn't found lieutenant wasmer so i ended up in the office next door to miss lloyd and i said hey could you sign up on these bed moves and i stepped into her office and she was signing off and and while i was standing there she said no terry i've been meaning to talk to you there's a really good program called hearts have you ever thought about treatment treatment me treatment for what right this and i had been locked up for five years and so i'm still suffering with untreated alcoholism just because you put the plug in the jug that means nothing because that's not my problem the drinking was a symptom of my problem right the problem is here i'm the problem and i haven't addressed me you know i have a soul sickness i have this soul deep deep soul sickness i don't even know i've no idea i still think i'm defective that i was just born socially introverted and um feeling like i always feel like i'm left out like i don't measure up i'm not good enough and there and she's still in there like she drives me crazy every now and then she'll whisper into my ear a little tantalizing phantom from my past like last night for instance i was laying i gave a fabulous talk on step 10 last night in my bed trying to fall asleep right and um but she whispers these things in my head and after i did that she said to me i don't know why they asked you really and that and she's still in there and see and here's the thing so what do you do with that what what do i do with that voice or if i'm on an airplane traveling to a conference and that she has said it then i don't know why they bring you up before really um and so i'm bringing this up to say that there are unhealed parts okay i don'T care if you're five years sober 10 years sober, 26 years sober. There are these unhealed parts and some of us, our wounds go deeper than others. And some of Us are more wounded in other areas. Um, and some Of Us, um, are deeply wounded in areas of self-esteem. Some of Us might have deep wounds in sexual areas because this happened from a little, we all have baggage. We bring it with us. I used to say years ago i used to say i'd walk into a room and people would look at me and think well there's terry and her 16 trunks right he's had all this baggage everywhere i went it was me and my 16 trumps all my baggage because i had this heavy load that i would carry with me everywhere i Went and i didn't know what to do with it you see these inventories this step four And then step 10, these infant toys give me a place to get rid of that. Right? But when you're new and you're just chugging through or in my situation, I really wasn't even new. I had no idea that these tools were at my disposal, that there was a way that I could get rid of some of that past and get rid OF those 16 trunks that I had carried with me my whole life. And I still have baggage that I carry around every day. but you know what i don't drag 16 pumps into every room i walk into i have a little knapsack seriously like and i can visualize it i have small knapsacks and it's mostly just like little minor resentments little little things you know that i probably didn't call my sponsor on and i'm not ready to deal with it and every now and then i'll open it up i'll do a little inventory look at all the stuff that's in there and then throw it back over my shoulder or i might pitch a couple things and uh i think we all have that like we all have like there's certain things uh there's things that i need to work on god forbid i get to the place where i think i'm healed and whole like there there's nothing else for me to do uh there is so much for me today and um i am just so grateful to have a place to go where i could say um i got this going on i got that going on and you guys don't judge me you guys don'T look at me and say that girl is messed up did you see her 16 trunks that she drug into the AA meeting. See, we don't do that. We don't take people's inventory. Like, we're not supposed to be doing that. What I'm supposed to do is say, oh my god, my sister is wounded. She needs me to help her. I need to help my sister. And I need to deliver that assistance with you. I need to be there for her like somebody was there for me. And And I don't know why, I feel so emotional today. I think part of it is just this pandemic thing. There's been so much anxiety. And, you know, I talk a lot to my sponsor about that, this anxiety, like this bubbles up. Where does this come from? Like, I'm just home. Like, it's my happy place. I love home. There's no place on this planet that I'd rather be than right here in this house. Well, maybe Maui, but or San Francisco. London but home oh my god like there's no place like but home like home and I'm here every day and I have all this anxiety and I think it's I'm worried you know that my mom's gonna get okay there I said out loud and um just the division and um but I don't want to get off on politics i love people i don't care if you're red or blue purple um i just think that we all need to be getting along so i want to go back to the kind of century um i've run off on these tangents and i'm sorry about that uh this is gonna be a different talk today um so let's talk a little bit about um so this treatment thing that i get into comes right on time i mean it's on time i don't know that i'm dying on the inside i have served five years of a 10-year prison sentence i am at the halfway point and halfway into it you know i'm walking around like a zombie no i'm not feeling my feelings and i have this opportunity to get into a treatment program where i can address my issues and i did get into that program and um it was a four or five month field it was 15 inmates um sitting around in a circle and then the 16th person in the circle was a woman who was employed by the state of ohio she was a licensed drug and alcohol counselor her job was you know to give us direction and feedback and guidance and one day i was asked to tell what happened the night i wrecked my and i told the story and when i got done telling that story i wasn't in a blackout you see i remember everything that happened when i wrecked my car that night that wasn't a black out but the truth of the matter is i told a story from up here because this is where i live right i couldn't tell a story for my heart because i don't speak from my heart i was probably i don' know 32 34 years old maybe i might have been 33 or 34 i've never uttered a word from my heart not even so much as i love you and here i am asked to tell the story so i tell the store and i cried a little bit and i tried to act like i was putting my feelings into it when i got done those women lit me up for two hours the feedback i got from the women in that circle was kind of like um well if i didn't know any better i think you were the victim and you make me sick you take no responsibility for what you did to that 14 year old boy and i can still see the counselor banging her fist on the table you want to save face or save ass because you cannot save both and i wanted to say oh and i was crying and i couldn't believe that they were talking to me like that don't they know who i am all that jargon and um at one moment it just seemed to me because i was in defense mode and every time they rolled an insult at me you know i had this wallop. And it just seemed like at one moment during that afternoon, I had a brief moment of clarity where the thought was, I saw the whole thing for one brief moment. I had like this one brief moment of clarity and then that fast I shut it down because my defense mechanism kicked in said this is not the time to get vulnerable and so i shut that down i kept staring at the clock i couldn't get out of that room fast enough and four o'clock whistle blew and i jumped up way to go back to count time and i had to um grab my book and not so fast you know i'm crying and i'm all teary-eyed she said when you get back to your room i want you to write a letter to that 14 year old boy i i didn't know what to say and i'm like well it'll all be wrong anyway and i's crying and you know trying to make excuses when i could write a proper letter you know that would meet her standards and she said i'm not going to tell you what to say or what to write i just want you to write a letter to your victim in green on monday morning and one more thing when you get back to your room i want you to wash that makeup off i'm placing you on makeup restriction don't do your hair um i don't want to see any more makeup on you for the next two weeks i was so mad. I said, whatever. And so anyway, I got back to my room. I climbed up on my bunk and I wrote a letter. It was a four-page letter. And I said things like, you're never going to graduate from high school. You're not going to get a driver's license. You don't want to go to college or Marry a wife, make babies. I've taken all these things away from you and so much more. And I got it. I mean, buddy, I got in. And I understood on that day the seriousness of what I had done. And I look back on that whole weekend, that Friday, Sunday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning, those four days in my life, were a pivotal pivotal moments where i turned i had shifted from one way of thinking to another way of thing and that a miracle had occurred in my life and i did the footwork i had created a portal see the portal to god's been there the whole time i didn't know because i was looking outside of me right and if you were going to hide something And wouldn't the best place to hide it would be right in plain sight. And so over the course of that weekend, I began to feel a different spirit. I remember Saturday going over to the cafeteria and all the colors, particularly the inmate shirts, because they used to have blue shirts, pink shirts, green shirts, and orange shirts based on their security status. And on the weekends, you could wear what you want. But a lot of times, the girls that didn't have clothes were going to wear those shirts all the time. And I went into the cafeteria and the colors were so bright. And I don't know why that sticks out in my mind. It was like a darkness, like something left, something big and dark and ugly had cleared itself out. And it made room for more light, right? darkness doesn't stand a shot in the face of light at all i mean once light enters darkness poof you're done and the light of god definitely was shining down on me and so monday we get back to group and we circled up around the table and i i looked at the counselor and i said well i've got my letter she said that's good i want to read it and she said you will read your letter but before we do that i want you to tell this this group of women the story about that night you wrecked the car but this time i want me to tell the truth man you could have knocked me over with a feather i thought i can't possibly go through that again and then the next thought was you know what screw it i'm never going to see these girls again just tell the story and so i did and it was the same story like the facts of what happened in the road that night will never change but what changed was my perception you see because as i said earlier i don't see things the way that they really are i see things when i am and the way i am had shifted and so i told the story and monday morning it was the same story like the facts what happened in the road won't change um but it wasn't all about me it was about her it was About Jane Miller i saw her i saw his mom i saw her run down the road away from her car it was uh in the dark around midnight in april in northwest ohio so it was dark cold um and she ran maybe 50 yards away from her car and she stopped in the road and she bent over and she grabbed her knees i can hear his mom screaming and she was pretty hysterical as any mom would be um her only son was bleeding to death in the back seat of her car and she couldn't even get to him this woman was a registered nurse in the state of ohio and she could not save his life and that's what i did And I just remember being at the bumper of a sheriff's car after doing a field sobriety test, looking up at the stars, looking at the sun, thinking to myself, and I don't know why I had this thought. The thought was, I wish it was five years from now. It's a strange thought to have, but I had it. Five years from then, I would enter into treatment, and we'd have this pivotal shift. um i was just so sick in my disease that could not see the gravity and the size the enormity of what i had done it was so big and so ugly that i couldn't even get my arms around it much less embrace it as my own right like i had to i hadto get into a place where i could take responsibility i remember going through something one time and my friend sheila had said to me if you think of the potter and the clay and you think about yourself as the clay and sometimes when god is making a vase that looks like this but he wants to change the shapes like drastic change in shapes he might take that ball of clay and wad it up and then put it on the table and beat it with a hammer right totally shift it around and put it back on the wheel and then start again right before it goes into the oven and like this is what was happening to me like i had just been through the ringer and i'm definitely not trying to create a picture of a victim i was not the victim i wasn't definitely an offender but i was going through a journey i was going through a personal transformation in taking responsibility um man so i finished treatment and i ended up sitting out in the yard with a girl named sheila talking about god um don't know anything about god other than you know the little bits of information that i do know about god is not good and she started asking me questions about god and i told her i was honest i said i said really i said what kind of a god would let that boy die in that accident you blame god for that i said oh no i don't blame god i just feel like you know he's god why did the boy have to die why didn't i die like that would have been more appropriate and she said you're asking the wrong question you should be asking what kind of 28 year old woman would get behind a willow car under the influence of alcohol place in jeopardy to lies everybody else on the road that night that's what you need to be asked i was like okay i get that and then i said well you know here's a good one what kind but god let those babies to Ethiopia start right we've all seen the pictures with the little arms and their rib cages and the distended stomach and she said wow you're so twisted she said there's no dirt food in this earth there is no reason that anybody should ever go to bed hungry the problem is we don't distribute it we hoard it we horde food right don't ask what kind of a god will let the babies in ethiopia starve you need to ask what kind of people and i just i was like i just had this epiphany oh my god i'm gonna blame god for everything my whole life i always thank god and all of a sudden i have this epiphany that god works through people right like if i was to define god as like this person like in a white robe with this long beard um sitting on a throne like the way i have in my childhood was taught like what he might look like in heaven i've just limited him because that's what god looks like i have defined him as being that that that's maybe he is that but he's a whole lot more than that and um so i had to revamp everything i thought i knew about god and she just asked me some simple basic questions about god some very fundamental questions and and i do want to share that because it was very helpful to me and so she said to me where do you think god is oh no i suppose he's in heaven she said that's good she said what do you um what do YOU think where do YOU THINK heaven is um i think it's up there out there somewhere she said THAT'S GOOD but WHAT DO YOU THING GOD'S DOING and i'm like i don't know he's godding um what does god do i don't know he's turning embryos into babies and acorns into oak trees and making the earth revolve around the sun and like he's really busy he doesn't have time for somebody like me right um but i didn't want to say and she finally did beat it out of me what i really thought he was doing what i believe his function was and his function was to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. And he had a ledger, and he was a scorekeeper, and he would only let those in who he deemed were worthy for heaven, right? Because this is what I was taught, and that there was this place called hell, and by then I was pretty sure that that's where I would go, and I was just so wrong. And she just asked me to do a simple prayer, ask God. She said, what do I want you to do? I want You to say a simple prayer for 30 days in the morning and at night i want you to ask god please direct my thoughts my words and my deeds just do that every day say that simple prayer for 40 days and we're going to revisit this conversation okay i can do that as most keeps itching i don't know if it's allergies i'm sorry um i ask god every day in the Morning and at Night please track my thoughts my words and i just said it and it was just this really simple prayer very very simple but i did it and i was doing it because this girl she asked me to do it she had like this twinkle in her eye and there was this thing about her that i wanted i wanted to have the peace that i knew she had i could see it and so i was willing to do i was going to follow simple directions isn't that what we do when we come in here we do things that are not normal for us we do Things That Are Contrary To What We Would Normally Do We Do Things That ARE Opposite Right Of What We would Normally Do and so i'm saying this prayer every day we meet up in the yard 30 days later and she says to me how's that going have you been saying that for yes i have how's it been working out for you awkward i feel like i'm talking to the wall it doesn't make any sense but and she said that's good keep doing that and so I just kept doing that. And then I started to read some books that she had suggested about one book in particular I found over at the library um and I'm just going to say its title because um you can't approach me after the meeting you can ask me I guess I don't know if you put in the chat, but I don't even know how all this works. So I don' t know how the chat works. But I'm learning. I do need a millennial in my life. But this book is called Conversations with God by Neil Donald Walsh. And in 1990, I want to say it was 97 or 98, somewhere in that zone. It was on the New York Times bestseller when I stumbled upon it. It had been on there for, I think, like a year, a very, very long time. And it was in the prison library all the other books were 40 years old with dust on them there was this newer book and i picked it up because i thought isn't that how god works and that book changed my life and so um i want to fast forward the tape and i just want to do i want to shift gears a little bit and i'm going to get into a little but it's talking about this stuff um my first sponsor was joe and charlie I know that sounds crazy what Joe and Charlie they're both dead well they weren't dead when I was incarcerated and I had come upon these CD this 10 cassette tapes of a weekend and I believe it was in Sacramento California that they had given and I want to say 1986 and I would listen to those Joe and Shirley tapes every single day at four o'clock during the four o´clock count what was it 45 minutes of downtime when i was stuck on my bunk and for the last two years of my incarceration from year eight nine and ten uh oh i got to ten um every day it was me joe and charlie for 45 minutes and joe charlie took me through the steps and it was with joe or charlie that i did my first first fourth step under the direction and guidance of joeandcharlie if you asked me who my first sponsor was i would tell you it was joean charlie because that was how i learned i was incarcerated i didn't have like a real like i didn' t have a sponsor um i didn''t have someone that i could just go to with my questions i couldn't just call somebody up in aa um these were phone calls from cleveland ohio uh and so i had joe and charlie with those tapes and it was weird because if i had a question or if i thought there was something that you know that i'd like to learn more about like they'd be on the next tape or like it would come up or it'd be in the book or and the book that i had actually i still have it today it's in this room and it's a little bit haggard and a littlebit worn uh it looks like a big book is supposed to look um it's purple and yellow and green and it has all these highlighting on it and um so joe charlie took me through the steps the first time and um let's let's talk a little bit more because i'm looking at the clock thinking oh god how did i get done in just 10 minutes um because there's all this cool stuff that i wanted to bring up and so i just have a couple of notes on this page so we're going to shift gears and we're going to talk about uh for real for real uh steps uh step 10 out of 12 and 12 and so these inventories when when we when we get mature a little when i start growing up um i want to clean things up as i go along I want to stay in the sunlight of the spirit. I want it to be okay with Terry. I want him to be someone that other people trust. I want them to be a woman of honor. I want her to be somebody that you can look up to and share. I want me to be something that's worthy of being a sponsor, right? I don't want to be the liar, the cheat, the thief. almost said a bad word i don't want to be that i don'T WANT TO BE WHO I USED TO BE i want to BE HAPPY JOYCE AND FREE and so step ten cents be free it frees me of uh the guilt the shame uh the burdens it helps me to be at peace with myself because i want go i want to go in the 12 and 12 and i just want to read um the three kinds of inventory that he talks about i love step 10 of the 12th and 12th if you haven't read it a long time go back to it i just read it again last night good stuff in there man and i do read this book uh particularly this chapter i would say at least once a year definitely um there's lots of highlighting in here lots of notes but in the 12 and 12 uh page 89 bill starts talking about three different kinds of inventories that we do the first one would be the spot check inventory was a spot check in this story that's the one that i do the most often that'stheonethatismysavinggrace when i get my panties twisted up when i find myself in a position when it's usually that mouth of mine right that gets me in trouble every time um because i start thinking something and then before i have a chance to edit it or get it right or act like you know i i rush into a judgment i rush in to a sentence and you know once they're out there it's like i can't get those words back like it's there and so it's that mouth of mine um that i have had to work the most tense of sun and so the spot check inventory then happens in the moment it happens and i know i know when i'm getting myself tangled up it's that feeling on the inside my brain starts to speed up i start getting a little bit erratic sometimes heartbeat speeds up um and um the spot check inventory is a game changer for me so it gives me a chance to um clean that up in the moment so the end of the day inventory is also discussed in b12 and 12 i know in the big book is discussed under 11 step but in the 12 and 12 he discusses that in the 10 step i'm not going to get into a debate over that you can call it step 10 or step 11 call it whatever you want it's an important part of a healthy recovery program i prefer to do mine at the end of the day for me as part of my 10 step inventory and it's just a review it's just a mental review of my day where was i kind where was I not so kind where is there any place where I could have been kinder um or more tolerant right um and then of course there's the semi-annual cleaning if the annual or semi-anual cleaning that some AAs choose to do that is a personal preference um I'm a fan of that I think that is definitely um something that is part of good housekeeping um but i want to go to page 92 and there's this paragraph that i want to read because i think it's important so in the middle of 92 bill wilson writes finally we begin to see that all people including ourselves are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong he's not talking about me he's talking about the other people and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means it will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry wait let me say that again it will be come more and more evidence as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry that's it that when i read that last night i was well i saw in a different light for the first time that i've ever seen it before i understood that on a different level it is pointless why why anger serves no purpose it doesn't give me what i want what do i want i want to be happy joyous and free that's what i want i don't want to be angry right and so the sentence just goes on to say um that it's pointless to become angry or to get hurt by people who like us are suffering the pains of growing up so i have an obligation to give people's face to be at their place on their journey and i'm at my place on my journey and it's not for me to take their inventory i love to take my husband's inventory right it's the people that's the closest to me because i feel like i can get it off that's not right that doesn't make it right see in my house you see we don't get angry i'm going to be real honest with you. There's no screaming that goes on in this house ever, ever. If somebody inside this house is screaming, I guarantee you it is a blaze. It is lit up. And the only person that's doing the screaming is the person that's trying to get everybody to evacuate. And that's the way it ought to be. Screaming does nothing. There is no reason to scream. I couldn't live like that. And you know what? I used to be like that when I would get mad. I screamed all the years ago before i ended up in prison and before i had began this journey that's how i live and and that's just not who i want to be i want a turn real quick um because i'm running short on time and there was all this cool stuff i wanted to share out of the book um okay we are going to look at uh page 84 i just want to read what he says um on page 84 it says this thought brings us to step 10 which suggests that we continue to take a personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We clean up the path. We have entered into the world of spirit. What? I've entered into The World of Spirit. I'm moving into a different place. I am not where I used to be i've cleaned up my past i'm entering into a world of spirit right and what is spirit here's light it's love it's all things that are good i can't drag my baggage into the world of spirit can't take my darkness in there because it's light these are the things that i need to be free of i need you to get rid of these things so our next it says our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I need to grow in understanding and effectiveness, it is not an overnight matter. It is not an overnight matter, and it goes on to say it should continue for a lifetime. Isn't that the best part of it? Like we don't get completely healed and whole like I'm still growing. This is continuing for a lifetime. I'm in this for the long haul. I'm here to motivate you. We're in this together right we keep hearing it we are in this together i got your back i'm on your side we're in this Together right so then it goes on to say continue to well watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear when these crop up we ask god at once to remove them we discuss them immediately with someone else and make an amends quickly if we harm someone then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we could help love and tolerance of others is our code love and intolerance of others as our code and you know what thank god we're not the person that we used to be um step 10 has just it has been a saving grace for me i practice it vigorously almost every day when i get myself twisted up and it allows me to set things right as i move along And to settle up with my past. And I am just so grateful that I've had an opportunity to share this afternoon. I don't know about you, but I feel a lot better. I'm so glad that I actually was able to even get on. So thank you, Paula, for being my millennial today. And thank you Mike for your service to Alcoholics Anonymous. You buddy, you're just going above and beyond right now. um i think that you have no idea how many people um are touched in a positive way by what you're sitting there and saying i was doing um making these things turn and making this thing go and kudos uh my brother i love you thank you so much for listening god bless with that i'll take a pass thank you