Putting the Program First in Marriage – Couples in Recovery Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Peggy

This video is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional. If you find the video useful, please like, share the video, and subscribe. Thanks for watching it. If you have any questions or other problems, please post them in the comments. Hey, hey. Save a little bit of it for later, will you, for Christ's sake? My name is Dick Martin and I'm an alcoholic. Everybody, but for the grace of God and the actions that a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous have been sober since September 15th, 1965 and I am very pleased about that. And I'm Peggy Martin and I'm an alcoholic And through the grace of God And fellowship of people And sponsorship I've been sober since February the 4th 1964 Which makes me sober longer than him and never never lets me forget it you know we're talking at lunch we're sitting with peg sponsor and a gal at peg sponsors and we're saying there and peg says you know doing this thing re kind of reminds me she said i just i think we're kind of an elderly ken and barbie and i said oh god i hope not and i said i don't mind being elderly but i would not like to be considered ken and barbie in the first place just to give you a give you some if you're new to us uh which some of you are we'll be married 22 years uh august 12th this year we uh after having our first date on june the 6th 1966 we got married a few weeks later she uh it wasn't a whirlwind courtship or anything like that don't want to give you the wrong impression she wasn't pregnant couldn't have been everybody we believe in courtship even if they are short courtships Ours was not a marriage that was made in heaven. It was boy meets girl on AA campus, and we went from there. We have a good marriage. We're not wonderful. She's not wonderful! I mean, I'm not wonderful. We liberally take each other's inventories at the most inappropriate time, usually when the other one is sensitive. The conversation usually starts out with, I am going to take your inventory now. I mean, we even let each other know that it's going to be hell for a few minutes. But our relationship is a good relationship and a substantial relationship because of one very simple thing. And the simple thing is that we have put AA first in our lives. We have put the fellowship and the program and the ideals and the ideas of Alcoholics Anonymous first in our lives. That comes before, as far as I'm concerned, it comes before Peggy comes along. It comes before anything else comes along—that's first. and uh i was taught early on that it's very wise to get into the fellowship before you attempt to get into a relationship was also taught that you shouldn't get into an emotional relationship within the first year that you're sober now mind you if your arithmetic is working very good i I wasn't quite sober 11 months when we got married. And ours was not an emotional relationship. We did not get emotionally involved. It was based on lust until September the 15th. Now, she had been sober long enough, but I hadn't. So mine was just lust until December the 15ths of that year. And then I began to develop an emotional relationships because that's the only way to do it. I got married, we were talking about getting married someday, and she said, how about next week? Friday. Yeah, how About Next Friday? And I thought, my God, that's a little quick, but, you know, I thought I was talking about December. And she thought that was too far off, which was fine. And I said, but we can't do it until I get in touch with my sponsor. And she said, why? And I says, because I promised myself that I wasn't going to make any major decisions in my life without talking to my sponsor first. And my sponsor was out of town at a convention, and I knew where he was, but I didn't know what hotel he was in. But I called his home and talked to his daughter, and his daughter told me, and I dialed a hotel in El Paso, Texas. He happened to be in his room, and I told him I was thinking about getting married. And he says, who are you thinking about marrying? Peggy? And I said, yeah. And he said, yes, it'll be okay because she's been sober longer than you have. And he warned me right at the very beginning. And I'm the cruder one of the two up here. You'll hear some nicer things from her. He warned me at the very beginning. He said, Alcoholics Anonymous is in meetings in church basements. It comes in groups. And he said, When you all stay at home and talk about the 12 steps and the 12 traditions and all that sort of thing, that is not AA. It's ass to ass. I understand. Don't be insulted by it. No. He said, if you want to stay sober and continue to grow in your life, you'll go to AA meetings. When you go to meetings, if it's a discussion meeting, you will sit at one table and she will sit the other. If it's speaking, you go and you stick with the guys and let her stick with the gals. It even gets to the point where the majority of the time when we go to a meeting, she takes her car and i take my car i mean we don't even go to meetings or come back to back home with each other it seems to me that frequently we oft times end up meeting in bed and that's not a bad place so i uh and speaking of jim he uh was his little brown nose there, so I wouldn't take his inventory from the podium. When he's defenseless, he always hates that when I do that. I told him the other day, you know, we were talking about doing this, and I told Him the other Day, I said, you're one of those people that Peggy and I have never really sat down and talked to you and Amy about your relationship. said you must have learned about it before you got married and i think that they did i think that they learned about him before they got married not that everybody doesn't need a tune up every now and then but very simply you know they get along well they get a long well and I think they get alone well because his wife is active in Al-Anon and lives her program and he is active an AA and he lives his program and I think it works very well that way I don't think i need to go to al-anon to live with you i don't think so either strange way to turn it over one of the things that that i think that we had noticed through the years and i want i'd like to say this you know we as dick said we don't have a perfect marriage i whenever i hear anyone from the podium talk about how they have a perfect marriage i always i'm a little bit suspect of that because when you've got two alcoholics or an alcoholic and a person that suffers from al-anonism together in a house you've got two complete characters there i mean there is nothing boring about us we are we have these exaggerated emotions you know we're like i always like drinking because it turned black and white tv into color you know and it's right in front of my eyes and i think that's kind of the way our relationships are they're they're really in full technicolor you know we have if we're gonna if we finally cross over the hump and decide that we're going to give ourselves to somebody we do it and i mean we do probably to our own detriment at times and what that does is that it makes for a very interesting combination of of things and an interesting situation in in the household and one of the things that we noticed was through the years of having lived together and fought together and i was so grateful we didn't have a fight today because it's hard to get up here and talk about traditions in relationships when you're mad at what so we've been we have been we've been really nice it isn't over yet no the day is not over the day isn't over yet and we may do it right up here you never know but you know one of the things that we noticed was that that really when we applied the principles in alcoholics anonymous in our lives and our married lives that we really had been doing that you know it's kind of like we're not smart or anything we just kind of bumbled along and made a lot of mistakes and i was reading a comes of age one time and i thought you know these battles and things that they had in the groups and stuff sounds like dick and i you know it sounds like the battles that we've had that the ego deflation that we have had the the struggles and the pulling this way in that and the competition and all of that sort of thing within the family it sounds like us and it occurred to me that those problems that we had worked out the way they had been worked out was by using the principles of alcoholics anonymous and there is no place that these are embodied than they are in the traditions you know the traditions and it was a long time before i realized this because i'm kind of dumb anyway about this kind of thing i i'm not supposed to be but i seem to be emotionally kind of done about these things it occurred to me that every single one of the traditions was ego deflation at depth it really had something to do with ego which led to the second logical conclusion and that was that i as an alcoholic must have a problem with ego in some fashion or another that i'm always having to get deflated now i never knew how to be a true partner to anybody did did you really when you were drinking i was always a loner i was alone inside i was alone in the crowd i was a loners i was so scared i was so scared to let you have my feelings because i was afraid if you took my feelings that you were going to hurt me bad and i'm not speaking of you but the world at large and so what i did was i medically sealed myself i took a little can of teflon spray and sprayed it all the way around my emotions and i used men just like i used toilet paper no not exactly not exactly i think maybe i ought to study this for a while i'll go over here don't study this not exactly toilet paper but something disposable you know something you can just better just be quiet now i'm just trying to get myself out of this They were useful, they were useful as long as I was not involved with them. You understand? I mean, I didn't really, I never thought of myself as having relationships with people because I didn' t give a damn about them. And I thought you had to give a down about somebody to have a relationship with them and I think that's true. You got one way or the other. You might have a hate relationship with somebody but you got some feeling about them I never had any feeling. I mean, I was sealed, you know, and I just went about my business that way. And he was the first person. Well, I went with this guy who was a postman, and he kissed funny. It hurt when he kissed. I didn't want to date him too frequently. But he got drunk and went crazy and commandeered an ambulance and barricaded himself inside his house with a double-barrel shotgun, so i figured that one was over thank goodness i wasn't around so then i met him and he was so persistent he was if he was like he was irritating you know he was everything i didn't think i wanted you know i'd always said to my mother i'm going to marry a professional man i'm gonna marry somebody tall and dark i'm to marry somebody who has never been married before and i'm going to marry somebody that is a sort of romantic well i did marry a romantic he is a romantic but he isn't he's not tall and dark he's kind of built like an outhouse you know with blonde hair he's sturdy very sturdy he's uh a salesman he you know which is a profession i suppose the only thing i have to say about that it kept you from starving ah you bet good living good living salesman he'd been married before and he had he had kids by this other marriage this was not unacceptable to me so to prove to you just exactly how unacceptable it was i married him two months after i had the first date with him it was i told my mother she said what about this martin fellow you know he was getting me boxes because i was moving and she said what about his martin felloe and i said uh yeah he's a nice guy it's too bad it'll never last well that was 22 years ago you know so it just shows you i wasn't really with it so we we looked things and and we just decided you know that that's what had been happening in our lives and we decide to kind of go through them just on a lark to see how much they fit and that's how this sort of came about uh it was in hindsight and i you know to to to really get into it you know i had to allow this man who was persistent and irritating and always there he was always there and he was always so nice i figured he had to have something up his sleeve and i yeah i know what i wanted something she had yes you did i was willing to go to any lengths to get it willing to go to anything to get but he he was even ready to take certain steps at that point a little bit further on he was ready to take certain steps but he wanted to put off the steps till december or something and i wanted i had found at my my night in shining armor and i want wanted to whisk him off and and he had bought a new car he had first got he had a ford falcon with bourbon bumps all over it and it had stains in the front seat somebody had urinated in the front on the front seat on the driver's side but it wasn't me so he traded in his i'm the only one who drove it but he traded it in his ford falcon and he got a pontiac but gold pontiac bonneville pontiac whatever convertible which cost us more than than our child support payments And alimony. And alrimony, right. I bought that the afternoon of June the 6th, 1966, by the way. I bought it the same afternoon that I had a date with Peggy, our first date that night. I wasn't trying to impress her with material values. Nothing grandiose. anyway so and and we ended up getting married and these experiences some of the experiences that we're going to share with you for a little while this afternoon are the good and the bad because i have i've got to say this right off the bat i love this man i love him for everything that he is and the way that i feel when i am around him most of the time but you're shorter than i am you may be sober longer but nothing stays wonderful forever nothing stays terrible forever and i expected to go into marriage into this relationship and that it would be bluebirds of happiness, I never figured they'd crap on me from time to time. It was part of my adjustment to reality. You know, it was part if I had just the same unreal expectations of this relationship as I did of everything else in my life. It was going to be marvelous. And it has been marvelous. But there have been times that have been interspersed interspersed that it hasn't been so marvelous. And sometimes the terrible times, the really bad times are not as hard to live through as just the times, just day after day after day, just living together day by day by day. And that's hard. That's the hardest part is to living when there's no thrill attached to it you know where you're just there and i love this man i respect him i respect him most for his membership in alcoholics anonymous and the way that he is able to deal with the people that he deals with uh one time my mother we were thinking about characters you know that the different things that made people up and what cared about people and she said what do you admire about dick i said he's a great aa member and he's a good visitor she said a visitor that's not very good i said yes it is for somebody who is a non-visitor i'm a non visitor i mean if i you got to have a purpose you want to visit with me state your purpose i'm busy you know i gotta dick will sit and visit with you for hours He is so good, he comes from a long line of North Carolina porch sitters. He can just sit and visit, and he's so patient. He is much more patient than I am. So the first tradition says our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. It also means that personal recovery depends on the unity of the relationship, and that has to come first, The idea of staying together has to come first. That means the commitment for one person to stay with another, regardless of whether it's marriage or whatever it happens to be, whether it is a simple friendship. It really doesn't make any difference, but there has to be a commitment to be where you are. It has to have a commitment on both sides. Both individuals have to be committed to be there, and they have to commit on a daily basis. It isn't something that you say, oh well you know I'm gonna be married forever or like my first wife told me she said well if this doesn't work out we can always get a divorce I didn't expect the marriage to last very long after that remark and it really didn't but the point I'm trying to bring across without commitment to be there it isn't going to stay and that commitment has to be on a daily basis Some days you have to do it at a moment at a time. You know, I was sober maybe, not sober, we were married maybe six months and I remember making an AA talk and said, you know, the fortunate thing I've come to realize is that I'm only married to her at one time. And I thought how wonderful that was of me until later on I began to realize that she was only marriedto me a day at a timetwo. You know, I get a little wonderful in my ideas of thinking how wonderful I am in this whole deal occasionally or frequently. It doesn't make any difference which one it is. I feel somewhat martyred occasionally on a daily basis, but it's only a brief period of time, fortunately. And I don't try to hang myself up and do an Easter bit too often, but I do occasionally. and uh i believe i believe that i observe her hanging in the shadow also occasionally yeah and but we only have to do that we only have to live together a day at a time and uh if things get too serious we don't even have to go to a meeting because i can get up and go out and i can go to a meeting or i can call a guy i sponsor i can go have lunch with somebody i can i can get away from her easy. And principled, in a principled manner and legitimately and honestly, I can do that without hurting her feelings or without making her look less. And you know, another good trick on this one is about the unity business is I have always thought of this. Whenever, you know—in public, now this is in public—we may have differences and we can disagree privately but i i try very hard not to say bad things to other people about my husband in public and that's not a phony thing it's just that it gets to be a joke it gets you get carried away with it at least i do and i don't find that it's really their business what my personal disagreements with him are except perhaps with my sponsor but not not in general because it becomes a habit to jokingly put somebody down and i always think of it as in private when we disagreements we can i never knew this i grew i went all through my life not knowing this and it's so simple you can disagree without being disagreeable because see to me it was always a personal attack because i was always i always felt so i had so little self-worth that any time anybody said anything that was a disagreement with me it made me feel less than and so it was personal i've learned that we can disagree without being disagreeable it is not a personal attacker it's not a character assassination we can't disagree without being disagreeable and still have that unity i always like to think of what if when we get into these discussions at home about whatever it man manages to be a lot of topics is think of it i always think of a newcomer standing at my shoulder and how would i behave for that newcomer standing atmy shoulder i'm sure it's going to behave the way i do behave sometimes when i get upset which is he is a very stoic person he's very he's quiet and deadly you know he'll get you you know in ways that are so effective and i am the the blithering idiot type that just blows like a you know i mean i just i always 24 hours later i always think i could have said this and it would have been so effective you know and i but i just i'm right there i'm going i don't know but you're just i don' like your face at all or how do you go off you know i just get out of here or you know whatever and you know if i wouldn't act like that if i had a new person there actually while she's doing that she thinks i'm being stoic and that's not what i'm doing i'm sitting there saying quietly in my mind but never out loud just keep it up i'll get you later those are things that are better left unsaid that has no purpose in a in a true partnership it really doesn't i mean it's effective but it makes things exciting yeah so so the object the object is not to feed someone when they're you know when someone is feeling bad, don't feed them either. Don't give them anything to... Don't put fertilizer on the situation. There's no sense making... You know, when you're wrong, say you're wrong. Hey, I was wrong. I'll try to do better. Oh, it just irritates me when he does that. It irritates him. Yes, but it's AA and she can't do anything about it. No. And if that's worse, it's worse because then I have to act principled, you know, and that's hard sometimes. The one thing that I have learned more than I have learnt anything else is that I never have to tell her i'm sorry and i don't use that word at all i don' t use the word sorry i never tell her I'm sorry i absolutely because i find oftentimes i do things that are wrong but i get a delight out of doing it and i'm really not sorry for the fact that i've done a matter of fact i'm damn glad that i did them but i'm Sorry i got caught But he does say, he's good at saying he's wrong. He was even, he was good at saying he was wrong right from the beginning he was. And I was never good at saying that I was wrong or really even sorry because I have basically kind of a little nasty personality. You know, I'm just a little nasty thing there. And he's really been more honest from the begining. Now I've I like to think that I've, you know, developed quickly along those lines and so we're sort of on a par but in the beginning i admired him for that i admired him for his honesty and i would tell him that and we'll get into talking about attaboys later on the second tradition says for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving god as he may express himself in our group conscience our leaders are but trust servants they do not governed this is one of my favorites because i need it so badly because i figure that i'm i mean i just have this innate sense that i am the boss i've always i i just my father is a he retired as a lieutenant general from the air force and he was the surgeon general of the Air Force, and he was a graduate engineer as well. He was used in the military, and he was used to getting his way. And Dick always calls me general when I get sort of bossy, because it reminds me how much like my father I am. I just have this sense of being right, and that if they would all just do things my way. And you know what ragging is? Where you just get to ragging on somebody? Can you ever stand outside yourself and watch yourself rag on somebody? As you all know, I have a sort of a middle linebacker personality. That's football team. And I'm not actually athletic, but I love to be participating in cheering for athletes. I have broken a rib that way. As a matter of fact, Phil McKeown broke my rib that way. We were excited over a touchdown, it just happened uh we were jumping up and down and i heard it pop and and i and i sprained my ankle badly and i twisted my knee and this is all just watching it on tv so i have that and i always wanted my son and my husband i always said you ought to teach jimmy how to throw a ball you know you oughta teach him how to through a ball i can't through a ball i through a bowl like a sissy i want you to teach him out through a ball dixon i can't throw a ball i said well i thought learn you know i mean learn it's not too late you know it's hot too late i you know he didn't know how to swim because he he was a mad scientist when he was the kid and he mixed some stuff together it blew up in his pocket and it scarred him and he never learned how to so i figured he could learn to throw a ball you know something i never learned to how to because i was never near the water to learn how to swim oh and they were poor i heard this before no my family was too busy drinking and they didn't have anything to do with kids or water or nothing anyway certainly nothing to do with water and i'm watching this i'm watchin this i want to watch a ball game on tv or something and they go oh no it was basketball basketball they said don't i told them and i must say i said i'll never get into basketball never football is my game i'll never get in a basketball well i just why it's just watching the finals you know i mean i i just watch the good basketball well they're all moaning oh no jimmy jim and dick are moaning they say oh no she's into basketball now you know so they're sitting there slobs in my mind they're siting there and so i got righteous feeling like i should tell them what to do just this just uncontrollable feeling so i said you guys i should be look at me the ultimate authority i am i am a i'm 50 and look at um and you know and and you know i know right i'm sergeant in charge of fat i know how to do it you know i said that you guys are nothing but a bunch of couch potatoes. You know, they're like... And I don't remember what Jimmy said, but it was something like, It's okay. It's all right, Mom. We just sort of hate you when you get like this. I think I know right. I mean, I'm leading by example. When she gets like that, I just wait ten minutes because it goes away. it's it's not being stoic it's just knowing it'll disappear you know things become less important after she says them yeah i think he just got me but i wasn't listening anyway we gotta you know one of the things that we have found is that we have to leave when it comes to a really important thing. The neat thing about us is that we have learned how to communicate and we have learned how to laugh. He is the funniest thing. He taught me how to laugh. I've always had a good sense of humor, but I forgot how to use it. And when I was drinking, my muscles atrophied and they got stiff and I couldn't laugh because there wasn't anything funny. And our first Christmas, we had no money. I mean, zilcho. We owed everybody, you know, no money, and he said, and I'm thinking, I was always very spoiled, I'm not getting any Christmas presents. I'm never going to get a Christmas present ever again. I guess I'll just have to go out and make a 12-step call or something dumb like that, and he says, I got a present for you. Well, you know how our minds are. I said, that so-and-so. Now he's got me a present and I don't have him a present. So he's just doing it to make me look bad. And I'm playing this in my mind. I'm not saying anything, but I'm playing this on my mind." So he said, just a minute. So, he goes off into the bathroom, closes the door. It's the only door in the apartment except the front door. There's bathroom it's the only place you could get any privacy so he goes in the bathroom and he leaps he comes leaping out of the bathroom stark naked with a big red bow tied around his ding-a-ling and he's singing here comes Santa Claus and I gave her that gift over and over and over again the whole the reason the reason for saying this and the reason to talk you know life is for fun and for free and it that don't cost anything yeah that's right and it's fun it is fun and it can be fun you know and if it isn't fun you're doing it wrong oh dear lord get a red bow get a pumpkin get something you know you know it's really like you know she made a statement if it is if it's not fun you're done it wrong it's like staying sober isn't it it's likes staying sober if it If it isn't fun, you're doing it wrong. There's something wrong with what you're doing. And life should be fun. You should have, there should be joy in life. We should have a good time and we should have a great time. We should spend a good amount of time in our relationship with our partners, whatever it happens to be. We should find a good job. It's really for fun and for free. What can we do for fun? And for free, what's good? You don't have to spend a lot of money. You don' t have to impress your partner by buying dozens of roses or diamond rings or, where's Scott B? He used to be into that. There he is. He usedと be in that before he met Mary. Mary wants him to go back to it. A little anyway. One rose! One rose. Oh, there's nothing that'll bring a tear to a woman's eye like one red rose. Nothing makes a man feel any more simple and stupid than walking into a house carrying one rose anything a bundle of them i can understand one rose it's just like a little boy saying gosh here i am mommy don't we eat that up do we eat that up or not oh the little boy third well i think it i think that we ought to say something about courtship just for a moment i know it's an old-fashioned word and it sounds strange to young people because they believe that they're supposed to get into a relationship And relationship involves some moaning and grunting and things like that. And, you know, the guys that I sponsor, they say, well, I'm into our relationship. And I think, yeah, that's wonderful. You know, it'd be kind of nice if you got to be friends first. You know? It'd kind of be nice if we got to know each other first and know who likes what and where and why and when and all of those very simple things that a courtship has to do with it. A courtship obviously doesn't have to be long to be effective. You know, one thing that's fortunate, being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and being an alcoholic and living with another one or dating one, I already know what she's like. I know more about her possibly even than her, certainly more about here than her parents do. Oh, yeah. Much more because I know what her insides are like because they're like my insides And I know what her insides need, and I know what my insides needs. And it's the same thing. It's the same thing, and I found out that I don't need someone to love me. I really don't need someone to love me, but I need somebody to love. I have love within me to give, and I need somebody to love, I don' t need somebody to love me. If they love me in return that's icing on the cake baby but i can love and just simply love he's better at it too than i am because he's very giving and it took a long time for me to do that because i think i was more frightened maybe but i know that that in in our communication and in our courtship and being You know, in the beginning, I think we were like very careful with each other's feelings because we didn't know each other that well. But as we have grown in understanding and respect, I'm hooked on to you. I know. We have been able to develop more of a sense of humor and to josh each other a lot more. He used to walk by me and slap me on the behind, and I never liked that. I never lacked that because, to me, it was demeaning. And I at first wouldn't tell him about that because I was afraid that it would upset something. But eventually I became sure enough in our relationship that I would be able to say that to him, and he quit. You know, he quit because he didn't want to do anything that was going to upset him. It's okay to pat. wait a minute you got to get on with this you know oh that's what i was thinking okay we gotta you gotta value the right of the opinion of the uh of your partner you gotta listen to it you gotta to what they have to say and not with a closed mind with a with an open mind you'd be amazed how many times your partner has a better idea on how to bring something about than you do and that goes for both sides you know you got to feed each other your opinion not demanding that your opinion be the only thing not demanding that this has to be the way but simply being able to express what you feel about the situation and keep an expression keep an open mind rather than it oh it's always having to be by way or are personally involved in the whole thing keep an open mind i gotta start on this one you started on the last one let's not fight the only requirement for aaa membership is a desire to stop drinking okay i'm married to an alcoholic she's married to an alcoholic the only requirements for our membership and that partnership is a desire to stop drinking because if she gets drunk i pack her suitcase it goes on the front steps and she goes out before it and that's it i i am not made of alanon material yeah now she stuck around she stuck i couldn't have put up with me drinking as a matter of fact it damn near killed me putting up with meat drinking much less trying to put up with somebody else drinking i've refused to do that i just will not do it i won't tolerate a goddamn minute so so really the desire the desire that we have to keep this thing together starts with a desire each individual's desire to stay sober you know to be an active part of the pro the alcoholics anonymous now i don't know what would happen if we didn't do this you know we just always have we've always been active members it's always been a basis for our relationship we've all gone to a lot of meetings we've always had sponsors we've always done those things so i don't know what it would be like if it wasn't that way but i know what its like now and i don t want to change that drinking on either part would impugn the integrity of the individual to such a point that there's no relationship exists nothing remains there has to be integrity i have to have my integrity she has to have her integrity there's and you can't cross those lines if you cross over those lines then it's trouble and it's trouble setting and drinking for an alcoholic is crossing over those lines it's giving yourself away piece by piece by peace all over again and i've done that once and i did it for years and i'm not going to do that anymore i am a valuable human being and i deserve to live as a valid vital human being and i will not live in any other fashion you know there's a lot of expectations that we have when we go into relationships of mine was the white charger and that he was gonna sweep me off my feet and he was going to be this tremendous sex partner because I knew so little about sex and I really did I knew a lot about you know the other stuff but I didn't know about clean and healthy sex I knew about the other I knew about intimidation I knew about back seats of cars and stuff like that but I didn't know what a healthy sex relationship was all about and and he taught me and we had some problems with that we had a lot of problems with that but through those sorts of things we learned but I'll tell you something there's a couple of things I remember that come up in this tradition one of them is Clancy has a great story about a couple the first few months that they're together or that they have this relationship their hands touch across the breakfast table and it's like sparks and the lights go on and if the whole world comes alive and you take the salt dear good shivering in this oh here you have the salt and then after several months of being married and they're sitting at the same breakfast table reach for the salt and their hands touch and one of them says pass me the goddamn salt you know it's it's a question of what of how you are going to relate to each other you can't expect it to be marvelous all the time you've got to expect sometimes so it's gonna be bad but it doesn't mean it's going to be that it's over you know that's what I always thought I thought oh something little bit goes wrong and it's over, it's over, he hates me or I hate him which is even worse you know and we might as well get a divorce and I used to say that to him. I used to say it. He never said it because I think because he'd had the experience but I used to say to him I remember one time I got some mad at him physical violence is never never acceptable but if there's he doesn't get physically violent because if he did he'd break both my kneecaps and you know string me over a wall or something he has these visions in his head what he'd do but he's never been physically violent but i don't have visions i just plant one on you know on your kisser and so he was he turned away from whatever it was that i was saying which always makes you mad you know you want to argue you don't want somebody walk out of the room so i planted both of my fists in his back and he turned around and i knew i'd had it boy i knew it he said don't ever do that again and i said we just might as as well get a divorce he said don't ever say that again unless you mean it and i knew he meant it and i didn't want to hurt him i was just trying to get my way i was just trying trying to my way threats don't work threats don t work you don't have to let threat work you know my feeling about that is if you're threatening to get a divorce get a divorce pack your clothes and get out or i'll pack mine and get out i don't care i don' want to be there i don''t want to be where i'm not wanted and so if you tell me you want a divorce that's telling me you don't want me and i don'T want to be there and i'm NOT going to be there because i am a valuable valid human being And if you don't want me, somebody does. Yeah. Me. I want me. It's the old hand on the doorknob syndrome. You know, it's somebody's always got their hand on a doorknob. I'm leaving if I don't get this. I'm leave-in if I can't get out of here. If I don' t get that. I'm leav-in' if this doesn' t work out. And they've always got thier hand on thie doork-knob. Can't live like that. You cannot live without the faith, at least some faith, at least sum of the time and hopefully a lot of the time in your spouse or your partner. You have to have trust and faith. Okay. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. And in that we're talking about each partner has a right to autonomy as well, except any actions that they would take that would affect the family in a derogatory or a negative sense. and that is to say I can't do anything that would affect Peggy in a negative way or my son Jim in a negatve way. I have to consider others before I take an action and in considering others then I can make an action based on that, not an action base on what I want to do. There's another thing that comes into this too and that it this, I don't know how you are, I don' t know how Debbie is but I have the feeling she's like me. When I have a pigeon who demands my attention, who demands my love, I retreat. It's like they go, you know how kids, when you get on the phone, they always come and they go like that? And it's always when you're on the phone. They always try . And I feel like when they get too close to me, when they start crowding me, what they're doing is they're demanding that I love them on their terms. can't do that i don't know how to do that what it makes me feel like doing is saying go go away from me and it's it's like with the i cannot and i i god knows i tried tell me that you love me prove it prove it how can one human being do that how can you prove to another human being you love them If they believe it, they believe It. If they don't believe it They don't belief it And there is nothing that can be done in between You cannot prove those things You can do things that show love Because all of these things are action Having a good relationship is an action thing But you can't I cannot place myself in front of him and say Do you love me? Because I'm inviting this He says yes I love you And I say you don't act like you love me you don't look like you love me you didn't say that in a loving way then he say what do i have to say to you to prove that i love you i don't know but you didn's say the right thing i mean it's it's it's like living with a raving lunatic you know it's he's damned if he does and he's damned if you cannot demand that someone prove to you that you're loved you have to grow in the program of alcoholics anonymous to where you have your own feelings of of self-worth And then you will know, because it's like when you have self-worth, it's Like opening a door and people can walk in. But if you don't open the door, nobody's going to get in. Nobody can love, nobody can prove if your doors are closed. And it's opening that door. Well, you know, I think it's really very necessary not to demand anything. You know, we have certain things, and we'll talk about this in a few minutes, but we have certain things that we do around the house. You know, Peggy generally cooks the meals, generally cooksthe meals that are cooked. We have our business at home, and I come upstairs for lunch frequently, and it's been almost five years. In five years, she fixed my lunch once. Once, and I remember it. I don't do breakfast. Doesn't do lunch, doesn't do breakfast, doesn' t do lunch. I do dinner. I do dinner. Four days a week, what the hell? Five days, well. Four, five, you know. Man, I don't know. Well, what difference does it make? And the reason why I say that is I can pour cereal in a bowl. I'm a grown man. I know how to do that. I can make a sandwich. I can warm up a can of chili. I can do that just as well as she can. I can take care of myself. And the secret is that I have learned one very simple thing. I can survive without her, thank you very much. I can. I can survival without her. Thank you very muc. I prefer to live with her but I can survive without her if she bolts tomorrow. you know I'm not gonna be I'm now gonna say I'm gonna be happy about it but I'll tell you it won't be long if he were to die I would be very unhappy about it but I would also be okay I'd be okay in the long run because I have you and I remember one time when he said this to me and I thought this I mean I was devastated until i thought about it with my heart he said i love you more than any woman in the world but loving you isn't enough and i thought well let's see who's not enough you know that was my reaction inside but i knew what he was talking about because i knew that loving him was not enough that i had to love you i had to love you this is my life this alcoholism this recovery from alcoholism is my life and i would have to get on with my life you know and that's important it's not something we would choose but it's important that we know we could let's think about it just simply on a practical basis just a very simple practical economic basis peggy is one person your hundreds what's more important hundreds or one hundreds it's more important love you and pay attention to you than i'd love her and pay attention to her although it goes hand in hand because if you lo if we i find that if i love you i love him better i don't know how that's strange but that's true when i'm willing to love you and go out of my way for you i am my relationship with him is enhanced it's so hard when you're selfish that selfish self-centered thing that i hear something it's always what about me what about my rights what about me and i always get this little answer in my head yeah well what about you because aa's taught me that it isn't me it's you it's it's You're important because somehow my development as a human being depends upon my willingness to love you. That's the way it's been. Don't humor your partner. That's denigrating. That's putting them down. You just listen to what they have to say and go on and do your own thing regardless of what they Have to say, and saying, oh, sure, you know, and then just go do your thing like we did when we were drinking. And then you come back, and they say, did you do that? You say, yeah, I did it. Well, didn't you know I didn't want you to do that?" Yeah, but I wanted to do it. Why? You acted as if you weren't going to do It, and then you did It anyway. You know, why humor me that way? Don't humor me. Don't play with me. Don't pay games with people. People don't like being played with that way. And boy, have we played games. There is not a woman in this room who does not know how to play them and play them real good. Oh! Hey, I'm only speaking from women. I know you guys do too. You're just not quite as subtle. Yeah. I think a good example of that is sex. You know, giving you a little reward because you're a good boy and saying no because you're a bad boy. Yeah. You know, the most stupid thing about doing that is it's self-denial at the same time. I mean, it's really stupid. It is stupid. What are you laughing at, John? Okay. Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. I think we've pretty much covered that because we've talked about being AA members and Al-Anon members, or not us in particular, but those of you who are Al-Anon members, being AA Members first. You know, that we have to be AA Members First, and that's the message that we carry that we are recovering through these particular principles. And one of the things that I'm reminded of in this too is that, you know, I don't know how you are, but I can always find everything negative. i mean there's not a negative thing that you do that i can't spot right away just right off you know i mean whether it be squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom which i consider stupid or cons whether doing it logically which is to just punch it in the middle like i do you know just first i've got an answer to that you have two tubes of toothpaste she has hers and And I have mine. Yeah, and we have two drawers. I squeeze mine from the bottom. He squeezes his from the bottom. We especially got this commode built in our bathroom that has two separate drawers so we can have our own little toothpaste so we don't ever have to fight about that again. So we fight about his taco powders. Every now and then I run out of toothpaste and I have to use hers and it's almost, I almost feel dirty about it. Yeah. You know, the thing that you really got to do is to recognize the good things your partner does. To recognize the good things you're talking about. And tell them. Hey, that was a good meal. Hey, you cleaned up the place. You're wearing a new dress. You're looking nice tonight. It's nice to come home and see you looking nice. I shave every day. I don't like to shave. I do not like to shave any day. But I like the way it feels when I have shaved. I feel clean. I feel dirty when I don't shave. I shave because it makes me feel good, not necessarily because of the appearance that it has or doesn't have. But it makes we feel clean and it also gives a clean appearance to you and it makes attractive to you. And so I just simply shave every day. It's no big deal. I shower every day so that i'm not offensive it's very simple sometimes more than once a day and it's nice to be you know just even to give to give just behave i call them attaboy no it's an attaboi it's it's a little positive stroke you know that says hey you're my guy you know you're okay with me you're you're good i appreciate the things that you're doing and we i forget far too often to do that i forget far too often i remember one time uh he came home and we were eating dinner and they got through with it and they had made some comments about it and everything and you know like this tastes funny and what does it have carrots in it or what or you know something like that and i said you know nobody i cook dinner every night and nobody ever says thank you dear Peggy for cooking dinner every night so not to be put down he perked up and he said you know I've been going to work for 35 years and nobody ever said to me when I came in the door thank little Dickie we're going to learn for 35 year and then he grinned and I knew what was saying you know i knew i didn't need that do what you're supposed to do you don't need to have credit for doing what you are supposed to do you dont need credit for doing what your supposed to do but its pleasing to your partner to tell them that your proud of them for doing what their supposed to do on such a long and consistent basis and you know im proud of my wife because she has consistently been a good wife and consistently been a good housekeeper, consistently been a good mother, consistently been a friend. And I'm proud of her. I really am. I had something occur to me a number of years ago. Peggy got elected to some office in AA. And this gal came up to me and said, well, how do you feel about that? I said, I think it's great. She said, aren't you jealous? I said, no. Why should I be jealous? I'm pleased that you got it. Peggy has an ability to do some things that I don't have. And I'm very pleased for her. I'm simply pleased for she. It's nice to be pleased for your mate. You know, I'm please and I think that she'll serve well. Well, you're not jealous? No, not jealous at all. I've got things to do myself. And it's really simple. It allows me to do my thing, too, doesn't it? Allows me to do what I can do. I know it seems like we're only halfway through, but we're really not. We're on the downhill, guys. An AA group ought never endorse finance or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. I think there's only really one area in there that I would like to talk about, and that is the money, property and prestige i was a very i was raised kind of with a silver spoon in my mouth i had a lot of money i had a lot attention i had care um i was just spoiled brat really basically and this poverty bit was uh hard for me to take and we were rather poverty stricken for a while because we had so much so many bad debts to pay off and so many alimony and child support payments to make and that kind of thing so we were kind of poor and we had the greatest time when we were poor we really had the great time because when you have things that money buys then you have to take care of the things and pretty soon it becomes a job to take care of things the things on you instead of you instead owning the things and so it was a lot simpler it's i'm not turning any money down or nothing don't think that but But I got into money, property, and prestige. And Dick's family was what I would call decadent southern aristocracy, not so much. That makes sense. Yeah, alcoholic, decadence, southern aristocracy. He has a line that goes back. His grandfather or great-grandfather owned slaves, and they had plantations. and we're not sure how the family line all came about, but we – well, at any rate. He was decadent in Southern aristocracy, and his dad was a – Them damn Yankees took all the money. Yeah, me. The damn Yan kees took the money, but anyway, his family had been reduced by alcoholism. My family had not been, and I considered myself to be better than his family. My family seemed to be better than his family. And I hate saying that because, to me, that's an ugly part of me, but that's the way I felt when I first met him was that I was better than he was and that somehow or another that I would put up with him. You know, I could perhaps raise him to my standards. It was yucky. It was really yucky, and he taught me through his patience And through his really nobility under crisis, we had a child that was born dead after we'd been married, after Jimmy. And Jimmy came up to me one time when he was just a little boy and he said, this was right after this had happened. And he was very small. He didn't understand. And he said you promised me a baby brother for Christmas. and dick just looked at me and his he put his arm out and he put it around me and he just said well it just didn't work out that way and i'll never forget that i'll ever forget it he showed me nobility and i could recognize it it's not that he that that i you know i think a lot of it is in the recognition in being able to recognize what those things are in the people that are around us, that we can say, attaboy, thank you. And those two words are so important. Please remember to say thank you because the closer you come into a relationship with people, the more necessary does politeness become because the more you know them, the most you know about them and you've got to accept them for what they are. So politeness and thank you. You know, if I don't say thank you for some of the things that happen during the day to my God, then I feel spiritually bereft. If I don' t say thank you to him for some the things that he does that I know he goes out of his way to do, then I am socially bereft, if you will. So what you have to learn to do and what we all have to learn to do and recommit ourselves on a daily basis is to do what's in front of you to do to do those things that you've committed yourself to do if you did yourself to be a married partner then be a married part and work in partnership and work in harmony with the other person assist and help them be a part of their life let them be a party your life share your life with them and encourage them to share their life with you and don't ever feel that because someone in your family has accomplished something or is something or isn't something or whatever it is uh don't never feel that that affects you you know what peggy is doesn't affect me it doesn't make me less of a man or more of a man it doesn t affect me what i do makes me what I am not what she does we are not reflections of each other. We are simply not reflections. If he, Dick is very outspoken and sometimes Jim McKernan knows this. Jim McKernon and I and Terry Langer, we used to sit on the edge of our chairs whenever he'd say something because we knew he was going to insult somebody. He seemed to take a pride in it, you know, and we were just mortified because we were feeling as though we were reflections of him. You know, somehow that was goingto come off on him. And I learned a long time ago that that isn't healthy and that i have to separate myself from that because i am myself there's a fellow that calls the house every now and then and out of politeness he talks to me but he talks like i'm mr peggy yeah i mean he really does and i was he called several days ago and i was telling peggy i said you know i always get the feeling every time i talk to this guy that he kind of talks to me like I'm Mr. Peggy or something. And she said, yes. She said, I think so, but he thinks of me as being innocuous. He thinks of my as being inocuous, non-hostile. And he thinks if me is being hostile. So he tries to stay away from you. So he stays away from me, and he would rather talk to her. Innocuous wadding. Innoculous wadging over here. And I said, are you innocuous wadding? She said, no, but he thinks so. Yeah, you know better. One of the things my pigeons always get tired of hearing me say is take care of your side of the street. God, they get sick of me saying that. You know, because the other side ofthe street for people, I mean, taking care of his side ofstreet looks so tempting. You know he uses talcum powder and I got so thrilled the other day because I found his favorite kind of talcumpowder and they hardly make it anymore. It's menin. says so if you ever find any buy me about god come on minutes square bottle green printing very seldom can i found it but anyway the thing that irritates me that's great i loved it i brought home bought the only thing they had in the store brought home look at here i got oh my favorite talcum so i was thrilled but he throws it all over the bathroom i mean he just like this you know and when you walk out of the bathroom leaves little feet you know across the carpet there yeah Yeah, but let me tell you something. It's hard to take care of your t-shirt. When I take my t- shirt at night and I smell that talcum powder, it just smells so good, it's worth it. Just like a little baby. But, you know, it is hard to care for your side of the street when you have to walk after him and smudge out these footprints on the carpet. You know, you are always doing that kind of thing. I have never heard her say that when we are in bed, well, why don't you get up and take a shower? You smell bad. No, he never has. always smells like men and talcum powder he ain't all dumb yeah so they you know they get tired of me saying take care of your side of the street but god it's important you know it's important to take keep your side in the street clean because i mean it's it's fundamental on somebody else's side of history because it's not personal you know you're over there messing with their stuff but if you're on your side then you've got to clean up your side the street and that's hard to do and they don't you know they get tired of me saying it but it's very true and it's good for the relationship too i'll tell you okay alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional but our service centers may employ special workers one thing i did want to say this is so true and i heard it just recently i almost freaked when i heard because i mean you know it's you think you've heard everything and then you hear something in a different way it talks about being emotionally self-supporting and how you need to be emotionally self-supporting, how you needed to stand on your own two feet emotionally as well as other ways. You know, I always knew how I could help other people. I always new to help, you know. I couldn't fix myself, but I wanted to fix you. I'm very Al-Anon in that way. And this lady said, and it was Mary Pearl, and she said this, and just blew my head off practically. She said, if we insist on doing things for people that they can do for themselves, we ensure their failure to ever be able to do them. God, it just hit me like a ton of bricks because I'd been doing that all my life. I didn't think they could even get up out of bed right, you know, without, you know, I used to make lunches for them and then I'd get resentful because I made lunches. I did do lunch too. I forgot about that. I did lunch when school was, when they weren't big enough to butter their own. I did lunge then, and I used to get mad at them for eating. I didn't want to make lunch, so I'd get resentful about eating. That's not only self-support. Self-suppORT has to do with being a man or being a woman. Be what you are. Don't be diminished by whatever you feel. when i'm feeling bad about something i don't want peggy to come over to me and say oh you poor boy because that just makes me want to kill it gives me a license to kill at that point when i am feeling bad she will say what is the matter i say well i am not feeling too good about this she will says oh and she goes away and leaves me alone because my healing is not going to come from someone that I'm emotionally involved with. My healing is going to come from my sponsor, God as I understand it. That's where my healing is gonna come from. It's gonna come because I take some action not because someone takes some action on my behalf. I have got to be a man and as my sponsor so lovingly says, if you can't be a men act like a man. God I hate to hear that. jesus if you can't be a woman you gotta act like a woman you know if you don't know what a woman acts like ask a woman because there's plenty of them around you're not playing you don'T depend upon the other person to to be emotionally to make you whole you can'T they're gonna fail they're gonna fail it's like demanding love you just it doesn't fit you know our lumps don't hit your holes or whatever i mean that sounds kind of sexual but i don't mean it that way i mean emotionally it just we can't heal one another in that sense you know we need to go outside for that peg read the uh i just wanted to fill in there because we're kind of skipped over the seventh step which is i mean the seventh tradition which is really being self-supporting doing your thing and doing it well and doing it proudly and being proud of what you are, and being self-supporting, and earning a buck or two yourself so that you feel like you're making a contribution if that's appropriate. But when we were talking about nonprofessionalism, which is the eighth tradition, I am not a professional father. I am NOT a professional husband. i am not a professional fixer i am of things you know i'm not a i can't do plaster walls and that sort of thing i don't know how to do it plumbing is beneath my capabilities capabilities is right he can't get even get under the sink hardly but i'm I'm not a professional. So what does this say? What does it say? Our service centers may employ special workers. So you get an automobile mechanic for the automobile. You get a wall plasterer for the wall. You know, you don't try to do something that you can't do. I don't pretend to be able to do all things, and I can't. I can't pretend to be the best father in the world, nor can I pretend to be the husband in the world. But I can be the father that I can be and I can be the husband that I can be to the best of my ability. I can do it to the best of my ability. And it doesn't make me any less because she doesn't measure up to her standards, whatever her ideals. You each have to have your own standards based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's basically what it comes down to. Nine says, as such, AA ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. I think the easiest way to put that is there are some things that people fight over they have no reason to fight over. It's like the checkbook. Find out who's better at having the checkbooks. If you don't both have a checkbook, then let the person do the checkbook who's got the interest to do it and who's got the expertise to do because i'm one of those kind of dick is the sort of thing person he just says wolf it sort of lumps out at the end of the month okay he doesn't even care how much is in there he says they'll let me know if there's not enough i mean i gotta know i just moved some rocks from this place to that place it's no big deal here and there and everywhere but okay that's book i do checkbooks good i don't do investments good he does investments good he does real good with that because he he's playing in the abstract and he's playing with big numbers and he not playing with 7.65 which i'm playing with i'm better at minutiae he's better at grandiose things wonder why okay so a family organization really has to be pliable though doesn't it if we're talking about investments i want peggy to know what the investments are and how to handle it and so on so forth if i'm not there okay i know how to balance a checkbook i really do but she i also know where my will is and i know where her will is and i know where the key to the safety deposit box is i know how to pay the bills i know what's the process is i know all of those things and she knows all of those things so in her absence i can do them or in my absence i'm gonna live forever so i better learn them well well maybe for another day yeah but it's important that the partners everybody knows what's going on communicate for god's sake you know communicate about those sorts of things about finances and about charging when we were first married we didn't have much money and we made a deal you don't buy anything costing over a certain amount without conferring with your partner first period no matter if it's on sale at that instant and it's never going to be on sale again ever no blue light specials you know at kmart none of that you know you have to confer with your because there otherwise you'll overspend and then there won't be enough for us and there has to be enough one of the things is you know we hear this in a in couples all the time my car my bank account my checkbook my this my that my it's not if you marry somebody if you're with somebody it's our checkbook our bank account our car our house our kids it's ours if you talk that way maybe you'll start to feel that way because if you talk my my my that's a separation from this is our this is our deal it's our deal okay we want to look we got two more things to do and then we're done we got carried away in the beginning and we always do this and we know you've been very patient but there are some areas under 10 which Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues and public controversy that sort of thing basically there i want to say this one thing you know when you get into the heat of battle and all of you who have been married or have a relationship have been in the heat of battle when in doubt shut up i have a sign on my wall because i'll tell you something there are some things that i know how to say that hurt so bad and they can never be taken back they might be forgiven but they could never be forgotten and that's hard and if i can prevent them from being said by zipping my lip i'm really better off because you know when i say things in the heat of an argument generally speaking i say them for one purpose to get even i say him to get ahead yeah okay what is the time yeah we're okay almost out okay uh you know when you met her or him whichever the case may be it happened in a very strange sort of a way it's not strange it's just the way it happened and what what happens is it became a physical relationship first and i don't mean sex when i say physical relationship because i can go to an aa meeting or anywhere and i can see a man that i like and a man that i that i admire and uh hear them speak see what they look like see how they're dressed see what they, pay attention. I'm paying attention! And hear their voice and like what they say, like the tone of their voice, and I become attracted to them. And that's a physical attraction. It's a physically attraction. And if I really like them physically in that respect, then I'll go up and I'll shake their hand and I will introduce myself and perhaps we'll sit down and we'll have a cup of coffee and we'll have a cup of coffee and we will talk about things and we have lunch next week and we go to meetings together or whatever it happens to be and that then is a mental relationship and if we do this on an ongoing basis we become friends and that's a spiritual relationship every relationship between human beings is the same way it starts out physical mental and spiritual now if you think for a moment that if you're having a little bit of trouble in your marriage or your relationship with somebody that you're going to heal it by talking about it you're wrong you heal it by being an attractive human being, a physically attractive human being and acting like it. And touching and shaking hands, making them aware of the fact that you care physically. If you do that and if you reassure them in physical sense, the first thing you know is they'll start talking to you and you develop a mental or intellectual relationship and as you do that you'll talk out your differences and gradually you will redevelop a spiritual relationship where you like each other but you've got to start out with the physical it's just like the first three steps it is the first 3 steps which are certainly physical mental and spiritual mental emotional whatever you want to call it and that can be true in courtship it can be true in any relationship that you have that you have those three elements you can be friends we don't compete we don t compete who's smartest who's dumbest sometimes who's maddest who's rightest you know it's what difference does it make in the long run what difference does it make you know you know he does something and feels good about herself it makes it much more pleasant for me to be around her because she's a much more pleasant person to be around i want her to be successful i really do because it makes her happy and if she's happy it sure makes it easy for me to be I want for her I really do I really care and i care for her to be successful at whatever she does because it pleases her and if it pleises her it pleaces me our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press radio and film and i think one of the things that i have assigned people that i that i sponsor to do when especially when they have a resentment toward their husband or something is is not to go and discuss that resentment with him because when that happens a lot of inventory taking goes on and it usually ends up in a brew haha than ever before but i go through the standard procedure of having them pray for him and so forth but i also like for them to do something for them and not get caught do something nice for them anything like wiping up talcum powder for example you know just cleaning it up a little bit you know erasing the footprints as they come out of the door that kind of thing he doesn't know i do it but boy it makes me feel good i've done a goodie for dick you know it's that kind thing and not get caught now what if i walk by her chair and her coffee cup is there and empty i can pick it up and take it in the kitchen get me a cup of coffee or take my empty cup in there and put it in a dishwasher what if what if she gets in a rush and puts some things on the dishwasher and has to run on the dish counter and that's to run out and i go in there i can put them in the dishwasher it's kindness and consideration it's no big deal it doesn't diminish me human being to put things in a dishwasher or to run the dishwasher or to take the dishes out and put them on the shelf except i don't really know where they go yes you do too he's just kidding he does it all the time but you know we don't have to figure out in anonymity we don'T HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHOSE TURN IT IS TO DO A GOOD DEED YOU KNOW HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED THAT GAME OH I DID THIS FOR YOU SO YOU GOT TO DO THIS FOR ME OH I did this i sacrificed for you well you got to sacrifice where's my sacrifice come on give me my bread what's what is partnership you know people get together in a partnership because of and by themselves they are one they're one thing they have a partner so that they can be enjoy with another person enjoy with another person and so in order to have joy in the relationship you have to give you have to give of yourself and it's no deal it's really very simple the last one really talks about being selfless it talks about self-sacrifice in a sort of a different way it is not having to have my rights always that isn't me that doesn't mean that i don't stand tall in the relationship it just means that i do n't always have to have m y way and thank god because it's like dick has said many times if if he ever really ran an aa meeting the way he wanted to run it nobody else would come yeah but i'd be there every week every week but nobody else would be there and so basically the spiritual foundation of a really attractive relationship is to think of others to be considerate of others to give each other a break, for God's sake. Give yourselves a break and lighten up. Thanks a lot, guys, for listening and all the rest of you.