Katie P. at the Big Book Experience Weekend – 2025

Hi guys, I'm Katie Parker. I'm an alcoholic. I'm sounding more like a man every day. Either that or Katharine Hepburn. I can't figure out which one of the two it is. I've been sober since October 28th of 1984 and that is 40 flippin' years. Can you believe that? i know i'm just i am blown away by that and you know uh 20 was a big deal 30 was was a pretty big deal but 40 was just what i am 40 years sober how did that happen and um i'm so fortunate i'm sorry i gotta have a cough drop in my mouth i am not quite sure what is going on with me, but hopefully one day this will be gone. I did, I was all worried about losing my voice a couple days ago, and most of y'all know that I am wrapped tight. That's putting it gently, and I go outside. I live on this ridge, and i go outside, and I hear these dogs in a horrific dog fight, and I am the first responder in life. Whatever it is, I have to be in the middle of it. There's no pause. There're no nothing. If there's gunfire, I'm in the middle of it, I mean I just by nature have done this all my life. I go running over to these dogs and one's a mastiff and one is pretty small and the woman with the small dog is way too old to pull it back and the girl with the mastiffs, it's freezing cold, her hat keeps going over her eyes and I'm witnessing all this quickly right and my dog trainer said you just scream as loud as you can and you go right into the middle of it just screaming and my voice is toast and all I could think of saved it saved the day but I ruined my voice for my big book weekend it was like oh so I'm trying to get back into it but it was really I love doing that stuff I love putting on the cape, and Charlie's like, oh my god, my wife does not know where she's going, but she's at the head of the line, and everybody's following her. Not sure where we're going, but just follow me. I have that commanding presence. Todd, thank you so much. I swear when I came in, I saw the new do. I thought, is that Todd? Looked at his name tag. I went, I'll be darned, that's Todd. And you know, he had six months when he asked us and I didn't ask him because I don't ask people how much time you got. And when you're booking out, those weekends are a big deal. Now he and I saw that conversation differently than he explained it, but it was more like, he said, so what do you do? And I said, well, this is the layout of it. And I'll never forget, it was not in this room, correct? It was, I remember the room was long and we were sitting there, and I just remembered thinking when I asked him, I said, how much time do you have? And he goes, 18 months. I go, for God's sakes, did you have six months when you asked us? He said, yeah. I said that's impressive. That's very impressive because, you know, most people might get on fire for AA, but they certainly don't try to put something like this on. And this is a lot of work, so my hat's off to everybody that did stuff. I'm a huge fan of the raffles, I always win and so Chad goes, over there he goes I just don't get excited about raffles and I said oh Chad that's one of the many things we could work on okay let's just look at all just keep them coming, I can help you here and I'm so grateful Chad's here doing this with me this is my first one without Charlie and I know everybody's, you know, has their own experience with what that's like. It's very difficult, and I'm a little, I don't quite know what the word would be, but I'm a little off my rocker right now on where I'm at with this. I used to, it was just like dancing with your dance partner. You know, I knew what Charlie would do, and I knew What I Would Do, and we just had a great dance, and And I got to tell you, you know, it's tough. It's very tough. So I'm doing okay today. I'm with my people I love and everything will go well. Charlie and I always weren't sure how we kicked this off. He always did the first step and we typically did the third step. But then somebody said one time, said you guys don't do much on the second step. So we started bringing the second steps more in and I don't find it quite as exciting as the third step but uh it is one of our steps and it's a big one so i'm gonna i'm gonna try to bring it in and uh i've done it before but it just you know it's it's just a lot more fun it's hard to explain spirituality it really is it's not the easiest thing to do so i'll keep you as entertained as i can and tomorrow we will just be kicking some serious tail okay we'll be going three through twelve but the second step is very experiential that's it's everybody has a different experience with the God of their understanding and it cracks me up because some one time somebody said you know I think I think we need to lighten up on this God thing and Charlie said because the new guy the new guys just doesn't dig it our book says half our fellowship didn't dig It and it's still half our Fellowship how many of you guys when you came into AA were down with the god thing raise your hand well that's less than half our fellowship. But you know what I mean? It's still that way today. It still works fine, but the problem is it's so experiential. You have to have whatever experience you're going to have with the God of your understanding, and the chapter We Agnostics makes it seem like the whole chapter is about God. Matter of fact, it's not. It's about prejudice, and we alcoholics have thousands of prejudice. I mean, we are prejudiced at how the traffic flows. How about let's have some construction and we could have done it better, okay? Why did they block that lane to the right off? They should have started way back there. I means, we don't like the way anything goes. And if it does go well for you, I'm kind of taken back. I'm like, I got to tell this person, good job. Good job. I'd set it up the same way. How's the room set up? How's this done? The grocery store. The grocery store is a disaster, just always a disaster. And if you got people going both ways or somebody leaves their cart, they should get a ticket. This is a problem. Whose cart is this? And so when you really wake up to how many prejudice you have, judgment, you can call the word whatever you want. I just use the word out of the book. It's shocking. It's shocking when we get into the tenth step. The tenth step is designed to watch your mind. It's a very difficult discipline. It does not come easily, and you have to work very, very hard at that discipline. But when you start watching through this next hour, watch how many things you agree with that I say and how many Things You Don't Agree With. Now, I'm not interested in it, to be very clear, but that's what we do. It filters in, yeah, no, don't really go with that one. Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's a good one. So that's what we're trying to wake up to is what our prejudices are. And we have a prejudice on everything, right? We have a set idea. We call them old ideas in the book. We have an idea of what we want to do. We have this set of old ideas. I always thought the word old ideas meant bad ideas. It doesn't. It's kind of like conference-approved literature. It sounds like if you bring anything in that's not conference-approved, it's not okay. Am I the only one who thought that? Yeah. It was weird. It's like, why don't we just say AA prints this? And if you want something else, that's cool. But see, so old ideas look like the word bad ideas to me. And my old ideas are not all bad. See, I'm a good mother, but I'm really a better mother than you are. I'm a good AA, but I'm really a better AA than you are. Because if you live in the alcoholism I live in, I am way better than everybody else at everything. And I don't even know how to do it. Am I getting some head nods or am I looking at... Did she just really say that out loud? So that's what I go through life as. I think that I could do everything in the world better than they did it. And so because of that, I've got to keep an eye on this, right? I'm in the Atlanta airport. Oh, my God. Whoever designed that did a very poor job. And there were many signs in that airport that were not helpful, you know? It's baggage south, baggage north. Well, I don't know which plane landed where that's going to get me to whatever it is. So I'm sitting there thinking, I'm looking up at the board and I'm thinking, well this was stupid. That's what I'm talking about. Wake up and watch how many of those you do. And it doesn't mean you're a negative person. It just means you have a lot of prejudice. I came into this world, you know, like little mighty mouse. I was third born. My brother and sister and I, we were all two years apart. That was pretty much what you did in the 50s. I'm raised by World War II vets, which I personally think the children of today need a little of that in their world, but I won't touch that one. You know, a little bit of, you Know, that's pick up the trash now kind of deal. And so I have a lot of prejudice behind that. If I go, I go to the hike and bike trail every day. It's a beautiful trail, but it's right across the street from the high school. I have a problem with these children. Big problem. This is not a small problem.This is a big problem. So I decided that I need to not go when they're at lunch and not go When they get out of school. Well, every once in a while I get that screwed up. And sure enough, I pull up and there they all are. And I'm like, I am walking on this trail. And if you walk in my space if you don't look up and walk in my one of us is going to jail it's probably going to be me but I mean that's the kind of stuff that really gets me now to some people you may think wow you got it too I'm just telling you mine okay so I got to use my experience so you can now you could be the ego turned inward and you wouldn't say peep but it's what goes on up here that determines what's going on. Now, I don't think I'll ever get over the younger generation. They bug the crud out of me. They just do. Right now, they're really bugging me bad. But it's a whole transition. My dad could not stand Jimi Hendrix on TV. Jesus Christ! Is he playing that guitar with fire coming out of his mouth? So every generation usually looks back at the generation before with a lot of judgment. so I don't think it's too terribly abnormal. I'm just telling you my side of the story My mom died when I was eight She had a kidney disease and back in that day, you couldn't even a small child couldn't go in the hospital It was really weird. I didn't I had totally forgotten that until I realized the nurses were standing there when we were walking down the hall and they were kind of like What is going on? We don't know she's dying We're not going in to say goodbye but that's what we were doing because you just weren't told a lot and my dad told us the next day you know your mom died last night and unfortunately you know we didn't have grief groups and we didnít have everything you have today. It was 1967 for heavenís sakes and my Dad took everything out of the house that was hers and now that was weird to me. I mean the pictures off the wall, clothes out of the closet, everything was gone but what he did because back then is when the men worked and the women were housewives, right? That's just pretty natural. It was very unusual to have a woman that was the breadwinner. And so he worked up in Pittsburgh. We were in Houston, and he had to get on a plane on Mondays and come back on Fridays. So we needed somebody to take care of us. Well, my dad remarried three times in 18 months. Charlie would go, He could close a deal. Man, that man could close A deal. And they were always beautiful women. And one of them was on the cover of Life magazine. And I didn't like her at all. But apparently, too, he managed to get her pregnant. And I now have a half-brother who is in this fellowship, which is just wild. But I love Roger with all my heart. But boy, oh boy, is he a hot mess. And we had four live-in housekeepers. So in an 18-month period, seven women came through my life. And when I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would tell you that's what made me alcoholic because for many years I thought something made us alcoholic. Today I understand it as a genetic bullet. That's the way I see it. You don't have to see it that way. That's what I see. And my brother's a hard drinker. My sister's an Al-Anon that likes to get her drink on. And my step-siblings, I just don't really see them too terribly often and I don't think they have a drinking problem. My dad, on the other hand, was a hard drunker. But when I got sober, I thought he was an alcoholic so anyone that drank too much Was alcoholic because I didn't understand what it meant to be alcoholic I did not understand the physical allergy in the mental obsession So a 12-step call is a little little challenging when you go on it And you don't really know exactly what you're talking about So once you get educated on what it means to be Alcoholic I think 80% of our fellowship doesn't know what it to be alcoholic I don't think I was one of the unique ones at 17 years that didn't understand it and when Charlie and I woke up to Mark Houston's thing remember Charlie was dragging me around at that time I did not want to go see Mark Houston I couldn't believe we were driving three and a half hours to go to a for God's sakes big book weekend what it what is that Charlie and he said when we're trying to listen to Chris Raymer on the CD and he was bugging the crap out of me. I thought, you're telling me I'm killing our newcomers? Turn him off. He goes, Charlie's like, good God, can we just listen to the man? You're not going to tell me at 17 years what I'm doing? And I had done all the codependency group therapy between Al-Anons and alcoholics for 10 years. I mean, that was intense stuff. I'm not saying that was bad. As a matter of fact, that Was a gift because I can hear inventory really well. What it did, the problem is, I wasn't treating my alcoholism, right? I didn't even know what the spiritual aspect was. I thought if I went to church, I was doing the spiritual aspects. So it's kind of a moshposh of crazy stuff, but had Charlie not been so on fire with Mark Houston, and I mean, we fought like crazy at that little Girl Scout camp. You know how we always have those AA events at Boy Scout camps and Girl Scout camps and Kalichi Road pouring down rain, and I am so pissed off. I don't even want to be there. And because Charlie drugged me and Charlie was starting to look like he was getting something and I wasn't, well, we can't have that. Nope, nope. Charlie and I were the yin and the yang man. I mean, we were just elbowing our way to the front of the line. You know, most people can't handle that in a relationship, but I gotta tell you, it was wonderful. And because Charlie was getting ahead of me. That was a problem, so I thought, well, I better buckle down on this nonsense, and the next thing you know, I mean, it's unbelievable. My sponsor and I, Marty has about five years less than me, and she was a good friend. She wasn't a best friend. She was a great friend. I said, Marty, I'm in real trouble, and I was in real trouble. I almost drank at 17 years, and I'm talking 50 feet to a Heineken bottle that almost drank. It was like a twig snap, so don't fool yourself. If you're not doing what's required, your odds of drinking are much higher than you think, and that's not a threat. That's a fact. You hear a lot of people with double digits go out, and it's typically between 10 and 20 years, and everything's just not going right. You're living outside your value systems. You know, having an affair you're cheating from the company whatever it is you're doing that stuff will pile up and that one day will be just like a twig snapped and I told Marty I said Marty I'm not doing well at all I need a sponsor and she didn't have one at the time but she's really really smart her dad was a rocket scientist her mom was a concert pianist and so she was very talented and uh yeah she could do it all she could play the piano why teach me the steps you know But she said, what was so cool about that is because the big book is a textbook, she said – I think she had 12 years. I had 15 or 16. And she said I'm going to take you through the book because it's a textbook and I understand a textbook. Now I, on the other hand, am clearly dyslexic. I cheated my way through school. I got nothing. I mean I got Nothing. I still don't have anything. You've got to sit it down, break it down. And it's best if it's on a chalkboard for me. Then I can see it. but she took me through the book and what was so remarkable other than she almost killed me she kept me in the second step too long that did almost kill me but it didn't and uh she taught the book to me because she understood a textbook which is exactly what bill and bob did in the early days right they handed if you look at the history of alcoholics anonymous they gave a guy a book and said you got to go to warmer climate he brought it to texas and from there it happened So, I mean, don't underestimate. You're in this room. What's getting ready to happen to you when you have the book broken down or whatever it is you hear us say, you take that and it's like Todd said, it's that ripple effect. You will be shocked at what happens, but you're going to sacrifice a weekend for it. That's just the nature of it. And your whole story is about recovery, right? What you did, what you didn't do. I swear, I tell people, whatever you didn't do, it's cool. I'd rather have you tell me the truth than try to make yourself look good. You know, if you're saying, well, I don't have many problems, let me follow you around for about two days. You know? I mean, the alcoholic of our variety, it is what goes on up here that nobody ever sees or hears. And Mark used to say that we are asleep dreaming we are awake. And that line always got me. That was one of the ones that was just baffling to me, because it wasn't that I was blowing the world up. Well, I was, but not everybody is blowing the world up. But it's what happens to us when we are not doing the things that Chad ended his talk with, not doing those things. I didn't even know you had to do them. So I am going through life with counseling and everything, and I'm keeping it together most of the time. on page 44 through 57 we agnostics uh i like to understand the word agnostic and agnestic is one who neither affirms nor denies the existence of a personal deity now to me i really don't care what if you believe in god or if you don't believe in God rock on it i am not going to sit here and try to convince you that you have to have this power i'm not going rob you from an experience you're going to have. It's going to be an uncomfortable one, but I will let you do whatever you want to do. I'm not the sponsor who's going tell you what you need to do, I will tell you if we agree to step work, you're gonna do that. But, you know, I'm not the one to tell you which job to take, what car to buy, I always like to say what boy to date, but i can tell you that one is not good, right? It's gonna be a lot of work for me right now, I can already see it coming. But you know who am I to say who works and who doesn't I guarantee Charlie and I most people saw Charlie and I here and you saw a couple of fights, you know because we were because he was just a microphone hog and and then he was such a such a swell good old guy and then I look like the nagging chick, you Know, I mean we brought sponsors in everything and I told Charlie I said I guarantee if you were doing a big book weekend with Mark Houston, you would never do that. And he goes, that's true, but I'm not. So there you had it. Back to the fighting. But one of the things is, is the first really five years, Chad, were you in the world when Charlie and I were really struggling? Had you come into our world then? Okay. So people see Charlie and I, oh, I wish I had what you guys had. Oh my God. I am shocked that we lived through that. It was World War III. I mean, I broke up with him 22 times, and one time Charlie was making fun of that. I said, do you want me to tell the group why? He goes, no, I'm sorry, I didn't think so, okay? So let's talk about that. Charlie did not know how to have a marriage, period. He'd had many, and they didn't work, and I had been in a marriage and I knew how to do marriage because That's really important. How many of you guys know what I'm saying? How many know how to do marriage? Three people. Wow, okay. And you know what? You're not really confident in that hand raised like... It's like, I know how to do married, man. And let me tell you, that doesn't mean I'm nailing it. But I know what the concept is about. I know there's a give and a take and all that good stuff. I get it, but what was difficult is, you know, Charlie would, I'd leave his house. It was a 25-minute drive. We live in the hill country. There's deer everywhere, and he wouldn't call me when I got home, and I'd tell him, why do you not call me when I get home to make sure that I'm home? You didn't even ask me to call you. I'm just curious. Were you just trying to get me out of the house so you could play online poker, you know and smoke a pack of cigarettes? And he was so taken back by those simple things. And at the same time, the one thing about Charlie Parker is when he, I told him, I said, look, whoever marries me is going to spend a ton of time with me. That's the kind of woman I am. I'm not, I don't want you to be a hunting husband. I don'T want you TO BE A GOLF HUSBAND. I WANT TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU. And so Charlie said, I've never done that before. I thought, well, let's give it a shot. And I mean, we shot shotguns together. We did AA together and he would tell me all the time, And he goes, I cannot believe how much I love spending time with you. And I thought, to me, that's the only way you do it. I mean, I love it. But that's not for everybody. But it was for Charlie and I. And to teach him how to be in a marriage was, we were together seven years before we got married. So, you know, there was some dust-ups. And I think that's important for people to hear. He wouldn't mind if he was here, I'd be telling you that. because so many people don't think marriages or relationships can start out really bumpy, really bumpy. And especially if you fall in love in the rooms, it's not only bumpy, it's public. You're like, oh boy, here we go, here we go. So I love what it says on page 44, the beginning of we agnostics, right? The very first paragraph. Now let me be very clear here. I understand when people are saying, I see my sister drink a glass of wine and she leaves half of it. I don't understand that. I know that's a joke, but I think it's really important to understand what this chapter is saying. So it sums up the doctor's opinion all the way to 43. It says in the preceding chapters, you've learned something of alcoholism. We hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. Isn't that interesting so you need to know the difference between the two so your sister leaves half the glass because she's not alcoholic so it's really important i've had somebody in our meeting last week say i just don't understand why people don't drink the whole drink well i do they're not not and they don't even have to be alcoholic they just drink because they like the effect produced until they don't there is no effect produced by us because we just blow past that right and i mean and i'm telling you what chad chad's story in hugo oklahoma uh remember when we did that little uh baseball game with the wiffle ball and charlie and i were i'm sorry oh my god i am so competitive that we have to have a little kid and an old person on every team, which I think is stupid. The little kids and the old people need to be watching. They don't need to pee on the teams, whatever. And so Charlie's on first base and the six-year-old whacks the ball. I grab it and I throw it to Charlie and he's pretending like he's, you know, the kid's coming at him. I'm going tag him, tag him. Charlie's like, I'm gonna tag the six year Well, I will. When he comes around the third base, he's out. Oh, my God. I remember. Oh, yeah. We were the speakers too, which was really lovely. So it says, if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Now, this is what's going to explain alcoholism. Or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you're probably alcoholic. They summed it up in three lines. Is that not remarkable? And it says, if that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. That is such bad news. Bad, bad news! I mean, come on, how many times have you thrown out this? Now, if you love you some Jesus or you love yourself some God, that's not too bad of news. But you saw the hands that raised on who was and who wasn't in this. And you guys are, this is considered the South, isn't it? in Atlanta, Georgia. I don't know. I don't where South Carolina is. I don't what North Carolina is your states are about that big and they're all bunched together and Texas it takes you a day-and-a-half to get out of so I get all confused. So are you closer to the coast or farther away from the coast? Okay, but you still the south. Okay. So where does the south stop when you go up Mason Dixon? Well, I don't know where that is. Maryland. Okay, so we're all the way up there. Okay. I don'T know what Mason or Dixon did, but apparently they drew a line somewhere and said you can't cross this. Oh, Chad, I told Chad, I said, I just really don't dig doing this step. He goes, oh, tell stories. I cheated through school so badly. And I mean, I am an incredibly successful businesswoman. But I don't know how to spell anything. I think I spelled agnostics, listen to this, A-G-A-O-S-Z-T-I-C-H-E-S. And they're my notes, so I really don't care. But my son, it's in the book, I know, but see, I was typing. So I was typin', and it had the red line under it, and I said, I don' t care. and uh so and remember Charlie was the Mr. Big Brain you know that sounded out so my son and I both are dyslexic but back when I was a kid they weren't doing anything for it when my son was a child I got to sit in his classroom of course I crying in the background I needed this but uh so I told Sam I said and keep in mind with this grief and And Charlie's world fell on me. I mean, my husband's entire world fell on me and he was all about me not having to do anything. It was really spectacular. I had to lean into that because I'm really not that girl. I like running the show and he just did everything and then all of a sudden when we get the news in two months he's going to be gone, you don't get your affairs in order, you know, you go have fun. And we went and shot at a shotgun thing and did the Tennessee talk and then And then when he passed, I was absolutely overwhelmed. So I'm a little brain foggy with all of this. So my son comes over and we're talking. He goes, and he's really smart these days. I mean, he's into podcasts and history, you know, videos and all this stuff. And I said, Sam, I said you know I graduated in 1776. I mean 19, excuse me, 1976. And I say, but something really big was going on. And I said, because they called it the Bicentennial, and they kept talking about 1776. And I looked at him, I go, so what happened? And he goes, and I go what happened, and he goes you really don't know mom? And then remember we're sitting at the table Chad, and nobody could figure, yes, nobody at the Table could actually identify what it was either. Was it the Declaration of Independence, or was it what? What happened in 1776? Aha! About four people answered that question. So I'm not the only one who didn't know what happened. I know it's something big. I don't know if it's the Civil War where they came shooting at each other or what, but I apparently did not pay much attention. So at the break, you can tell me because my son couldn't even get it out. But that's the world I live in. That's, I, and I am not at all ashamed of that. I mean, I don't, I just, that's just who I am. I just am okay with me. So you got to be in that spot in life where this, you and the creator are okay. That doesn't mean I don'T get upset. That doesn'T mean I DON'T get frustrated. Rarely do I get embarrassed, rarely. Now, I could get embarrassed when Charlie and I had a dust up and he made it look like me and I looked like the nagging wife. I didn't care for that. But other than that, I really didn't carry on or care about any of the things that I show up with. And I think that that's what makes us so fortunate. What we have in Alcoholics Anonymous is you need to be you. That's all you got to do. Be the best you you can be because that's one of God's kids, right? You're going to fall. You're gonna stumble. You're gong to make mistakes. You're goign to say silly stuff. But the truth of the matter is, it's this inward love you got to have. You got to like who you are. And if you don't, I promise, if you do this process, you will begin to like Who You Are. You will be able to help people in a way that no one else can. And that's a very good feeling. Step one, Chad said, we're not trying to convince you that you have a problem. We're trying to convinced you you have no solution. See, you try to talk to an alcoholic about drinking as a problem, they hear white noise, right? just whatever. And why would I be interested in this power if I thought I could do it on my own power? So most of the time when I tell somebody, you know, look, I don't work that much with new people. I do have one new one. Oh my God, she's such a hot mess. She just, she, I could tell you what a hot mass she is. And she goes, did you talk about me? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I did yeah. Yes, I didn't. But I typically work with mostly people that are in untreated alcoholism because the new person, and hear me loud and clear, the newperson is like somebody handing you a brand-new baby. You have to be there for every call. I really believe that. You don't get to not be there. So don't say yes if you can't do that. And this girl came to me, and of course she knew a couple of people I knew, and I know these people really well. And she dropped the bomb on me with that, and then I said, you know what? Look, I don't typically sponsor new people. My life is really crazy. I got 80 bazillion other ones, But I will find you somebody. I never make you leave without a sponsor. You're going to have somebody. So for three days straight in a row, I took it into prayer. And God normally gives it to me almost right away. And he kept saying, it's you. I'm like, no, it'S not. Not doing it. Not doing It. And by day three, she had 44 days at the time. By day three I was playing with somebody's life. And I thought, are you kidding me, God? You want me to do this? so i said okay fine i'll do it so i called her and i said look you know let's let like i took her through some stuff and and then i had her write an inventory right away because the process is very quick you know and uh eight o'clock saturday morning she's supposed to come over we're going to do the inventory and i had my buddy bill come over to the house because he's going to help me clean the garage out because my house flooded a month after charlie died six six inches of water through. Oh, I could just, the plethora of shit. It's been unbelievable. And so all of a sudden Bill's out there and he's got a trailer and I said, Bill, I'll be out in a minute. I see this chick walking up to the house and it looked like she had her pajamas on and some flip flops and some fuzzy clothes and I thought, what is she selling? Is this a solicitor or something? And I open the door and she goes, am I early? And I thought... Oh my God, I am so sorry. You're Carly? Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Come on in, come on in. I went out and I was like, Bill, I'm not gonna be helping you with the garage. Apparently I made a commitment to do a fifth step and that girl has literally saved my life. All the whining, all the pissing and moaning, it has been remarkable what this young lady has done for me. And I would have preferred not to do it. So I hope you start to work on that relationship with the creator that you can hear the undeniable voice, and that we'll get much more into. You've got it. The undenial voice of God is present for everybody no matter how blocked you are. God talked to us drunk. He talked to a sober, right? You heard it drunk. You heard the voice. No, don't. Don't go. Stay. That's the voice of god, right, good conscience. Call it whatever you want to call it, but that's what we're talking about. It says on page 45 lack of power was our dilemma. That's a big dilemma, right? Obviously, but where and how are we to find that power? Well, that's exactly what the book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself by which will solve your problem. Now, here's something really important and this is controversial and I'm lobbing it out and if you have issue with it, please don't talk to me this weekend. I can't hear any controversy. Sometimes I can handle it, but I always had Charlie? Stepping in. So I just, you can talk chat. So one of the things that I think we misunderstand, and I know it because I did, is we are alcoholics. We have the mothership program, right? We have The One and Only, the first ever program, Alcoholics Anonymous. It says it will solve all my problems. So if you have a sex problem, if you have a money problem, if you have a food problem, if you have all these other problems, you don't have to go to another 12-step fellowship. We have the mothership. It's not treating our alcoholism which causes us to go out different avenues. Now I know people in OA are like, I don't like the sound of that. I understand. But I'm telling you, Charlie used to say he could be an octo-winner, right? Because he was messed up in every area. I mean, you just watch my boy and he was a mess. But we are fortunate that if we work this program as if our life depends on it, and that will be the weekend of explaining what that looks like, give it a try and see if it doesn't take care of your pornography, take care OF your gambling. Now here's the tough thing with these computers and stuff. You've got to get off of it. Okay? You might even have to change your phone number because once you get into something, you're going to get pelted with it over and over. If you have problem with people on Facebook, guess what? Get rid of it. What a concept. And people go, oh, but my grandkids like to see the picture. Oh, no. No, if that causes you problems, get rid of them for a while. See what happens. Because you see, just because we have a phone doesn't mean I need to track my kids. Probably better that you don't. thank god nobody was tracking me you know what i mean so that's what i tell my you know my my one of my sponsors oh my kids they just yeah i go turn the damn thing off quit tracking these children they're kids they're gonna get in trouble they're going to do bad stuff you don't see so you got to really ask yourself can i can i really get off of facebook yeah charlie and i have no social media ever have i said oh i'm not interested in what somebody had for lunch no it's like i just have I have way other things in my world but that disturbs people to do that they're like well I I need oh no if you have a problem with people on Facebook that's not what you want to add into this computer of what's going on because I guarantee when you see that person it's hard not to have that pull it up right and all of a sudden you go oh that's the one that's oh how about just people sharing in meetings you go oh god is he going to share oh right i mean we're just trying to get over that and so imagine all the information we are putting in ourselves i'm just saying it's an option uh so page 44 second paragraph now listen to this this is a bad doctor's visit charlie used to say to be doomed to an alcoholic death or live along spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. I went and did a 12-step call for my buddy's daughter, and I just love this guy with all my heart, and my first husband worked with him. They built all the Whole Foods all over the country, and he said, I'm trying to do this 12- step call. Now, I know very little about recovery at this point. I don't understand a 12-stepp call, but I'm doing it because that's what we're supposed to do, and, and I read this line and my buddy goes hold on just a second and it was his daughter so he's a he's actually a very strong Christian man he goes so you're telling me alcoholics have a hard time deciding spiritual help or an alcoholic death and I thought well now that you put it that way yeah yes I know it sounds crazy doesn't it but the rest of the world hears that and goes what is wrong with these people, and yet we just laugh. We just, I mean, that's what's so wonderful about us, is that somebody could tell a horrific story, and we just all start laughing. Oh, I remember that. Remember that? And that's What's So Fortunate About Us, and if you're not feeling that fun and that humor, oh, let me tell you, just call me. We'll laugh about some stuff. um okay so all we have is identification and power charlie used to say you know when we want to get rid of this god thing those that's a word one trick pony that's all we got if we want to get ridof this godthing he says because we're afraid we're running off the new guy he says i think the not drinking should be running offthe new guy more than the god thing you know if you think about it page 46 first paragraph starts to talk about all the prejudice i'll let you study that on your own prejudice means without examination I think a lot of times we just immediately judge something and I don't even have to know a lot about it I mean I can I can pull up to an intersection and think why is this light as a matter of fact we were doing that today why is this light 18 seconds this light should be at least 30 seconds to get these cars through because this is a ridiculous lane so while while let's which by the way you guys were fabulous while he was driving I was thinking now if it had been me I probably would have gone in the straight lane and circled back around and come in the other Charlie goes my wife if she sees brake lights she squirts out she just just I don't care I don'T CARE I'M NOT DOING IT I JUST CANNOT STAY SITTING AND THERE'S A WHOLE CHAD IS THE WORST LEMMING I HAVE EVER SEEN REMEMBER WHEN we were in New Jersey. Oh my God, I'm dying in the backseat. I'm like, Chad, this is a stop traffic, so if you just go slow next to him, closer to the front, somebody's looking at their phone and you just sneak in. Well, he enjoyed me having trouble in the Backseat. I'll just play another hand of solitaire. It's an 18 so far, but I don't know, are any of you guys like that in a car? I do not, I do not. I need to drive. I need the drive. And Charlie put the kibosh on all that. Oh yeah. Joe surrendered. Charlie Joe, that was, and I Joe and Charlie's big book, that's I just happened to be married to a Joe and I happened to be married with Charlie. So Charlie was not having me tell him what to do. He put the kabosh on that. Joe didn't. He surrendered. So there you go. Two different marriages. We got to look at self-reliance versus God reliance. And I'm telling you guys, that's a very difficult question. What is self-reliance? What is God reliant? I'd love to say that driving, I could surrender driving. I realize that I don't do it well. I'm grumpy. I'm, you know, nobody drives right, which apparently it's me. And when I'm on the phone, my buddy goes, Do you realize how many people you've been upset with? Now, you would never know it because I'm not going to stare at you. I'm just going to be grumpy. So I just drive grumpy and I said, yes, Brian, I am aware of this. I am a really good driver. Everybody else is a bad driver. So one of the reasons I'm telling you this is find out in your life how you have something like that going on. This is just me being vulnerable and telling you where my tough areas are. And I'm also very difficult in an airport. I'm difficult in lines in general. I don't really like lines. I feel like they are a test who can get to the front of the line fast enough. I'm in the airport. God, this was a long time ago. My girlfriend was turning 40 and her birthday's between Christmas and New Year's. Well, I didn't realize that's the busiest time at the airport Just FYI, I thought it was Thanksgiving. So I get to the airport a little later than I should have, and the line is out the door at the airport. And I thought, oh my God, I'm going to miss the flight. It's a surprise party. I'm not going to be there. You know the angst, right? It just revs up the engines, and I look at the guy behind me, and I said, buddy, I want you to come with me. I'm gonna cut the line. If you want to come avec me, come avec mi. I don't even know who he is. And he's like this. Okay, well, you're on your own, dude, because I'm really good at this stuff. So, and you know the line is the one at Southwest where you got to do this thing the whole way. And I mean, I am going through that line. Excuse me, excuse me, and only one person grabbed my arm. I'm like, oh, that was close. Got all the way up to the front. And I, and I mean I'm talking the whole line from out the door. Oh yeah, I'm good. I am really good. And all of a sudden I'm coming up and I've run out of plan. You can't just stand there and wait for her to say next, right? Excuse me. Excuse me excuse me, excuse me. So all of a sudden I'm scanning the crowd and I see a woman at the counter, two teenage kids and the husband standing behind. Well, that's my gal, right? She's running the show. I needed a woman that was running the show and I walked up to him and I said, sir, can I be a part of your family because I'm going to miss my flight. And he looks at me and goes, honey, your sister's here. And she turns around, she goes, okay. And I walked all the way of the earth up to the plane. They were getting on my plane to San Diego, and the best part of this story is the guy that I told him I was cutting the line got on the plane, yeah. That was a moment where I thought, well, you never know. You could have missed it. Glad that I saw that, but most people will not do what I do, so I have lots of experience. So four through nine are about getting unblocked for the sunlight of the Spirit, right? The sunlight ofthe Spirit is always there. It's always waiting. It wants us to connect so badly. Some days are better than others. Some days it's very hard to hear. But in the 10th step, it says that when we pause when agitated or doubtful, right, well, I'm much more doubtful these days than I am agitated. I'm more doubtfull. Should I say this to the person? I know this is a heavy conversation. God, guide me in what I need. If I hear nothing, I do nothing. But if I hear the voice go, yes, okay, good deal. So the whole idea is of getting unblocked. And to get unblock, you have to do a discipline in these 12 steps that's going to be more than you can handle. Most people, it's goingto be more then you can. Because I feel that way and I've been doing it a long time. And one of the things that I tell you is you only want to do it till like from now till tonight. Don't worry about tomorrow. you're just going to watch your thinking from right now till tonight that's it and then when you get up in the morning if you have a morning time if you do something you could certainly do an evening review but we're not really that far yet but i just want you to get into the practice of watching your thinking don't judge it it is what it is and that baby is running a high octane up there it just runs a high octave it says because we're getting unblocked so the sunlight the spirit if you're blocked it's very difficult for the sunlight of the spirit to shine through us and we get blocked just by the calamities of the world so it says here actually we were fooling ourselves for deep down inside every man woman and child and forgive me i don't know exactly where this is uh man woman in child is the fundamental idea of god may be obscured by calamity by pomp by worship of other things but in some form or another it's there and one of the things that I think is so interesting is because obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things. I think we as human beings worship so many things. Oh my gosh. And that just means to obsessively turn your attention to, you know, you have kids all of a sudden, they're the highest priority. You know, they got to have soccer, they gotta have this, they gotta Have this. I'm not saying don't do that. I'M JUST SAYING, LOOK AT THESE OBSTACLES and your path. 10 and 11, they're the disciplines to keep us unblocked. And the 12th step is to continue to practice while we carry the message. So I think it's very interesting. I think I see people, and this is what I did for many, many years, but I see people working with others. And that's mainly their practice is working with other people. And that is great right up until that doesn't fix the problem you have. And working with the others is what we are supposed to do. It is our duty. It is our 12th step, but we have to be watching the thinking and then doing the evening review that tells us what answered these questions. Did you do a pretty good job on watching for resentment, dishonesty, selfishness, and fear? And let me tell you, that'll keep you busy. Just try to do it for 15 minutes. It's a lot of a challenge, and as we go through the weekend you will uh really begin to see what we're talking about uh here's the problem we fall asleep so mark used to say we go through life's uh sleepwalk and dream and we're awake and then what the 10th step off the wall is right that we continue to take personal inventory and when we're wrong promptly admit it that's the wake-up step right if you and i think that's the problem is we take the steps off the wall and we work the steps off the walls. We don't necessarily crack the book. You know, if I say to somebody what's the third step mean to you that I've turned my life and will over to the care of God as I understand it? Well, that's a step on the wall. I'm with you on that. But what's the depth? What's the root of our problem? Tenth step, same thing. Tenth step is damage control, taking off the walk. So I go through life asleep, dreaming I'm awake, and then I step on somebody's toes in a meeting isn't that a good spot to step on somebody's toes and they retaliate and they're pissed and the next thing you know they're barbing me and uh and i realized oh my god i gotta i gotta make an amends that was really thoughtless of me to have done that so i go back and i make the amends and then i fall back asleep that was my 17 years now don't get me wrong in those 17 years of sobriety and recovery i helped a lot of people me being sober was a big flipping deal and i sponsored a lot of people and I helped a lot of people but what I understand today is a much better message a much deeper message and it's the difference between life and death it really is and I'm just honored to share this with Chad, I just love Chad with all my heart, I couldn't have made it he was there through hospice with me, with Charlie and God's just so good God puts the right people in your life when you need the right People page 53 are the bedevilments now these you want highlighted underlined scored the whole nine yards this is a doozy these bedevils means unrelenting torture we love using a dictionary unrelenting torture is what a bedevilement is so now ask yourself don't just answer yes or no take a brief moment with each of these questions we were having trouble with our personal relationships i'm not saying your marriage how about your son your daughter your neighbor your boss, your aunts, your uncles. Dig a little deeper than the current ones. We couldn't control our emotional nature. Are you the person that flips somebody off in the car? Are you the one that gets frustrated and is at the back of the line? Now, I'll tell you what, if you're in New Jersey, they are all emotionally stunted. I mean, I'm telling you what they're like, Jesus Christ, good God, did they get their sandwich? I'm like, oh my gosh, Chad left. Hugo, I love my New Jersey friends, but let me tell you something. You know if you've pissed one of them off because they're going to tell you and I mean you guys are in the south. Anybody in here from New Jersey? Oh boy, there we go. I love New Jersey. It is, but you know it's interesting because if you, if you are in New York, one of the big things in Newark City, not in the upstate New York. New York City, they just all yell at you. You know, you yell at the cabbie and you yell at this. I mean, that's an interesting and exaggerated, but if that's going on in your head and it's not coming out your mouth, that is still the same thing. So then it says we were prey to misery and depression. Oh boy, that' s a doozy in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's heartbreaking to me. And if you've been clinically diagnosed with that, that''s a tough one. That''s really tough, because I do believe that's real. And that's a tough one to get you out of, but we can get you better. We couldn't make a living. Now most of us can do that, but I'll tell you what, if you're in that vicious cycle where you can't make a living, that is some dark, dark thinking. Some dark thoughts. Because it's very difficult if you don't have the money. We had a feeling of uselessness. Once again, if your not having sponsees, we gotta get you to change that up a little bit. We need to make you useful. Be useful at work. Be useful at home. Try to see what you could bring instead of take. We're takers. We were full of fear. Very interesting. I'm the kind of girl who takes a step forward when I get angry and so I didn't see fear for many many years but it's always there. I see it much more. We'll get into that in the fourth step. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. These bedevilments are available in sobriety and I can't tell you how many people Charlie and I when we would just go to a conference and tell our story that somebody in the line would be crying as a matter of fact Mel has given me permission to tell this story we're in uh Wisconsin and this gentleman and his wife come up and he is just bawling and I just finished talking and I mean he is crying hard. And I thought, okay. And he said, my God, you just told my story. And his wife was like this. And she's a tough Al-Anon. And He said, I have 40 years sober and I'm not doing anything. And I though, oh, my god, this is a first. I have not ever had somebody with 40 years being this emotional. And said, tell you what, I'll help you out. Call me. And I'll be damned if he didn't call me, and you know, he's on PPG, and Ray sponsors him now, and his wife gave him permission to work with me, which I was very impressed with that. I don't know I would have let Charlie do that, you know? It's like, oh, hell no. That ain't happening. No, no, no. But she did. Mel was incredibly respectful. We worked together for a year, and he is on fire. He's in his 80s. As a matter of fact, he just celebrated 45 years. Or he may have celebrated 50 just recently. We call each other and talk to each other. But I've never seen anybody with that much time get past their ego saying, I need help. It was incredible. Incredible, incredible. And so if you have a feeling like that, run with it. Don't stop it because you'll get another opportunity maybe, but some bad stuff will happen between now and then. When I was in untreated alcoholism, I'm going to go for about five more minutes. When I was in untreated alcoholism, I was, I mean, I think it's obvious my personality is very loud, very aggressive, very in your face. And I thought that was okay. I mean that's how my family was raised. And Mike, I Was a big yeller. And that's just what we did. How many of y'all are yellers? Yeah, if you're a yeller, and let me tell you, if you get with somebody that's not a yealler, well, it just goes down the tubes. I mean they're just like. Charlie was not a yeller, and he was bigger than me. So he managed to keep that out of the relationship. But my kids, I yelled at my kids a lot. I yell at my dog. I just yell. And my kids now yell at their children. And now I see it from a different perspective and I don't like it. I wished I hadn't done that but I did and it is what it is. Well, I'm pulling up to where my son works at this really cool grocery store and I run into a buddy of mine in AA and he's got his son with him and his son's a big MMA fighter, and he's a pretty big deal. And I see my son come out of the grocery store that he works at, and I'm screaming, Sam, Sam, come here, come Here. You know, and I was like, I'm just doing this. Well, he just kind of, and he just goes back in, and I thought, what the hell was that about? And I tell my buddy, I said, oh, well, maybe another time I'll introduce you to my son. So I go into the store, and I said Sam, what happened? He goes, Mom, what was going on out there? I said I wanted you to meet my buddy's son. He's MMA. And he goes, oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were yelling at the guy for taking your parking spot. That boy's never seen me drink, okay? So don't be fooled that children don't see some crazy stuff. I mean, wow. And I swear I just had that moment where I thought, gosh, and I don't live in, I've damaged these kids. I don'T live in that world, but I do certainly see. And when they yell at their kids, it does bother me. You know what I mean? But, I mean, I'm 67 and it's just different. But you can't stop them. You can't get them to not do that, right? I mean that's just what they were raised on, these old ideas. And I think sometimes we think we're going to change it and we're not going to do what our parents did to us. And Bob Besson says it the best. He goes, oh, we're gonna do 100 things more worse than what our parents did. I will tell you this one story about, oh my God, it was when Joe was really, really sick. of driving that damn school bus, and I mean, it is tough, and how many of y'all know that? Tough, tough. Come on, come on. Let me see a show of hands. Life can get tough, and you're really having a hard time, and i'm late for work, not at the bus. I'm off the bus going to go teach my fitness class, and there's gridlock traffic, and everybody stopped at a light, and we're not going anywhere, and in real trouble. I should have just parked my car and walked because I could see the building. And the light turned, but it was my turn to get through the light. You know, one person at a time was doing it kind of like a Rubik's Cube. And this guy wasn't going to let me do it. And there was something about when he got past me, and I snapped. And I mean, I got out of the car. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is 15 years sober. And I fisted my hands up, and I went up to his car, And I just knocked the side door and said some very ugly things. And he goes like this. And he tries to get out of his car, and it was in slow motion. I don't know if you ever have been in that fit of rage, and everything's just moving in slow emotion. And he's trying to get Out of His Car, and he's got his seatbelt on, which was really quite comical. And I'm just looking at him, and I'm screaming ugly stuff at him. And he unhooks his seat belt, but he doesn't put his car in park. And it rolls, and It hits the car in front of him. So now, he's really mad. This is gridlock traffic, but let's not forget, it's Texas, okay? So no telling what's going to come out of these cars. And all of a sudden, this guy comes out and he goes to take a swing at me and I'm backing up, knocks my glasses off, and the next thing I know, two guys, one truck over here, one truck other here, they tackle the guy. One of them has a billy club because it's in Texas and he gets the guy in a throat lock. Well, I think that means he's holding him for me to march over there and just tell him what I think. And the guy goes, lady, get out of here. And I thought, oh, I read that wrong. Sorry about that. Sorry about dat. And so I go back in my car, and it was like an ambulance. Everybody parted their car like an ambulances. And I got through there, and when I came back into, you know, I told you I could see my building. It was like I was in a blackout. I mean, I had a moment where I went, oh my God, did I really just do that? And I couldn't believe it. It was all because he went, ha, he won, and I'm big into who wins, okay? Not on my watch. So this is the kind of stuff, when I look back at being in untreated alcoholism, I mean – now keep in mind, if you're the ego turned inward, you're telling yourself you're not in untrated alcoholism. okay if you're the personality like me this is what mine looked like but there's plenty of people that are way turned inward and they just it's just dark as dark can be up there okay almost done page 44 fourth paragraph if a mere code of morals or better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism many of us would have recovered long ago this is where the misunderstanding comes in. This is where, you know, I just turn my will over to God in the morning and just go about my day, and there's one-liners that we all use, and it's telling me that's a mere code of morals. If you're not doing the disciplines of 10 and 11, those codes will work right up till they don't. Now, I don't know when that might be, but they are very, very factual. These mere code of morals are, one of the things is living outside your values, right? Infidelity is one. Flirting to a point that is definitely dangerous. I think we all know that one. Disrespecting somebody terribly bad. Talking serious trash about somebody to someone else. I mean, this is not, this is outside most of our values and we can do it very quickly. One of the things that I did was my, we grew up with spanking and but we never grew up slapping the children or we were never slapped. And I slapped both my kids. April was 12 and Sam was 14 and they're 10 years apart in age. So I was shocked that I slapped my child, but I did. And teenagers, wow, this doesn't make it okay, but they're tough. And the limits were being pushed for me. And i did that and i swear when I went to my daughter to make the amends, because it was so, it disturbed me so badly that I did that. I only did it once, but I did it, and she said, mom, I didn't even make the top 10. There you go. I know it. Ate my lunch for years before I realized I had to go clean that up, you know, because once again, the amens process really wasn't a part of my life either in untreated alcoholism. My husband, Joe, when he passed away, he had died of a heroin overdose. He went back out at 23 years sober. So once again, I mean, we were living, we were all about AA, guys. All about it. Raising kids, doing meetings, five meetings a week, doing all this stuff. I mean I'm over there having road rage. Joe ends up going back out. It was horrific. He ended up dying of a heroin overdose that nasty fentanyl had come in long before any of us knew it was in but um and he was supposed to get a life insurance check it wasn't a big one but it was i i needed it we were too income and it was tough and uh i realized the the guy i wasn't getting the check and i called the insurance company and the guy goes ma'am we're having a little bit of trouble it looks like uh you you checked off that he hasn't had alcohol treatment in the last 10 years and joe was 23 years. So I said, he didn't. He goes, no, I believe he has. We pulled up some medical records. Well, he'd gone to see an addictionology doctor, which I hadn't even heard of one of those. That was new when they came into the world. And I told Charlie, I said oh this is terrible. This is really terrible. If I don't get that check, I'm in trouble. And so Charlie liked to say he was watching a lot of The Sopranos back then. And we went to go see this doc. We made an appointment. Charlie had a thousand dollars in his top pocket, and we were prepared to bribe the doctor. This didn't just happen. We were prepared. You know, just absorb that for a minute. Two outgoing members of Alcoholics Anonymous, but you scare me bad enough, and will do whatever we had to, and the doctor looked through his paperwork, and he goes, so you're telling me 1996 is not what they need? they need $19.97? I said, yes, sir. And he goes, they will get $197. So we didn't have to bribe him, but you know what we were willing to, because you see that's what stepping outside your values looks like. See, it's very easy to do when you get scared enough. It's very easier to do. I always like to say, self-reliance, it's the voice of reason is not there in untreated alcoholism. It might show up from time to time, but it doesn't stick with us. Oh, there's more here going on, but I'm ready to call it a night. Yeah, I'm sorry. I know, you know I can keep you entertained but this page actually says optional. So I'm opting out. So, I love you guys. We'll be back tomorrow.