2nd March Through the Steps Workshop – Part 6 of 5 – 2022 – Marion W.

Real quick, we're just going to start off this second session with a moment of silence and a serenity prayer. God, grant us the serenety to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alright, and I've asked McKenna to come up and do a little reading for us before we start. Hi, I'm McKenna. I'm an alcoholic. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again, and with us to drink is to die. When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and-death errand. Most people approached in this way will be glad to help. They will be honored by our confidence. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. That feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the broad highway, walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Thank you. Thanks, Mekana. All right, I'm going to introduce our next speaker. I was thinking when we did this a few years ago, I know I hadn't, obviously because of Peter, we knew Marion, and I think Marion did the talk on Step 2, And from that talk, it was pretty evident to all of us why we were doing this. And since then, I don't know, I would say it's pretty clear. We love you. We do. We all love you, we all, yeah. We love Peter and Scott, don't get us wrong, we love you and I think that you've kind of almost become like the mother of this workshop, you really have, yeah, I got to sit with Chloe, not Cleo, Chloe Jack last night and the first half hour at dinner we talked she was just amazed and so we thank you we're honored and really excited to hear what you have to say on step four and five applause applause applause oh my god with those readings was there just music to my ears those readings and what you just said it's like let's close with the lord's prayer man in true i mean i thank you because that's where the most damage was done in my mother's heart and when um my me as a mother and um and i just feel like and i know that's what's happened in my life is that god has taken what's the worst of the worst of our stuff and then turns it for good and melissa has just like wow that's who i get to be today that's the process of the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous that's the time um spent with god and and that that's what people see how beautiful is that and and no credit man but thank you so much i'm the mother of wilmington delaware heck yeah um i so appreciate that this morning and how incredible it is to walk shoulder to shoulder and have another woman to help represent today. And I love Chris. Love, love, love Chris made us laugh last night and Peter always brings a fire and step three is like that's his wheelhouse. All of it's his warehouse but you know. And then my brother Scott and this morning it's just incredible. I always take away so much away from what incredible what a man of integrity you've become and I've got to watch that over the years. got to watch you grow up in Alcoholics Anonymous come a little big book guy in your cowboy boots up here it's like so incredible and thank you for the amazing food I don't know where Brad is and his wife Sarah but those egg rolls were fire and if I would have I just took one because I know that I would've been sleeping up here myself but and the pasta was incredible nice to have a great big lunch And I was up, you know, praying up in the restroom upstairs and just getting quiet for a minute. And I know, you Know, Peter says this often, You know, after lunch is kind of a little bit of a tough session. I get it. Like, I'm a wiggle worm in my chair. Like, you got sciatica in the hip. I walk and run a lot so my legs get sore and so I'm always moving. So if you got to get up and walk around, do what you need to do. Grab a cup of coffee. Go for it. because you ain't gonna hurt my feelings, you know, Peter's new sponsor talks about this thing being pitching and catching, you now, that, um, and I love that, I love it, because, because sometimes we can, you kno, dude, I'm just like you, you kow, I mean, I'd love to just see, hear Cleo speak, you knot, I don't, it's all good, we're, we'r one big happy freaking crazy family and um and i love that so sobriety date november 11 1989 and and that's what first made me love alcoholics anonymous because in my crazy bat poop crazy ridiculous messy family and i still will always always always have such a love for my first home group the northwest group of alcoholics in office the ones who took the air miles and brought peter in and put him in a shady hotel where they slipped the keys under the door you know and you know all that we were it was messy you know there was a lot of native americans and there wasa lot of bikers and i was at home and i could go in sweats and messy i wasn't no suits and ties in that place but i just went messy and i showed up and and you know there's a there's book called varieties of spiritual experience and this was my variety of what i came in you know i never i never lived in a home where it felt safe and calm and in my marriage it never was a place that felt safe and calmed and i and i went to northwest and most of those old timers are in the big meeting in the sky and they gave me life and it was messy and it Was open discussion. And I think I was telling somebody about this earlier that you know You were if you were really in the book, you know Monday night You went to the 12 by 12 meeting we called it the 12-by-12 And if you're really in a big book you went to Wednesday night meeting to the big book meeting they called the Thursday night meeting then oh I shouldn't even say this thing's so weird but you know it was the fashion walk the girls would walk to go get coffee and wiggle their butt and you know going up to the podium and we're like oh that meeting you know but that was home to me I couldn't be you know I was no better than anybody else I was no less than anybody else and um yeah and and you know that's the way it is in our home group today fast forward 32 years later we have a home group in in in Fort Lauderdale Florida the meeting before the meetings messy and then we were all shiny during the meeting and then it's messy after the meeting you know but we show up more dressed and things like that dress of course everybody's dress, but you know what I mean? It's just an incredible place to call home. Hi, you know, and it's just so good. And in that home group, you now, when I first got, I told you guys, I worked the first three steps in treatment. They used to call it back in the day, the one, two, three dance, one, two, tree dance. And I'm sober and I'm alive and I live in that third step. like i'm seeing god in everything in everything i mean and and i it's like oh my god i can't believe she said that oh i can'T you know where it'S like oh you just you'RE so our book says the the age of miracles upon it we become we come to rely on it and and was i doing you know i wasn'T raised around speaker meetings i WASN'T raised around people you know there was a there was some people in the book there was don l don l got there early and he had a really worn out spit on barfed on big book and you know and and don and he added an american flag hanging from the antenna of his nova and he'd get there before the meeting and he talked with the newcomers and And it just made you feel at home, you know. And I love that thing I read last night about Dr. Bob, you know, finding that quiet place at home in your heart where you find hope and you find peace and you find comfort and you fine love and you find acceptance. I don't want that ever to go away from Alcoholics Anonymous. Clean up your act and come to the room. You know, get your poop together and come to the bathroom. Just come as you are, man. come as you are no matter what that looks like and you know i came out of treatment i was working in this in this grocery store clark's market and deli and there was a girl that worked behind the video counter and her name was kim and she had six months sober and i was like wow she she kind of became my very first sponsor we did nothing we just you know we'd go to the hoodow meeting and And, you know, she kind of guided me. We didn't do any steps or anything. She was my sponsor. She had six freaking months. And so I'm just going to meetings. Kim's my sponsor, I've worked the first three, maybe looked at the four-step. And I remember one day, oh, I'm going to be emotional. Maybe it's because it's after lunch and I'm tired too, but whatever. So it was a noon meeting. And there was this woman named Kathy Downs, and she was about shorter than me, man, a little blonde lady. Kathy and Art, they were the king and queen of the Northwest group. They'd have campouts, and they'd chain-smoke cigarettes and potlucks and come on out to our place. They had a farm out on the Aldridge Road. And Kathy comes up to me after a meeting and the nooner, and she's like, what are you doing this weekend, Marion? And I'm like, well, I'm going to take the kids here, and I'm gonna do this, and I gotta get groceries, and I'M GONNA GO TO THE MEETING, AND I'M GOING TO DO THIS, AND I'm GOING TO DO THAT, and da-da-da, da-do-da. And she looks at me, and she says, one of these days, maybe you'll slow down long enough to let God be in charge. and it was like whoa dude you know and I immediately asked her to be my sponsor how do you do that what's that like what's not even gonna be like and this woman is was and remains to be one of the greatest teachers of my whole life and she was a servant of Alcoholics Anonymous message is beautiful and uh and uh so Kathy started me writing step four she started me writing and this is the way I learned back in the day right way wrong way whatever I'm still here 32 years so something must have happened and I don't do know what happened and she had me take that first page and fold it in half and column one column two a backside column three column four it works really good you know it kind of works real good and about the turn when when I go from the third column to the fourth column because now I'm gonna lay aside everything that everybody else ever did and where am I at fault because see I can only get when we talk about as free as I I want you know how free do you want to be if the problem is your problem I don't got no solution if the problems my problem so get if they can be reconciled to a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous if it can be reconcile to call them for and I'm home free I got a solution when I'm the problem because I can go to God and I can go to my sponsor and i can look at that one of the hardest things for us alcoholics to do and still today and sometimes i was wrong this is where i'm at fault because i want to justify rationalized to do to do you know what i'm saying and i had that spiral notebook and i had my little volkswagen bug and i would take that freaking notebook everywhere i was because i was told to you know you're as sick as a seeker i mean i wrote and i wrote and i protected it like it was i don't know like i was writing the declaration of independence or something you know i protected everything i wrote in that book from my husband finding it my sick alcoholic husband finding it or anybody finding it nothing counted but like fearlessness and honesty and I wrote it like she told me write it like you're taking it to your grave write those things down you know and I did and I started doing that but you guys the problem was this is I wasn't finishing it and I was setting it aside and I'm setting it aside and i'm setting it aside and um and my girl kathy got sick and she was diagnosed with brain cancer and uh oh man that was you know i came in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous behind grief and loss being the loss of my son beyond the loss my mom and now i'm losing kathy and i've losing Kathy in sobriety. See I drank through my son's death, I drank through my mother's death and now I'm gonna be sober and I'm gonna be finishing up this four-step with Kathy dying and she'd get mad at me because I stopped calling her because I don't want to bug her. She's going through chemo, she's losing her hair, she got three little kids at home who might have hugged her. And then she'd call me. Marianne, why aren't you calling me? Kathy. I mean after all. Don't you deny me my sobriety. You get your butt out here. See that's what we do. What kind of a lesson is that in alcoholics mom is and no matter what selfish self-centered you're going you're freaking dying and you want to listen to my bs broke a shoelace today don't know how to buy groceries how do i show up at a pta meeting sober which you know i wasn't i'm not for that crap either barb yeah but no it's like wow that's not me and um and i and i walked out of that by her side and um in her kids still to this day they grew up with my kids in the rooms of alcohol because my little little kids making their own cup of coffee at northwest group putting seven sugars and a little thing and whatever and you know art and liz and brandon and jake and jess would go to meetings and and i kind of inherited those kids peters met him art at brandon's wedding and you know um kathy gave me another sponsor it was this woman named suze and she scared the living daylights out of me she was like huge and she was a biker lady and it was like whoa I don't know that I can do this fourth step with her. I don' t know if I can read my fifth step to her and I was scared of her but I kind of inherited her and am in the shock and all that stuff. But what happened was as I'm waiting and waiting and waiting on this, you know, putting it aside and life. And this girlfriend of mine was getting married that I worked with and Iwas um you know dabbling in meetings the the the step four was set aside and um you know I'm really kind of we had I'm the sober one with all the drunk girls at the bachelorette party and Hannah and I'm just kind of going through the motions and I met this wedding reception and I'll never forget this as long as I live and i'm sitting there and our book i mean it is a really stark raving sobering moment that when the suddenly shows up when the strange mental blank spot shows up because i'm sitting there at the wedding reception with a glass of champagne in my hand and it's right here you know that's what it says if that's what it said in this step that's what it's says in this word we may not overcome drinking and somehow that drink was in my hand and and I saw what came this far what came between this and this holy want to put a swear word in there right now, but that's petrifying. You guys, I am more scared of that than going to heaven to the big meeting in the sky. I'm more scared to that than have an open heart surgery. I am more scare to that then anything in the world because I know what that means and when our book talks about it we recoil from it like a hot flame. I am telling you that drink was down and I was out. I was out and God did for me what I cannot do for myself. I can't do that. I don't want to do that. That's a drink. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. That is what the power of God is about That's freaking close That's close as I'm sitting on that work you know and from there i went over to this i was just thinking about this earlier because i'm so reminded and and i've gone through the steps i don't know how many times i'm not like you guys where you know pete does once a year and you do once a and some do and some don't and it's and and and there's forms of varieties and spreadsheets and whatever and and cool i don'T care how you do it just do it you know that's not my job my job is to share my experience with that And my experience was I almost drank without knowing it. No conscious thought of pour me a glass of champagne. That was not on my agenda that day at all. And so I had this little brother, the same brother, the brilliant alcoholic brother that told me one day I was going to take a good long hard look in the mirror and I'm sitting on this four-step and another hero of mine was this man named Ron Slater and Ron Slader was a because he was a tall man with a little afro and he was a preacher and the day my son died I walked around the corner in the hospital and he were standing there and when my husband and I got married he counseled us before we got married and he walked me through my son dying walked me Through My Mom Dying and he was never a guy that was pushing God he just had the he had he was a kind kind gentle sweetest sweetest spirit and my little brother said to me I said I gotta get this fifth step off of me I gotta do this he goes well you should do it with Ron Slater And I can use his full name. He's gone to, I guess the preachers have a big meeting in the sky too. My little kids loved him because he always had his pocket full of candy and they'd run up to him with candy, you know. And I'm like, okay, take another suggestion from my brother. And so I make this appointment for a fifth step. And it wasn't like Ron was just like, oh, he's a preacher and blah, blah, blah, and it says it gives us all kinds of ideas, who we're going to take, somebody that we can trust, maybe a closed mouth family member wherever we take it and I make this appointment for him to come to my house and um and I'm petrified he's coming at like nine o'clock in the morning and he's come into my house and back in the day back in that 80s or actually it's the 9 90 by then 90 we didn't have any cell phones i know that might be a weird thing for all of you and we would write phone numbers on matchbook covers napkins from the diner little pieces of paper can i get your number can i Get Your Number Can I Get Your number and there's just a pile of it sitting on the dresser you know and the morning of i'm like and i the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst of my life is on these pages and I freak out in the morning I'm like holy crap and I'm dialing for dollars I start dialing every number I find on those papers I'm going to find somebody else anybody else to hear this than him there's no way this is happening there is no way and you all didn't answer the phone yeah i mean i've done it too right another number another number another number nobody's answering the phone and he shows up at my house and um we sat in my living room and i was absolutely humiliated to start this work so humiliated and I remember sitting there and I was just pouring through these pages like this man would just he would he is and will be next to my father Ron Slater is will always be a hero to me and he would go to there was a Randy Bachman had this house in BTO he had this house out in the county in Linden and if they had turned it into a treatment center and Ron would go there and listen to fifth steps and fifth steps and so here he is, so he wasn't just new to this stuff and so I sat there and I poured through the pages and just wept and wept and when I was done I looked up and he said to me were you afraid I wasn't going to love you anymore and that's exactly what i needed here in that moment you know he knew he knew it he knew the worst of me that anybody had ever known about me and to me that was god and i believe that about our god he knows the worst of us before we ever say a word you know the the the little you know i read this book called the ragamuffin gospel and it talks about the handout of amazing grace it's the handoutof amazing grace that's why it's amazing it doesn't mean i earn it doesn'Tmean i deserve it doesn'NTmean ive done the right thing it doesn'tmean I've done the wrong thing it doesnN'Tmeans there's no measure in it man And there's no measure in it. Were you afraid I wasn't going to love you anymore? And, you know, who was it that did the reading where she had? Girl, good job. But that paragraph on those promises that come with our fifth step are absolutely incredible and are absolutely something I experienced that first time around see i had that sponsor suze who met me for lunch afterwards but seriously i know you know profound experience first step in treatment i had to add up all the money that i spent on on alcohol and drugs and i don't even know i don'T KNOW WHAT WHETHER IT WAS A HANLEY EDITION OR A WHATEVER EDITION OR WHATEVER IT'S A GREAT EXPERIENCE BUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS step you know step two step three incredible but in step five my first time through the work I had a most incredible experience because what happened that day is I went to lunch with Suze after we were done and and I could literally we begin to have a spiritual experience as I guess the way I could absolutely describe how I felt that day and what I feltthat day more than anything is I hope i can describe this is it's almost like an outer body experience where the woman that i was in my alcoholism the woman i was and any of those other forms of alcohol that went in my body the woman who i was was no longer a part of me there was a comp a conscious separation of oh that was the self that was the untreated alcoholic she's capable of doing those things but who I was was to walk a free woman at last in this place and I'll never forget it as long as I live you know it's so crazy how we can describe a day in the life 1990 I couldn't tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday but I can tell you how I felt that day I can tells you what happened that day, I could tell you the restaurant we went to on Cornwall Avenue that's probably a pot shop now in Washington pretty likely right you know I can told you that and I don't know this was coming to me earlier I don' t know whether it was when you were speaking or but i was like i was because when you're doing this it's always like okay i'm up in a little bit i don't know and then stories will pop and things will pop and you start having a moment and i was thinking about that's like the realm of the spirit that's the spirit stuff the spirit step is what i have oh i do know what i had for breakfast yesterday scrapple it must have been spiritual but you know what i mean the moment that you did your first first step you were at the diner it was nine o'clock in the morning you had a cup of coffee and scrappled boom you know or step two when when the first time through that the light bulb went on and phone you know what i mean it's like these spiritual experiences that we can that are become a part of our who we we be like peter says you know and in many you know that it becomes a part of who we be and who we are and a partofour walking around and i have never he said this to me he said now and this just came to me wow what would you tell that girl what would you say to her come with me here's my hand you know come on you know and that's what we get to do here you know there's nothing that's fallen down too far there was no judgment there was nothing but pure love that's wat we get to do and you know from that place I'd go to this place called Visions in Bellingham it was an all girl treatment center and they'd call me in to listen to 5th Steps so I got some muscles of learning to listen to the stuff and you do that enough times on a Sunday night where you're going yeah yeah alright you know you're looking at your clock you're falling asleep it's like because we think it's so bad when we're the ones saying it you know we think we're the only ones Peter says this you know if there's a name for it somebody else has done it okay so that was bad okay and my first time through what didn't look like what our big book talks I didn't do a fear inventory I didn't doing arms inventory into a sex inventory with all this kind of thrown together on a throw-up sheet you know it was so so i've learned a lot about mechanics that i've got to add with through from the sponsor i have today and the way that she breaks things down and and all of that and um and even you know i stole something from p i don't ever steal we share very nicely you know but i had a woman recently that to share in a real general way is in this sponsorship family and and some and it's a little bit of a little social circle thing and they all have this one sponsor who's very socially loved but they have a lot of this going on the girls because that's girls we we can do that sometimes right i'm sure guys can do it too and i'm like i call my sponsors like they want to share this inventory with me what do i do with this they're not even calling me their sponsor and they're Not dead and paulie's just like just help them just help him you know you don't need a title like oh crap up no you know things like that and and what ended up this this one woman i was working with recently is you know and this is where i borrowed from him it was like there was a lot of names on there and some of those women i've got like four three or four women that from that same circle that have come to me and it's like it's not like please i'm not tooting my own horn i'm not swear to god please god i hope i don't sound like that but the reality is was there was names on that paper and names of people that are personal to me. And, and when I got there too, I'm like, how am I going to hear this? How am I gonna not be affected by it? And we disregarded all of that. He said, Peter had told me this story about, and this is what came to me, and it wasn't my plan. It was really what God showed me. Okay, let's not even look at that. But where are you at fall? Where are you at fall? You know, because that's the place where I get to be free. That's always going to be the place I get to be freer. Where am I selfish? Where am I self-centered? Where my dishonest? Where am I afraid? Where all those things are? And because really everything boils down to fear anyway and one of the things that have been just sitting with me lately is that and that fear able to match calamity with serenity match how beautiful is that you know tough times hard times able to map calamity was serenely and and you know to fast forward to another one in 2000 and i'm may or may not close with this but um who knows 2004 I became very untreated I was a Pentecostal worship leader in a church and I would go to AA with my brand of God that I had a lot of spiritual pride and I'd go, you know, if you just had my God and i go home to a very very volatile sick marriage believe in the god the lord was going to save my marriage and really and so untreated living bedevilments are you kidding me and it my marriage was dangerous and it was volatile and it Was tough and um um and when that ended in 2004 it ended with the restraining order and it ended with he can't come to my work he can'T come to my AA meeting I'm safe and I'm protected but what I did was and not realize or my church which they ended up kicking me out but God bless them it's it was okay it ended up okay was that in those two situations, see I had this thing of justifiable anger. Without going in it, I had some justifiable angry. Justifiable anger and I had a team of people around me at the radio station. I had the women in AA and I had justifiable anger and I added resentment and it was boom and if I told you the stories you may have wanted back then to really get on my bandwagon but what ended up happening was for a little over a year I'm walking around with this resentment and it's justified and it is there then i came into my northwest group of alcoholics anonymous and i plopped my butt on the church bench like just like these here and um and i said i gotta start praying for him or i'm gonna die and at 15 years sober my poly pistol moved into my town and and um she started taking me through the steps again and and a couple of the prayers she gave me because see here's the deal it's one thing yeah it's my number one offender and yes i can go through the book and yes I can do all those things and yes unresponsible what where am I at fault I hated him but that hate also kept me safe because I wouldn't go back and that's just how it felt at that time but to the present since you guys are big book scholars you might know them this was a prayer that saved me that literally saved me, our sick man's prayer on the bottom of page 66 and 67 this was our course, we realized that the people who had wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick bad man mean man, violent man sick man sick man he's a sick man I had an experience with that line that saved my life see whatever line we're in whatever Marion has her conscious separation from the woman she was what was I Was I bad? Was I awful? You terrible mother. You can't, who are you? No, I was sick. Though we don't like their symptoms, it says this, and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. That takes me and it puts me on an even playing field with them. It doesn't matter. when i'm spiritually sick i have spiritually sick acts and and and when i can recognize that and i can recognise that in someone else holy cow i'm no better and i'm you know what i mean we ask god to help us show them the same tolerance pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend god that must really suck you don't have a relationship with your kids you you're so tied up in your disease you're just see i don't want the old marion to be judged i mean when a person offended we said to ourself this is a sick man how can i be helpful to him God's here's the deal God save me from being angry see I can't take that away God save me from getting angry thy will be done I love this line here I'm kind of a brat but we avoid retaliation argument we wouldn't treat sick people that way if we do we destroy our chance of being helpful this was the line I liked we cannot be helpful to all people okay good sorry but not sorry we cannot be helpful to all people it's like cool i don't have to help him you know sorry but i did i tried to reach out at one particular time and that was like not it wasn't my job it isn't my work it wasn' t my job my job i can't be helpful top people but at least god will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each everyone so that happened then um page 552 i love me some 552 i don't care freedom from bondage back of the book saved me saved me in this one paragraph it says this as paulie's telling me you know okay so you're going to start praying for him you're going to start praying sick man's prayer and you're going to pray that pray this prayer you're gonna pray and it's kind of like in my heart and my soul f no i mean no well first honey you're to have to pay pray for willingness to pray so the start it starts like okay god you're gong to have to make me willing to do these prayers because I, I'm not willing. I don't, I don'T know. Willingness has got to come from somewhere. And some of these are deep and some of them are hard. And sometimes I do need to do that. Right? So that prayer started with now I've got to be willing to pray and somewhere in it, God made me willingto pray. i don't remember i mean it this this was work man this was work so he he said in effect if you have a resentment you want to be free of if you will pray for the person or thing that you resent you will be free you get me if you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them you will be free and then i'm praying that for a while if everything i want for myself be given them i'm like oh cool now god's gonna give him everything i wanted life that's not fair and then realizing wow that's amigo there too right like oh god give him everything i want in my life screw that ask for their health their prosperity their happiness and you will be free even when you don't really want it for them i love that line too i lovethat line too i'm not gonna lie that would be me up here lying even though if you don' t really wantit for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it go ahead and do it anyway so a hat over and over and over and again do it every day for two weeks and you'll find you've come to mean it and want it for them and you will realize where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred you now feel compassionate understanding and love see i'm i'm big on forgiveness i cannot forgive i do not have the power in me to forgive i don't god can forgive me and god can give me grant me the ability to forgive because that means if i can say oh yeah i'm good i forgave him what like oh i'm working on that six and seven and i'm no longer a liar cheater thief yeah i got that nailed down no in my experience i mean this is my opinion and this is i can i can i can choose to forgive i can make the choice that i need to forgive i can take the conscious effort to pray to forgive but i i really am a strong strong believer that i don't have the power that has to be given to me from god that has to be given to me and i have to do the actions in order for that to come and i i can't even take the credit for oh i did the actions i prayed the freedom from bondage prayer you know i'm good no it doesn't happen that way i prayed these over and over again even when i don't mean it even when I don't want to say oh he's going to have all this great stuff and I'm going to be left living in my little one room bedroom starving artist in bellingham in the basement you know but um but i can tell you what happened is i was i would pray this prayer and it became such a such a so ingrained in me as i was just driving and praying and driving and playing or walking and praying or praying and i remember one day consciously driving down the road and i started praying this prayer and it was gone like it it was going to be over and i was like oh my god it was it was never returned there's a moment where there might be a flare-up of you know something i hear in the scuttlebutt over all these years it's 20 years ago almost you know whatever but i can tell you that i do wish the best for him i do if he was a billionaire and you know it doesn't matter to me it doesn'T MATTER TO ME AT ALL THAT'S BEEN REMOVED AND I CAN'T TAKE ANY CREDIT FOR THAT BECAUSE WHERE I WAS IN MY UNTREATED ALCOHOLISM WHERE i was in my bitterness and my resentment that stuff had the power to kill me and it didn't referring to our list again putting out of their minds the wrongs that others had done we resolutely looked for our own mistakes where had we been selfish, dishonest self-seeking or frightened and I was afraid where were we to blame? The inventory was ours not the other man's. When we saw our faults and we listed them we placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight that's perfect timing to end isn't it and i guess the cool yeah the coolest thing in it is i was afraid and god was able to match calamity with serenity and and i've walked a free woman since and every time i go through this work i just get a little more free and haven't done it perfect haven't been a great you know whatever like a big book scholar keep talking about you know but um but god keeps me willing because here's the deal you know the promises of that fifth step that were read at the beginning of the meeting I need that in my life today I can be alone at perfect peace and ease you know I can look the world in the eye I can do all that stuff I can doing that and that's looking the world in the eyes a pretty big deal instead of looking at my cowboy boots so thank you Thank you, Marion. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back in 15 minutes-ish.