Amy D. at the FOTS Toronto Step 11 Speaker Series – 2022

I'm so excited. I'm so excited to be here with you guys tonight for the introduction, Teresa Ali. I love you all so much. I was listening to Kuna talk about your conference in Toronto. Cindy's from Louisville. She's wonderful. I just was with Kent last weekend. Bob D., like what a lineup. You guys are going to have a great time. Make sure to get there if you can. I'm doing something different tonight. My phone, I hold on to things forever. I've had this phone and the speaker is not working right. And I said, something's wrong with my phone. And my friends are like, honey, you've had that phone for like six years. It's time for, you know, but I hang on to these, but it's working with me earphones. So I'm going to do that. My name is Amy Spain duncan i am an alcoholic my sobriety date is march the 6th of 2010 and i am excited uh to share my experience with step 11. and it's not like um i'm a slow learner and um i thought i was doing all the steps i really did i was reading big book and i was taking women through the steps and and, you know, my prayer life was good. And I was still so angry. And I came in mad, just know that. I came off the streets, I was hostile. I viewed the world as a hostile place. My perception was off. I was angry. I was an angry, bitter, violent woman. Violence was, you now, I've heard it said violence is the last resort of a limited mind. And I must have had a very limited mind because I'm a bully and I'm an intimidator and when I am affected, when I'm frightened, when my instincts are things, I get big, I get loud and I point my finger and I furrow my brow and I get aggressive and that is me telling you to get away. That's what fear looks like on me. and now know that that's what fear looks like. So some animals curl up like an armadillo and others are grizzly bears, it's a primal instinct and my fight or flight seems to be stuck on pipe and I get big and loud and then scary to get you away and that's my MO. And I learned that the first time I did the stats I knew I did those things, I knew did that in six and seven. A friend of mine said if there was a word describe me when i first got here was unapproachable and i laughed and i said i meant to do that see i do that on purpose i set off this air of unapprochable i'm big and i'm loud because it keeps me safe and i always we crave safety and it was the only way i knew to be safe was to scare you off and um i got sober i got sober in spite of this right um and i and i did six and seven work and then i started to see how me being that way where the price was being paid for that so it started with my kids right because um there were things they didn't tell me because they feared what i would do not to them but to other people right i had this reputation my dad was mugged one time and my family kept it a secret from me and when i finally found out i said my god it happened you know while i was in the madness and then when i got sober i found out about it and i was like why would you all tell me that that dad that's awful you know and they said amy we didn't know what you would do and i was like well wait what do you mean you know we're always appalled about our own behaviors and uh they had thought that my stepsister had been involved somehow in this and um my dad said you know i was afraid he would go burn her house down and i said i might have like that wasn't out of the realm of possibility because i i served this wrath you know um but what bothered me was this terrible thing that happened this event this trauma and that my father wasn't safe to discuss it with me because of my bullying and my intimidation and these character defects i carried so little by little this started bothering me and so i don't know if you guys ever did this but i thought six and seven men god i'm gonna get my character defects in a headlock and then you can come down and you'll zap them away you know i didn't know that he's gonna remove them right uh so i'm fighting against my character defects i'm trying to be a better person i'm beating my head on the wall you know and i cussed out my boss at three years sober and not just quit the job frightened them frightened them when i was quitting the job uh five years sober so i'm going along i'm still sober my home group's telling newcomers don't add amy just she'll 12 stomp you even in the delivery of the message i was aggressive you know do you want to live or do you wanna die what is your choice to be you know i took this part i gave it raw and uncut you know I was just hurting people's feelings um they got it three years over i got it my sponsor got drunk and i had to get a new sponsor and i love and she's still my sponsor today one of the first things that linda said to me was why are you yelling at people and i was like so they can hear the truth you know and uh she was like oh honey the truth doesn't have to be yelled it just stands there all by itself and i always think what if they don't get it and what if she so she helped me remove my ego from sponsorship and she told me my job is to give them the information what they do with that information is between them and god so things started to kind of shift right but i'm still having these moments of rage these outbursts of anger these times when i'm just like why do i act like this it's always afterwards you know um five years sober uh my son had hooked up with a little girl down the street and i knew that house was bad news i i know when i'm in my own company you know and i'm watching bad news going on down there you know just not a place you want your kid or i don't want my kid and i kept telling my son don't go down there don't go down they're not gonna of course he would sneak out and go down because he's in love with the little girls on the street so one day um in a fit of rage i i go down the street and i kick in my neighbor's door literally not figuratively like literally i kicked the door in the door slams open i uh threatened to kill everyone in the house and i meant it because i'm acting in fear because i'm worried about my son's safety so i come back on my poor husband he's in his front yard mowing when i walk back in the House right past him he turns off the mower he walks up the street he's like i see you met my wife but the problem is i don't know what she's gonna do so uh so still real chaotic these moments of of spiritual bliss and taking what this says but these periods rage keeps showing up it's not gone and i'm in tears and i call my sponsor and i'm like what is wrong with me why won't you know why can't i be nice like ali and why can i um control this rage and these bursts of anger and why do i get like this and mr linda said honey are you ready to work all the steps now i what do you mean i work all these steps i take women through the steps i read a big book i do service work i i you know i'm doing i'm chopping the wood i'm carrying the water you know I'm doing Alcoholics Anonymous I'm in the middle and she said honey the second half of step 11. i had to think about it and it was at five years sober that the necessity for step 11 see i was pushed into step 11 by self-imposed crisis right she said i want you to get in the 12 and 12 and i want you to read step 11 and and i wanted us to really work on this because you pray prayer is easy but step 11 says prayer and meditation and in the big book it actually says following a period of meditation we pray right so it the meditation comes first and then the prayer and i was skipping that part and then step 11 and the 12th it tells me why oh i have adhd i can't do it oh i tried it once it didn't work out i can say so my thoughts keep crazy blah blah i'm gonna let ali meditate and tell me what he learned and then i'll learn you know vicariously and and so i did all those things you know um but finally finally sick of my own self i started to explore meditation and the 12 and 12 gives us the prayer of saint francis and i love bill he says on a sunny beach go to the mountains you know and if you have ever done a guided meditation that's exactly right what they tell you like imagine yourself on a sunlit beach you know all these referrals to the sunlight of the spirit and so for me the practice of meditation began with a youtube guided two-minute meditation and it was awful i don't i don' know what they said you know my brain but i made it to the i sat still for two minutes and i you know had the intention of you know following along and uh i and i did that over and over i made a commitment to meditation just the same way i made a commitment to my home group and a commitment to my sponsees and a commitment to meet with my sponsor right that commitment to my show so like any commitment because i keep commitments today you know i'm sober at something i do i i try to do what i say you know I say what I'm going to do and I do what I say and I stick to it that's part of the integrity you know that comes with Alcoholics Anonymous and I you know there's a few outliers where things have happened but typically I am it's imperative it's important to me that I keep my commitments and so i made a commitment to explore meditation even if it was just two minutes a day on youtube guided meditation and then like i heard stuff right and so i'm doing this every day i got up to a three minute meditation i was excited i'm like boy i'm really i'm probably levitating soon like people are gonna come to me for advice right i'm killing it uh and then i would do five i and i cheat at night i like to do the uh sleep meditation so if you fall asleep you're supposed to right i'm like i meditate twice a day i'm doing a morning meditation i'm doing a nighttime meditation and that was enough for a beginning that that's how simple it was so for me the fact that i hadn't really hadn't done that for five years it's a wonder i mean i i i was chopping the wood and carrying the water i was taking the actions to space over but definitely the character defects the rage the um emotional deregulation um but here's the neat thing that meditation does and that's the topic and then you know i had mentioned earlier so on page 105 my dad died in 2019 this is 12 and 12. smells like cool cigarettes and coffee i love it reminds me of my father um perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us when i i felt like i belonged to alcohol synonymous right and i felt like i belong to my support group and things like that but as a spiritual being with all of god's other children meditation connects me to the oneness the namaste grade that the great source of the sunlight of the spirit and it makes it harder if you and i are connected and i feel that connection if i sit in that sense of knowing of the sunlight of spirit and all god's children and how we're all here together when i sit in that it's a lot harder for me to attack you it's a lot harder for me to kick in your door or be hostile or aggressive towards you because now i see i'm kinder to me right i have compassion and tolerance for me and in meditation that expands and now i'm capable of patience and tolerance for you so now those character defects are falling away now i don't get as rageful now i don't get as angry impulsively now i have i i got i used they used to tease you know my early recovery she she shoots past the pause right the pause when agitated or doubtful there was no i would pause after oh lord what have i done what have I said but there was no pause from mad to act you know action usually bad action um the pause wasn't there meditation gives me the pause and i love the way you know bill in 1935 like meditation has been practiced for so long in the western world we were just late to the show right we're late to the game here uh in in america and we're just we're late to the show and um but all major religions uh teach meditation all these things and it's such an interesting subject when you get into it. And Bill says, if your religious do this and I found these writers and these explorers of spirituality that I love, I'm reading interpretations of the Dow, like who would have thought that I'm a street drunk who kicked in her neighbor's door sober? And now I'm really, oh, this one, I gotta tell you, This is one I just got to be grabbing off the coffee table. The soul of sponsorship, the letters between Father Dowling and Bill and the relationship they had, the love these two men shared. And meditation allows me to experience that, not just read about it in its knowledge, but in meditation, I get into this source, into this feeling, into this expansion. and honest to god i came into alcohol synonymous and i wanted what you had and they said if you want what we have do what we do right so i have these oh i have these superheroes these idols right and teresa's one of them and theresa talks about her relationship with our power and i'm just i'm blown away you're married to god like what does that even mean like but this meditation right so they all had this one thing in common ten home group members my sponsor like they all have this thing in common and what they had in common was this continual seeking they were they didn't they seek through prayer and meditation they sought through permutation they didn't stop they keep doing it and they keep growing and this is what i love the promise says we will grow in effectiveness and understanding wow wow and i would you know what these lines are from on my face they're called the 11s there because all my life i look at people like what are you doing i lack understanding i have no understanding for why your behavior while you're trying to just look at people confused all the time like what the heck what is going on why are they doing that what did they say why i'm this that's ridiculous you know totally just confused that the world you know they have reduced with meditation because i've grown in understanding and i no longer have to crinkle up my forehead and look in peace with you i'm like oh look a child of god doing their very best today how can i encourage them how can I love them how Can I be effective and helpful You know, the whole purpose of the book is to become usefully whole. When I'm harboring anger, when I lack understanding, I'm not effective. I'm not usefully. Whole. I cannot be fit for maximum service, throwing me out for maximum service. It's like throwing a, you know, a wet cat into your home group. Like, I don't know what, you know, depending on my, if I prayed that day, what, what's going to happen? meditation step 11 gives me that grounding uh um bill talks about breathe i touched my earphone i'm getting used to these but if apparently i touched it and just but what i was talking about when bill is talking about instruction on how we meditate and that's another great thing about our program you don't have to guess how to do this some valuable and definite suggestions in the 12 and 12 then how will we meditate you know like it's all in there you can follow the instructions and it's easy to follow um so bill talks about the breath about breathing it and he talks about a lot being in the sunlight of the spirit and now breath has become like the fact through meditation i can now um i can just take a deep breath and find peace in that this in the life force that is brought in and out of my body um i told you i have adhd um meditation allows me to focus and center my mind and my intention um the the greatest thing is that people around me say man you have changed thank god thank god change i must or die i will right the same woman will drink again i have to change i have to grow um meditation has been a a changing force in how i perceive the world how i receive the world how I exist in the world like and it just and I'm not great at it god listen I told you I started with a two-minute youtube meditation that was like I'm doing great uh you know and but i do it every day i made a commitment to it and you know when i meditate my mind wanders i i'm a time traveler you don't know that because it looks like i'm here but i can sit here and i can go to the future and i could go to past and i will never leave the seat i'm sitting in because my brain jumps around like everybody else's um but just the gentle act of bringing impact just the gentle act of bringing it back i used to think you had to be good at meditation and that's not what meditation is about is the act of meditation it is the effort that we put forth god will not make too hard of terms for those who seek him and so just by making a commitment to it my life has changed exponentially people around me have noticed um the worst thing that i the most recent thing um two years ago i was uh had gotten a big new job and big new you know promotions make a lot of money and a title and and uh i had a trauma response i didn't know what it was when it happened but i uh I got big. I got real big and real loud and real aggressive. I had my new job to my boss, to my new boss. Because when I mess up, I don't like to mess up a little. I'm going straight to the top. I've not got to get in a fight with a coworker. Now I'm gonna cuss the executive director out. Take me to the top! I gotta be heard! And I just went berserk on these fine find people and uh and it was crashing um they they recognized that as a trauma response i i didn't i know the next day i was still shaking i uh was rocking in my bathtub repeating i am safe i'm safe i'm saved um i didn't know what that was you know and um I was able to uh get some outside help to deal with some trauma that I had been I guess you know thinking I'm fine until you're not you know and that kind of happened uh and some of my I'm a director of nursing and so I have people that work under me and several of the nurses um said you know when Amy gets mad you know or when she's irritated with us it's intimidating. It's frightening. I took two weeks off work and I did nothing but meditation and prayer and fasting and meditation and prayer fasting. When they go back now to talk to my employees, they all say she's so kind. She's so patient. We feel like we can go to her with anything you know i just laugh and laugh because a year ago that wasn't the way it was right uh but the more i commit to meditation the more I commit to and of course prayer I don't say enough about I do want to say this there are so many prayers in the book and um they are all that's what I pray I pray those prayers I there's also like warnings about prayer like don't pray for yourself you know don't pray for this don't break for that or um but the third step prayer the seventh step prayer the step 11 prayer the fourth step prayer like i pray those prayers i try to what i love is when it and here's a lofty goal conscious contact conscious contact i try to see when i review my day i maintain conscious contact typically now i'm in the car and i you know space out i'm at a meeting and i'm only doing you know what's in front of me um i'm dealing with patient whatever but if i can take that breath and if i could bring god in bring god into every conversation every interaction every decision every move i make bring God in, bring God into God. And when I have a conscious contact with God, right? I'm in much less danger of anger, worry. I'm not going to burn energy foolishly. It's all in there. Thank God that it's a progress, not perfection deal. I don't know that I'll ever be perfect at it. I don t know anyone who is even the men and women that i are my heroes and she rose uh you know but i love this journey i love the journey i love taking women into step 11. um i was a 10 say a prayer 12 step worker you know for five years of my recovery and today i'm a 10 11 12 and every bit of 12 whenever i get a chance to talk to people about uh the commitment to meditation and really incorporating that in their lives and the results are undeniable and what it does is it makes me belong to this human existence it makes your brother and your sister it connects me to you it gives me a sense of belonging in a world where i never felt i belonged to sit in silence my life is so chaotic my brain was so chaotic there always had to be noise on a tv a radio an argument you know i'm gonna bust the windows out past this person in the madness you know oh noise and chaos and i thrived in that and to find a place where i can just sit with and not even on my phone just sit in stillness like that's remarkable um when it's happening i don't think oh you're growing right the results are in my actions and my behaviors how i experience life and how um how i move in this world that's where the results are seen so i love step 11 i was late to the step 11 party you know uh but thank god my sponsor just let me cut it now let's do this and the more i do it the more I get out of it um I can't if you're new if you start and if you like me I can I don't know how I don' t do that I call there's too much information out there for you not to be able to find something and just make the commitment the commitments two minutes a day three minutes a day here's what i promise if you start and you make the commitment and you do it consistently you'll want more no one more if you have alcoholism if you have what i have you suffer from more so when something feels good are you are you good you want more and uh with meditation that i want more i want more peace i want more love i want the capacity to be effective and understanding as i move through the life uh through this world so um i love you guys i can't wait to hear from you that's what i'm really here for is to hear you all and i just thank you for letting me share my love of step 11.