Applying the Traditions to Personal Life – Debbie D.

Hi, everybody. My name is Debbie Davis, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm truly humbled to be invited to Stateline. I've heard so much about it, but excited to be able to talk about our second legacy and my experience with it. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, finally, I'd been visiting you for 10 months, and I went to one meeting a month and had a relapse after seven months, no surprise, and then I ramped it up to one meet-up. One meeting a week. And after five weeks and another relapse is when I finally hit what we call a bottom. It's maybe defined in different ways But I hit that bottom And the thought that came into my mind Was I knew where to go That the people in AA seemed to know what to do And that next day That next day I went to that weekly meeting I had been going to And I started doing some things differently Not consciously It's like I got in a new river And I just went with the flow of what seemed to be going on. And I got there early. I usually walked in when it started, left when it was over, and called it AA, been to AA. I might as well have been sitting in the parking lot for all that I did in that room. But I went early. I went 20 minutes early. And that, comparatively speaking, was like going the day before. you know, and I'm like, who gets there that early? And when you go to a group, the old timers are there early. So goofy people like me could ask questions. And the next thing that was very out of character for me to do was to ask a question because I'm self-righteous and I misknow it all and misarrogant and I don't know anything, but I don't want you to know that. And my way of asking for help was to ask what I feel is probably the most important question in my life. I said, What do you do to stay sober? And the next very uncharacteristic thing was I just would listen to what they said without condition, without debate, without reservation. I might not understand what they're talking about, But I didn't give it the yeah buts anymore. I didn' t dismiss it in my mind. Your life looks so much better than mine, and I have no idea how you do that. And they gave me a series of things that they did, not theory, not we heard about. They shared with me the way they lived their life here, and that's what they laid out that kit of spiritual tools. They didn' T hand it over. They said, Here it is. And it was about for me to pick those items up one at a time when I was ready for that next move or go to the next level of recovery. And the first thing they said was, One day at a Time, we don't take the first drink or anything else that affects us from the neck up, and we get a sobriety date. I thought, Well, today's as good a day as any, so I took that as my sobriery date, and that was February 8, 1976, 36, which means I've been with you for 37 years. It also means I got here when I was pretty young. I was like 5 when I got there. I'm coming down the elevator with a fellow and he had a cowboy hat on and I said, are you here for the rodeo thing? And he said, yeah. Well, how about you? I said well I'm here for a conference convention here in the hotel. And he looked at me and he said, is that the anti-aging conference? I said, something like that. Yeah, yeah. We got a better shot at not dying anyway if we're here in this room. I hadn't heard the letters AA stand for that, but that's a new one. I like that a lot. And so I took that as my sobriety date. The next thing they talked to me about was we go to a lot of meetings, we had a home group. And I'm in a minimum of three meetings a week, and my current home group since I moved to Northern California 13 years ago is the same as Claire's and a few other folks in this room, the primary purpose group in Dublin, California. They talked to be about a sponsor. I've had three awesome people as my mentors and sponsors, and I currently share for over 26 years the same sponsor as Kelly, the wonderful Millie G. They talked to me about taking the steps. And the steps were the first time that I began to look at myself. And we've had some awesome communicators of the intention and the basis of each of these steps so far through nine. and I have taken many nuggets from what they've shared so far and I'm so thankful that I have been here to hear this. And then they talked to me about the traditions. They said, those aren't just for the group, Deb. I mean, you make up and you are a member in that environment, in that group, but why don't you learn how to apply them in your personal life? And I assure you, no one could ever call me codependent. Never. the traditions got me into the game of having relationships with people because I am perfectly fine all by myself but that isn't what the real world is about it's interaction as Bob and Linda in the family afterward talked about yesterday our life is relationships with people, with our environments and things so it's all about relationships and I hadn't a clue on how you have those with people. And so this is what I get the opportunity to share with you tonight is some of the ways that I have applied the traditions personally. The common welfare, it was always about me. It was always how it was going to revolve around me. And I've had wonderful mentors. They didn't necessarily weren't sponsors, but I've had people be really lovingly direct with me to adjust and correct the path I'm on and one of the first things that they did is they reminded me and told me that when I'm coming in late and leaving early and getting up to get coffee and moving around today it would be texting or knitting in the rooms that I'm disrupting the people around me that I, okay, so anyway, back to, and I never thought about that. Because when it's all about you, you're not, and I've thought so many times of how many moments, how many nuggets just this weekend I've heard, that had I have been texting, had I been being disruptive or someone doing that to me, what I would have missed. I've had many one-liners that have changed the course of my life. One of them was I remember being eight and a half years sober and a guy talking about trying to live today on last year's program. That's exactly where I was. It's the only thing I heard that guy say. and it changed the course of my life and how I think about one day at a time, how I considered the primary purpose or the common welfare of this group. I remember being about 17 years sober and my marriage at that time would come to an end. And it's a little awkward because in the same home group is me and the soon-to-be ex he and the incoming she, okay? Now, while the group might be about 250 in size, it can get really small. Yeah, and nobody got custody of the home group because it was important to all of us. And so what came for me is that not only do I want to look good, sometimes ego can be a very beneficial defective character. is that I know that the common welfare of my home group comes way before my personal issue, whatever it is. That whatever is going on in my life personally needs to be left in the car because I got one job to do in the room of Alcoholics Anonymous and that is to carry the message, look for that new face. I don't know if they're brand-new sober, visiting from out of town with 100 years. I have no idea, but I'm going to find out. And I needed those new faces way more than they needed me. And my guide was that if I knew where those other folks were, then I wasn't doing my job thoroughly and hard enough. And one meeting at a time, one event at a time, I got to walk with a little bit of dignity and grace that we learn about here and how to do that differently. Because there were people in our group who didn't even know that we'd even separated company. And what a great compliment that was, that nobody felt uncomfortable to talk to him or to her or to me, that we were here for a common purpose, the welfare of that group. When I think about group conscience, I don't always like it. A few years ago, my husband, we are, for Christmas we do stuff, it's got to fit in the stockings, okay? And so we have the standard little stockings and the mantle. But then we also have a couple of fun stockings. Mine's about four and a half feet high. And Kent's is about four inches high. We actually have a sign on the wall pointing to Kent's stocking, just in case you missed it. And so Christmas comes and he loves to do wordplay. And he says, what I got you for Christmas not only are you going to love, but I can guarantee you that no other woman in the world is going to get one. Well, my imagination goes pretty wild, and I'm thinking about what could it possibly be? So I get through the regular stocking, and he said, oh, no, no. I got one more for you. He goes to the four-foot stocking. He brings it off the wall, pulls out a large tubular container, and he was absolutely right. I absolutely loved it, and no other woman in the world would have gotten the Concepts window shade for Christmas. Well, I don't exactly have an appropriate place in the house to put the concepts window shades. So finally, I took it to my group and we've got the two window shades already up there. And I thought, well, this is perfect. I mean, it's Alcoholics Anonymous. We're now in the fourth edition. It legitimizes the concepts and makes them not feel like a redheaded stepchild or something. They're in there. I talked to the secretary and we say, yeah, I think it's a good idea. Let's hang it right up there in the front with steps, traditions, concepts. So they were up there one week and they were up there the second week and then they disappeared. And one of the founding members said well it'll probably appear after the business meeting. See I didn't like that part because that meant that I'd have to get permission of a good idea. So the business meeting comes and yes they thought that was a good idea. I mean, appreciate you bringing it to the business meeting. That was a good idea to put the concepts up. But now the issue became where to put them? Right in the front, of course. You know, that didn't win. So they're now on the way to the restroom, okay? They're behind the literature table. If you know to look, you'll see them. And while I don't like that group conscience, I secretly plot every Monday night how I'm going to move them from that wall to the front. I get it all lined up in there and get how I am going to hook them up there. They are still on that wall but I had to learn that I had to cheerfully accept the group conscience even if I didn't like it and not buttonhole everybody who would stand still long enough for me to complain to. That's not the example I want to set. And so a group conscience is important, and to listen to my husband in a group conscience, to respect that opinion, to run things by him, to have conversations and listen, not just dismiss it. Because I appreciate the respect that comes my way as well. When we get to membership, I have some interesting kind of experiences on that in the sense that there's the short form that, you know, the only requirement for any membership is a desire to stop drinking. But in my area, that seems to be kind of confused with you don't need to have started drinking, okay? And I really think in an AA meeting, you should have drank. I don't know, maybe that's the new way of thinking, but I really thing to have a desire to stop, you should've started at some point. And so we also have the beautiful long form that reminds me that it's for all who suffer from alcoholism. So when I came into the rooms, I came out of a treatment center, and I was kind of informed that I was identified as chemically dependent. I didn't know any better. I didn'T know any different. I didn' t want to be here to start with, So I wasn't questioning. I wasn'T also necessarily paying attention. And it talks about membership not requiring any money or conformity. So I come out into the rooms of the Minneapolis area. In fact, I've known Bob Bazans ever since I got sober. So seeing him as always, you know, I'm sure he has a different memory of what I was like than I do, but it's so good to ever be in a room with him. And so I would come out, and finally after a period of time, again, not doing it intentionally to be different, cute, smart, nothing like that. Freddie Yu and I from Minneapolis, he and I were sitting at the registration desk at the Gopher State Roundup, and a woman came up, and I said to her, are you AA or Al-Anon? And she said, I'm chemically dependent. So I checked the AA box, and off she went. And he looked to me, and he said, quote, what the hell is that? I said, well, that means that I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. And he said, hold just a second here. Here in Alcoholics Anonymous, we're simply alcoholics. He said, because that new guy or gal coming in the room looking for help, hearing you say you're chemically dependent is going to wonder, gosh, what in the – again, what the hell is that? I thought I could get some help for my drinking problem here. I guess I've got to go somewhere else. I don't know where to go now. At that moment was a real defining moment that I clearly remember, but it also would be one of many. Even though for membership I don'T have to have conformity, but I do believe for myself for my recovery I need to. At that moment when he said that I had a choice, I could defend my right to say anything I want. I'm a chemically dependent. I'm an orange juice can. I'm anything. I can defend my rights. Or I can flip over that coin and think about what are my responsibilities here? What about those? Am I going to be as adamant as doing those As I will be defending my rights And I find that for me My responsibilities trump my rights Because once again it's a bigger picture than Debbie And I began seeing Once again because he took the courtesy And the moment to explain to me That difference It was ignorance but I went from being ignorant to informed. What am I going to do about it? And I made that change to be more of the pack, more in the herd so I won't get picked off on the outside. And I started identifying simply as an alcoholic like you did and the roots of recovery went down a little bit more stronger. a while ago a couple months ago now I got a call from a grand sponsor who said do you sponsor men I said well you know sometimes well somebody wants to ask you to be their sponsor brand new guy couple three weeks sober and I thought well I'll be happy to talk with them well that afternoon he calls and he we started chatting a little bit I said Nick tell me your story tell me a little about your story And for about eight minutes, he shared about the drug overdoses and the drug relapses and the drugs that were used in the hospital. The drug hospitalizations and the Drug This and the Drugs That. That's about it, he says. That's where I am today. Okay. Have you ever drank? Because I'm an alcoholic. Have you never had a drinking problem? Well, you know, when I was younger, I drank a little bit. But, you Know, not really. But, You Know, it's all the same thing. radar goes up and I said well I know a lot of people say that but Alcoholics Anonymous does not I don't know how to help you if you aren't suffering from alcoholism because what you've just shared with me I have absolutely no clue what you have just said I don t identify you could put any of those things you just described in front of me and I wouldn t know what it was or what to do with it or how you do it. But I am an alcoholic, and I know the identification there's going to come that day when you say in your mind, but they don't understand. I said, you're right. I won't understand what in the heck you're talking about. And what I'd like to suggest is that once you call a solid NA friend of mine, and if that doesn't work out, you give me a call, But please, would you talk to him first? Because I said, have you ever been to NA? Yes, I have. But I don't get as much out of those meetings as I do the AA meetings. And I said you know what? You are wanted and welcome in our open AA meeting. And you know, what you can do is you can take whatever it is you're seeing and feeling and learning there into the rooms of NA and share that in there. You can get out of your jeans and put on a pair of slacks and a collared shirt and step it up. You can clean up your language and step it up. You can do whatever you feel if you find attractive here and take it out there into another world. And after I asked him to call my N.A. friend, solid in this program, there's this pause, and I'm thinking, oh, boy. And there's a voice that says, thank you for telling me the truth. He said, I've never felt comfortable saying I was an alcoholic. and uh i will call your friend three days later i get a text from the na friend saying thanks for the referral we've got him working with travis my guy who's six years on fire three days after that i geta call again from nick he said thank you i'm excited about this he says i was reading the na book last night you know what i wrote that I said yes he said I've never really identified with the AA book I never understood it and that's not usually the kind of response I get but that doesn't mean that I stop sharing my experience and inform those who don't know the difference between AA and other anonymous programs because I find that I'm not going to be of much use if I get it diluted. When I'm in a closed meeting, most of the time, if there is someone, I used to belong to a book study and we'd go around the room and we identify our name and illness and stuff and we say alcoholics and it's a closed meet and we've done that blue card statement to anybody who did not need help. Nobody ever raises their hand, you know? And so every now and then, someone would say yeah, I'm so-and-so and I'm an addict. And like my friend Steve says, they got through security, you know. Love that. And so, you Know, all antennas go up. You know, we got an addict in the room. And this is the closed meeting. Well, okay, it's okay. You know there's not going to be any damage done. But what is our responsibility is to make sure that that individual, that group conscience was we would, you know, have a conversation with the person after the meeting. And so I have certainly been known on most occasions that I'm the one who will, when we gather up to grab hands, I will cross the room and grab hands inconspicuously, so to speak, with this newcomer, so that after we do the amen shake-shake, I got them, you know. They're fast, so you've got to grab them right now. They don't get away. And I just start right in chatting with them and just share my story about the chemically dependent and have you ever had a drinking problem and kind of get a gentle explanation to it. Because I do think that I can't say, well, somebody will chat with him or her. They just don't know. It is my responsibility. The people I sponsor, it's their responsibility. They know. Don't slough that off onto somebody else. When we talk about autonomy, I have to respect the other group's way of doing things. It may not become my new home group. You know, I've been to many places to share my story, and they have absolutely never read the statement, we are not a glum lot, because they are. They are exactly what I thought AA would look like. I mean, it just – and so I know that I've lived in four different parts of the country and I've had four different home groups, and God's dropped me into the activists every time. And so that's what I have my baseline with is the active groups. And so yet, you know, I certainly have gone through my self-righteous stages of when they were doing it right and when they Were doing it wrong, of course. And I remember one time I got a really good lesson on respecting the autonomy of a group's format. The structure of the meeting or their design was that the speaker would also be basically the leader, too. And so there was a question as I was going ahead, reading ahead, you know, anybody in the first 30 days, anybody here, blah, blah. And there was this question that I just didn't think was appropriate, so I skipped it like I didn't see it. No big deal? So I thought. And at the end of the meeting, the secretary goes, oh, you know, we forgot to ask, blah, blah, bla. And he didn't embarrass me, but personally, I knew I had, I was in the wrong on that. I knew that it wasn't, they did not say, say, here's our format, do you approve? They never ran it by me for okay. I had to respect their format, and I've learned very quickly on that. The autonomy within our home, you know, to respect Kent's hobbies and my hobbies and that, you Know, we have service commitments and so forth on the phone, but until it affects our relationship, you Now, these things can all be collaborated and worked with as well. We have a primary purpose, and this is an interesting tradition because I know you have the experience. You've read something time and time again, and all of a sudden you see a word you never saw before. And it really makes a difference on how I relate to it. So in Tradition 5, it's that each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Just recently, it's like the word it's popped up because I've always seen the message. So I started thinking, well, I'm to carry the message of recovery that I have, but what is its message? In the long form it says that each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity. So it makes me stop and look at my group. Is it a spiritual identity? Am I contributing to the spiritual entity of that group? what is my group's message? Is it that it's okay to get up and run around and pour coffee and grab hand and do all kinds of distracting things, or is the message that we, truly in our group, people like to dress up. We have all kinds OF attire, and it's not required to dress UP, but most people tend to take it UP a notch. And during the meeting part, if you get up to go to the restroom, we all know. You stand out, okay? Because nobody gets up. We give full attention to that speaker. We thank the speaker. We got a long line. It's the courtesy and the consideration that we take in playing all these traditions into our group. and so am i contributing to that spiritual entity am i doing those earlier traditions am i considering the common welfare am i carrying any kind of message what does that look like if somebody knew from out of town walked into your group what would they see and feel and here? Would it be attractive? I don't know. It's important for me to look at my group that way, like the eyes of fresh eyes, someone who's never been there before. I don'T want anybody new to our group getting lost. So we start with some greeters. I'm at the grapevine table. I'm watching for new faces too. It's important. If they're sitting down, they're fresh targets. They probably haven't been here before. Get on them like white on rice. I mean, they are right there with a sign over them. Let's go get them. It is easy to do and it gets me out of me. So is my group that spiritual entity and am I contributing to that? I've never lent AA's name out for any other purposes or for money, property, or prestige. But my pursuit of money, property, and prestige has definitely diverted me from my primary purpose. When I was four years sober, I started going from seven meetings a week down to two or three which quickly became two. And the time I arrived and the time that I left got shorter and shorter to the point where it's almost as bad as when I first arrived about five minutes before the meeting and pretty soon after the amen, shake, shake you're looking at taillights out of the parking lot. And at six years sober, I thought I found the solution and that was people, places, and things are going to make me happy, which really the terminology is called men, money, and mansions are going to make my happy, okay? And in my pursuit of these two things and coming upon two fellas who had all the necessary conditions I was looking for I know I'd come to love them, but they had all the things I was looking for, both of them went off to marry somebody else. And I saw that at 6.9 years of sobriety, I came crashing down physically sober, but as earlier mentioned today, with severely untreated alcoholism for about two plus years, back to AA, bottomed out one more time and took those steps again to make that renewed and ongoing commitment to recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. But that diverted me from my primary purpose. I went from looking from a higher power to a human power. And that was about to be my undoing in that way. And I saw that during that time there was never enough. There was never enough. That's why I've kind of come to work in myself to be okay with who I am. We've had some awesome communicators this weekend. It's easy to start to think and make those comparisons, but I appreciate the individuality and the unique style everybody has of communicating and they all have a gift. And everyone in this room has a story that you can carry the message to people I'd never be able to touch and vice versa. And being okay with exactly who and where and what I am. Craig reminded me of a little story when we met many years ago and he said that, you asked me, so Craig, how long are you sober? He says, I replied, well, I'll be 13 in January. And I said, so that means you're 12. And he said, yeah. And he says, and I've never forgotten that, and I'm never said I'm more than I am. And my story was always, this wasn't good enough. And I remember being in first grade, Catholic school, school uniform on the steps, and a second grader asked me, a first grader, so what grade are you in? And I said, I'll be in second grade next year. I wanted to look better, more elevated, more whatever in her eyes. I was never okay. I did not answer the question. What grade are you in? First grade. That's the answer to the question, and it took such a long time in alcoholic synonyms for me to be right here where I am because at that time I had seen that there was never going to be enough when I was looking outside here for people, places and things to make me happy. Self-support. I love talking about self-suppORT. It's one of the hot topics I talk about with sponsees when they ask me about sponsorship. We talk about money and I'm not shy about it and I ask them that if you're working you better be throwing in more than one buck in the basket. Amp that up. Maybe three. one for each legacy, and more for your home group. Let's take responsibility. Do you still want to be paid what you were paid 20 years ago? I don't think so. Well, everything else has gone up. Why not my contributions? Especially if they're bringing a Starbucks into the room. Yeah, we're going to have a conversation about that if there is a buck going in the basket. Yeah. But self-support, while we mostly conversation about it in money terms, there's a lot of other ways that I look about self-support. Physically, I have to be self-supporting. Nobody can control what I eat or do my, God, I wish somebody could do my exercise for me, but nobody can do that. I am really, I have TO be self supporting for that. Financially, while I'm not an income producer, I cannot be an income abuser and to respect the money that comes into our home, and to be responsible about it. I have to be spiritually self-supporting. Nobody can do my prayers for me. Nobody can have that relationship with a higher power with me. I'm responsible for that ongoing activity and involvement and development of that relationship. Emotionally, I need to be self-supporting if I am constantly sad. I'm responsibility to take some actions. Kent is not responsible for me to be happy, happy, happy all the time. I have to take that responsibility. Mentally and verbally be self-supporting. May my words be of kindness and not criticism. May they be of support and not sarcasm. That self-support goes way bigger than the buck as far as I hand. And service, self-supporting and service. There are times when I'm sitting in a room and it's not even a regular meeting for me. And in our area, they'll say, would all those available for sponsorship raise their hands? Now, I tell the women I sponsor, this is not raising your hand, okay? Bending at the elbow is not rising your hand. This is raising your head. This is your hand and I better see it. I don't care if you think you have enough people to work with because I know I think I've got quite a few but on the other hand if they're coming to me there's some sort of an attraction and while I might not be the right sponsor or the person that says yes let's get started I will help you find so that's a hard thing to ask somebody I will tell you I will try to help you find the right person I don't say no but I don' t always say yes But I never turn them away to go, no, too busy, to schlep away, you know, all broken. No, now let's go find you somebody. That self-support in service. With Tradition 8 being nonprofessional, I've never worked in the industry, but I appreciated that when I went through a treatment center that somebody was there. I would come to learn one of the two counselors out where there was a member of AA also and I didn't understand why he and I seemed to understand each other. I wasn't looking for anybody to understand me but we could easily speak that language to each other and I wouldn't even make complete sentences and he would know what I was trying to say and I began to realize about that non-professionalism and I appreciated that, that those 12 step calls have to be made for free and for fun and for my own recovery. I hope they get something out of it. I hope recovery finds them. But whether I give them a big book or drive 50 miles, it is part of my joy and responsibility to carry that message for free and for the good and for having fun in this way of life. When we think about being organized, it's not in the conventional sense. It's quite the opposite. Many of you are familiar with general service and we have that upside-down pyramid And the beauty on this tradition for me is the rotation. Even though it says rotation of our leaders is a good idea and usually advised, I really need it for me because an ego like mine knows that I'm the best birthday girl, the best secretary, the best greeter, the Best Coffee Maker, the BEST, the BEAST, the BEST. And I have – I'm not going to learn anything else if I only do the same job over and over again. And I have found great tools as the result of having different experiences and different commitments, things that I've learned how to take out there. And that rotation is so important in that I also support and respect the leaders of my group that serve us, that I'm not always sitting there, what a crappy job, that I can be of help to them and be of support. It's not easy doing some of the commitments. But until I've done them, I also don't have the extra compassion of what it takes to do that particular commitment. We talk about being organized, and I'm pretty organized. I'm organized to a default. I'm not only a Virgo, I'm a double Virgo. And poor Kent, you know, he's come a long way. Kent has come a Long Way. I've hipped him. But beautifully, one day he said, I made some comment in our early marriage about organized or whatever. And he just did this so nicely. He says, you know, I'm never going to be as organized as you are. I know. But lovingly, he said. But I don't want to be organized. I don' t want to get as organized. As you are And I got it. He doesn't have to be. He doesn'T have to be. We collaborate very well. Kent is a big idea kind of guy, and I'M the detail man. And that collaboration works really, really well. He's got great ideas before anybody else has them. He's always, as he says on the cutting edge of modern thought. He thinks the solutions before we know there's a problem you know so he's got that gift and uh and so we reeling back in back into the details of things but you know to respect our leaders and thank goodness there aren't aa police i would have been arrested for bad behavior in those early years so many times sometimes i wish there were aa police you could call somebody up but really we don't need them as we know I do it to myself in Tradition 9 it talks about if I don't conform to the spiritual have that spiritual obedience these spiritual principles I'm going to do it myself I'm gonna sicken and die and I will drink again and I've gotten very very close a couple of times especially at that 6.9 years It was very, very close, the untreated alcoholism. I love Tradition 10's no opinion on outside issues. It's very specific, you know, alcohol reform, sectarian religion, and politics. And that's no problem. But I can certainly have a lot of other opinions on other things. And probably one of the things I've had to learn is not give that unsolicited advice. It's good, too. You know, it's good advice. But they didn't ask for it. Now, I'll even say to Kent, would you like my feedback on that? No. You just want to say, well, if you did, you know. No, no, we're good. Okay. Okay. it's important that I keep this a safe haven again, personal relationships can move into the rooms of recovery but as I shared with you in the beginning about tradition one for me, about it not being something about whatever my personal dilemma of the moment was it was not to be brought into the room for discussion I can also have opinions on lots of other things regarding recovery or sponsorship or the way somebody does that. I've learned through your examples it's none of my business. One of the ways though that I found important was back many years ago when we had the first Gulf War and many people wore yellow ribbons in support of the troops and I did too during the day but when I went to the meetings that night I removed any of those kinds of symbolisms because in my area we had a lot of people who were of Persian or Iranian descent and they were already getting a lot of unkind comments and I didn't want to be anyone in that category that made them feel that they weren't safe in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I have no opinion whether anybody else did or not, but I knew what I could do to make this a safe haven for anybody who walked in here. Some years ago, Kent and I were in Yosemite, and we were driving back, and I'd been invited to talk on the traditions. The way they said it to me was in our relationship, which meant I took to just simply, I was going to talk about how we applied it in our marriage. And we're about four years married, and I said, you know, I really feel that we do that, but I don't exactly know how to articulate it. So on the way home, we went through each of the traditions and started kind of what we felt we did. And when we got to 10, it was almost like he was waiting for Tradition 10. We have no opinion on outside issues. and he said, just with the smoothest of tongues, that I had to consider my husband's defects of character as outside issues and therefore had no opinion on them. Well, how will you know? I mean, if you... About those, I mean... I need to point them out, help you out, get you... It was like I got put in a straitjacket and a mouthclasp. And I just thought, now where did this come from? You know, I'm like tongue-tied. I could not believe that. And isn't there some way else we could talk about this tradition, you know? And the more I've thought about it, the right on that is. Because I expect, and Bob and Lou were talking about expectations. I expect you to always do the right thing, do the good thing, be appropriate, be this and that. And when you kind of mess up, according to me, why that just slams under the microscope, I don't know. It just goes in there for a search investigation. and when i practice this as a way of life it's not as frequent that that goes under there he has more of my defects of character to deal with than i have of his his can be kind of big but you know there's only a few you know i have lots of little ones he's got a couple big ones so it's a nice collaboration one more time Big picture, little details. Opinion. And it really is something that the more I practice, the easier it gets. And same with me looking at your defects of character as well. I can take that outside of the rooms of my marriage and into the rooms if Alcoholics Anonymous. Love, Tradition 11. Attraction rather than promotion. What are my actions versus my words, my yakety-yak going on? And we, again, is my group attractive? Would people want to come back? Am I attractive as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous? Again, that self-support and being attractive physically. I mean, I don't wake up looking like this, okay? I mean, this takes some work. This planning and figuring out and strategy. Not too long ago, I was invited to talk at a 6.30 a.m. Friday meeting. And like Marilyn, I'm not a morning person. I mean I might as well stay up all night to be ready for something like that. That is the call of duty, I'll tell you. because i don't put on a baseball cap and a this pair of you know jeans in this sweatshirt i i go to i mean not maybe like this but i mean i've got my makeup and my hair done and i'm an appropriate skirt and dress and i kept trying to think how can i get out of this i mean this is so early and you know nothing could come to mind didn't you know i'd just get one one word out of a potential good excuse and you knew nothing was happening because what happens, what you've taught me is, okay, flip that over once again. Flip that over as to, okay, what were you so willing to do without conditions for drinking? I was willing to drive an hour and a half on the rumor there was a party going on, okay? I don't have an address, got a town. Don't worry, let's go. We'll find it. I didn't care. Let's go What was I so willing to do if 6.30 a.m. on Friday is where the booze and the boys were going to be? Would that have been inconvenient? Oh, God, no. I'd have been there at 6 o'clock. And so I have to flip it over. What am I willing to do for drinking? Am I still willing to do it unconditionally for recovery? I might personally whine about it, but my feet are in action. And to be that attraction physically, spiritually? Do I look like someone who appears to have a power greater than myself in my life? Do i look like somebody who has a relationship with God? All three of my sponsors if you ask me why did you pick them? I could say it in the same sentence that's what i want to be like when I grow up. They had this beautiful attraction about them, and there was a core about them on the inside, and I would come to learn that was the relationship with the God of their understanding and the development of that relationship. To be attractive verbally, again, emotionally, mentally, is there any humility? Do I look like somebody who's enjoying my life? not happy teehee like that but someone who just generally is enjoying their life am I an attraction and sponsorship if I'm not sponsoring someone maybe I should ask myself why what am I doing or not doing am I being militant or am I just, oh call if you feel like it what does that look like and our beautiful principles before personalities and the anonymity of things. Not to be boastful about myself, but to just stay that humble, in-service servant. To practice those principles before personalities. Because I find that, especially in sponsorship, I find the great need for that. that if I have a principle, the personalities will adjust around it. But if I'm adjusting the principle to a personality, there are no principles. There is no continuity. There's no integrity. I didn't even know how to spell integrity when I got here. I had no clue about that. These steps and traditions have given me a way of life, the integrity, some continuity to continue to grow, to continue to learn, to continue to serve what are some of the other ways that I practice principles before personalization I answer my phone without screening my calls sometimes I wish I did that it would be less the word isn't coming so okay we'll move past that but I figure if they're calling me they need to talk to me about something How can I be of help to them? That's the reason I'm answering the phone. How can i be of Help? To work all of the room, and when I say work the room it's not, hi how are you, hi how are ya, hi, how areya? It's about making a connection with each person. Make an eyeball contact, talk to them by name, introduce myself a warm handshake and a friendly smile can change an entire evening for a lonely, scared new person. and that's what I want to do. I want to welcome them into this family of recovery. Show them what we have. Give freely of what we've got. Sometimes in my home group I don't know about yours but placing principles before personalities there's a line I think it's on page 50 in our big book that says that I couldn't see the beauty of the forest because I was diverted by some of the ugliness of some of its trees and I always liken that to my home group that it is a beautiful collaboration of all kinds of people. But then there's a couple of people I'm not that fond of, and I know they would be happier in somebody else's home group, you know? I know these things. I don't tell them, but I just know it intuitively. And I look at them, and I just, you Know, they're like a couple of dead stumps, you know, that need to get removed from this beautiful forest. But like a forest, everything is needed. The dead st pumps, critters live in there that wouldn't live anywhere else. You know, bird poop, bees buzzing, all kinds of things are needed for the welfare of the forest. And so I have to look at all of that as that is the health and the welfare of the group as well. The group conscience, I trust. As long as we're not trying to railroad something through, but the group conscience and listening to everyone and thinking, are we being an attraction? Are we being self-supporting? Do we have a singleness of purpose and are we a spiritual entity? Will people come back time after time? I get the chance to take a meeting into a treatment facility. Our group is an open speaker meeting, and it seems sort of silly that we had a hospitals and institutions rep and our group did not take on a commitment of carrying the message into some facility of some type. So we take it into a treatment facility, and I take the fifth Wednesdays of the month, which is only four times a year. But every time I do, I tell them about our group and where we meet And they would be welcomed And that it's open And that they are welcome to bring their loved one or someone in support And as the result of that, five people have come to our group Because they felt invited I want to invite you and them To our group And to Alcoholics Anonymous And so these traditions They were in place I don't think there's anyone here who was sober prior to 1950 when they were formally adopted at that first international convention. They were all in place, and as Gary said to us the other night in his wonderful service talk, we are the beneficiaries. We are the heirs and heiresses of these traditions. So how are we going to take care of these? How are we gonna pass them on and keep them rich for those to come? Well, I think it all kind of says it in the last sentence of what we do with our inheritance of the long form of the 12th tradition. It says this to the end, that our great blessings may never spoil us, that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over us all. Thank you. applause Thank you.