Arrogance as a Deficiency in Self-Esteem – Peggy M.

Good morning everyone. Did I turn it off? No, I'm alright. It's on? I used to know how to do that. Oh, it's going to be one of those days, I can tell. I'm Peggy Martin and I'm an alcoholic and through the grace of God and fellowship of people like you in sponsorship I have been sober since February the 4th 1964 and for that You know, it's really a funny thing. Whenever I think about coming to a big convention of women or even doing anything with large groups of women, for weeks prior to doing what I'm doing, and I don't know if this is just the way I am or if it's the way a lot of us are, but since I'm a pretty much garden variety alcoholic I have to think it's the way a lot of us are I moan and I groan oh, I don't know if I can do it I don' t know if i can spend the whole weekend with them you know the whole week end that kind of thing then I get here And I have just had a blast. I have enjoyed myself so much. And that has really literally been the story of my life. I never know what's good for me. I never Know What's Good For Me. I always go into things, you know, carping and moaning about stuff and just have a blast or I go into things thinking I'm going to have a blast and end up carping and moaning so I I never ever know I still don't know I mean I've been sober isn't it interesting here's an interesting thing I this year I celebrated 31 years of sobriety and isn't that one of those little god's coincidences that come along isn't it now the other thing is that in the morning talking in the morning is not my favorite time to talk because i um i don't like morning uh i don't um don't do i mean i'm very vulnerable in the morning you know it's like i don t have my girdle on yet or something my my emotional girdle you know or my my my breastplate as they you know i don' t have my breast plate on yeah you know how those those viking women used to wear I always wanted to be a Viking woman, you know, this breastplate and those big horn things that come out and look fierce, you know, because I had that kind of fierce personality. But I don't have my breastplate on in the morning, and so I'm vulnerable in the morning and and I'm particularly vulnerable with women which is I think one of the reasons that we all get scared about coming to stuff like this is because especially when we're new where we're we know that we know don't we we know that we know and we know the you know no and because you know we know and we don't like it because we don t want to appear to be what we are which is scared to death we i always wanted to be have this this image of being a zonta you know where i'm just uh well what is that song you know i am woman hear me roar you know i always want it and i kind of am like that i mean i kind of am liked that i see that's the problem with me i'm all these things that i have not yet even gotten together i mean i'm just you know it's like some people have one personality some people have you know a half a personality which is what i had when i got the hey i mean about and and it's like I have these two separate sections in me just it's like that don't fit and I am real strong over here and I'm real vulnerable over here and it's it's the twain shall ne'er meet you know it's hard to reconcile and I think Polly said it Friday night being an arrogant wimp you know it's just like you know it's it's not it doesn't and as we would say in computer line he does not compute then compute it doesn' fit it would never make the top chart on American online for example I mean it just isn't a thing that fits you know and I will give you and I am still like that it is not it but it doesn t run my life anymore and I all weekend and in all last weekend there were some ladies here from Vancouver British Columbia and I was in Vancouver last weekend and all last weekend in all this weekend I have I have heard every speaker that I have heard talk every feeling I have felt has been about change it's been about change. It's been about this was the way that I was and this is the way that I am and how did I get from here to here? It's about change, it's about the marvelous actions and the privilege that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous of being able to participate in our own recovery. Do you know that there are people who are genuinely, genuinely nuts. I mean they're genuinely out of it and they have no choice. They have no hope. They have no ability to take action that is going to change what is inside their head. We have the ability to actually psychically change. You know, I saw something in... And this is terrible, see? Because this is what I do in the morning, too. And I don't like... You're like Pat did last night. And I just hate this because, you know, Zantas don't cry. People rust their breastplates if they cry. Their breastplanes get all rusty. But this is why I'm here. This is what we do. You know? This is when I do. but I had I watched in action what it means to me to be an AA last night one of the people that I sponsor had they had to take her baby to the hospital because this baby is what we would know as a SIDS baby I mean this baby is a SIDs baby and your five years ago this baby would have died but now because of no matter what we think about medicine now wonderful things have been accomplished and because of that this baby is alive and they had to take her to the hospital last night and in the middle of the night and I saw people and Alcoholics Anonymous participating in helping her I saw them go out of their way to drive her to the hospital because she was too panicked and too upset to do so i saw them go first thing in the morning and give her clothing and talk with her and settle her down and in the middle of the night she called me and she asked me the question that no one ever wants to hear. She said they have just put her on oxygen. Oh God, am I going to lose her? And of course, I don't know. But what I said was what I could. Oh no. It'll be okay. Come will not lose her because you see we have we she is of us she is she is of us and through us and that's what it is and I saw that in action those people were there for her and I was there for and that is not something I do it's not something I do because I'm selfish and I'm self-centered and I don't care about other people that's my life was that way in there is something in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that is so true that I can't even believe that we sort of gloss over it sometimes in the Big Book which is just absolutely incredible piece of literature for us i thought it was very poorly written when i first read it but it is amazing it has nothing to do with intellect it has all to do mit spirituality in there it says and this is this is what is so incredible about change in a I read that thing and I don't know about you but it seems like they change it every once in a while you know it's like the words the words wiggle or else I think that wasn't there last time I read it you know I did because I'm in a different place that's why I'm looking at it and reading it from a different and it says selfishness self-centered that we think is the root of our problem. Is, is, is. Not was. Is. And not was used to be maybe a little bit, sometimes is, sometimes isn't. isn't is the root of our problem it does not take a genius to figure out that that means present tense is the route of our problems and somewhere else in the book it says that are really our survival depends upon our ability on a daily basis to take care of our spiritual condition and you know what sometimes i'm in good shape and sometimes i ain't you know i can tell when i get up in the morning and say my prayers how i'm gonna be i mean it's if i can do something to change the course of the day but you know I always say the third step prayer on my knees every morning and when I get down if I'm really in a kind of a really good place I say God I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness and so forth and on those days when I've got it together I am hip slick and cool I said, God, I offer myself to thee To deal with me and do with me as thou wilt Relieve me of the bondage of self That I'm a better deed, I will Take away my devilish The victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, thy will And I know on days like that It's going to be a long day, because I am so full of myself that day. And on top of everything else this morning, my mom is here. She's one of those people that I damaged the most, because I lived with them right up to the end. And my mom was the one, my mom, was the one who went to an AA meeting, found someone to talk to, got me a place in this drying out joint, folded me in half and shoved me in the back of a Porsche and drove me out to the country, deposited me on the porch of Melwood farm outside of Olney, Maryland and said do something with her. And the funny thing about this is that my mother and neither my mother nor my father has ever ever ever ever suggested that I am going to too many meetings. So she's here, and then my grandson, in whom I see God, is also here. Oh, God, am I blessed. Aren't we all? We are all blessed. Now, people like me don't have grandsons like Joe. People like me don't relationships with my mother like I have. People like me don t have a marriage like I do. People like die like dogs. Not even dogs because I love dogs. We die like cockroaches or something. Something I don't like. I don' know, I kind of like cockroach's too actually. I'm a big animal insect bug snake lover you know so anyway I have alcoholism not alcohol wasn't and that's an old saying but nothing could be more true because I have never ever been like other people I've never ever thought you know it never leapt into my mind. You know, you're just like her, except in AA, of course, which ought to tell you something. But I mean, when I was in elementary school, when i was in junior high, when iwas in college, when, i mean, i had a wonderful, wonderful youth, um, i never just said i was like her or him. I always, i neve,r i compared myself to people and i always came up either thinking I was better than they were or worse than they were. I never felt ordinary, I never felt equal to anyone. It was better or worse and both of those are arrogance. They're both arrogance and my sponsor told me, my sponsor Jean, told me a long time ago that an excess of arrogance is the deficiency in self-esteem so both ways i was lacking in self-esteem and this is another old saying but it couldn't be any any better i may not be much but i'm all i think about sometimes and i tell you that there couldn't be a truer word because it's the truth and what a boring i mean i've known me all my life sometimes not very well but i've know me and i am far more interested in you than i really then i am or i should be far more interested in new than i am in me and on the days that i'm in good shape i am but see i'm weird and i i don't think any i never heard a person coming to aa and having say you know if we took a poll of the audience that says right this minute do you feel normal i never had a whole bunch of hands shoot up in the air you know and say yes yes i feel normal don't they we don't we we're always i'm always like just a little bit bubble off a plum a quart low you know just kind of like that you know it's like i've got these two buckets you know and i get these buckets and i'm balancing these buckets full of sand like it balance these buckets and I go through the day oh that bucket's up oh that that bucket that that bucket's up no no no wait wait which one is it back over back over back over back over back over and then somebody you know and I just get them in balance see like this and somebody comes along and pokes a hole in the bottom of my bucket oh no here comes a and I can't I never you know Dr. Paul talks about mood-changing people. That's it, boy. I mean, they changed my mind. So I never, I never could, I never and not even today. I, you know, I don't always, I do it better but not and it's about and you know what another thing is that when I was thinking I was crazy back in those days, it bothered me. It really bothered me, you know, so I just, I just oh, oh, you're crazy. I felt like this, you know my pigeon was going to have a meeting called Paranoids Anonymous but they didn't think they should meet that's the way I was people who are paranoid believe that someone else is out to get them i thought that but i also thought i was out to get me see and it was like oh you're crazy you're crazy because of all this evidence that i had for alcoholism i mean you know all the evidence that i have because on the one hand see i like digging in the dirt there's nothing i like better i like it today i like digging in the dirt there's nothing to me today more therapeutic than digging inthe dirt pulling up weeds i just love it you know take that you dastardly thing plant a posy in there you know i love digging in the dirt and on the other hand you know I like being I like buying stuff from like eddie bauer you know so I like digging in the dirt and I like Eddie Bauer I like fighting with boys I love fighting with, I love fighting with anybody but I really like fighting with voice because it is powerful I had my breastplate on you know boom take that you person I just love I just love, I love hearing I love hearin', poof I love herein' that flash, you know, bam hit you in the face and when I was in elementary school at Randolph Elementary this guy named I was a big roten guy the big pear shaped guy that wore white nylon shirts and high water jeans and socks and shoes with lightning bolts on the sides and we called him Flash because he was a real nerd I mean he was really nerd type of guy kind of looked like Humpty Dumpty but he didn't like me and I didn't like him and he wouldn't ever do anything I thought that I just kindly suggested You know, he never wanted to do what I wanted him to do. And I was raising money for a Berlin candy lift, which really dates me. And he wasn't bringing his money. And so I said, you don't bring your money tomorrow and I'm going to beat you up. Well, he weighed like 630 pounds or something. And I weighed 56 pounds. But he was not mean like I was. because I was mean and so after school I to this I am up an artist as some of you already know and I see things in pictures and I can picture Randolph Elementary School with it with the bushes growing along sidewalk and here's the sidewalk and I said I'll meet you after school and I'll beat you up you know and he so I hid I'm not crazy so I head in the bushes and when he passed by me i jumped out on his back and shoved my fist up into his nose and boom just you could feel the gristle snap oh it was just great it was what i love i just love it and his nose bled and he fell down to the ground and and i oh it wasn't awful and my mom and dad got called you know and i because i beat this kid up i mean it was the sergeant's kid and i'm an officer's kid I mean, I am in deep kimchi and they take me back and I have to, I'm on, you know, I have to be in the house. I hate being in the House and just stuff like that, you know, but see, on my, he never, I never found him. I didn't, I don't even know what his name was except Flash, but I was supposed to when I made my first amends list. I put him on my amends lists, but the thing is see, I could go to him and I could say flash I was wrong And in my mind I'd say, but I'm not sorry because i'm not and that's so i'm this way see so i am over here so then and then i have these dreams about being this little tiny person that's so scared you know that i'm in this cloud and i'm floating around it's me because i was terrified i was terrifying to life i felt like in order to go into life i had to be in a tank little tank so i could kind of developed my own little tank you know my own little ship my own armor and i'd get in my little tank and i roll out the door and i have this little gun and when i didn't like people i'd look out through my little gun slit and i go shoot all these little people so see on the one hand i'm this scared scared thing and on the other hand I'm this this bully this bully bully bully bully female bully really female bully on the one hand I love I mean that the paintings I painted these big diaphanous watercolors you know these pinks that would the one last night the pink and the green and the you You know, the blues and the wonderful pastels, these big, airy things. And on the other hand, I like things like Andy Warhol, which is minimalism. I mean, it is so stark and so different than all of that. I love that. On the one hand, there is nothing I like better than riding in my Jeep with all the windows rolled up and the sound, blasting Bach's Toccata in Fugue and Pachelbel's Canon anything Baroque just blasting away I pick up Joe at daycare every day and we turn on the classical music in the car and he's back in his grandma seat the little grandma seat I got in my car he's back in the car seat like this you know and and where and i'm yeah you know and uh joe's in the back he goes see i'm singing in the front seat joe is combining music with me in the background there's nothing i like better than that kind of music but when it gets down to it when it really gets down to it i like things like american woman when i when i dance i like to do down and dirty rock and roll just witching my hips and just come and get me honey you know that that kind of i love doing that kind dancing i love getting sweaty i like this summer in the city you know i like when i came into alcoholics anonymous The first year I was in, or the second year I was in my very favorite song was Wild Thing by the Trolls. Remember that? Wild Thing! Uh-uh! And see, that doesn't compute. It's way miles apart. Andy Warhol, diaphanous watercolor. Bully coward. Intellectual student. very very very favorite favorite favorite thing ever in the whole world to do except go to like a conferences and meetings and stuff and sponsor people and pray to God and everything all that is football I love I love it my girls gave me for my anniversary this they gave me this shirt that says football is life and then underneath it says all the rest is just detail i love football i love it because because people had these big guys big guys with stuff hanging out of their noses you know big helmets and They've got grass and dirt hanging off their helmets, and they puff and snort and they plow ahead and they tackle each other and they grind and they grab and they pummel you in the dirt and three yards in a cloud of dust. And I just love that stuff. I love it because it's part of my personality. I love the game, the strategy of it and everything. I am a diehard Nebraska Cornhusker fan. And on the one hand, I mean, I just, the agony and the ecstasy, that's my life. The agony andthe ecstacy. That's my, and the agonyand the ec stacy of that. You know, when we, and I still, I love life. I lovelife. I never loved life. life was just painful when I was drinking it was pathetic I was pathetic I want to wring every ounce out of life I can I have died and I want to live all of us are like that you know something i want to say something here very seriously being sober and a member of alcoholics anonymous is a privilege not a right there are too many people who believe it is their right to be sober And they're right to do AA however it is they want to do it. The tragic thing about that is that whenever I am into my rights, my rights! Not my rights. But my rights? I am in to self. I have gone to a number of funerals lately because the girls... I'm getting my breastplate rusty. My girls are, their parents are getting older. My parents are gettin' old and they're dying and I mean they're pretty, you know, they're pretty glorious funerals really because these people are older and they've had wonderful lives in the relationships because of AA had been repaired and at Linda's dad's funeral there was this he was oh god at the funeral they were saying these things like he was such a loving man he never said an unloving thing and the thing is that's the way Linda is except with no on occasion and during the funeral this the priest said that he there was a sophomore in college or freshman in college and and this counselor noticed that all these people were going to this freshman storm and talking with him and consulting with him and asking his opinion and that kind of thing and the counselor went up to can see what it was with him. And so the kid talked to him he said I don't know what it is I don't know why these people come to me I don' t know why that is and as the and they talked a little bit and then the counselors heard leave and he saw a plaque on his desk that said I am third and the counselor stopped and he said what does this mean and he said well my mom gave it to me and he said I live by this and the counselor said what does that mean he said God is first my fellow man is second and I am third and that's AA, that is AA to me because I have to have a power greater than I have to think of you and i have to put my precious little self out once in a while because when i am doing things like that i am at my very best when i'm out of self and into you and into aa i am at my very best and when these disparate personalities the only time that they ever felt right was when I drank I drank a lot and when I drink those disparate personalities it was okay with me and I drank I would drink a fifth of vodka a day. I ended up coming into Alcoholics Anonymous at 25 years of age with cirrhosis of the liver, with blood pressure out the roof. I looked like a 40-year-old woman. I was 25 years old. I wish I looked 40 now. And I'll tell you what I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with. I had the most privileged of backgrounds. I went to school here in the United States at three of the finest schools in the world. I went University of Paris in France, I was there for a year and a half. I went the University of Geneva in Switzerland. I learned languages, I became a very good interpreter translator. I worked at that after I got sober but the whole time I was doing this I was drinking. It was not something, I just went like a leaf on a river. I just where there was drinking. And I can remember little vignettes of my drinking that are so apropos. One was when we were in Paris and this is a funny one. I was into classical music and I was in to this conductor person. And one night we were drunk at a party and decided we were going to go make pretty music and there were a whole bunch of other musicians there. Now, I was not there for that reason. I was no there as a musician. But we ended up going over to the rehearsal hall and getting up on the stage in the rehearsal Hall and starting to play music. Now, l play the piano, so we're all drunk. And l remember sitting on that piano bench and throwing my hair back like this and bringing out my hands, you know, like... mean drunk and we started playing this stuff in it sounded like a train wreck I mean it was hysterical but it was we you know that was one of those vignettes I remember that's funny then I remember the time that my dad what I put my entire family through a graduation from Washington University in st. Louis and I knew I wasn't going to graduate because I had I the week of the finals and I didn't take the finals so I knew I was gonna grab graduation ceremony and afterwards I got somebody else's cap and gown and I remember walking up that gravel path I remembered that robe swinging against the gravel on the ground and I my dad's hand coming up under my arm saying we've got to talk I mean how do you do things like what could you say what can I do them I say to my parents dad I didn't want to do that I didn t to do th at I could I don't want hurt you I could have said that but I couldn't I couldn't say it it was stuck here and the great thing about the amends step is that I could say that. I didn't want to do that. I didn' t mean to hurt you. I was wrong and I am sorry. Thank God we have the ability to amend our relationships. Thank God that I can look in Joe's face and see God. Thank God I can look at my son's eyes. and know that I've been the best mom I could be. I mean, I'm not mom material, you know? I mean I'm just not. I mean like get them out of diapers and into the army. You know, that's the kind of... Don't let the door hit you too hard. But thank God I can look in here and be proud of this man. this man who is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous this man who has become a fine young man thank God for the amends you know what the amens step means amendment is the same thing as atonement just a different connotation atonment is religious I suppose and amendment is more intellectual or spiritual but it's the same word, it's same thing amendment meaning change atonement meaning change but look at atonment divide the word up at one and that's what happens to us when we make amends we become at one with ourselves at one with the people were making amends with at one the power that allows us to make that I arrived at the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous 25 years old looking like a wet skunk about the only thing I I had died my sister had decided she was going to shape me up and I got my hair died somewhere in 1962 it just like died and she put this shower cap on and put these holes in it and pull the hairs through because she thought if I'd look better I'd feel better, you know. So she'd pull all this stuff through and put this dye on it. Well when you're drinking and all that alcohol goes to your hair shaft the chemicals react really funny on your hair. So what happened instead of getting these silvery streaks I got these enormous bright orange dots all over my head. And then they all broke off, you known. I had these bare spots all over my head, blue turtleneck sweater. I have my own personal archives. I have that turtleneck sweater in my personal archives and here's and with these orange dots and broken off spots and blue turtle neck and I had something orange spilled right down the front of it here I don't know gray stretch pants I that's how I really arrived at AA you know I mean as 25 years old great IQ couldn't think my way out of a paper bag I absolutely identify with I mean I had the look of a dog on the freeway I mean just I just I couldn't everything was important everything the hair stood up on my arms somebody slam a door three doors and three blocks away and I go I mean my ears hurt my hair hurt my body hurt my stomach hurt my eyes hurt I had no eyelashes all eyelashes that fall out of my eyes my I mean I was a jewel you know I know this lady walked up to me and said you look new and I was insulted she took me under her wing and I off and running now at first it was a a slow jog honey slow walking and sad talking I mean that was the story of my first couple years in there slow walking and sad talk oh no I can't do that and then under my breath bitch you know I had a bad personality too then after I said you know and the best way for me to describe it as this. I love that woman. She died with many years of sobriety in the Diner, Minnesota not too long ago and I wrote to her every year from the time that we moved from Washington DC. I wrote her frequently and then I got another sponsor and I always wrote her a nice letter at Christmas time. She always replied and then one year I didn't hear from her and her daughter wrote me the most beautiful letter in the spring saying that her mother had died in them in the nursing home with many years of sobriety and how much through the years my letters had meant to her and that's I don't people like me don't do things like that people like me don't make differences like that but the best way I can describe what I owe that woman is she took me through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous she took me through the steps and there is a very allegorical way of describing in my case one is this there was this it's a story and it's a little boy and his dad and his dads taking care of the little boy mom's gone shopping or something and that the dad wants to get some work done before they go off well the dad the kid is like all kids we were talking about this for doc and I were talking about this before I mean where kids come on go they just tug on you all the time you know when you're trying to get something done so his dad got the centerfold out of magazine it was a map of the world and he took this map of The World out and he cut this map of the world up into great big you know big jigsaw puzzle pieces threw him in a bag gave the kid the bag and said go put the map of the world together, and then when you do, we'll go to McDonald's. And so he figured he had at least a half hour. The kid's back in five minutes, and he's got the thing together. And the father said, how did you do that? And the boy said, well, Dad, there was a picture of a man on the other side. I put the man together and the world came together now is that the story of AA or what you put the man together and everything in the world changes the world never really changes I change this is about change it's about change yesterday or the day before in one of the workshops we were talking about the actions of the steps and I am not one that has only taken a fifth step, fourth and fifth step once I have taken several to the delight of the people that I sponsor I have recently because of an upset in my life had to write a gratitude list and I'm warning them any more guff about it and we'll see who's writing gratitude lists. Because, you know, poo-poo rolls downhill. But I am not one that has only done this once. I feel that certainly from six steps, I do the third step every day. And certainly six, seven, eight, nine, those things, 10, 11, 12, they're continuous actions on me. and in when we were living in Hagerstown Maryland I hadn't thought about this in years there was a factory out in the country from Hagerestown in which there was in front of this factory was an example of what they made and what it was was a spiral staircase that went around a center pole and they had one of of these things sitting out in front of their factory. And it's called a duvenage. And what I relate it to is the fact that in life and in AA and in the steps and in every little thing in my life, surrender, I am on the duvenige. I cover the same ground, but I do it from a different place. because as I walk up that staircase I don't see everything as the same I have a different perspective and before Alcoholics Anonymous I was spiraling downward now I can and sometimes I spend a lot of time in one place going round and round and around I think I'll take a step up, no I think i'll take it back I think I'll take it but eventually if I'm in the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous I move forward there's a there is an old there there is a technique in painting called pentamento and a pentamento is the old masters would paint a canvas and they would maybe not frame it or whatever maybe they didn't like it or maybe they'd throw it in the corner and a lesser artist would come along and would get the this old master and because canvas was very expensive they would paint over it and gradually through the years the outside painting would rub off and what would be left was the old master that's what aa does it removes what we don't need it removes what isn't good and it leaves what God brought because all my life just like listening to Baroque music I wanted to respond to my soul I really did Baroque Music, people love to hear Baroque music because it's very calming and the reason it is is because it integrates so many elements of music and when we sit and listen to it we are calm and that's a scientific fact but it touches my soul and i spent years and years trying to keep everybody out of my soul. And Alcoholics Anonymous has allowed me to bare my soul to you and to anyone who needs any kind of help. Three quick stories, and we're out of here. Me and my story. And I believe that this change, this duvenage, this melody on the duvenege of life, if you will, has allowed me to see things differently. Because if AA is altered attitudes, then I believe we see things different. And I'll give you examples. One was, I developed this enormous fear of flying. Well, actually, it was a fear of crashing and burning is what it was. It wasn't a fear or flying. I like to fly. I just don't want to crash and burn. And I was flying down to Little Rock, Arkansas. Matter of fact, Vince, I think Vince, yes, because Pat, this is very strange, Pat substituted for me because I didn't get in until midnight. So I'm flying down the Little Rock. we get into Kansas City and get on this little plane that looks like a dragonfly and they got this lady says we need to balance the plane you know so they got god they took somebody off and they put somebody out you know and they are all bouncing and this guy you know and the pilot gets on he looks like this you know and there's a raggedy curtain in between I mean it's flapping back and forth and we're in the air man and we are going to and it is rocky it is stormy it is raining it is snowing it is hailing We try to land at Fayetteville, Arkansas We get down on the runway The pilot in his wisdom decides he ain't going in We get 10 feet off the runway He pulls up The stall alarm and the plane goes off The curtain is flapping I got my medallion I'm praying Oh God, I'll cook dinner for Dick every night I promise I will I'll never swear for this I'll give again I'll be a good member But he just kicked me out of this one Oh please I don't want to go crash and burn I don' like this man I don''t like anything about this and I'm just going on and on and the pilot comes on and he goes, well we didn't make it into Fayetteville and I go, no poop and I hear this rustling behind me and I turn around and this woman has got this brown paper bag and she has pulled out of this brownpaper bag a bottle of Smirnoff vodka And she takes the lid off and she takes a big drink And I felt better Now That is an altered attitude I could have been so mad She gets to drink and I don't How come she gets to get snockered And then she's scared to death and I can't I thought it was wonderful. I just thought it was wonderful in San Jose, California. I'm sitting out and I was supposed to speak and there's like 5,000 people at this thing 5, 000 10, 000 eyeballs and I'm thinking oh my God what am I going to say? I'm just you know my neighborhood my committee and my dark neighborhood up here is just you know just walking back and forth and going oh you're going to get up there in front of the podium you're going to fade dead away and you're not going to be able to say anything. I've got all you can do. You're just a broad from Nebraska. You'll probably get up there and say, go Big Red! I'm just crazy. Crazy. We're sitting outside watching this play called Sadie the South. But I'm humming so bad I can't even hear the songs. And all of a sudden I felt something wet hit my hand. And I looked up because I thought it was raining in california which at the time was an unusual occurrence it isn't anymore but it was then and it's not a cloud in the sky we're outside in this beautiful amphitheater i look down it's white my friend sitting next to me goes a bird has crapped on your back I had a bird It was this big around This big And it had big bits in it Big bits All over my show On my yellow silk speaking dress And all of a sudden It was like You know for some people they sing For me they crap Isn't it funny You know it's funny it's funny it's like that's all I'm supposed to do show them the crap you know they don't care get up there used to be how I could say my name is Peg Martin and I'm an alcoholic and I used to do mad about stuff like this but now I just think it's fun it was great it was God's cosmic joke you know, it's like all this fear is clobbering me up inside and God says unzip baby so I go and he brings his big cosmic toothbrush and he goes here I am reporting for duty you know no more fear inside because of that because I laughed See, laughter is God's music. Laughter is God'S music. Because you know when we have people who come in and out, in and Out of AA, they know the words, but they don't know the music. I'm a nature lover. i'm an i love nature i there is nothing i like better than to walk out outside i love walking outside love digging in the dirt i feed everything i feed everything raccoons squirrels rabbits birds dogs dick everything i food everything and i feed a family of foxes and these foxes have been coming to this particular place for years different families of foxes they have a den on the east side of they they den in case you're interested on east sides of hills and these different foxes have been coming to these simp these dens for years ever since the farm lady can remember and i you know i go down and we walk our dogs down around this park every every day and in some days it's wonderful because it's nice and it's warm today you know a beautiful day but in Nebraska it gets a tad bit cold sometimes and last March I was walking and when we go down there I always take leftover dog food and dump it at this tree and then we get we I always say the same thing here's your breakfast boxes." Dorky, but. And I dump it out down there and then I turn around walk back and we usually get about half a block away and we'll see him come up and start to eat the dog food. And usually they come one at a time but they they come up. And this particular day I had Dick was gone somewhere and it was oh so cold god it was about it was about 20 below regular temperature is the kind of day when you walked out in the hair and your nose froze you know just if you just go oh it's cold wrap a thing around you put put cuckoo's coat on her makes it look like a pink bowling ball you know this little fat dog we have so I'm walking the dogs down there in the park and and I and I've been doing this for years and I dumped this stuff out and I turned around to leave and I felt something now I spent years not feeling I spent years drinking and doing everything I could not to feel ever and I felt something and I looked over my shoulder and as close as from me to Anita and Lana, was the fox. And he didn't run. He sat there. He's beautiful. Oh, he's beautiful! He should be. I feed him all the time. Sat there and he looked right in my eyes now the Indians the American Indian believes that animals talk to us and I believe they do because what I saw was that he sat there and then one paw at a time he laid down and he never took his eyes off of me now I I think he was thanking me and I have you to thank for that because I would have never seen that I would have never experienced that I would have known the thrill of the spirituality in that had it not been for you in North Carolina in South Carolina at Myrtle Beach there's a big construction light behind a restaurant called the sea captain's house and this big light shines out to the sea and I was there a couple of years ago with Dick and I love the ocean because it is so awesomely powerful and it's so spiritual to me and I and I ran to the seawall as soon as we were out of the car and it was really, really dark. And I absolutely was amazed because what I saw blew me away in the path of this light as it shone out to see only in the Path of the Light where these thousands and thousands and thousands of seagulls just sitting in the light just visiting and bobbing around and stuff so when we went into the restaurant I said to the waitress what's with the birds she said we don't know they just came here but we think it's the light what are we doing here this morning I think that we're sitting in the safety of the light and I thank you