Big Book Writing and the Lists She Kept in a Spiral Book – Sharon C.

Thank you, everybody. My name is Sharon. I'm an alcoholic and boy, I feel like I can just go out and love everything right now. My heart is beating fast and I'm very privileged to be here. Thank you Al for putting this together. Thank you security team. I had some problems at 6.15 in the morning. Thank you, Pete. I didn't know how to get in. And then I crashed the system. And anyway, I had a little coffee and then I was a little better and I got to hear everybody. So that was joyful. And I got tell you, Drew really, he struck a chord with me and brought back a memory that when my mother passed away, we went through some of her papers and she had my um she had my one to five years old she had the the record of seeing the doctor Dr. Day was his name and I had belladonna treatments when I was a little girl it was because I had a very bad stomach I had lot of stomach pain they didn't know what it was it wasn't caused by anything they could find I just think I needed something and I don't know why it was but the belladona i remember when he would come and i remembered the spoon and i remember sleeping i got to sleep in the living room on the couch and i had this beautiful blanket and i member being out of it and i could hear the family moving around and talking but i was happy i was in my happy place but i forgot about that memory and he really triggered it and lil and sydney thank you very much for just starting my day with beauty with love with the words of alcoholics anonymous um i am i'm glad i've been here all day i've been very touched and um you know jerome i've known for years and it's just so joyous to watch the journey the journey of the other people in alcoholics and omnibus because i know if you're changing and i'm hanging out with you i'm probably changing a little too and jack i know what it's like to put down a dog after many many years too and um it's interesting because she told me a week before it was her time that she didn't want to go yet so she waited for like 25 people to come say goodbye to her and she hadn't eaten but they would come and feed her treats and she would eat. And then it was the morning, she told me, it was a morning. And she woke me up and she couldn't get up. And so we went outside and I washed her off and I brushed her in the sun that was coming up. We knew. And I called the vet and he came to the house and we were there with my dog, with my sweet dog of 14 years. The vet told me on the phone, she knows I'm coming she knows I'mcoming but I didn't know what that meant and when he pulled up my dog was smiling she knew where she was going she knew she was going to go to a place of peace and she was gonna meet her maker I guess she knew she was gunna run free she was smiling it was quick and it was beautiful so my heart understands where you are I mean it's also the people in Alcoholics Anonymous i've seen change and grow and your connection is dropping out a little bit there if you can hear me am i unstable uh hang on let me see if i can get to another one no i'm on the good connection am i here um you sound fine here sharon gotta go back to that one then okay i just um i was reminded by all the people that i know and love um that are on the path and all the other people that aren't here anymore the ones that they say that every every alcoholic has a sobriety date it's either in the rooms or it's on their tombstone and boy that hit me when i heard that one and I'm very very grateful to be with you today and to be taught love love God more that's just what happens and the present's been given you guys it's been giving my job is just you know when you tie a present and there's that bow at the end and you want to make a beautiful bow but you have to loop it first and then you have somebody else hold that little loop down so that the bow can be made well that's all god is asking me to do is put my finger on that loop so he can make the bow and i hope i do um what god wants me to doing today which is to talk about transcended talk about living sober one day at a time trudging the road of happy destiny and i had no idea that when i came to you on august 20th 1975 the best news as jerome said was that I was done. I was almost gone. And the last years of my drinking, that's what I wanted. I wanted to be gone. I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I knew the alcoholic was a town drunk in Mount Vernon, Iowa where I grew up, which was my first resentment absolutely when I realized probably that's happened at five. I thought, oh shoot, I'm in Iowa supposed to be in California where's the mothership so there I was done there was a town drunk there's no alcoholism in my family and I'm the one I'm middle daughter there's uh my brother has a doctorate my sister is Mensa and brilliant and my sister's nurse Sally at four she wanted to be a nurse and move to Alaska at four she knew her her lot in life and she did it that's where she is that's what she did and then there was me I had the call of the wild and when I discovered Canadian Club thank you Lil thanks for that good whiskey and I was 12 years old going on 13 on a country road in a woodsy that gave me power I was sitting there on the hood of a really cool 57 Chevy and my trainer bra and I had no shoes on and cutoffs and a t-shirt and you know i don't know what that trainer bra was training for but you know not much and and that that whiskey just made me slide off the hood of that car and arrive because everything in my head got quiet because i was tortured by my head i was torched by being an insomniac i was tortured but i couldn't tell anybody because i Was camping out with my very good girlfriend when i was a young maybe 12 years old maybe 10 and she said to me tell me some secrets and i did and she didn't want to hear those. She didn't play with me for two years so I thought don't tell don't telling and I learned to keep a lot to myself even in the days when my parents didn't understand and they sent me to a psychiatrist and they paid this money I still wouldn't tell and then he'd say something to my dad like she doesn't talk so I don't think she needs to come back. I thought you'd figure it out. I have defiance that's my tap root of what kept me surviving in the world was my defiance. My defiance allowed me to pick up in the middle of the night and move somewhere. And my defience allowed me tell my dad, when he asked me what's going on with you, you look bad, something's going on. You said, sit down, dad, I'll tell you. And I did. I told my dad things he didn't need to know about his daughter and I broke his heart. If I would've listened, I was breaking his heart, I could have heard it break. And eight years my father and I did not we did not look eye to eye and every time I came home there was um no family dinner because if I got to the table my dad wasn't there if my dad was at the table I didn't go there was no writing in the same card of grandma's house for the holidays or whatever it was I would drive myself because you could cut the pain with a knife and I thought there's no absolutely no my my father won't i will ever have forgiveness for that ever but alcoholic synonymous is powerful because behind all of this it's a huge loving power that to me in my heart it fell from my head to my heart and i can't deny it i've had had i've Had a Spiritual awakening as a result of these steps and i've been walked and loved and pushed and prodded and not understood but did it anyway and i had no idea i had no idea it was going to be my purpose in life don pritz used to talk about purpose and he said the most deprived state a human being can be in is to have no purpose And I had no purpose. And Alcoholics Anonymous gave me a purpose, which is not about me. Oh, what peace that is when I got that. Wow. So I have to keep that channel open. I have the key. How have I stayed sober by 45 and a half years? I have an idea, and I can share it with somebody. And when I do that, that's when God shows up between me and you as God. I need God with skin on all the time. I need to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And yes, what happened in AA when we went into the pandemic was we were up and running in a week. We made the New York Times magazine in the Sunday paper. they said well there's seven groups that got it together quickly and so Alcoholics Anonymous was in there we were between the 24-hour flute players because I guess they had that together they had it together right away those flute players and the virtual baptisms were very important and I guess the parents didn't like it so much but the kid didn't have to be dunked so the babies were happy but there we Were In The Middle impressed that we had we had this unity and and it did i came from grassroots it just sprung up and i have i have seen connections i have had connections my two drinking friends from new orleans when i lived in the french quarter at the end of my drinking they didn't want to drink with me anymore and i would say how come you guys want to hang with me any more and they said well you stood by the wall catatonic for four hours so you were not fun in the Bastille bar I did or you keep chasing after that guy that you have knife fights and blackouts you know black eyes with and it's like oh yeah that's right we don't like him well I don't either and they said well we want we'll have a drink with you Sharon it's okay and I thought no it's not okay. And in a connection, in a meeting back East, my girls are sober. They're sober. I went back to New Orleans at five years of sobriety and I tried to 12-step them. The cocktail waitress, I had to zip her up. She was on my bed in a big book coming apart. She doesn't remember it. The other lady owned a blue saloon. She owned the blue saloom. I stood in front of her. She was my roommate she didn't recognize me just how you clean me up on the outside spoke volumes our examples we don't know where they're going we don'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TOUCHING and five years later one got sober six years later another got sober so there we all were we've we've met we've actually met at canyon we've Actually met in Dallas we've actually met we went to brazos all those places jack knows down there in texas we've met and we've talked about our gods and we've talking about the life we have today and how we're so lucky to be out because so many of them are dead that we knew but then we were in this meeting and there's robin and there's denny and we're all in this meaning together and i got them to admit yes i was hitting bottom before they were and they didn't want to drink with me anymore it was i knew it even in my alcoholic craziness i knew they didn't want to party with me anymore my party wasn't a party not a party i had to i didn't know king alcohol was ruining my life and taking my life when i was giving it to king alcohol but i just knew that as i went down the road i had a slide across many many things that seemed to me at the time it was the fork in the road and it was time to decide and i always i always chose king alcohol i always chose the life. I thought that, you know, I'm footloose and fancy free. I've got a call of the wild. It's very exciting. Nothing's going to hold me back. But when I had to slide across my art talent and I went back to art school and I couldn't paint broke my heart. It was a very, very hard time. And when I went to Colorado Carbondale and a slide across the bar, my dignity. Yeah. King alcohol or dignity. Take my dignity. Try to say that when you're drinking dignity you know it's like does it matter no what matters is what's happening right now and i had to slide across the bar the love of my father i had a slide across the bar when i joined the carnival yes that was when my mother cried when she thought i was at this organic farm gonna have a life 85 acres of organic land and organic uh you know what they do those sheep you're a rancher you know they do they make a lot of mess in the barn you got to pick up a shovel and you got a shovel it and you gotta work and you've got to tap maple trees and it's like oh my goodness it was like i thought i was here to have a good time and now you guys don't even drink like me and uh yeah i left i left and i left with uh all of the maui I had grown back in the forest with a lot of sheep dung on it. So that was the night I went to turn it into money and leave Wisconsin because it was damn cold there. And what happened was I forgot the crop, and I joined the carnival because it wasn't there. It's funny how things when you look back, if I wouldn't have had a trailer hitch on my car, I wouldn've joined because he said, and you do have a trailer ditch. So I joined this carnival, and I called my mother from, I don't know, Arkansas somewhere. She thought I was up in Wisconsin going to marry this guy with the organic farm. And she said, you're what? And I always used to say, you know, I'm not hurting anyone, but me stand back and watch me die. Basically, I should have said, I used to stay home. Leave me alone. And what I said to my mom was the best I could come with. Come on, mom, I'M WRITING A BOOK. She didn't buy it. And I couldn't call home with mom. I had to slide across the bar of the love of my mom. we were very, very close, very, very close. And there we are. There I am. I'm in jail. I mean, Bogalusa, Louisiana thrown in jail because the carnival doesn't want me anymore. And that's, you know, that's where the owner was and the owner said, get rid of the Wisconsin girl. She's trouble. And I ended up in Bogaluso, Louisiana. I hope that this is this one memory. I hope I always have it to the day I die because I hope to God I'm always a day at a time staying the course which is what trudge means with you no matter what goes down or what's coming up because it is we we that's the first word in the first step I hope I always remember when I was in this crazy jail having DTs no fresh alcohol carnival left town they take me they handcuffed me I hadn't washed or done any of that because it was scary in there and they took me to this building and threw me in and there were three men in suits there there was a lawyer bail bondsman and and i guess a judge and i looked to my left and there was my father yeah i'm not hurting anyone but me dad but you know he gets a call from my brother-in-law that tells him where his daughter is and what's going on and he has to get on a plane and bring his checkbook and rent a car and get you know get the map out find out where bogalusa is and see if he can see his daughter. And, and he sees his daughter with cuts all over her face and her arms because I was having DTs. And it just seemed like the thing to do. And my dad and I didn't lock eyes and everything inside of me wanted to say, I just, I'm tired, dad. Can I just come home? And I knew it wouldn't change. I didn'T know alcoholism, but I knew whatever I had, my father couldn't help me he couldn't help me and he wrote the check I went back to jail and and we didn't talk about that day for 20 years because I've been guided you know my friend Sandy used to say the big book is not the treasure it's a treasure map and my job I got guided through that big book and I've been able to guide others through that big look so that they find their treasure which is having had a spiritual awakening so that they have their experience because it's an experiential program. I don't know anything if you tell me. I have to learn it. I feel it. Touch it. Have it inside of me. No matter what I think it's all about, it changes. When I'm out of the way, everything changes. It's so much more because it says in the book, my little designs and plans, I don' like anything little. I saw that I thought, oh, I don't like anything. No little drinks, no little good time. Everything's just got to be big, magnanimous. And so no, I, I Don't like my little designs and plans. And when I get out of my way and I see that in your eyes, that you have a lot more vision than I do because I need God with skin on. I need you to tell me Sharon, I need You to tell me when my father and i that it would that it would be okay at 20 years i talked to him about that day and we laughed about it because i don't know i'm still you know a little self-centered and i say hey dad you remember that day when of course he did of course he did so we laughed about that for a moment and then we talked about it and i said what happened and he said the only thing you said the whole time they asked you questions was i'm not guilty and it's not my fault because you are a perfect victim in life you're not guilty and it'S NOT YOUR FAULT AND THAT LIKE SYDNEY WAS GOING TO REVISIT ME WHEN I GOT WHEN i WAS 10 YEARS SOBER THAT WAS GOINNA REVISit ME AND I HAD TO FIND A WAY OUT OF IT WITH A SPONSOR WITH A SPOUNCER LOUDER THAN MY HEAD I'VE ALWAYS HAD A SPONGER LOUDER than my head and um so in 1975 i came to you and i was done i didn't know it on my spiritual awakening or whatever it was that woke me up i was laying in the desert face down unclothed i had been thrown out of a car jaw broken in three places my nose had been broken i had ben i had a concussion i had been drug around in the cement i was a mess and i'm laying on the sand it's july 27th it's hot. It's the desert. You could have driven by and not seen me. And I was done. I didn't care. I had passed out in the car. My girlfriend left me in the cars. They took me somewhere, and I don't remember much of it other than I'm a survivor. I'm the survivor, and so are you. We made it here. We made this happen. We're going to make it happen. We made that happen. I don' t ever want to go back to that war. I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. But I want us to see it happen in your eyes. I need to see the inside job happen in your eyes. I need to be close to that. I don't want to forget. And I heard a voice. I heard a voice, I heard the car door slam, they were leaving and I thought they're coming back, I got to get up and I couldn't get up. But I heard a voice that great deep down within said, get up, I want to live. And I guess I did because the next thing I remember I'm on a gurney and there's police there and I am a victim. It's there in the paper. I have to write my name. I have no ID and in front of my name was the word victim. And if I could have smiled at that moment, I would have smiled because that's what I was shooting for. And from July 27th to August 20th, I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. Somebody came out and got me and said, I know you have nowhere to go. And I had a detective and they caught these people and I'm out of it. I'm odd of it and I ended up living above a liquor store with a guy that just drove all the way out to get me said i could sleep on his couch i had nowhere to go and he would buy me cheap wine and i would unscrew the top of the wine and put a straw on the top and put it through the wires on the face where the tooth had been kicked out and i was dying because i had nothing else to do i was dying and on august 20th he said you have to leave you're depressing me wow i have nowhere to go my sponsor talks about no friendly direction my sponsor Clancy left all these lights along the path for us to follow we had him for over 35 years he talks about No Friendly Direction and I always remember that day No Friendley Direction that I did the next thing any child would do it's call your mother collect and I called my mother collect that she said to me Sharon I can't help you anymore, go to the Salvation Army. And my mother in Iowa was dying to help me. But I didn't know this until my father was gone and my mother told me some stories about my dad and told me some stories how she didn't want my defiance to come back because she knew me. We knew each other very well, me and my mom. And she said what she did that day when she was 94 years old, I heard her say to somebody at her birthday party, there was only one time when my husband said I couldn't help one of the children. See, this is late in life. This is, I'm sober a long, long time and I hear that and I think, must be me. Of course it was me. So I talked to my mom about that the next day and she said, the day you called, I wanted to help you. We got a call from the hospital and we didn't know where you were. We didn't go to hospital. took us two days to find you. I didn't sleep for two days. My mother didn't sleep at night for many days. Alcoholics Anonymous, Norm Alfie used to talk about I'm overpaid. I was overpaid my mother slept every single night that I was with you. Every single night. So she said she put the phone on her chest and looked at my dad and said she's in trouble. We need to help her and my dad said no we've tried. And my mother got back on the phone and took the heat. If She would have said, your father said I would walk in front of the next bus and she knew it. So right there on the day of grace to come to you unearned gift. I had no idea I was going to get a brand new life. I had No idea you're going to make me be reborn. I had NO idea even wanted to breathe in and breathe out anymore. On that day, she said no. And I looked down, there was a piece of paper and I called this girl because she was always nice to me. She drank in Barney's Beanery in the West side. she was drunk as a skunk laying on the big book and they called the taxi and we toasted her out the door good for you chris go to ana and i felt sorry for her and at this point in my life april may of that before i got sober that that august i had nothing i had my backpack with the book be here now by baba ram das i had no soul left i hadn't it was an emerald life with you but i still trying to be good time let's have a good time where are we going what's your name let's go hear some music let's stay up all night let's go rip off the grocery store whatever it was and I'm dying inside there's nothing left they have no home no place to stay but I'm feeling sorry for her going to Alcoholics Anonymous I was embarrassed for her but that was the phone number sitting there that day she was dating the guy that came all the way to get me and I called her, and she said, I know what happened to you. I know where you belong, but I can't help you today, and she was not sober. I didn't know that. She wasn't sober. I got to meet her again at a meeting once, and she told me that she had told Al to come all the way out to Palm Springs to give me a place to stay because she heard of what had happened to me, and I got back to her. I got up to see her again. Maybe I was one, two years sober. I'm not sure. We had the Saturday night meeting at the St. John's hospital and she was in the hospital and I heard, and I went to see her to thank her. And she didn't know anybody. She didn't Know anybody. She was laying in that bed. Beautiful as she was. She was there. That, that number was there that day. And I picked it up and that's grace. And she told me to call a woman named Suzanne. Now I can't talk. I mean, for three months in AA, so nobody cared nobody wanted to hear anything i said i had to learn to listen and boy if you are like somebody in a that can't talk that's all they want to do is talk to you i was hearing all kinds of things things that i thought don't tell me that i maybe i'll get unwired and talk about you later but there i was calling this lady but she knew the liquor store i lived above and she said just good don't she said don't drink anything put down your drink and put down her joint. And I thought, how does she know I'm working both? She got my attention. And I went and sat on the steps of that liquor store. She knew exactly where to tell me to go. And this car pulls up in there. The car is bright. It's a yellow Volkswagen. The people are bright. These two girls are like, not my style, not going to drink with you. You guys, you don't look like you're any fun, not gonna go with you, but I was so tired they just came over and picked me up. Like I was a diamond sitting there on the steps of this liquor store they somehow wanted me and got me in the back of that car where i couldn't get out we go to a church and i thought okay now me and god had a fight not gonna happen not gonna happened but i had nowhere to go and i sat in my seat and this man who i thought was the minister there hooked me and what he said was something so funny and so odd that i've never heard another speaker say it i got to hear him speak again and that's what he always sent his taught I always waited for the spaceship to land and say you can come home now and I thought oh my god I'm with spaceship people and I was really happy if I could have smiled I would have smiled and I just thought well I can hang out with spaceship People for a while I've been looking you guys look like spaceship people okay and then somebody came at the end of the meeting and plopped down a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous in front of me and I went oh is that where I am but i really i couldn't fight the fight was gone that was the joy of that day and for many days i had no fight in me and they said okay you know the man got my name wrote it in pencil wrote the date in pencil where i was in pencil i still have that second edition big book with all of maurice solid tiles handwriting and pencil and you said don't drink and don't use and we'll pick you up and they waited for the liquor store lights to go off that night. I am a smelly, detoxing alcoholic. I don't smell like Tiffany perfume in a small Volkswagen. I can tell you that I'm sure. And I went up there and I just crawled on that couch. And the next day they came and got me and somebody said, are you going to sleep here? And I slept there. And then they took me to meetings and they'll take me to noon meetings. They'll take them to night meetings. I didn't know what's going on. I have my backpack. I have some clothing now. They had given me a few pieces of clothing. I have this big book. And after a week, I went to somebody else's house and I didn't understand you were taking care of me, giving me a chance. I just thought you were kicking me out. I'm being kicked out of this place and somebody else has to take me in. I'm getting kicked out. I'm kicked out Of this place and somebody also has to Take me in and I was standing by the wall one night. I'm keeping track. I'm Keeping track of all the nice things You're doing for me. I'm writing it down in this little spiral book I had standing by the wall of a man named Chuck Nesbitt, who was great man in our group, big meeting at the sky, came over and looked at it. He said, what are you doing? Cause some people like to see what newcomers are doing, especially when they're intense writing something. And he didn't wait for an answer because I couldn't talk. And he looked at my list and he says, Sharon, one day you're going to have a car with a license registration insurance all in the same name i thought how does he know that and you're going to be able to give rights to the newcomer quit keeping score quit writing those people's names down and someday you're gonna have a floor or a couch that somebody's gonna get to sleep on because they have nowhere to go and you'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO PAY IT BACK AND SOMEDAY YOU'RE GONNA BE Able TO GIVE CLOTHES OUT OF THE CLEANER BAG CLEAR BAGS IN YOUR TRUNK OF YOUR CAR AFTER THE meeting to the new girl who needs it i thought how does he know about the cleaner bags his wife had done that for me and you're going to be able to do that for somebody starting a job and he said what we want from you sharon is to pass it on and something about that gave me some dignity something about that gave my life something about that said oh chuck thinks i can do this and it was awesome and he used to take me to all these meetings but hear chuck c speak over my head what's he talking about i like his laugh but we'd come back and i'd be in the middle because if you knew you sit in the hump that's what happened to my group you got to have time to sit in front of me and i'm sitting in the front seat so i'm in the hump in the middle and they're all saying sharon what'd you think of that i can't talk i'm just and i you know it's like i didn't get it but what i got was hope what i got in the room i was safe and there was hope and that's how basic it was and i got everything i needed to stay everything i need to stay and i was still thank god very surrendered very surrendered physically very surrendered emotionally and i and i knew my spiritual life was whatever that was spiritual it's all about god and he's we had a fight in catholic church and i'm not coming back i gave him the one-fingered peace sign as i walked out of there and little did i know i got a sponsor she moved me up to her couch and that's the way it was trudging staying the course you kept me on the course i didn't know i was going to happy destiny and there's no happy who cares about happy i want satisfaction i don't want to wait for long-term comfort i want it now i i was that kind i was i was a reactor i didn t respond i love that you guys talked about children and my son at one point was he had something at work and he texted me and he said what do i do mom and i just said why don't you sit on it and respond instead of react you thought it was brilliant thank you guys any clout with my kid was always so there i am trudging with you and getting better and the sponsor she said i want you to say this prayer you're you're living in my house now I'm sleeping on a borrowed sleeping bag on her couch but hey I was living there the kids were there and the husband was there and it's she's married to another member of AA and so it just seemed to me it seemed to be I did a lot of her dishes that's what it seemed to me so I you know she gives me a place to stay and I'm doing all her dishes all the time but keeping me busy and what happened was she said I want you to say this pray at night on your knees so i put it under the pillow she wrote it down for me i couldn't remember it i put out of the pillow and then i was like i'm lying there it's like three in the morning i'm thinking trying to read the big book i hardly could remember i'd read a paragraph and go what would i read what i read i couldn'T sleep and then I think okay my mother taught me manners she would want me to do what she asked in her home somehow my mother got through and I got on my knees and I with my little broken jaw I said the prayer which was thank you for all you've given me thank you probably taken away from me thank YOU for all YOU've left me then I'd sneak back on that sleeping bag before God came over from Australia cuz he was waking up in Australia and it was pretty safe in santa monica and so i did that every night and i slept and maybe it was three in the morning maybe it Was two in the Morning and then they all got up about six so i got three four hours of sleep i got Three four hours asleep i hadn't known what it felt like to sleep and that's what you had that's What you had in your midst And just circled the wagons and he kept me going to meetings and then They took the wires off and then it's time to be self-supporting. And then it was time to get a little place to live. And then I got a car and if you get a car, well, you know, they actually had no pipes. It was an old Malibu primer gray. I got it from one of the waitresses. I hadn't served food and I wasn't happy about it. And if you don't, if you're not a happy waitress, you don'T make any money. And the Al-Anon's got a hold of me and told me they didn't want to hear my sad, sorry story I said well they ask how I am and they shouldn't care we should do this so I would smile and be a big phony and my tips were better I thought those people are smart okay I'll try that and so I had this car I got from another waitress and it had it had a broken seat so I was low right up to the meetings and my sponsor saw me heard me coming up one night and and went and got a broken chair from the back of the room and made the seat sit up and then I parked my car and she said, well, you have car insurance, right? I was like, what? Car insurance? No, I got a registration. Look, registration license, same name. I thought that was a real plus. And she said, no, you gotta have car insured. Clancy says you have to have car interest. Oh, this guy Clancy thinks he runs the group. That's where I landed. I landed in the Pacific group. Who is this guy Clancy? He's not my sponsor. You're my sponsor and she said give me the keys and I gave the keys and i couldn't drive until i got car insurance so there's this guy in a group called he was hank johnson maybe maybe remember him what a speaker he was so much fun he was so much his son got sober he got sober a few years ahead of me and so it was a family affair and his mother was sober and hank sold car insurance and they said well why don't you talk to hank so i told hank and you know i'm waiting tables i have a 24 dollar a week room in Inglewood, California, which they made into a storage unit. I was not a rocket to start them here at all. Nothing came my way. Like here's, you know, here's all the prizes. No, nothing was coming. Everything was day at a time. Everything Was so a day at the time. So Hank comes to my little apartment and he comes up a little metal steps and sits down and I have no tables. So he writes on his knees i can still see him writing this policy out on his knees i have a telephone i have a teddy bear somebody left at the restaurant so i thought well i need a friend i took the teddy bear i have a chair i have two chairs maybe i'm not sure i have a bed and i have a mirror with oh my god my sponsor made me tap on there do something nice for someone without getting found out every day i had to do that she gave me something to do out in the world and then i would tell her at the meeting she said what'd you do and then she go well you just told me go do another one I was like the sponsor stuff is like they trick you they trick you in the good living so there he is writing out the policy shook my hand and welcomed me to being a citizen I got my keys back because Clancy said we want to be safe on the road from people like you now if anybody's written with Clancy over the years we want To Be Safe On The Road From Clancy but he had car insurance that's for sure I don't know how much he paid at the later years of his life but god bless him to the end of his days he was of service to Alcoholics Anonymous and yeah I miss him every Tuesday at 2 30 I want to call him but I still talk to him every tuesday at 2.30 because his spirit will never leave what he did for AlcoholicsAnonymous and for me and for many others even when you weren't looking I remember going to um I think it was Kentucky and I was coming on the plane and he was sitting outside I said Clancy are you flying back to LA he said yeah I'm connecting but I have to get these in the mail and he Was sitting outside he'd gone back through security so I could sit outside and write the 50 postcards he wrote every single time he went on the trip 50 postcars members of Alcoholics Anonymous who needed the postcard from Clancy yeah he cheated a little bit he'd have five of the same all the time so he could write five quippy things um you know all 50 so it was 10 quips he had to come up with but but yeah he taught me how to do that too and i got postcards from clancy i have a stack because i went through a messy divorce at 10 years of sobriety messy divorce and guess what i had hung up that victim cloak i had hanged it up because it didn't fit anymore i had hanging it up at seven years because i had a spiritual awakening And I had hung it up when I realized, wow, I am in the middle of something pretty fantastic. And I am just holding hands with you on one side, God on the other, and I'm good. I'm with you. I'm in the midst of something fabulous. And I started to really see it in my life, believe it in me. My life, I was through, I wasn't amends by them. i was in amends by them and i had i had a really interesting relationship with my husband he decided he wanted the newcomer in the room after i had baby and um my dad had come out walk me down the aisle for this marriage and alcoholic synonymous was there and you guys we went to a meeting my dad stood up at the wednesday night meeting and said my name is frank meyer i'm from Mount Vernon, Iowa. I'm here to get my daughter's hand away in marriage. And you guys didn't say, oh, sit down, Frank. You're not an alcoholic. You said, hi, Frank, and you welcomed him to the literature table. Oh no, my dad's a reader. And my dad walked me down the aisle and somebody took a picture and we were eye to eye. So that was about two, two and a half years in my program. And I hadn't done my amends at one year. I had, I thought it was my, my Dad just said, I always wanted you to be happy. And my sponsor said, that's a good start. Okay. I just thought, well, go home happy. That's what he wants. All right. And then at five years, I got this other sponsor who was, I don't know. She went to sponsor school. She had my ticket and she said, Sharon, you've got a better job. It's time that you made financial amends to your dad. What does she know about my financial amens? But sponsor school again, I think they go and she said okay call your dad and see if you can pay him back the money oh and of course he read the book of course you saw most alcoholics owe money of course he saw what it was all about it's about forgiveness so when i called my dad he gave me the total he picked up the phone had the total i called my sponsor back i'm panicked it's way too high i forgot about the car i took you know it came to me later and my sponsor said call him back see if he accept your payment terms. And he did. I called her back. Okay, accepted. Okay good. Then you're not going to be late with that. You're not gonna be late with that check to your father because Bill and Bob are watching. That's another clue. Oh my god an example of Bill and Bob are watching. I'll disappoint God. I'm gonna disappoint you. I will disappoint everybody else but not Bill and Bob. And that example was just ringing in my ears. And so she said something to me that sponsors do because between me and me sometimes I don't think of the miracle sometimes I'm not big enough to know there's going to be a new vision here so much of the time I can't even see what's around the next trail and she said are you willing to grow through this with your dad what an odd question and when sponsors to me ask an odd question like that the answer is yes because i'm curious and it's the only way out of the conversation see i'm a little rebel if you can tell i'm still defiant i do think i take the actions in spite of myself because i have some sponsor louder than my head because somewhere in there somewhere in their that little awakening that little spark that says yeah sharon i got your back just stay the course stay the course of day at a time. We're going to, we're going to see views that you hadn't even thought of yet. You will fly with the Ravens. You will be there. And but what she said, are you willing to grow through this with your dad? And I said, okay, I want you not to send that cold hard cash in an envelope alone. I want me to tell you that about your life, not your sister's life, not your brother, nobody tell them about your wife. And I went, I can't do that but i didn't say that i did it she said did you send the note yes did you send it on time yes the note was the first note was about the jail panel his daughter went on there's no alcoholism in my family's life there's nobody going to jail me me but my dad got to know me through the check and the note and somewhere in there somewhere in their my dad had to be my dad again My dad got to be the paternal person he was to be in my life when I went through this messy divorce. When I went though this husband leaving me for the newcomer in the room, new baby, my car died. And I called home like I did every Sunday night. And by having these amends made or being in the amends, they weren't done yet. I don't think they were done yet maybe yes they were five to ten right around there because my dad got a check on a note for almost five years and it was the day after christmas so yes they were done about four years and ten months in that he called me and he said daughter i don't want your money anymore you're done but don't stop sending me your notes and the forgiveness started and the redemption for him started see my amends weren't for me at all i miss yeah it believes me so i can walk down the sunny side of the street but there before my dad. Because my dad, two days later, my car died. We talked about it Sunday night with the family. Two days later my dad called me and said I was at the bank and the banker has an extra car and your mother and I are leaving Iowa and we're driving it out for you. Redemption for my dad. And he was killed in 99 with an accident in his land and it was shocking and everybody was um upset and um my son and I got in the plane we came home and AA was in my mother's kitchen already in my mother'S kitchen because I go to AA when I'm in Iowa I I go TOA wherever I am even if it's in a place I remember being in Alaska not understanding anything but the language of the heart I understand and I felt better just sitting in that meeting so um yeah it was but Clancy was out of town and I'm devastated but you know I'm there for my family and Clancy's out of Town and they want me to say something at my dad's wake and I can't and the whole town came out because my dad is that kind of guy he helps a lot of people and it was raining and raining and I was practicing all day long this accordion he brought it up, Rick. My dad was Czech and he had a button accordion sitting there. Beautiful, beautiful mother of pearl, Heliganka accordion. Now I played the piano accordion when I was in high school. I risked it because my dad would nudge his friends and go, that's my daughter up there on that hay wagon playing beer barrel polka. You know, I risk them because all the boys thought, oh, she's look at her. That's the girl that was fun last night. But no, my dad, my Dad, I wanted his approval. so i played the italian accordion i played his buttons and all day long i'm working on amazing grace i don't know how to play it with the buttons there's so many notes every time you pull a little air in it but i did my best and i'm at the church and it's raining and it's full of people and nobody knows who i am they think i'm my sister so i go i go to the rectory and i call clancy he's been in africa there's no cell phones 1999 there's no cell phones and I go and I call him he's back at the mission and I got to talk to him because I'm I'm losing it here now what happened was my once he gets on this phone and I tell him what's happening and I'm sobbing now if you're a sponsor you got to kind of work through that stuff what where are they are they standing on a bridge or you know what's this accordion thing that I kept talking about and I can't do it and and so I'm solving my clients he gets a moment to say Sharon. And he's louder than I had. Thank God, you're going to do a great job. Your father would be so proud. You're gonna do a Great job for him. And I want you to look around that church because there won't be a dry eye when you're done. But what I want你 to do for me is to really look at the people sobbing, there'll be a couple of sobbing in that church, because those are the musicians. That's such a typical Clancy story brought me right out of it. Boy, it's not about me it's my father it's about my father I love the connection yes I call my sponsors always now I have a new sponsor now and she knows she's my sponsor and she's she's great she knows me from the beginning she moved away at 10 years but we played softball together I watched her in her life and we've stayed in touch and it's it's um it was the next step and my sponsor knew where I was going. And I'm so grateful that we have this lineage here at Alcoholics Anonymous of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic, talking to another alcoholic creating ripples in life. I mean just because we you know maybe nobody's looking there's an example out there. There's God in all kinds of ways. I got married again after this whole thing with my husband and you know he left her and Clancy wouldn't let me throw hot coffee on him. He said no Sharon you're going to walk through this with dignity and grace but he added the words i heard which is because you can be an example to others oh and so i didn't throw the hot coffee on him and when he left her she told me that she knew that because i had walked through it she could walk through it and that second step wife i call her she's my ex-step wife we're best of friends we raise the boys together she's got a boy i've guy boy, Mother's Day together, holidays together, whatever it is. We went to France together two years ago. Who knew the person in the room I hated needed my example? My job is to just be the example because it's all about compassion. I don't know. Am I assessing? Am I judging? Whatever. It's about compassion, it's about letting it be for fun and for free here. the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. I mean, I wasn't nice that 10 years. Somebody looked at me and said, look at Sharon. She's got 10 years to want what she's got. And I heard her. I heard her. So I thought, wow, I do. So the ripples. And then I married, I married a man named Casey for 24 years. We were together and he passed away almost 10 years ago of malignant melanoma. and he taught me something he taught me a couple of things he taught me the self obsession of how I can be my selfish self-centered even when sponsoring being sponsored going to work paying my bills answering the phone showing up for whatever needs to be done getting on a plane whatever it needs right going to you know upland on a Thursday night with a three hour trip into the sun and under the sunset doesn't matter just say yes as much as you can but my husband's going through treatment he's he's home I'm coming back from work I walk in the house he's sitting on the couch the oatmeal is in the microwave he hasn't eaten he just came from a treatment he got his arms crossed and wearing a hat because he lost his hair and I'm walking around the room complaining about my job complaining complaining complaining circling circling complaining complaining. Finally, I think I stopped in front of him to look at him and he said, Sharon, you've been home 15 minutes and you haven't made eye contact yet. And I thought, wow, this man has an expiration date and I'm not even aware of it. I'm wasting time. I am wasting time." It shocked me out of myself and I got something my dad had made for me. It was welcome and check, batami vas, and it was a little door thing. And so I put it on the door so that it would remind me i need reminders i have a forgetter it would remind me to walk in and be present and that's what he taught me be present be more present you just don't know it's maybe not my last day it could be your last day here on this planet and uh after nor near the end and we we would sit and we would have coffee and read some books in the morning at the table and look outside and share a few things before I went off to work. And he went off wherever he had to go. And he said to me, he said, wow, the wind's blowing. Yeah, the wind is really blowing. Look outside Sharon, do you see the wind? See the wind. No, I don't see the win. I didn't get it right away. It took him a couple of times of asking me, do you see the wind? And he said, you see the effects of the wind, right? I said, yeah, I see the effects of the window. Boy, it's big today. Lots of effects out there from the wind. And he was quiet a minute and then he said you know, I don't see God in this cancer some days. I don' t see God and what's going on in my life right now these days. But I want to enjoy every day. So what I do is I go out into the world and i look for the effects of god and they're everywhere the effects that are everywhere i uh my dad 12 step the town drunk my mother told me this is the guy that was the town drunken he'd come and borrow a bottle from my dad because my dad had a business and he had a big bar nothing ever moved there was i remember it was like what blackberry brandy peach brandy schnapps what else didn't move oh everclear that was great so i would take these bottles that had dust on them and my dad would go to find these bottles i wonder where they and i took his flasks because i was always i always had booze somewhere high school wherever i was i always said booze and my damn where's my flasps it was like he's a little budding alcoholic you know got brought home by the police one time that was it no drunk drivings i drove north, south, east, west. I hitchhike north, south, west, east. I know I am very lucky to be here. Seconds and inches, Norm talks about seconds and inches. We are the lucky ones. We've been saved to save, bottom line. And I have to stay in that spiritual place where I know it's not about me and I have keep my hand out and I welcome you home. Robert Frost said home is the place when you have to go there, they have to take you in. It's really what we do here. We want you here, but we have to take you into because it's my life I'm saving so I can be here like I want you to be here. But my dad tossed up the time drunk and my mother told me about it. And this is just another thing about ripples, ripples ripples we make ripples every day I didn't think Mother Teresa talked about the little Zen stone and she throws it in the pond of life and sees where the ripples go and I don't have that kind of vision You know, I take a big old mug clot or piece of cement and I'll throw it in the beautiful pond of life and have all the fish come up. And you know, no, so I just want to make the ripples and stay out of the pond of life. You know whatever my ripple is that day, hopefully it's something that will connect with somebody that needs something. And hopefully my eyes will be open to help because you've taught me that. Doesn't matter who needs it. I gave something to a homeless guy the other day and we had a discussion. and now i know his name and he looks at me and waves at me when he sees me and i give him what i have when i have it and another one came up to me and she said she came and just didn't want anything she just gave me a blessing and said i was just in worship those are the effects of god they just come from everywhere and sometimes it's just the hush of a leaf turning sometimes it's just a quiet little hush. I love listening and I hope I always want to listen. I hope I always have a beginner's mind every single day of my life. So my dad 12-stepped the town drug and my mother told me about it and he came to her and was complaining about his wife and my dad said, you know what? It's not Mary's fault. You're not getting a divorce. You're an alcoholic. Alcoholics synonymous has helped my daughter. Maybe it'll help you and my dad gave him the book the book that was sitting by his chair with all these other books I don't know if it had the calculator tape in it or not where he worked out how much so I just thought wow and it was on my heart and I spoke of it I don' t know later maybe months later maybe a year later I' m not sure and it w as a little meeting up in Thousand Oaks and this girl came up to me after I talked about John the town drunk and she said can I talk to you I said yeah sure let's talk she said do you recognize me and I said not really but kind of familiar and told me her name and I thought I used to babysit you in Lisbon Iowa Lizzie how are you sorry I was smoking the pot are you okay you know it's like always amends always amens always amands if the ears and heart are open and she says you know my uncle John is still sober I wanted to tell you that. And I thought, I can't believe it. That was so beautiful. But then this is the ringer because God always has one more view for you. She said, I went home two years ago to a family reunion and my uncle John 12 stepped me and I have two ears. It was like my dad just gave me the biggest hug life is full of miracles life is we are transformed we are transmuted and we have to be here we haveと be here for the next one i have to be here i want to stand next to you i think there's there's so many that never make it even to hear the music of chapter five read when you used to read it and you'd go half measures avail, it's nothing. I go, okay, that's 50%. Maybe I'll give 60% and see what I get. I mean, that's how all in I was not when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. But by being with you, being sponsored and sponsoring, what a joy it's been to watch in this pandemic, the connections, the ripples, the force for good is out there. It's getting bigger. And we're just all about trying to help the new one. And they're getting a year. They're getting a year now, some of them. And some of it we still can't get. And those are the ones that, I don't know, those arethe ones that might have to lose everything. Those are the ones thatmight have to bounce off the bottom. I bounced off the bottom and you saved me. You saw somebody worth saving. You gave me your love. You g ame your time. You give me a bed. You gave me your hope. You gave me a light so that it came inside of me. I saw it in you and it came inside of my heart. It came inside me by working these steps, by walking through many things, not drinking, calling you first, putting myself in a meeting, putting yourself next to you. Shoulder to shoulder, that's us. We stayed the course in Alcoholics Anonymous. Powerful. With you, there's a huge God. With you, there's a beautiful music of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm going to end with this because Jack is from one of my most favorite parts of the world, Aspen Grove, the Aspen trees. There's a grove near Aspen. It's so big. The root system is all one big root system of a grope. and you can see it from space. It's that big. And the thing about the aspens are other than they quake and they're beautiful and the colors in the fall and in the summer, you can hear them quaking. The beautiful thing aboutthe aspens is that they share everything. This root system shares everything. The tall ones, the old timers were up there by the sun. We're bringing the sun down to the little ones on the floor that are just starting because there's no sun down there yet. you know, it's all about the soil we create. Yes, we have to create the soil so that God can come in. And yes, I have to act like I created the soil and that I'm tending the soil. And it's All That Fertilizer Norm talked about, you know? Digging it under to make a beautiful soil. The reason the grass is greener, Sharon, is the other guy took care of his lawn. Oh, and then Jimmy Ryan used to say, willingness without action is fantasy. Oh my god, you guys were so bright. So great. So the big ones are bringing the sun down to the little ones. And the little ones are new and they're on the fertile soil. And the big ones have tapped out some of the soil underneath them and they need, they need the new soil. They need the fresh soil and then they're feeding it to the big one. And together they work to make this beautiful aspen grove, beautiful aspet growth that I'm just a little part of. And I hope if you need sun, I bring you sun. And if I need some good, some good new soil that you bring me some good nutrients for my soil and I hope that we shoulder to shoulder and charge this road together into happy destiny. God will bless you and keep you until then. Thank you for having me.