Dodged the Fourth Step for Months Claiming I Couldn’t Make Columns in Microsoft Word 🤦 — Julie M.

Let's have an AA meeting. My name is Amy and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speaker Meeting at the Naval Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based upon the pages from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describe in their own language and from their own point of view the way they established their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and clear-cut idea of what happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker and we'll hear from them. Thank you. We believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too. I must have this thing. Okay. Tonight, this speaker is very special to me. She's my sponsor. She's my friend. And she's always got a positive outlook. So I'll give you Julie. Hey, everybody. I'm Julie and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Julie. I hope that my story will help somebody in the room tonight if you're struggling with whether you are an alcoholic or whether you want to get sober or not. We tell our stories so that we can identify with each other in the rooms. And unfortunately, we have preconceived notions of people based on what they look like and who they are. And we can't help that. So I know there's a few people in the room. I'm thinking right now, what the hell can my mother tell me about AA and alcoholism? But I wasn't this old when I came in. So I'll just say it like that. I'd like to start off my story by giving you the details so that you don't do the math while I'm talking. I'll try to figure it out for you. I was born May 23, 1961, which makes me 55 years old. And I had my first drink my freshman year in college when I was a little girl. When I was 18. And I drank until February 25, 1995. So, the good Lord willing, by February I'll have 22 years of sobriety. Which is nothing more than a whole lot of days strung in together. I think those are the facts. Those are the mathematical facts there. So going back to this idea that we tell our stories, Chai Jenner. If you can't identify with what I look like or even what I sound like, I just want to read something to you. Because for me, I call this portion of the big book, you know, our great equalizer. It's the thing that we can all agree on. And it goes like this. For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care. Boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did. And a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt and one more failure. The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from society. From society, from life itself. As we became subjects of king alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding, companionship, and approval. Momentarily we did. Then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous four horsemen. Terror, bewilderment, frustration, despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand. For me, this is our great equalizer. If you are an unhappy drinker, you understood that page. I was an unhappy drinker. That is exactly where I was when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. Waking up every day bewildered and frustrated and afraid and in despair. That I could not stop drinking. That I would say to myself I wouldn't drink again and then I would. That's where I was. I came in here and that's what happened. That's where I was. But then I did the things that people told me to do. Worked the steps, took the steps. I'm not going to get into the semantics. A lot of old timers will take you to the mat on that stuff. Not me. And I got the promises that we read about in the night steps. Trying to find the promises that I'm looking for. Um. But I also. But I also got this. I went from that shivering denizen of king alcohol to this because of the program behind me. And it goes like this. It's after the tenth step promises. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted we would quarrel from it as if from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally. And we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it. Neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality. Safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. So yes I went from that shivering person to somebody who never thinks about alcohol at all. And I'll give you a story to prove that to you. A few months ago some people were going to come over. It was the weekend and some people were going to come over. So I thought well I better go up to Kroger and buy some beer for them. So I go up to Kroger. I get the beer. A couple other things I was going to get. I go to check out. And the clerk looks at me. She says 1230. I'm like what? It was 1130. It was a Sunday. She said you can't buy that until 1230. I'm like oh. And just the revelation that I didn't know exactly what time that alcohol would be served or given to me is so amazing to me. You know it's just totally amazing to me. And that is what they mean by that. Cease fighting it. Cease knowing anything. Cease caring about anything. You know about alcohol. Cease fighting alcohol. Don't even think about it. So it was quite funny. I felt. I don't know. I felt really excited about that. Those are the small things in life that get you excited I guess. All right. But let me tell you how I got there. I am the last of six children. I'm the baby. And my family is riddled with alcoholism. My grandmother convinced the doctor that she needed champagne for medical reasons. So she could write it off her taxes. That's how she drank. And so you know my mother was one of us. And she never got into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. She died of this disease. And it is I promise you a very, very ugly way to die. My mother was a very beautiful woman. And she was not in the end. And that's very memorable for me. My father I would say probably was. Had some hell of a world. Willpower could stop drinking when he wanted to. But he pretty much always shipped it back to it. You know it's in my family. I have a sister who's here. I'm very excited to say she's she's going to celebrate three years in November. And that is a miracle. A gift from God. Because I sure thought that that would never happen. But again I never thought I would ever get sober either. So I grew up. I actually had a pretty good childhood. I was born in Memphis. And you know it was. You know it was fun. It was this. You know just that time that we all you know see movies about. They were called nostalgia. It was my childhood. And being a baby I kind of guess I got what I wanted when I wanted it. And I was pretty good at manipulating my father into giving me what I wanted. But he insisted that we all there were four girls and a boy. And then my older brother was died in infancy. So I did not know him. And you know we lived in Memphis. We moved to Tampa when I was 11 years old. 11 was you know that was puberty. That was not a real good time for me. I kind of looked like a giant cucumber. And I sounded like a hick from Memphis. And I moved to Tampa. And all these cool kids were there. And it just wasn't fun for a while. But like you'll hear in this room. I just didn't feel like I fit in. I didn't feel like I fit into my family. I didn't feel like I fit into my friends. Into my world. You know even as a young child. And I became very rigid I guess you would say. I always would have been the glass half empty person. And I don't know how I got that way. And it doesn't really matter. But from an early age I always thought the worst was going to happen. And I could not see the positivity in anything. One time when I was about 12. My sister who's now in the program. And she's 7 years older than I am. We're walking through the parking lot of a strip mall in Tampa. And this giant flock of birds flew by. And she stopped and she looked up. And she was like wow. That's beautiful. I'm 12. I look up and I say oh great we're going to get shit on. And she just looked at me like. How did you come up with. And it was true. I don't know how a 12 year old gets like that. It doesn't really matter. I just have to admit that I am like that. So that I can fix stuff like that. So you know I grew up. I had friends. I guess I was popular. I didn't really feel popular. But you know a lot of us we didn't feel like what we were on the outside. So I grew up. I had friends. And in high school. And I knew I could tell what was going on with alcohol in my family. So I became very negative about. I was negative about everything. But I was very negative about alcohol. And I sort of became sort of the Carrie Nation of my high school. You can go to Google and figure out who Carrie Nation is. But she was big in the temperance movement. And I just thought you know. Anybody who drank was an idiot. And I saw what it was doing to my family. I was the daughter. Who when they would give you those pamphlets. And P.E. About health. And alcohol. I would leave them on the kitchen floor for my mother each night. As she was sitting there drinking and smoking and watching TV. As if she was going to care. You know. But every morning they'd be gone. And they wouldn't be on the counter. They were gone. So I don't know if she thought I was being clever. Or just what. But so I just graduated from high school feeling like you know. Alcohol was very very bad. And very you know. I was morally against it. Absolutely morally against it. Got into college. I went into the University of Florida. Get it out of your system now. If you want to boo. Go ahead. Boo. I don't care. Get it out of your system. I hear it all the time. I live in Georgia. But. You know. There's a lot of alcohol. And other things. At the University of Florida. And I was a freshman. And I was in my dorm. And we were all going to go out. And my friend. Andy Murray Verity. She said. You know. You know. You know. You know. You know. You know. My name is Andy Murray Verity. Showed up in my dorm room. With some vodka. And orange juice. And said. You're having a drink. And I drank it. And I am one of the people that you hear about in these rooms all the time. I remember every moment of that. And I feel. It felt as if I was a whole different person. I felt finally like my skin fit. That I was funny. That I could be laughed with. And not at. And that I was just bigger than I thought I was. You know. That I never was. And I was just comfortable. And it was just an awe moment. You know. Just relaxing. I have pictures from that night. And I drank alcoholically from the get go. I really did. And so. For me. That proves to me. We talk about it a lot in here. That alcoholism is hereditary. And that we're born with it. Because. The minute before I took that drink. I was morally opposed. To alcohol. And I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I wasn't gonna drink again. I drank Taiwan alcohol. And after I took it. I was all about it. And so. I don't. You can't go like. From that to that. You can't just change your moral behavior like that. It. It happened to me physically. It happened to me instantly. And. I mean. About the next time I went home. Tampa was about a couple hours from. From Gainesville. I was fixing his drink. And my mother was so freaking relieved. You know, I was finally part of the dinner conversation where I got to not just be the one crying, but I got to make people cry. So that's what we did in my family. He who cries last wins. So I went to the University of Florida. I did drink. I didn't drink every day. I did very well in the University of Florida. I joined a sorority. I was in a fraternity, a little sister at a fraternity. It had all the escapades you can imagine in college with drinking. I remember we had a bit, I was an SAE, a little sister, and that's the fraternity that's getting kicked off of like every campus in America now for their bad behavior. But they would have these parties for the girls in the school, and they would fill garbage cans with green alcohol and punch, like those size garbage cans. And you can't really taste it. So one night I was drinking it, and I kept drinking it, and I kept going back. And, you know, my friend who was the brother there, he said, you know, Julie, there really is alcohol in that. You know, which was so funny because the reason they did it was to not let the girls, they didn't want the girls to know there was alcohol. But I was drinking so much, everybody was even like, you need to know there's alcohol in that. So it got to about the end of the night, I literally was dipping my cup in so far that I was going up to my elbow. I mean, I was just trying to drink the whole thing. And my arm was purple. I'm not kidding. I had a purple arm. And it was a rough night, I can tell you that. But it didn't stop me, you know. Made a fool out of myself. Did all the things that you just wish you had never done in your life, but it did not stop me. It just kept getting worse. So I graduated from the University of Florida and got a job and moved back down to, my parents moved to Atlanta my senior year. Of college. And so I moved back down here, or down to Tampa, because that's really kind of for me where I was from. I didn't, Atlanta was not part of my life. And got a corporate job, started being a good corporate doobie, was on the fast track. Because you could drink with the guys back then and it was okay. My friends, we all had a good time. I saw everybody was drinking like I was, but they really weren't. You know, they were going to happy hour and I was going to happy hour hours. You know, eventually they all started, you know, getting boyfriends who like actually asked them to get married and start a life with like an adult would. And I wasn't. I was just working and drinking. I got to that point where, you know, a lot of the stuff I was doing was pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. A lot of it. You know, stalled my career. I was on the fast track, but not quickly stalled my career because, you know, the corporate guys like to drink with corporate guys and they think it's kind of funny to drink with women, but eventually the women blow that deal like not, not anymore. We're, you know, that's not, that's more than we want the women's dream. We just want you to be cute for a while. We don't want you to be hideous, you know, so I blew my career, you know, couldn't be part of the, the, the, the fast track anymore. Um, I, I was drinking to blackout every night and either by myself and, you know, I was driving drunk, um, I, one night I, I picked up a guy in a bar and fell all the way down the wooden steps all the way down from the top, all the way to the bottom, backward, and it hurt a lot. Um, it's not like the movie, you know, it just hurts. Um, but you know, I guess there was a good thing. I was drunk because I'd probably be dead if I weren't, you know, because I hear you're supposed to relax and you fall like the evil, can evil stunt thing. So I thought it was, but, um, um, let's see what else happened to me, but it was pretty bad. Um, and I found a man to marry me, bless his heart, and we got married and I was still drinking and, you know, I, one time I heard, um, a woman talk about getting sober really young. You know, I was 33 when I got sober. Um, and I heard a woman talking about getting, um, not getting sober. Not wanting to quit drinking really young because she wouldn't be able to drink at her wedding, you know, and when she said that, I thought back to my wedding and how alcohol controlled my wedding because it was a seven o'clock wedding and all I could think about was how I can't drink until the reception and how it just ruined my wedding because I was consumed by alcohol by then, whether I was drinking it or not drinking it. It was every moment of my life. I was functioning, y'all. I had the stuff. I had the man. Look at that, you know. But, no, I was ruled. I was a citizen of king alcohol. That's what Denison means. And I didn't know it, you know. I still thought I was cool, hip, and slick. And, um, eventually it just got to where, um, I didn't want to really go out anymore and I was pre-drinking. If we went out, I would slam glass, cup of glasses of wine as fast as I could. You know, I'll wait. I left something in the apartment. I got to go get it, you know, to run back and pound a glass of wine. I mean, I remember going down the stairs of the apartment with the wine still sort of stuck in my throat, you know, like how am I going to get all of this in my mouth like a chipmunk swallowed before I get to the car. And, um, you know, and then when I just kept waking up every day. I was sick every day. I didn't want to go to work. I had to go to work. You know, how many times? How many times a week can you claim you have a stomach flu? You know, three is probably too many. But weekly I did that. And, um, so one day I woke up and I just felt terrible and my husband was yelling at me. And, um, I remember thinking, oh, oh, God, help me, you know, just, ugh. So I went. I had a terrible day, but I had an appointment with my psychiatrist that afternoon. I was seeing a psychiatrist for depression. I was drinking massive dosages. I was seeing dosages of a depressant every night. So it was no wonder that I was depressed, right? And so for some reason that day, I just looked at her and said, I'm an alcoholic. Boom. And the light went off over her head. And she said, really beautiful voice, I'll never forget it. You'd like to get some help for that, wouldn't you? And that was like, oh, whoa, why did I tell her that? That's not what. Whoa, no, no, no, no, no. You didn't. That's not what I meant, you know. And, um, I. I just burst into tears and said, yeah, I guess, you know. So I went back the next month. And she said she didn't know much about it. She would ask her colleagues. And the next week I went back and she said, here's a place called Ridgeview and you should go. And, um, am I sober yet? What time is that? Oh, I've got to get sober. I'm starting to get sober. So I went to Ridgeview. I went to Ridgeview. I won't tell you how insane I am. But I actually made an appointment to check into Ridgeview. I thought I was checking into Ridgeview. You have to make a reservation like a hotel. And I went and I took their exam. And they're just like, yeah, you should be here. I go, OK, well, I'll be back on February 25th. It's a Saturday. I have to take some more time off of work. And she's looking at me. She's like, yeah, right. OK. But I did, y'all. I mean, that's how determined I'm a determined human being. And I knew I wanted to. I knew I thought I was just going to. I thought it was the spa. I didn't know what I was going to, you guys. I just knew I was having a real problem with alcohol. And this was what my psychiatrist said I should go do. So I packed up my perfume. And my. Razor and all this stuff. I go into Ridgeview. The doors lock behind me. They grab my bags. They pull out my razor, my shampoo and my perfume. And they're like, we're taking this from you. I'm like, oh, my God, you're taking my perfume. And then I realized, man, people must drink that stuff. You know, and some lawyer probably told him to take it away from everybody. I was like, wow, what have I done? You know, but. I'm really, really glad I did it. Because I was locked in there. I was locked in there for four days. And given a big book, soft cover, big book. That was a $40,000 soft cover big book. I really thought they should have given me a hard cover for that. But I am still a little resentful about that. But I don't know. Maybe I have work to do. I have some work to do. But, you know, they introduced me to the program. And I thought, it's not on this in a very expensive way. And I got my first white. I got my white chip. But in Ridgeview. At a meeting at Ridgeview. And honestly, did not even know I was in an AA meeting. I just was going along with the crowd. I mean, they said, you know, we were going to meetings during the day. They were really kind of, you know, therapy sessions or whatever. And then there was this meeting. And they said, white chip. And the people that I had just checked into my hotel were going up there. So I did too. And that's how I got my white chip. And it's the only one I have. Because the second or third day in this soft cover. Or soft cover big book. I started reading it. And I got to the third step prayer. And it said, relieve me from the bondage of myself. And I had a white light experience, you guys. I came in. I was not a religious person. I don't think I was an atheist. I just thought you were pretty much stupid if you believed in a higher power. Or a god. Or anybody with a name. You know? Any of the names. Gods. I just thought that was stupid. I just thought you had to be weak. And immature. And backward. And a whole bunch of other stuff to believe that. But I read that sentence. Relieve me from the bondage of myself. And I had the exact same sensation come over me that I had when I had that very first drink. My skin did again. Just a little bit more than it did. I felt everything is going to be okay. Just like I did when I had that first drink. It's all going to be okay. So what happened to me, I guess, is one of the white light experiences. Not everybody has them. And I have to be reminded about my higher power alive. It's not like I became Mother Teresa, you know, because I read that sentence. What happened to me is I had this overwhelming sense that it was going to be okay. So I kept reading. I kept doing what they said to do. And then I came out. I got out of Ridgeview. And I went to the 930 meeting. My very first day meeting outside of... Ridgeview was the 930, which means every day, Monday through Saturday, which is a fabulous, fabulous meeting. And thank God that they were a literature-based meeting because we didn't get into the crap about, you know, who stole my bologna and stuff like that. We talked about the steps. And there was some really good sobriety in there. And they put up with me. And they let me be who I was, which was confused and angry and talky and all the things that, you know, we are in early sobriety when we think we did it for ourselves. You know? So I had taken... I was all the way up to third step, you know. And then one day I was confused because I thought, well, I never really took the second step because I'm smart. I jumped right to the third step right there in the second day of treatment. And I was in the 545. And I was in the 545. And Jim was probably there. He put up with the early days of my sobriety. Okay. And I was going on and on about how I had gotten myself sober. And I had, you know, gotten my appointment at Ridgeview. And I had figured it out. And I told my psychiatrist. And I checked myself in. And I'm coming to A meetings. And I'm doing this. And then all of a sudden I realized, wait a minute. That day that you told your psychiatrist you were an alcoholic, that morning you rolled over in bed and you said to yourself, God help me. Oh, yeah, you did do that. Then I realized there is a higher power that did this for me, not Julie. Julie didn't do this. I came to believe power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I just didn't know I'd done it. I called out and he heard me. I don't know what the psychic change really is, but a woman in this program once described it as when the grace meets the clarity. Grace is always there. The clarity is not always there. And I just got clear like that. Not all of us do that. I pray that you do. But, you know, it comes just sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. So I had all this knowledge about myself of being this hot stuff in AA. But I resisted the four-step. Imagine that. Who resists the four-step? And I got to almost a year. I was in sobriety and I thought, well, I'm such a good student and I'm so fabulous at everything. Maybe I need to take the four-step because it would be really bad to get a whole year and still not have done your four-step. Oh, I forgot to tell you about my sponsor. Uh-oh. I can't get in trouble for going over. I found my sponsor by, you know, I told you that I was married when I came into the program and I was newlywed. And right after I got out of Ridgeview, we went out to dinner for the first time to go to a restaurant. And we walked into the Chili's over here at Tocco Hill. And I used to, I was the person that loved to wait for the table because then you could go to the bar and drink. Because I'd already pounded three or four at home on the way down the stairs, as you remember. And then you get to the bar and drink some more and then get to the table and drink some more and somehow you think magically that nobody's counted any of those. When we walk in and there was a wait and the hostess, the hostess says, okay, well, that would be about five minutes. Would you like to go to the bar? And I'm like, no. So we sat down in that little wooden bench, like outside the principal's office right there in that foyer of the restaurant, you know. And I'm sitting there and I look in the bar and I just burst into tears. Burst into tears because I was like, what have I done? I'm not going in there again. And the hostess is looking at me like, gee, it's only five minutes. You don't have to cry about it. There's no reason to cry about it. The hostess is like, you want to go leave? You want to leave? And I'm like, no, I've got to go to restaurants. I've got to be able to go to a restaurant. And I did. And I don't remember much of it after that. But, I mean, I just remember that very, very clearly. Anyway, I went to a meeting at Ridgeview later and I told that story. And the woman, you know, responded. She crossed-talked, which was what I was supposed to do. And she said, well, no wonder you lost your best friend. And she just seemed to get it. She seemed to understand me. So I asked her afterwards to be my sponsor. And I was so glad that I did. So when it came time for me to do my four-step, I bitched and moaned about it. I complained. I had every excuse in the world, including, I promise you, that I could not make columns in Microsoft Word. Therefore, I could not do a four-step. Because it had to be in columns. But now I had to do that. And I used that one for months. I can't believe Jim doesn't even remember that one. But I did. And finally, I bitched about it enough that Donald Segal said, look, just get a piece of paper and write, God help me, at the top of it, and start writing. Okay. So I did. And I got all the information about myself down, so I thought. And my first four-step was the searching and fearless moral inventory of everybody else in my life but me. You know? And here I was trying to... Do it before a year so I could get an A-plus and it was going to be great. But, you know, it really wasn't. It was more like an F. You know, can't follow directions. But the cool thing about the four-step is there's no way to get it. It's not graded. It is whatever it is. Whatever you can get on the paper is what's supposed to be on the paper. It just is. And thank God I did it that way because after I did my fifth step and I went to this beautiful woman's beautiful condo and sat in her solid white living room, which I was still confused about. I'm like, how do you do that? And I don't remember that. It was just a white in there. And told her this stuff. But, like, really, I was still so angry, y'all. Even after a year, I wasn't drinking. But I had no real solution for who I was or how I was, how abrasive I was with society and the people around me. And so I just went, bleh, all over. You know, like, hey, that bitch says nothing. He's a jerk. And blah, blah, blah. And at the end of it, she just sweetly looked up. And she said, my, what a sad, angry, lonely little girl you are. And I was like, uh-uh. The book says I'm singing from the mountaintop at this point. And, you know, I don't, you know, no. Breeze flew my hair or whatever it says in the fifth step. No. I couldn't believe it. But then I realized, wow, that's the best piece of information anybody's ever given me. That's somebody who loved me enough to tell me the truth. Because, trust me, my mouth was so acidic, people were not going to tell me the truth. They just weren't. You know? And I'm so grateful to have that sentence and that information that I could go and do something about it. I could start working on how I was. You know? And so I did. I started working on how I was. And I got a little bit better. And, um, let's see. Stalled out a little bit on that, on the steps. Because I started having babies. I have a couple of beautiful babies. Um, they're AA babies. They've never seen their mother drunk. My daughter will be 20 in January. And my son is 18. And, um, are you allowed to call your own children beautiful? I am going to. My children are beautiful. They're smart. They're great. They're best. Um, nanny booboo. Um, at least the jury is still out, I think, on them and the alcoholism. But please, y'all be here. Okay? Thank you. We need you. Um, so then I started getting back into the steps again. And I did another four-step. And I got some really good information about myself. And I, um, went to the 930. And I said, okay, I have all this information about myself. But what do I do? How do I stop doing this stuff, these character defects? How do I stop? Do I just stop? Do I just stop doing these things? And all their heads were, like, nodding. Yeah, you just stop. Just stop. I'm like, uh, that's too hard. But I remember Paul McGee said, um, that you can change. And that he suggests changing things a little at a time to prove to yourself that you can change. And I love this advice. He says, you know, move your watch to the other arm. I'm like, ooh, okay. Well, okay, maybe that's possible. And then he says, you know, change shampoos. Or change your toothpaste. When he said that, in my head, I went, oh, hell no. I'm not changing my toothpaste. And then I realized, you know, you may be talking. He's talking to me. This is the behavior he's talking about. This is the inflexibility. The unwillingness. To see, you know, that, you know, you can change the way you are and how you are. So I, um, that night, one of my character defects is, um, controlling behavior. Imagine that. And, um, I like things to be okay and right, right? So I'm the kind of person that if my tag is showing or if I have, like, something in my teeth, I want you to tell me. I don't want to walk around like that. But my husband was the kind of person that didn't like that. He didn't like to be picked at like that. Right? So that night, after I swore I was going to just stop doing my character defects, we had dinner and I looked up at my husband and he had salad dressing on his face right there. And I swear to God, I started sweating. I, I know, I thought, I want him out. I had to go to the laundry room and say the serenity prayer about the salad dressing on his face. To not tell him or not reach over and fix it. You know? Which is what I really wanted to do. So I was so proud of myself that I didn't do that. And I came back to the next stage of the 930 to report my progress in the sixth step. You know? Humbly asking God to remove my shortcomings. And they were very proud of me. You know? It's a little baby step. I have not fixed that character defect, y'all. Sorry. But I tried to start with the hardest one first. It didn't work. But what I have found through my step work, and, you know, I've been sober longer than I drank. By a lot. Now, actually. So, for me, the growth of the program comes with learning more and more about myself. And what I'm capable of doing well. And what I'm capable of doing not so well. And, for me, six and seven are the best part of the steps. Because that's where I'm willing to look at myself. And willing to admit it and own it. And then maybe do something about it. And I can own it as long as I want. And the 12 in 12 talks about that. It talks about, you know, until we were humbled by alcohol, we couldn't get sober. And it says, until we're humbled by our character defects, we're not going to do anything about them either. And it says, for us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful. Does that sound fun? No. But I can tell you something. Each time, I did better. I felt closer to my higher power. Each time, I felt a spiritual experience. Each time, I did something better and different. It was a spiritual experience. And it was like seeing a color I'd never seen before. And I just wanted to see it again. So, I wanted to do better and better. You know, and this is difficult. You know, some of us don't have... I mean, I thought I was perfect. You know, I mean, I wasn't a thief. I never opened up a cash drawer. I never opened up a cash drawer and took money out of it. I didn't steal anything from anybody. I didn't have any of those kind of behaviors, right? But we have behaviors that are so pervasive in our characters, you know? And entitlements and things like that. I mean, when I was out there drinking, I had a roommate. Jeez, I'm mad. And she and I went to Target. We had a brand new apartment. We had this beautiful, beautiful patio, right? And we went to Target to buy furniture for it. This was when I was single. Young, with it, up and comer in Tampa, just before I would fall off a cliff. And we go to Target, and the woman is scanning the chairs, but she doesn't scan the cushions, right? So, my roommate and I are both employed, both able to pay for the cushions. We're looking at each other. And we're like, oh, I'm not going to say anything. We get out to the parking lot. We're in the parking lot singing, Free Cushion Day at Target. Free Cushion Day at Target. And, you know? There's a word for that kind of behavior. It's called shoplifting. But I never, until I got into this program, would have put that together. You don't do that. That's just ridiculous. But I did. So, me telling myself I didn't have any of these character defects. Oh, you come in this program and start getting closer to them, and you will see them. You know, you will always see them. And God has a good sense of humor, and he'll give you opportunities to fix them. He really will. And, um, lots of my... You know, I've had to be kind of beaten into submission with some of my character defects. And they're not always gone. But, you know, this is the part of the program that separates the men from the boys, as our book says. And there's no reason, in my opinion, to do a fourth and fifth step and gather this information about yourself if you're not willing to do something about the bad stuff or the stuff that's keeping you from a spiritual life. Or a better life. Because it's just going to be miserable for me to walk around knowing that I was a sad, angry, lonely little girl and not do anything about it. You know? Or try to work on some of these other defects. Continue to take things from the store that weren't mine. You know, because somebody made a mistake. And that's, for me, you know, I tell people when I tell my sponsees, you know, if you love your victimhood, if you still love your victimhood, do not take a sixth and seventh step. Okay? You're going to have to own up to your own behavior. You know? And that's what I had to do. Own up to my own behavior. Step eight is, you know, some people say to just take your whole fourth step and put it into your eighth step. But I don't really think that's true. I made my list. And I have found that because my memory is faulty, I think of people still. You know? I'll be listening to the 80s channel. And the music brings back. It brings back memories of things and people. So after I had my eight step list done, I started my ninth step. And I can tell you that that is when I really started to feel comfortable in my own skin. And I don't advise you to wait as long as I did. I might have spent four or five years into sobriety before I was doing this completely. You know? Really doing it. But I've done every kind of ninth step you can do except for the grave site one. And I haven't needed to do a grave site. Amen. But I have written letters and I've phoned people and I've face to face apologized to people. I've apologized for things that seem silly. I've apologized to things that really needed to be done to fix a relationship. And I have amended a lot of my relationships. I will tell you that I wrote. I have a lot of sisters, as I said. And I have one. This program is great because when I came into this program, I called her the sister from hell. Right? That was really nice, right? The sister from hell. But now she's just the sister from Houston. So progress, not perfection, right? Progress. But I was five years sober and God spoke to me and said, write your sister a letter. Thank you, God, for speaking to me. So I. I wrote her a letter and I put it in the mailbox. And as the mailman was taking it away, I called my sponsor. And I said, yes, I just did. She said, why? I said, I just mailed my sister from hell a letter, an apology letter and a men's letter. And it just went off in the book. And she said, what? Don't ever do that again. And then she said, read the first line of the ninth step in the twelve and twelve. And that is good judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage and prudence. These are the qualities we shall need when we take step nine. Now, I don't have any of those things and I need somebody to help me with those. And so about a week or so later, I get this letter back from my sister. And the first line was, I no longer associate with evil people. So I think maybe I should have read that letter to my sponsor before I mailed it off. Right. So that's just kind of how my experience, you know, I tell you my experience. So that maybe you won't make that mistake. But, you know, it's such an eye opening journey to change how we are. The program cannot change who we are. You know, for me, who I am is I was born in Memphis. I was the last child of six. I had these parents and these and I had this experience. And, you know, that's who I am. But how I am is changeable. It is possible to do that and to find a way to live in society. As a grown person, not acting like a sad, angry, lonely little girl. That really explained to me why I was having so much trouble in society. Why I was dressed up like an adult with all the trappings of an adult life, but interacting with people like a four-year-old. And that's why people were having a hard time interacting with me. Have you ever interacted with a four-year-old? I mean, it's difficult. It truly is. And, oh, God, take something away from one of them. Then you're really going to have a hard time. You're really in trouble. So every day I get to practice restraint of tongue and pen and some pause and some responding to life and not reacting to life. And I have the ability to sometimes face fear without shaking my knees and actually face fear with some faith that it's going to be okay. Get out of the results business. Stop trying to guess what's going to happen in the future because I really don't know. You know, when I came into the program, I thought I was perfect. I really did. I thought I was perfect and everybody else was the problem. But one of the gifts that this program has given me is my imperfection. It is so relieving to be imperfect and to know that I don't have to be perfect, but it's not a bad thing to strive for. It talks about that in the 12 and 12-2. To set it... You know, do I really want to be what God wants me to be? And, you know, if I do, then I'm going to keep working these steps and I'm going to try to learn the lessons that are in each of them on a daily basis. And I want to read to you one of my favorite parts of the 12 and 12. It's in step five. You know, a lot of old-time timers, people pull out that card about what are the principles behind the steps. If you're new, you may not realize... is that's really not part of AA. That's not written down anywhere in any of the steps. Now, some old-timers, again... I've been around a lot, so old-timers used to be mean as hell. I just tell you, some of them still are, but... I mean, they would take you to the mat over that. There are no principles behind that. But the 12 and 12 does say that the principle behind every step is humility. And each one of them really does do that. You know, when I came into this program, I thought the four hardest words that I would ever say were, I am an alcoholic, and I came in and found out the four hardest words for me to say are, will you help me? Okay? And you guys did, despite my bitter and nastiness. But here's the definition of humility that I think is very easy to swallow, and it's in the fifth step. It says, another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects in another human being is humility, a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in AA, it, meaning humility, amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. So I'm going to just keep trying every day to be who I can be, and deal with who I am in the best possible way. And I thank you guys. I hope it helps somebody get sober or stay sober today. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. Yay! We have asked Tammy to come up and hand out the chips. Hey, everybody. I'm Tammy. I'm an alcoholic. Great job, Julie. All right. So we're going to offer the white chip first, and it represents a sign of surrender. You've got to join the wave so that you can stay sober one day at a time. All right. Anybody else for a white chip tonight? Then we have a 30-day chip for 30 days of sobriety. It says, To thine own self be true. Red chip for 90 days. Then we have the yellow chip for six months. Anybody with six months? And then we have the green chip for nine months. Nine months. And then we have a blue chip for any birthdays that we don't know about. Anybody? We have a A.E. birthday. Julie's going to give one out to her sponsee. Thank you. I am too. I'm an alcoholic. And this is a sponsorship family right here, y'all. This is my sponsor. This is my sponsee. It's cool. I get the privilege of giving Amy her four-year chip. And I am amazing. I said earlier, when you say it's amazing, you're getting four-step. It's kind of like it's an insult, isn't it? That's so amazing. You're getting four years. But it is amazing. It's a miracle that we can go as low as we can go in this program, or in life, and then come back to this place where Amy is in her life. And I want to let her tell you about it. My name's Amy, and I'm an alcoholic. This is four. I definitely didn't think I'd ever get here. And I came back. This last time, I was so beaten up, I didn't really care what I had to do. I just knew that I needed help. And I knew I couldn't do it by myself, because that's what I've always tried. So thank y'all. Do we have any reconsiderations on the white chip? Congratulations on the chip, you all. Thank you, one and all, for joining the Blue Chip Speaker Meeting tonight.