Lila R. at the 33rd International Womens Conference – 1997

My name is Lila and I'm an alcoholic I have to wait until God shows up anyway so I might as well organize myself while I'm doing it got some extra raffle tickets I'll adjust to the light and I'll assume it's spiritual bless myself I'm looking at Mary's book for one moment because I want to just put chapter 5 in front of me in case I forget the steps embarrass myself could happen after that chocolate cake I decided to have a cup of tea it hasn't kicked in yet but when it does you'll know oh my god well I can't find chapter 5 so I don't know what the hell that means I want to thank Mary very much for asking me to join you tonight and for her year of email she's organized and efficient and dedicated Jane and I have been delighted when we've been away out of town or traveling and come home and do whatever you do to the computer there's an email message from Mary Monk advising us about what is the latest on the Women's Conference I've been sober over 27 years and this is the first time that I've heard about your conference it's a well kept secret in Alcoholics Anonymous which I intend to absolutely tell everybody about. Well, with the exception of Glenn who we're going to have to ask to identify you know, maybe you can assume a feminine consciousness or something I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak to so many women in one room at one time that are all sober I have been actually looking forward to wondering what would that feel like you know, to talk to almost whatever number of sober women so far I don't feel a bloody thing I mean, you know I need a few minutes to warm up in case you haven't noticed you see, I believe that I'm the kind of speaker I actually always have been I've always envied people who get up and they say you know, my name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic and this is exactly my story and they tell the same story each and every time. I don't have that at all. When I turned 20 years sober or around 18 actually I decided I talked about it with God later but I first decided that my responsibility really was to talk to you about who I am, how I feel how it is to be a sober woman. obviously I drank or I could not have stood AA for 27 years you have to really want to be here for all of those days and weeks and months and hours when all those personalities perceive the principles by a long shot let me just organize myself here because I promised the taper I would cooperate God's on the way I'm getting ready actually I'm having a hot flash I mean how many times in my sober life am I going to be able to say that at a convention oh lord and I'm one of those women that has decided to go through menopause the natural way I don't know I wouldn't clap you should see me drive oh god I believe as best I know from my family background that heart disease is not really a big deal and neither is that bone deficiency so my mother had seven children five of us were born in Ireland one in Canada and one in the United States of America I figure I can do almost anything that kind of heritage I don't recommend it necessarily but oh, I don' t know a few months ago I was driving and I found myself you know preparing to yell at people not just because they were doing something but in anticipation that they for certainly sure would do something and I would blow the horn preceding what I knew they were stupidly going to do because I could just imagine what they were thinking by the way they were driving and Jane said to me you know it's getting very difficult to be in the car with you it was getting difficult for me to be in the care of a woman in the back of the car with me what the hell it was very hard for me because normally I mean I don't know I think it just comes of years of resistance and then years of acceptance that you get to be familiar with yourself. I think if you stay sober long enough, it's one of the great benefits is that you A, see yourself in retrospect and B, you just get to know yourself a little bit better and that sense of unmanageability when it comes over me, I kind of know it but I don't know. I hit that plateau of the change of women and I lost all ability to do too. No, I was in complete madness until I was already blowing the horn crazy. It's just awful. now what has this got to do with talking at an AA meeting everything everything the fact that I showed up the fact that I'm here the fact that I've been the fact that I am talking the fact that I have been going through the change the fact that I live the fact that I breathe it's got everything to do with my life in Alcoholics Anonymous because without all those changes and without AA I wouldn't know how to go through them I wouldn' t go through them I would take something I would do something I would make it easier I would find the easier softer way I would escape I would go away I certainly would blame you so any event in my life no matter how big, how little, how small how big huge small insignificant it doesn't matter is about staying sober it's about living a moment at a time it's taken me so many years to understand that quality precedes quantity quality of my day so I went to an acupuncturist for this problem it's a driving problem it's headache problem and it's every hour on the hour wake up problem and I told her that she had to help me or I was probably going to kill someone so now I'm taking this ghastly herbal tea regularly and getting acupuncture treatments once a month oh, I don't know since everything is basically psychological and I have a problem with the mind I can almost make anything that I do acceptable to me believe it or not, it's working except for the odd little flash, you know when you least want it I'm going to be 50 years of age this year it's fantastic, isn't it? to have lived so long when you were sure you were going to be dead in your early twenties and to have lived most of my life sober credible my life has just begun now I've done a lot of things and I suppose by society standard I've accomplished a lot and you know I've been I've made all the things you're supposed to do to get all the pats on the back made all money did all the thing had the power been the executive have been the fantasy of most women, not all of them, just the ones that want to get the hell out of the house. But here I am, 50 years of age, sober and beginning again. I believe that if you can stay sober for any given period of time, you will get to live as many lifetimes as you want to while you're alive you no longer have to die I believe in order to change and to grow and to do things entirely different I mean the miracle of the change of perception is so profound and so huge and so big that I enter my 50th year with more anticipation excitement and curiosity than I ever have before I can hardly believe it myself if it were not for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous why I would not have known what not to do I have learned in the last number of years how to live by the process of substitution I have come to understand how to substitute that that is painful the problem that is painfull for the spiritual solution it has taken so long when I got sober in 1969 at the hole on the ground in Huntington Park it was exactly what it sounds like you went down 12 steps in fact still having meetings there and it is the oldest meeting held in the same place in Alcoholics and Arts and when I walked into that tiny weenie little room it looked as big as this to me I only know it's small because I was there for the 50th anniversary I couldn't believe it so small but I was so small when I joined AA I was so insignificant in my own eyes I was so little and I was so terrified that that room was as big as this ballroom and there were all these people in there and they all had names like Tex and they were like big huge belts you know big silver things with cowboys and horses and stagecoaches and things on the belt really and then there was this guy however that was a friend of our family for many, many years his name was Duke and he always wore a souche morning, noon, and night I think he slept in the thing and got up never saw him without a suit Duke Carson I will be forever grateful to Duke Carson and that's how I ended up one night the hole in the ground in Huntington Park how I got there is really not that important I mean everybody's got their story about how they got there a couple of days before I got there, my greatest friend had stopped being my greatest friends alcohol had stopped working for me I could not get sober and I could not get drunk I was the kind of alcoholic simply that drank anything that was brown when there was nothing that was brown I drank anything that was white when there was nothing that was white I drank anything at all I don't know if there's an invisible line I don' t know if I was born an alcoholic I don don't know if I thought myself into it I don't know if the disease took over and I could care less I only worried about that in the first few years when I was trying to half figure out how to get the hell out of here. But now that I've decided I want to stay, I don't care what it cost or what it's like or what happened for me to get here. If there is an invisible line, I don't ever recall crossing it. And if I did, it was when I was probably three. I used to love to have a bottle of stout, Guinness' stout with my Uncle Neil. Well, he liked it too, so I'd always have two Guinnesses stout with Uncle Neil. They put sugar in it, you know, very good for you when you're a child in Ireland. There's something for the stomach. I don't know what it did for my stomach, but it gave me the ability to drink like the rest of them. Was that when I became an alcoholic? I don' t think so, I don''t think so. Something had gone on though, because years later, when I was in I think, I don ''t know, Canada or the United States, I used to like to set up an ironing board and serve my little friends, my mother's brandy that she had for the priests. So already before I ever really got into the thrust of my disease, I had all the accoutrements already ready, you know, setting up an ironing board. And you know the level of us, it was great really. You could just graduate as I grew up. I knew how to do all of that. You know I really believe that I had the consciousness and they say it's a disease of the mind and I was really ready. I don't necessarily think that there's normies and alcoholic minds. I mean, you know, there's people out there we all have problems. I got over that their different thing a long time ago when I realized we're really all the same. The difference was I chose to solve my problem with alcohol. They just go stark raving mad all on their own. I don't know, I think I had the easiest, softer way there for a lot of years. In fact, you know, I used to joke about it, but I know that it's the truth now. That if I had not been drinking, I probably would have lost my mind. I certainly would have perhaps considered killing myself. So it was a very valuable thing for me for quite a while, really. I used start to drink to relax, calm myself down, because after all I was dying from sort of two diseases at the same time there for a short, short, short time. The disease of potential and the disease of alcoholism were running neck and neck. So I used to have a drink just to calm down, keep myself calm so that I could think, so I could react better. In fact, I had some of what I used to think were my most brilliant moments when I was completely gone. I regret that I've never remembered what they were, but I could feel that they were brilliant. I knew just before I went out that there was a brilliant thought there. In fact, I was really able to identify a profound spiritual experience by knowing how many I had while I was drinking. Just before I passed out, there was that moment, you know, that moment when you leave your body, when you're just in complete one with all humanity and all mankind. I mean, that's what alcohol did for me. There was that moment and I would think this is it where I felt together, where I felt part of, where I thought unafraid of you and didn't care what you thought or what I thought. I was one with the world. And then I was gone. I don't know what happened, but i would just sort of wake up in the morning and felt one with myself so the two days before i joined uh alcoholics anonymous i was unable to move my neck i was unable to remove my head to any side i was suffering from alcoholic paralysis and through a series of events that are really profound now I ended up hit the hole in the ground in Huntington Park and there they all were and I decided immediately that I was only going to stay for a short period of time I was just going to say stay until my fear went away you see, I was so terrified that I would drink I had to go to AA I was afraid to drink right then and there I needed to just get myself together first I only stayed because I was afraid. I didn't feel a miraculous touch on the shoulder or big light or anything I only went because I knew that if I didn's go to the meetings, I would drink and I couldn't drink just at this time now it's taken me years to understand that process and what it really meant that my prayers had been answered while I was down on the bathroom floor in my drunkenness I was heard in the unconsciousness of a blackout I was hurt when I would be coming out of that blackout I would say go ahead, go right ahead don't distract me I'm about to have a spiritual experience and you're walking in front of the podium as i was coming out of that blackout i would say god help me but as soon as the me came out of my mouth i was conscious enough to be raged that i had asked god to help me i didn't need anybody's help i had never needed anyone's help i never would need anyone's health i didn'T NEED ANYONE'S up now, and I dragged myself up the porcelain sink, and I held on tight to the edge of that sink while I looked in the mirror. And I could tell if that mirror was going up and down that I still had to pass out one more time. But if that mirrored was solid, I could get through that morning. I could at least get to the bottle. Now that's how I reacted. Now I know that I was heard. now I know that the power of prayer operates somewhere in that intuitive me and that if I make enough room for that God, for that intuition to take force it will create an event that will change my life so in a blackout unconscious I pray the alcoholic prayer God help me and through a series of events that obviously were of a profound spiritual nature I ended up in a hole in the ground in Huntington Park it was then my job to do my part and that's what Duke told me simply he said you're an alcoholic oh to hear such a thing there was a possibility I was an alcoholic God knows I acted like I might be alcoholic everyone I knew now they were real alcoholics I had just screwed up a little bit I was a little tense things were not in order my life of course was not really wrapped but I would be able to do that again it was going to be alright within a week I couldn't figure out how the hell I was going to stay sober within a month within a year I knew that I had to stay sober within two weeks I was still feeling the pain of sobriety I hated sobrietry so much that my hair hurt my eyelashes hurt I sweat green I would go to the bloody meetings and they would talk about all this wonderful stuff and blah blah blah and prison escapes I mean 27 years ago you know they would like tell you if they beat people up and rob banks now you say anything come in and they arrest you right on the spot but I mean then the stories were great I loved the stories I thought I haven't done any of that and had never been arrested I certainly had been stopped enough time but I was Irish and when I drank I had a terrific brogue and I always found a cop that's mother's was named Kathleen and was always going home again and he always took me home again and it was really great you know and on the way home I would sing Danny Boy and the cop would cry and I would cry they all cry so hey I like Chicago I came off that thing on the freeway or wherever your roads are called here and I saw American Heritage Foundation off on Route 84 I thought this is my town this is my town so there I was going home after these meetings and listening to these stories and thinking what am I doing here you know I used to get dressed up to go to the meetings I would wear these oh well never mind but that's kind of the brand name and I would wear all this kind of stuff and I'd make sure you know that I looked really good because I didn't want you to think I was an alcoholic Like, think, 24 drunk guys that escaped from some lunatic asylum and I'm worried about what they're going to think about my alcoholism. Unbelievable. You know, the woman in there with no teeth and another woman that looked like she, you know, just got teeth. They stuck way out and... You know. I couldn't believe it. I couldn' t believe it I couldn''t believe I was there and, you now, I'm looking at their teeth and their no teeth and these guys in their T-shirts and plaid shirts and Duke with the book and, you know, you're an alcoholic and oh my God, what could possibly be happening to me? Now you would think I would have run out of there like a... But no, no, I'm going every night. Every night. No intention of staying, mind you, but every night and I'm there and I've been there and I don't care like they say you got to come early and, you know not like now everybody rolls in whenever the hell they want to and they roll out whenever they want I don't understand that kind of AA we had to be there early if we didn't get there early we did not get the meeting before the meeting where they told you what they wanted you to do for the whole next day and then we got the meeting and then you couldn't just dash out of there because somebody had an ice cream cake or some other god forsaken thing that they made you eat. You know, jelly donuts were really big. Yeah, jelly doughnuts at night, at night even they had the jelly doughnut. And they make you eat like four or five of these things and they explain to me, you know, your sugar is completely shot, you know. I was eating jelly doughnuts and Hershey bars and chocolate milk and orange juice and oh, you know and I was hypoglycemic, you know I mean I almost died on this program from, you know being nursed through the hole in the ground in Huntington Park. They didn't tell me to not smoke. They said, smoke more, smoke more, and smoke more. They'd make this coffee, you know, and I understood when I drank that coffee why they had no teeth, okay? Because that thing was shot dry. But there was something about the teeth I identified with because, you see, I was the kind of alcoholic that I found that alcoholic dentist, you know, so I went to him and I talked to him in one of those little strip malls and explained to him that I thought, you know, my teeth were shrinking. and he understood that. Found the right guy, and then I explained to him that I couldn't go through this, you know, don't like Dennis and pain, and I need it all done like one night. Well, he understood that too. We had a few drinks at the place next door to negotiate the deal, and then we came over to his place and had a couple of drinks, and then he gave me whatever you'd do to knock somebody completely out, and you know that oh I was sober maybe 10 years when it was time to change those teeth they couldn't get them out my mouth it was extraordinary the dentist said who put these in I said I don't know but the guy incredible now you know I wouldn't mind but I went to visit my mother shortly thereafter and she was just happy to see me you know how the parents are of practicing alcoholics they get so they're just glad to see you because they don't know when they're not going to see you and she said to me something's different and I said yeah you know she said god she said it's the strangest thing she said but your teeth look shorter so I kind of identified with the lack of teeth and all that at the hunting down there and I you know I started to identify with these prisoners who'd been to jail and I started to identify with wanting to rob a bank I had a little financial insecurity and I started to have you know a real kind of like kinship developing with this group and uh and Duke would drag me back in the side area there where they had a kind of a kitchen if you were really special I was really special you know because he knew my family and uh you know it's not what's who you know even in AA I can say but there was a little throw-up room right behind there too and I found out later he just wanted to keep me close to that room because I was new and they just wanted you to be you know appropriate when you suddenly decided that it was all over i had so i was in that little room a few times actually it was a really wonderful experience and when i would come out of the room that's when you're really surrendered sober you don't have you've had a good physical upset and that's When Duke would grab me and open the book like I cared what was in that book and he would say you're an alcoholic and there's four things you have to do because you're the kind of alcoholic that has to stay sober for the rest of your life awful i could barely get home and the guy's talking about the rest of my life but you see he was right i am that kind of alcoholic i have to stay over for the rest of my lie how i do that is one day at a time for the rest of my life I allow no thought I have had the good fortune in my sobriety to travel this world to be a lot of places to be in a lot where alcohol is served and phenomenal desserts and built in great little monumental things and poured alcohol all over them and I have to tell you that I have never had a dessert where I have not questioned the chef and I don't care I check everything because I was the kind of alcoholic that if you came to a party at my home and you were sober, I did not want you there and if you insisted upon staying, I got you drunk do you think for one moment that I am not going to be cautious about my sobriety when there's people like me out there and so I know that I must stay sober for the rest of my life and I have gone to great lengths to make sure that I do and I heard all those things if you don't want to slip, don't go where it's slippery you know so simple so profound does it affect my life today of course it does if I don't want negative thinking if I do not want to go into that depression that I am prone and have had in my sobriety if I dont want to go to those negative places then I dont go into that negative world I catch myself and I stop and I say to myself the same thing that I said about the disease of alcoholism as it pertained to my physical illness for the soul sickness that comes upon us now i am powerless over whatever it is and my life is unmanageable i can be powerless over a fly bugging me buzzing around i am so trained in understanding that there's nothing i can do about that that i now refer to the first step for almost anything that happens in my life it's a natural instinct for me to say i am powerless over this thing because I feel that unmanageability. I feel that unMANAGEABILITY. He said, you cannot drink no matter what. Oh, if I had known what the what's were going to be. The sadness and the death and the things that life presents one day at a time. I have had great sadness. I have a great sadness that I was able to resolve and I've had great sadness that I did not was able to resolve. I've grief, I've a grief that they stayed with me for years until I could forgive myself over the death of my brother who died from this disease. I have had sadness and upset and I have not had to drink. And I have had something even more significant than all of that happened to me. I have become excited. I have had joy. I have had success. I have had happiness. I have had good things happen to me. I was very capable of handling all of these monumental problems and even big death and unfortunate things, but oh God, I had no ability to handle the gentleness of life. I had no ability to handle the fun and the excitement and the joy. I did not know how to do that I was born with an innate sense of disappointment it came over me like a shadow I just anticipated that it would always be the way it was I could never differentiate the truth from the false when it came to getting excited I never knew when to believe you I never new when you would disappoint me unbelievable things that you are granted the opportunity to experience in Alcoholics Anonymous stays sober through it all through it all so he said to me, the way that you stay sober for the rest of your life one day at a time, is that you must go to meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous for the Rest of Your Life the guy was big on The Rest of You Life well I don't know how long more I have to live with the technology of today I might be living a very long time I intend to go to meetings for the rest of my life I don' t know how not to I don´t know how not to go to meetings it´s so against my grain I have enough friends around me that if I suddenly decided not to going to meetings I would hope that they would tell me that I would drink if I don't because you see I believe I will I don' t even have a doubt about it I have no reservation whatsoever that if I stop attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous I will drink I have had more and more and more and people that I know personally that break my heart with a lot of sobriety go out and never come back because they stopped going to meetings what is the most common thing you hear they stopped going to meeting if I stop going to meetings then I'm not going to know how to come to believe how to restore myself how to turn that over and how to get the help I need I am going to forget about how to do that self-reliance kept me drunk self-reliance will make me drink again simple Now, I know there's actually some people out there that don't go to meetings and you know what? They don't drink. Well, more power to them. I wouldn't want their miserable little lives. My first judgment openly was the evening. I like to know as I'm human, you know, it keeps me in balance. The truth is I don't know about their lives. The truth of the matter is I convinced myself 27 years ago that if I don't go to meetings I will drink it's a self-fulfilling prophecy I know that besides I went to meetings at the beginning because I needed to I stayed until I wanted to go I can't imagine not going to meetings of alcoholics and honest can't imagined they told me at the hole in the ground that I was the kind of alcoholic that should put my cap back on the toothpaste because what drunk puts their cat back on a toothpaste to go home and to do those little things to make my bed every day to clean my house. He said, you know, you've got to go to meetings. You've got to clean your house. I said, okay. And I cleaned that house. You know, and there was a certain time of the month and you know how clean those houses can become. And you could have had surgery on my house He said did you put your cap back on the toothpaste? To this day I put my cap back on a toothpaste. the habits of sobriety what does that got to do with anything I believe in my own way that if I had not learned to put the cap back on the toothpaste I would not be the consistent neat orderly person that I am today it was the beginning of a habit it was a beginning of the habit of sobrietty it was at the beginning of the beginning of the habbit of living living, living, loving I stopped dying when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous I started living fully when I stopped blaming you for me not being able to and I was sober when I blamed you and I went back out there and created my own destiny and I was sober when all those things happened to me and I wish it all for you I wish you every mistake you can make, sober I wish the opportunity to get back up on your feet I wish happiness and sadness and joy in all of it because isn't that how you find out how big your God is? Go to meetings clean your house read the big book don't come back and tell us what you think and don't go anywhere where you can't bring your God and nothing has changed I go to meetings I keep my house in order I read the big book and the 12 and 12 I don't think it's a mistake that Bill Wilson wrote that 13 or 14 years later he knew a lot more it is now more important to me than even somewhat the big book because it takes me to a deeper level I don't know how to read the big books without the 12 and 12 and I don' t know how to read the 12and12 without the bigbook to me it's just one big book there's another book in process and that's the book of my life the book that I write the book I write with my God the book no one will ever read but me the book where it says more will be revealed it's the Book of My Life it's written in symbology it's in the words of kindness that i remember sometimes it's documenting the feelings of kindness when somebody is good to me this is a symbology of coming to just share it to me it's all the incidences of coming to believe all the perceptions that have changed for me perception the change in perception is a miracle if you were to just sit right now if you're sober one year or 47 or six years and think about how much change in perception you have had you couldn't count the miracles they would be just too many of them and you know what's great about miracles from once you get the hang of this miracle thing I expect them I wouldn't know what to do without a miracle I would not know how to have a day that didn't have miracles they're just the way it is for me you see, I'm an alcoholic I want it all just because I got sober doesn't mean I don't want it at all I don' t know how not to have it all the I want, I want I want in me that was there when I drank that alcohol fired that imagination where I went to dream all those things that you need to protect yourself with you know I got sober and I stopped drinking and that did not change I needed something else to take me to those places and I went out there and I created you know boom boom boom that stress of the world to take me and I thought if I can protect myself if I could if I have all those accoutrements if I had money if I do those things I can get what I want and you know what I really wanted I wanted to get the hell away from you as far as I could and I was sober active member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I would say the right things and doing the right thing and all of us were patting each other on the back and the truth was I was building the vision for myself and couldn't understand. Couldn't understand I knew that there was a God my God how can you not know there's a God if you're sitting in this room tonight? How can you not know? You can kid yourself but the truth is there's no God There's a god or you wouldn't be here Imagine yourself sitting in this chair and not as you look beautiful tonight but on your first night of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous Hey! There's the miracle Think of how you looked and think of how you felt You didn't look like this I can assure you you know what are you doing in chicago what the hell are you doing in Chicago we're 2400 women looking great feeling good wanting to scream your excitement wanting to be able to not have to contain it wanting to be free for just five minutes of saying oh my god something profound has happened to me something huge has happened to me maybe they don't all understand outside of aa maybe my family and my husband my children and my life and my lovers and my friends don't understand but in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous we understand this guy's got me so wrecked with the time normally i don't cooperate at all but he's been so nice to me for the last couple of days so there it was the beginning of my sobriety the four things that i do now i did then put that cap back on that toothpaste make that bed so you don't get back into it you know i don't know about you but when i want that spiritual energy and when i want those angels to land and i want to be filled up with that it just doesn't come to me when i'm in a laying down position I don't know I mean they can't land on me or something something does not happen I have to be standing upright in order to feel this great reality deep within I just can never feel it when I'm on my back Not necessarily so. Never been better, to tell you the truth. I am there now. All there, wanting to be there. hell if it's this good at 50 can you imagine 60 I'm just getting used to this all of a sudden I'm beginning to live I've brought myself to this point I've just matured into myself I just fit my body about three years ago I don't know if you feel that but I just like kind of fit myself suddenly I looked around I'm sober 18, 19 years well seven years ago really but profoundly three years I looked at myself I looked in my hands and I remember i was a little child i always wanted to like have bigger hands you know i wanted to be able to touch more things and i loved my hands i wanted to be able to touch things with them god i'm looking at my hands a few years ago sober and i'd grown into my hand and i love my hands and in the last three years i've grown into my body i don't know how to explain it but i kind of like grew into myself i i grew up you don't have to wait as long as i did it just took a long time for me because I was so terribly insecure I had so much that I created sober that I had to unlearn sober you know, in order for me to feel secure I had go out there and get security and then I found out, wow it's not going to do it here I have all this stuff that every magazine in the world and book and person and lecturer will tell you you're supposed to have and it'll make you feel really good and you know what it didn't I had not shared enough of it with my boss I had shared enough to stay sober but I did not share enough to own it really something walking around 18, 19 years sober you know they want you to know something they expect you to say something it's just such a drag all the time telling you it's such a you know horror finally reached the stage when people call me on the phone get to the bottom line what the hell is the point you're going to have a change everything changes it doesn't matter what your trauma is every problem is a spiritual problem every solution is a special solution call me tomorrow that's it isn't that the truth been there done that you're not going to kill yourself unfortunately you're probably going to live a long time call somebody closer in your years of sobriety so you can commiserate over this drama. That's what I was thinking. I'm 19 years sober and I am having a depression. I would like to have it with some modulum of peace. I am sober long enough to know that if you're going to be depressed, for God's sake, be comfortable and depressed. What was wrong with me? what was wrong with me is that I had become healthy enough as a result of my association with Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of my willingness to live as a result of my looking at the book and doing those steps in whatever haphazard manner I did them enough of enough of enough to become healthy enough to know that I was missing God that's what happened to me you know a couple of years ago heard story about a little tiny baby that was born to this family. Now, I'm Irish. I am bellish. I have made this story my own. I'm telling you right now, not my story. I'm not even going to tell it like it is, but I'm going to talk and I'm just going to tell you the way I hear it. I imagine it and I have felt it. Anyway, this little baby was born into this family and this mother and father had a little girl and she was about that big in my mind and she kept bugging her mother and Father that she wanted to spend some time alone with this little baby. She wanted to be alone and wanted to close the door. She wanted her to talk to this little Baby by herself. Of course, you know, they're parents of the 90s. They thought, oh, she's going to kill the kid the minute we leave her. Why not, you knew? Eventually, she bugged them and she bugbed them and she let her into the room. Now, they had put a Baby Monitor under the pillow and a Baby monitor at the door and they're like ready like the SWAT team to go in there but they left her alone and they closed and she did. She closed that door this little tiny girl, 5 or 6 probably and she went up to the crib of the newborn little brother and she bent down and she whispered in his ear help me, help me I'm beginning to forget God help me help me I'm begging to forget God when I was 18 or 19 years sober I was struck with a profound reality and I started to pray like I have never prayed before help me, help me I'm beginning to remember God help me help me I'm starting to remember I'm getting to remember God and that created such a desperation in me that I did not know what to do and I knew that the solution outside of me was no longer going to work and I did something that only people like you and I know how to do I went back to the beginning and I took that big book and I read it from the table of contents every single word through 164 pages and then I went to the 12 and 12 and I went through all the way through including the traditions and I read it again and I found something more meaningful and every time I read the anxiety lessened and the chains that were around my soul began to loosen up and I knew that I had found the answer I went back to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous us. And I listened. I listened like only the dying can. And what I was dying from now was a disease that we all are touched upon, if we are honest. Sober. Soul sickness. A soul sickness. And i listened and i listened. And the newcomer and the old timer, whatever they said, healed me. They may have been talking about their problems and their alcoholism alcoholism, their whatever. But they were talking about their search for God and it was no mistake that that's what I needed. And my life began to take on a whole new dimension and I knew, I knew that stone cold sober I was back down on the mental bathroom floor saying God help me. Only this time I had had a profound miracle for the physical disease of alcoholism and this time I knew that if I stayed and prayed that a profound thing was going to happen and that I would create a change that would affect my whole life by making room for God and I thought how do I make room for god because I knew now that that was the answer what do I have to do and I knew the answer was in the steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and it did not diminish one bit the way I had taken them before it changed nothing for me it changed nothing all it meant now is that I had to work them in order all it met now was that I was sober long enough that I have to find a way to wear those steps as my own they were no longer the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous they were the no longer the steps of you they were no longer the steps of the group they were my steps they had to become mine I had to bring them inside of me the greatest reality was that it had to be inside I used to look and I used to wonder how do these people have this God? Where do they get this peace? Where do they look to? How do you have it? And I used to read about this inside, and oh, there were moments, of course, throughout the years that I would feel something inside. Something like true peace. But not really. And I used to think, what am I doing wrong? How can I be sober all these years and not have this thing inside? This great reality, this spirit of the universe, friend. You see, I could not deal with that Christian God. There was too much judgment for me. This is my opinion, not debatable after I finish speaking. My opinion. It was fine for my mother, a devout Roman Catholic. It was fine für St. Anthony's Gott. I still pray to the guy when I, you know. But it was fine för all of that, but it wasn't enough for me You see, I couldn't do that. That was part of my disappointment. I knew that there was something different and I had to find it. And believe it or not people say oh the big book is christian it leaves us out it does this i found grace reality deep within spirit of the universe friend what a way to describe god i could take this god i could make that god my own i was powerless over my inability to live life by myself I was powerless over my judgment of you I was powerless over my envy I was powerful I was careless over my insecurity I was perilous over bloody well everything all I did after my fifth year of sobriety is go back out there and prove to myself that I could do anything I wanted to do by myself and I patted myself and AA on the back for giving me that kind of strength and courage let me tell you how lonely it is to do it when only you put your hand in God's hand. When the only amount of energy that I would allow, I would only allow God to hold my hand. I would be able to allow a couple of angels to accompany me. I would fill the room with angels in a boardroom when I had a very big meeting and I would call upon this spiritual energy whenever I wanted it but I did not have it with me all of the time and I didn't feel it inside and I wanted to feel it inside and I decided that I wanted to understand how I could have that while I was alive I had no intention of dying to be united with this great light with this wonder with the spirit of the universe no I want to know now I have had millions of things happen to me millions of miracles if the second step is true and I can come to believe that I can be restored to that child. I can remember God quite alive and I wanted that and you know what? I have a God that's so profound and so huge and so big and it began to change definition and everything I ever believed left me. I had to change everything. I had the ability to change everything I'd ever known for the 45 years or 40 years I was alive to that time. All those things were old ideas. I had to take the slate and wipe it clean the only thing I had left is that I had to go to meetings wouldn't go anywhere, I wouldn't bring my gaunt read the big book in the 12 and 12 keep my house clean, keep my side of the street clean. Boy I understood that then and that's what began for me that's what began from me and in the last few years I have spent a lot of time practicing these steps every opportunity I get throughout the whole month of January, for instance, I practice the first step. And any opportunity I get to feel what powerlessness may feel like, I say, oh yeah, that's what powerlessness is. I'm powerless over that reaction. I're powerless over the way she looked at me. I've powerless over the way I thought about her. I am powerless and powerless and powerless and I feel unmanageable. I know instantly how it feels to feel unmanagable. It hits me right in the stomach. It's a physical experience for me. I automatically want that power now. I have enough hope in the second step to know that if I'm honest enough about how I feel in the first step, I can just ask. And I've come to believe a thousand times that I will be restored. I will be restored to what? Well, it's got all kinds of definitions for me now, the sanity, but mostly I'll accept balance. I'll just take balance, you know, enough of a good day, enough bad, enough... I'll just take balanced. It doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, I don't want perfect. I just want balance. Balance from me may be very different than balance from you. That's why we can all talk to one another. that's why the seesaw tips balance is fine for me when I really feel insane if I do not handle that unmanageability if I don't go to the third step if I make a decision if I'm not able to make that decision and I actually prolong it to the point of almost insanity you know what that is for me I feel a conscious disconnection from my God I do now feel connected to my God makes me feel very insane rarely does that happen anymore because now when I am powerless over something when I have a little uncomfortable feeling in me a little sense of something, when I start to want to manage your life, for instance. Something little, little like that. When I feel like not getting up in the morning. When I don't know when I feel like what the hell is the use anyway? When those negative thoughts seem to push in there. When I'm judging a lot. When I am blowing the horn in anticipation of their stupidity. I now can just ask for balance and make a decision to turn my will and my life over to God. I ask for the help but that decision has to be made now for me quickly I make that decision sometimes within a second I don't feel right you can help me I can be restored please help me yes I would like the help and you know what has come to me from me now in my program a resounding voice out of the heavens yells what have you got in the way and then I have to look at what I have put in theway what is the shadow that I have cast on the light I can no longer blame you I canno longer blame God I cano longer blame the world I have something in the way and when I think I can figure that out in this elaborate way and over the years it may have involved therapy and sometimes it did and sometimesit didn't and whatever I write and all the things that everybody suggests all work I then go to a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and have enough integrity and honesty with each other that I can discuss what it is that I think is in theway and what does that mean for me now it means that I can get it down to something specific it means that I will go to somebody with enough experience and enough honesty in the spiritual realm so they will say to me oh what is all that drama you know the bottom line is you were a creep you did that oh my god why is that important to me now a I don't want to waste a lot of time feeling uncomfortable. And B, I got to go to the sixth step. I am only entirely ready when I know specifically what the hell's wrong with me. And then I am only entirely already when I say to myself and I can only say it to me and you cannot help me. I accept you anyway Lila. It's okay that you were blah blah blah. It fine. God loves me, no problem. And the minute I can accept me as I am today, precisely as I am today, the seventh step automatically, automatically kicks into a huge miracle by itself and I can humbly say, please help me. Please help me." There are many days when I have gone through the day saying please help me please help me please it is at that point that I can look around in today and I can say I think I'm going to I can look around in today and I can say to myself is there anybody that I hurt while I was insane while I was unmanageable sometimes I didn't hurt anybody but myself sometimes I never left the house sometimes I never left the bed sometimes and then I have to do an amend of my own thinking so the steps work very personally, very integrally in a very involved way so now I'm at 10 and it's so easy I'm powerless over X I feel unmanageable I know I can be restored I've been restored 3 or 4 times yesterday please help me what is in the way has this ever been in your way what exactly do you think is wrong with me God this is what's wrong with Me it's okay I'll get over this too can you help me I'm really sorry if I was in a bad place yesterday and interfered in your life it was really none of my business okay we're okay again that's my life that's how it functions during the day or at night before I go to sleep most nights not every night most nights I write a letter dear great spirit and I date it whatever today's date is I only live today now yesterday is over tomorrow has not come today is the rest of my life today and I dated because it's today and I have a formal communication dear great spiritual and anything that's bothering me oh I don't write all this massive stuff anymore I never go to sleep. I just write questions. What do I do about this? What do i do about that? When, what, where, how? Do I? Should I? Will I? Can I? When do you think I should? Now I'm not talking about monumental problems. I don't have really right at this precise moment monumental problems unfortunately I would say that. My nephew is dying my sister may live these are monumental problems but you know that in the spiritual realm right now they're workable for me they're manageable because I have given them to my God when do I visit my nephew what do I say how do I say it what when where how about anything anything I want the windows cleaned when do i call the guy to come and clean the window every question so that when I go to sleep there's nothing on my mind nothing on my mind can you imagine nothing what when where how why I believe in the question of life I spent 19 sober years creating the answer what did it do for me separated me from my god what does the question do for michael puts me in memory of my god makes me remember that i have a god i ask i ask i ask says somewhere don't ask for anything what crap i'm not asking for a mercedes i'm asking for help and i ask and i asked and i don't know how not to ask and throughout the big book it says receive receive receive the word no one ever talks about particularly women the broken part of us the receiving part i ask so that i can receive the gift that i have been promised in this life the gift of help from my spiritual universe the giftofhelpfromthesilentworldthegiftofhelp from everyone that's gone on before me the giftoffhelpthatisconstantlyandforeverthere I ask to make room for the answer and I go to sleep now I don't know what you do when you sleep after you've had your glorious moments at 50 but I'll tell you what I do when I sleep I close my eyes after I throw this piece of paper away and I expect that I will be taught that the answer will come to me that God is already working that my angels are talking to your angels and you are going to appear in front of me tomorrow and you will tell me exactly what the answer is. And it will come in the form of a person-placing event or an article in the newspaper or an AA meeting or something. And all I have to do is get out of the way and do nothing, do nothing. The most spiritually profound thing I've ever done sober since I've been 20 years sober is nothing. It is so hard to do nothing nothing nothing God help me and do nothing my God yells from the heavens get out of the way stop it so we can help you do nothing so we can get in stop thinking, get rid of those thoughts make room in your heart make room for God make room to your soul get healthier in your body get in balance Lila get to a meeting get out of the way you bet I gotta jump out of bed in the morning I don't know what's gonna happen when I get up in the morning anymore, I'm expecting a whole bunch of stuff and I believe I'm going to get it, how does a child born in Ireland who believed in disappointment, who was disappointed, who had all those things happen who left that country who saw the death who saw the separation who had abandonment issues that would make the books and these psychiatrists shrivel in their seats what happens to these children what happens to these people when they join Alcoholics Anonymous when the booze doesn't work anymore and they stop talking about their problems and they start living in the solution when they start putting their cap on the toothpaste how does it happen that by making your bed you get up how does it happen because in a deep depression you answer the phone because another member of AA calls and they're going to kill themselves and you've got to help them first before you kill yourself. How does that happen? How do you go, how do you grow from being a person who has to have money and property and power? When I was a little nothing I wanted to be a bigger nothing and when I was the vice president I wanted To Be A President and when i was the president I wanted TO BE A CEO and when was the CEO I wanted T Be The Chairman and when Was The Chairman I Wanted To Own The God Damn Place and you know something I did all that and guess what? Nothing. Nothing. I was moving too fast. I didn't make room. I forgot. It didn't do it for me. It didn' t fix it. That child grew up. That child joined Alcoholics Anonymous. This child just became an adult at 25 years of sobriety. The child is now 27 years sober, 50 years of age, not afraid of disappointment. Doesn' t have anybody that she's running away from. In love with life. In love with my partner. In love with my body. In love with my goddamn hot flashes. In love with myself. I am truly in love with myself and I'll tell you something it is the most humbling experience I have ever had because the more I love you me the more I love you the kinder I am to me the kind I am to you the more forgiving I am of me the more forgiving I am of you how did I learn it or maybe I learned it by being forgiving of you first I'm not sure I'm no longer I'm certain that I've been that forgiving of you all these years I certainly didn't stop judging you but you know what I found out something really important in AA if you don't drink you can't get drunk if you go to meetings you won't think about drinking. If you keep your side of the street clean, it'll occupy all of your time. If you read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 and 12 with an open mind, you will find every single solitary answer that you need in order to have a perception change that will cause you to have a brand new life. Sober. And I don't care if you have 18 children, 17 husbands, all of it or none of it. I don'T care if YOU LOVE YOUR LIFE. If you turn yourself over to this God and you really believe in miracles, then you know what? Tomorrow is a brand-new day. brand new day I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow I know what I'd like I'd love to be there I'd want my partner who I love dearly to still be there I'd let my health still be as good as it seemingly is except for a little bad knee I'd light to like you more I'd lit to feel safer I'd liked to never have to do it alone again I don't want to do it alone I came into this world not unlike that little boy that little child alone I looked out there and I saw my mother the Blessed Virgin reincarnate my father the drunk and I thought wow and then they had all these children and I was alone when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and I felt that kinship with other alcoholics why it worked for a couple of years and then I began to feel alone again now I'm sober and alone do you know I'm no longer alone I have now a belief that is so profound well I hate to tell you this I wasn't going to bring it up but you know I am surrounded now I'm surrounded with all sorts of energy and things and spirits that you can't see. Sometimes I can see them. I want to see them more. I intuitively now feel that if I get out of the way, the answer will come. I don't even have to think about it. I just have to ask for it. What do I do? When do I deal with it? How do I do it. Should I do it? Will I? Won't I? I feel the presence of God. Not a god, not the god. I don't believe there is a the god. I feel the presence of all that power. I don't know what it looks like. I couldn't tell you. I only know this. It's bigger than scotch. It's even bigger than Alcoholics Anonymous. It's bigger than anything I could even imagine. and some days I feel it all and I wonder why my lungs don't explode I wonder what happened I have found a great reality deep within a couple of years ago I felt it I was in a meeting not too long ago and a man was speaking his name was Cubby and he said that he used to pray to God out there and now he said he doesn't pray to God at all he prays from God and I started to cry openly in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because I knew that even though it had taken me 27 years I was praying from God from God out my friend Jane describes the root of the word eyes, the fountain fountain, Greek. Fountains flow out. It is all inside of me. It's in there. I'm safe. It can never go away again. I don't know how it could go away. I don't have any habits that make it go away I have learned the sober habits of recovery and then I learned the sobre habits of living. I learned how to put my cap on the toothpaste, get up in the morning, reach out to another alcoholic or human being if that matter read a little bit of the big book understand how the steps work in my life and make them my life wear them like a loose garment read that book that book is so profound it's obviously violently inspired i am not afraid to reach back and say where are you touch me on the shoulder push me forward i walk with the angels i walk WITH THEM EVERY DAY I WALK WITH SO MANY SPIRITS AND ENERGY AROUND ME I AM SAFE I WILL NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN I CAN'T BE ALONELY I HAVE A SILENT WORLD THAT has opened up to me i think they call it the fourth dimension in the big book they talk about this intuitiveness that begins to happen you want to know something profound it's beginning to happen for me if i stay in balance and i do what's physically right emotionally right then you know what the spiritual part will take care of itself all i have to do is put one foot in front of the other and show up so now how complicated has my life gotten let me tell you easy does it, first things first but for the grace of God live and let live all the slogans the simplicity of the big book the 12 and 12 regular attendance at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous the willingness to tell you who I am this is the best I could possibly be this precise moment I cannot get any better I can't imagine it I am the best woman I have ever been I am so grateful to be alive I can't wait to live more I've just begun I'm 27 years sober and I've just begun I found my God and my God found me and we love each other I believe in miracles I don't know how many of you remember Catherine Coleman but God she used to say I believe well let me tell you something I could shout it from the tower of the Sears building wherever I believe in miracles I believe in life I believe in God what has it got to do with Alcoholics Anonymous absolutely everything absolutely everything I hate to tell you and I don't care if you're sober one day this is a spiritual program stop wasting time that's where it is every problem is a spiritual problem every problem every problem it is every problem has a spiritual solution oh how I fought and resisted going to that god now i run i run to my god i run to that paper dear great spirit and tonight i will be able to as i on my knees every night you see i don't go where i can't bring my god i have a person that when we go jane and i share that spirituality she's on her side of the bed on her knees and i'm on my side on my knees and guess what i'll be saying tonight thank you thank you for giving me myself thank you for forgiving me my soul thank you for healing the soul sickness of my sobriety. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to other women. Thank You for telling me and letting me be a channel for you. Thank you. Thank you.