Making Amends to the Universe Every Day – Sharon C.

Good job, Suzanne. I got two big claps there. Pay you later. I'm Sharon Crane. I'm an alcoholic. And because of the prayers of people who love me and just liked me and a very loving God and lots of luck, I think, I've been sober since August 20th, 1975. And I'm very grateful. Just made all that up, except for the sobriety day, that's for sure. That's mine. It's really good to be at home. I'm an Iowa girl. Yes, I'm corn-fed, and that's a good thing. I grew up with this black earth and the hot summers and the Milky Way and all the fireflies and the tule fog and the GTOs out on the country road hitting those seven hills and catching air and rolling and just missing the fence and the pole. Yeah, all right, landing on the wheels down. And much like Casey, it was like, okay, let's do it again. I mean, I was just – my son said to me, Mom, how did you ever grow up there? And he's such a California kid. And I said to him, I said, we made our own fun, and that's the truth. We definitely made ourown fun. But it's really good to be here. Thank you, Tim and the committee. and it's been fun to be with Debbie and Craig I get to spend some time with this afternoon's speaker intimate time, later we're married so it's okay I got the hula going on over there, it's just like I kind of want to break into dance, sorry I bet we're going to have more fun though something about us And thank you, Suzanne and Casey and Dawn. Gosh, she stalks me once in a while, and I love it because she's a good egg. And Sally, it's so good to see you. I couldn't come and hug my mother, so I got my mommy hug from Sally. So it felt really good. But I am very, very lucky to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I am extremely grateful to a very loving God who I re-found in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a nice little girl. I mean, really, except I had some odd thoughts. I don't know about you. Maybe you had some old thoughts. I come from a normal family, but I was the one that was looking for the mothership. I wasthe one sitting out in the soybean field looking down the country road and looking up in the sky and thinking, oh, they're going to come. I know they're coming. The chute opened too soon. I was supposed to be left off in California, but they dropped me off in Iowa and they'recoming back. I knowthey are. And I had some really strange thoughts, and I told my friend Mary growing up. We were camping out one night, and we started talking about things like that. And I told her some of my innermost thoughts, and she didn't talk to me for two years. I just thought, okay, we're just not going to keep some of that stuff inside. I mean, really, I grew up on the Cedar River. It was my backyard. My backyard, we used to find boats and patch them up and go, you know, we canoed, we tubed, we skied, we did a lot of stuff in the lakes and just had a great time. I mean, the woodsies we had and I grew up barefooted and pulling turtles out of creek beds and climbing silos and I was the best hide-and-seeker ever and nobody could ever find me. It was great. They'd say, okay, okay come out we're done. I'd wait longer because I knew they lied to me sometimes. I had just a wonderful, wonderful childhood. I grew up in Mount Vernon, Iowa and I got to be cheerleader. I was on our society. They let me in, honey. I don't know. I've heard your story. I know they didn't let you in. And I had a promise, they picked, I don't know if you guys were ever 4-H members, I was a 4-h member and I had this contest that I entered and they picked 100 citizens from all over the country, young citizens of America we were called, and I was the female chosen from Iowa to represent the state and I got to go to the White House and I get to go to The Capitol and I go to New York and the UN and they really treated us right, these these 100 4-H-er young citizens of America, the future and promise for this country. And I am drunk at the White House going through the reception line, trying not to step on the toes of Lucy Bird or Linda Bird, and trying to stay focused because I met the boys from Virginia that afternoon and they were drinking, and I was drinking with them. And so we went to tea that afternoon, and And I remember writing in this journal, which I had to come back and talk to the town members because a lot of them had put in for this big trip for me. I had show a slide show and go through all that. So I had take notes. And one of the notes that I made to myself was, I've got to watch my drinking. I was 16, and I'm worried about it. So I have promise. I had a lot potential. And I shined. I did. I shined, but I was drinking with the boys from Lisbon. I was drinkin' with the boy's from Iowa City. I was at the Swisher Dance Moor Ballroom and if you know I'm dancing close to you and God I love those V-neck sweaters and the Righteous Brothers in English leather and you know dancing close there better be a smell of bourbon under that because if there wasn't next you know, I'm gonna go find somebody else and dance But always the boys from Iowa City had the bourbon. And I could dance close to one of them, I'd sniff it out and still have the nose to this day. We were drinking and my mom would pick me up later when the dance was over and I'd just lay in the back seat and go to sleep. She just thought I was tired from dancing. Because they didn't have alcoholism in any button. There still isn't one. Debbie said she waited for one to kind of maybe come out of the closet But I had a cousin that, you know, the service straightened him out. I was hoping, yeah, maybe another alcoholic. But I am it. I am still it. My family is so glad we know what's wrong with me. They're very, very happy that we know. And the quality of friends that I bring home now, nobody's taking a car, passing out in their drool at the table. I mean, the qualityof friends. You sober alcoholics, they love you guys. They love youguys a lot. They've adopted a couple of you into the family. It's interesting. And I still bring the fun. I don't know what it is. I mean, we bring the fund. We still bringthefund. If you're not having fun in your sobriety, you know, get going. You got to work hard for it because there's a lot of uncover, discover, discard before you ever laugh. My first laugh in Alcoholics Anonymous was when somebody was talking about their dead dog story. I am in my first year of sobriety, and somewhere I must have been, I don't know, nine, ten months sober, and I realized that I'm laughing. I hadn't gut laughed in so long unless somebody trips and falls. You know, that's kind of where my humor had gone. You hurt yourself. Oh, that is so funny. I'm glad it's you, not me. But I'm gut laughing, and finally I realize they're all looking at me. It was not a very big meeting, and they're always saying, who's laughing so hard? This is really a tacky thing. And they're looking at me like, oh, yeah, that one, you know, she's quiet, but watch out. So I kind of felt like I blew my cover a little bit. And alcoholics are like, that's hard to do around here. Don't worry about that. Somebody can always top you, so don't worry About that. But I hadn't laughed. I hadn' t laughed in a long time. But I was a bright young girl with a lot of promise. And I gave all of that up for alcohol. Alcohol sitting on a 57 Chevy out, I think it was outside of Sutluff. I was with the football players because I was hanging out with the Clark boys. They let me hang out with them, and we went out, and there were all these cars parked, and they put it on, I think, it was Little Rock Station. We used to get a Little Rock radio station, and we had all the cars had the radio station on that rock and roll station. And I sat on the hood of that Chevy, and it was summertime, and I was knocked neat and thin and my little trainer bra was on and sitting on that Chevy next to Jeanette Andrews who always wore a mohair sweater tucked in her little shorts and I thought, what is hot? What's she wearing a sweater for? 38D is why she's wearing a sweatshirt. So I'm sitting next to her looking at her and kind of looking at me and looking down at my skinny little legs And I'm thinking, oh, God. But they started passing around Canadian Club and Schlitz beer. Thank you, Canada. And it hit home. And my little trainer bra stood up and move over to Ned Andrews. And I slid off the hood of that Chevy and life started, I'll tell you. I danced with the boys. I won the chug-a-lug contest my first night out. They used to have pop tops. I know some of you are too young to remember pop tops, But we would take the church key and open the bottom. And so then it was open, and then you put it up to your mouth, and you pop it, and it would roll down. I was doing that my first night out of the gate. I was winning. It just opened my throat, and they went right down. And they were impressed, and I guess I drove. You know, I went into a blackout, andI drove a car, and they taught me how to drive. I did okay, and And I woke up in my bed the next day going, hmm, what happened here? I can't quite remember. And we went off to church. I think I was pretty hungover. But I was thinking about what happened. There was that, Casey said technicolor. And it was just like, you know, Debbie talked about the hot lava. It was just, like, I fit in my skin. You know, let's go. I just, I fit in my skin. And I couldn't wait to do it again. And you guys know it was a 21 state-controlled state. You couldn't, I mean, you're 21 and you got your hard liquor from a state- controlled liquor store back then. And I always thought when they finally made beer and wine a food and they brought it into the grocery stores, I thought, if I ever see that senator, I'll kiss his hand. And guess what? He's sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in California. And I always, you know, I'm not worthy every time I see Mr. McNally, Judge McNally. So thank God for him because he made it easier to get. But I was watering down my dad's booze. My dad had a business. He was excavating stone and dirt. Frank J. Meyer, excavatingstoneanddirt. He made driveways, he dug basements, he had big drag lines and loaders and trucks that dumped and sifting sand and rock and he had a big claw that brought it out of the river. He had the rights to the river and it was very exciting. It really was. So my dad was always really working hard and very busy And I used to like to come out with a, listen to the men out in the shop at the end of the day. And they're, you know, they're having a little bit of drink and they all kind of smell like men, you know. And I heard a lot of dirty words. And I just, I love my dad. He was a man's man. He was the patriarch of the family. He was good guy. And every night we ate dinner together and every night, you know, there were four of us, Nancy, Sharon, Sally, and Miles. And right in a row. And Nancy was the Mensa. She was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Sally was four when she got her nurse kit and read a book about Alaska, wanted to become a nurse and move to Alaska, which is what she did. She knew it for her vision. And then my brother who, you know, had a lot of fun straightened out and he's getting his doctorate right now. So what can I say? Then there was me. And I went off to college because that's what you do and I went off to the University of Iowa and it was the 60s were there right on and I was, you know, I started smoking the funny stuff. I pledged a sorority. I was going to marry this guy. He didn't like to smoke the pot. He just drank which was cool but I caught him being tutored one night by his tutor, and I think he was thanking her or trying to blow up a balloon. I couldn't tell what he was trying to do there, but, you know, he was kissing her outside. I was just driving by, and she was a sorority girl, and, I guess, I just kind of looked over like, isn't that my fiancé kissing this woman goodnight under the light? And I stopped, and it was. And so I went and got some Schlitz malt liquor, I remember. And I waited for him to get home and go to bed. And then I let myself in after I had my medicine. And I started swinging at him. I was so mad. And, you know, he put me on the ground so I wouldn't, you know, and I wasn't going to cry. And I was just really mad. And I went und told my mother, and I said it's over. I drove home to wake my mother up to talk to her. And she said, aren't you going to cry and I said, no, never. Not going to cry. And I started to stuff those kind of emotions and I needed alcohol that night to give me the courage to go tell him what I thought about him. So there were two interesting things that were there that night for me at 18 that I was going to keep doing. I needed alchohol in my life to have courage. I need alcholol in my live to make decisions. I needs alchohlol in life to shove those feelings down in my right foot so I wouldn't have to feel them because life was going to get interesting. I was going have a whole bunch of feelings that I was gonna have to shove down somewhere and little did I know at some point in Alcoholics Nods we get to deal with all that stuff. But thank God I've had sponsors in my life that don't give me truth without hope, you know? Because truth hurts. Truth still hurts but we have a solution. It's called the 12 Steps. called the 12 traditions. It's even called the 12 concepts. I'll put that in there for you Debbie. I was a general service rep at one time so I do know what they are and I have read them and we have studied them at one point but you know little did I know that there was going to be some hope in my life for all of these sad sorry things that were going to happen to me because I don't know about you but alcohol gave me the courage to do a lot of things but there were moments that maybe when I drinking gin don't get me drinking gin because I mean I'm a vodka girl I'm eject annuals girl I might tequila girl and if you combine that with some things to keep you up so you don't miss truth like Debbie was talking about I didn't want to miss truth so I didn' want to sleep and you you combine that you're going you know you're moving in the middle of the night you're starting over in a new state you got a whole new career and a whole new name. I'm from Wisconsin now, my name's Cindy Lou, you know. They had cheese that seemed more dignified. I was starting to feel like a pig, like you're from the state of pigs. Yeah, I was. So I had to change my whole identity. But deep inside, I knew. I knew what I was and by drinking gin one night and I discovered a song called For The Good Times by Ray Price. Oh my God. I am not a real country girl but that song, if you ever hear For The good times and are drinking gin. Oh my God, I am sorry and slobbering and you know sobbing in your lap and I was starting to become a victim. I had no idea that I was a victim but that's where I was going with my life. You know my dad and I started to have huge fights about well he kind of caught me on the evening news one night. Disrupting a courtroom. And, you know, I was taking some odd history. I was taking a lot of, you know, African-American history courses. I had a lot of friends that were a lot of different ethnic backgrounds. I would drag people home. I had changed my name to Cher, S-H-A-R-E. I was at be-ins, love-ins protest rallies. You know, they weren't letting me in the White House anymore is all I can say. I'd be, you know, marching in front of the White House at one of the big moratorium marches and, you know, I'd go by the FBI building and wave, you know, get a picture, you know. I was starting to be very defiant, very angry. Like I said, my heart had been broken. I wasn't going to soften that up anymore. That was hard. I Was starting to really harden my heart and my dad knew something was terribly wrong with me yeah my parents tried a lot my father he did send me to psychiatrists which I wouldn't I really wouldn't talk to him I went to two different ones and it was just like okay she's not gonna talk so can't help her family doctor I remember that was the Valium therapy he tried me on I went back to church briefly I got in a big fight with the priest about politics. I got him so mad he came out of the confessional. American Martyrs' Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And see, then I could point the finger. I'd say, look at you, you hypocrite. And I could be mad and storm out of there and leave God and leave all of that. And I wasn't the young girl with promise anymore. My dad's half Czech. I played in the Boddicker Accordion Band. I know. It wasn't cool then. It's sometimes not cool now to play the accordion, but I wanted that special moment with my dad. I wanted to be the one that played the accordian, and I had a beautiful Titano Mother of Pearl accordion. I would sit on those hay bales and go down in those centennial parades or sauerkraut days or whatever they were having, and I'd pull, you know, my dad would see me, and we'd all have these red pique dresses laid out over the hay bales, and we all had these beautiful accordions, and Mrs. Boddicker would stand up there, every hair in place, and her stiletto heels, and she never felt, she wasn't even strapped in. I don't know how she'd do it, but she would direct us, and Lady of Spain or the Beer Barrel Polka, whatever we were into, and my dad Would hear that, the accordion band coming, and he'd stand out there all proud and, you know, he'd give me a wink and I'd pull real hard on those bellows. And then down the street further, there's those boys from Iowa City. Oh, God, you don't let them see me. But I risked it because I loved my dad. I wanted that special moment with him, and I had it. And my dad was an accordion player. He played by ear, button accordion by ear. He just was talented. And so I had taken that glint right out of my dad's eye, right out of my Dad's eye. He had no idea. We couldn't sit down and we couldn't sit at the table anymore together. If my dad was having breakfast, I'd wait. If he's sitting in that room, I go somewhere else. There was just so much emotional pain between me and Dad. And I didn't know it was my defiance and alcoholism. I mean, I was just so angry. I had no idea why I was so mad at the world. And alcohol allowed me to fuel that. And it was a time of a lot of pissed-off people, and I was finding them, and I Was hanging out with them. And, you know, that moment when he saw me on the local news, isn't that Sharon, you Know, disrupting the courtroom? You know, he tried to talk to me, And I'd let him get close and see my pain, and I'd back him off, and I heard him again. And that was it. You know, he said, if you want to party, you can pay for your own party. And basically he said I'm not paying for school anymore. I'm no paying for that anymore. And I went off on my geographics. I took a lot of them. I did a lot, you know, a lot moving around looking for somebody new. And I always brought me. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And like I said, I took a lot of orange sunshine and purple Osley and a lot that fun stuff around to find truth. And I would find truth, but it would melt before I could write it down. There it was on the wall. Somebody quick, do you have a pen? Oh, it's gone! I missed truth, you know. And oh God, I found it one night on Santan at Majesty's Request, the Stones album. It was right there. And then next day, where is that? It was there. I saw it. And I remember one night I found and we wrote it down, It was me and Suzanne, and we wrote it down so many times that the paper was black. You couldn't read what we had written. Truth was so elusive, and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and a guy named Norm Alpe used to talk a lot. Norm used to just kind of light it up. He was full of – he was a salesman, you know. He was just full of all kinds of excitement and energy and laughed a lot, and he said, you Know where the grass is greener, newcomer? I thought, God, I've wanted to know that my whole life. And I sat up straight until he said, because the other guy took care of his lawn. Ha, ha, ha. And he laughed. It's like, you know, and then, like I said, being a good old-timer, they don't give you truth without some hope. And he said、You know what? You're made of newcomer. I thought、Well, it's a night for truth. Let's just wait and bring it on, Norm. He said、Fertilizer. All right, Norm says,I'm made of fertilizer. Must be good. And he says、We're going to dig it under and make a great lawn. Ha,ha,ha. thought that was so funny and everybody's laughing along so I'm laughing along too but it's true. I've taken all of my crap that I brought in here and we've sorted it out and we dug it under and made this soil, this barren, barren ember of life that I walked in here with. Ember of Life. That was all that was left and we're taking all of that. We've sorted it out, and we've tilled that soil together, and we've dug into that hard dirt that's just not had a piece of softness in it for so long. I was so hard when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And, you know, we pruned it, and it's grown, and we prune it again, and as you know it takes constant vigilance with alcoholism, and pruning, and giving up and surrendering again and looking at yourself again and saying I'm sorry and making amends and getting to another level with your God and being a better person when you don't feel like it. And I've just got this beautiful lawn today that you can come over and just sit any time because I share it with you because it's ours. But it takes work, you know, and I know you guys, a lot of you are from the earth. You understand what the earth is all about. And so we've done that. You know, I'm a group project. You know? I think we all are here. I can't get sober, stay sober, and continue to have a good life alone. I need you. I hook up in the Lord's Prayer, and I'm going to link in the chain. I'm gonna link in chain here. My job is to keep my link shiny. And I like to hook up with the other shiny ones. You know I don't want to hang on to a rusty one because it may break off. You know. I like hanging around with the people that are doing it. The people that have a smile on their face, the people that are trying hard. Yeah, people that I see continually because those are the people that I want to hook up with because if you're bored in Alcoholics Anonymous, you are boring and there are things to do get moving. There is a lot to do here. Alcoholics are dying by the train loads really because there's so many of them that don't make it here. There's, you know, a few hula people over there. Go throw a stone, you'll hit one. That will never, ever, ever hear the solution to their disease. They won't even know they have it. And, you now, we die in funny ways. And, yeah, the end table gets you on the temple as you're passing out, drowning in a bathtub. Just a little too much vodka and a little too much, you know, that Oxycontin or whatever you're taking. You know, heart stops. Things happen. I've buried a lot of people in the 32 and a half plus years I've been here. We are the lucky ones. Casey said that. Yeah, we really are. We've got a solution to a deadly disease and not just a solution. You now, we are like the survivors from the shipwreck And, you know, we're in the boat and we shouldn't be. We're the lucky ones. It's like the survivors of the Titanic. We are the lucky one. And we never forget. I never forget how cold or how crazy the shipwreck was because I get to come and see it with the new people. I get the common sit in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I get remember that broken ember of life that walked in here that had so much promise and broke her parents' hearts and many other people who loved me and cared about me. and I started to not care, and that was the sad part. I started not caring. All of my geographics, all of them I took that ended up in Aspen meeting Bob Dylan and coming to California for the first time. I really think it was Bob. I'm not sure. I didn't ask for a driver's license, but we traveled together from Aspen to California. I ended up, you know, in New Orleans because I had joined a carnival in Wisconsin. It's a long story. Really, I grew some crop. You know, it's just, and I got ended up in Bogalusa, Louisiana, thrown in jail for sales and possession. And the carnival left town. I was like, nobody came to see if I was okay. And, you know, my parents, my dad and I didn't talk. And now my mother, when I told her I joined the carnivale and I was somewhere in Arkansas, she thought I was living in this Wisconsin farm with this guy from high school that I had known. We had bought these 85 acres of organic land, and there were all these organic farmers. You know, we had organic honeybees and other things, but we were also growing organic crop. But they didn't like the way I drank. Nobody there did. All those organic people thought I was a big drunk. And every time I started to drink, they left, which was fine because by the time I needed to drink and would go get my alcohol, I didn't want them around either. And, you know, my only friend was Clarence the farmer living up there. It was northern Wisconsin. It was cold, cold, cold. But Clarence would come by and I'd hear the tractor rounding the lane and he was bringing the wild turkey and I knew the wild Turkey was coming. That's good. He brought the cheap bourbon and that was okay because all I could afford was the wine. So I knew we were going to have a good time and ClarenCE was on the tractor because he's had too many DUIs and his license had been pulled so he was on the tractor driving around getting the booze and you know some nights he'd put it in his teeth, some nights he wouldn't. So you know he was my bud though. And I ended up joining this carnival. I came into town because I wanted to get out of town and I ended up working my way south. And my mother cried when I called home now. She couldn't believe I had done that. I had so many different addresses. My sister said she wrote me a pencil because she couldn't close her book. She kept putting stickers over my name and then a new address and a new address. She could not close her address book anymore. And so she started writing me in pencil. And I kept in touch with that sister because she'd send me airline tickets. She'd bail me out from time to time. But when I ended up in jail, I thought, you know, this isn't in the book I'm writing. You know, This is not a chapter that I am putting in my book here. I don't know how this happened. And I screamed for two days that they hadn't given me my Miranda rights. They hadn't read me my rights. And they didn't care. Finally somebody, I guess, typed them up and handed them to me through the bars and told me to shut up. So nobody really cared about my rights. And, you know, it was a seedy southern jail with bugs as big as my thumb. And, yeah, you now, it's just a crazy time. And what I remember is I met the guy that was making his own booze. And if we, I managed to get some of it and it was really bad. But if you held your nose and you drank it, you were okay. because I hadn't had anything to drink for a while, and I had had some DTs in there that were pretty horrendous. I had a moment in there with a day that I don't want to ever forget because I don'T ever want to have to go back there because of the pain I caused my family. They cuffed me and threw me in a car and took me to this building and threwme in there, and I'm crazy, and I didn't bathe because they watch people when you bathed, And I was dirty and a mess and just, you know, like a wild dog. And they threw me in this room, and there was, I guess, a lawyer or somebody sitting behind a desk. And then I saw my father was there. And I sat next to him in this chair, and he had, I suppose, hired this lawyer and then hired this bail bondsman. He had gotten wind from my brother-in-law in New York, which was my only phone call, It was to my brother-in-law in New York who was a lawyer. And he told my dad, and my dad had gotten on a plane in Cedar Rapids, changed an old hair, came down, down to New Orleans, rented a car, got the map, brought his checkbook, drove across Lake Pontchartrain to Bogalusa, Louisiana to find his daughter to see if he could get her out of this jackpot, even though we weren't on speaking terms. My dad did the right thing because that's the kind of people I come from. And I hope I never forget how I felt the moment I saw him. Because everything inside of me just wanted to melt and crumble on the floor, but I had to stuff it in and I had a get defiant because that was my only armor against the world, alcohol and defiance. I don't really remember. I went back to jail. Eventually I got out, but when I was 20 years sober, now get this, 20 years sober, my sponsor allowed me to talk to my dad about that day. Now, my dad had seen me sober for 20 years. but he didn't I have been walked through my amends in beautiful ways by people that have been down the road further than me and a sponsor who will take the time to come back and sit on that rock with me and explain to me what can really happen around the next curve or over the next hill just to hang in there and do it this way and great things will come and you have to believe them because they've been down there and they've had the experience And when I came to AA, I believed you because I knew you had that experience. I believed your people met told me things all the time they had never had the experience of what they were telling me to do but when I was 20 years sober my sponsor allowed me to go home and talk about that day because i didn't get to go home scratch off scabs in my first couple years of sobriety remember this remember that well let's talk about it you know those are amends that are for the selfish self-centered alcoholic not for the real amends for the healing to happen for the other person that I'm coming to. I didn't understand that for a long time and I'm so glad I've been walked through my amends and schooled by people that had been down the road and were smarter than me. And what happened when I went to see my father, and he was 20 or so but he was sitting on a dock out in a lake in Wisconsin and I thought okay this is the perfect time. I got the courage up, and I walked down. I sat down, and he was reading as he always was. I said, I need to talk to you, Dad. He said, sure, and put down his book. I said do you remember that day? You know how we start. He's sober. He had to get on a plane and have a checkbook. Do you remember what happened? Do you ever that day, Dad? He kind of smiled and said, yeah, I do. So we talked about it a little bit. I said what did I say? I don't really remember anything about that day. He said, all you said was that it wasn't your fault and I'm not guilty. Those were the two things I said. I said nothing else other than I'm no guilty and it's not my fault. When he left that day, we didn't hug. I don't remember him saying, you know, mother misses you. I don' t remember any of that. I don''t remember anyof that. I just went back to jail. None of my family has been to jail It was a really big thing, and he was really scared for me. And my family was really scary for me, but I found New Orleans. I found the French Quarter of New Orleans, and it was on. It was drinking all the time, all the time. And my drinking of good time, courage, let's move to St. Louis. I mean, I did that. Let's move to Florida. You know, I did things like that in the middle of the night. Let's move. Let's go. Fine. I was starting to – I had my gallbladder removed. I had pancreatitis. I was started to get bloated and toxic. And, you know, when I came to you, I was 175 pounds of just sickness. I was one of those alcoholics that blew up, you now. It's like, you want to see the shot of tequila I had in 1970? It's right here. You know? Like, alcohol just blew up in me. I was just toxic. I was ill. I was really physically ill. I think women go down really fast. Drinking like I was drinking, I went down really fast. And my New Orleans days were kind of crazy, but I survived. I was with other alcoholics. We took care of each other. And one more time, I think because, you know, my dad knew I was out of jail. I had, I was on probation. I was a convicted felon in that state. Sales and possession, you know, I didn't sell. I just had enough to sell, so that's what they assumed. But they did a kangaroo court on me, and I had no lawyer, and that was it. And I paid a big fine. I had to go back and give them $2,500, and it was 1971. That was a lot of money. Or they were going to send me to the big top or, you now, whatever it was, Angola state prison for women and I was kind of scared but I was defiant I was tough I you know we made the money took it up there and eventually eventually I got a pardon from the state of Louisiana which was a gift in sobriety for fun and for free because a woman I used to drink with got sober she'll have 25 years in January, and she became a lawyer. And she, for fun and for free, one of my old drinking pals in the French Quarter sent me my pardon from the state of Louisiana. That was part of a general pardon. I stood a little straighter and taller in my skin that day. That's what happens in Alcoholics Anonymous. He's just, you know, I'm part of the force for good in the world and if I can give you a gift, it's yours. If you need it, it is yours. And people have done that for me too. And much like Casey talked about the circles closing, it has just been joyous to have that happen. Just come out of nowhere right in the mail. But my parents came to see if I was okay. I didn't know they were coming. I was living in the quarter above a biker bar. I was wearing fishnet stockings, platinum blonde wig. I had glitter, blue glitter over the black eye I had because it was an art project and I always could put a good spin on it. You know, body suits and little zippers and the guy I was living with had a pet skunk and I had a dog, we had a snake and it was just craziness. The skunk's name was Crank, gives you an idea about where he's coming from. And mom and dad see me living in this with skunk droppings everywhere. I wasn't raised like that. If you lifted the lid of whatever was supposed to be on the oven, it was moving. Forget it, just throw throw it out. And I remember that day my dad didn't come in and I remember my mother crying and I remembered going down, sitting at the mousetrap ordering my drink, a rock glass twice this size, the big rock glass, Jose Cuervo Gold to the top, nice and neat, no salt, no lime, no ice. I don't know how many of those I slammed back and it didn't put out the fire. It didn't tell me I didn't care. It did not allow me to be hard. I knew what I was. I was not a part of that family anymore. I knew that everything, every hope and dream I ever wanted was gone. I know that if I crawled in the backseat of their station wagon before they left and put my mother's sweater around me and said let's just go back to Iowa and maybe I can start over, I knew it wouldn't change. And Hope got up and walked out of my life that day. And I know if you're a drinker like I was, you remember when hope walked out of your life because it gets darker and that's kind of the way it was in 1975 my friend Michael was shot and killed on Mardi Gras Day I didn't know if I was a part of it or not a part I was in a blackout and I ran and I ended up in Barney's Beanery the bar Casey talked about a lot of alcoholics ended up there it was it's now a tourist place but probably cuz we made it famous I don't really know you didn't step foot in that place unless you were a serious drinker and I saw the big book in there for the first time this girl was so drunk the bartender she had this book called Alcoholics Anonymous she had to go get her court card signed I guess I didn't really understand any of that but he took away our keys because he didn't want her driving drunk to Alcoholics anonymous to ANA and we took our drinks and gave her a big old toast as she went out the door I said good for you Chris? Go to A&A, you know. Maybe I get some dignity, you know. And she stumbled out the door and little did I know that woman was going to be my Eskimo into Alcoholics Anonymous. That was about April. I was a red dashiki Panama hat backpack booking it called Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass. I'd become unemployable. I couldn't remember where drinks went if you hired me. I don't remember. I remember sleeping on her floor Chris let me sleep on her floor I remember sleeping in some garage somewhere wherever it was I don't remember much about that time but July 27th I was sitting on the barstool and somebody said let's go to Palm Springs you want to go party and I said sure I didn't understand I was on the back of a Harley and we went to Palm springs and I didn t understand that I was just a little extra weight going through the desert because it was windy they didn't want to really party with me. They just needed a little extra weight on the back. So when we got to where we were going, they left me and went off to party. And I was like crushed for a moment, but you know, they'd given me some money. So I was having a good time and I was in a blackout. I don't remember where, really where I was. I remember one of the clubs and thank God for blackouts. But I must tell you, there's a responsibility that goes with that when you're sober. When I was seven years sober, I found my purpose, which is on page 77, to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people about me. Struck with truth. There it is. And I also got that I'm a blackout drinker. So every single day of my life, I get to fit my self to be a maximum service to God and the People About Me and make my amends on a daily basis to the universe because I don't know, I can't go back and say I'm sorry or make it right or what did I do and may I pay you for this or what did I take or I can't do that because I don't remember because I had a lot of blackouts. So my way of making it right is every single day to keep myself aware, awake and my eyes open to help whoever needs help. Now it might be the mailman might need a little smile today. It might be somebody at work that makes me just, you know, everything inside me churns but I sit there and I act polite and I listen to whatever story she is and I try to be nice. It might be somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous that needs just a little extra cup of coffee and someone to pat them on the back and tell them they're doing okay. You know, it might be my son needs a smile. My husband might need a home cooked meal. You know, it's just my job is to be awake to make amends to the universe every single day of my life because it feels so great to be able to do that. And I feel that that's my job. That is the way that I get to, as Chuck C. says, rub out the record of the past so I getto walk down the sunny side of the street a free person. But that night I was basically, they broke my jaw in three places. I became a victim of violent crime in the state of California, and they caught these guys. And let's just say when the gardener found me passed out in a lawn chair by the pool, you'd have another speaker, two more feet, seconds and inches. You'd have other speakers. By seconds and inches that we are the lucky ones to be here. They didn't know I was Caucasian. and I was so bruised and battered. And I spent two weeks in the hospital, and when I got out, a guy from Barney's Beanery heard what had happened, drove down to the desert, got me, and let me live at his apartment for a while because he knew that I had to go to court, that I hade to go back to these doctors. And he would buy me red wine, and I would stick a straw on the top of the red wine and stick a saw through the wires on the mouth because I was pretty wired up where the tooth had been, So I had a space, and I could suck on the red wine every day because I'm a drinker. And there was no more hope in it. There was no mehr fun in it, there were no mehr answers in it but I'ma drinker so I drank. And August 20th he tapped me on the shoulder and said you got to leave your depressing me. It's like oh God. So I called my mother in Mount Vernon Iowa by the Cedar River there. collect, and I had this broken jaw, wired up jaw. The first three months in AA, I couldn't talk. I had to learn to listen. It was really a blessing. So I called my mother, and my mother had heard something had happened to me, but she didn't know what hospital I was in. So my sister in New York and my brother in Iowa called hospitals in California until they found me and thought that I was going to be okay. She had gotten a phone call from someone, but they didn't tell her what hospital I was in. So for two nights, my mother didn't sleep. She sleeps at night because of you. Thank you. But when I called her, something happened. She had this moment and she said, Sharon, I can't help you go to the Salvation Army. If my mom, Marge, would have sent $20, you'd have another speaker, seconds and inches. She said no. And a phone number was sitting there This is my day to come to you. And I get so blown away because I think about it. I couldn't have scripted this. I really couldn't Have scripted This. The phone number sitting there was the Girl who had gone to the AA meeting that we All gave the toast to, because She was dating the guy I was staying with. And her phone number was sitting There, and I thought, You know what? She's nice. Maybe she can help me. And I called Chris, and Chris Had known what had happened to me, of course. And she said, Sharon, I can't help you. I can' t help you but Suzanne can. And she didn't say you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, she was an In-N-Out member, I didn't remember that that day but she was out that day so she had me call somebody that was in and she had enough wherewithal to do that and she made me promise to call if she wasn't going to give me the number you know I'm a little bit of a rebel and give me that number, you know, I want the number so she gave me the numbers and I called this woman Suzanne who was sober five years and I didn't know I was calling a member of AA. And I just called her, and she said, put your drink down and put your joint down too. And I thought, how does she know I have both? You know, it's like, I didn'T understand that. And she knew where I was because she could tell me, even though I didn' t talk very well, they knew the liquor store I was living above. Every alcoholic knew that liquor store. I guess they took bad checks. I guessthey sold out the back after hours. They delivered. Everybody knew that liquid. They knew the liquid liquor store, the Duck Pond Liquor Store. So she knew exactly where I was. She told me exactly where to go sit. She was very clear, and she said somebody will come get me. So I was tired enough to do exactly what she said. I was out of answers. That day, August 20th, 1975, I was Out of Answers. Now if it would have been August 21st, I might have had a plan. I might Have felt a little better and had a Plan. But August 20, I Was Done. and every once in a while I cruise around and I see some fly fishermen and I've watched some fly fisherman and they just kind of do this all day long and every Once in a While they snag one it's very exciting and that's kind of how it is with us alcoholics we have all been snagged because thousands get by thousands and you've been given the gift And if you've been given this gift, then I hope that you keep it shined up and give it away because then you get to keep it. Not everybody gets the gift. So I got snagged in here. I ended up with these girls in a car where I couldn't get out. There was no back doors. They talked incessantly about themselves. I didn't understand. It just seemed like, oh, my God, will they shut up and ask about me? But nobody asked about me. We end up at this church, and I'm thinking, oh, God, okay, now I'm going to have to tell them why me and God don't get along or something. Or someone's going to ask me to take a potential test or something, and they're going to asked for eternity or forever, and I don't do that. I live a moment at a time. I live it day at a times, and when they threw that in, it was like, what? Somebody tell him? But I ended up at the meeting that I didn't really understand, but I remember the speaker saying he always waited for the spaceship to land to say, you can come home now, Bill. Spaceship guy. Okay. You know, that little ember just kind of, you know, he threw a kindling on it. It just burst for a minute, and I didn't know somebody raised my hand for me. I didn'T know how they knew I was new. You could smell me. You could see it. I was that way for a while. I didn't look in your eyes, and I didn�t clean up, and I didn �t have any clothes. And I had no way of making a living, and you guys didn�d care. As long as I was coming here trying, people would be assigned to help me. It was like they didn� t want to get too close, so they assigned their new babies to come. Okay, now it�s your night to have her sleep on your floor for a week. Okay. It�s your turn. And then I would go get sleep on somebody else's floor for a week and I didn't understand what was happening and all of a sudden I remember as being I was at a meeting and I raising my hand I mean I'm getting it now I'm under 30 days this is a a I kind of get where I am now kind of coming to a little and you know I detoxed right here with you I detox right in the meeting and i didn't drink in between I started to sleep I didn t know how that happened and I raised my hand and I went oh I have 31 days I didn't have it was like you know not 30 or under I had 31 it was like for a minute there I kind of got the shivers I thought you know that rabbit across your grave feeling it was like I don't stay sober 10 minutes you know I'm in Destin Florida with 14 shots of tequila and I've got a quart in my bag and I have to go in the bathroom and lock the door so I can hit on the court because I can't get enough alcohol how do I have 31 days of sobriety there was just a moment of God's whisper cool breath something but I knew it was bigger than me I knew I was bigger than me and I got that and I started to come too slowly I got a sponsor and she was louder than my head and you know she made me come over and do the third step prayer at her house one day and you now that's my first third step was in her living room floor and she wouldn't stop hugging me and like I said in the morning panel we had, because I had a warm feeling, I thought that I must love my sponsor and I must be gay. And that was how I processed emotion. It's red but it comes out over here orange. I just couldn't quite figure out my life at all. And it's good because she was my sponsor she wanted to be my sponsor and she helped me you know the wires came off after 30 days I went and got a waitress job and her orange forever there's orange uniforms and I worked early shift and I work split shift and I worked late at night shift and now it's whining one night that I don't make any money and somebody said well why didn't you fake it well I can't you know it's alcoholics nuts we're supposed to be honest in all our affairs and they want they don't care out there honey they want hot food and I waitress that's It's nice to them. Quit telling them how you are, that, you know, you're depressing them. We're hearing that the people from the Culver City Clubhouse don't even want to sit in your section anymore. That was very depressing. And so actually it was Sally Carpenter that came over, and they brought the Queen Bee Allen on over that Saturday night before I had to go work the midnight shift. And they showed me how to do this, you now. Just smile. They're not going to know. I said, look at this. They're going to no. And they said, try it. And you know what? My tips doubled that night. I just thought, they don't know. They got hot food. All I did was smile at them. When they said, how are you? I said, I'm fine. How are you ? You know, in here, I tell you all about my wounds. But out there, if you try it every once in a while, I mean, go to the grocery store and when somebody asks you how you are, just nicely, you know, tell them something. You know? Just, yeah, somebody here knows, you now. Tell them something! they kind of look at you like okay, glad you don't live on my block so I've learned how to be a worker among workers I remember calling her one morning and tying those shoes and I had a migraine headache and I know it was the brain tumor I've been waiting for it my whole life so I called her at 6am I think I had to be there at 6.30 and I'm just crying she hadn't had her coffee she wasn't awake yet no morning meditation a little clue if you're going to wind your sponsor make sure they're up and have had their coffee. They might be a little nicer because she was not nice to me. She said, okay. She said, you know, but you still have to go to work. I said, I can't go to work. She says, if you die at work, we're going to give you the best funeral anybody in this group has ever seen. Your parents will be so proud. We will say wonderful things about you. Flowers everywhere. But if you died home in bed, there is no funeral. And she hung up the that's the kind of sponsorship i had i'll show her i'll go die at work and she'll feel bad the rest of her life you know she was a good motivator um i had a friend named junan and she died of alcoholism much like chris who didn't get to make it the lady that got me into alcoholics and i'm died of alcoholism at 31 and and junan was um she was kind of a lost soul like me and she would dragged me around. I mean, really, I was a mope. I couldn't talk for those first three months, and June Ann was assigned to me a lot. Clancy was her sponsor, and she'd always whine about him, and I wasn't sleeping. I kind of went through a not-sleeping stage, just so we'd drive around until their gas was out, and then she would drop me off wherever I was staying. And she was great. She had a commitment. She was cookie girl. You talked about, you know, commitments today, and she was cookie Girl. Cookie Girl was very important at a meeting. You know, if the cookies aren't there, people are wondering. But the literature, oh yeah, yeah, it's over there, but where are my cookies? I was the cup washer because they didn't let me near the cookies yet, but I eventually got to be a cookie girl. I was very proud. He used to make big peace signs with the cookies. If I got mad at an old-timer, like Clint. I remember I got really mad at Clint one time, and he said, Where are the Fig Newtons? I said, I don't know. They're just out of them every week. He had yelled at me about something, so I didn't buy his Fig Newтons for a while. You know, Clint and I became very good friends. I miss him a lot. We've lost a lot of people in our group this year, Clint and Vince, and yeah, and my second sponsor also. So it's, you know, it's precious, you know, the people in my life are extremely precious. But Janann would drop me off and then go get the cookies and she didn't come back once and everybody wants their cookies and the meeting's starting and where is she? And these are my teachers. These are the people that taught me well what to do And all of a sudden, the LAPD black and white pulls up to the curb. And we go, okay, what's this about? And the secretary goes and starts talking. And we hear Junan's name mentioned. They're walking up the steps. And we all kind of huddle around. And he said, this lady, Junan, bought some cookies. And then she went back in the store and shoplifted some candy bars. And they caught her and called me. And I've got to take her in. But she made me promise. And here's the cookies, you know. else. So no matter what, your commitment is covered. And those are my teachers. Those are my teacher. I want to focus a little bit on family. You know, my one year of sobriety went home after my first fourth and fifth step and started to look at my defects of character slowly because Boy Meets Girl and AA Campus, they were mostly his, but I started to be able to see some of my own defects of character. Are they getting louder over there? Everybody on three, let's go. Roar! One, two, three. Roaarrr! There, thank you. Maybe I'll Maybe I'll stop them in their hula. So I went home to my dad, and I made those stilted kind of stiff amends to him. And they used to walk around with my grandma, and my brother would say, they would go, Sharon's an A-A, you know, really quiet. They didn't quite understand what it meant. But I wasn't moving. I wasn'T moving around. And I seemed to be able to hold a job. I waitressed for two and a half years, And then I was able to break out into the world and get a job and keep a job. And I've been working in the legal field for 21 years now, believe that, right? But my dad, you know, all he said was, I wanted you to be happy. And we started our relationship in life together. And it was slow and it was stilted, but I had my trips home every summer. And he came out and walked me down the aisle, met all of you, bought the big book, and loved you guys. He thought you were great. And he gave me eyeball-to-eyeball approval, and somebody had snapped a picture. I remember that moment. It was at the end of my wedding, and I know you're getting married soon. I had that, Peggy Lee, is that all there is? You know, my garb was on, and my chin was on my hands, and everybody was kind of leaving and wishing me well. I'm thinking, is That All There Is? You know? Because alcoholic, right? At my wedding. Maybe it was a clue. It wasn't going to work out. But my dad came over and started to talk to me, and he said, look at your life, Sharon. If you think about doing what you're doing before Think Twice, you've got it made here. And somebody snapped a picture, and I found that picture a few years ago. It was one of those throwaway pictures. It wasn't the photographer. And it's a really precious photo of me and Dad eye-to-eye. We hadn't been eye-To-eye in years. So he's starting to get what was going on here, and I was able to... I got another sponsor. I was married a few years. I had my life going well, and I called Ginny to whine one day about my husband being mean to me or something, and she said, it's time you make financial amends to your father. It's like they sit and wait, and it's on their list by the telephone. Next time she whines, it'S time to have her start making financial amens. We'll check that one off. I think there's sponsor school out there somewhere. I still haven't found it. So I just kind of held the phone away, but okay. And she said, you know, call him up and ask him. And I thought, okay, fine. I called him up an asked him. He said it's this much. He had read the big book. He'd run a calculator tape. He's a businessman. He had kept a dossier on me. My brother said he saw it. It was very thick. And so he worked it all out and he told my mom if I'm not home and Sharon gets to this part of the book, here it is circled in red, just give her this figure, you now. So now I have a new resentment You know, which my sponsor laughs about. And she said, call him back in two days. We talked about what I could afford, and he accepted my payment terms. Okay, we're going to get started on this now. She said, do not be late. Above all else, you may be the only example that your father sees of Alcoholics Anonymous. Do not be light with that check. And by the way, this is a good sponsor. You're in the corner. You can't move. You've already said yes. You're sitting in the chair, and they're over you, you know, figuratively. I want one more thing from you. That's a good sponsor because they know that you can have that one more thing that you don't think you can Have. She said, are you willing to grow through this with your dad? Well, that's an odd question. I said, you know, paint it in the corner and let me out, sure. Okay, I want you to put a note with that check. Tell him about your life. Send him a letter. Don't send the cold hard cash alone in the envelope. All right, well, he's got this Mensa sister. He's the finance whiz that retired at 50, a millionaire. We've got, you know, brother carrying the family name going to school forever. You know, we've got Nurse Sally that got the horse. He bought her the horse, and then there's the alcoholic in Southern California, you know? The land of fruit and nuts. But I wrote my dad a note. I told him about the jail panel I went on or something, and she said, did you send the check on time? Yes. Did you send them the note? Yes. All right, and the note turned into letters. The letter turned into cards. And four years and nine months later, my father called me between Christmas and New Year's. He said, Merry Christmas. He said、Merry Christmas, I don't want your checks anymore, but don't stop sending me your notes. And my dad and I got to walk into a guilt-free relationship. You know, that was just kind of a spiritual moment that the gremlins cut the chips off my shoulders. And my Dad and I had a lot of good years together, a lot o fgood years. And I'll tell you, it was April 19th, nine years ago. I was talking to Sally. She lost Albert 11 years ago, who was a great member of Alcoholics Anonymous and just a wonderful man, an Iowa man that moved to Texas and turned on the state of Texas to sobriety. So we miss those men in our lives. And my dad, nine year ago, he had retired, sold his business, was out on his farm, was on a little John Deere and hit some loose dirt, was trying to clear some old rusty equipment, I guess, off the land and hit some loose dirt. It went over on him, and it was instant. It was instant, he was gone, he died with his boots on. But we were good, I miss him every day of my life, but we were good, we were good, and AA was already at my mother's house when I got off the plane. Alcoholics Anonymous, Kathy remembers, Kathy and Sybil and Joyce and a lot of people were already at my mother's house when I got off the plane. The coffee was on and she had people there. I mean, she had the community there, but the AA people, her friends who still had husbands eventually moved a little bit away from hanging out with her, but the AA would come play cards. The AA people would still be with her. I thank you so much for that. We do for each other. If I'm not there, somebody's there for me. We just do for one another. If we need something done, I'm there for you. I need something done if I ask, you're there for me. That's what we do. We are a community. We're a fellowship. We take care of each other. If you're in the room and you need something and you want to stay sober, I'll walk to the edge with you. I'll go. And if you wantto stay sober I'llgo along, you know. We've been in a lot of hallways. Anybody who's been sober a long time has been ina lot ofhallways. Just a hallway. And every single new door that opens, opens on a new view more beautiful than the one I've left behind. I am spiritually continually amazed at how deep and how beautiful and how high and how wide it goes. I remember with my sponsor, I painted her a picture, her first year of sobriety. I gave up my painting rights to alcohol. I gave a lot of stuff to alcohol, but once in a while I'll get creative and I painted a picture and I wrote on it. It just kind of came out when you climb to the top of the mountain at the top of the world don't look down, grow wings, because it never stops here. And my dad is very proud of me. I know that. And a few years ago, I went to Thousand Oaks to go speak, and it was one of those, you know, go forever and no carpool lane. You know, I mean, I'm by myself, and it's the traffic, and it Was raining, and It was hard to get out there, and I ended up speaking at this meeting because I said I would, and I was tired, and it was during the week. I talked about my dad, and I talked about how he 12-stepped the town drunk because I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he respected that. And the town drug came to him and was whining about something and trying to borrow a bottle again from my dad. And he said, you know, it's not your wife's fault you're an alcoholic. You need to go to AIDS. Help my daughter. It can help you. And my dad had been gone a couple years. And I just happened to talk about it that night. And these are the God shots. This is the coincidence. There was a girl in the room that said, I need to talk to you. And she stayed and we talked. And she said, I'm from Lisbon, Iowa. What's that man's name? And I told her. And she says, That's my uncle and he's still sober. And I went home for family. She was now living in California. She said, I went back to California. I went to California for a family reunion two years ago. And that man that your dad gave the book to and 12-step me and I have two years. So sometimes you absolutely never know what this action is about. Being a good example is about showing up with a smile on your face and scrubbed up whether you feel like it or not because you said you were going to do something. Because I'm a worker among workers. I'm an alcoholic synonymous, and it's not because I'm a great person, believe me. It's because I want this life. I feel from the tip of my head to the tip of my toes God's love, and I want to give every piece of it back. And every time I give it all back I get a little more in here. It's just I'm so full all the time. It's so great. It's such a joy to be with you. It's great to just keep giving it back, and it never ends, and it just gets better. I am going to be 33 years sober this summer, hopefully, and I am on fire with alcoholics. I love every bit of my life. I love being married to Casey. We were together a long time. We got to go elope and go do the Vegas thing, And my son walked me down the aisle, and, you know, my marriage, first marriage didn't work out, but I had this great kid, this great kit that was raised in the middle here. We were talking last night. Bob was telling me last night about he remembers when I brought my son here at the Raccoon River Roundup many years ago, and he was little, and you guys took him out and,you know, played video games with him or shot some hoops. And, you now, my son grew up in the Middle of AA. My son grew up. I sent him home to my mother and father every summer, so he got to know his grandpa, and he knows my mother. He loves her very, very much. My mother's now in Madison in assisted living, living very well, doing very well about my brother. She loves Alcoholics Anonymous, and she loves me, and I still bring the party. It's just my friends are a lot classier now when we come home. I'm getting used to a little bit of Madison Alcoholics Anonymous, which is cool. I'll always be an Iowa girl. Kathy sent one of her babies out to get me some dirt, so I've got a baggie of that black dirt I'm going to bring back with me. I don't know if TSA will kind of wonder, but it's okay to bring dirt through, I think. It's not liquid, so we're good. But my life is full, and I have joy every day, even in the pain of a messy divorce with a newcomer in the room and my sponsor smoking pot, and Clancy became my sponsor. I had a rough time. It was a rough times, but I never left. I never lef. And little did I know my example was going to benefit others. If you're thrown into the swamp, alligators keep swimming. Just keep swimming forward, you know? That's what I've done. If life happens, which it does, and it's not so pleasant, you rode the boat along beside me and said, You're going to be okay. Keep swimming. You know, we do nothing alone here. I am so pleased and proud and happy to be a child of God from the tip of my head to the tip of my toes. I was always looking for the spiritual way of life to make a difference, to have a purpose. Alcohol did that for me. It was spiritual for me, and then it stopped working, and it was death, but I was saved. I was snagged from the river, and I was brought to you, And I have a life today that I could share with everybody else. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I used to think freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, and I come to find out freedom is being with you and freedom is Being Home in Iowa. Thank you. Thank you very much.