Peggy M. – Keeping the Jigsaw Puzzle Together – 2025

I'm like really fragile this morning so don't encourage me. I'm Peg Martin and I'm an alcoholic. And through the grace of God and fellowship of people like you sponsorship. I've been sober since February the 4th 1964 and thank you John for telling me I need to take my own inventory that's my subject, my side of the street. But I was telling the guys from Des Moines last night that there's an old story about a religious, it was some kind of a seminary school or something, and this professor always gave the same final exam. He always gave this same final exam, and that was to do a biography of the life of St. John. And so everybody, of course, prepared for this final exam diligently and tried to get a little extra slant on the life of St.-John and that kind of thing. And when they walked into the final exam, of curse they didn't study anything else, and when they walked in to the final exams, the question on the test was, do a critique of the Sermon on the mount and so everybody in the whole class just sat there you know just with their little blue books not able to write anything and this one guy thought a minute and then just started writing like crazy and so after he and he got they all turned in empty blue books and he wrote wrote and he turned his in and they were all waiting for him outside when he came out and he said, what did you do? What did you write about? Did you know that that's what it was going to be? And he said no. I just wrote, let those criticize the masters at will. As for me, I'm going to write a biography of St. John. So basically, I am supposed to talk about my side of the street, and I'll try. But usually, you know, with these kinds of things, what happens is you start off on, or at least I start off on one thing and end up on something totally different. That may happen this morning. I do want to encourage you with with two things really first is that there was a magnificent study of the first five steps but really of all the steps here yesterday it was a marathon effort our speaker took it was about five hours and and he complimented on those of us who sat through it for sitting through it But it really, really made me think. And it really always posed the question to me, is your life ever fresh? Is your life, are you current? You know, it forced me to look at myself and there were these big charts that he had drawn out with the prayers at the end and that kind of thing. And it made me do something that I really try to do pretty consistently, but it was a good way for me to realize that I need to keep doing this. And I know that, but this was a structured way of saying, you know, have you taken the steps lately? I mean, truly. It's not something thatI get up in the morning, you now, and say, well, I think I'll do the steps today. You know, I just usually just want coffee or something, you know, and maybe say thank you or whatever. And my life in Alcoholics Anonymous has always been one that I have always, when I lived in Hagerstown, and I've said this before but I can't think of a better example. When I lived at Hagerestown, Maryland, which is a nice little town, but it's really kind of a backwater town and nobody it was the end of the railroad and or the beginning whichever way you want to think of it and it had there were through a lot of there's a lot heavy industry in that area but there was one factory that all they had in front of this huge building was this funny-looking staircase on on a pole that went up the middle and there were these stairs that went around and around it and it just simply said do venage that there's a big sign out in front said do venage well the thing that was in the yard out in from of this big factory was a do ven it was a staircase that they used in firehouses and in submarines where that's all they did with these funny little staircases and that thing struck me and I didn't I never could put it together you know in the in my head until perhaps years later because I don't know about you but things the things will hit me with Bob was talking about moments of clarity and and last night Lindsay was talking about moments clarity when all of a sudden you're struck by something and you know it's important but you really don't know until you get it at a sort of cellular level why it's important but that duvenage reminded me of my life that when when I got sick and I got to Alcoholics Anonymous eventually I had taken the steps and have tried to live in those and only tried because none of us are ever perfected that and every time I took them it seems that I took a step up on this duvenage so that my view of life was a little different when I was down at the first level I could only see the tops of the grass you know it was not very interesting and it was quite spiky you know and sort of things here you know is resistant of limited view and kind of a prickly view of life but the higher I got the longer I was over the more I suppose refined I got in living in these steps better the view God and it reminded me a little bit also of the fact that you know I wish that I could say you know that I have just continued this merry journey up the and where now all of my view is just clouds and birds and the love of humankind and all that sort of thing. But what I'm looking for, what all of us are looking for in this journey in the steps, is a conscious unity, a personal conscious unity in which we feel so cared for and worthy of being cared for. And it's almost as though, you know, I seem to—it's like my life is like this big jigsaw puzzle. and I just get the last piece in you know my grandmother was a great one for cheating at jigsaw puzzle she would take she'd get down to the last difficult pieces and she if she couldn't find the one to fit she cut it to fit and then she'd have one that was not right so you'd have to cut that to fit, too, because of course you've got, you know. But I'm not exactly like that. What I do is I get the last piece. It seems like I'm just heading for the table with the last peace. And my other hand is reaching out like this, grabbing the edge of the table and going... And then all the pieces fly up in the air, and I've Oh, I've got to start all over again. And that is my life. You know, that is my journey through the steps. Just when I think I've gotten this conscious unity and I'm, you know, zoning. It's like boom! You know? And the whole thing starts all over Again. And then I have to pick up the pieces and I have look at them and take sky and put it over here and ground and put... you know and start again but aren't we lucky that the jigsaw pieces pieces just don't fall away we still have them we're still alive there's still a chance There's been a sort of a rough year going on around me. I'd like to say it's been a rough years for me, but it really hasn't. You know, I can't say that because I have you, you know? I have peace and I have things. You know, I have friends. And I mean, it's not been, it hasn't been rough around me. In our group, we have had three very dear men to me die. And you know, suddenly one of them. And I've been so used to seeing those old guys sitting at that table. And they're gone. And one of the people that I've sponsored the longest is in a very serious, life-threatening situation. And the table where these old guys sit, you know, we're, alcoholics are funny. First, nobody'd sit there, you know. And then Howard sat there and called it death row. dick won't sit there you know we have to laugh or we'd spend our whole time crying and I have laughs with Joan when we first found out about all of this I said well you always thought you'd have Alzheimer's now something else all your body parts are falling off so I mean we have two laughs because we've been so grace by God no interesting thing you know have you ever wondered what the origin of the word slip is and I heard this and it may be just one of them but the origin of the word flip came from Bill Wilson and somebody said where is so-and-so one of the people disappeared from their group and they said we're so-so he said he slipped from the grace of God and that was his code for the fact that this fellow was drinking again but isn't that what we do it when we shake up that table and the pieces all fall and we don't find them all again you know we thank God we sit in the grace of God and we have to drink I haven't had to drink no I was a kid remember I just kind of close your eyes and kind of remember back when you were a kid now I had I've got to tell you I had a great childhood I some of you have suffered through childhoods that no one would want to but I didn't and even in the worst of childhood there is that eternal optimism or that joy that goes along with being a child but just life is great you know it's just every day of the gift every day is there some new trouble to get into you know there's some new adventure that's to be had it's also innocent and so unified I knew what I was more or less I knew what I wanted more or left I knew I was cared for I can remember lying in a relishing simple things which were today I do lying in the grass and looking up at the clouds and feeling the green and seeing the blue and the white and looking for animals in the clouds and houses and and things like that and playing swinging statues and and I think you could sort of diagnose alcoholism by a child who becomes addicted to swinging statues because swinging statues makes you dizzy and I loved it you know I wanted people to swing me around and get me busy because then I can move and I love that feeling was drinking and one of the hardest parts I think of quitting smoking was the fact that the first one in the morning always made me slightly dizzy and I like that feeling I like that sense of being out there you know it was alcoholic I think and I love my parents and I loved my friends and I my dog I loved one house and even when I got in trouble which was a lot it was worth it you know it was work and but gradually through the years of injury and insult I lost that feeling of unity I I moved away from it it was always available to me as it is today it's available to us that feeling of unity and I believe that the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous essentially and at their base level are designed to bring us into conscious unity with God and ourselves and our human partners on this somewhat dirty little globe and they make it they make things possible they make life possible and not to trivialize the steps at all but just as a brief kind of synopsis when I arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous I was as I was I can't I wish I could come and say to you that I had this massive spiritual experience that got me to AA but really what happened was that I was drinking a quart of vodka day my hair was falling out my liver was shocked my blood pressure was 280 over 140 I was bloated my liver was sticking out on the side I had first veins in my face I had a sausage eel Pharisees my personality was that of a dog in the manger which is you know where your the dog is just ready to bite just ready to bike and scared defensive terrified and really I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I was very very very very tired I was so tired and I had tried there my very last best idea and I didn't have any more and I was desperate because the thing that had kept me going that fire of my brain if you will that it kept me going had left me and I had no ideas I had no better ideas and I just tired and I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and I gotta sponsor and I took the trip through the steps as I have described many times really and you know I wish I could say too that it is a permanent conscious unity but as I've described it isn't but but we have them available to us right in front of us every meeting we go to and I'm a meeting maker and I go to meetings I go most of the time for meetings a week sometimes more if I met a conference I'm in and around alcoholics and ominous every day it is not a life outside of a my life is a it's not that I live in a all the time but the principles of this program how I have to operate with them in my life and one of the things that happened this year was that I had to evaluate what was important to me and with these people dying and Joan sick and all of the things that have gone on in the middle of all of this of course I'm 61. Actually, I'm 60, but I prepare myself. Next month, I'll be 61. And Dick is 67. I'm So as we age, of course we make plans to turn this mom-and-pop business that we started, which is no longer a mom- and pop business, over to the next generation. It's not happening fast, but anybody who's smart has to do it in a certain legal, tax-wise way. And so we're doing that. And we hired these people to come in and tell us how to do it. And they sent a guy that looked like Sabu the Helmet Boy in the Rudyard Kipling stories, and he told me I was obsolete. My mother was not pleased. My mother has resented that guy, and she never met him. But every time I see her now, which is every day of the week practically, she says, you're not. How do they feel about you being obsolete now? But I had to change my job. And I had asked myself when I cried. I cried when he told me that. And I was angry. So I prayed before I went to bed. And I said, please God, help me put this in perspective. Let me slap this in, and it's important. And I woke up the next morning in a state of freedom. I thought, you have always hated doing that job. you are now free oh wow wow and I'm doing a job I love which is talking to people I love talking to people on the phone I'm dealing with I'm feeling a job I love love lots better than the other one and I thought it would be so difficult for me to let go of those reins you know and it 99% of the time, it's like they're hot. I go, oh, good. I don't want them anymore. And they are in the hands of someone who is so far better qualified than I to do it. So that's been going on. So I thought, you know, this is a kind, these are kind of questions that go with every step or little short statements, I guess. and the first step is you know we're powerless over our lives unmanageable I can't second one came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity God can made a decision to turn our will in their life over to care of God as we understood I think I'll let him and then the fourth step it's I did this and this and that oh dear and then the fifth step is I get a lot of bad things and then other person I'm telling it to says I did too and then I say oh good it's true and then the next one is do I want to be like that anymore and the next point is no no but how am I going to get to the place where I'm at one with that talks about in the amends because amendment you know a synonym for amendment is atonement and atonment is at one list so the eighth step I had to lift those people that i had done those bad things too because of these character defects and then go to them and say what can i do to make this right what can I do to make this and it is an observation that I have made through the years in alcoholism the people who leave and Bob talked about this yesterday the people who leave really leave because they aren't willing to wait or don't have the humility I suppose to be patient for the conscious unity because I know for me and I'm talking about me I am as prototypical an alcoholic if you're ever going to find I know for me many times in my life pomp power things guys kids intelligence all of those things have stood in the way of my acceptance of that simple unity because I pursue those and Pursue them. Pursrue them. You know, I had one of the people that I sponsor said to me on the phone the other day, alcoholism is an obsessive-compulsive disease. And I said, no shit. Here all this time, I didn't know that. You know? It's like 30, she's, I don't know, sober 18 or 20 years, and it suddenly struck her because she had had a very obsessive compulsive few days you know and that kind of you know we can't just we can' t just let something alone we gotta like pick it up and sorry try again that's what it says in here is this a prize thing or something Sorry, try again. Now I could, I could obsess on that. Well couldn't you? Well who wants to drink Pepsi anyway? Lousy stock sucks. You know there's always stuff. I could get going on anything. Anything. anything. And whenever I do that, no matter what it is, it reminds me of the story or the example, I guess, allegory of a penny. If I were to throw a penny out in the middle of that rug, it wouldn't mean a whole lot in this big room. Nothing really, just a little penny. It has no particular value. You can't even buy a piece of chiclet anymore with a penny. You used to be able to get five chiclets with a penny. I love chiclets, see? They came in such pretty colors and I remember Mr. Abercrombie's store and I used to go over there with Mr. Natapaloozie and he'd give me some chiclets. I mean, you know, I can like go off on but it's just a penny but if I go down there and pick it up oh the penny well wonder what dates on it of course I'm bad like a bad eyes anyway dates on if I the closer that thing to get to my face the less I can see the more I see the penny until if I hold it close enough it's the only thing I can say and that's what our character defects do to us that's let's shake the jigsaw puzzle is that when I give more attention to that kind of stuff in my life the less attention I have to give to God and to the conscious you know me so I have to go to those people that I have done something in some fit of character defect and make amends I screwed up this morning already made somebody mad and well-intentioned mean I was well-intentioned I thought but I made somebody man and it was because I was that nervous and I wanted to take care of a situation and I put him in the position because he would had to do something nobody else could do I put himself at me only because of his own person and so I owe him amends and I'll make those later but I don't want to keep that garbage because when that garbage is in me it is clogged up that it clogs up the path it clogged up my ability to have that conscious contact with God and I think in the tenth step what it's telling me is please please please help me do those things that'll help me stay here please please God help me through those things by going to meetings and calling my sponsor and cleaning my side of the street and living in the steps and saying my prayer helping others please let me let me do this please and then the 11th step is so for me help me know peace help me know peace and then in the 12th step help me serve help me love and serve where I am needed it always says you know and Bob was talking about this yesterday what is in front of you what is there in front you to do and if we're not obscured by all of these other things that are crowding we know what's in front of us i know what's in front me to do i know too that god wants me to be sober and he wants me be kind and he wants me loving and you know i'm like a petulant child i'm a petrol and alcoholic you know we had a jim being make me the best mailbox he makes the best mail boxes there's such neat mailboxes they've got a door in the front and a door on the back so i don't even have to go out in the street i can just open up my door from this side and get my mail out it has little cardinals on it and a little birdhouse adorable mailbox and some probably some petulant alcoholic came along and uprooted my mailbox and took it took it it. Took it. Just took it. It was gone. There's nothing but a hole. A hole there. And I was perturbed at first. Not mad, of course, but perturbs. But Dick was so cute because he took a post and he taped the trash can on the side. He took a piece of sticky note and put 420, you know, on the side. And the mailman put it in the trash can. But I'm just as capable of being that petulant. I may not wrench mailboxes out of the ground, but I'm, you know I'm just as equally capable of snubbing you or something and Mary honestly I didn't snub you where's Mary I'll have to see her later she thought I didn't see her yesterday but anyway I'm this is capable of that behavior when I get upset and I I need to remember that if I want conscious unity then I'm gonna have to try to keep the jigsaw puzzle pieces on the table and I do that by trying to love you and by going to meetings and by serving others and by helping other alcoholics in trying to stay in the steps of the living presence of God which is I think God's gift I think those steps of alcoholism God gives to us. Bill Wilson wrote them, and they refined them. But I really believe that was an inspiration from God. And let me tell you something that really bothers me. And I know you guys think I'm just preaching about this. I've said this so many times in meetings and over you know at conferences and that kind of but i'm really scared for a.a and i want every one of us in here to try to go out with renewed resolve to do what it was that we were intended to do from the beginning which is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety because there's so many things out there that are distracting us yesterday Bob was talking about this rat that he read as a result of giving this book from some kind people who gave him a box of books and some clothes and stuff when he came off the street and in this book there was a description of some German scientists had taken these electrodes and they had put them into the brain of these rats and they would stimulate them with these electrical stimulus and it was in the pleasure center of their brain and all around had to do to get that was to step on a little pedal well they learned very quickly to do that and eventually all they did was just lay down on the pedal which is what we would do right just lay out on the pedal because they reduce juice and they never got up so they didn't drink water they didn't eat they did they died because they just laid on the pedal but just before that the scientists would turn off the juice and he's poor rat man they turned back on and then they turn it off turn it back gone. And in addition to like really kind of drying up and starving, these rats like got nervous breakdowns or something you know because they didn't know when the juice was going to be on. And then they stopped the juice altogether and the rats just curled up and died? And I think, I know, that the enthusiasm, the conviction that God has taken care of me and that he wants me to tell you that and tell you how I've done it. The enthusiasm for that message is the juice. Alcoholics Anonymous provides the juice for an alcoholic who is not drinking but who feel that conscious disunity that I can you put you know think of a day when you went to work or you were at home and nothing went right nothing nothing it was like bad news there it was everywhere people wanted a piece of you and it wasn't because they want to tell you how wonderful you were it was because they had a problem with you or with something that you were responsible for and people would call on the phone and then you would you know they would just and you and gradually through the day it was like the only thing i can think of is it's like one of those games those electronic games where everything is thinking and booming and banging and crashing and boom and bah and life like a casino you know like a casino you when you go into the casino that's like my brain when i'm i mean bing bing bing and bright lights flashing and stuff on the ceiling and people yelling and people moaning and people crying and money falling and money fallen in the jeans and soon i mean it's just like you want to go stop stop and the way that i can stop it is to just get up go in the bathroom sit down and pray and say oh I'm feeling bad get what's in front of me what's important to simplify because I don't do well with complicated situations do you I mean do you it's like I don't know how to describe it it's like a whole bunch of insane confetti you know that you have in your hand and go and it just blows around I don t do well with stuff like that because I'm of nervous disposition. You used to say I was the person of passions it's just I got a lot of character defects is what it is but I didn't do well with that. And I need that centeredness. I need that unity. I need that feeling of no matter what, God's going to take care of me. No matter what, I'm in love. I don't know what the next year will bring none of it do but I know I have many many many opportunities for service And I know I will have many opportunities for amends, because I'm a human under construction. And yes, I'm 35 years sober, but that doesn't make me anything but 35 years sober. And maybe I've been around the Duvenage a little more frequently. So, and maybe sometimes my view's a little better. But there are days when I sit back, and I'm not happy with of you and one of the reasons I'm not is because it's strangely familiar but I want the juice because I'll tell you something without the juice I think we would leave and there are many many places in this country in Alcoholics anonymous where the primary purpose has been forgotten people are out for themselves which is a natural state for alcoholics and life is dull and the juice is not there I can't live without the juice and it's my responsibility to pass it on because I can keep it enthusiasm is one of those things that you can't just sit around being enthusiastic inside it's something I have to pass on or it withers up I want to pass it on I want to feel that love of God I want to project that love a gun and I gotta live in the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to do that in the past year so I have seen some of the most incredible exits from Alcoholics anonymous some of them physical some of them people are gone before they know they're even going you know what I'm saying it's like they are gone before they know it they're suffering from untreated alcoholism they don't even know because we are the last to know and I don't want to be that way and I don't watch you to be this area is a hotbed of enthusiasm and you know what what does it what is what is it in me that engenders that what is is it that you know I'm enthusiastic it's when I'm happy when I'm laughing when I've helped them when I energetic when I out there when I not caught up in my thinking when I am NOT in my head when I when I went every day is, you know, I had a good idea the other day. I don't have very many good ideas, but I had this good idea at work. And I mean, I have this good idea and I was so stoked. It stoked me for two whole days. And it was just a little idea. It was just this little idea! And I went and said, Oh, I'm so excited! I've had a great idea! You know, and all these people at work are like, Wow, she's gone to be thin now. But I was enthusiastic about that and they got They got enthusiastic about us, and they were, you know, and it's infectious. Joy can be spread. Joy can become an epidemic. So can moroseness. So can fat-ass-ness. You know, you stand around with a bunch of people who look fat-assed all the time. Pretty soon you think you're crazy for being happy. You know, if you're sitting in a bunch of people who are, I'm so happy to be here, I can hardly stand it. Well, I hardly stand you, too. Keep the plug in the good. Ah, if I'd had to stay sober that way, I would have died, I guess. I don't know. I don' t know. I can't say that. But I wouldn't have liked it. I wouldn' t have been happy. I know that. I might have been sober because that's really God's hands. but I, knowing myself, I'd have gone where the juice was. And I need to make sure that my meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and my life in particular are full of juice. And so what happens when that is? So please, please, smile, welcome newcomers, find new people. Let's do what we were intended. it let's do what is God's will for us which is to face over and help other alcoholics try that I'm gonna try to forget you know that this has been a tough year around me I'm going to just do for you because that's when I'm the happiest. There's a great little book, great little book and I haven't used it in a long time but I think it fits with this whole thing. And two, the guy who wrote it died this year and has written by Shel Silverstein who is a mountain of a man, a huge man. And he wrote these little tiny books and they look like children's books but they're full of eternal truth i think he wrote the missing piece he wrote the missing peace meets the big o he wrote lefkado the cowardly lion you know that he wrote these wonderful little books and i'm sorry that his magnificent giant presence is a wuss anymore, but the books are. So he really is. It's just like when we leave this earth, when I leave this earth have I made a difference? If I have made a a difference in someone's life. I'll never die. Just like Bruce will never die, and John will never, and Ozo will never. Because they made a difference, in my life. And it's called the giving tree. And it was in the front. It's from my mother. To Peggy with love from Mama. And I just want to read it to you because I can't help but cry when I read this because it's all about the grace of God. It's all about absolutely, completely pure love. Once there was a tree and she loved a little boy. And every day the boy would come and he would gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play king of the forest. He would climb up her trunk and he He would swing from her branches and eat apples, and they would play hide-and-seek. And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade. the boy loved the tree. The time went by and the boy grew older and the tree was often alone. Then one day, the boy came to the tree and the The tree said, come boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy. I am too big to climb and play, said the boy. I want to buy things and have fun. I want some money. Can you give me some money? I'm sorry, said The Tree, but I have no money. I have only leaves and apples. Take my apples, boy, and sell them in the city. Then you will have money, and you will be happy. And so the boy climbed up the tree and gathered her apples and carried them away. And the tree was happy. But the boy stayed away for a long time, and the tree were sad. And then one day the boy came back, and the trees shook with joy. And she said, Come, boy, climb up my trunk. Swing from my branches and be happy I am too busy to caw in. I want a house to keep me warm. I want wife and I want children, so I need a house. Can you give me a house? I have no house, said the tree. The forest is my house, but you may cut off my branches and build a house, then you will be happy. So the boy cut off the tree's branches and carried them away to build a house. And the tree was happy. But the boy stayed away for a long time. And when he came back, the tree were so happy she could hardly speak. Come, boy, she whispered. Come play. I am too old and sad to play. I want a boat that will take me away. Doesn't he sound alcoholic? Can you give me a boat? Cut down my trunk and make a boat. There's a tree. Then you can sail away and be happy. And so the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy, but not really. And after a long time, the boy came back again. I am sorry, boy, said the tree, but I have nothing left to give you. My apples are gone. My teeth are too loose for apples, said The Boy. My branches are gone, said Tree. I am too old to swing on your branches. My trunk is gone, said the tree. You cannot climb. I am too tired to climb, said the trees. I'm sorry, sighed the tree, I wish that I could get you something but I have nothing left. I just an old stump. I don't need much now, said the boy. Just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired. well said the tree straightening herself up as much as she could well an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, boy, sit down. Sit down and rest. And the boy did, and the tree was happy. And I believe that that is the unconditional love of a power that I would have to be nuts not to want to be unified to and with. I love you all. I thank you for be in here. And let's go out and give him some juice. Thanks.