Put ‘I’ Into Every Tradition and They Stop Being Group Rules and Start Running Your Life – Vannoy S.

My name is Vinoy Shaw, and I am a member of Al-Anon. Hi, Vinoy. Hi, y'all. My name is Vinoy, and you spell it V-A-N-N-O-Y. It's a difficult name. However, quite some time ago, I think my little husband made a quick statement. Someone was trying to remember my name, and he said, Here's an easy way to do it. He said, If you'll take the V off. I didn't think it was funny then, and I don't think it's funny now. They invited me to come back to this conference. See this name tag? If you all were real close, you would see that it says A-N-N-O-Y. I understand they took a vote whether or not to put the V on it. And some of them decided, with my personality and all, that they would hurt my feelings. It was Peggy and Jill, Dick and Jim. I know exactly who voted. I have a surprise waiting for all of you. And I want to thank the committee for inviting me back. That's real. It's really neat when you're invited back to places. I think that's nice. I'll enjoy the weekend. However, some of you might know what it's like to be invited back to places. I think that's nice. I'll enjoy the weekend. However, some of you might know what it's like to be invited back to places. I think that's nice. I'll enjoy the weekend. I think that's nice. I'll enjoy the weekend. Now I'm not sure how I really like that and asked to talk at a convention where people are just really fired up and come and spend an hour on the traditions. Now I'm not sure how I really like that. The first thing when we got here, you know the first time we came, we were met at the airport with all these people. They were just delighted, they were just wonderful, they were just happy, they were excited, there was a bunch. They took us and they just took care of us. They carried our luggage. I mean, it was just wonderful. That was the first time we came. Yesterday, there was nobody to meet us when we got off the plane. We finally found this guy stumbling through the airport that had a Cornhuskers flyer. And we discovered that he was there to pick us up. I said, well, where do we go to get our luggage? He says, I don't know. I don't live here. Who sent you out here? He said, my sponsor, Dick. So we were not met. He didn't carry our luggage. I mean, he didn't do nothing. He didn't know where he was, where he was going, or where he'd be. And he's from California. And then I discovered that I'm here. I'm to do, stand up in front of y'all and talk about the traditions, which we all know and love. And then I look at the program. And our Al-Anani speakers. You know, they have, they put Sally Friday evening, when everybody's here and all fired up. They put Swell Lell on in the afternoon. And did y'all see what they put beside her name? An afternoon delight. She come walk down the hall while I go. And she said, well, here comes our afternoon fright. I didn't think that was funny then. And I don't think that's funny now. I've been in Al-Anon since my first meeting was February the 6th. February the 7th of 1969. And I want you to know that I absolutely love being here. I love being here. Morning place, I know. I'd rather be with y'all than go anywhere or do anything. Period. I just, that's what I do. That's what I like. It's been my life. It's been a lifesaver. Al-Anon, when I came in, was the most glorious thing I'd ever found in my life. I think it is today. I don't know if I love it more now or then. I don't know. It's changed who I am and what I am. It's given me. It's given me hope. It's given me delight. It's given me a God of my understanding. It's given me my dignity. It's given me everything that I've ever thought about wanting or not even thinking about wanting. It's given to me. And I love it. And I'll do anything that it asks of me to do. And I love Alcoholics Anonymous. It was two sober members of AA who took me to my first Al-Anon meeting. And I don't want to forget that. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. I've done tremendous things in my family. I have a sober husband, and I have a sober daughter. I have a sober stepdaughter. I have a son who was 90 days sober and realized he wasn't really, really, really, really, really an alcoholic. So he's back out just killing himself a day at a time. I have a stepson who was sober for a year and two months and decided he wasn't really, really, really, really an alcoholic. and he's out doing what he thinks is necessary. But both of those boys have been here with you, you've touched their lives, they've experienced you, and I really don't worry about them. The things that sometimes concerns me about my family, my boys, my daughters, my husband, my me, is what we're doing with it. And I think that's why, if I would ever agree to come to a convention and stand up on Friday afternoon when people didn't have nothing else to do, that's why I would agree to talk in the traditions. Because I love what's here. And I will do whatever is necessary to keep it that way. From time to time, I'm referred to as a black belt Al-Anon. Some of you are shaking your heads that don't even know me you're shaking. I'm referred to as controversial from time to time. And I believe that's true. I believe every bit of it. I'm very serious with you. I'm not quite. I'm not quite sure what the definition of a black belt Al-Anon is. Everybody just laughs when you say it. And evidently, it's like it's strong or maybe mean or I don't know what that means. But if it means that I'm going to stand up and say that I'm an Al-Anon and I want to keep Al-Anon, Al-Anon, that's what I am. That's what I do. And there's two areas in our fellowship today that hurt me to talk about because I don't know how you out there feel about it. And I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to stir it up. But I want Al-Anon to be Al-Anon. It's just that simple. And I'm not going to go through tradition by tradition and bore you because I don't want to be bored myself. But there are some that I think are so, well, they're all just wonderful, but there's some that are more important to others to me today where I'm at now. Now, when I first came into the program, of course, I wanted everything there was for me. I wanted to get well. I wanted to quit dying a little bit every day in my own self. So what I did was the things that we do. I came to meetings. I sat and listened long enough until I got the courage to ask somebody to be my sponsor. I got a sponsor and a very strong, mean, tough sponsor who got me through the 12 steps of this program. That lady has molded me and told me the things that I do today. She shared with me things that she has done. And that's 19 and a half years ago when I came to this program. And there is changes that's come about in our society since then. When I came in, it was really, I think, what we call a fellowship because after meetings we'd go places and sit for hours and talk. They would call me and say, come go with me. We need to go talk to a lady who has a problem in her home. Then most of the times when we did the 12-step calls, it was on wives. Nowadays, that's rare. It's usually us mamas. That are going nuts. And it's fathers and it's stepfathers and it's stepmothers and it's aunts and it's uncles. It's affecting anything and anybody anymore. So we spent hours talking and visiting with each other. God, I loved it. We even went on some of the 12-step calls and we got to go in the homes and see him drunk and her in the kitchen going crazy. And we'd go in there and we'd sit in the kitchen and talk to her while they were doing that thing out there. And maybe we would say, I remember several occasions when we did. I even had a drunk lady at my house once. My drunk came in and visited with her all night. They just had a good time. Both drank, set up. We did those things back then. We would talk on the phone a lot more than we did now. We had two meetings when I came in. One was on Wednesday night and one was on Saturday night. The Saturday night meeting was an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the AAs, the sober AAs, we'd get up and they'd talk and they'd share their stories. And I eventually went to both of those meetings on a regular basis. Now, I don't know which one of those meetings helped me the most. I couldn't tell you. Because I was living with active alcoholism and I would hear those sober alcoholics get up and talk and they gave me an idea about what was going on in my own home at that time. I hung around with the alcoholics as much as I did with the Al-Nans. We all did things together. We traveled around together. We ate suppers together and we'd stay up real late and talk and talk. And my sponsor, Pat, and her husband, Jack, I was in their home all the time. And if I wasn't talking to her, I was talking to him. So Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Nan molded my program. And so did the other AA speakers. I've known a lot of them and I sit at their feet and ask them a jillion questions. And the Al-Nans too. So for me to... to ever try to separate us as deeply as they want to separate us today is... is... I don't understand that. And that's why I began to stay the traditions many years ago. When I was new, you don't want to screw around with the traditions. Hey, I'm hurting. Just let's get some good stuff going here. You know, I don't want to mess with that stuff. That's for the group. And every now and then, it seemed necessary to have that old gray-haired lady in our group, to spend a whole evening on the traditions. I mean, it was so boring. And if I'd have known pre, before it happened, that she was going to do it, I wouldn't have went. I mean, what? It's so boring about... Oh, the traditions are crap. So we'd get in the back room and do the whole thing. And we did that for a long, long time. One thing I believe is real important, extremely important because of my experience, because I hated them so much. In my group, we would open the meeting the way you usually do with our openings. But one thing that we always did was go around the room and each person would read one step. And we got through reading the steps and the next person would start on the traditions. And we read those out loud. And we did that every meeting night till this day. Some of the groups that I go to don't do that, but there's one in particular that has started it. We read the steps and the traditions. And after you hear them and hear them and hear them, you don't even know that you're here. And then, or I didn't, they really became a part of me. And if I don't know what that is, if I don't experience those traditions and if I don't love them in this fellowship, then we may not have a fellowship. It's not the group. It's me. And when I first realized that was several years ago at a conference in Midland, Texas, Wesley Parrish was a Thursday night non-official speaker. And he talked about the traditions. That was what his talk was on. Now, I didn't go to that meeting. I was there the next morning. But for the whole weekend, for the next six months, the only thing we heard in our group was Wesley and how he talked about the traditions. So a couple of gals got together and they showed those of us who didn't hear it what he had gone through and what he did. He went through the traditions and put I into all of them. Makes it a whole new deal. I got them out and I got to looking at that. And it's not the group. And, you know, I am the group. It is me. It's me. It starts right here. And he was talking about, he was sober 20 years, I believe, at that time that he started on the traditions. And he was just going crazy in his program. And this is, most of you know him or know of him. He talked all over the country. He was just a delightful man and a success in his AA program. But things in his life was just falling apart. And he took a look at those traditions and started working them on a very personal level. And therefore, his life changed. And I won't forget that ever. Then shortly after that, there was a lady. We had a little conference. And a lady typed out and redid this. And you're not supposed to, but she did anyway. And put traditions in marriage. And she changed some of the words. And she used those traditions in her marriage. Where it said group, she put marriage. A couple of years later, years later, a lady came in and she did the same thing with children. So it got me to looking at those things for myself and going over them and looking at what they meant. And I have fallen in love with them. And they do make a change in your life if you do that. I have done tradition kind of workshops before. And one of the most delightful things that I found a long time ago and forgot about it until I was coming up here on the plane. I am a student of the AA literature simply because the Al-Anon program comes from the AA. And if you read a lot of the history, you will see where we were so loved. Al-Anon was so loved in the beginning of our fellowship. Bill and Dr. Bob included us into everything and wanted to. Bill was the starter of many of Al-Anon's things as we know them today. They really loved us. Dr. Bob said, I think, to the first wife or the first alcoholic that came that got sober, they put him in the hospital and Dr. Bob went to her and said, oh, you come with us too. We've been separated too long. And when I think about those things, I think I wish we could do that today like that. We've been separated too long. And there shouldn't be all the animosity there seems to be from time to time, from place to place in our fellowships. Anyway, because I love Alcoholics Anonymous and because I know our program came and because I had a good sponsor and because we all studied these things, we always read the AA literature. And I have all their books. I've read them all, I assume. But this one is probably one of my favorites, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. It tells about everything, how it all got started, who was what, and I've won a lot of arguments about when AA in Texas was started, above and beyond many other states, and how backwards some states are. I can prove it by going to these books. I just love this one. This is my favorite. They're talking about how the traditions came about, what happened in the groups that brought the traditions around. This is one of them. They were talking about who was going to come into our fellowship, who was going to be in here if they just opened the doors to everybody. And then they did, and then they started having problems. One of them was the sexual problems that go on, the he and she and, y'all may not have that up in Nebraska. List this. Sometimes these relations persisted after AA. The husband sometimes got the wandering eye. Alcoholic women whose husbands had long since passed them off put themselves in for an appearance. There was some throwing of rocks at the centers. We trembled for AA's reputation and for its survival. But at last we woke up to the fact that we were not having any more sex difficulties than other societies and probably less. It's coming, girls. We found that these situations would often right themselves if they were treated with patience and kindness. The sinners and the self-righteous eventually saw the folly of their ways. Now listen to this. The Al-Anon family groups put in an appearance and did wonders, did wonders for AA's domestic relations. It's out of y'all's book, fellas. I loved it. Now let me go over some of this stuff that's important to me. And I'm not gonna bore you to tears. Please remember that. I'm just gonna hit some of the stuff that I think is important for me and some of the things I went through. Tradition one, our common welfare should come first. Personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity, unity. If I cause a stir in the group, then the unity is disrupted. And if it's disrupted, there's trouble that happens. Have y'all ever tried to change something in your group? Have you ever? Woo, I did once. I was in this group and we had two different nights that met in this same building. We had an Al-Anon room and the AA's were real active and did their stuff and we had a room. In the back of our room were two cabinets. Both had glass fronts and both had keys. This was Tuesday night. Al-Anon and this was Thursday night Al-Anon. There was no literature in Tuesday night Al-Anon and there wasn't very much in Thursday night Al-Anon. And I got to looking at it, had a new person come in, there was no literature. And they said, I went to one of the secretary, or the treasurer, I said, where's the money? And she said, well, or where's the literature? Well, we don't have much money. Well, I got to think about it. What we needed to do was combine the treasuries of the Tuesday night and the Thursday night so we could get some literature. Now, that's all the world I wanted to do. I said, I said, at the next business meeting, I would like for some of the Tuesday, because I went to both groups and practically everybody else did too, discovered later on that the treasurer for both groups was the same gal. Well, we were going to vote it. You have never in your life seen such madness. All of a sudden, people from other groups were showing up at the business meeting. The district representative is there with her look. Have you all ever seen the district? They usually wear glasses like this and look at you anyway. There was people come to that business meeting that hadn't touched Al-Anon's doors in years. And I mean, the fight was on. I mean, the fight was on. Well, if you do that, you combine both treasuries, how are you going to get a GR and how are you going to get this GR? Well, couldn't we have one GR? Oh, no. You'll lose a vote. And the one who was campaigning to be delegate for my area was there. You'll lose two votes here. And this so helped me is what she said. We don't want that Dallas bunch to get it. I mean, it was the biggest madness I've ever saw in my life. Well, they took a vote and I was voted down, me and my bunch. And it was terrible. I mean, they come out of that room and I saw the looks on people's faces. And I thought, this is awful. I hate this. I don't like this. There was dissension. And there was anger. And then there was gloating on some of the other people's face. And it was terrible. I don't like the way I felt. And I wonder why I felt so bad. And a couple of weeks later, we got to looking at the treasury and got to checking all these things out because I was still concerned because we didn't have any loot to her. Well, what come out of this big, huge fight was our treasurer was taking the money and going out and buying some whiskey. She resigned. And we got a retired banker who, as far as I know, and that's been probably 10 years ago or 12 years ago, I think he's still the treasurer. And now they have literature in this cabinet and they have literature in that cabinet. And that is still referred to as that group as the Al-Anon War. And I had to go in my sponsor's direction. I had to go to these people and say to them, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for causing the Al-Anon War. Do you know how hard that is for those to come out of my all-wise and all-knowing mouth? But when I got through with that, I felt better because my unity with that group was better. I didn't care how anybody else's unity was. My unity with the members of that group was better. And of course, as it all unfolded, and I don't think she's sober today. And I really think about her from time to time. And I hope she finds sobriety. And it would have to be awful tough to know that she was stealing the Al-Anon literature money to go buy your booze. For our group purpose, there's but one authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscious. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. Trusted servant. Do y'all have owners of your group? We have owners. I mean, they own the group. They got there first. And they own it. I owned a group once. I don't like owning a group. I mean, you get so many bad things said about you. Whether you're doing right or whether you're doing wrong. Where you, you know, even the fact that you're trying. I mean, if you're an owner, you just get all the flack in the world. They don't like being the owner. And I tried to step down and not be an owner because I didn't like it. And there are things called trusted servants. And people came and talked with me. And I had to really work through not being an owner of a group. Having ideas and trying to express them is one thing. But being an owner of a group is something else. And if we don't know the traditions, we're going to have owners. And when you do have one that's real powerful. We have all kinds of literature that shows you what happens. I have, you know, personal experiences. We had an owner of a group that I came into and was a member of for a long time and loved it. And our literature talks about how they will evolve out because the new people come in. And it is God. I mean, God really is in control of this deal. Can you imagine? I mean, we are a bunch of people who have a little bit of strange ideas about different things. Be we alcoholic or be we Al-Anon, but really Al-Anons. Our characteristics as Al-Anons are we know best. We know best. We know it now. I know how to do it quicker than anybody in this room could do it. I could do it better. I've already figured out how to fix these aisles a lot better so people could move through here. And we just do that. So you put us together and try to get us, all of us, with all of our wonderful ideas and see what happens. So some new people come up and every now and then they read the literature. We try to hide it when you're, you know, you're older and just listen to me. I know I've been around here a long time. But they find the literature and they read it. So they want us to be trusted servants, those that's been in for a while and own the group for a while. And I saw what happened to a woman who owned the group. Who would not let go. She has continually got sicker physically. Sicker and sicker and sicker. She didn't go to that group. She goes to a different group now. And she is physically ill and has been ill and stayed ill for a long, long time. She's bitter. She's resentful. And she's alone. So I have to try to remember that God really does do it. If you see something that's not right, I believe that I have a right to say something about it. And if it doesn't work. Fine. I can bring it up. It's my right to bring it up. I don't think it doesn't feel right here in this group or this meeting or whatever. And if it doesn't. I mean, if that group likes what they're doing. I have the choice of moving to another group. It's just real, real simple. I got into something a while last year that I've never experienced before. There was some owners of a group. More than one. Several. And I tried to go to that group and be a part of. And I just was. I wasn't wanted. I wasn't welcome. I just wasn't welcome there. Probably because I am a powerful person. And I had to really take a look at this when it was all over with and see my part in it. But they just didn't want me there. I was never. I wasn't invited to do anything or to participate. Which is a real big thing of mine to participate. And I never was. And I was. By God's design or by a fluke. I don't know which was. Voted to be a chairman for a few months. And right after I was voted. The owners had. A meeting. And they called me and said we would like for you to come over here to my house. We're going to have a steering committee meeting. And I was. It was late at night when they called with the invitation. And so I went. The next day and I thought the next day when I had a little clearer head. What strange to have a steering committee in someone's house. I don't agree with that. And I'm going to tell them that steering committees are supposed to be in groups. Maybe they don't know. And I got over there and quickly found out it was not a steering committee at all. I don't know what. You. Call it one of them called it an intervention. And there was five of them and they went around the room and each took their turn. Telling me all the things about me that he'd like. It was not with love and it was not with caring. It was a very degrading a very hateful mean thing. And I was sitting there as it progressed. I thought Jimmy Cricket. I mean the things that were brought up were just so they were just silly. Some of them were valid but most of them were silly. One of them even said is they really got. On a roll. You know you can get on a roll when you're taking somebody's inventory. You just I mean you just think all kinds of neat things to bring up. One of them said to me and while ago you mentioned Clancy and I want you know not everybody likes Clancy and we don't. He'll use my husband's sponsor ain't mine. Don't blame me for that mess. They said that the hold that they had over me for that instant was broken. I mean it was gone. Then I realized how silly this whole thing was. And. When they got through. I very graciously and very quietly went around told them what I thought of them. And I think we all kind of agreed that what they were working in was some fear and it wasn't trusted servants and it wasn't anything that was a loving thing. It was just out of fear. And so I left. I finished my commitment there because I had a long long talk with my sponsor and had a lot of people that surrounded me with a lot of love over that. And it was a real neat experience for me. One that that I needed. To remember that we're trusted servants that there is a God and if we're of God then we don't have to worry. Just a few weeks ago that group voted whether or not they could even stay in existence. It's fallen down so bad. There's so so few members there anymore. Just the owners and a couple of people that they have their spell over and they're about to disintegrate. So I can see whether this is of God or not of God. And I'm not smart enough to do it. I'm not smart enough to be an owner. I just don't want to be. I've already been through that stage just thank God. I just don't want to. You know what I'd love to do? I would love for everybody to just love me. I don't love all y'all but I would expect all y'all to love me. Some of y'all drive me crazy. Okay this is where some of y'all ain't gonna love me. The relatives of alcoholics when gathered together for mutual aid may call themselves an Al-Anon family group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend. That says relatives of alcoholics. It doesn't state what kind of relative. Do you know that one of the biggest danger I see in our fellowship? One of the most hurtful things that I have seen personally and I'm not going to argue with one person after I get through with this. Do you hear me? I have the podium. It's my time. And you know. This does not say the poor helpless children of alcoholics. Do you hear me? It does not say that. It says the relatives of alcoholics. Adult children of alcoholics in ACOA are the biggest stirring up of our fellowship that I've seen in the 20 years nearly that I've been here. There's more pain that's come out of that than anything I've seen. There's more misunderstanding between our groups of ACA. There's more misunderstanding between our groups of ACA. There's more misunderstanding between our groups of ACA. There's more misunderstanding between our groups of ACA than anything I've encountered since I've been here. It's a hurtful, harmful thing, in my opinion. It's a hurtful, harmful thing, in my opinion. I hate to see people go over there. I wish they would go and get the information because I think there's some wonderful information. Wonderful information written about, talked about, and done about. Get the information and then come back to Al-Anon where we have the solution and we love you. It's for families. It's for families. was talking one time just with some friends and i said you know this is a real danger and this has been years ago i said if they start this then the next thing will be will be parents of children of alcoholics and then there will be stepchildren of alcoholic meetings only and what about the grandmothers only of alcoholics we'll destroy ourselves and they just threw a fit this is not so this won't be that was that morning that afternoon at this particular place i was talking at had a panel the panel was an al-anon an alcoholic a member of aca and a member of parents only and there it started and it started all over it's all over the united states i had the privilege of going to a lot of places over these united states and the biggest controversy the biggest sadness the one that causes the most pain is aca it's of god in my opinion like i said i'm not going to argue with anybody and don't come up validate yourself with me because i don't want to hear it i don't want to do it i believe god says the relatives and come to al-anon where our solution is this is our tradition it doesn't matter how you got sick doesn't matter how the what is it the ox got in the ditch let's get the damn ox out of the ditch we have a solution and let's love each other with the solution and leave the other issues out of al-anon because it's a separate entity totally you there are words and descriptions coming there's a lady that i met just a while ago she was bringing some people here from treatment and i think that's great i have no argument with treatment at all however let me finish girls however it says we have no other affiliation we are not feeling al-anon is not affiliated with treatment we are the relatives of alcoholics there's all kinds of new things popping up everywhere and they're bringing their language and their philosophy into my al-anon meeting and i don't know what they're saying i don't understand their language i don't understand what's going on and it breaks my heart i've had people come to me and say i don't know what they're talking about please help me and you know the words if you don't i'll tell you we are al-anons we're not codependents we are al-anons in an al-anon meeting in an al-anon my name is vanoy shaw and i'm an al-anon i'm a member of al-anon i also come from a family it's just my family it's mom and daddy it's my family okay it's i have never yet understood what dysfunctional family means i'm not an educated person my family's screwed up so what if you're in treatment thank god just thank god but please when you get out of treatment get out of treatment and i want you to know i'll be the first one to sponsor you and love you and put my arms around you and hold you because i know you're hurt you see we all hurt we all know what it's like to love an alcoholic i mean i have alcoholics everywhere i have children's alcoholic i have a husband's alcoholic my mother takes pills that i don't understand my brother's an alcoholic i had a grandfather die of alcoholism i know what alcoholism is but i don't know what alcoholism is i don't know what alcoholism is i don't know what alcoholism is and you try to put me in all those different groups and i'll die take me and love me and hold me and let me know what the solution is there's one other thing that has just torn me apart and i i hate to do this i hate to have to have things that back up what we say god this is al-anon this is a we just barely work anyway you know and the other thing that's come about is each group should be at times except in matters which affect another group or al-anon or a as a whole so now we started a little meeting not too long ago to have a step study discussion meeting so that we could discuss everybody could sit around a table and we just could discuss the steps and we formed this group we read this tradition and said we probably ought to vote whether or not that we could refer to the big book of alcoholics anonymous from time to time if we need to can we just see a vote and everybody raise their hand we had to vote and that makes me so sad now i understand all the things i've talked about it for years when this first came down from new york that particular little conference that little panel that voted on this they brought it back to our group so well we're not supposed to study the big book and everybody said oh okay you know just went on we didn't think anything about it a few years involved evolved and they started talking about it more and more and more until a few years ago in one of our little magazines or little things that had a vote we voted throughout our fellowship what was your opinion on studying the big book of alcoholics anonymous made me so sad as i said those early members invited us into their life and they let us come and be with them and they said we've been separated too long they very graciously alcoholics anonymous very graciously gave us their 12 steps graciously they very graciously gave us the use of their traditions and as i read through here i realized people died of alcoholism so that i could have their tradition in my life they died physically laid down drunk and died before these traditions were hammered and and brought about with a lot of love and god consciousness they died that's strong and aa very graciously gave it to us and now we have to vote whether or not that we can do that however because me and mine and when i say me and mine i'm talking about the people that i'm trying to pass this on to me and mine will always try to live within this tradition and so we vote whether or not that we want to do our group this way and we don't want to affect anyone as a whole and if we affect you i'm sorry i really don't mean to do that but we want the very best this fellowship has to offer so we study the big book of alcoholics anonymous if anybody's interested in we have a pamphlet alan on 12 steps and 12 traditions pamphlet and it has in there that we study the big book of alcoholics anonymous now to my very favorite tradition of all the traditions it's different from the aa's tradition and it reads this each family group has but one purpose to help families of alcoholics we do this by practicing the 12 steps of aa ourselves by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics that is so powerful i just get goosebumps every time i read it or think about it and i and i quote it a lot going back to the traditions in the eye form i have but one purpose god i have a purpose i think that's pretty neat i have a purpose in this life god gave me a purpose he gave me something to do that i know how to do and i feel good when i do it and remarkable things follow when i do what i'm supposed to do and that is work with families of alcoholics that's the only purpose that i have isn't that marvelous and some of them that i work with are my husband and my daughter i work with them a lot and it's my tradition to know what my purpose is and is to work with them not at them not for them not because of them but work with them god i love that i love having something to do makes me feel important now it says we do this by practicing the 12 steps of aa ourselves so i have a purpose and i have something to do i simply cannot help another family member if i haven't got the solution i can't do that i carry the mess and not the message and i love working those 12 steps they have been they are my being they are who and what i have become they're my it guides me because when i go through them each time is it says in the 12 step i have a spiritual experience i have a spiritual experience i have a spiritual experience i have a spiritual experience the 12 step says having had a spiritual experience it doesn't say maybe or if you do you have to get through these steps or you might sometimes it says having had so when i work through those 12 steps i've had a spiritual experience to share my purpose with families of alcoholics i've had to work through those steps on my own life my own character defects my own being i've had to work through those 12 steps to share my purpose with families of alcoholics i've had to work them on me i've learned to hold my head up and have my shoulders back and have some dignity i've learned to be a woman i've learned to be a lady by working those 12 steps and by doing that i can stand up here and just maybe just maybe someone will see something in me maybe they'll see this program in me maybe if i try i have worked those steps through as a mother i've had a spiritual experience and awakening through those steps as a mother now i can share it with other mothers and let me tell you something i don't believe in this earth there's anything that hurts worse than a mama hurting over a kid unless it's the daddy we hurt for our children like we hurt nowhere else i believe and i have some experience on how to get through a day i have some experience because i've been through that and i've worked the solution and i can sit down with you and tell you how you can get through friday when your kid's out there dying and i can love you like nobody else can you can go to a psychiatrist you can go to your preacher you can go to anywhere you want to go you can go to counselors you can buy teddy bears but let me tell you something i can tell you how it feels to watch your child die of alcoholism and i can tell you how it feels to watch your child die of alcoholism and i can tell you how it feels to watch your child die of alcoholism and i can tell you a solution to get you through friday i know how i've done it and i can love you and i can hold you and i can tell you it's going to be all right for friday that feels wonderful that's great i love my purpose it says we encourage and understand our alcoholic relatives can you understand an alcoholic come on kenya i cannot i encourage them you bet i encourage them sometimes they get so sick of my encouraging my daughter told me the other day in that tone of voice mother i have talked to my sponsor so sure her sponsor's got the knowledge that i have