Seventh Step Prayer — Please Only Remove the Defects That Are Giving Me Trouble, Leave the Rest – Beth B.

Hey everybody, I'm Julie and I'm an alcoholic. Let's have an AA meeting. I like how y'all started doing that now. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABA Club where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. My name's Tim and I'm an alcoholic. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual and their personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We have no one who will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabluechipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker and we believe it is only possible. We have got fully disclosed ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I'm one of them too, I must have this thing. Tonight, Beth B.W. doesn't stand for Bill Wilson, but she's a big book thumper. She's got about the same amount of time in the program as I do and I wish that I worked the way she works. She's got so many sponsors. She's got so many things that I see her busy with. She's a major part of our recovery and gains pool. Thank you for coming down, Beth, and time for you to take over. Thank you, Tim. I think that's one of the sweetest things anybody's ever said to me. I appreciate that. Tim is a cornerstone of our group in Hall County too and he and I do a lot of meetings. I mean, a lot of meetings. I told him tonight, I think this is, about 21 in 10 days. I mean, I still have to do a lot of meetings and it's a pleasure now. I don't have to. It's that I want to. So it's been a day or two since I told my story and Tim also brings speakers to our group in Gainesville too and Saturday morning he brought Donna P. who has about a million years of sobriety and a glamorous story from California and of course, being the good alcoholic that I was, I started worrying about my story. Should I change my story? Oh, this alcohol is but a symptom of my disease. Tonight I want to talk a little bit about, you know, our stories disclosed in a general way. What we used to be like, what happened, and what we're like now. I want to put a disclaimer out there that when I speak about my childhood, I'll back up to my first drink, but when I speak about my childhood and some things that happened, I don't harbor any resentments today. It's just a part of who I am. It's a part of my journey. It continues to be part of my journey and if anything, it's given me great resolve in this program. I feel like the next words I say, about half the women that I hear tell their stories say something like this. I was 14 years old when I had my first drink. Seems to be the magical age, somewhere between 13 and 15. Nothing glamorous. I was at Jekyll Island at an Elks Club convention with a bunch of drunk Elks running around. And there was a group of young people and we swiped a bottle of cold duck. Oh, I didn't get drunk that first day, but I did see another fellow slide down the wall. But the next words I say, you've also heard, from the moment I took the first drink, I liked it. I fit into my skin, it made everything all right. So let's back up to when I was a little girl. A couple of episodes stick out in my life that, looking back, I know that I was an alcoholic from the get-go. I was probably six or seven years old, I don't know. Grew up in a single wide trailer in Hall County. Kind of an interesting family dynamic. My mama was from a wealthy family and my daddy was a poor chicken farmer. And so from the get-go of their marriage, there was a lot of strife. You know, one grandmother wanted me to have the finer things and my daddy was convinced that, you know, I needed to learn a lot about hard work and hard times. So I always felt a pull between going to grandmother's house and my dad thinking that, you know, that's just not the way I want to raise my daughter. So I was in first or second grade, and back in the early 60's, there was still a lot of silver coins around. So my dad had given me a piggy bank. And every time we found silver change, I filled this giant bank with silver change. Well, I went to a school with a lot of kids even poorer than I was. And a lot of kids that didn't have school supplies. And I remember cutting a hole in the bottom of the bank and I would take out money and take that silver money to school and buy their school supplies. Which sounds all fine, well, and good, but it was only later in life that I realized it wasn't churalturism that I was buying. As kids, it was that they liked me. Well, the bank emptied, I got a spanking, I couldn't figure that out. I got a spanking, it was my money, and I was giving to people who didn't have. Well, fast forward on, some things happened in the public school I attended and my parents plucked me out and put me into a small private school. So here's a little country girl who, I think it was fourth or fifth grade, the teacher said, could you please raise your hand and tell me your favorite flower? I raised my hand and I said, a zinnia. And everybody looked at me and said, what the heck is she talking about? I remember all those kids laughing and thinking, you know, just because I don't know how to pronounce these words the way that they do, I'm different. So I knew from that time on I didn't fit with the poor kids. Or so I was told. I didn't fit with the rich kids. And just nothing seemed to fit for me. So somewhere in middle school, I think I was a majorette, and the girls got mean, like all girls do in middle school, and I quit being a majorette. I remember my daddy telling me, you know what, you're nothing but a quitter. You won't stick with anything. Oh, if he was here today. So I quit. So I decided to turn that into a passion for study. And that's all I did. I studied and I studied and I studied, but I still couldn't fit in socially. So I found that the magic combination was to study like an animal and party like an animal. And that lasted for a very long time. High school didn't work for me. So I decided to study hard enough. You can get into college early. So at 16 years old, I left Gainesville and attended Emory University. I cannot imagine letting a 16-year-old off to Atlanta in this day and time to attend college. And I never looked back. Got into some trouble at Emory, as you can only imagine. Grades didn't last, but the partying sure did. Ended up in Washington, D.C., where it took my drinking to a whole lot. I was a little bit of a junkie. I was a little bit of a junkie. I was a little bit of a junkie. I was a little bit of a junkie. I was a little bit of a junkie. And so I started out at a whole different level. I worked for a congressman. I'll just leave out part of that story. Ended up coming back to the University of Georgia with a scholarship and graduated with money in my pocket and a degree in my hand. The whole time I still didn't fit in. I couldn't fit in anywhere, and the drinking got worse. And much more secretive. So after graduating UGA, I wasn't able to get into college. I came into college. I graduated from the University of Georgia at a high school. My whole family has been in highway construction for years and years and years And my dad got cancer And there were no brothers, there was nobody else to take the business So I decided that for some reason I'd give up all my studies and my passion And come back home and run the business Still drinking, and drinking a lot That same overbearing father that was with me as a child Was still with me as an adult He ended up feeding cancer and lived for many years after that And in large part I continued to drink more because of the pressure from him So like every good southern girl does, about 25 or 26 years old I find who I am I think is the perfect husband And I get married And my family were, they were teetotallers My dad ran Moontown And I was brought up saying that you don't drink the profit So I was told that you just didn't drink Especially if you were a lady And married into a heavy drinking family And I think in part I probably did that for a reason Because I did fit in As a matter of fact I thought I drank less than they did But I didn't The misery continued Still didn't feel comfortable in my skin Fast forward, had three beautiful children Knew that I had a problem When I couldn't stay sober for the nine months with the second child Really knew I had a problem with the third child And couldn't stay sober for a day And that was the beginning of the end After the third child was born in 1997 I was born in 1997 And I was born in 1997 By God's grace And the magic of the placenta The child was perfect And for the next two years Until early 90 I drank every day Mostly stayed drunk during the day But still working In 1990 my husband had had enough He said I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving And in January of 1990 I said okay I can get sober So for the next 90 days I stayed sober On day 91 I said I got this And I picked right back up Where I left off April 4th, three days later I said okay I can do this And for a year and one day I stayed sober So like the classic alcoholic I told myself if I can do this for a year I can do it any time I want And I went back out And seven years later I arrived back on the scene My sobriety date is January 18th of 2008 The most precious day in my life So my bottom looks something like this In 2006 my father passed away That was August I was dating a nice gentleman In early 07 The drinking door closed I went from the drinking door to the drinking door From 5 o'clock to 4 o'clock To 8 to 9 And I was staying drunk all day long In September of that year Don't know how He decided he wanted to marry me In October of that year I literally went to bed And from sometime in October to December I was drinking about a half a gallon of vodka a day I don't know how I survived it In early November I tried to get a job As a detox myself I hired ladies to stay with me To keep me from drinking Going through all that In November and December And in early January I said Something's gotta give I started looking for places to detox And then the humorous part of the story starts So I do all my research And I find the perfect detox facility And I knew that I needed the grossest place possible I needed to be in there with the schizophrenics And the psychotics Because I needed a punishment phase In order to keep me sober And then I asked my angelic little mom To drive me to that place of hell And so she did And so I'll never forget that morning January 18th We drove up to the facility And we walked in And I was ready And they did a breathalyzer on me And I had The night before I was in the facility And I decided that I would drink everything in the house Which ended up with two full bottles Of Dom Perignon champagne And so I threw all of that up So that morning when I showed up I had a blood alcohol of zero And they didn't want to take me Because I wasn't an alcoholic So my saintly mama Had to put me back in the car Drive to the liquor store We got a pint of vodka I threw it back And off I went And that is my story And fast forward to this past December I had a sponsee that went back out After three years And we went to the same detox facility And knowing that she had been sober For about 12 or 14 hours I had to fire a bottle And put her in my car And drive her to detox And celebrate in the parking lot As she threw that bottle away And I said look I've been here and I've done that And it's the last time that you ever have to drink a bottle of vodka So what happened I decided to do inpatient rehab I knew for me That kind of structure It was either going to jail Or going to rehab And I made that choice And I did it kicking and screaming So I said I wanted to go And then when I got there I fought like hell to get out I had three children at home I fought of every excuse possible But for some reason Only God knows why I stayed And I did And I stayed 16 weeks I got out and stayed sober By the skin of my teeth I mean I did the minimum amount of meetings I worked the steps I did what I was told There's a gentleman in our home group At an AA And I told him just a few minutes ago That I think he scared me sober He said things like Give me 30 days And then I'll gladly Reflange your misery Okay That same guy Also said You know it's the steps It's the steps It's the steps I got a sponsor Not because I wanted to Because they told me to And at that point It was pretty much life or death My first four or five years In sobriety weren't perfect I mean I was just sober Little bits of serenity But not a whole lot And then something happened Around year four And it's probably the major Major part of my story And it's the major part of my story That I reached out To another female alcoholic And I was willing to be a sponsor And everything changed Prior to that I didn't feel worthy I didn't feel like I had the Sobriety And I didn't have a program That anybody else would want to work And this particular person Was desperate And I said well at least I can I can show you What I've done And share my experience with you And the rest is history If you're around the room In Gainesville very often You hear me say those six words Trust God Clean house And serve others The trusting God piece Was pretty difficult to me Because I remember I keep calling back those days Of laying in the bed You know drunk Saying oh God please help me And at this point I'm even saying You know I'm an alcoholic And I don't get this You know I'm asking you for help But where are you? Only to drink again And more and more and more So I was one of those people That arrived on the scene With a belly full of religion But no connection I mean I was ashamed I felt like I felt like I had fallen from grace So rebuilding that spiritual connection Was a big big big piece of my journey Cleaning house Trust God Clean house Serve others It was funny because at five Four or forty five It was a four step meeting And I had a deep dark secret And I whizzed through one two and three pretty well You know I knew I was powerless That alcohol had kicked my booty I knew that there was a power greater than myself I just had to figure out how to reconnect that Yeah I made that decision I didn't have much choice to turn it over But then we got that powerful fourth step And I'm one of those alcoholics that loves To take everybody else's inventory But taking my own was a little different And so But I had a deep secret From those days at Emory I thought it was something that no one could It was actually criminal Imagine that And I had carried that sucker around with me And I'll never forget I had gotten it on paper And hid that paper Until it was time to do that fifth step And we were sitting in my sponsor's home in Buford And I got to that part And I remember shaking I just remember shaking And so then I I read out that deep secret Of what I had done in college To get out of an exam And she just died laughing And I imagine that I mean I set something on fire If you want to know the truth It wasn't just pulling the fire alarm I went ahead and lit the fire So you know I've never been accused of going small When I go I go big And she laughed So as we were talking about that fourth step At the 545 meeting There's not a time that I work With another female alcoholic And I hear a fifth I mean I hear somebody give me their fourth step And a fifth step And I hear something that I go I forgot about that Oh okay You know and by the grace of God I can more easily ask for forgiveness Nowadays Nowadays it comes a little easier Sometimes slower And you know I'm learning more I love the steps I mean I love them When you hear me talk at home And I share and group I mean I love them They're no longer what I have to do They're what I want to do We were talking about defects of character And so this great thing happens in my fifth step And she's laughing at me And I'm feeling the weight off my shoulders And then we got to that part that said I'm not going to do it Entirely ready to have God Remove all our defects of character And I remember thinking I like things I mean you know Is this going to take away my sexual drive Am I going to I remember thinking I want to be one of them I like that happy joyous and free stuff But you know I like I mean I like my judgmentalism I like all that And then you know I had to do my seventh step prayer In little pieces And I shared in 545 You know that part that says Remove those defects of character That would get in your way of service Well I was convinced That I didn't need that area of service But I'd only ask him to remove those That were causing me trouble And you know today I still have to ask him to remove those defects of character Because they pop back up When they're convenient for me And that's just part of who I am And that's part of the reason I keep working With other women Is I have to keep working with them And working those steps over and over And I'm probably like every other Alcoholic out there And I wanted to charge off Especially because what got me to the program Besides the bottom was The damage I'd done with my family And what few friends I had left And with my children And I wanted to rush off and do a ninth step You know I just wanted to make those amends I wanted to say I'm sorry But when I did I wanted you to forgive me Now I don't understand I'm sober Well you've been sober about 32 days And we've heard it before So you know I had to learn That they had to come in order And then somebody told me About something called living amends And I still love those And I still look in my kids' eyes And I still make them live in amends As soon as I tell people That I live two for one You know I'm living two days for every one I am You know I don't regret the past But I don't wish to shut the door on it But I lost a lot of good days drunk Not just a little tipsy But I lost a lot drunk So if my day is full of trusting God Cleaning the house and serving others I am living two for one Today before I came down here I just think this is This is so ironic I laugh I got a badge And this badge It's from the Hall County Jail And I'm a qualified member Of the AA program At the Hall County Jail I mean that is just I mean I just have laughed All the way down here I mean they should be bringing that meeting to me For all practical purposes I mean it's just That is just absolutely Makes me laugh And yeah God does have a sense of humor My service piece That's where I want to get back to Probably about year four or five My first serious sponsee Was an older woman Who had health problems Brought her to the room And it was the biggest privilege Of my life And the way that I got this sponsee Was I told the story Told my story Outside the rooms of AA And if you've never done that That is a very humbling experience Because what I'm talking to you tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking to me tonight When you start talking about steps And cleaning house And losing your judgmentalism Normal folks just sort of glaze over That's something they just don't get But she came to me After sharing outside these rooms And we began working as jets together And I guess looking You know when you look at yourself Or for this alcoholic When I look at myself in the mirror I never see the miracles I mean I never realize How much I've changed How far I've come Or how far down the scale I had gone But having an intimate relationship Where a woman's It was truly life or death She did not stop drinking Her liver was at its end She was going to die And to see the amount of work That she put in this program And to see in 90 days time The turnaround made it all Like the big giant light bulb went off She was a miracle And then all of a sudden I realized you know I'm a miracle too And the program came alive for me And that's when I ramped up my service I shared in a meeting not too long ago That you know they hustle you If there's any newcomers in here Like less than a year You're going to get hustled They're going to hustle you for service They're going to stick you on a committee They're going to make you I guess the old days It was clean ashtrays and do whatever Well before you know it If you stick around here long enough They're going to stick you on some kind of committee And they're going to tell you That you got a It's an important position And my important position Was being secretary of our home group And you know We are still alcoholics And the chair of our home group Had me redo the spreadsheet He needed me to organize the birthdays And to put everybody's addresses And all that in order And I was like I remember emailing I was so excited And I emailed him the spreadsheet And it wasn't the correct format Okay This is my idea of service work So I emailed it back to him And he didn't like that either Third go around I resigned And it took me some years after that To realize that you know that was me He was just asking me to do a task My arrogance got in the way I wanted to do it my way And that kept me From seeing the miracles for several years So today What I'm like now I'm still an alcoholic I still had to do 21 meetings With over 9 years of sobriety I still get crazy I still get judgmental I still get jealous The book lays out those 7 deadly sins And you know the first one is pride And every time I do that Every single time I get wiggy And I know when I have to do this many meetings That my pride steps in the way And part of that goes back to That little girl who never fit in And you know We've all heard that we are Egomaniacs with an inferiority complex Sometimes my egomania shows Sometimes my inferiority shows And I have to check myself And usually When my pride gets in the way That's when I'm feeling so inferior And I have to puff up I end up saying things Far less than what I used to But I end up saying inappropriate things Hurting somebody's feelings And having to go make amends It's far less today Than it has been Back to the steps You see when I first arrived I thought that like you did them And then somebody gave you an award And you were fixed right I thought that you were cured Well my sponsor had a different idea And so she set me on the course Of we continually redid them Something happened in September of last year I disconnected with my sponsor And for those of you in the program Sometimes life just gets in the way And it waxes and it wanes You'll be real tight with the people in the program And then you drift away a little bit Last summer I was in the program I thought that She got busy taking care of her mother Etc, etc And then August I just couldn't get in touch with her Well in September I found out that she went back out And Having a sponsor for 10 years Who had 11 years in the program Was devastating to me Because it sort of rocked my world Because everything I knew Good about this program I saw in her I was working with another woman at the time That had 17 years Clean sober She had been sober since she was 22 or 23 And one weekend she went back out And this all happened within a 6 or 8 week time period And it sort of shook me to the core Because it didn't matter How hard they worked How hard they worked with others How hard they worked with others How hard they worked with other women For this one woman I mean she was on a speaking circuit And how she made a choice one weekend To go back out I just couldn't understand it But When both of them came back in And I also had a sponsor With 3 years to go back out All within this I mean it just really tore me up And talking to all 3 of them They're now back in the program What do you think they said That The first thing Was to happen They stopped going to meetings They stopped going to meetings Of course they had all disconnected from me In some way or form And they all said It's because I was Sneaking around drinking And you know I'm glad to be free of that When we talk about the new freedom And the new happiness I'm glad to be done with sneaking around This pocketbook That big brown pocketbook over there I laughed yesterday And I told a story about how My now husband Thought I was the cheapest drunk around Right? We'd go to the restaurant And order a glass of wine But then me and the pocketbook Would go to the bathroom Me and the pocketbook Used to be full of little mini bottles But me and the pocketbook Graduated to where I'd have the cork plastic vodka bottle Off to the bathroom You know When you talk to women Most of us will say Where'd you hide your bottle? Laundry room We just had a lot of dirty clothes Right? So You know I just don't miss that I don't miss Especially in the end Waking up To have to try to figure out How I could get sober enough To drive to the liquor store You know I never I mean This is what Alcohol was my drug of choice But I'm sure the insanity For anything else Drugs or anything else Is that same obsession That's all I have That's all you think about 24-7 We were talking about the bottles Another little story I moved In 2013 I moved After 20 years In that same house And This is what Makes it raw and real for me We My son had a big Oak roll top desk And it had been modified So that The tower Computer tower Was slot in and out of the drawer So That night He was 16 at the time I pulled the drawer out And there was a half gallon of vodka So for a split second I said Is it his Or was it mine So I went downstairs And he came up And he looked me in the eye And he said Mama One night I had all I could take I said a lot of years This is six years Into my sobriety I had all I could take Mama I poured it out And hit the bottle Took my breath away But what happened next Really surprised me Took the bottle out Had a handle It was glass And I walked around the house with it For about 30 minutes You know they say It's our lover And our best friend I felt that security Of that bottle And it scared me Spitless My husband walked up Said I'll take the bottle We put it away And I think that night Was so powerful I mean I wouldn't I don't think there was any way You could have poured it down My throat But that feeling Of warmth And security Came back over me And I knew It was time to step up My game again So I'm working with other women I'm doing step work I'm upping my meeting But that was a stark reminder That I'm still in love With that bottle As much damage as it did It took away a husband It almost took away a business It took away a home And I held that bottle With love and care And I said Love and affection This disease Is insidious It is cunning It is baffling And it is powerful And I stand here today As hard as I work this program And I can still tell you I do not know how it works But it works If you work it And I still have to work it All the time Thank you for asking me To speak tonight I know there's plenty Y'all can talk about Once I sit down But I'm going to talk about I tell everybody When I talk to them If this alcoholic Drinking a half a gallon of vodka And this is what I looked like Those last few months And I'm so vain That I had a lady I paid a lady To come help with the children And she would get me up in the morning Shuffle me to the bathroom Stand me in the shower Because I was sure I was going to die Because that's what I wanted But by golly I was going to be clean In my pose on the bed You know Now that's pure vanity Pride and ego Kicking your butt It was Christmas Before I got sober And she said Would you please Get out of the bed And let's walk to the mall She stood me up I walked from here to there And I hit my knees I mean that's How far down the scale I had gone I held that bottle And I loved it That stinking bottle After not being able to walk More than six feet Again It is cunning It is baffling And it is powerful But the only thing that works For this alcoholic Is this Trusting God Cleaning house All the time I love to judge me Some other people And that is something That I think I'll For my last breath Because all that is Is that little Inferiority Complex Kicking my butt Working with other women And I hated women When I got to this program I see these women going Yes Give me a men's group And I was right at home But I have come to cherish My women's group We're about 50 strong We meet three mornings a week And you know It's changed my life It's changed my life It's changed my life And I have kids So at this point I'll turn it back over to you Thank you so much That was fabulous I'm a judge middle too And I'm judging That you're an excellent speaker So thank you Thank you I'm going to ask Karen To come up and do this Hi everybody I'm Karen And I'm definitely an alcoholic And I don't need to stand That close to this thing Here We have a chip system To mark our time And sobriety The first time I saw you First off The first chip we offer Is a white chip And that's If you went out And got yours wet Or perhaps you want to join us For the very first time Pick up a white chip We have silver For 30 days Anybody else for a silver chip? We offer a red chip For 90 days Anybody else for a red chip? Yellow for six months Green for nine months And blue for years and multiples Hey all I'm Tinsley I'm an alcoholic And it's an honor To be asked To give out A chip A medallion A birthday medallion To somebody An Alcoholics Anonymous It's a real honor Tonight I'm honored To give my friend Julie her medallion And Julie tells it like it is And she does the deal People who do the deal Get the benefits And the benefit is Twofold Sobriety and happiness So I'm not going to tell you What she does But I'm going to give her A medallion And tell her I love her very much Yes I'm Julie I'm an alcoholic And this is number 22 Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! That's just it I have no idea How that worked How it happened I just know That I followed The directions I became a human being It was great Because before I was Came in here I was either subhuman Or superhuman Now I get to just be human And I really Really appreciate that Because that makes me Able to go outside And be in society With the rest of the humans I was unable to do that To me meetings Are very very important And working with other people And making sure That I'm in touch With an alcoholic Every day in some way I do still go to A whole lot of meetings Not because God gave me All 24 hours back I say that all the time I spent so much time Drinking Planning drinking Getting over drinking Having 24 hours in a day Is just such a gift And you alluded to it too What else Go to a meeting For an hour a day That's no big deal And then I just go to them Because I love to go to them now Because I love all of you Very very very much And you are Very instrumental In keeping me sober On an everyday basis So thank you Anybody else For a blue chip No? Okay Can we offer the white chip Just one more time Because we are All worthy of a second chance God for the chips you hold I also keep coming back to meetings Because I hear something new Every single time I never heard that If you went out And got a white chip Your white chip went I never I like that And I've been to thousands Of AAB I haven't heard that one Thank you one and all For joining the Blue Chip Speakers Meeting tonight Just another Homesick child I've got I can't make it Through this If the Strap Gets it Less than Spoken Tonight