She Should Get an Academy Award for the Early Days – Pat Y.

Celebrities would break their anonymity at the public level. You know, I would just be highly, how dare they? And it's easy to be indignant about that. I'm not a celebrity. I'm never likely to be asked to do such a thing or be put in such a position. So it's easier to be, you know, kind of judgmental on that one. But I didn't see any of the others as having anything to do with me. They're the group or AA as a whole. This incident really made me take a closer look at that. If, in fact, the group or AA as a whole is required to do something or not do something as the case may be, that means there's some responsibility and there for me too because after all what is the group or AA as a whole it's me and you and you and you and in this particular instance of course the issue is I did not make AA a very attractive place to this family which it specifically says in our traditions it is a program of attraction I did NOT make it attractive for that family I have had the opportunity on subsequent jobs to be a much better example of alcoholics and honest as a matter of fact I was talking at a meeting last week and a woman was there who was sober had just celebrated 10 years of sobriety and she was somebody who came to who wanted to get sober and knew me from work and came and talked to me I'm not taking any credit for her responsibility for her sobriery but she knew that I was sober and came to talk to me apparently because I made it look like maybe it was something she might want to do and she just celebrated ten years then she went off told her to go to a meeting and she did that and she's sober ten years and so I feel a lot better about that although there's no way to really erase what I did to that other family Anyway, I kept on. You know, I have no idea how long I've talked with all these little breaks we've had in here. I don't know. When you get tired, just wave a white flag or something. Or I should start filing out. I'll try to wrap it up. I don' t know. We' ll wing it here. I want to talk about this. Aside from my... Well, I never finished up with my husband, did I? I always do that. And then people go, well, now is that Vince? And I go, no, no. I better do this. You might hear the tape. When I was a year and a half sober, my sponsor drank. And I remember being really annoyed. I took it all very personally. How dare she do this to me? God, I'm so selfish and self-centered. But I got a new sponsor by necessity. And this new sponsor was sober a long time. And I wanted what this woman had, which was happy, joyous sobriety. I wasn't even close and I was whining and sniveling around the meetings and you know doing the best that I could but it wasn't very good it really wasn't and this new sponsor said to me you know Pat I have watched you snivel about this husband for the moment you walked in this door I'm just sick to death of hearing about it I want you a day at a time to act as though just pretend that you are a kind and loving wife I did not see the point my idea was hey I'm still young why don't I get out of this marriage while I'm Still Young and Attractive and have some years ahead of me I mean why kill any more time in this marriage that is so clearly dead I mean there is no love here he doesn't love me I don't love him we don't even like each other very much and I don' t see the point of hanging around here let's get on you know with life and she said no I don''t I don'T think that's a good idea she said you got a lot of amends to make there you got a lot years of cheating and a lot of bad stuff you did in that marriage most of which incidentally he didn't know about but I knew about it you know and there didn't seem to be any good way to me to make amends for that stuff the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear You can't go home and confess infidelities to a spouse that didn't know about them just to sort of clear your conscience and work a step. You know, that's not the way it works. And she said to me that day, you know, maybe if you just a day at a time act as though you are a kind and loving wife, maybe then if you do have to walk away from this marriage somewhere down the road, you might be able to do it without any guilt because maybe you'll be ableto make some amends a dayatatime to this guy. It was not an attractive idea. I was not interested in doing it, but I wanted this woman to be my sponsor and I wanted what she had and so I became willing to try it. I started watching couples in AA and how they treated each other and the kinds of things they did and some of it I thought was just awful. But I took what I could and took it home with me and started trying to act as though I were a kind and loving wife and it really was, I mean I should get an Academy Award for those early days really and truly because I didn't feel it, you know, I really didn't feeling it at all. My first direction was in that regard was to every day when he came home from work I was to sit down with him and ask him how his day was and look at him and listen while he told me and I wasn't interested in his day at all but I did it I remember the first time I did that and I said so how was your day and he looked kind of surprised that I was asking you know and so he told me a couple things that had happened at work that day and you know little anecdotes about people at work or whatever and they didn't make much sense to me because I didn't really know the people he was talking about but when the ten minutes were up which is what my sponsor told me I had to listen for I left the room but I felt a little better driving to the understand for a long time. And we had the same fight that night when I left for the meeting that we always had when I went for a meeting, but I felt a little better that night. It took me a long time to understand why I felt better. Nothing had changed except something had changed. I had moved from the problem into the solution, you know? And I always feel better when I get into the solution no matter where the problem, what the status of the problem is. I started, as I said, taking things home with me that I saw you do with each other and the way you treated your spouses and I tried to treat them in a kind and loving manner and it was hard some days I wasn't very good at all and other days I was better and time passed one night I was on my knees saying those simple little prayers that I said dear God thank you for keeping me sober today and I started to get up and I realized that I was comfortable in that house with that husband and I couldn't believe it it didn't happen that day it had already happened and I missed it. This is like the biggest problem in my life and I miss when it went away. I was absolutely thunderstruck. I got back down on my knees like, okay, it must have been yesterday. No, yesterday was comfortable too. Last Tuesday was comfortable. I mean, I don't know when this happened but it happened. I got backed down on me and I thanked God for this new feeling that I had. You know, I remember I said something like, God, thanks. You know? This is really great. I really believe if you mean for me to stay married to this man that I could do that and stay sober and have a happy life and thanks you know I really was and then I spent the rest of the evening trying to think yeah last week was good I think the week before and you're trying to track down that moment I don't know when I still don't know when it doesn't matter it doesn' t matter you know what's so great about this stuff these steps and everything is that if you're busy in the solution you literally obviously can forget about the problem before it even goes away that's clearly what happened in this case and in other cases that have happened in my life, you know. Not too long after that we found out that my husband had cancer and my very first reaction to that was, boy, I wish this would have happened when I really hated him. See, right away I think of me. I'm selfish and self-centered and my every first thought, sorry, you're going to die, dear, but what about me? How's this going to affect me? I don't like this about me, but it's who I am. What I did, the good news, is I just kept acting the way I'd been acting, you Know. He was sick for a year and a half and he did die and it was hard it was a hard year and a half no question about it it was the hardest year and a Half of my sobriety but it was also up to that point the best year and a Hal and if you're new there's no way I can explain this to you it just was it was certainly the best year and a Half of our marriage by a million miles it had every other year beat and that was because of you because you taught me how to do this you know I was very glad that whole year I was very glad that I was there when he needed me to be unbelievable you know what I mean he knew that I was there because not just because he was sick and dying but because I wanted to be there because I had consistently been there in a kind and loving manner for for quite a long while before he got sick when he died I went down a little chapel and I made some funeral arrangements and the day of the funeral came and a couple hundred people from Alcoholics Anonymous showed up and those people didn't know him they never met him but they came of course that day because they they knew that i would need them and which of course I did. I realized sitting in that chapel that day that what my sponsor had promised me had happened. The guilt was gone. Apparently, I had made my amends to this man. I felt, of course, very sad that day but I didn't feel guilty about my part in our relationship. I felt clean and whole and 100% current and happy with the way I had behaved in that marriage for the last number of years. I can tell you this that I was that day and remain to this very instant so grateful that I was willing to listen to my sponsor and do it her way. If I had done it my way, which was let's get out while I'm still young and have my whole life ahead of me, I would have missed all of this. I would've missed being able to make amends to that man and I wouldve missed also learning how to be a wife. You know, today I married to Vince who a lot of you know and he's a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have a good life together and a good marriage and a happy time together and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt from my perspective of this relationship that it would not possibly happen if I hadn't learned the tools there with my late husband. There's no question about it. When you're new, or even not so new, I guess, and your sponsor gives you direction and you're doing something, you can't see the long-term effect of it. My sponsor had me doing things that I was new that seemed so stupid to me. We're talking about sobriety here and she's having me do things as near as I can tell are making my life worse and I couldn't see the point. Now, with the perspective of some time, I can see that those little things affected my life at three months of sobriety and three years of sobrietty and 13 years of sobretty and 17 and a half years of sobietty and I assume 50 years of sobrietcy if one stays. You know, it's like this ripple effect is how I think of it. You do it today and it has this continuing effect on your life assuming that you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous and keep applying the principles of this program to your life. My sponsor had me doing stuff when I was new that, you know, I told you my husband's fighting with me all the time about going to meetings. It's bad enough I have to go to the meetings, but now I've got to get there an hour early. It's very hard for me to explain to him why I have to get here an hour earlier because I don't really understand it myself. There's 300 people there. Why can't one of them make the coffee? You know, I mean, it's causing me so much trouble. How about a single person that it wouldn't cause any trouble to? I mean this makes so much sense to me. Why can she see it now as if this isn't bad enough? We're going back when I'm really new here. She tells me now that once a week on Thursdays I have to pick these two old ladies up and take them to the meeting. Their names were Claire and Zelda, I swear to you, they were 120 years old each. They were old and they lived not at all conveniently to where I lived, which meant I now had to leave even earlier because I had to go by and get the... I couldn't like count that as part of the hour, you know what I mean? I hadto like pick them ahead of time and get... And I was not pleased and I guess I picked them up for about a year or maybe longer and I don't think there was probably a Thursday that went by that I didn't call my sponsor at some time during the day to try to weasel my way out of it. Well, you know, I might have to work late tonight and she made me do it and then of course that means I get home later too because I leave the meeting and now I have to go out of my way to drive them home and then my husband's annoyed and I mean, I don't understand this. This doesn't make any sense to me at all but I did it and I hated those women. Every time I pulled up in front of their apartment building I hated them. Every time they got in my car I hated him. Every time he got in every time they got out of my car I was relieved and I hated them And one night I went to pick them up. I'd been doing it for a long time and went to picked them up and Zelda was sick and couldn't go to the meeting so Claire got in the car and we went to the meet and dropped her back home later and the next day I found myself thinking about Zelda and wondering if she was okay. About noon I actually called her just to make sure she was all right and I couldn't believe I was doing that. I don't like this woman. What do I care if she's sick? But I cared about her. I somehow started caring about Zelda and I called her up to make she was going to be okay. I called to make sure she would be okay I believe that taking Claire and Zelda to those meetings was the beginning of me learning how to be a friend. You know, I really believe that that was the very beginning and I didn't even know it. I think I cared about Zelda before I ever cared about anybody else. You know I sort of made a little friend there in my first year of sobriety too. My first friend's name was Betty and she was about my age and about my agent sobriete as well and we talked a lot on the phone and kind of knew everything about each other and Betty was, when we first got sober she was overweight and during the course of that first year of sobriety she'd lost quite a bit of weight. You know how when you see somebody every day and they're losing weight you notice it but not as much as if you maybe hadn't seen them in a while and you get the impact and so I was aware that she was losing weight but I hadn't really thought that much about it and that's nice but I had not really given it that much thought but this particular day she was walking towards me from across the room and it just struck me that day my god she's lost a lot of weight she looks fabulous and I felt happy for her you know I'm not the kind of a woman who feels happy when other women lose weight I'm just not and I was so happy and I knew that somewhere in there I'd learn to be a friend to Betty and I believe again that it started with Claire and Zelda I really believe that I didn't know when I was picking up Claire and Zelda that I was learning how to be friends I thought I was just being put upon but in fact I was learned how to become a friend And so everything I've been taught to do has had this, as I say, this sort of ripple effect in my life and is benefiting me today and my sobriety today. My sponsor told me when I was early on that I'm really kind of jumping around here. I don't usually do this, but it must be the rain. She told me what I was brand new that at every meeting I had to go to, I had asked three people, three women, for their phone numbers and then call them the next day. And I did not want to do this. I had a hard enough time calling her. the idea of calling three strange women I couldn't, oh man it was awful so I could get your number from you I didn't have too much trouble doing that but then the next day I would sit in front of that phone just sweating thinking about picking up that phone and dialing what am I going to say after hello how are you I don't know how to talk to people so I'd breathe deeply for a few minutes and I'd dial the number and you'd answer and I would go see I always thought you wouldn't know who I was so I would think about hi I'm the one who cries all the time at meetings and you would have known immediately who I was but I never thought of that so I'd go hi my name is Pat I have long brown hair and glasses I mentioned the meeting last night you gave me your phone number my sponsor told me I had to call three people every day so you're one of them how are you today and everybody was completely nice to me everybody said oh fine Pat how areyou and would talk to me for a few minutes and tell me to have a nice day and hang up and then I'd call the second one and I hated doing that and I could not understand what the point was I mean I talked to my friend Betty and I talked to my sponsor every day why do I need to call these practically strangers I mean, what's the point? Well, I'll tell you. I found out the point when I was three and a half years sober when my husband was laying in that hospital dying. I found OUT the point one day. I was at the hospital and it was a particularly bad day and I thought I better... I mean I was as crazy as I have ever been and I was in that waiting room in intensive care which is maybe the dreariest place on earth. You know, it's like a different world. You get to meet other families and you hang out there together. It's like you're not in this world. And I'm hanging out in that intensive care waiting room and the news was particularly not good that day and I was just nuts. So I stepped into the phone booth there and I called my sponsor and she wasn't home. And so all the dime came back out and I put the dime back in and I told my friend Betty and she didn't know and she called Betty and he called Betty and she was like, oh my God, she wasn' t home. It was like a nice summer day and they were all at the beach I guess or something but I stood in that phone booth and I kept putting that dime in and I called 11 people before I found somebody at home, and never for a moment did I think of stepping out of that phone booth and giving up because I had been so well-trained to make the phone call that when the time came when I really needed to make the phone calls, I just stayed in that booth and kept putting that dime back in until I found someone who was home. And the person who was at home turned out to be somebody I didn't know. By now, I'm just leafing through my phone book. I'm calling the next number on the list. If you're an AA, you're getting a call from me, man or woman, it doesn't matter. I just need to talk to somebody. The person I eventually got was somebody I hardly knew but was the exact right person who had exactly the right thing to say to me that particular day. So again, you know, it's that you just don't know the stuff you're doing when you're new how it's going to affect you. I'm going to talk about one other thing and then I think I surely it must be time to sit down. When I got sober I really hated my stepfather and I actually had very good reason to hate him and anybody would agree, I thought. it's not something that I had ever discussed with any excuse me with anybody because it in fact was one of those secrets that I'd grown up with you know the ones you're going to take to your grave by the time I had taken my was getting ready to take my inventory my fourth step fourth and fifth step I I'd been sober a few months and I'd be I'd have been around here long enough to see that you took thorough inventories which I knew what thorough meant it meant these secrets you know and i could see that you did that and you felt better and you got better and i wanted to do that i just knew that i couldn't i would um my sponsors told me to start writing my inventory and so what i started doing was laying in bed at night and and thinking about reading my inventory out loud to her the secrets reading these you know these secrets out loud where i knew i couldn'T do it if you're new or if you'RE getting ready to take your inventory I'd like to give you a little piece of advice. It's a very bad idea if you're working on your fourth step to lay in bed at night in the dark and imagine taking your fifth step. It's not a good idea. It's very bad. I could not write a word. I just would think about these secrets and I was a crazy woman and finally I decided I'm just going to write those secrets down. I'm not just not going to read her that part but I'm going to right them down and maybe I can stay sober by doing that. I'll have a thorough inventory I just won't thoroughly read it and so I wrote those secrets down. Of course, once I got the secrets down, the rest of it came fairly easily. And I finished the inventory and my sponsor said, come over next Tuesday night and read it to me. And my heart was pounding. But I thought, OK, this is cool. She doesn't know what's in there. I mean, there's enough other bad stuff in there she'll assume that's my secret. You know what I mean? And so she will never know. And so I went if you're new, by the way, she'll know. I'll tell you, I've heard inventories and I've known I've know that they weren't telling me everything. I mean, I don't know how I know. I'm not some wise person. I've just known, you know? Anyway, I drove over to her house and the secrets of course were the first couple of paragraphs in this inventory so I sat down and opened up my little notebook and I put my finger where I wanted to start reading because I didn't want to make a mistake and get up in that upper paragraph there and I'm ready to start reading below those secrets and my sponsor said, well now, wait a minute, before we get started maybe we should get on our knees here and say a little prayer. And I was a little bit embarrassed because I never prayed in anyone's living room before but okay and so I got on my knees and she said something like dear God please help Pat be honest tonight. I don't quite know how she knew I was not planning to be honest but she seemed to know and I read the whole thing. I read those and I'll tell you it took me longer to read these two little paragraphs worth of secrets than did pages and pages that came after because I just choked and cried and carried on so but I did it and she shared with me similar experiences from her life that made me feel not quite so alone when I drove away from her house when I left that night she told me to go home just as it describes in the big book to review what I had done you know that I was building a foundation here I wanted to make sure that I hadn't left anything out and then to take the sixth and seventh step as it described in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and as I was driving home from her home I felt on the one hand good that I had told these secrets and sort of a little bit of relief, not a lot. I felt committed to Alcoholics Anonymous for sure because I knew I'd done something that was absolutely impossible to do. But I also felt really exposed. I remember thinking, God, this woman now really knows some stuff about me. What if she gets drunk? What if She tells somebody my stuff? She did get drunk. She never told anybody my stuff. I've told rooms full of people my stuff since then. I mean, you know, these secrets just don't haunt me like they used to. They're not secrets anymore. You know, they're just not. So I'm done with this inventory and I think now back to my stepfather that this is the end of it. It's like, okay, I told, you Know, that's the end of that except it wasn't. The longer I stayed sober, the more I thought about it. The longer I stayed sober kind of the bigger it got in my mind and to make a long story short, the bottom line here is I don't want to drink over and it seemed to me every time I went to a meeting while I was going through this period and this always happens to me when I'm going through something. Whatever it is I'm doing, whatever it is I'm talking about at the meeting that night and what I was hearing at every meeting I'm telling you not one was missed at every single meeting somebody said resentments kill alcoholics particularly justifiable resentment. It seemed like they were looking at me right in the eye and saying it to me and it was making me crazy. I knew I had to get rid of this resentment but I didn't know how. I started getting on my knees every night and praying about it. Dear God please take this resentment away and nothing happened if you're new my experience is this and everything I say by the way is just my experience I'm not any kind of an expert here you know everything is just my own opinion based on my experience I'm right but no I'm write for me I'm writ for me my experience has been that I cannot get on my knees and say a prayer and then get up off my knees and have anything at all happen there is always something in there that I need to be doing as it turns out what works for me is to get on my knees and say the prayer ask for God's help and then get up and do whatever the footwork is that needs to be doing and that goes right back to that very early prayer that we all said dear God please help me not drink the action was to call the Alcoholics Anonymous and come to the first meeting there was always an action so I'm on my knee all the time praying about this resentment and it occurred to me maybe there's an action here too and so I talked to my sponsor about it and she said you know Pat you're going to have to make amends to him whoa i don't think so don't you remember my inventory have you forgotten i mean i don' t think so i think he should be making amends to me and she said well we're not his sponsor we're your sponsor and uh we think you should make amends to him and i couldn't see i mean i really couldn't see it she's wrong this time i mean i was just a little kid you know i really am the victim here i really am can't you see this i mean what's wrong with you here And she said, Pat, forget what he has done. Put it aside for a minute. Look at where you weren't a good stepdaughter to this man. She said, you know, I'm sorry to say I waited until I was several years sober to do this. She said you've started making amends to your mother for the stuff you did to your mother, the grief, the anguish, the worry, the stuff we put our mothers through. She said your stepfather was living in the house all the time you were causing your mother that grief. Perhaps he was a little concerned and worried too when you're getting arrested and causing all your trouble. Why don't you start with sort of the list of things you used with your mother? Why don'T you start there and make your amends from that perspective? Forget what he did. That's not our business. I mean, that's all I can think about is, you know, I'm a victim here. Why should I be making amends to him? The bottom line here is I don't want to drink. So I became willing to do it. I didn't see how this was possibly going to work. But they lived about 50 miles away. I drove out there one day and I sat down and had a little talk with him and I said, you know, I know I've been a pretty lousy stepdaughter. I know it caused a lot of trouble in this house and I'm really sorry and I wish I could change it all. I can't change what I've done but I certainly can try to be a better stepfather and stepdaughter from this point forward and nice talking to you and I left. I left right away because I was afraid that if I hung around very long I might wander off into discussing his shortcomings and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear on this subject that it's not our business and I knew that if i did that I had the feeling it would negate the whole thing and I'd have to start from scratch again and I did not really want to have to do this so anyway, I had this little talk with him and I left and I'm driving back home and I thought, well these steps don't work not in every area of my life as you promised because I've done it and I still feel as bad as I ever did I still hate him as much as I never did I missed kind of an important point there for a while and that is that I hadn't made amends to him saying you're sorry is just sort of the announcement that there's an amend to come you know I mean it's important don't misunderstand me it's important to have the conversation, but the real amend is in fact being a kind and loving stepdaughter. I didn't really think I could do that. You know, I really did not think I Could do it. But I tried. And I started again, just like I did with my late husband. I started watching you and talking to you about things that you did for your fathers and trying to take some of that home with me and do it the first thing that I did whenever I called my mother, which was every week at least, if he answered the phone instead of saying, let me talk to mom, I would say hello how are you let me talk to mom which may not sound like a very big deal but it was a very Big Deal it was I would be sweating when I'm adults and I really what I was so uncomfortable talking to him but I did it and then I thought well I didn't I shouldn't say I thought people like my sponsor told me and then i thought it a kind of loving daughter might actually chat with him about a thing or two and so I would think of a couple of topics of conversation before I dialed the phone that I thought I might be able to chat with them about I was very uncomfortable talking to him at all. But if I'd seen a movie that week, that was a good topic. Current events were good, world events, whatever. So I would do that and I'd try to chat with him a little bit. Christmas was coming up that year that I first started doing this and a woman in a meeting who I barely knew said to me, you know Pat, a kind and loving daughter would not pick up a shirt on Christmas Eve and have the store wrap it and give that as your gift. A kind and living daughter might actually put a little thought into a gift and i thought well that's true and so i went down to a shopping mall and i was walking around looking for something that that he might like or use or appreciate and i have no he really was a hard person to buy for even if you like him you know i mean really and uh i went into a needlepoint shop and they had this thing on the wall a thing to needlepoint and frame to hang on the wall of saying about fathers and daughters i want to tell you a sickening saying about fathers just to oh yeah I thought I can't I can do it this thing just like followed me around this needlepoint shop and okay I'll buy it I bought it I did it you know needlepoint takes a lot of hours actually needlepoint isn't my strongest suit either so it took me longer than it might have most and but I did my very nicest work it really came out lovely and I wrapped it up real nice and took it down there at Christmas and there was a moment a spiritual experience, in fact. I don't usually do this. When he opened that up, he got a tear in his eye. Now, that's all. It doesn't sound like much. It was a lot. It was a lot. I knew in that second, just in that little millisecond, that I was on the right track. I knew in that little split second that if I kept trying to do what I was trying to do here, that God would make this resentment bearable enough that I would not have to pick up a drink over it. Understand that I still hated him that moment as much as I had ever hated him. I just knew in that little split second that somehow, if I kept trying to do this, trying to make this amend, God would make it okay. That little second kept me going a long time. It really did. It kept me doing it for a long, long time and it kept me going a long while. A few years later he was in the hospital and I went down to visit him and I was sitting by his bedside chatting with him rather comfortably now that I think about it. And they announced the visiting hours were over and I got up to leave and I bent over and kissed him on the forehead and I said goodbye, I love you. And that's impossible. And the truth of the matter is I did love him and I don't know how that happened. It's impossible. You can't get from there to here. You just can't. But I had. You know what I felt for him walking out of that hospital that day with a lot of compassion. He was a, I know we're not supposed to pronounce other people alcoholics, but he was an alcoholic and he never got sober and you know, I think he was doing the best he could my whole life. I think that I think he was doing the best he could with what he had to work with. I really believe that. I prayed from that moment forward from that day in the hospital that God would help him and protect him and love him. In that moment of silence that we have for the alcoholic who's still suffering at the end of the meeting 12-stepping because I do not think he would have heard it from me. You know, I just knew that he would not have heard it from my brother. As a matter of fact, his own brother had tried to 12-step him some years before and really turned him off to the whole notion of it. I think we have to be real careful with family members. Anyway, some years went by and, you know, I just kept doing what I was doing and, of course, it was a lot easier because my feelings towards him had changed. You know? A few years ago, I gave him... I was in Yosemite and one of my very happiest childhood memories of my whole life was a vacation that my mother and stepfather and brother and I took to Yosemite one year. And one of the things that we did on that trip was we hiked up to Vernal Falls, which is kind of a strenuous hike and a beautiful sight and so on. And it's just truly one of the most joyous memories of my entire childhood. And so while I was at Yosimite, Ansel Adams has this studio there where he sells his stuff and he had this picture of Vernal Fall, this falls that we hiked. And so it was way more money than I should have spent, but I had to buy it. I bought it, and I gave it to him for Christmas that year. And with it, I wrote on the card pretty much what I just said to you, that this was like the happiest memory of my childhood, and so on and so forth, and so one and so. And I gave him that gift. And, of course, he hung the picture right away. It was a beautiful picture. He hung the figure right away, but I noticed a year later when I was down there visiting one time that the card where I'd written this message was still sitting on the table by his chair where he sat, and it was all dog-eared. And, you know, he obviously picked that up every day and read it. You know, the thought, I can't believe I'm doing this. This just makes me crazy. The card meant as much as the gift. It really did. You know? Saying the feelings. My stepfather committed suicide two years ago. And, um, you don't know. So, the day that he did that, Actually, he jumped off of their house and he died a week later. He was in the hospital and he dieed a week after that. The first thing that happened that day is that my mother called me, which is a miracle in itself. My mother called immediately because she knew that I would be of comfort and help to her. That's a miracle right there. I tormented my mother for years with drunken phone calls in the middle of the night and with worry and anguish and fear for what was happening to my life. Things have turned around so much that I am the first person she calls when she needs help. What an amazing thing. And I went down there, and of course I was able to be of service to her. And I would go every day, and I would sit by his hospital bed for a moment. I do not think he knew us from after the first day, but I would Sit for a few minutes by his bedside and say a little prayer, and then I would Go do whatever I could do for my mother. You know, there was never a time during that week, or in fact since then, where I wished that he would have wakened up so I could have said something because I didn't need to say anything. Everything that I needed to say to him had been said a long, long time ago. You know, my amends were made. I was absolutely 100% current with him. What a miracle. When I started, when my sponsor told me I had to make amends to that man, I could not possibly see why she would tell me to do such a terrible thing to such an awful man. Why in the world would she give me such a horrible direction? If you're new, I would beg of you, do not question this stuff. Just do it. Just do It. you cannot possibly see your life clearly. You simply can't. My husband says it, and he says it so well. We are a group of people who admittedly cannot handle our own problems but would be happy to take yours on. And if you're smart, you will let us because I can see you. I can See Your Life Clearly. You especially, Linda. But I can't... It scares me. But I Can't See Mine At All. I'm almost 18 years sober but I still need a sponsor and I talk to my sponsor a lot you know I remember the last direction I didn't much care for from her I mean the one I really you know I thought God she still doesn't understand I was like 17 16 and a half years sober and I thought she didn't hear me I better run it by her again and I said wait a minute Pat what are you doing just do it and I just did it and I felt better if you're new I beg you to stay here on Alcoholics Anonymous I beg of you to get a sponsor get one now if you don't I think sure everybody in here has one I mean that you wouldn't possibly let somebody in your meeting without a sponsor would you but if there's somebody in here who is not a member of this home group I would beg you to stay here I usually when I talk say if you don't like this meeting go to another one get it find a home group you like how could you not like this group I mean if you do not like it your judgment is poor you do know what you are thinking anyway so really I'm so happy to be sober you know, I feel the way that man Norm felt at that first meeting I feel the way he described and sounded like I feel happy and joyous most of the time my life is not perfect right now fear of financial insecurity is one of the ones that's come back to haunt me again and again and it's back right now and that's okay I know in my heart of hearts that whatever's supposed to be is going to be If the things that I'm afraid of financially right now happen, there'll be something else down the path, some different way for us to go that we haven't even thought of yet. Something new and better because that's always been the case. It's always Been the Case. God's never taken anything away that something new and bitter hasn't been put in its place. If you're new, I hope you stay here on Alcoholics Anonymous and thank you for listening. Celebrities would break their anonymity at the public level. You know, I would just be highly, how dare they? and it's easy to be indignant about that I'm not a celebrity I'm never likely to be asked to do such a thing or be put in such a position so it's easier to be kind of judgmental on that one but I didn't see any of the others as having anything to do with me they're the group or AA as a whole this incident really made me take a closer look at that if in fact the group or AA is a whole is required to do something or not do something as the case may be that means there's some responsibility in there for me too because after all what is the group or AA has a whole it's me and you and you and you and you, you know. And in this particular instance, of course, the issue is I did not make AA a very attractive place to this family, which it specifically says in our traditions that it's a program of attraction. I did Not Make It Attractive for That Family. I have had the opportunity on subsequent jobs to be a much better example of alcoholics and honest. As a matter of fact, I was talking at a meeting last week, and a woman was there who was sober, had just celebrated 10 years of sobriety, and she was somebody who came who wanted to get sober and knew me from work and came and talked to me. I'm not taking any credit or responsibility for her sobriety, but she knew that I was sober and came to talk to me apparently because I made it look like maybe it was something she might want to do and she just celebrated 10 years and then she went off and told her to go to a meeting and she did that and she's sober 10 years and so I feel a lot better about that although there's no way to really erase what I did to that other family. Anyway, you know, I kept on. And I, you know, I have no idea how long I've talked with all these little breaks we've had in here. You know, when you get tired, just wave a white flag or something. Or as you start filing out, I'll try to wrap it up. I don't know. We'll wing it here. I want to talk about this. My, aside from my, well, I never finished up with my husband, did I? I always do that. And then people go, well now was that Vince? And I go, no, no. I better do this. You might hear the tape. When I was a year and a half sober, my sponsor drank. And I remember being really annoyed. I took it all very personally. How dare she do this to me? God, I'm so selfish and self-centered. But I got a new sponsor by necessity. And this new sponsor was sober a long time. And I wanted what this woman had, which was happy, joyous sobriety. I wasn't even close. And I was whining and sniveling around the meetings and doing the best that I could, but it wasn't very good. It really wasn't. And this new sponsor said to me, you know, Pat, I have watched you snivel about this husband for the moment you walked in this door. I'm just sick to death of hearing about it. I want you a day at a time to act as though, just pretend that you are a kind and loving wife. I did not see the point. My idea was, hey, I'm still young. Why don't I get out of this marriage while I'm Still Young and Attractive and have some years ahead of me? I mean, why kill any more time in this marriage that is so clearly dead? I mean there is no love here. He doesn't love me. I don't love him we don't even like each other very much and I don' t see the point of hanging around here let's get on you know with life and she said no I don''t I don'T think that's a good idea she said you got a lot of amends to make there you got a lot years of cheating and a lot of bad stuff you did in that marriage most of which incidentally he didn't know about but I knew about it you know and there didn't seem to be any good way to me to make amends for that stuff the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear you can't go home and confess infidelities to a spouse that didn't know about them just to sort of clear your conscience and work a step. You know, that's not the way it works. And she said to me that day, you know, maybe if you just, a day at a time, act as though you are a kind and loving wife, maybe then if you do have to walk away from this marriage somewhere down the road, you might be able to do it without any guilt because maybe you'll be able make some amends a day-at-a-time to this guy. It was not an attractive idea. I was not interested in doing it. But I wanted this woman to be my sponsor, and I wanted what she had, and so I became willing to try it. And I started watching couples in AA and how they treated each other and the kinds of things they did. And some of it I thought was just awful. But I took what I could and took it home with me and started trying to act as though I were a kind and loving wife. And it really was, I mean, I should get an Academy Award for those early days, really and truly, because I didn't feel it. You know, I really didn't feeling it at all. My first direction was, in that regard, was to every day when he came home from work, I was to sit down with him and ask him how his day was and look at him and listen while he told me. and I wasn't interested in his day at all but I did it I remember the first time I did and I said so how was your day and he looked kind of surprised that I was asking you know and so he told me a couple of things that had happened at work that day and you know little anecdotes about people at work or whatever and they didn't make much sense to me because I didn't really know the people he was talking about but when the ten minutes were up which is what my sponsor told me I had to listen for I left the room but I felt a little better driving to the meeting that night and I didn' t understand for a long time And we had the same fight that night when I left for the meeting that we always had when I went to the meeting. But I felt a little better that night. It took me a long time to understand why I felt better. Nothing had changed except something had changed. I had moved from the problem into the solution, you know? And I always feel better when I get into the situation no matter where the problem, what the status of the problem is. I started, as I said, taking things home with me that I saw you do with each other and the way you treated your spouses and I tried to treat him in a kind and loving manner. And it was hard, you know. Some days I wasn't very good at all and other days I was better. And time passed, you now, time passed. One night I was on my knees saying those simple little prayers, you know, that I said, Dear God, thank you for keeping me sober today. Amen. And I started to get up and I realized that I was comfortable in that house with that husband and I couldn't believe it. You know, it didn't happen that day. It had already happened and I missed it. It was like the biggest problem in my life and I miss when it went away. I was absolutely thunderstruck. I got back down on my knees. I was like, okay, it must have been yesterday. No, yesterday was comfortable too. Last Tuesday was comfortable. I mean, I don't know when this happened, you know, but it happened. I got Back Down On My Knees and I thanked God for this new feeling that I had. You know, I remember I said something like, God, thanks. You know? This is really great. I really believe if you mean for me to stay married to this man, that I could do that and stay sober and have a happy life. And thanks. you know I really was and then I spent the rest of the evening trying to think yeah last week was good I think the week before and you're trying to track down that moment I don't know when I still don't know when it doesn't matter it doesn' t matter you know what's so great about this stuff these steps and everything is that if you're busy in the solution you literally obviously can forget about the problem before it even goes away that's clearly what happened in this case and in other cases that have happened in my life you know not too long after that we found out that my husband had cancer and my very first reaction to that was boy I wish this would have happened when I really hated him see right away I think of me I'm selfish and self-centered and my very first thought sorry you're going to die dear but what about me how's this going to affect me I don't like this about me but it's who I am what I did the good news is I just kept acting the way I'd been acting he was sick for a year and a half and he did die and it was hard it was a hard year and a half no question about it. It was the hardest year and a half of my sobriety, but it was also up to that point, the best year and an half. And if you're new, I, there's no way I can explain this to you. It just was, it was certainly the best years and a year and half of our marriage by a million miles. It had every other year beat. And that was because of you, because you taught me how to do this. You know, I was very glad that whole year, I Was very glad that I was there when he needed me to be and, and there and believable. You know what I mean? He knew that I was there, not just because he was sick and dying, but because I wanted to be there because I had consistently been there in a kind and loving manner for quite a long while before he got sick. When he died, I went down a little chapel and I made some funeral arrangements. And the day of the funeral came and a couple hundred people from Alcoholics Anonymous showed up. And those people didn't know him. They never met him. But they came, of course, that day because they knew thatI would need them, which of course I did. I realized sitting in that chapel that day that what my sponsor had promised me had happened. The guilt was gone. Apparently, I'd made my amends to this man. I felt, of course, very sad that day, but I didn't feel guilty about my part in our relationship. I felt clean and whole and 100% current and happy with the way I had behaved in that marriage for the last number of years. I can tell you this, that I was that day and remain to this very instant so grateful that i was willing to listen to my sponsor and do it her way if i had done it my way which was let's get out while i'm still young and have my whole life ahead of me i would have missed all of this i would Have missed being able to make amends to that man and i would've missed also learning how to be a wife you know today i married to vince who a lot of you know and he's a sober member of alcoholics anonymous we have a good life together in a good marriage and a happy time together. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt from my perspective of this relationship that it would not possibly happen if I hadn't learned the tools there with my late husband, you know? There's no question about it. When you're new or even not so new, I guess, and your sponsor gives you direction and you're doing something, you can't see the long-term effect of it, you now? My sponsor had me doing things that I was new that seemed so stupid to me. We're talking about sobriety here, and she's having me do things as near as I can tell are making my life worse, and I couldn't see the point. Now, with the perspective of some time, I can see that those little things affected my life at three months of sobriete, and three years of sobriet, and 13 years of sobrietie, and 17 and a half years of subrietie. And I assume 50 years of sobrieti if one stays. You know, it's like this ripple effect is how I think of But you do it today, and it has this continuing effect on your life, assuming that you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous and keep applying the principles of this program to your life. My sponsor had me doing stuff when I was new that, you know, I told you my husband's fighting with me all the time about going to meetings. It's bad enough I have to go to the meetings, but now I've got to get there an hour early. It's very hard for me to explain to him why I have TO get there an hour earlier because I don't really understand it myself. There's 300 people there. Why can't one of them make the coffee? you know I mean it's causing me so much trouble how about a single person that it wouldn't cause any trouble to I mean this makes so much sense to me why can't she see it now as if this isn't bad enough we're going back when I'm really new here she tells me now that once a week on Thursdays I have to pick these two old ladies up and take them to the meeting their names were Claire and Zelda I swear to you they were 120 years old each they were old and they lived not at all conveniently to where I lived which meant I now had to leave even earlier because I had to go by and get the I couldn't like count that as part of the hour you know what I mean I had to like pick them ahead of time and get and um I was not pleased and uh I guess I picked them up for about a year or maybe longer and I don't think there was probably a Thursday that went by that I didn't call my sponsor at some time during the day to try to weasel my way out of it well you know I might have to work late tonight and you know uh she made me do it and I it seemed so and then of course that means I get home later too because I leave the meeting now I have to go out of my way to drive them home, and then my husband's annoyed. I mean, I don't understand this. This doesn't make any sense to me at all, but I did it, and I hated those women. Every time I pulled up in front of their apartment building, I hated them. Everytime they got in my car, I hated them every time they got out of my car I was relieved and I hated them one night I went to pick them up I've been doing for a long time and picked them up and Zelda was sick and couldn't go to the meeting so Claire got in the car and we went to the meaning and dropped her back home later and the next day I found myself thinking about Zelda and wondering if she was okay. About noon, I actually called her just to make sure she was all right. I couldn't believe I was doing that. I don't like this woman. What do I care if she's sick? But I cared about her. I somehow started caring about Zelda, and I called her up to make surer she was OK. I believe that taking Claire and Zelda to those meetings was the beginning of me learning how to be a friend. I really believe that that was the very beginning, and I didn't even know it. I think I cared about Zelda before I ever cared about anybody else. You know, I sort of made a little friend there in my first year of sobriety too. My first friend's name was Betty and she was about my age and about my agent sobriete as well and we talked a lot on the phone and kind of knew everything about each other and Betty was, when we first got sober she was overweight and during the course of that first year of sobrietics she'd lost quite a bit of weight. You know how when you see somebody every day and they're losing weight you notice it but not as much as if you maybe hadn't seen them in a while you know and you get the impact and so I was aware that she was losing weight but I hadn't really thought that much about it that's nice you know but had not really given it that much thought but this particular day she was walking towards me from across the room and it just struck me that day my god she's lost a lot of weight she looks fabulous and I felt happy for her you know I'm not the kind of a woman who feels happy when other women lose weight I'm just not and I felt happy for Betty that day and I knew that somewhere in there I'd learn to be a friend to Betty you know and I believe again that it started with Claire and Zelda you know I really believe that I didn't know when I was picking up Claire and Zelda that I was learning how to be friends I thought I was just being put upon but in fact I was learned I was always learning how to become a friend and so everything I've been taught to do has had this as I say this sort of ripple effect in my life and is benefiting me today and my sobriety today my sponsor told me when I first got here when I started early on and I'm really kind of jumping around here. I don't usually do this, but it must be the rain. She told me when I was brand new that at every meeting I had to go to, I had asked three people, three women, for their phone numbers and then call them the next day. And I did not want to do this. I had a hard enough time calling her. The idea of calling three strange women was just... I couldn't... Oh, man, it was awful. So I could get your number from you. I didn't have too much trouble doing that. But then the next thing I knew the next night I would sit in front of that phone just sweating, thinking about picking up that phone and dialing. What am I going to say after hello? How are you? I don't know how to talk to people. So I'd breathe deeply for a few minutes and I'd dial the number and you'd answer. And I'd go, see, I always thought you wouldn't know who I was. So all I would have had to have said now that I think about it is, hi, I'm the one who cries all the time at meetings. And you would have known immediately who I was, but I never thought of that. So my name is Pat. I have long brown hair and glasses. I mentioned the meeting last night. You gave me your phone number. My sponsor told me I had to call three people every day. So you're one of them. How are you today? And everybody was completely nice to me. Everybody said, oh, fine, Pat, how are you? And would talk to me for a few minutes and tell me to have a nice day and hang up. You know, and then I'd call the second one and I hated doing that. And I could not understand what the point was. I mean, I talked to my friend Betty and I talked to my sponsor every day. Why do I need to call these practically strangers? I mean what's the point? Well, I'll tell you, I found out the point when I was three and a half years sober when my husband was laying in that hospital dying. I found out the point one day. I was at the hospital and it was a particularly bad day and I thought I better... I mean, I was as crazy as I have ever been and I was in that waiting room in intensive care which is maybe the dreariest place on earth. You know, it's like a different world. You get to meet other families and you hang out there together. It's like you're not in this world and I'm hanging out in that intensive care waiting room and the news was particularly not good that day and I was just nuts. So I stepped into the phone booth there and I called my sponsor and she wasn't home. And so all the dime came back out and I put the dime back in and I told my friend Betty and she wasn't at home. It was like a nice summer day and they were all at the beach, I guess, or something. But I stood in that phone booth and I kept putting that dime in. I called 11 people before I found somebody at home and never for a moment that I think of stepping out of that phone booth and giving up because I had been so well trained to make the phone call that when the time came, when I really needed to make a phone call, I just stayed in that booth and kept putting that dime back in until I found somebody who was home. And the person who was at home turned out to be somebody I didn't... I mean, by now, I'm just leafing through my phone book. I'm calling the next number on the list. If you're an AA, you're getting a call from me, man or woman, it doesn't matter. I just need to talk to somebody. The person I eventually got was somebody I hardly knew but was the exact right person And it had exactly the right thing to say to me that particular day. So again, you know, it's that you just don't know the stuff you're doing when you knew how it's going to affect you. I'm going to talk about one other thing and then I think surely it must be time to sit down. When I got sober, I really hated my stepfather and I actually had very good reason to hate him and anybody would agree, I thought. It's not something that I had ever discussed with anybody me with anybody, because it in fact was one of those secrets that I had grown up with, you know, the ones you're going to take to your grave. By the time I was getting ready to take my inventory, my fourth step, fourth and fifth step, I'd been sober a few months and I'd be around here long enough to see that you took thorough inventories, which I knew what thorough meant. It meant these secrets, you know. And I could see that you did that and you felt better and you got better. And I wanted to do that. I just knew that I couldn't, I would, um, my sponsors told me to start writing my inventory. And so what I started doing was laying in bed at night and, and, uh, thinking about reading my inventory out loud to her, the secrets, reading these, you know, these secrets out loud to where I knew I couldn'T do it. Um, if you're new or if you'RE getting ready to take your inventory, I'D like to give you a little piece of advice. It'S a very bad idea if you'Re working on your fourth step to lay in bedat night in the dark and imagine taking your fifth step it's a very bad idea i could not write a word i mean i just would think about these secrets and i was a crazy woman and finally i decided um i'm just going to write those secrets down i'm not just not going to read her that part but i'm going to right them down and maybe i can stay sober you know by doing that i'll have a thorough inventory i just won't thoroughly read it and so i wrote those secrets out of course once i got the secrets down the rest of it came fairly easily and i finished the inventory and my sponsor said come over next Tuesday night and read it to me. And my heart was pounding, but I thought, OK, this is cool. She doesn't know what's in there. I mean, there's enough other bad stuff in there she'll assume that's my secret. You know what I mean? And so she will never know. And so I went if you're new, by the way, she'll know. I'll tell you, I've heard inventories and I've known I've known that they weren't telling me everything. I don't know how I know. I'm not some wise person. I've just known, you know. Anyway, I drove over to her house and these secrets of course were the first couple of paragraphs in this inventory so I sat down and opened up my little notebook and I put my finger where I wanted to start reading because I didn't want to make a mistake and you know get up in that upper paragraph there and I'm ready to start reading below those secrets and my sponsor said well now wait a minute before we get started maybe we should get on our knees here and say a little prayer and I was a little bit embarrassed because I never prayed in anyone's living room before but okay and so I got on my knees and she said something like dear God please help Pat be honest tonight I don't quite know how she knew I was not planning to be honest but she seemed to know and I I read the whole thing I read those and I'll tell you it took me longer to read these two little paragraphs worth of secrets than it did pages and pages that came after because I just choked and cried and carried on so but I did it and she shared with me similar experiences from her life that made me feel not quite so alone when I drove away from her house when I left that night she told me to go home and just as it describes in the big book to review what I had done you know that I was building a foundation here I wanted to make sure that I hadn't left anything out and then to take the sixth and seventh step as it describes in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was driving home from her house I felt on the one hand good that I had told these secrets and sort of a little bit of relief not a lot I felt committed to AlcoholicsAnonymous for sure because I knew I'd done something that was absolutely impossible to do but I also felt really exposed I remember thinking God this woman now really knows some stuff about me you know what if she gets drunk what if she tells somebody my stuff she did get drunk she never told anybody my stuff I've told rooms full of people my stuff since then I mean you know these secrets just don't haunt me like they used they're not secrets anymore you know they're just not so I'm done with this inventory and I think now back to my stepfather that this is the end of it it's like okay I told you know that's the end OF THAT except it wasn't the longer I stayed sober, the more I thought about it. The longer I stayed sober kind of the bigger it got in my mind and to make a long story short, the bottom line here is I don't want to drink over and it seemed to me every time I went to a meeting while I was going through this period and this always happens to me when I'm going through something, whatever it is I'm going through, that's what they're talking about at the meeting that night and what I was hearing at every meeting, I'm telling you not one was missed. At every single meeting, somebody said, resentments kill alcoholics, particularly justifiable resentment. It seemed like they were looking at me right in the eye and saying it to me. And it was making me crazy. I knew I had to get rid of this resentment, but I didn't know how. I started getting on my knees every night and praying about it. Dear God, please take this resentment away. And nothing happened. If you're new, my experience is this. And everything I say by the way is just my experience. I'm not any kind of an expert here. Everything is just my own opinion based on my experience. I'm right, but no. I'm write for me. I'm writ for me My experience has been that I cannot get on my knees and say a prayer and then get up off my knees and have anything at all happen. There is always something in there that I need to be doing. As it turns out, what works for me is to get on the knees and pray to get off my knee and say the prayer ask for God's help and then go up and do whatever the footwork is that needs to be done and that goes right back to that very early prayer that we all said dear God please help me not drink the action was to call the Alcoholics Anonymous and come to the first meeting there was always an action and so I'm on my knees all the time praying about this resentment and it occurred to me maybe there's an action here too and so i talked to my sponsor about it she said you know pat you're going to have to make amends to him whoa i don't think so don't you remember my inventory have you forgotten i mean i don'T think so i think he should be making amends and she said well we're not his sponsor we're your sponsor and uh we think you should make amends to him and i couldn't see i mean i really couldn't say it she i she's wrong this time i mean i was just a little kid you know i really am the victim here i really am i can't you see this i mean what's wrong with you here and she said pat forget what he has done put it aside for a minute look at where you weren't a good stepdaughter to this man she said you know but i was i'm sorry to say i waited till i was several you're sober to do this she said you've you know you've started making amends to your mother for the stuff you did to yourmother the grief the anguish the worry that you know stuff we put our mothers through she said your stepfather was living in the house all the time you were causing your mother that grief perhaps he was a little concerned and worried too uh you know when you're getting arrested and going through all the you know causing all your trouble why don't you start with the sort of a list of things you you used with your mother why don t you start there and make your amends from that perspective. Forget what he did. That's not our business. I mean, that's all I can think about is, you know, I'm a victim here. Why should I be making amends to him? The bottom line here is I don't want to drink. So I became willing to do it. I didn't see how this was possibly going to work. But they lived about 50 miles away. I drove out there one day and I sat down and had a little talk with him. And I said, you Know, I know I've been a pretty lousy stepdaughter. I know it caused a lot of trouble in this house and I'm really sorry. And I, you know, I wish I could change it all. I can't change what I've done, but I certainly can try to be a better stepfather from stepdaughter from this point forward. And nice talking to you. And I left. I left right away because I was afraid that if I hung around very long, I might wander off into discussing his shortcomings. And the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear on this subject. It's not our business. And I knew that if i did that, it would like I had the feeling like negate the whole thing and I'd have to start from scratch again. And And I did not really want to have to do this. So anyway, I had this little talk with him and I left and I'm driving back home and I thought, well, these steps don't work, not in every area of my life, as you promised, because I've done it and I still feel as bad as I ever did. I still hate him as much as I never did. I missed kind of an important point there for a while and that is that I hadn't made amends to him. Saying you're sorry is just sort of the announcement that there's an amend to come, you know? I mean, it's important, don't misunderstand me, it's importante to have the conversation but the real amend is in fact being a kind and loving stepdaughter. I didn't really think I could do that. You know, I really did not think I could do it, but I tried, and I started again just like I did with my late husband. I started watching you and talking to you about things that you did for your fathers and trying to take some of that home with me and do it. The first thing that I did whenever I called my mother, which was every week at least, if he answered the phone instead of saying, let me talk to mom, I would say, hello, how are you? let me talk to mom, which may not sound like a very big deal, but it was a very big deal. I would be sweating when I would dial the phone. I really would. I was so uncomfortable talking to him, but I did it. And then I thought, well, I shouldn't say I thought. People like my sponsor told me and then I thought it. A kind and loving daughter might actually chat with him about a thing or two. And so I would think of a couple of topics of conversation before I dialed the phone that I thought I might be able to chat with them about. I wasn't very uncomfortable talking to him at all. But I would try, if I'd seen a movie that week, that was a good topic. You know, current events were good, world events, whatever. So I would do that and I'd try to chat with him a little bit. Christmas was coming up that year that I first started doing this and a woman in a meeting who I barely knew said to me, you know, Pat, a kind and loving daughter would not pick up a shirt on Christmas Eve and have the store wrap it and give that as your gift. A kind and living daughter might actually You put a little thought into the gift. And I thought, well, that's true. And so I went down to a shopping mall and I was walking around looking for something that he might like or use or appreciate. He really was a hard person to buy for, even if you like him, you know, I mean, really. And I went into a needlepoint shop and they had this thing on the wall, a thing to needlepoint and frame to hang on the walls, a saying about fathers and daughters. I want to tell you a sickening saying about fathers just to, oh, yuck. I thought I can't, I can' t do it. this thing just like followed me around this needlepoint shop and okay i'll buy it i bought it i did it you know needlepoint takes a lot of hours actually needlepoint isn't my strongest suit either so it took me longer than it might have most and but i did my very nicest work it really came out lovely and i wrapped it up real nice and took it down there at christmas and there was a moment a spiritual experience in fact i don't usually do this um when he opened that up he got a tear in his eye now I'm telling that's all I've been telling much it was a lot it was the end it was alive I knew in that second just in that little millisecond that I was on the right track I knew in that split second that if I kept trying to do what I was trying to doing here that God would make this resentment bearable enough that I would not have to pick up a drink over it understand that I still hated him that moment as much as I had ever hated him And I just knew in that little split second that somehow if I kept trying to do this, trying to make this amend, God would make it okay. That little second kept me going a long time. It really did. It really kept me doing it. It kept me on a long, long time A few years later he was in the hospital and I went down to visit him and I was sitting by his bedside chatting with him rather comfortably now that I think about it and they announced the visiting hours were over and I got up to leave and I bent over and I kissed him on the forehead and I said goodbye, I love you. And that's impossible. And the truth of the matter is I did love him and I don't know how that happened. It's impossible You can't get from there to here. You just can't. But I had. You know what I felt for him walking out of that hospital that day was a lot of compassion. He was a I know we're not supposed to pronounce other people alcoholics but he was an alcoholic and he never got sober And, you know, I think he was doing the best he could my whole life. I think He was doing the best He could with what He had to work with. I really believe that. I prayed from that moment forward, from that day in the hospital, that God would help him and protect him, you know? And love him. In that moment of silence, you know that we have for the alcoholic who's still suffering at the end of the meeting, I always would say a little prayer for him. I never tried to 12-step him because I do not think he would have heard it from me. You know, I just knew that he would not have heard It from me As a matter of fact, his own brother had tried to 12-step him some years before and really turned him off to the whole notion of it. I think we have to be real careful with family members. Anyway, some years went by and I just kept doing what I was doing and of course it was a lot easier because my feelings towards him had changed. A few years ago I gave him... I was in Yosemite and one of my very happiest childhood memories of my whole life was a vacation that my mother and stepfather and brother and I took to Yosimite one year and one OF the things that we did on that trip was we hiked up to Vernal Falls which is kind of a strenuous hike and a beautiful site and so on it's just truly one of the most joyous memories of my entire childhood while I was at Yosemite Ansel Adams has this studio there where he sells his stuff and he had this picture of Vernal Falls, this falls that we hiked so it was way more money than I should have spent but I had to buy it, I bought it and I gave it to him for Christmas that year and with it I wrote on the card pretty much what I just said to you that this was like the happiest memory of my childhood and so on and so forth and I gave him that gift and of course he hung the picture right away it was a beautiful picture he hung the picture right away but I noticed a year later when I was down there visiting one time that the card where I had written this message was still sitting on the table by his chair where he sat and it was all dog-eared and you know he obviously picked that up every day and read it you know the thought I can't believe I'm doing this this just makes me crazy you know the card meant as much as the gift it really did saying the feelings my stepfather committed suicide two years ago and you know the day that he did that actually he jumped off of their house and he died a week later he was in the hospital and he dieed a week later the first thing that happened that day is that my mother called me, which is a miracle in itself. My mother called me immediately because she knew that I would be of comfort and help to her. That's a miracle right there. I tormented my mother for years with drunken phone calls in the middle of the night and with worry and anguish and fear for what was happening to my life. Things have turned around so much that I am the first person she calls when she needs help. What an amazing thing. I went down there and of course I was able to be of service to her and I would go every day and I would sit by his hospital bed for a moment. I do not think he knew us from after the first day, but I would sit for a few minutes by his bedside and say a little prayer, and then I would go do whatever I could do for my mother. You know, there was never a time during that week, or in fact since then, where I wished that he would have wakened up so I could have said something because I didn't need to say anything. Everything that I needed to say to him had been said a long, long time ago. You now, my amends were made. I was absolutely 100% current with him. What a miracle. When I started, when my sponsor told me I had to make amends to that man, I could not possibly see why she would tell me to do such a terrible thing to such an awful man. Why in the world would she give me such a horrible direction? If you're new, I would beg of you, do not question this stuff. Just do it. Just do what you can and you cannot possibly see your life clearly. You simply can't. My husband says it he says it so well you know we are a group of people who admittedly cannot handle our own problems but would be happy to take yours on and if you're smart you will let us because I can see you I can't see your life clearly I can not you especially Linda but I can excuse me but I cannot see mine at all I am almost 18 years sober but I still need a sponsor and I talk to my sponsor a lot you know I remember the last direction I did not much care for her from her i mean the one i really you know i thought god she still doesn't understand i was like 17 16 and a half years sober and i thought she didn't hear me i better run it by her again and i said wait a minute dad what are you doing just do it and i just did it and I felt better if you're new I beg you to stay here in Alcoholics Anonymous I beg You to get a sponsor get one now if you don't I think sure everybody in here has one I mean that you wouldn't possibly let somebody in your meetings without a sponsor would you but if there's somebody who is not a member of this home group I would beg you to stay here I usually when I talk say if you don't like this meeting go to another one get it you know find a home group you like how could you not like this group I mean if you do not like it your judgment is poor you do know what you are thinking anyway so really just stay here stay here I am so happy to be sober you know I feel I feel the way that man Norm felt at that first meeting I feel the way he described and sounded like. I feel happy and joyous most of the time. My life is not perfect, you know. Right now, I fear financial insecurity is one of the ones that's come back to haunt me again and again, and it's back right now, and that's okay, you know. I know in my heart of hearts that whatever's supposed to be is going to be. If the things that I'm afraid of financially right now happen, there'll be something else down the path, some different way for us to go that we haven't even thought of yet, something new and better, because that's always been the case it's always in the case God's never taken any anything away that something new and better hasn't been put in its place if you're new I hope to stay here in Alcoholics Anonymous and thank you for listening