Step 12 and the First Adventure Out of Self – Peggy M.

And I thought, well, I wanted to listen to one of her tapes and, you know, kind of see how she sounded and see if I liked her. And so I started calling these different tape companies trying to find out if they had some tapes of hers. And I picked up one of the tapes on my desk. Just, you Know, I had a bunch of tapes there. And I called this one company and asked, I told them I was looking for a speaker's tape. And they asked me who, and I told him Peggy M. And they said, well, I think we can probably help you with that. Her and her husband own this tape company. And she says, and she asked the lady, I can't remember her name, but I talked to her and she asks me when our convention was and I told her the date. And she said, Well, you know, I also kind of keep her calendar for it. Let me see if she's open. And she looks at her calendar and she was busy all these times around it, but she was open this weekend. And right there, it kind of cemented it before I ever heard her tape. It's like, I felt it was like God's will that she'd be here. And I'm really, really glad to introduce you to Peggy M. from Bellevue, Nebraska. Yay! Oh, thanks guys. I'm Peggy Martin and I'm an alcoholic. and through the grace of God and fellowship of people like you and sponsorship I have been sober since February 4, 1964 and for that I am very grateful I want to thank the committee for having me out here and thank all of you who have been so kind to me since my arrival here and I'd like to especially thank the committee that put together the basket that's in my room. Yeah, Chris and Larcine. They gave me this basket with this really big bow on it and then there's this picture of a nearly naked man on the card. A very nice looking man on this card said we hope this since Dick can't be here this weekend and we hope this reminds you of him. And just as a way to break the ice, let me tell you why that is significant. When we were first married, Dick and I met and married in AA. And we met and married in some groups in Washington, D.C. And he was a newcomer. Go ahead. oh that's what my sponsor said too when i and and i didn't like him when i first met him but things happened you know and i got so i did like him and um so we got married and the first christmas we were married we had six dollars in the checking account so it made a determination that we were not going to buy each other any christmas presents that we were simply going to go down to the Alcathon and give of self over the holidays. And I came from a relatively affluent family, so I was like I had my hand sewn to my forehead for a week because I wasn't going to get any stuff, and I like stuff for Christmas. So we had this apartment that had one door in it. It was an efficiency apartment. We had wired two single beds together. That was our bed, and we became so gymnastic that they kept flying apart and everything. But he came... This was my brother's wedding present to us was to wire these two beds together at cheapskate. But anyway... He came home, and he said, I have a Christmas present for you. And I said... I got... I had the alcoholic reaction. You know, I was very mad at him at first because he had broken our agreement. But the second thing was I felt guilty because I hadn't thought of getting him some small token of Christmas and so forth myself. So he went into the bathroom. And the bathroom was the only other door in the apartment. And within seconds of going into the bedroom, he came the door flew open and he jumped out stark naked with a big red bow tied you know where and he's singing here comes Santa Claus so when I saw that bow Oh, I folded it neatly and put it in my suitcase. I'm hoping for a renaissance. What fortunate people we are. Holy cow, what fortunate people. How did we get here? How did you get here to where you are now? How did he get here here? how are we even still alive here I should have been I mean, I should've died a hundred times and here I am thirty years later in a wonderful, posh meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with friends all of my needs are covered with a condition, a spiritual condition I would have never dreamt of. Which is assured to me on a daily basis. How did I get here? People like me don't do this. We fail people like me. We drink bad people like we do. me we hurt people people like me we don't have people's respect people like me we lose it and I just think that I am the luckiest person in the world I just think that i'm lucky i was reading in the daily reflections the other day that's kind of a neglected book it's relatively new but it's relatively neglected in our literature I think and in it it one of them the things said that Bill Wilson was out of one of Bill's letters it says we operate a spiritual kindergarten wherein people can overcome the drink problem and live to better effect I don't do stuff like that people like me don't do stuff that I am not I am a very much better person and even not even the same kind of person in some ways I am but I'm not the same as I was when I came here I I don't, it's not like my life has really, this is like a brand new life. This is like, this isthe best Peggy Martin ever. And some days that's not even good enough for me, but it's the best ever. And I don' t know how that, I mean, I don''t. In our town two years ago, I'm 55 years old. I know I look much older, but I'm 55 years old. And in our town, we just live in a little town in Nebraska outside Omaha. There's some low-rent apartments, you know, those low- rent, where we live, you know those low rent apartments right next to a big store. And we have one of our members is on the police force. and she said did you hear about the lady and I said what no what tell me about the lady and she said well the landlord was looking for his rent and he'd been knocking on the door of those little apartments next to the half price store and he couldn't get any answer and so they called us and we broke in the door and we found a lady in there There were 22 empty bottles of vodka, a box of wheat thins. That made sense to me for some reason. And a 53-year-old lady who had been dead for three weeks. And nobody ever called about her. Nobody ever contacted them. Nobody cared anymore. And that's what we do to people. They can't care about us anymore because it hurts too bad. I was 53 years old and I looked at my life and my children sober NAA successful I became a grandmother of undoubtedly another alcoholic Five weeks ago today, it's the first time I've become a grandmother. It's a big deal in my life. And how do I get this? And that lady, who without a shadow of a doubt, had been in touch with a healing agency of some sort. Because AA reaches every, you know, AA is well-known. Al-Anon is well known. We are respected. I know she was contacted by somebody in a career of drinking like that. She had to have been. But she didn't take the gift. and if there was one thing one thing that I had when I arrived at the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't have much but I had the one essential ingredient you know people talk to me all the time about I surrendered I surrendered I surrender I don't surrender I comply I give in reluctantly it's like this is how I surrender okay okay okay for maybe a little while I I don't surrender. But I was surrendered. And there is a world of difference. I drank myself into a state of total and absolute surrender. I was surrounded. Surrendered. And I had the one thing, The one gift, the one essential ingredient, and that was I was absolutely desperate. I did not have one single better idea. If I'd had one single bette idea, I am convinced that I would be dead. I'm convinced. And I really take this... I mean, I'm lighthearted. I'm real right-brained, and I don't know where this talk is going to go. It's awesome to have to talk to a thousand hungry alcoholics, for God's sake. I mean this is like the early Christians in front of the lions, I think, or something. So eat your cheese, for heaven's sakes. I don'T want any tapping on the forks on the table. So I have no idea where this is goingto go. But I know this. i am grateful and i'm serious about my sobriety i am i don't want i never in my life i'm not a half measures person it's like i if i don' t have it i don''t want it if i can't have it oh i'm either full speed ahead or collapse i'm neither famished or i'm not hungry at all. I'm either parched or I'm up to here with liquid. I mean, I am just not a person who has a lot of mediums. Except in my shoe size, I'm a medium. But that's about it. I am not aperson who doesn't. I like this. I want everything that life has to give me. So why not take everything that AA has to give you? Why not work the steps, live the steps in my life. My God, look what it's done for me. Look what it's doing for you. I get so mad when people say take what you want and leave the rest. Oh yeah, go die somewhere too, you know. Go die somewhere. I mean, it's not like we've got a half measures availed us what? Nothing. Not a quarter percent or 25% of life or 50 percent of life it avails us nothing of life nothing i was a major reconstruction project as were you or you want to be here you we are not the kind of people who just trip into aa because we just thought we'd take a walk in the park you know and we're singing show tunes I think I'll go to AA tonight. I was surrendered. I didn't have one single better idea. Not one. And that is the gift, the gift of being surrendered. And that's why I was willing to do what I was doing. That's the only reason I was willingly to do what I had to do at that time. So I'm right-brained and I don't know where this is going to go, but I'll tell you what. I'm glad to be here. And I'm Glad to Be, most of all, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am just thrilled about that, especially in view of what I could have been, especially in vue of the 53-year-old lady who was buried in Pauper's Field because nobody would claim her body. I've always been different never been like everybody else and how many times have you ever heard an alcoholic stand at the podium and say that they felt just as comfortable as anything and they don't know why they drank they just felt real real average at everything and they thought they were perfectly okay with everybody in school and they got along well with everybody and that kind of thing not me it was like it's like I have this worms inside my head or something. I don't know exactly. I'd hate to talk about worms before dinner, but it's like I had this, like I was, I take walks in my own head and it's very dangerous in there and it is that way today and it are dark in there sometimes and when I listen, you know, I may not be much but I'm all I think about sometimes. And when you're walking around inside your head, all alone, you may suddenly come to the understanding that I know the enemy. I know he's got me. I know him, and I've got him trapped. And it's your... That's a terrible thing because it's like I'm a human dichotomy. You know what a dichotony is? Split personality. I mean, if I just was split a couple times, it would be okay. But I'm not. I mean I'm just like fractured. It's like I had, I don't want to say the word, earthquake. It's not that I had a personal earthquake. And I had part of me that was an artist and part of my that was a football fan. I always wanted to be a football player but I could never make the weight. You know, I was always real skinny. On the one hand, and I paint these beautiful diaphanous watercolors, at least I think they are. and they're i love them and i'm a very serious person i studied i i was educated way beyond my intelligence matter of fact i even went to the university of california at riverside i mean that's a you had to have a b-plus average to get in there i mean i was educated very well i graduated from washington university in st louis after i got sober so i know i mean I'm very dedicated to my very studies and i spoke four different languages And that was what I did for a living for a while after I sobered up because I found out I could speak when I was sober, which I didn't know. And I did that. You know, I worked part-time at the UN and lived over in Geneva, Switzerland. I mean, I did all kinds of... My life was like a dream. But for me it was a nightmare because I always felt like if they ever knew, They would ask the grown-ups to stand up, and I wouldn't be able to because I never felt right. And so I was an intellectual on one hand, and yet, on the other hand, I loved... I was one of the members of our senior class who... I mean, I graduated from high school with nearly straight A's, and yet I was a member of the senior class that got caught throwing rotten eggs at cars on the golf course in Fort Worth, Texas. I mean, it was like I was two, three different people. I loved guys when I was drinking, and I couldn't stand them when I were sober. You know, I'd wake up in the backseat of cars with these people and I'd think, geez, what is this? What is this?! And, you know, you'd want to throw up on them, you know, because they were hideous people. You know, people had to make amends to this guy because the only reason I ever went with him was because he drove a blue Ford Fairlane convertible. That was the only reason. He was a real irp otherwise, you know? So that was the one side. And the guy I really loved, I argued with him all the time. It was like, do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, shake your heads if you... I mean, I was like a human mess, you know. I mean I just couldn't decide what day, when I'd get up on a day, well, what am I going to be today? You know, who's going to show up today? I was always skinny. Never had any boobs, ever. Never, as Carol's sponsor Winnie used to say, she was not blessed by the chest fairy. God bless you, Wendy. You heard me, didn't you? But I wasn't blessed by the chest fairy. And I didn't care most of the time. But sometimes I cared. And boy, there's nothing like drinking when you feel like that. Here you are, you're just, oh, just, you know what I mean? It's just, you can hardly talk. It's so bad. You know, it's just so confusing. and then you got this skinny body with no ins and outs and you can't figure out if you're a boy or if you are a girl, you know, and you look at yourself and you still don't know whether you're boy or you're girl. And you don't, you just go back and forth. And then you take a drink and it would roll down my throat. Oh God, there was nothing like it. You snap the top off of a, well of course in those days we had to have a church key, you know, one of those opener things because they didn't have tab tops. And I'm glad because I would have died of lacerations of the throat or something if we'd had something like that. But we had a tab top. We had to be able to have the church key. It was a very important thing, a life and death thing because I could not chew beer cans open with my teeth. And I'd snap open that beer, and the first thing I'd smell was skunk. Wonderful! just it was like you I could work all day just for that hard 40-hour days knowing there was that reward at the end and I'd snap that thing open and I roll down my throat and hit bottom and man my waist would nip in and my hips would flare out and my boobs would grow and I would become and I just get a twitch in my hips. And I've never been a twitcher. I'm not a twitchers. I have never been, I've never been accused of having bedroom eyes or anything. I mean I'm just not the type. Just, I'd rather argue with you than go to bed with you. That's the way I am when I'm not drinking. But when i'm drinking I'd rather go to bed with you and argue later. So I would go to places and do things with these people I hated, which was another mix-up. And then I'd wake up and I'd feel bad. I'd feel bad, and every time I did it, I would swear the alcoholic oath, I'll never do it again. And Hank, last night, I love Hank as a person. And I love when he talks about the daily thing. Every day, I said it was going to be different. This day, it's not going to be like that. This is going to go to school. I'm going to do what I got to do and I'm not going to drink. And you know, sometimes I could do that. Sometimes I could do that early on. But in the end, you know it's funny. I went over to, I went to University of Paris in France and I was there for a year and I got, I was drinking on a daily basis. I was drinking wine on a daily basis and I go into some riots, oh see wow, I got into some riots over there and I didn't I was marching on the American Embassy. I could rather, I could kind of sympathize with the president and you know because I didn't realize I was Marching on the American Embassy I was drunk and I was just following some guy with a bottle of wine you know I didn' t know where I was and we were all chanting and marching and suddenly I realized I'm from American Embassy which was wonderful my father was in the diplomatic corps and is somewhat of a spy so it was really word and I went on to the University of Geneva in Switzerland then got really really blitzed one time with a Scotsman and he was a friend of mine and I was walking behind him you know drunk flipping up his kilt to see if they wore anything under them you know because and the sad thing was I never I don't don't remember. I don't remember whether they do or they don't, or whether he did or he didn't. I mean, it could have been delights beyond my comprehension, but it's gone and I don' t think after 30 years it' s going to come back. Too bad. And I came out of a blackout with an Italian. Don't know how I got to him. And he took me to mass in the morning. It was all in Latin at that time and I couldn't understand anything but I knew the feeling of remorse. I felt so much remorse one more time and I had a terrible hangover and I just swore again I was not going to do it one more time. But of course it was a vain oath because I did it and I did it, and I ended up here in California at the University of California in Riverside drinking vodka out of my thermos. The only friend I had was a guy who smoked dope, recited poetry to me, wore a black hat, black cape, yeah, and called him Zorro you know Zorro's an old story and I don't know what I don' t remember his name but I know that it was in ice that was when I really started getting bad and I got sicker and sicker. And I ended up with cirrhosis of the liver. I weighed 152 pounds my eyes were yellow the greens were brown because of the bile and I had a drinking uniform which was a blue turtleneck sweater size 14 blaze gray stretch pants size 14 the blue sweater had something orange spilled on the front of it and of course I never changed clothes and I never bathed in those days because it was dangerous to bathe because you might drown. You know, you never knew when you were just going to like pass out and slide underneath the water, you know? You could do that. People do that, I've heard of that. But I didn't bathe and I would wake up on the floor lots of times and I'd be staring. I had this tub. I think I thought I was going to take a bath, you know, I had this tub that had those, remember those old tubs that have the claw feet that sit on the ball like that and I woke up, for some reason or other I had redecorated my bathroom and I had painted the underside of this tub purple and I awoke up on the floor staring at this bird claws on this ball in dark purple and I thought I'd gone to hell I didn't know where I was and that was my life My mother started going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and it was about that time that I experienced what I know was a moment of truth I am glad that I took every drink I ever took because it took that to get me where I had to go and I remember I had this little mirror over my dresser and one day in February 1964 in my blue sweater and my gray stretch pants did you ever like get these periods of time where you like shaped up you know where you said I'm just gonna shape up You know, and you kind of straighten yourself up and put on makeup for a day or two and maybe even pat your hair or something, you know, because my whole head hurt. My hair hurt. And my hair was very short like it is now, but it had died somewhere along the line. Well, what happened was my sister decided she was going to help me shape up, so she decided to do a frost job on my hair. Well, I am somewhat of a chemist and I can tell you that when you put alcohol into your system, your system, you put enough as much as I put into my system which is about a fifth of vodka a day. Your body begins to center. It begins to go into itself to preserve the vital functions. So your skin sloughs off and all your hair falls off your arm, it starts falling off your head, your fingernails break, you develop peripheral neuritis, you're numb in the fingers and toes, and everything that is not necessary for life begins to go. And when that alcohol went into that hair shaft, there's just straight alcohol in this hair shaft. So she put this cap on me and cut holes in it and pulled these pieces of hair through these big hunks of hair through this thing and then she dyed it you know bleached it well it's supposed to have turned silvery or something but it turned bright orange and it was such dead hair that then the bright orange things broke off so I had like I looked like a dog with mange you know I mean and I just had these bald spots of orange all over my head, and the rest of it was long and dead. I had a passing out side, the side I always passed out on. Didn't you have a passing outside? You know, one side you always seemed to end up on, and I'd end up in that side, and the hair was all flat on that side. And here was this image of loveliness that presented itself in the mirror. Now, I always told myself when I had my fifth of vodka, I always said I'm going to leave a little bit for tomorrow, right? Just enough to get the engine started. Just enough the juice the carburetor, right, just enough to give me a kick. But I never managed to leave quite enough so that that day, now this if you're new, this is important. We, alcoholics, may be intellectually inclined, but it doesn't do us a damn bit of good when it comes to our alcoholism. As a matter of fact, it even hinders us. We, as alcoholics are very visual people, aren't we? When I read something, I'm lucky if I remember it the next day. If I see something, it is imprinted in my life forever. So I had this vision of me. Looking in that mirror, I had picked up a bottle of my pop-off 80 proof rock gut vodka and there was just a drop in the corner. And I took my hands and I was rubbing the sides of the bottle to warm it up so that the last drop of that vodka would roll down the neck of that bottle into my mouth. That is powerlessness, that is alcoholism. Social drinkers don't do that. So when I arrived, I was laid out on the porch of Melwood Farm in this country outside of Washington, D.C., February the 3rd, 1964, and I came to February the 4th, 1964 and I had been surrendered. And I haven't had a take a drink since. But just because I'm sober doesn't mean that I... You know what? Well, it's the least I can do to come out here to Torrance, California. It's the least I could do to go to four meetings a week. It's the least. It's the least I can do to pick up the phone in the middle of the night when we always call. We never two in the afternoon. We call it two at night. It's the, because that's, that's the rope or the river time. It is the least I can do to stick out my hand and shake hands with a newcomer. It is the lease I can to be on a welcoming committee, to be a greeting committee. It is the leased I can try to live the steps and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous because this is my life we're talking about here this is not all fun and games this is my life the soul is saved by spiritual matters be it in church or some other direction my butt is saved this program this is my life so it's the least I can what could I do to pay you back what could possibly do except give back to you what was given to me I mean I take this very seriously and today I see people who don't take this seriously at all and it bothers me this is not a social club we are in the business of staying alive and And by God, if I'm going to do the deal, I'm gonna do the DEAL. I'm GONNA go to meetings. I'm GOING to take the steps. I'm gONNA sponsor people. I'm Gonna be sponsored. 571-8306. 571 8306, that is my sponsor's phone number. It is ENGRAVED in my head, 571 806. I dial it every single week. I see her once a week. I do that because I have to be accountable. I am accountable to somebody. It's nice to say, well, Peggy, after 30 years, surely you're honest enough to... Well, yes, maybe so, but I won't stay like that because I had a walk in my dark neighborhood every day. I have a creative imagination every day You ever think about getting sucked out of one of those windows on a jet plane? I do. I mean, I can come up with some of the darndest things you've ever heard of. Neurotic damn thing. And I think, you ought to be better than this after 30 years. Well, I'm not. But I like my life. And the way my life is, is because I've done the deal. I call it doing the deal. And I'll tell you what, if you don't want to do the deal, don't ask me to sponsor you. Because even though I'm right-brained, creative, and somewhat of a ditz, I am a very strong sponsor. There is not anything that is totally dichotomous about that. I want to see... I will go to the ends of the earth for you if you'll just take one step towards me. one step, like my sponsor. I didn't like my first sponsor. My God, I didn' t like her. She had marcelled hair. You know what that is? That stuff where it's crimped like this, you know? It was gray, and they used to have these things that hung down out of the machines, remember, Addie? Like this, and then they, like, fried your hair, and it, like... I think it left crimps in her scalp, and she just combed her hair over it, you now? And I was afraid she would, you know, if she'd get mad at me or something, she'd lower her head like this and come at me like a battering ram. You know, boom! Put an impression like a waffle on my stomach or something. So I minded her. I minded here until I could hear something else. And that's fine. It doesn't matter, does it? I had to be accountable. She said, be a greeter. And I didn't say it right away because, you now, I'm a rebel and a coward. And she says, be a greeter. I said, next day I said... Oh, next week, I'd been like sulking around. She said, you know how you sulk? You avoid, you deprive them of your direct glance or you move over to the other side of the meeting or you don't sit next to them like you're supposed to. So I deprived her of that. So she said to me, what are you sulking about? And I said well, you hurt my feelings. I said, what do you mean you hurt your feelings? And I said well You told me to be greeter And I don't want to be greeter I don' t like people And she said I don''t care whether you like people or not Just be greeters So I thought about that And the next week I came back and said You hurt my feelings last week When you told me I had to be a greeter And you didn' t care how I felt And I'm a sensitive alcoholic And that was a mistake And she said, you're not a sensitive alcoholic. You're a touchy bitch. I understood that. I understand it today. When my sponsor speaks, I listen. Because I have given her permission to place her intellectual observation, her objectivity of my life over my very emotional and subjective view of my life. I have to. It's part of doing the deal. Whoops, somebody's being beat. Dave's being beat. So I became greeter. And then I became, we had to wash coffee cups in those days. Remember how we had pottery coffee cups? We never had any styrofoam. We washed the coffee cups. And I got to wash coffee Cups with Crazy Frank. And Crazy Frank was a painter who was like six feet, nine inches tall. And my sponsor said, make conversation with him. Well, when you're in your head like this, you can't, you can only think about yourself. You can't think about Frank or anybody else. But I went home and I thought about it and I saw, whoops, and I though, But I'll ask him about his profession, which was he was a house painter. So when we were washing cups there the next night, I said to Frank, Frank, it must be nice for you being 6'9", and he said, why is that? And I said, because you don't have to use a ladder when you paint the ceilings. Now, I had thought about that all night. It was my first adventure out of self. You understand what I'm saying? I learned how to live here. I learned how to ask about you here. I met and married Dick, and we've had... He is my friend. He is miFRIEND, and he was my AA buddy, and we went to meetings together. We moved. We started meetings all across the country, and we moved out to Bellevue, Nebraska to be with... He took a job in broadcasting out there. We sought that job out there because of the Washington, D.C., the rat race and so forth. We sought the job in Bellevue, Nebraska, moved out there almost 19 years ago, and we've been living there ever since. And I wouldn't change that because I think that those of us who move and you who move to a new meeting or who come in, we're all angels because not angels in the sense of being good because we're not any of us good, at least I'm not. But we are carrying a message. And I have to ask myself at the end of every day when I do a review of my day, what kind of message have I carried today? See, just because I'm up here speaking doesn't mean that I don't have to go to meetings or that I Don't Have to Call My Sponsor or thatI Don'tHaveToTryToLiveTheStep. Every day, I begin the day on my knees. Now, you don'thave to do that, but I do it because I am arrogant and I need to start my day on my knees. And I say, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Some days it's like, relieve me of the bondage of self and some days it is, relieve me of bondage itself that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help with thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. and I end the day thanking him for my life you know this is not I'm going to end up because I know if you start banging with your forks I'm gonna feel rejected but I want to tell you something I believe so sincerely this is the biggest thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life I always felt like I was supposed to do something, you know, but I never knew what it was. And I think it's just to be an AA member and it's very important to me. And it's important to that I be a good AA member. And one of the things that was hard for me was any kind of spiritual movement. And I love this because, you know, psychologists... Before I got sober, I went to a psychiatrist. Then he told me I had a giant complex, that I was the giant. And I went to a minister and he said I was guilty you know well that's the that's what keeps everybody in line you know if you're guilty you got to do something about it and I had sought all kinds of different help when I went to school I've gone you know I love to learn things and I love reading new things and I love the thirst for knowledge but the thing is this I am always been fascinated with psychology. And I got to thinking about this because this is very important. When I was in Columbus, Ohio just recently, this girl came up to me and I have never seen anyone in sobriety that looked so damaged. There was a look in her eye, and you know that was so hurt and she said to me have you ever sponsored someone and then she named a problem other than alcoholism and I said yes I have and say she said how is she doing now and I said she's doing fine she's married and she has one kid and another kid on the way and she and her husband get along well and so forth she said do you think she would talk to me. I said, I'm sure she would because when we made her list and she went to the appropriate people in this instance, she promised herself that she would help someone else with this problem and it says that in our book, cling to the thought that in God's hands our past can be a benefit to others. So I said I'm certain she will but I'll check with her she said i have been going to a therapist about this problem and i am getting worse and worse and worse and now he wants to put me on some kind of medication and i just i've been sober for six years and i don't want to do that i'm sorry this just happened so it's just so wonderful I know I'm crying, but it's wonderful, you know. And so I had this girl call her, and the girl called me about a month ago, and she said, I have not ever felt better in my life. And I got to thinking about that. You know, psychiatrists tried to help us. but the problem is this it's like they think that if we dig up underneath ourselves if we dig into our path and we turn up this soil and we get down the root caught we're going to dig up all of these grubs and everybody's got grubs And there's grubs in everybody's life. They're ugly. Here I am talking about worms again before dinner. But these grubs, they're white and ugly grubs. But grubs... If we could just say, oh, okay, those are my grubs and put them back down, it'd be one thing. But not us alcoholics. When we dig up our grubs we get them like this and we go, My grubs! My grub! My grud! And we can't do anything. We're paralyzed by our grubs in front of our... You know what I'm saying? It's like we get fascinated with these grubs, and we canít turn them loose, you know, and people say, ìPut those grubs down. Theyíre ugly.î But theyíre my grubs. You know, theyíre mine. And thatís the way we get fascinating with these things. And that is a psychological approach. If you can get... If you could know the beast, name the beast youíll be able to say, put it down. But we don't do that, see. But what AA says is, fine, name the grubs. Name the beast. But by God, put the rock back over them, stand on it, and look forward to what you can be. And that is the spiritual approach. That's why AA is successful. Because it is a spiritual approach It is not a spiritual side. It is the whole thing is spiritual. And I was of the least spiritual people when I arrived here, the least. Didn't even believe in a power greater than. And I'll tell you three stories and then I'm done because I'm visual again and because this is so important to me. This is the payoff. this is the result of doing the deal this is the result of it's the least I can do is that I see God every day in ordinary things he doesn't come to me in burning bushes or really flashy pieces of light, he comes to me in people's eyes and in ordinary daily events I was in San Jose about five years ago and I was scared I didn't realize that they had big conventions up there I knew that down here were big conventions but I didn' t know that this was so big and I had gone up to my room and I put on my yellow silk speaking dress and I as talking to myself why are they asking you Claire out here from Nebraska you're just a little broad you're going to get up there and do something you've never done in your life, and that is you're gonna pass out right on the stage. And then you're not gonna be able to say anything. You're gonna go, duh! And they won't give you your airline ticket money and you just won't get back home and everybody will be ashamed of you and belve you and all this. I'm just humming. And we're sitting outside watching this play called Sadie the South. Or Susie the Thouse or something. And it's a musical and they're all... And I'm trying, I'm humming, humming, humming and I'm tryin' to pay attention. I can't pay attention and all of a sudden I feel something wet hit my hand, and I looked up because I thought it was raining in California, and it was a drought then. And I looked out, not a cloud in the sky. We were outside in this amphitheater. I looked down. It's white. My partner that was sitting over here on the side of me, this kind of fuss-budget little nurse that's a friend of mine, she goes, oh, oh, a bird has crapped on your back. And there was this huge white splotch on my back. And you know what? All of a sudden, everything was just fine. I got up there and I made that talk. I didn't care. I left that crap right on my shoulder. And those people is like some kind of like a stigmata or something. You know, people came up afterwards. They didn't hear what I said either. They wanted to see my bird crap on my shoulders. God sent me that bird. For some people, they sing. For me, they crap. But God sent me that burden. By golly, it says God as we understand him. I can believe that if I want to. You give me that privilege. I developed a fear of flying. Actually, not a fear or flying, a fear crashing and burning is what I developed. Love to fly, hate to crash and burn. And I'm on this little plane going from Kansas City to Little Rock, Arkansas. We had a stop to make in Fayetteville, which is in the mountains. Well, this pilot got on and he looked bad right off. I mean, his hair was sticking straight up out of it. He just looked like that guy out of an airplane. You know, oh my God, you know. And whenever I fly, I clutch my medallion, you know, and say the Lord's Prayer when I take off and land because when you're landing, it's just a controlled crash is all it is. like this you know we get up in the air and this thing is like a little dragonfly oh patty and i went on one of those trips remember it was pretty rough too and we were trying we were joshing each other along talking about our children hoping that each of us wouldn't see how afraid we were because it was rough too but this was going to end so anyway it was in a big storm and and and they're trying to land and we are going like this and they come down next to the runway and there's solid ice on the runway. I could see it. They had the runway lights on. Guy takes off again like this, the curtain or the raggedy curtain in between him and us and flapping back like this and the stall alarm and the airplane goes off and I am sweating bullets. I am praying. I'm saying, Lord, Lord, I promise y'all I'll cook dinner for Dick every day this week. I'll never swear from the podium again. I've never turned down nothing. I promise I'll be the best daughter you ever saw your whole life and i i mean i'm sweating bullets scared to death i hear something rustle behind me i turn around like this there's a lady back there she has opened a brown paper bag she has pulled out a bottle of smirnoff vodka she is taking the top off of it she takes a big slug out of it. I felt better. God sent me that lady with the bottle of vodka because I could have been mad. I would have been made. I wouldn't have felt sorry for myself. I couldn't have any vodka and I'm scared to death, more scared than she is. And she gets to drink. No, I just thought it was great. I laughed. I thought it was great. And I haven't been afraid like that since. That's how God enters my life. When I laugh, it's like I've got this cosmic zipper and God goes like this and he goes and he cleans up all the stuff inside of me. And he says, is that enough for today? And then back up again. It's wonderful because when you're laughing, can you feel anything else? Can you? It's hard to feel sorry for yourself in the middle of a belly laugh. I think laughter is God's voice. It's his music. So, I laughed at that. I mean, I thought it was wonderful. And I see him in very subtle ways. I believe there's a wonderful book out by a gal named Valerie Martin. It's just a non-fiction book, or fiction book. But it's about, it's called Mary Riley. And I don't know if anybody's read it, but they're making a movie out of it. And it's the story of Mary Riley and it's all about the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which of course is the story of alcoholism because Robert Louis Stevenson, ironically, I looked him up in the encyclopedia, he died of a stroke while opening a bottle of port, which was fitting because I believe he suffered from alcoholism. But anyway, he wrote this story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in which Dr.Jekyll was the very good part, the very Good Man, and Mr Hyde was the Dark Man. And when Dr. Jeckyll took a drink of this potion, he became Mr.Hyde. and at first it was okay because he had control over going back to that but eventually what happened was he lost the choice and then in this book which is the story is told by the housemaid mary riley the housemate says that she knows what it feels like to have the dark in her life and she would not trade the dark in her life for anything in the world because it made her grateful for the merest ray of light and that's what it does for me I wouldn't trade a single thing I've gone through because it lets me be grateful for the light because see I think that's God I think the light is God and I two stories and I'm done I promise how many stories was there? in March this last year it was very very cold in Nebraska 20 below and we take my husband and I take a walk every day with our dogs And we walk down in the park And I feed all of the wild animals We live out kind of in the country And I eat raccoons and I feed squirrels And I see birds and I see rabbits And I, I feed a family of foxes And I take these foxes Leftover dog food Every day on my walk Usually we can see them come up I'm a great animal lover. Is anybody else an animal lover? I mean, I just love animals. There's God. I mean there is God there. That is a higher power. Anyway, so Dick was out of town and I was walking the dogs. It was 20 below. I'm freezing my buns off and I got my dog food and I'm carrying it down there and I am all wrapped up and normally we walk about half a block and then they'll come up and we can look at them with our binoculars. Normally, they won't get any closer. They won't let us get any close to them. They won' t get any more closer than that. But this day... And I put the dog food down. And I have two dogs, Charlie and Cuckoo. And Cuckool's deaf. And she's fat. And she' s old. And she doesn't have to be on a leash. Charlie has to be on a lease. So I put the dog food down and I turned around and I took about a half a dozen steps and I felt something. And I turned around like that without moving my feet and I looked back and there was the fox and he looked straight at me right in my eyes and I didn't move a muscle and then very very slowly he sat down And then one paw at a time, he put one foot out and then he put the other foot out. And he laid down and he never took his eyes off. God you have taught me to understand the God that has filled my life with light lets me know that he was saying thank you it's the least I could do you allow me you allow me to let God be the cosmic toothbrush that cleans up my life so that, as Chuck C. says, I can see the world with a new pair of glasses. There was a man walking on the beach. This is from a book by Lauren Isley who is called The Star Thrower. He's born in Nebraska. And I love the ocean. There had been a storm the night before and the man got up in the morning he was going to take a walk and everything, I'm a watercolourist and everything on the beach was greys and pinks and misty because of the storm the night before and in the distance the man saw another van stooping down picking something up and throwing it back in the ocean and the The man who was walking, as he approached, saw that the sand was littered with starfish. And starfish can't live out of the ocean. And he saw that man was picking up the starfish and throwing them back in the ocean, and the man who is walking said to the man who's throwing, what are you doing? And the man who was throwing said, I'm throwing these starfish back in the ocean so they can live. And the men who was walking said, what difference does it make? There are thousands of them. And the man who was thrown said, it makes all the difference in the world to this one. And you have made all the different in the world to this one. Thank you.