Steps 10 – Emotional Sobriety – Part 5 of 6 – Sandy B.

in step 10 it's very much like step 1 10 and 11 are very much mirroring step 1 and 2 that's what I've learned so I build a foundation in 1 and 3 where I started to watch for alcoholism and when I'd see it crop up I would go to the power in step 2 and I would say power please protect me from my mind the principles are exactly the same in 10 and 11 why i feel very fortunate that i got it way down in one and two is because sometimes i hear people in aa say you just wait the spiritual awakening happens in step nine or happens in set 10 or after you get through all 12 steps and like i said earlier if something isn't being presented right here right now for the alcoholic, then what am I going to take home with me? What kind of hope am I going to give a newcomer? You know, just buckle down and white knuckle it until you get to a certain step. So there has to be a living presence with God right here, right now that I can tap into. And as I continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong, promptly admitted, it very much triggers my step one and step two process that I, that I talked about earlier. And you know, it, it says that, you know, the love and tolerance are my code. It gives me some application here, but I don't have to follow it perfectly. It says continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And when these crop up, I ask God at once to remove them. So way down in one and two, we were doing the same thing. It's there in the literature. It is really about right now. I mean, here Bill Wilson talks about it very clearly. We've ceased fighting anything and anyone. That's a really big order right there that I'm not resisting. And that doesn't mean I have to go along with things. There's a difference between character assassination and discernment or so discernment and character assassination are let's just hypothetically say somebody we're walking down the street and there's a pile of dog poo in the sidewalk. And I say, Oh my gosh, watch out. You're going to step in that, you know, looks like dog S smells like dog ass. I think it is dog S, you know? And we dodge it and we walk the other way. That's healthy discernment. Phew. We almost stepped in dog poo and had it all over our shoes. Now the character assassination is like, you know what? And guess who I think is that lady down the Street with the Chihuahua. We should scoop that up and we should smear that all over her door. It's on and cracking. How dare she? how come she doesn't clean up her stuff you know that i have a story about it so discernment is one thing and then going into alcoholism is something else there's thinking and i need to use my mind but when i havea story about something or i'm attached with a feeling or emotion now i've gone off the aa beam so i want to watch for that cease fighting everything and everyone And no matter how much of a trouble or a drama is, I can meet calamity with serenity when I'm connected to the power. I can transcend these things or I can have a steadfast objective view when I'm plugged into the power and it doesn't mean that I have to accept what's going on. It doesn't means that at all and I think there's a real fine line where we don't get to talk about that enough here. That often the AA literature or message seems to be presented that, you know what man, just suck it up and that's just the way it is and just live and let live. And that's not what it means. Like I said earlier, sometimes God really wants me to be strengthened in certain areas and maybe even really speak my mind in something and stand up for what I feel is right in a healthy way. But what's more important is the muscle underneath. Like, am I speaking from a God consciousness or am I not? So we cease fighting anything and everyone. And I learn how to seek the truth and speak the truth in the moment that I'm in. And sometimes that might be harsh for somebody else, but I'm not there for their approval and I'm Not There to Hurt Them. I'm just there for my own higher self to be true. so it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels and if we do we're headed for trouble for this alcoholism is a subtle foe i'm not cured of this alcohol what i really have is a daily reprieve it's really a moment by moment reprieved contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition it's not daily for me because my mind can get me in so much trouble here the demonstration intent is every day that i every day is the Today I must carry the vision of God's will into all my activities. And, of course, my activities start with my thought life. So here again is this mirror with step 1 and 2 and 10 and 11 of looking at my thought live. If I'm supposed to carry God's Will for me into all of my activities, that's a really tall order. That means right now, right now and right now. That means I continue to wake up to the present moment. How can I best serve Thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. And these are thoughts which must go with us constantly. Here, Bill uses that word constantly. You know, there's one that has all power. May you find him now in all my affairs. You know? I'm not willing that you should have all of me. It says it, you know, all over the literature. Much has already been said about receiving strength and inspiration and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed direction have begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us. To some extent, we have become God conscious. We have begunto develop this vital sixth sense, but we must go further and that means more action. And again, I feel like sometimes people just skip over that or think that it can't be achieved and I know that it can be achieved. I really believe that for everybody here, we can achieve a God consciousness and get far away from self. I wouldn't be standing here trying to be a demonstration, trying to go further, trying to carry a message if I hadn't have had a huge shift in my own consciousness through the 12 steps. So spot check inventory, watching for stuff all the time, staying awake, keeping my lamplight burning keeping the flashlight you know search and research again and again always with an open mind spotlight i mean there's all this stuff in the literature i want to be the watcher i want to be focused on what is what you know and and in this step 11 you know suggest that prayer and meditation we shouldn't shy away from this matter you know there's so many forms of a conscious contact with god i it's infinite it's as infinite as god it's not just petitioning and getting on my knees and asking god to be with me it's it's feelings it's reading spiritual literature you know a prayer can even be just opening my mind up and having a healthy communication with somebody having good eye contact that really can be practicing the presence of god so So it's really, it's an infinite thing. And it doesn't have to just be that I get on my knees and do a third step or the seven-step prayer or the St. Francis prayer. The question more is how do I keep it fresh? How do I continuously revive this relationship with God? All this literature and all this stuff can get stale and old, you know, and I have to find new material or meet the material in a new way. God strengthens me and and God renews me and God restores me in the moment so I want to continue to have a new relationship with God a new friendship with the print and a new relationship with the steps um does anybody have a question or something they'd like to share my name is Teresa I'm alcoholic thank you so much now I'm an alcoholic and um So there's a couple of things, but I'm just going to go to the question here. I've been around AA for a few days, and I still run into personality triggers. And I try to be kind and generous and loving and this person would just keep ignoring me, just like the scenario that you talked about, the party and giving the invitation. So there's something that triggers in me. But then you also said that some things are unacceptable. And that was one of the things that my very first sponsor told me, that I didn't have to accept unacceptable behavior. But I also know that everyone's entitled to be an AA. Everyone has a right to be there. So I go through this whole thing And I just don't know how to find what it is that triggers me. Is it one particular person? Can you go a little bit deeper into the dynamics of the relationship? Is it 1 particular person or is it many people? Is it once consistent scenario over and over with a person? Okay, could you describe it a little bit deeper? You're not seen, you're not recognized and you just so much want their love and their affection? Not even so much their love an affection but their um their acceptance and their courteous acceptance you know right you know I mean I've worked on committees with this person and now that you know I'm standing here I'm thinking you know I come from a large family brothers and sisters seven brothers and sisters and if I go back all the way back you know but I don't know I really don't know because I do have to you know there's certain things that I'm in this circle with this person we do service together with the same sponsor and i still get the same results from her all the time she'll walk right by me and act like i'm not even there right you know and i'm just like there's a part of me that really believes that this is a program of progress and i understand him but we've both been around for a long time and it it hurts my feelings right i understand i just go so you're you're doing the same thing over and over again and you're expecting different results because nothing's changed inside of you. So nothing's changing inside of her. So I'm going to give you a really outrageous demonstration. And I love this demonstration and I think it's one of the greatest tools we could ever use. Very few people want to speak the truth and it's how we speak the true truth. And when we speak, the truth with God, everything works. So you go up and you say, you know donna i've been feeling really uncomfortable i've Been feeling like i don't want to come here because i'm feeling like you don't, want me around I don't feel like you like me go for it go straight for the jugular what do you have to lose You know yeah just say i'm, feeling like, you really don't like, me is something wrong The other backside of that coin is You're such a worthy person, Teresa. Why in the hell do you ever want to be in a relationship with someone that can't see you? Why in hell do I have to be invited to anything that woman has? It's so wrong the way she treats you that she can't see you. It's wrong. Why would you even want to be invited to her little pink party? I don't want to be where people don't want me anymore. I don't want to be invited to my mom's. She doesn't want me there. Why do I want to pee there? It's the ego. It's not the true self. So speak the truth and go straight for the jugular. You know, and even like when my mom invited me for her birthday this past June, I just knew she didn't want be there. And I knew she did it because she felt like she had to. And i called her up and I said, Mom, i'm calling you about your birthday on monday because i'm feeling really uncomfortable about coming and i'm feel like you don't want me there and boy oh boy i never went for the jugular like that before she goes you know your sister made some reservations everybody's coming i said i'm not calling you abut the reservations i'm callling you because i am feeling really uncomfortable about coming because i'am not feeling wanted there you know everybody is going to be there. Mackenzie's going to be there too. They're all coming. God, she just couldn't deal because I'm taking my flashlight and I'm saying, I see what you're doing. And I said, I'm not talking about who's coming. I'm telling you I'm feeling uncomfortable about coming because I feel like I'm coming. I'm feeling like you don't want me there. She could not do it. She couldn't get to the truth and say, you know what? I have a really big issue and I don't want you there.She said, no, you come. You go ahead and come. And you know, it's funny because then I thought, are you sure. And I'm about to hang up. And all of a sudden she goes, hey, how's everybody? How's your life? What's going on? And I thought, very interesting. She hasn't asked me about my life for years, but I shined the flashlight in her face and couldn't take it. The darkness just couldn't handle it. So when you're fit with God, take the flashlight, put it right in her eyes, right in your eyes, but don't do it from self. If I'm not equipped with God it's going to be a selfish act. I want to be fit and spiritually strong. And I want to ask somebody, is there a problem? Because I can see that every time you walk in the room, it seems like you say hello to everyone in the committee. And then there's not even any eye contact. Did I do something wrong? Is there something here going on? And do it so sincerely. Oh my God, they crumble. And it gets cleaned up very quickly. I can tell you this. They stop acting like that. You know, I sponsor this one guy and he's so adorable. He's Hispanic and his dad was a bad alcoholic, drunk and just beat him so senselessly. This guy had no self-esteem at all. And he called me from work one day and he picked up his phone and I said, hey, how you doing? He goes, God, there's this lady in the cubicle next to me. And she actually stood up and folded her arms when I picked up my phone and looked at me like, are you going to call someone? And I said, is that your boss? And he said, no. And I said, so what she's just having an opinion about you using the phone. He goes, yeah, and it makes me so uncomfortable. And I said okay, so after you hang up the phone, I want you to go up to her and I want You to say, I noticed that you had a reaction when I was talking on the phone. Does it bother you? Are we not supposed to talk on the Phone here? And He says, so he went up and he did it because the lady that was next to her that's typing. Her hands just froze on the keyboard. He goes, you've got to keep telling me this stuff. I felt so good. He says, she didn't know what to say. And even a week later, I asked him, I said, how's it going? He goes. She's so different. She is so nice to me. She is so courteous. She never does that again. So we go for the truth. That's what God wants us to do. We're not punishing people. We are talking about the truth here. The truth in someone's behavior and the truth was she wasn't his boss and she was totally judging him for dialing the phone and it was none of her business so you look right at him and say did you have a problem with what i just did and i'm telling you people don't go for the truth these days and they don't know what to do with it but you'll feel oh my god to thine own self be true it'll become easier and easier and easier for you to just pull your flashlight out and really shine on a situation like that. I hope that helped. Yeah. My name's Eileen. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Eileen, Teresa. I had a coworker who every time that I went by her in the hallway, I would say good morning, good day, whatever. And she would always totally ignore me and go right past me. And it really bothered me for quite a few years. And my sponsor and I did work on this, and she said, Eileen, just because you want a relationship with her doesn't mean that she wants a relationship with you. Give her that dignity of choice. If she doesn't want that relationship with you, you can't force that with her. So from that point on, I took that to heart, and it was okay. I could walk past her and just give her that dignity of not making her go through that every time that she saw me. And so about six months later, a new executive secretary came on board and I got pretty friendly with her. And she said, what is the problem? What is it me? The same lady wouldn't give her the same dignity of choice. So I said, don't take it personally. It's just her. There was only like one person in the whole company that she talks to just know that it's not you okay thanks thanks eileen my name is patty and i'm an alcoholic and i like i like this topic and one of the things that has helped me so much of the years is to tell myself don't take it personally you know i take i sometimes i my ego tells me i'm the center of the universe even when i'm telling myself that i'm humble and so somebody will look at me or i think they're looking at me but they're really preoccupied and i take a person and think what a terrible person that is how could they be so rude to me i'm such a kind giving person and so what has been so helpful is just to not take things things personally oftentimes the way you are or even the way i am is has nothing to do with you or me it just is so anyway you know thanks patty but i can tell you that some people's alcoholic skin is thinner than others and i can really really relate to what Teresa's talking about. And I don't want to be in a, in a work environment or in arena where someone's continuously snubbing me. So as a spiritual demonstration, like I said before, I can either accept things the way they are and just go, whatever, you know, she's toxic and she treats people poorly, or I can leave or Ican do something to change it. And the do something to change. It is to say, I've noticed that you haven't been saying hello to me. And I want to tell you, I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable. I don''t have to tell him, You know what, I don't want to come here anymore and I hate your guts. But I can say it's making me uncomfortable. Is there a problem? And I don' t mind being raw and vulnerable and saying, I've been feeling uncomfortable. I've just noticed that there's a real distance between me and you. Is there something I can do? Is there some thing going on? But I hear you. Sometimes I can just snip the whole thing and go whatever. They're a sick person just like me. But it seems that Teresa keeps getting re-triggered. So I would say there's no way of praying this thing out. now the wound has entrenched itself so deeply into the subconscious mind that to go in there and try to rearrange the whole thing i would almost tell her leave the situation so this is one last ditch effort before i would finally tell her theresa you've tried this woman can't hear you she can't see you and if you're going to continue to get triggered then you're gonna have to go to a different meeting because the last thing i want to see you do theresa is waste your time and your gas money going to that meeting and the minute you see that biatch's car in the driveway before you even get to hear the preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous, you're already triggered. And in alcoholism, that's not what God would want for any of us. But, you know, you peak your battles with each situation. Kathy, did you have a... Hi, I'm Kathy. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Kathy. And I use silence and dismissiveness as a weapon. I'm one of those people that will ignore people. And I use it because I didn't speak my truth to begin with so if somebody has upset me rather than confront them or speak my truth at the time I just let it fester and festered and Esther and I use that silence like a weapon and most of the time they when they do come up and say to me um did I do something are we okay I go oh yeah we're fine I just have the hardest time speaking my truth the one time I did decide to, and this was recently. I had a friend of mine, she's in the program, and I handled it really badly. I sent her a text. The problem with texts and emails is that we aren't face-to-face, and I decided to cancel something we had planned because she invited somebody I didn't want to have come along and didn't consult me. So when I told her The trip is off, and you shouldn't have invited this person. I get an e-mail about two weeks later saying, please don't ever call me, e- mail me, or text me again. I think the world of you, but I think we need to take a break from our friendship. And I was like, oh, wow. And it just really freaked me out. I called her and said, you know what, let's fix this. This is wrong, and I was wrong. and you know the thing was is that she told me I don't like confrontation and it's like well and this isn't and and you're also toxic to me and I said so okay so does this mean I have to be in a good mood every time I see you I mean I've got to be able to say what I feel and I realized there's a lot of the time I don'T SAY WHAT I MEAN because It just really freaks me out that somebody's not going to like me. And so, you know, that's my truth today. Yeah, you Know, I hear what you're saying and the ego still isn't treated. That's not the true you. That is a defense system that you created in order to survive in a very hostile world. so there's this child in Kathy's basement screaming to get out but Kathy on her muscle had to survive some really harsh conditions in order to get through so I'm going to guess I already just know your childhood was all cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs I can tell I can totally with a skill like that I can Tell that you weren't allowed to say anything you weren'T allowed to speak your mind you better shut up don't you put get into my face uh-uh I said no right and that kind of stuff. So it turns into passive aggressive behavior. And I don't like to use psychological terms because this is AA, but you know, basically it's a tit for tat scorekeeping thing and I can never be truthful. So for me, you know. Even when self says. I can't speak my truth or I want to speak my truth or i want to text we have to go way down into the unmanageable life who's texting who in the heck is texting who's the texter and what's the texter energizing it's very important that way down in the second half of step one i can see who's holding the phone is it me or is it the power you know and then it's much easier and i can tell you just by picking this whole scene apart your friend saying you're toxic for me but I think the world of you she can't speak her truth either there's a lot going on in the dynamics of this relationship you know that's what one of these and so the hard part is this and here's where this emotional sobriety really comes in an Alcoholics Anonymous is the AA is only 76 years old we have to go so much further and Bill didn't have the communication skills honed it's not in our print but it's something we can discuss amongst each other to raise our consciousness. How do I fend for my God consciousness or fend for myself in a healthy way and still stay centered with God and not say harmful things and speak the truth? And when somebody says, is there something wrong? Is there something wrong? That's the perfect moment for me to say, yeah, there's something wrong. And I get really raw and vulnerable. And right now I'm feeling like if I tell you the truth, you're going to reject me and walk away, but I'm going to tell you the truth anyway. My feelings get so hurt and I get so triggered every single time you tell me you're going to have dinner with me and at the last minute invite somebody else because my relationship with you is important and I feel even a little bit selfish and I really enjoy having company with only you. And I'm just asking you this if next time we have dinner plans, if you could call me before you invite somebody else and you know what maybe she'll blah blah blah but i just said the truth i didn't say you did anything wrong i said i get triggered when this happens not you trigger me and it becomes real real easy to just keep my side of the street and grow and grow and grow it's interesting i almost asked is she is she the one that's in the committee it's really funny she said i'm triggered by someone that snubs me and silences me and then she gets up says i'm the silencer and they're only one one person away it's so great it's so so great and interestingly enough like just out of curiosity because you're the one that practices the silent scorn demonstration how would you feel if someone went right up to you and said you know what kathy i have noticed that for the last six weeks you say hi to everybody except me and it really hurts my feelings like well how wouldyou respond to that if somebody hit you with that Would you be able to handle it? See, and I can see when I say I don't know, it would be very difficult. So I can tell you right now, even though that woman isn't here, she has the same defect. And I can tells you right know, you take your flashlight and you say so-and-so, my feelings get really hurt and I feel triggered because I feel like every time I'm around you, you just ignore me and you can't see me. Is there something wrong? And we just go for the truth. That's it. It's very, very easy, but it's a skill that we haven't been taught. And I think that it's a great AA skill. I'm not making anyone wrong or right, I'm just speaking the truth. Going back, most of this stuff, let's pray out of our system. Let's pick our battles so carefully, okay? It's not like I'm going to go running around now in everybody's face and telling them I see the truth and the truth This is when I can't quiet the disturbance. This is where all prayer and all else has failed. Sponsorship, inventory, and obviously something needs to be said. How can I confront the situation in the most healthy fashion. Yeah, I hope that helps. Is there somebody else that wanted to share or ask a question? Hi, my name is Linda. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Linda. Several years ago, I was in the beauty business, and we had a desk girl, a receptionist that was snotty, and I was running late one night. She couldn't go home until I finished. She kept walking back to the back of the shop, giving the attitude, hands on hips. And later I was getting a ride somewhere with the owner, and my customer said, I'm going to call home and call Debbie, the owner. And I said, don't do that, please. I said I don't want to put you in that position. I'll speak to Debbie. And I went to the boss, and I said � you know, Sonia was really wrong in doing this. She made the customer uncomfortable. And boy, the next day Sonia says, you ran to Debbie, did you tell? I said yes, I did. that was very unprofessional. I said, she says, well, I don't care. Nobody here likes me. I said I do. I like you. And I did what I was told to do when I was new. When I have a problem with someone, I'm really nice to them. And after that, I just continued to be really nice to her and made her feel comfortable. She says, I can't believe you're so nice and you still tattled on me. I said honey, you're young. You need to grow up. Just put on your big girl panties and get on with life. But when I wound up quitting that job, all the phone numbers of clients were on a computer. And I didn't know how to do that. She went in there and the computer gave me a whole list of all my customers to call. She was the one that took care of me. And I stayed friends with her. So it's just interesting that following the advice of sponsors and people that came before us of praying for someone that you don't like, pray for them to you you turn around liking them or be extra nice to those people you don't like and pretty soon it's not a phony act you're doing it and you mean it I know that because I've had to do that with my son-in-law for 24 years thank you thanks so much Linda you know and for me that's a tricky situation because I don't want self to authorize anything so self may say just be extra nice fish be extra nice and then i'm doing the self-help thing you know self is the authority and self is saying that so i hear what you're saying and it turned out really well for you but i still feel like those situations are tricky i don't just want to i'd rather practice the restraint of pen and tongue and not say anything than put on a clown happy face where i'm like all joyful when i really hate your guts because the disease is untreated on the inside and i'm operating from a phony place, but it seems like for you the whole thing came out so beautifully and that's such a great demonstration. Go ahead. Did you have a... I'm still Bill, an alcoholic. Hi, still Bill. Thanks. You know, I was raised in an alcoholic family and I'm an only child in that alcoholic family. And I became such a con and a manipulator of the adults around me early on that when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, people would say, fake it till you make it. And And that's the way I've spent my whole life. I got to step three, and I started hearing about the businessman lolling on the beach, whining about politics up in Washington, D.C., and not enjoying himself. And I started relating to that. And what my sponsor did is help me become more genuine in all of the things that I do and all my feelings. And the spiritual axiom you were talking about up in step 10 started helping me understand that I'm the guy with the problem, not the other person. I'm either in a place of neutrality, safe, or I'm not. And if I'm Not, I have the responsibility to move toward that. What I'm practicing today is learning how to do the serenity prayer that you were talking about earlier, where I can remove myself from abusive situations. I can have respect for you and your feelings, and I don't have to demand anything from the person that I'm interacting with. So I don' t know if that's different than what you're saying, but I don''t really feel like I need to get up in people's faces and express my truth to them. And when I do that, I have a hard time with that because I really want you to validate my feelings and say, oh yeah, I know you're right, I'm the jerk. But it doesn't seem to work out that way. So I'm trying this other tack of how about being neutral for once? How about being okay just the way I am and admitting that other people can be spiritually sick as well? Right, and every situation has to be handled so carefully. With sponsorship. Yeah, I really don't know. I can just see that Teresa has taken the passive road and probably the last-ditch effort, because I don't think she can accept the wound, is get the heck out. So if you're going to walk away from the home group, before you do that, before you walk away From the whole committee, why don't you try one last thing and align my will with God's will and then go in and say, Can I speak to you for a few minutes, and not be on my muscle, you know, and just go in And ask the person, but I understand exactly what you're saying. And most of the time, just shutting my mouth and practicing the restrained pen and tongue and praying for these people, it will lift it. Nine times out of ten, that continuous prayer, you know, at 5.52 of praying for somebody over and over andover, it does lift it, but every once in a while it gets real stuck. Somebody else? Who hasn't shared? Who? Thank you, Rich. Hi, I'm Yvonne. I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi, Yvonn. I'm going to go back to the mother. You do the accent pretty great, though. I was born and raised in the Netherlands. My mother is Dutch, or my mother is German. My father is Dutch-Indonesian, and he was born in Indonesia. My father was raised in a Japanese concentration camp as a boy. My mom was a survivor of Nazi Germany and an incest survivor by her own father, who was an alcoholic. And so what I've learned is how to live in a war zone. There was no yelling and screaming from time to time, there was. But I learned how to life in a War Zone because they both knew how to survive a war. That's all they knew, and they taught me what they knew. And your mother must be a sister of my mother. And so I came to the States because this is as far as I could get away from that woman and that man. and I'm an only child so all the undivided love was on me which is not a good thing there was no escaping anything and so when I came here a sponsor said to me one day she said don't you think this woman deserves a daughter I'm like no yeah but not me leave me alone I said this is as far as I could get away and because I'm so far away the voices of my mom and dad get turned down on that radio just far enough so I can hear that little voice inside that's me and the distance the The geographical boundary makes it safe enough for me to listen to me because it wasn't safe in my home. And so, my father disinherited me. I was never to be born. My name was never going to be mentioned again. I'm not good enough. All my problems are my fault, yada, yadda, yedda, and so here I am. I don't exist. I'm neither heard nor seen. And even when I talk to my mom, I'm not heard enough. She can't hear me, not even for one minute. She can hold a platform for me to say something. I can say it, it just doesn't enter her brain. And so it took that safety away from them. It took this far for me to be able to do recovery and to beable to open up. And through my brokenness, the cracks of the brokenness and working in Alateen and working at the state prisons, I was able to let God come in and do some work because my heart was a stone and I couldn't do emotions if my life depended on it. I couldn�t do it. And so today, after not having seen my mom or dad for 15, 16 years, I woke up 9 o�clock in the morning one day and I get this phone call. Your father had a massive heart attack. His brain is like, are you coming? I always said, no, I�m not going back to have him go take her out of my room. She doesn�t exist because I�m like, I�m done being punished. I'm done going back for more and more And more and because I need that acceptance And so I heard myself say Yeah And so after 16 years I went back to the Netherlands And here's my mom My dad of course Whatever you call that And I came back here And my whole life was upside down But what I did realize Is that in the meantime I had built up that spiritual bank account I was able to deal In a non-screaming not combative way and people were watching me the whole time just watching me and i'm thinking why is everybody watching me they wanted to know what i was going to do because i always did something i was nuts i so relate to that i was not some fighter i go for it i go from juggler all the time and so today i talked to my mom from time to time she still doesn't hear me she still doesn't see me but she doesn't pursue me anymore something happened with her i don't know what and i really don't care and you know i can talk to her i can't hug her and i i'm not warm and fuzzy with her but there's a dialogue and that's the the miracle of recovery and i thought that would never happen and i didn't even want it to happen because i wanted peace and quiet i wanted the peace and quietly leave me alone of always being beat up and not knowing where the two by four comes from got really tired and old and i needed that time out to have that safety so i understand thank you so much what a beautiful demonstration of recovery beautiful somebody else we still have some time i'd really like to hear from some of the people or even how this whole thing experienced how you experienced going through the steps this way or the tebow papers or hey my name is david i am an alcoholic and i'm in service in my home group and there was one of the women in the home group that i felt i was relating too well because she's the same age She's my daughter, and her situation is a lot like my daughter's. She's a single mom. And I started noticing that we weren't connecting and we weren'T saying hello and just the kind of thing we've been talking about today. So I went over to her, and I sat down beside her, and I said, Are we okay? She said, Yeah, sure. And she was just having some other problems. It had nothing to do with me. Just my thin skin. I just wondered why I wasn't getting any eye contact. And everything was all right. Thank you so much, David. I know somebody in here wants to share. I can feel it. There we go. Hi, I'm Kelly and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Kelly. And I'll see if I can describe the situation. is that about eight or nine years ago, I had memories come back of being abused by my grandmother. And as a result, all my family members turned away from me. And the only member I have left living is my brother. And he too walked away. This is so painful. is I have tried to have a relationship with him, but it's like the same kind of relationship that I had with my parents, which is a fake pseudo one, that at Christmas and on birthdays we send each other cards. But this is something that I'm really grappling with, and over and over again I've written tons of dead letters. I've talked to my sponsor about it. but my soul is so at unrest. What I want to say to him is, you know, I really would like to have an honest relationship with you. You know, he doesn't know who I am at all. Or, you Know, because of your three solutions that you offered. And there's this other side that, you Now, it feels abusive. You Know, and I'm the one doing the abuse. It's to just walk away. So that if you can formulate a question or help me with that in any way, I'd be really grateful. Yeah, well, I have to see the dynamics. I mean, how much does self want a relationship that's not possible? I don't know how much damage is there or how hardened he is, but I know that being raw and truthful and vulnerable is the best thing. And what you just said to me, you might want to say to him, You might even want to say, you know what brother? I feel like i've been a phony Just keep the whole ball on your court. I've been such a phoney I've written you these pseudo cards and there hasn't been a whole lot of meaning in them And I haven't been really great at communicating and I haven'T been good at connecting And I just want to let you know, I really miss having a sibling I just wanna let you that even though I don't express it you're really in my heart and just see if something opens up, you know, it's obvious to me that there's emotion backed with this and that you really have a desire to go further. So just tell the truth. You know, the point that I want to make is that we don't put demands on anybody. We don't ask them to treat us a certain way or to be different. We just go for the truth and see if that loosens something. And often it does, you knows, very few people are real straight up sociopaths where they're so disconnected that they just don't want anything and can't even be heard. So often you can crack the shell of the ego a little bit, and there might even be tears. You know, you can talk about how you've missed out on family for so long and how hurt you've been, and that you do feel that maybe you've even been misunderstood because there was abuse in the past if that gets opened up. Maybe not. Maybe you don't even go into that. Maybe leave that one completely behind but it's to thine own self be true and speaking the language of the heart and not making accusations and just being in i feel statements really help to convey that yeah but you know i would go for it i mean you know it's a last-ditch effort and it may open up everything in a great way thanks it was a beautiful yeah thank you so much does somebody else want to share it's good it really gets us to know the group at a deeper level i'm wearing alcoholic again um i had i too had a very very bad relationship do we need to stop no no i think there's the microphone a little bit closer maybe all right i'm sure okay um i was in a group I had a very bad relationship with my mother. I did not exist. It was no abuse, just non-existence. And I had a few years sobriety when my father was dying and every time that I thought my dad was going to make me have a deathbed promise to take care of mom, I'd leave the room. Because I did not want to do that. Because I knew once he was gone, I was never going to have anything to do with the woman again as long as I lived. And I sincerely meant that, But I was sober, and every day I was working the program to the best of my ability. And I was praying every day to follow God's will. You know, and it came about that my mother became an old lady bouncing around her house falling down, and I actually brought her up to another county where I live, you know, and I took care of my mom. And I did not like my mom, and I know my mom did not Like me. She told me every day. In fact, one time she was laying in the bed and she took the hand of the caretaker, one of the caregivers standing next to me. She patted her hand. She said, if I ever had a daughter, I'd want her to be like you. But because I wasn't there to get her to like me, I was there to only be the daughter that God expected me to be. It didn't matter the kind of mother she was. I was able to say I know mom it'd be nice if you had her instead of me but it was important to me the day that I realized that not everyone is going to like me and I don't want everyone to like my name or to like me if I have to change hats and be different kinds of people all I have to do is be the best I can each day And when I get that tug in my heart, and it just, you know, you got to go do this. Then I go do it, and I can look in the mirror later. And that was a huge change for me. So what I try to do is just what God wants me to do, a lot of prayer. And I know not everyone's going to like me. But it was a shock. I got to tell you, when I was eight years sober, and I called up someone at the central office who had said something bad about me, And he said, Lorraine, not everyone likes you. And then from then on I learned not everyone liked me. So my thing has been for a long time since that happened with my mom and I did a shift inside is it doesn't matter what they do. It only matters what I do. And that's been my motto and that's carried me through a lot. Thank you so much. Beautiful. Somebody else want to share? No. Well, we can go deeper into step 11 where we can see that we seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact. Let's see here. We shouldn't shy away on this matter. Better men than we are using it constantly. and then it talks about this demonstration i don't have to do it exactly like this but one of the things that bill talks about is when we retire at night and upon awakening which is a really good general demonstration that we can give to somebody who's a newcomer because alcoholics are so undisciplined and so something that's in the book and in the literature but usually after a while the prayer becomes a working part of our life but i'm going to start with on awakening even though they start with retire on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead i consider my plans for the day before i begin i ask god to direct my thinking especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest or self-seeking motives under these conditions i can employ my mental faculties with assurance for after all god gave me a brain to use my thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when my thinking is cleared of wrong motives so even if i don't do this exact demonstration i feel it is incredibly important to do something first thing in the morning and before i go to bed at night there's this interesting spiritual window when i go into sleep and when i wake up where the ego can rearrange itself and all kinds of crazy things can happen. And I can go to sleep treated and I can wake up in alcoholism. So there's a couple of things. I mean, for me, this is going to sound a little bit crazy, but I barely go on the computer. I don't have a television. I haven't watched TV in years and years and my house is very, very quiet. And the last thing I would ever do would be to listen to the news or some dramatic story at night. It's funny because I have a TV in my room and I'm getting like all addicted to this hurricane thing, because I never have a clicker. And I'm like, when's it going to blow? Are they going to take out New York? Come on, come on. You know, and I can see the addictive quality. It's Armageddon, I've been saying. Come on. Fire it up. Hit all the cities on the way up the East Coast. It is ridiculous. My mind will take a detour. I don't go back into my room like I would at my house and go, you know, I think I'll lay down for a few minutes. Like, turn the TV back on i gotta see this news gotta see the news so before i go to bed at night i always read spiritual literature and i always this is not a lie i always connect with my power before i go to sleep at night every single night i check myself and i get into this mind space of i don't know anything and thank you for the day and a little bit of gratitude and it's not this huge thing it's just the inward demonstration the inward impulse and the same thing in the morning I never get out of bed without some kind of conscious contact. I usually open my eyes and I can see was the disease on or where was my mind or is it already trying to hijack me within the first 10 seconds of opening my eyes? Those two windows are a really important time for me to treat my disease, one of the most important times throughout the entire day. I can't stress this enough because the body's vulnerable and the mind is vulnerable And the subconscious mind knows everything. It's busy even when the physical body is asleep. So I do read other spiritual literature besides, you know, the stuff in AA. I keep my spiritual life very fresh. I'm not much of a long period meditator. I do a lot of contemplative work where I'll read two or three lines of some real spiritual rocket fuel and then I try to marinate myself into it and feel it and allow it to raise my consciousness. And if those few lines don't work, I'll read the next couple of lines. But I will try as hard as I can to dial into something where the print begins to speak to me and I start to have an experience with it so that I can fall asleep with God. And the same thing in the morning very often. Nine times out of ten, I read first thing inthe morning. You know, and basically my whole day looks like an AA day. I would say within 45 minutes of waking up, I'm starting to get calls from other AAs. I talk to people all day long. I feel like one of the reasons why I have such a gift of transmitting the message is because the amount of phone calls that I take on a daily. I have looked at my phone, and I have sometimes seen between 30 and 50 AA calls in a day. Sometimes I can't catch all those calls, but a tremendous amount of stuff is going on on my phone on a Daily. I'm very involved in service work. I'm Very Involved in my home group, Primetime, and we have several meetings where I'm either getting the speakers or I've got commitments there, and my homegroup is very tightly involved, and that keeps me connected to a power. That keeps me in a conscious contact with God. That keeps be connected to God, which I feel AA as a whole is a direct connection with God for me. It's all scrambled into the same thing because I found my God in Alcoholics Anonymous. It also says that upon retiring at night, we constructively review our day where we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid. Do we owe an apology? And again, you know, it's sort of that 10-stepping thing of always looking for more, searching for more. Searching for uh more behavioral stuff where i'm off track and um you know it goes up to here we ask god for inspiration and intuitive thought or decision when thinking about the day and if we're faced with indecision you know the mystics way long time ago thousands of years ago when they talked about the gods before god became one single god and it was many gods they would talk about the three gifts from the gods were inspiration, intuition, and enthusiasm. And you could know that somebody was connected to the power because of inspiration, intention, and enthusiasm. I believe that that's a truth for today also, even though now we pretty much call it one god. But inspiration, enthusiasm, and intuition can't be produced by the ego. So I know that when I'm inspired to go further, when I am enthusiastic about life, when I feel intuitively guided and I don't know why to say or to do or to maneuver in a certain way, I know the grace of God is entering me. I know God is guiding me. And just even talking about inspiration and intuition and enthusiasm, I feel it's a really important subject to talk about because if I'm not vibrating at that frequency, I'm rolling backwards. And like we said before, there's no laurels to rest on or there's not even a safety ground. I'm rolling backwards and I'm going into the disease again. So I want to contemplate what is inspiration? What is enthusiasm? What is intuition? How often do I have intuitive thoughts and do I follow them you know how often do i feel really inspired at 51 years old to do something new to go further into a relationship to call somebody that really needs something and i tell you now at 51 i'm much more inspired in life than i've ever been before to work with others to be around alcoholics you know i'll hear somebody share something in a meeting and i don't even know them but i got their number and i just call them the next day i do that a lot i really enjoy working with others and hearing the mind function of alcoholism and trying to raise their consciousness and help them, especially if someone's really beaten down and just so in it. It doesn't get toxic for me. Nine times out of 10, even more, 99% of the time, no matter what kind of alcoholic I'm talking to on the phone, I don't get triggered or tripped out. I can be around and talk to the most untreated psycho lunatics on the planet. And for some reason, God just really protects me and gives me a lot of enthusiasm and inspiration. I enjoy it. I don't mind being out with the biggest, craziest, craziest, craziest people. And I also don't have a hard time saying, you know, you're real frenetic. Why don't you just allow God to help you breathe for a minute? You know, I can help them with a demonstration and I'm not afraid to say something like that or to shine a flashlight and say, you know what I'm hearing or you know What I'm seeing. I really enjoy, I enjoy all of it. So that's where inspiration and enthusiasm and intuition work for me. I can tell you also with inspiration is I get very inspired to speak. I get Very Inspired and Enthusiastic to take the print and to weave and connect the dots. I read and read and tie it in bows and snip it around. I do crazy, crazy, Crazy stuff. I get books and cross certain parts out and then connect it with this and it's that paragraph over here, and I enjoy that so much. It's not an obsessive mind function. It comes from a deeply enthusiastic place for the print for Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm on fire for this way of life. I'm going to, I'm an, I, I am on fire for the steps, Tebow papers, the sermon on the Mount, AA comes of age, the language of the heart. I enjoy it all so much and it is so rich and I feel that we are in such an infancy stage. Our program is not even 100 years old. it's so young on this planet compared to all other religions and things out there we're babies we're forging we're forging a path for so many people to follow us way after we're dead and gone hopefully our home group will live on hopefully we'll have sponsees that sponsor people that sponsor people at sponsor people it sponsored people and it will go on and on I don't even You know, we have no idea how magnificent this thing could be 200 years from now. I mean, we couldn't even begin to grasp in our mind. But I can tell you this, AA is so here to stay. It is not going anywhere. And the amount of recording and the CDs, so much is not being lost. You know? It's being preserved in that way. And there's so much to consider and so much to go for, you know? And that's why for me, God, to just go into a meeting and just to hear drama and drunk-a-log over and over and over. It just makes me sick when there's so much, so much to talk about in AA. There's a whole weekend of stuff to talk about, and yet who's talking about it? They're talking about self from self. They're talking about alcoholism from alcoholism. I'm not here to make people wrong. I am just telling you I'm very impassionate and enthusiastic about it, and I do believe that it's all of our jobs once our consciousness is raised, to take this information into our own home groups and to raise the consciousness. Maybe tighten the format. Maybe make a vote on the format in our own home group. There's too much looseness. We're allowing too long of a share. There isn't a timer. People are going on and on. Could we get somebody that has some healthy monitoring that asks people, okay, could you get to a point or you need to ask a question or you already shared for five minutes last week, whatever it takes. I don't know. Nobody wants to do that. Very few people want to, you know, there's all these people that talk about stuff like that, but who wants to take charge? And that's where God has really worked through me. I'm very inspired and I've started, I think four, maybe even five meetings in Los Angeles that are really, really successful. And I don't take credit for that because self could never have done that. It's God working through me and it's God wanting to transmit a message through me. I can't do this. I could never produce this. This is all a result of aligning my will with God's will, reading the print, going through the steps and really being a huge part of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's nothing that I love more than AA, you know, and even my own 22-year-old daughter. She knows that my program of recovery comes before anything. There's no doubt if she was sitting right here, I would say it right in front of her. I don't say it to hurt her. It's just the most valuable, precious thing I have is this message, is Alcoholics Anonymous, is this way of life. I couldn't have done anything. I wouldn't even be alive without it. So passionate? Yeah, beyond passionate. I'm on fire for what has fed me and resurrected me from something so sick and twisted and disgusting up to a woman that could stand here today and even have Doug and Bridget like fly me out here, you know, and enjoy my time with you guys and share in our life together and talk about our soul sicknesses and go for more. It's such a lovely, lovely way of life. And I'm going to end there. Thanks for listening.