Steps 6 and 7 — My Two Biggest Defects Are Fear and False Pride Which Is Also Fear – Michelle M.

Hey y'all, let's have an AA meeting. My name is Jackie and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. And it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker tonight. I just met her right tonight before the meeting, but she seems like a lovely person. Michelle M. is from the TOCO group that meets on Wednesday nights at 8 o'clock and she got sober on Martin Luther King's birthday in 1989, which I think is pretty cool. Good day to get free. So with that, I give you Michelle. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. My name is Michelle and I am an alcoholic. I guess I was going to start with my home group is TOCO. We meet 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. And my sobriety date is January 15th, 1989. But I know you already know that. So, OK, so I, you know, I had a I did not have have a too much of an abnormal upbringing. I mean, probably similar for many people who grew up in the 60s and 70s. My mother was Irish Catholic. My father, Italian Catholic. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. And, um. My mother came from a very large Irish drunken family, and she kept that a secret. I didn't find it out until after she died. And I went up to Newfoundland and met with some of my relatives up there. And they told me how rampant the disease was in in my family. And I kind of had a clue, but she would never talk about it. So I was a shy kid. And, um, you know, of course, like. You'll hear a lot of people when they're telling their program like they didn't feel like they fit in. And, you know, as as a youngster, I was shy. I was very quiet. And I had an older sister had I'm one of six daughters to my parents. And we grew up over a funeral home in South Philadelphia. So I my sister decided that, you know, I was too shy. She was very extroverted. And she wanted to. To increase my confidence and, you know, try to try to get me to talk. I guess I didn't really talk much. And so one day she took me to a friend's house and the friend said and we went downstairs and it was cold. It was in the winter. It's probably in January. And I took this big, big gulp of this whiskey with Southern Comfort. And it was, you know, I. You know, choking as it went down. It's probably the last time I choked on alcohol, but I got drunk. I probably had one or two swigs. You know, I wasn't a drinker at the time, was 14 years old. And, you know, when I think back to that memory, I think, you know what? I think I actually drank earlier than that, but not on a regular basis. My my grandparents made this stuff called rock and rye. And it was kind of a whiskey that you put maraschino cherries and fruit in it. And so they'd let us eat. The fruit and man, this stuff was good. And I probably so I probably had a buzz before I was 14. And so I started hanging out with my sister and her friends and drinking. And by the time I was 16, I was blackout drinking. And probably one of the reasons why was that we would we would drink what my father drank and we would we would drink beer. But my father was a scotch drinker, so we would steal a scotch and we would put water in to have it not look like. You know that we were drinking it. And one time he took us aside and said, look, stop putting water in my scotch. It tastes terrible. So so he knew we were drinking. And we also had this kind of like rock red wine called Paisano by Gallo. I mean, they have gallons of it. And, you know, my parents would have a gallon of it. And and my sister's friend, we go over to their house and have gallons of it. And oh, my God, you haven't been sick until you've been sick on that stuff. But. But, you know, for you'll hear a lot that alcoholism is a progressive disease and that certainly was true for me. So I went from, you know, 14 starting to drink to 16 having blackouts. I, you know, I didn't have a license. The drinking age in Pennsylvania at the time, I think, was 21. But we were so close to New Jersey. We go over to New Jersey and, you know, when I was 15, I'm in bars. In New Jersey, where the drinking age is 18 and in bars and getting drunk and not having to worry about driving because my sister's friends, they were older. She was about two and a half years older. They would drive and I didn't have to worry about driving. And so I'm I'm having these blackouts and I had a couple of pretty bad experience in these blackouts. And, you know, I always wish I was the kind of drinker who would kind of like pass out and stop drinking. But that wasn't the case for me. You know, I'd. Blackout, but I keep drinking and and I'd have these horrible hangovers for about two or three days, staying in bed, puking. I was a big puker. So so I got, you know, I got into a little bit of trouble, but nothing like, you know, no jail or anything like that. Never got arrested. But from a kid who grew up in this very Catholic family, went to Catholic school, went to Catholic church, you know, confession and all that sort of thing. You know, when I started drinking, that was it. For confession, I didn't go, you know, I wasn't going to go in and tell some priest about doing this stuff. You know, I knew it was wrong and I couldn't stop. You know, I loved it when I when I got drunk on that first week of Southern Comfort, I went home and sat in the basement and said, I love this. I like this. I like this feeling. You know, I was a little bit miserable. My father, my father wasn't just strict. I mean, he was kind of mean. He wasn't really mean. He was he was rageful and he beat us. And. Screamed at us. So it was difficult. It was difficult growing up there. But it's also, you know, it's puberty and that's not easy for any anyone. That's difficult, especially for a non talker. So, you know, really took my refuge in drinking. I loved it. I love the way I felt so. So, you know, I continue to drink. I was a good student, and so I could kind of keep up my grades and really fly under the radar. So my parents didn't, you know, so they're not. Noticing it's a big deal. She drinks a little bit on the weekends where she goes out with her sister's friends. You know, she has good grades. And I'd always intended to go to college because I was getting out. I was getting out of Philadelphia. I was getting out of my parents home. So I went to college and, you know, it was a way it was like two and a half hours away. And of course, the drinking escalated. You go to a college where there's all these fraternities and there's free beer. And, you know, there's there was all kind of stuff floating around in those days, but I'm really. A garden variety drunk. I loved I loved alcohol and I loved beer. You know, that was that was my drink and I could drink scotch and trying to look cool, but I never liked it. And I just got way, way too drunk on it. I kind of amazed myself and others with the quantity of alcohol that I could drink. But that's probably true for a lot of people in this room. I managed to get to college and. You know, I was smart. I was always in a student, but I did not do well. I did not do well in college, but I did graduate and I wound up, you know, being able to get a job. And probably my my drinking was pretty bad when I was in college. And once I started to work, I had to sort of, you know, slow it down a little bit, but I didn't really. And so while I was a working person, I was living in central Pennsylvania, I was using all my sick. Leave for alcoholic sick leave, you know, home on on hangovers. And I wrecked a car and I hit I had a telephone pole and I took out this telephone pole and I had to pay for it. And I took out a front teeth or two and, you know, messed up my teeth a little bit and cut, cut my head. And and that wasn't how I was in an alcoholic blackout. But for years I told myself, no, no. How weird is this? I will. I was out of the. Party and I was very hung over that day because I had been drinking the night before. So I'm at this party and I didn't want to drink and all these people who used to drink and come on, have a drink. Come on, come on, come on. And I'm like, no, I, you know, I feel sick. I don't want to drink. I wound up having a couple of drinks and it just, I guess, added to my my blood alcohol content. And I, you know, I don't think I fall asleep. I think I was in a in a blackout drunk and hit that. Telephone pole. And I was lucky that I had no passenger. I completely wrecked the car. But I survived this car crash knowing that I knew then, you know, that I was the problem drinker. And that was back in that was many years before I finally gave up drinking. And and so to think things sort of progressed in terms in terms of of drinking. And it came a point where I decided that I was going to go back, go back to school. And I was a little afraid of this. So I was going to go to school, get a graduate degree. And I was a little afraid of this because I knew that at school my my drinking was worse because my schedule was my own. I had to make it my own. I had to, you know, be responsible for how I scheduled my day. But it's decided to do it. And I moved to Virginia. Yeah. To go to school. And sure enough, I did not have the discipline to not drink. I could not do that on my own. And I got down there and within a year I was drinking so badly. I was starting to feel like my life consisted only of like drinking and sleeping and getting over hangovers. I was driving drunk, of course, because I didn't know what I was doing. But I did not know what I was doing in these blackouts. And I would wake up in the morning and I'd be like, oh, my God, you know, so I'd look outside and I'd look to see if the car was there and if it was crunched up, I'd look under the car to make sure I hadn't hit anything or anybody. And it was getting pretty bad. And towards the end, I wasn't trying to kill myself by drinking, but I woke up a few times and was wondering, what am I doing? What am I doing? Why am I alive? Because I drank so much. And that was when I was, you know, shaken and puking and, you know, taking three days to get out of these hangovers. And finally I decided I'm going to ask for help. And I asked for help from a counselor. There was counseling available from the school, and they wound up sending me to this private counselor. And I started to see her and talk about things. And, you know, it was really a month before the drinking came up. And I don't know what she was thinking, and I don't know what I was thinking, but I was going to her about once a week, and I was doing research on the eastern shore of Virginia, and that's where I had my last drunk. And it wasn't really all that remarkable. It was just the last one. And I went out drinking with a friend, and I got into a horrible blackout. I mean, we, you know, we kind of lived a life in that blackout and met people. And, you know, I drove home, took out a mailbox. I lost my handbag somewhere. And I wake up in this research station the next day, and no one's there. And my handbag is gone. My car is outside. And I have no way to get from the eastern shore of Virginia back to Charlottesville, Virginia, where I live. And I had to wait for the guy who was the caretaker of the research station to borrow money from him for gas and to get over the Bay Bridge because the toll was about 20 bucks. And I woke up that morning. When I woke up that morning after having drank for 18 years and drank, you know, was a blackout drinker for 16 years and said, I can't take it anymore. I'm done. I'm finished. I can't do this. I can't do this. And one of the things I forgot to mention was that during this time, I was probably at school there, I don't know, a year and a half, maybe two years. I had gone to AA once. And I had decided that I need to stop drinking. So I called, and I got an address, and I went to an AA meeting. And I went there two or three times. And a woman gave me her 12 and 12 and was trying to talk to me. And I'm like, you know, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. I hated it. You know, I thought it was dark and dismal and scary. And so I went back out drinking for a year and a half. And I feel very fortunate that I didn't die and more fortunate that I did not kill somebody because driving, I could easily have killed somebody. And I don't know why, but I'm really grateful for that. So the meeting where I went to pick up my second white chip, here's the difference. I go into this meeting, and it's big, and it's jolly, and it's bright, and the sun's shining through the windows, and the people are laughing. And I'm like, you know, and that is the difference, I think, between trying to go in when you're not ready and going in when you're ready. So I started going to meetings. And I went to a lot of noontime meetings because I'd, you know, I'd get up, I'd do a little bit of schoolwork, I'd take a lunch break, I'd go to a meeting, you know, and then I'd go back to the afternoon and evening and, you know, do my work or do classes. And, you know, and I wasn't drinking. And I remember very clearly on this day that when I went back to get my second white chip in that meeting, and I'm in there, and I knew AA was a spiritual program, and I, you know, I'd really had enough of the Catholic Church, but when I was in that room, I said, you know what, I don't care what it takes. You know, I had this feeling of, oh, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to go back to the Catholic Church. I dreaded that, and then this voice inside of me said, you know what, I'm going to do whatever I need to do. I need to do this. If I need to go back to the Catholic Church, I'm going back to the Catholic Church. Because for me, I didn't understand what it meant to have a God of my understanding. I mean, I, you know, I was raised Catholic. I'd say, you did not have a God of your understanding. You had this God, you know, and you had this, you know, and so I felt in that moment when I was willing to do that that I had some, I made some spiritual leap that I didn't want to do that. And what happened was totally unlike what I had anticipated. I decided that I was going to go to church that next Sunday, and a friend came down, and because she felt like she needed to go, and we went walking, and we walked right by the Catholic Church, and we went into the Episcopal Church. And I became a part of that church for the next year during my first year of sobriety. And it was familiar enough because it was very similar, and it was different. It was different enough that I didn't have the resentment because I wasn't in a place where I could give up resentments yet. I was just too new. I went to about, you know, I started going to one meeting, you know, I'd go to one meeting a week, but I was going to the counselor, and really that was helping me. And when I shared with somebody in the program that, they're like, well, what meetings are you going to? I said, well, I go to the da-da-da meeting. I can't remember what it was. And he's like, what? You know, you can't get sober going to one meeting. And I'm like, shut up. But I listened. You know, it scared me. And I started going to two meetings a week, and then three meetings a week, and four, and five. And by the time, you know, I had gotten to the one year where I was ready to pick up my one-year trip, I was going to six meetings, and I was going to church on Sunday. And it was tough. It was tough, even with all that, and the support, you know, outside help. You know, it says in the book, if you need outside help, then get outside help. And I really do feel that that was, you know, the reason for my ability to stay sober during that year. Because I'm in a big drinking party school, and I'm in a stressful situation. I'm trying to get this graduate degree. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I always look back at that. My first year of sobriety, it felt so hard. But then it was like, it was this jewel. It was this gift. And at the end of that year, it was like, I am never, I am not giving this up. I'm never giving this up. I didn't want to drink. I very quickly did not want to drink. And that was a blessing, because I know that that doesn't happen to a lot of people. And so, where are we? Okay, so, you know, they say, you know, don't move, whatever. But I was in school. I had to move. So I moved. You know, I had this one year, and I felt solid, you know, and I had my blood. I had my blue chip or my, you know, anniversary thing. And I had to move. And I moved up to Washington, D.C. And I had gone up there and met with a friend and a woman who was in the program up there who could have been my sponsor. And I could have gone to meetings. And I went up there. And I went up there for two years on a program. And I went to about six or seven meetings. And by the time I left Washington, I was crazy. Because that's what happens to me when I, when I don't go to meetings. I get depressed. I can't think straight. I didn't have the support of the fellowship. I didn't, I didn't have a sponsor. And, and so I moved back to Charlottesville thinking that I'm going, I'm going, going back to Charlottesville where they have great meetings. Meetings like, and I moved back and I didn't go, I didn't go to a meeting. I didn't go to meetings. And I went to a period where I was going to very few meetings. And I didn't want to drink. But, you know, I, I wasn't getting programmed. I wasn't getting well. And the thing that, during this time, I met a man who was, who was in the program and thinking that, okay, you know, this is, this is good. We're both sober. We're together. And so, so we're okay. And we weren't okay. And so, after, after about, you know, here I am, I'm, I'm seven, seven years, you know, really not practicing the program. And the you-know-what started hitting the fan. And I was miserable. Our marriage was terrible. It was, you know, I mean, how, how could it be anything other, two drunks not going to meetings. So, I start, I, I knew what I needed to do. And I knew I needed to get to a meeting. Because I, I, I knew that crazy feeling. And I had, I had started this job and I noticed that there was a woman with a Volkswagen van and she had one of those triangles and a circle on the back of her van. And I, and I mentioned something to her. And we started going, going to meetings together. She had about seven years more sobriety than me. And, and we, I started getting into the crowd of people that she hung out with. And I, my code for them was the mountain bikers. And we did mountain bike, but they were all on the program. And, and that got me, that got me going to meetings. Because what we would do is, we'd go to a meeting and then we'd go out to dinner. Or we'd go to a meeting and then we'd go to the movies. Or we'd mountain bike and then we'd meet at a meeting and go out to dinner later on. And gradually what happened as I, you know, I skipped over some stuff. But I was living in Richmond, Virginia at the time. And said, pretty much everyone I knew was, was in the program. And I went regularly to meetings. And, I still had this difficulty with sponsors. And you know what they say, find someone who has, find someone who has what you want. That's a terrible description for finding a sponsor for me, anyway. My, the sponsor I picked was when this woman stood up and she was sharing in a meeting. And I'm like, wow. You know, now that, that spoke, that spoke to me. And it's like, that woman's going to be my sponsor. And so I went. I went to her. I asked her to, to be my sponsor. And it was, and we worked the steps. I had sort of like, I can't say half-heartedly worked the steps. Because in my first year when I was trying to work the steps. When I was trying to work them with the counselor. I didn't realize how much my head was affected by this. And, and how fuzzy it was. Because I don't, I don't have a good memory of that. And so when I started to work with my sponsor, Donna. Um. He was. It was amazing. It felt like amazing things were happening. And I felt like I had made this quantum leap in sobriety because of her assistance. And what I can tell you about me, that whole thing about self-will run riot, is that I was always way too independent for my own good. You know, I always wanted to do things myself. And this is not something that you can do on your own. And even though I'm willing to ask God for help, you also have to ask another human being for help. Because that's a two-way street. And it's not just about me getting help. It's about me learning how to help somebody else. Because if I don't get help from somebody, how am I supposed to know how to sponsor somebody? And so the whole thing in the problem is, where it talks about fear of people and economic insecurity, it was like, yeah, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of people. I'm afraid to reveal to people. And I'm afraid, you know, I was afraid of what they might think. And in that time period where I wasn't going to a whole lot of meetings and my marriage got in trouble and I was about seven years, you know, sober, when I started going back to meetings, it was like I was brand new. I was afraid of people. I was nervous. I didn't have anything to talk about. And I thought, wow, that's really weird. And the first meeting that I had gone back to that became my home group in Virginia was called, it was St. Patrick's and it was the Freedom Group. And I started, so I started talking slowly and revealing myself. And what do you know? That's what it takes for people to become friends with people, for people to, you know, to trust me. And. You know, and maybe to start asking me questions and wanting to be friends with me. And so this whole thing about, you know, fear of people and trying to get rid of that is that, you know, you just have to trust that, especially the people in these rooms aren't here to hurt you. They're here to help you. They're your support. So I love my program in Virginia. It was wonderful. And, and what I saw, you know, what I was seeing in the rooms there is that, you know, people will get a little, little bit sobriety and they'd look at their life and they're like, you know, I want to start improving things. And I had a good job. I had a good education. I had these degrees, but there was something else that I wanted. And I'm like, oh, you know, I have this degree. I don't want to have to go back to school. I was feeling a little bit lazy. And then my sponsor decides, and she's older than me. She was going to go back to school. She was going to take it alone. She was going to go back to school. And somebody else in my circle did the same thing. I'm like, you know what? You know, if they can do it, I can do it. And so I decided, well, I'm working full time. I'll go back to school. I'll get this other degree. And it's going to allow me to move down here, take a job, take the job that I wanted with the federal government and improve my life. I'm going to talk about the promises happening to people. We aren't talking about a bankroll. We're not talking about a car and a house or whatever. We're talking about the other things, having people in your life, having people trust you, being able to say, I'll be there tomorrow, and you're there. You know, you can wake up. You can wake up in the morning and make it to your appointment. People can count on you and trust you. And those are the things that those are the important things that I gained from leaving. I'm going to talk about the other things that I gained from leaving. I'm going to talk about the other things that I gained from leaving. And embracing sobriety. You know, in the beginning, in those first seven years, it was, I wasn't getting much sobriety because I wasn't giving anything to the program. I'd go in when I was in trouble, take a meeting, and, all right, I'm okay. And when I started back to the program, in that seventh year, when I was going through a separation and a divorce with my husband, I said, you know what, I'm going to do this program like how I see my friends in the program are doing it. I'm going to do it for real. I'm going to make a commitment to this program. And one of the things that helped me do it was that I took on a service job in my home group. And I really credit that with saving me because after I was going to this home group for a while, maybe like six or seven or eight months, and this little voice in my head says, you're fine, you're okay now, you're fine, you know. So, you know, you're through the separation and you're almost divorced. Get out. And then I said, no, I'm not going because I'm not going to get better if I'm in and out, in and out, you know, and not going to meetings regularly and not having a home group and not doing service work or having a sponsor. I'm staying. I'm staying. And it was making decisions like that and, you know, having a home group and, you know, having a home group. And I'm staying. Going to meetings when I was tired and making a habit, making a good habit, making the good habits replace the bad habits. And so I'm a big, you know, supporter of service work. It was something that cemented me into the program. It kept me coming back. It helped me. It really helped me a great deal. And, you know, in terms of a sponsor, I had people. I had people in the program who had more sobriety than me, and I asked them to help me. But, you know, for a very long time, I did it the hard way, and I did it without a sponsor. And when I finally got a sponsor, my program went from, like, day to night or night to day, whatever, from bad to good, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I made a huge quantum leap. I felt what it, you know, meant to have Serenity. And to string a couple of days of Serenity together. And then to come, you know, into a condition that would allow me to help others, to sponsor other people. And I don't think I was a very good sponsor. You know, I'd have people for a day, you know, or, you know, like a week, you know, maybe, you know. And somebody come and have a pizza with me, you know, a sponsor. And that was it. You know, I'd never see them again. And I do kind of attribute that a little bit to the fact. You know, I was very reluctant to get a sponsor and to trust somebody like that. And so, you know, I fully understand that. But, you know, I kept Donna as a sponsor for a long time. And even once I moved here, I moved down here in 2009 to take a job with CDC. You know, it was like my dream job. And I asked a woman here to be my sponsor. When I moved here, I moved here with 20 years of sobriety. And when I started looking for meetings and going to meetings, I felt brand new. And I'm like, I do not like that feeling. And, you know, I'd call my friends back in Virginia. And they're like, well, how many meetings are you going to? You've got to get to meetings. Where'd you go? Where'd you go this week? So I'm like, all right, I guess I better get to these meetings. But I miss them so much. And, you know, I would go, you know, I had a Monday meeting. I had a Friday meeting. I had a Saturday, Sunday meeting. And, you know, sometimes I'd take one in between. So when I would normally be going to the meetings with them, I was going to other meetings. And when they were over, I'd call them. And sometimes I'd call them on Friday night when I knew they'd all be out to dinner. And I'd get to talk to everybody. And it was like, you know, it hurt a little bit. But slowly but surely, I made friends here. But when I first came here, and here I am with many years of sobriety, 20 years of sobriety. And I'm going into meetings. And I'm like feeling like, I feel like. them one again you know feeling like feeling like really shaky and and all that and so I just started telling people hey I just moved here and I don't know why I feel so nervous about this but I don't know anybody and I I want to become you know I want to become part of Georgia AA I want to get to know people and I did that probably for about eight months and then I started to say I'm not so new here anymore but still you know I I left a place that I had lived for 20 years and and was was sort of relying on and slowly but surely I've been here six years you know I've picked up you know my year chips here I belong to a home group I have friends in the fellowship and you know in this and this feels like home to me so when I go away when I go back up to Richmond and I you know visit my my old groups you know and in the you know in the then I come back, it's, you know, I feel, you know, I have two homes now, and, you know, I know the people in these rooms, you know, are my friends, and I can trust people here. So some of the things I wanted to talk about, let me see, in terms of, I guess, a God of my understanding, you know, having grown up in the Catholic Church and thinking that that was all I could do or all I could have, and when God, you know, I really believe God does everything, you know, God's hand is in everything, and so when I went to go to a service, this friend who lived above me in Virginia said, I have to hear, I've got to hear a sermon, and I'm like, well, that's strange, I don't feel like I need to hear a sermon, and she took me to that church that became my spiritual home. And I just feel like God's hand was in that, because I don't know that I could have done the spiritual part of this, and as much prayer, I didn't do a lot of the knee stuff, because I just have such a knee-jerk reaction to Catholicism, but I prayed a lot, and that place helped me, and I did slowly change my understanding of God. In the beginning, I didn't trust God, I didn't think God loved me, I mean, that was a strange concept, I thought I was bad, and I was going to be punished, and I remember telling my friend Ingrid and saying, well, what if God wants me to drink, and she's like, God does not want you to drink, you know, that is not what a higher power wants for you, and so it was like... This is why we have to talk to other people, though, because this is, this is what's in there, and what it was is that I didn't trust God, I was afraid of God, and today, the difference is that I love God, and I know God loves me, and I know God doesn't want me to drink, and wants me to be my highest self, so I can help others, and some of that, to be quite honest, I learned through service. And, you know, in terms of service work, because I'm not, you know, a very good sponsor, or not a very, you know, experienced sponsor, I did other things, you know, I was the treasurer, I was the GSR, I did service work at my church, because I also had a spiritual sponsor, and what she said to me was that all service is service to God, whether you do it at AA, whether you do it at the church, whether you do it, you know, at a school. And so, I learned, I kind of, really, I learned to love God here in this program, and through doing service, and, and, and I heard somebody say it once in a meeting, and I believe it too, is that that's the gift of this program, is that you get to have a real relationship with God, and going within to, you know, look for help, knowing that you're not alone. I mean, we never have to be alone. We can always get ourselves to an AA meeting, but knowing that, you know, God is always with us, and then have a little bit more time here, but it took me the longest time to figure out what it meant to turn it over. I just didn't know what that, I didn't know what that meant, and, and one day, as I'm like racking my head, because I'm mad at somebody at work, and, and his friend said, you know, get a little post-it note. And write that down, and write down what it is, and stick it in his box. He gave me this, this willow box with a beautiful brass clasp. I filled that thing with post-it notes with people's names, and work, and this, and that, and one day, you know, I, it, it finally occurred to me what it meant to turn it over and, and give it to God, because what I did was, I started to get all worked up, or something, and I'm like, I ain't doing that. I'm writing this thing down, and I'm, and I'm sticking to it. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I'm sticking it in the God box. And, and it was then that I felt like I knew what it meant that all's well in God's world, and that God would take care of this. I mean, I might look at this and think, this is the worst thing. How could this be right? How could this, how could this be okay? And it's like, you know, this is in God's hands. It's not in my hands. I can't fix this. And, and, and that's what turning it over means. And so, um, what a relief, what a relief, um, to, to finally, to finally understand what that was. And so, and so I, I know I'm like run through the steps like some people do. I know that. And I know we have our favorites and, and I was just in a meeting, I can't remember what day it was. It was, it was recently. We were talking about steps six and seven, and it's like, I need to do a little bit more work on those. Um, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and it, it, it, it, it, it kinda recently, I've lost all belief in you. And so, I'm wondering if when I, when I didn't make that choice, did, did I let my buried bone pass, my sleeping pot не quotas Стена? came to realize that, you know, my two biggest things we're fear and false pride, which is probably also fear. Um, you know, I, I, I realized when, uh, you know, I have fearful feelings coming up that, that that's what's happening that m-my character defects are, coming up and I need to ask God for help with that and to, to take it away and uh, follow your purpose, my character. That's what's like. That's what I'm afraid of. to continue to work on that. So I think, really, I think I'm done. I really appreciate being here tonight. I know I'm probably going to come away from this and say, oh, my God, why didn't I say, you know, why didn't I say this? Why didn't I say that? But, you know, the most important things for me is that going to meetings. I have to go to meetings. I've been serving for 26 years. I have to go to meetings. I want to go to meetings. I feel better. I don't care how I feel going in. I feel better coming out. And recently, in going through some troubling times, I'm like, I've just got to go to a meeting. I've got to go to a meeting. If I feel this lousy, I have to go to a meeting. I'll go to a meeting. Let me lead the meeting. Let me chair a meeting. Let me talk in a meeting. And, you know, pray. I'm a prayer, you know. I believe in God. I've gotten God as a gift from this program. And it's like I know God is with me, but I have to do some other things, and I have to reach out to people. So I had a meeting this weekend. And a young woman asked me to sponsor her. And it's like, yes, you know. To me, it's like, it's hard, I know. But it's God's way of helping me. And so I hope I'm around for a long time in this program. I have no intention of leaving. And while you may not see me on Monday nights because I'm a square dancer, this is my square dance of the night, and we're on a little break, you'll see me at others. And I love this fellowship. I love AA. I've got God in my life. And, you know, it's good. Thank you. Great job, Michelle. Thank you so much.