The Bondage of Self and the Baptist Preacher’s Daughter – Martha W.

My name is Martha Worsley and I am a very grateful recovering alcoholic. Isn't it great to be sober? I mean really, isn't it great to be sober. I don't care if it's one day or 50 years it is wonderful being sober and being freed from alcohol this is the day that the lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it i look back you know i was figuring out thinking about what i would talk about today Of course, I know I'm going to talk about me because that's what this is all about. But I said, gee whiz, I had my first drink at 14, came in the program at 44. Wow, that's 30 years. I've been sober now 22 years, so we may be here a while. So I'll truly try to get out on time. before i begin my talk i really want to say that rob mentioned that he wanted this and you wanted this to be the friendliest conference ever and i can tell you it is this has been a delightful wonderful warm experience and i thank you and just please give yourselves another hand i'm a pk for those of you who might not know that's a preacher's kid so no wonder i drank my father was a head of the florida baptist convention so he was like the bishop of the Baptist. Not just a little church, he had them all and it really was not a lot of fun growing up in those circumstances. I was the youngest of three children and the first words that I ever remember hearing were when Martha was born and Clyde almost died. Now Clyde was my mother. And so, of course, there's another reason. You know, I'm a little screwed up. I had a mother named Clyde. But the first thing I can remember are those guilt. Now, I was just a toddler. I have no idea that there was such a thing as guilt, but I felt it. Wow, I almost killed my mother." They never told me how and they never told anything about it, but that was our family story. Well, you know when Martha was born and Clyde almost died and we had to do this? And I grew up in that horrible place of not feeling a part of, feeling guilt, feeling shame, feeling very different. Because my mother was ill, she had a strep infection of the lining of the heart. I was given to a couple to raise for a year and a half. So I didn't even have a family to bond with. And so I felt very different, much as is, I think it's just an alcoholic trait to feel that, to feel a part of, to feels different than, but I really had it in spades. At age 11, I knew God hated me. Knew it absolutely. See my father was uh, at church leading a revival. My mother and sister were at a revival service serving God. I was at home baking cookies and was raped by the two boys next door. Now my thinking was if my whole family is doing nothing but serving God and this happens to me, then I'm on God's real shit list. Excuse me. I was just horrified, plus the fact then that my father always said, if you're not a virgin, you smoke and you drink, you're going to hell. Now, I heard that all my life, so, you know, I figured right from the get-go I had no choice. God hated me, was ready to punish me, and there was nothing left for me. So I was a kind of resentful kid. And then at age 14, I was doing one of these service things at a TV station, or radio station. We were doing the radio part at the station. And the assistant manager said, hey, honey, why don't you come out and have a drink with me out in the car? Well, okay. I tell you, I had my first taste of alcohol, which was scotch and water. I felt sophisticated, desirable. It changed my thoughts. I figured if this was the magic elixir that it could change everything about me because all of a sudden I felt desirable, smart, different. I liked it. now when you're a Baptist preacher's daughter it's not too easy to get booze we don't have it around the house and all of that so I didn't have any other experience with alcohol until I went to college I went into a girls school in Nevada, Missouri now that is one little one horse town and all it had was a girls' school it's up there, you know, pitiful place it was, I'm sorry But the first New Year's Eve classes started on January 2nd, so we convinced our parents that we had to be there for New Year'S Eve. For this poor little unsophisticated drinker, I thought I had found heaven. We went to an old farmhouse and they had a table about as long as this and everybody who came had just put their stuff on the table. You know, there's beer and rum and wine and, you know, you name it. We've got it all here. And I had never had anything in my life except scotch. Ooh, I thought I was so good, so I started at this end. I had a taste of everything. Now, it's Missouri. It's the middle of winter. Snow is about thigh deep. It was a farmhouse, and they didn't have any facilities. You had to go to the little house down the road. So if you can just picture that, here I was, sick as a dog, falling down, lost my shoes in a snowdrift, sick. And I remember the next day thinking, wow, am I sophisticated. This is so cool. You know, I must have been an alcoholic because I will tell you if I had eaten something that made me that ill, I wouldn't eat it anymore. But it made me feel accepted. I left college. I got pregnant and married, as so many of us happened to do in those days. And I married an alcoholic. Sounds kind of familiar, I'm sure, to some of you. Had three babies. And I began drinking. Got a divorce when I was married about six years. and I came back to Jacksonville, Florida. No child support, no nothing, three babies. I managed to continue drinking. I don't know how. The most child support I ever got was $11 a month per child. Wasn't very much, and it's really a miracle that I got by. But you see, I kind of found a family. being a baptist preacher's daughter i went to this little place called the music bar because if it had a piano and you could sing then it wasn't a bar now how's that for rationalization yeah and i loved it and i would go i hired somebody to look after the children I had to fire her. I found all kinds of beer cans under her bed one day. But I began my career of drinking. And you all know the stories if you're in this room. One thing I have kind of figured out with sobriety is that I drank to be different. what I wanted was exactly what was in the promises when I drank I felt a new freedom I felt the freedom from who I was I thought I was happy I didn't regret the past are you kidding, I told you stories that would just blister your ears I would sit on that barstool and tell you all the stuff that had ever happened to me. I didn't regret it. I just got a lot of free drinks that way. You know, everything that I was looking for in alcohol, I get tickled. You know? We will gain interest in our fellows. Let me tell you, when I drank, I gained interest in my fellows. So in retrospect, I know that everything I was truly looking for, I have been given in sobriety. I was one of those who would take anything, do anything, to feel appreciated and loved. I didn't care what it was. I'd pop it. I'd smoke it. I'd do it because I felt awful inside. God hated me. I hated me, and it got to the point my family, my parents, were kind of, they didn't really talk to me. I did things like park my ugly old car right in front of the bar, which was right by the highway where you had to go to go to church so that everybody in town knew that's where my car was. I was even so bad, I would go down to Jack's Beach and I would wait for a Baptist to drive by and I'd walk into a bar. You see, I really did begin some of my drinking at hitting back at my parents. I was full of rage. I was filled with anger. I hated myself and the world. I, of course, felt it was all my family's fault. My children had to leave the home. One of them elected to go live at the Baptist Children's Home in Tallahassee. One went to a home for emotionally disturbed children, and one went to live with their father, which was pretty awful. I mean, to choose that situation, it was awful. I was awful, I love sobriety because I found out in reading the big book that I wasn't alone. You know, I did things like pass out and knock my front teeth out. I thought I was the only one in the world that ever happened to until I read some of the stories in the big book. I hated me. I started an affair with the worst drunk I knew. Terrible. Two drunks falling down. It was, if you make it from your experience, can understand it. But it came along 1981, 82, and it was my 25th high school reunion. And they asked me for whatever reason to be on the committee. Now, we would get together and start planning this reunion party, and of course I would be drunk. I would just fall over. And, you know, they'd kind of roll their eyes. They didn't give me any committee work to do. But one night, one of the people I'd gone to school with my whole life said, Come here, Martha, I want to talk to you. All right, what do you want? And he said, I have something to tell you. I'm an alcoholic and you know I don't drink anymore and it is really a very fascinating thing I know how curious you are you've always wanted to investigate things, why don't you come with me and investigate a meeting well I'll think about it so I ask him to please go with me to the 25th reunion because I intended to get roaring drunk and I wanted somebody to drive. You know, all that he talked about was recovery and his alcoholic experience and all of this and so about a week later I decided that I would take him up on going to a meeting. I will never forget it. I dressed up, did my hair, shaved my legs put on the best dress that I had because certainly I did not want anybody to think I was one of those people you ever felt that way? oh I was different but I went to my very first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I thought it sounded pretty good and I picked up a chip that night now for you newcomers let me tell you something about my experience and I hope you won't follow it you see I was so excited about having people to talk to me who kind of accepted me that I had a grand time I kind of was adopted by this group of young men and we would get together really was such a funny coincidence. They had a brand new AA meeting group which was in the old Hare and Hound Lounge. So you walked in where I used to drink, sat at the counter just like I used to drink and had an AA meeting. Oh it was familiar. You know I really liked it and this group of young men we'd get together and we'd talk and they taught me how to play pinochle and we had this great time And then come 8 o'clock, we'd go home. They took me to movies. They took мне to things. I thought, well, this fellowship is pretty cool stuff. And can you guess what happened? About six weeks later, something happened in my life, And I had no foundation, no background, nowhere to turn because fellowship, for me, could not keep me sober. And I hade nothing else. So I went back out on a drunk. I was drunk about six months, I don't know. But you know, I was able that first time to not drink. It was May the 8th, Mother's Day, just like it was this year, which is my belly button birthday. I hated myself. I hated the world. This old drunk I was hanging out with said to me, You're a drunk. I don't want you. My parents wouldn't have anything to do with it. My children had washed their hands of me. I had no one. I tried to stop drinking I went into DTs it had gotten to the point where I could not not drink I could not put it down by myself so on Mother's Day May the 8th I went down and I bought me a 1.75 liter I went through the house and got every Quaalude, every drug I had, you know, uppers, downers. I don't care what it was, and I put it in this big bowl. And then I got panic. What if I don t die? So I went down to our local, it s called Starvin Marvin, one of these 7-Eleven stores. And it was Sunday, so, you know there s the only place I could think to go. And I picked up everything on the shelf that said caution, do not use with alcohol. And I brought it down and sat down at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I took a pill and took a sip, and took a pill, and take a sip. I did not see how I could live because alcohol didn't work for me, and yet I couldn't not drink. No one wanted me, including my family. God hated me. I blacked out immediately but I kept on. Pill, sip, pill, sip. About one o'clock in the morning, I woke up in my own filth, unable to breathe. You take breathing naturally, but my body would not respond. I had to consciously make myself breathe. And I cried out, I want to live. And for the remainder of the night, I simply breathed. For me, that was my first ever conscious asking a power greater than myself. I wasn't even conscious of doing it. But you see, my God hears. The next day I started thinking about it again. There were about five pills left in the bowl. there was still some and I knew you know I knew if I had taken any one of them I would have died but something said I want to live so I had one of those AA miracles the first AA miracle that I was conscious of see during that period of time when that six weeks that Iwas hanging around AA apparently, because I certainly didn't remember it people had given me their phone numbers and the day after I tried this suicide I went into my junk room I don't know if you all have one but I have a room where everything goes that I don' t want to look at right now and it's, you know, junk and I walked into that room and laying on top was this list of five phone numbers. Where did this come from? But I picked it up, I dialed the phone. The first two were disconnected. I mean, face it, it was AA people, so their phone was disconnected. But on the fourth try, I got a woman. I had no idea who she was. I had No idea anything about her. I just said, Ma'am, I think I've got a drinking problem. And she said, Well, honey, so do I. What can I do for you? And I said, I don't know. I don'T know where to go. I DON'T know what to do. And she told me about treatment. Now, see, I was this Baptist preacher's daughter. You know, I didn't know a lot of stuff. I hadn't been in AA long enough to learn anything because I didn' t go to meetings a lot. But she said, Do you want to get sober? Yeah. So she got a woman. never saw her before or since had a great big Cadillac and after I got things taken care of like what was happening with my children told my boss I was still employed, I don't know how but they had already said if your drinking keeps up you're out of here so I knew I had to let them know what was going on So I kept drinking to get me to the time, which was May 25th, 1983, when I had my last drink. A miracle. Phone numbers. We so casually give out our phone numbers, we never know how much or whose life they could save. So give newcomers your phone numbers. Share with them. Reach out because they could be a Martha who throws them in the pile, never looks at it for six or eight months, but then it will appear. during that time I was in around AA I thought I had heard if you go to treatment and you're drunk they won't take you so I got in this car with these two women never seen one of them before and I'm shaking and I am just as sick as a dog and they said can we get you a drink? It's a long way to Statesboro. No, I can't have a drink. Can't have it. So I suffered and I shook and I didn't drink all the way from Jacksonville to Statesborough, Georgia until I entered Willingway. Then I got my first recovery resentment because everybody else who came into that place was roaring drunk. And I thought, oh man, I have wasted this day. I told him about it, too, a lot. I did that. I was in treatment for six weeks. I was very fortunate. The time was up. It was time to go back to work. I called my boss and said, I cannot leave. I will not leave. I mean, I had found heaven. I hadfound home. I hadfound people who accepted me, people who did not run the other way when I walked into a room, or people who would interact with me, who kept telling me things like, you are okay. Did resent them a little bit. They hid every book, radio and TV. The only thing that was there was a big book and a 12 and 12. Six weeks is a long time when you're a reader and that's all you have to read. But today I am so grateful. So I stayed seven weeks in treatment because I wouldn't leave. And then I came down to Jacksonville, Florida and went to my first meeting. I had decided that since I had done it wrong the first time that I was going to tell people what was going on. So I finally got up enough nerve. I don't know how you were the first time you shared. And I raised my hand, and they called on me, and I said, Oh, man, I've been gone for almost eight weeks from work. I've got to go back tomorrow. And, oh, Lord, what am I going to tell them? You know, they're going to ask where I've Been, and I've Been in alcoholic treatment. What am I Going to do? You know、 I Don't Know What to Do. And this voice said from behind me, honey, they're not even going to know you were gone. And let me tell you, I whipped around and I glared at him because it was this fellow right here who said that. He was right. Nobody asked, where have you been? I must have had a good vacation. We're doing this now. I was so disappointed. I thought I was important. How could they dare? They didn't even know I was gone. Now, I did not do it the way that was suggested by the people around me. And I tell you this because you don't have to do it the way I did it. If you're a newcomer, you see, I didn't do anything they told me to do except go to meetings. I sat in the corner feeling sorry for myself, not talking to anyone, being angry, I didn't want to be there. And I stayed that way for a year of listening to people talk, not paying any attention. But it's kind of, you know, what happens when you go to a meeting? It just kind of gets in, even though when you fight it, you begin hearing things and a little while later it makes sense to you. In my case, it was a long time later, but it worked. And so I kept, in that period of time, I'm going, well, damn, I'm not getting a sponsor. They can't make me. The truth of the matter is I felt so low, so awful, so used, abused, rotten that I knew no one could be my friend. But I kept listening to Jim and he was really excited about sobriety. I wasn't. I was miserable. People were getting happy. So one day I invited him to lunch. Now here was my thinking. I'll invite him to launch, pay the tab, then he will be obligated so then he can't possibly say no. He picked up the check. I'm going, oh no, I have nothing. And I remember it so vividly. We were at my cafeteria where I worked, and I said, would you be my sponsor? And miracle upon miracle, he said yes. Now Jim was the perfect sponsor for me because all he did in my eyes at that time was he took me to meetings and he told me about the wonderful things that were happening to him. His experience, strength and hope. He was excited about sobriety and he did talk about God but I wasn't going there. I was not going to talk about God. God hated me. I knew it. I had proof from the time I was 11 years old that God hated me. But you know at two years without a drink without a real program it's painful. So I knew I wasn't going to say God so being a smart aleck I said well I'll talk to something greater than myself I'd read in the big book he had made me read in big book you know all about find a God of your own understanding so I came up being a smart aleck with Harold as in Harold be thy name and I want to tell you that I went around Jacksonville talking to Harold You know, I'd get in the car in the morning. Okay, Harold, we're going to have a really great day today. Okay, Gerald. And people thought I was totally nuts. Now at this time, God gave me exactly what I needed. Lust raised its head. In walked a 6'4", long brown hair fella in the program and I lusted. and Harold began to look remarkably like Ron. I've so often said Jim is my AA sponsor, but Ron was my teacher because see, I would have done just about anything for Ron. Now thank God he had eight years sober in the program and he understood that I was totally nuts and he did not go there to my disappointment at the time, but the perfect thing for me. I wanted what he had, what Jim had. I wanted it. I just didn't know how to get it. Now, I'm talking to Harold. That's not really quite getting it for me, but I kept on. And I will tell you, if you have an AA teacher who works construction, do not leave notes in their lunch saying, Harold loves you and so do I. Because I really had some trouble living that one down. But one day, Ron, my AA teacher, was telling a person he sponsored, see, that's how I got things. I didn't get it directly. If you'd have told me anything, I'd have run. but I listened to what you told others so he told this other fella about this seminar that they were having one of the personal growth seminar for the weekend so of course I went and enrolled because by god I didn't want you to have anything that I didnít have and I went during that weekend I learned how to meditate we had an experience and for the first time I knew with every fiber of my being that there was something greater than myself I had some conscious contact see you can't I couldn't give my will and my life over to something that I thought hated me and I had no conscious contact with. So through meditation, and I made that connection for me, then I could begin my process. No coincidences, the next Tuesday after this weekend, And Jim asked Ron to speak and me to chair a meeting at our little 12th, 4th Street. It was a halfway house for low-bottom drunks. So we went. Now I'd heard this story so many times. I had heard everything a gazillion times from Jim, from Ron, from everywhere. but that night I heard the program of Alcoholics Anonymous Ron and Jim had both been encouraging me to read the third step prayer Ron told me I was not bright enough that I had to read it aloud so my eyes saw the words and my ears heard it So every morning I read the third step prayer. Brush my teeth. God, I offer myself to thee, build me, do with the mill, relieve me of the bondage of self that I'm better than well, take away my death, cut me. I did it because they told me to do it. So finally I was getting willing. Jim reminded me that I was driving to work one day and I didn't have my script in front of me. I said, oh, look, I didn' t do what I was supposed to do. So I started to think the words and try to remember the words, and I did. And it hit me. Relieve me of the bondage of self. I went to a women's meeting. Let me tell you what I discovered. I'm my problem. I mean, I thought I was just incredibly brilliant. And they said, yeah, Martha, we know. Relieve me of the bondage of self. That night at the meeting, on the way home, I knew absolutely it was time for me. So I said, Ron, would you say the third step prayer with me? and we got down on our knees in my living room floor and I said the third step prayer with Ron I hope I never forget that the electricity in that room was overwhelming not to be sacrilegious but my cat went crazy all of a sudden my cat's all over the house running and jumping It was the most powerful time of my life. I made a decision to turn Martha over to my higher power, who at this time I had chosen to call God. Wonderful. I tell that story because if you're a newcomer and you don't have a God that you're comfortable with, take Harold. God doesn't care. What he does care is that you begin to change. Ron was very smart he told me Martha you've had an incredible experience tomorrow the next day your head's going to tell you you're nuts you did oh no what it ooh that that was kind of spooky that was too weird uh oh I mean you know maybe I was just horny I don't know but that was weird and so I did what they said and I went to the clubhouse and I told people and they said trust it you have any doubt ask Juan he was there ask Jim who you called up and told about it see my head's so goofy it could convince me of anything It would convince me that, you know, a million dollars is no good. You know, it's crazy. But in my experience, I got it. Sat down the next weekend and did a fourth step. Unplugged the phone and started writing. Now, you know, this is a thing in the big book that I kind of wish that it had been done a little differently because they have those great three columns that you write in. You know, mad at mother, this Is What Happened, affected this. Well, I realize I've been telling those stories, a lot of them, forever. I used to tell them on the barstool you know my mother she wouldn't do that that man got me pregnant all of these stories and then it was pointed out to me that there's a whole lot more beyond the three columns you have to forgive them You have to figure out your part of it, my part of it. See, I'd spent my lifetime thinking it was their problem and I had to see it was mine. It's my behavior. It's my thoughts. It' s my life. My choices. I will tell you that never once in the 30 years from my first drink till my last drink did anyone ever come up to me and pour alcohol down my throat. I did it. I took every drink that was there. My stuff. I had to forgive and look at people differently. Sponsors, work with your people when they are ready to do a fourth step. I could not have done it alone. It took somebody helping me see my part in it by saying, how did you feel about that, Martha? What did you do when you did this? How did you react? Did you get in the back seat of the car, Martha, that's your fault. You know, it wasn't them, it was me. So I went through and got tremendous relief from the fourth step. And Ron said, go tell your sponsor. I'm not doing it. You know everything. I've told you that ought to count for a fifth step you know i'm not doing go tell your sponsor take everything that you have discovered and tell your sponsors so i called him up and said monday afternoon can i come over Probably scared him to death. I mean, you know, I was new for him too. And I went over with this list and I stumblingly, not very gracefully at all, began to tell what was wrong with Martha. it. My character defects, my experiences, what I had done. And he was so wonderful. He shared back and he had some stuff, I'm telling you. It made me feel not at all alone. We went out to eat, and it just kept pouring out. See, I'd written everything I could think of, but the more we talked, the more things came, and the more I shared, and the More I dumped all of this stuff. And Jim said, Martha, I want you to go home and pick up the big book, and I want your name on it. I want for you to read six and seven. I went home and did exactly that. I called him. I just thought of some more stuff. Till I had shared everything that I knew to share with another human being, and the miracle you see happen to me because for the first time I could look the world in the eye I was no longer ashamed I was no longer holding that I became a human being I got on my knees and I said the seventh step prayer. My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. You see, going into this, before I did a fourth step, there were things I could guarantee you with my life. this is the way it was this is what represented good this was what made a good person after that process I didn't have the foggiest because being able to shut the world out and stand up and let nobody near which I thought was the only way to live I found out is what killed me things I knew thought were good are bad for me things that I thought were bad I found out were good my life changed totally and Martha did not have to make the decision is this good or is this bad God take it all whatever it is it's yours that's the sixth and the seventh my job was to begin acting differently than all that crap I had discovered I discovered I was jealous I had to stop that I discovered I was a gossip I had to stop that you know I loved did. I could just gossip all the time, tell you what was wrong with everybody. I had to stop it. I had to do some things. Jim told me I had Ron incidentally left town about this time. He's dead now. He died sober. What a gift. God put, you know, everything else was in there but he gave me the one thing that would make me do something and then took it away. God's wonderful, does these miracles. Jim told me I had to do an eighth and ninth step. I had all that stuff listed out. I had all those people that were on my fourth step and some that I had to add and I began making amends to them half the time they didn't know what I was talking about now did that happen to you you go think man this is such a I just made such an ass out of myself I just embarrassed them terribly I've got to make amends for all of this stuff. And you go, and they go, what? I don't remember that. But I began clearing me. I began doing financial amends. See, all this time growing up and with my children, I stole. I stole from my parents. So I sat down and figured out to the best of my ability how much I stole, and I added interest. Now, I figured out that if I would go tell my mother all of this and make this big confession she'd say oh in that sweet honey no she took the money i mean talk about another resentment right off the bat but it was so powerful to me to to pay my dues to clean up that some of the wreckage of the past i was doing the steps in our local club and i don't know how you do it here but we did one and then two and you kind of work your way up well it came to the the week before step nine and i knew i had some amends i hadn't made now how could i get up in front of you and tell you how to do amends if it was eating me alive. So I did that last big, ugly amends. I called my ex-husband. And I took a judgment that I had against him for back child support and I crossed through it, tore it in half, put it in an envelope and mailed it to him. He didn't have a dime. I wasn't going to get it. And it just, you know, I had been holding this ugliness over his head. Make him suffer, you now. And I made my amends. I owned up to my part. And I cleared the air. His reaction was, ooh, what does a bitch want now? God is so good. And the next week, there was a call from my daughter that her husband in a blackout had hit somebody with a car who'd lost their leg and he was going to jail. Leaving my daughter, grandchild, and guess what? I had to talk to my ex-husband during this time. Having made amends, I could talk to them. That's a miracle. the tenth step daily look at your life look what you're doing look what you're feeling and my favorite step prayer and meditation I teach meditation now I share it I want it I believe absolutely we should start at the first step to work the steps we can't come in get sober and make amends not without cleaning up our mess i believe that the steps are in order but let me urge on you you don't have to wait till you get to 11 to start the process start it early on start prayer pray i don't care who you pray to i know it's god you know you can call you know talk to a gray lamp like i did when i was in treatment that was the best i could do you know um you can do but just pray get on your knees ask for help get in some meditation and actually listen so you can hear what god wants to say to you if you're running your mouth all the time how the heck can you hear if you had a friend who talked and never let you ever open your mouth would you want to hang around with them I wouldn't so spend time in the quiet listen, go inside hear and start practicing it early and my experience strength and hope is that once I have it and all along the way I give it away that's what this program is about so what I want to say because I have really kind of rushed through my story is I want to kind of tell you some things that I've learned. Prayer and meditation, for me, is the key to happy sobriety. Right off the bat, I can tell you that. Be kind to newcomers. When I walked in this door, you guys were talking this language I had not the foggiest what you meant. You talked about programs and you talked about steps. It took me about a year to figure out it was the same thing. I wasn't very bright. And you'd be talking to each other, and here I am, a newcomer, and you'd go, oh, yeah, I've been having trouble with so-and-so. I did a ninth. I did what? I didn't know. I'm a newcomor. Be conscious of newcomers. Explain to them. remember when you were a newcomer and you didn't know squat share with them you're a sponsor psychologists tell us that to be a well rounded human being you must have three people in your life you must have a mentor or a sponsor you must have a peer to hang out with and you must have a student or a sponsee they could have just asked AA, we've known that all along but it is important as Jim said Get someone and practice on them. You ain't going to be perfect. Every person that you deal with will need different things. You will be different, but do it. Get newcomers. Get a sponsor. Find someone that you can relate to that has some of the serenity that you'd like in your life. and I think at least for the people I know that it's kind of important along the way to be rejected by people you ask to be the sponsor be fired by them and maybe have to fire somebody yourself because let me tell you that's life when you ask somebody to be your sponsor you're not it's not like a marriage ceremony that says from now on till the end of time you're going to be my spouse if it works that's wonderful but it just might not so you've got to have some play and some give and take and to understanding in our case I was absolutely happy with Jim as my sponsor. We were getting along great. We went to conventions together. We talked. We shared. I was growing, and experiences, and his sponsor came, and Mr. AA, he thought he was. He called me aside and said, you cannot have Jim as your sponsor anymore. You're too visible in AA. women are not supposed to have men as sponsors well I knew it well of course I did everything the way I was going to do it but you know I resented that for the longest time but it forced me into asking another person promptly fired me because I was too much trouble, I learned that I was okay even with that rejection. And I asked another person to be my sponsor. And we worked together for six months and they moved. And it made me ask another person who has now been my sponsor for 15 years. We call each other recovery partners now because I sponsor her, she sponsors me. Newcomers ask, it is not you and because you're no good if the sponsor says, you know, I really can't do it now. My life is such that I cannot have another sponsee. Wow. You get to learn that you're okay And generally what happens is you get then the ideal sponsor, and if that person had been your sponsor, it would have been misery. Because God works that way. This program works thatway. You know you can't give it away unless you got it. And as you learn, share it. I love sponsorship. Sponsors, when you learn something Pass it on Pass it On During my sobriety My father, the Baptist preacher Died I was at work when I got the call From my mother I went by the house. I saw that she was all right, that dad things were taken care of, and I went to an AA meeting. You're my family. You're My Strength. I will forever be grateful for the last week of my father's life. Actually, it was the day before he died. He was laying in the hospital bed, And he said, oh, honey, I have tried for my entire life to teach you about God. And it took a bunch of drunks to do it. It took a punch of drunks. you have my vocabulary I can't hear other things except what you tell me I have learned that thou art God, you speak to me from God himself you give me wisdom and you know what I've learned I learned I am your thou that God speaks through me to you this is that person who was lower than a snake's belly who hated herself and hated God I made my total amends with my parents adopted another set of parents my best friend's family I have to do some amends to them too you've been my family you've taught me everything I know my children who wanted me dead who would have gladly lived their life without seeing them, my oldest is my best friend. We talk probably daily. My grandchildren have never seen me drunk. We actually have family reunions and they are proud to introduce their nana. They didn't see. They see who I am today. I'm an ordained minister, for God's sakes. Me, who would not say the word, who left meetings. Things I never dreamed of have manifested in my life. And they will manifest in yours if you follow this program. because the greatest promise in the big book to me is this. It works. Thank you for being those drunks who taught me everything I needed to know. Please remember, it works. Thank you.