The Character Defects That Harm Others with the Best Intentions – Holly D.

Thank you, Al. Hi, you guys. I'm so super happy to be here. I'm really honored. Thank you so very much. I am Holly. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is September 28th, 1996. I do have a home group. My home group is the West connect group in Jacksonville, Florida. They meet on Monday nights at seven, which is right after this meeting. And we are hybrid, which has been a lot of fun for me. Which is awesome. So that means if you want to come to my home group from the comfort of your living room, all you need to do is hit me up. I'd be happy to give you the codes and you can join us. And of course, if you're ever in Jacksonville, please hit me up. We'll meet for coffee. We'll go to the meeting because that's just kind of how we roll. It is my sponsor's home group as well. And my sponsor is the amazing Miss Polly P. Of course, she has a sponsor and she has an sponsor and I sponsor women and they sponsor women. So I'm smack dab in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am super excited to be talking about step six and seven tonight. no better challenge than to talk about step six and seven probably no more pertinent steps in my life than step six, and seven. They are incorporated in my life every morning I say the third step prayer and the seven step prayer every morning on my knees before I even start my day. And that's not so that God needs to be reminded. So that I get reminded every single day. So in case you don't know what the steps are. Step six is we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, and then seven is humbly ask him to remove those shortcomings, these shortcomings. And so I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself and how these steps really, really have changed in my life over the years, and how I had some misconceptions about these steps, and how i experienced these steps today. So that's really what we're going to do tonight. hopefully that's okay so I very first came into Alcoholics Anonymous my very first meeting was February 3rd 1981 I was 23 years old I my mom had just flown me to Houston she was on her fourth husband living in Houston Texas I had been hitchhiking around the United States for a decade I did manage to get trashed on tequila and woke up married once during that time and and so now I was. I had been disappeared for about nine months. I've been traveling around the United States. My mom found me in Pittsburgh, brought me back to New Orleans where I lived and said, please stay put your husband and your daughter need you. Well, I didn't care about the husband, but I did the daughter. I wanted to be a good girl more than anything in the world. I wanted To just know how to be A good girl. And I had no idea. None. I'm a Chukchi fan. So we'll start with that right out of the gate. I'm an avid Chuck C fan. And in case you don't know who he is, just a drunk guy from California, just one of us, you know, we don't have precedents in Alcoholics Anonymous. But what he had was a way of describing his alcoholism eloquently, yet simplistically in a way that I understand. And well, how did I hear Chuck? Well, he gave a talk at a men's retreat one weekend way back when and they recorded it like we do. And then they took that recording, they put it word for word down on paper. We'll call that a book, and that book's called A New Pair of Glasses. That book sits on the nightstand by my bed with a highlighter. I absolutely love it because I love the way he talks about our disease. And what Chuck says is that his disease, he had one problem, one, and it encompassed all of his problems. And that problem was a conscious separation from God and mankind. That separation was caused by our egos. He said we have one solution and it fixes everything. And that's a conscious connection to God and mankind. And for me, the journey of the 12 steps is the bridge from conscious separation to conscious connection. Because what happens during the events of the twelve steps is I have a spiritual awakening and I end up with my hand in God's hand and I become connected to the world through God. So the magic is not the book and the magic is not the steps. The magic is what happens when we work those steps and live in those steps. We have a spiritual awakening and then we maintain it. But I didn't know any of that when I got here. What I thought was I just needed to be loved. That was all that was wrong with me. You know, nobody loved me right? You know, mommy didn't love me right? Daddy number one and daddy number two and daddy number three and daddy number four. You know, I tried for a long time to just find that one person that would just wrap their arms around me and tell me everything's going to be okay. And I would finally feel it. And i tried that a lot. And trust me, it did not work. So what happened is, I stepped over the line into the realms of alcoholism at a very early age. Um, I believe that the word that Chuck uses conscious separation from God and mankind. That wasn't an accident. You know, he didn't say we're a little unique or you know, we marched to the beat of a different drummer. You No, he said we have a conscious separation from God and mankind. And for me, that happened when I was four years old, my first day of kindergarten. Prior to that, my life was amazing. My daddy was a prominent surgeon in the small town I grew up in. My mom was a typical alcoholic housewife, straight martinis, cried and slept. I can say that about her because she's 40 years sober today and she says it about herself. But back then she was drinking. And my daddy was large and in charge and a mainline amphetamine user. And he believed the G-men were out to get him. He taught me how to drive the family Corvette at three, how to shoot guns at four because my job was to protect him from said G-men. And I had a fabulous life until I went to kindergarten. When I walked into kindergarten, I was in an environment I had no idea what to do with. There were little kids running around playing and interacting. And I wanted to play too. And I didn't know how. I didn'T know how I stood in that doorway and I watched those children interact. And I knew in that moment that there was something wrong with Holly. and it was that day that I became conscious of my separation and I needed a drink that day badly, badly. But I didn't get my first drink for a couple of months. My parents entertained frequently. They had a lot of cocktail parties. I hated their cocktail parties, they treated me weird when other adults were around. I think they they were trying to treat me like a child in the presence of other adults which made no sense to me because I ran this household. So at this particular party I have my favorite dress on, no one's talking to me, noone's paying attention to I'm feeling very put out by the whole thing. Kindergarten is extremely stressful. I've had a very bad day. And my daddy says, you're five years old. It's time for you to start mixing drinks for our guests. And I said, wonderful. Made my mom's martini, which was a highball glass, whole lot of vodka, a little bit of lemon. And I headed across the room with that glass full of vodka. And I did what I think, oh, little five-year-old alcoholics do. Remember, I've already stepped over that line. I drank it. I drankit. And what alcohol did for me was amazing. By the time I got across the room and that vodka hit me, I fell in love with everyone in the room and they all fell in Love With Me. Isn't that what alcohol does? I mean, that's what it did for my life. It bridged the gap. I was no longer separated. I was one with everyone in the group and it was magical and wonderful and I was articulate. I had fabulous conversations. I was the life of the party and that night I made a decision I would drink that stuff as much and as often as I could and I did. I was an adult in this household, I could pour a glass of vodka when I wanted to and I did not become a daily drinker at the age of five but certainly weekly. By the time I was 11 I was a daily drinkers, by 12 I was having periodic alcoholic convulsions you know drink a little too much when you're 12 and you end up vibrating and vomiting and convulsing oh well you get over it. By 13, I was hitchhiking around the United States. My mom had divorced that man and remarried a man that believed in beating somebody up that doesn't listen. And I did not listen, trust me. So I got beat up a lot and I just hit the road. I started running away from home at 13. And by the time I was 14, my parents put me in a mental institution because they thought a 14-year-old hitchhiker around the Unites States might be problematic, especially one that looks eight. I never looked older for my age. I always looked a lot younger. I was always kind of built like a young boy. You know, I never had one of those great figures. I mean, the only curves I have now are from a great plastic surgeon in Jacksonville, Florida. But back then I looked really, really young. So I'm walking down the sidewalk, cops would pick me up and bring me home. So I started running away and I started hitchhiking around the United States and getting brought home. And so they thought that was a little weird and took me to a psychiatrist who wanted me in his mental institution for a three-day evaluation. And they dropped me off for that three- Day evaluation and they promptly let me out a year and a day later. And when they let me out of that mental institution, it was only because the insurance ran out and I was 15 years old. And the psychiatrist told my parents on that day that what they needed to do in preparation for my homecoming was make funeral arrangements because I was not going to survive. I was terminally insane. I Was a sociopath and I Was going to either place myself in a position where I was killed or I was going to self-implode with my lifestyle. My mom cried, my stepdad patted her on the back and I finally had the answer for what's wrong with Holly. And then I spent the next eight years hitchhiking. February 2nd, 1981, I was drinking in a bar in New Orleans. I was trying to stay put and not travel, but I did drink in bars. I mean, come on, it's New Orleans, right? So I'm drinking in club and a guy asked me if I wanted to leave the bar and go get some kind of condiment. You know, the condiments back then had 714 stamped on them or came in white powder form. I didn't mind condiments, but alcohol was my deal. Trust me, alcohol was absolutely my deal left the bar with that gentleman and I ended up in a bad situation. I've been in a lot of bad situations in my day. So it's not unusual. But this one was a little more brutal than most and I landed up out on a on a dock and he was beating me and various other things. And I made eye contact with the guy and I just said, please kill me. Freaked him out. He ran off and he left me. And I came to a little while later and I hitchhiked home and called my mom and said I was mugged last night because what are you going to say? And I said, Please, I'd really like to come to Houston hang out with you. And mom's on her fourth husband and he's an architect and they have a really nice house with a pool. And my mom says get to the airport and I go a couple of hours later and I fly to Houston and I get off the plane and I'm all beat up. And my mama is three days sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. And what mama says to me are the words that saved my life. She says, it would mean so much to me if you would come to a meeting with me to support me. And she meant it. It was all about her. Trust me. But that's a good thing, right? Had it been about me, I'd have never gone. So on February 3rd, 1981, I walk into my first Alcoholics synonymous meeting. It was in a smoke-filled trailer that sat in the parking lot of an Episcopal church in Kingwood, Texas. And I walked into that meeting listening because this is mom's gig. You know, this is not my gig. I want to know what this deal is mama's got herself into. About halfway through the meeting, a little lady starts talking about being terminally insane. She said she put alcohol in her body and a crazy woman takes over and takes her places. She does not want to go doing things she does not want TO do, certainly with people she does NOT want to do it with, and then she said she found out she was not terminally insane. She found out she had a disease, and that disease is alcoholism, and she said if you have alcoholism there's a reprieve, you know, because she's in Houston and all that. She said all you got to do is work these 12 steps, and you never got to feel like that again. What? What? I was sitting in my chair thinking to myself oh my god please let me be an alcoholic. Oh I wanted to be one so bad and at the end of the meeting they did desire chips a silver doubloon if you have a desire to give up your way life and try ours come and get one that about knocked over my chair getting that chip that night now February 3rd 1981 I traded sociopathy for alcoholism and it was a win-win it was a trade up. And I was very excited to be here, but I had no idea what was wrong with me. I just knew alcoholism, hope, sociopathy, not so much. I dove into Alcoholics Anonymous. I did fellowship, fellowship, fellowship, meetings, meetings. At a year sober, I divorced my husband. I found myself in Hawaii and I was in paradise, 24 years old, a year over, and I wanted to kill myself because fellowship fellowship fellowship meetings meetings meetings they are fabulous and they are the substitute for alcohol but they are not the solution for alcoholism and I came to that crossroads the book talks about where I could not imagine another day without a drink but I could not imagine picking it up again so I went to one more meeting one more time and I asked a woman to be my sponsor and I meant it this time and she said i'll sponsor you but you're going to work some steps and there my life began but i had some misconceptions and they all have to do with step six and seven which is why it's so awesome that i get to talk about it tonight see because i came into alcoholist anonymous and and and my sponsor kept giving me all these stupid assignments and i had to do them because not because i'm altruistic and certainly not because I wanted step 12 to come about seriously Have you read step 12? Like, really? You want to give back so freely what was given to you. You want the rest of your life helping alcoholics get sober. You want to like practice these principles and all your affairs. I was 24. I didn't want to do that. I don't want to get that good. You know, I didn''t want my virginity back for God's sake and I certainly didn't wanna wear turtleneck sweaters and skirts down to my ankles and carry a big book which is quite often my look today but you know back then that was not appealing. I did not work steps for any great idea of having a spiritual experience I worked those steps because I loved my sponsor she was the most amazing woman in the world she was a goddess and I wanted her to like me and she kept giving me assignments so I had to do them so if I didn't do them she wouldn't like me and all of a sudden I woke up one day and my life changed it was unbelievable because you see what's wrong with me is I just need somebody to love me, right? And by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I knew I wasn't lovable. There was nothing lovable left about me. You know, I was that girl that I would ask you for a ride to the store to get a pack of cigarettes, especially if you were a fella. And then when we got to the story, I'd say, oh, would you mind going in and getting me that pack of secrets? And you'd say sure, because you're so chivalrous and you have hopes for later. And you would go into the store and you'd get that pack of cigarettes for me. And while you did that, I stole your car because really all I wanted was transportation. You know, I was that girl, you know, I wasn't a very nice girl. And so when I got into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I started working steps and I started getting reunified with God and mankind, I thought, oh my God, you're going to teach me how to be a real girl. See, because I didn't know how to be a real girl, I knew how to walk into a room, pick out the most successful person in that room, emulate that person and infiltrate that situation that's how i survived so i knew how to imitate people i knew how to do that well but i had no idea who i was i was five when i started drinking i have no clue who i am but you're going to teach me aren't you you're gonna teach me who iam you're to be and then everybody will love me my mom will love me again and daddy number one and daddy number two and daddy, number three and daddy number four and husband number one and husband. Number two and you know I'm going to become lovable here. You're going to teach me how to go to sleep at night, how to get up during the day. See because I know what my character defects are. I did that inventory when I was 24 and that inventory was very clear. I was a liar. Oh, I lied every word that came out of my mouth. I just made stuff up. I mean, I hitchhiked around the United States for a decade, taking on the roles of novels I'd read. You know, by the time I was 13, I'd written most of Michener's novels and I always loved to mention her. The Drifters being one of my favorite novels about a group of college students from around the world that gather in Europe and hitchhike around Europe together. Ah, those were my heroes. So when I would hitchhiking, I would take on the role of the characters in the novels, including their entire backstory. I spoke French once for six months. That was fun. You know, and then police would find me and I would just stay in the role because back then they didn't have internet or any of that mess. And if I was in a good situation, I'd stay. And if they put me in a really bad detention center or something that I tell them who I was and they'd send me home. So when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, I did my inventory and I realized what my character defects were. You know, had I just been a good girl? Had I just behaved then people would have lied to me. So that means don't lie. Don't steal. Try to sleep with only one person at a time you know that's problematic initially but eventually you get it um you know to try to to answer the phone when it rings try not to write checks unless there's money in the bank account well for a while it didn't matter because banks wouldn't even give me a bank account you know back then it was they had ways of knowing if you owed banks money which I thought was you know you had to find a bank they didn't figure that out. So what I thought I was doing here, what I thought the whole idea about character defects were were to identify those things which get one in trouble and stop doing them. Become entirely willing for God to remove your bad behaviors that get you in trouble. And that's what I did. I was taught that when you date you don't do your fifth step with the menu date, so I did not. At seven years sober, I moved to Jacksonville, Florida for a wedding. Mine! Mine! Yeah, my mom and the architect, yeah, they moved to Houston. I mean, to Jacksonvale. They're still married today. Of course, mom's sober 40 years. That has a lot to do with it. So they movedto Jacksonville and then they introduced me to a co-worker of my stepdad's and he's a button-up sweater guy. He's not one of us. He is like a real person. You know, like really, he wore button up sweaters. I never dated a man in my life that owned a button up sweater. Hello. Okay. So this is like a real person. He's a citizen. You know, he's an architect. He has his own business. He is raising his daughter and I have a daughter at this point. He belongs to a church. He speaks French fluently. He married me. I told him I tried marijuana once and I didn't like it and that is all I told him now he knew I was an alcoholic synonymous of course but he just thought it was so commendable that I got sober so young and you know there was no need to tell him about anything of my past because I'm not that girl anymore I don't do those things anymore that is not my behavior anymore I'm a good girl now and so we marry I want to tell you a couple of things that happened during that marriage that I had no idea about this character defect problem. You know, this, I don't know. My favorite line in the big book is found in the third step and it's very relevant to my character defects and it is, and I'm going to change the pronoun because I can. Is she not a victim of the delusion that she can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if she only manages well. Oh yeah, I'm a manager. I have a degree in that. Management. Go figure. Business management. But I can manage your life too. So I'm Mary Buttonup Sweater and I am grateful, grateful, thankful. I had this amazing citizen of a husband. We each have a daughter, so that's two. We decide to have more children, so I have two baby boys, so that's four. I become Catholic, because why not? He's Catholic. Then I start teaching Sunday school at the local Catholic church. I even had an Irish Catholic priest. What? I mean, that's as Catholic as you can get, as far as I was concerned. I joined a PTA. I had a great job managing a company. I had arrived. I was amazed. It was a miracle. Look at all the gifts that this program gave me. And I was truly, truly grateful. And what I believed that it was my job to be a good wife and a good mother and a good daughter and a great sister and a good employee and a PTA member and a good Sunday school teacher. And if I did all of that and if I suited up and showed up and I did the right thing I wore the right clothes and I said the right words, I would be okay because everyone would love me. And you know inevitably it didn't work. what happened for me is at 13 and a half years sober I had not been to a meeting in two years and way more importantly than that I had Not lived in steps 10 11 or 12 in two years I've not talked to another alcoholic woman in two years and we were moving and I was thirsty and I ended up drinking some beer it wasn't beer it was liquid I drank it no thought whatsoever it was a very short relapse I was out for just a very very short period of time i was breastfeeding my youngest son and there are very very rigid rules when you breastfeed and i followed those rules mostly because i did a thesis on that actually in university so i knew what those rules were and i follow those rules until the day i weaned my son and i ran my little butt back to alcoholics anonymous and in september 28 1996 um i ran back into the rooms of alcoholics synonymous scared me to death i had been drinking two servings of alcohol a day for a year. Trust me, that is not fun at all. I ran back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I did a new image. I grabbed a sponsor. I mean, I grabbed this sponsor and I dove into the steps immediately. And on September 28th, 1996, I conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. This wasn't just about trading one label for another label. This is about looking at the fact that I have a disease that could put alcohol into my body without my permission because i literally that first beer i drank it was just i just poured a little bit of beer in a thermos cup because i was literally thirsty and it was the only thing there um it was not beer to me i didn't even see it as beer it was simply something liquid that was in front of me and i drank at um and it Was six months before i took another sip of alcohol and then ran back into the rooms um i realized i had a disease that was going to get me no matter how good of a girl I was. See, nothing bad happened in my life. Everything was amazing in my life at that time. Button up sweater was great. Kids were great. Life was great, business was great house was great and yet I found myself with a new white chip. When I did my inventory the second time, my all my life inventory which I did again in 1996, I found out some things about character defects. I found out some things that I didn't know about Alcoholics Anonymous, which is not the end game is not laurels. And I thought it was. I didn' t know that the endgame here is not Laurels. You know I had so many Laurels, they were wonderful. I had a button-up sweater Laurel. You know, I had job Laurel, I have beautiful home Laurel I had four little Laurels running around, children. I have a Sunday school position and a Laurel PTA position. And I thought that was the deal here. Make me into a citizen, make me into a real girl. That's what these steps are all about. And I found out I was wrong about that. AndI also found out that my best thinking will have me controlling, managing, and alienating. Andi had no idea because now I had to do an inventory and I had to take a look at Holly sober you know this wasn't about drinking and partying and traveling around the United States this wasn'T about waking up with three toothless men in LA you know. This inventory was not about any of those behaviors and yet there I sat in pain and agony and my life be shambles. My husband and I separated three months when I was three months sober back in i sat him down and i told him my story he had no idea my story i never told him who i was i sat Him down and I told him My Story and he cried and I cried and we were crying for different reasons and we separated three months later and I've been divorced 24 and a half years and it tore him up it tore Him up and it torn me up too but it's not, that's not what matters. Is it really the end of the day? What matters is how our behavior affects others. And I didn't know that. So I did that inventory and this is what I saw. And I'm going to tell you just a few things that happened when I was married six months to button up sweater. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida. We're still newlyweds. You know, we got all that newlywed stuff going on and I decided to ride my bicycle to his office and surprise him and go to lunch. And my car was in the shop getting serviced or something. And so I rode my bicycle and it was about two miles down one road, Beach Boulevard to the beach in Jacksonville where his office was. So I rode My Little Bicycle and I walked into his office. Hi honey. He's like, hi honey. You know how all that works. And he's, I said, I'm here to surprise you and go-to-lunch with you. And then he went, wait a minute. How did you get here and I said well I rode my bicycle it's a beautiful day it's Florida hello I rode my bicycle to beautiful day and he said oh my god you wrote your bicycle on beach boulevard okay beach boulevards just like a four lane road and when he said that I'll never forget it as long as I live I was standing in his office he was sitting at his desk, and he said, you rode your bicycle on Beach Boulevard with a horrified look on his face. And in my mind, and this went like a tenth of a second, in my mind, I said to myself, okay, um, I was driving a Corvette and shooting guns at four. I hitchhiked around the United States for a decade. There was a good period of my time, of my life in my teenage years that I was armed. Yeah, I rode my bicycle on Beach Boulevard. Not seriously a very big deal. And I looked at Michael and I said this, oh honey, I'm so sorry I worried you. I didn't mean to do that and I promise I'll never do it again. now the reason I said that the reason I believed let me qualify that statement the reason I believed that I made that choice in that moment was because my goodness I don't want to worry my husband that's a terrible thing to do because he is a really precious laurel of mine you know I don' t want to upset him I love him so I need to do the most loving thing which is please don't ride your bicycle on beach boulevard because it will concern him. And those were my motives that day. That's why I said that to him. And I want you to know what really happened when I did that. When I did that, I stole that man's power of choice in an instant. I took away his opportunity, opportunity to decide about me. I took a way his opportunity to learn anything about me, I took away his opportunity to find out any information about why that did not feel like a problem to me I decided to not share with him that day a whole segment of who I am and I did that I did it with the best of motives seven and a half years sober praying daily going to meetings and I did that and I didn't never saw it I spent the rest of the marriage to that man being the woman that I thought I needed to be to be his wife and I am that woman I mean I'm a good mom and and I'm not a good mother I am a citizen and you know I don't teach Sunday school anymore that was pushing it but you know I'm really, really a, you know, I'm an okay person today. But I also, you know, went skydiving for my 40th birthday. And you know I do like fast cars and I will ride my bicycle on Beach Boulevard. Okay? I mean, I am me today. All of me. And I hadn't been. But i want you to know that when I take a look at character defects that harm others with the best of intentions, I realized that I cannot outthink me. Now, that might sound a little weird, but you know, if you're a manager like I am, you take into account all of your little idiosyncrasies as you're making decisions that are for the betterment of others, don't you? Well, I certainly did. And what I found out was my best thinking, evaluating the entire scenario and making the proper decisions for all involved hurt people hurt people unintentionally hurt people oh my god I had no idea I can go out into the world with my best thoughts and make decisions that hurt people and that's when I realized what step six and seven are all about was six especially becoming entirely ready because seven is just the action of asking God to remove it six is where all the action happens what I realized is I can't I can outthink me I canít think any differently than I think and that there may be another way to see the world and isnít that the door that opens with step six. It was for me. All of a sudden I started seeing all of these things that I do, all of this action reaction, action reaction. All the ways that I react to the world based on information that I believe are truth and they're not. There might be other truths besides mine. I had no idea, but I can't see them because I can only see what I can see. I don't know if this is making any sense. This is really hard to talk about. I have perception. I have a way I see the world. It's what I call my first thoughts. My first thoughts are like that instant reaction to whatever it is that I'm seeing. And I used to believe that that was the truth. And what I found out in an instant when I realized what I did to button up sweater that day, what I saw instantly is that it's absolutely not the truth, it was just my truth at the moment. It doesn't make it so. And so what I have to have is I have TO HAVE GOD. I have to have God that will lift the veil of my eyes and or allow me to take actions contrary to what I think I should do isn't that novel so if I see something that's going on and I have a perception about that I have maybe take a different action and now this all sounds so existential so you know I just have to give you examples because that's just the only way I can do this thing so I'm going to give you a couple of examples let's talk about my mom mama oh okay so my mama and I are very close she lives in Jacksonville still with the architect they're little old people now but they're awesome so mama did AA for about five years and then she got really involved in her church she had a born again thing in the middle of the night oh my god my mama went as far right as you can go right wing fundamental out on the tip of the plane wing feet swinging in the air you can't get any further fundamental and right as my mama got and my mama is does church like i do aa she got super super involved in her church and she probably has not been involved in alcoholics anonymous now for probably 35 years but she's sober and she's happy and it works for her she's doing the deal she's Doing It In Her Church and that's all good but my mama did i say goes to a really really really fundamental church like really fundamental like I can't say that enough. So what happens is, and my mom is also a big Bible teacher in the city of Jacksonville at her fundamental church, which is a mega church and thousands of people belong in everyone knows my mother. So What Happens Is Mama, mama gets upset. Mama gets upset a lot. Because what she does is she sees things that I'm doing not so much now, but certainly over the years. And she calls me and she's crying. And she says things like, I'm so upset. Why mom? I'm going to spend all of eternity without you. Okay, because you know, she's going to heaven and I'm not. So that's mama. So for a long time, when my mom would do that, it would hurt my feelings. I would think, Mom, I believe in God. I believe in a lot of things i'm not going to have the conversation with you because you're going to just you're gonna blow my mind with all of your information and and then a finite little road that you think you have to walk because that's the way her church is and uh and what i knew was that i could not see my mom i could only see the words that she was saying to me and it didn't look like love to me as a matter of fact it looked like judgment and it looked like she doesn't like me and she's not proud of me and he doesn't recognize any of the accomplishments I've done nothing you know all the things you want your mom to do right but I wasn't entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character because the idea about removing defects of characters not to make me feel better is to keep the bridge open between me and you. The only way that I'm going to be of any use to God and mankind is if bridges are built and debris free. If I burn bridges or clutter them up with debris, I'm of no use. And God has to figure that out. And god has to remove those character defects. I can't see it any different than I see it. I cannot say oh yeah they're just words. Oh she's sick too. that's probably the only line in the big book I wish they'd remove because it's very, very easy for me to step onto my superiority soapbox and say, well, you're just sick. You're just sick. If you weren't so flipping sick, you wouldn't do that. Right? Yeah. You marry your soulmate and you divorce Satan. Yeah. No, they're just thick. And when I use that line, they're just sick then it keeps me from looking at me it keeps me from keeping that bridge debris free and it keeps me form being willing to let God do anything with me at all and what I did with my mom is I knew that I needed you know I love my mom drives me crazy but I love mama and I wanted to be a good daughter and my mama needs me and I want to be a good daugther and I wanna love her I just want to love her and so I God please remove the defects of character that stand in the way of my loving mama and what happened for me is that I still see what I see my mom still says the things that she says none of those things have changed she doesn't do it as frequently now she's getting older she had coffee with me the other day and she said you know when Charles dies because she just knows he's going to go first and she's going live forever because that's the way we roll in my family so when Charles dies what are you going to do with me because I don't want to go into home I'm like is that why you're being nice she laughed and I laughed my mama loves me and she needs me but what happened was my mom still says the things that she says and she still does the things that she does and what I see whenever she does it now is just how much she loves me isn't that amazing? If my mom didn't love me, she wouldn't care what I did. As a matter of fact, she'd probably be happy to be separated from me for all of eternity. But my mom's heart breaks when she thinks that she might spend all of the eternity without me because she wants to be with me for all of attorney, which on a side note is a terrifying thought. But she wants to be with me for all of eternity that's how much she loves me and it is her mission in life to save my soul lucky me and so step seven says that I have to humbly ask him to remove these shortcomings and so I have to take behaviors contrary to the way I feel and what that looks like for me today is this mama says it's gonna be easter easter's coming up you going to church easter is a big deal and i said well she goes are you gonna go why would you just go to church with me oh and i sit of course then i got up and i put on pink you know you got to do easter put on all the little cute little Easter clothes. And I met my mama yesterday and my stepdad at their big, huge mega church. And she introduced me to all her little cute friends. Now, you know, that's little ladies with a little white hair. They all came up and they were all so happy to meet me and everybody wanted to hug me. Oh my God, COVID was freaking me out, but I'm vaccinated so okay god so you know i went mama beamed she just beamed the whole day and there's one of these churches where you know they're like oh you know and i just did it too i just had a good time and i made my mama happy and i prayed and talked to god because you know hello he's there too and it was wonderful and then we went out to lunch and i had a wonderful day and my son came and met us. My life is amazing today because I am willing for God to remove the veil in front of my eyes, and if I still see it the way that I see it, take a right instead of a left, and that is absolutely what step six and seven do for me. They give me a window of opportunity to know that what I'm seeing is not necessarily the truth, and I need that in order to be of use. I need that more than anything to be of use. And it can be hard. It can be really hard because sometimes it's, it's things like, you know, my baby sister just died. I don't know if there's anybody on here that knows me, but a lot of people walk through that journey with me last year through COVID on Zoom, but my baby's sister had stage four breast cancer and all my baby sisters are schizophrenic. She had MS and then stage four cancer. And in the last few months of her life, it was tough. It was hard. And I was going over there every day and bringing Starbucks and cheer and delight because she was at my mom's. She's lived with my mom for 20 years. And, you know, my mom is tough. My mom's taking care of her baby girl and watching her die. And I had to hold my mom'S hand through that every day. And here's the gift that I got, the serious gift that I got that God could use to help move my character defects out of the way my baby girl my firstborn daughter she died four years ago beautiful successful amazing girl decided to snort a little social heroine one night and died instantly so see I've been through losing a child and so I got to walk my mom through that I Got To Walk My Mom Through Losing A Child While i lost my sister and it was an unbelievably amazing experience and i got to walk in there every single day with my starbucks and my cheer and my smile and make everybody uplifted as much as i could because there was it was dark a lot of days when i walked in that house and about three days before my sister passed away and her little hospice bed at my mom's I walked in and, and my mom was it was very dark was one of those moments I walked in and you can you know when I say very dark you know what I mean right you walk and you could cut the air with a knife and it's just like oppressive feeling in the house. And I walked In and I went into the bedroom where my sister was and my mom it was like semi dark and my mum had her hands on my sister and she's praying. It's just this, you know, this stance that she has when I know she's doing the deep in prayer thing with my sister. And she's praying with my sister. My sister's kind of wide-eyed looking at me and, and I was my sister's hero. I'm my sister's big sister. It's just the two of us growing up. And, uh, and she's looking at me real wide-eye while mom's praying. And I said, what's going on here? You guys, it seems a little dark in here. And my mom says, well, Helen was just saying that, you know, when she passes away, when she goes on the other side, she just wants to know that you and I are going to be there with her. And Helen's looking again, wide-eyes. And mom says so I was having to explain to her that yes I will be there save me a place but your sister she might not be coming and I want to tell you that it was in that moment that I knew I needed God to remove everything I was seeing and feeling because my baby sister was terrified and she was looking at me with these big wide eyes. And I thought, I cannot react to that. I can't get mad at my mama. My mama is losing her baby girl here. She is in a lot of pain and she is freaking out and she's going back to basics with her faith and it's all good. And I did the seven step prayer in a second. I just closed my eyes and didn't mind. I know it by heart. So I just did it immediately in the dark. They were praying anyway. and then I looked at mom and I said mama I want you to know something I'm gonna be there too and I say one of these days maybe I'll tell you what I think about everything but you know it's not always the same as what you think but I don't need you to worry anymore because I'm going to be there and thenI looked at my sister and Isaid girl you better get things ready you find Casey you tell her I get black wings black is my signature color and I know she does not want me to have black wings but I want black wings so you get with my Casey's my daughter and so you Get With Her and the two of you figure it out I'm coming I'm gonna be there don't you worry and she with this big smile on her face they started her on morphine that day she was never conscious again that was her last conscious thought and it was a scary moment because it could have gone a whole different way. I need step six and seven to keep me out of the way, to keep my bridges built and to keep them debris free. You know, step six says this is the step that separates the men from the boys. And it talks about what do they mean by that and what they meanby that. It is not about our personal objectives. And I thought it was for so long. I had personal objectives I knew what it is that I wanted to accomplish in this program. I wanted to be a real girl. I wanted to being a nice girl. I wanted it to be respected girl and I wanted to be able to behave in a fashion that brought me those things so that you would love me and I'd be okay. And today what I want to be is, I want to be of use. I want to be useful girl. That's what I want to be. I wanna be a useful girl and the only thing that stands in the way of me being useful is me, me and my wonderful ideas and my little feelings and my fears and my oh my god I'm not going to get that or I'm going to lose that or mama doesn't love me right or they're not looking at me right. All of those crazy little selfish and self-centered fear thoughts that just pop into my head in an instant and I absolutely have to have step six and seven. I have to be willing for God to take it all. Root and branch, take it all. Anything that stands in the way of my usefulness to you. And it doesn't mean how well I handle credit cards. You know, for a long time I thought, ask God to remove a character defect that's not serving me. You know for a lot of years I'd get a credit card this is in your 30s. I think this happens. You get sober, you get credit cards, you get a $3,000 limit, you owe $2,950. You make a payment so you have more money to spend on it. I don't know. Maybe it's just me other credit cards. So by the time you're in your forties, you know, you got $10,000, $20,000 in credit card debt. So you spend your fortie's paying them off thinking, what was I thinking? Oh my God, menopause hits you cry your way through it. Then you cut them up. Welcome to my world. There was a point when I was hitting my knees and I was saying to God, please help me to manage credit cards, right? Help me to manage them. Help me not to, you Know, that dress is on sale doesn't mean I have to have it. I don't necessarily have to go on that trip. I don't necessarily have to, you know, buy new tires for my car. And I'm praying, please, please, I really mean it. I really mean it, and I'm entirely ready for you to make me good with credit cards, right? Seems like the right prayer, doesn't it? I want to be a good little money manager, especially since I've been divorced 24 and a half years, like there's nobody's gonna fix it for me so you know blaze blaze take it away and one day i heard a voice cut him up cut him off what that didn't seem like the answer yeah what see i wanted god to make me a good little money manager so i could have a wallet full of credit cards because really i just wanted to use them and what god said was cut him up. I haven't had a credit card in, oh my goodness, a decade, at least a decade. Maybe 15 years. I cut him up. He had to say it a few times before I finally got it. Cut him up! So sometimes I have to be willing for God to remove those character defects how he sees fit because it isn't about the betterment of Holly's life. It's the bettermen of yours. And then cutting them up just gives me a story. Isn't that amazing? I want to be the absolute best I can be. I want to be the most useful and to me that is the best I can be what I know about Holly is that I trust God impeccably impeccable I know no matter what everything's going to be okay I know that because I have walked through lots of stuff and everything has always been okay always my daughter died my grandson died my sister died covid small business owner divorced forever oh you know the story goes on and it's always okay i'm happy joyous and i'm free so i want it all i want it all i am willing for god to remove every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to him and my fellows because it is in that usefulness to my fellows that i get joy in return i am willing to look out at the world and know that although the sky looks blue to me it may very well be green or pink or yellow because i see it with my own eyes because i feel it with my own heart because i hear it with my own ears does not make it so if love is not involved i'm probably wrong al thank you so very much for having me tonight it's really been an honor and a privilege to be here thank you so much