The Egotistical Sickness of Inferiority – Eve M.

Well, good morning. My name is Juana and I'm an alcoholic and only through the unmerited love of a God that I found through this program and people like you am I sober today and have been since June the 15th, 1961, one day at a time. Have you had a good time? Well, we're very grateful that you have We're very thankful that you came And, you know, maybe this snow was good We all got to stay together a little closer You know, it takes many people Working to get a conference going See it through and then crater But I would like We had many, many volunteers for which we're very grateful, but we do have a conference committee that at this time I would like for them to stand, please. You're welcome. Thank you very much. And we really are truly grateful that all of you have been here and I've had a ball. I really kind of hate to see this end except I don't know if I could last 24 more hours or not. But I have to say this, you know Friday night when I opened the conference for the first time since I've been sober I forgot to give my dry date. I don't know if I were excited or if I was scared. It doesn't matter. But that's worried me all weekend so I felt like I needed to get that off my chest and tell you I had the same dry date Friday night as I have today. and thank all of you for being here and we've got a very nervous chairman over here that I'm going to turn this meeting over to, Kitty good morning I would like to welcome you to the Sunday morning meeting of the 15th annual midwinter conference I will ask that we begin this meeting in a usual manner with a moment of meditation followed by the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serENITY to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the day. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy. Neither endorses nor opposes any cause. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. My name is Kitty Murphy, and I'm an alcoholic. And but for the grace of God, number one, I've not had a drink since January 17th of 78. And I feel privileged, but I feel more particularly blessed because I simply found a power greater than myself. And he and I have been learning to live, accept, and enjoy life today without alcohol. As is the custom in many AA meetings around the world, I'm going to ask Mary Ellen to read Chapter 5, please. Good morning. My name's Mary Ellen, and I'm a recovering alcoholic. Well, truly by the grace of God, I have been recovering one day at a time since the 20th of June of 1976. And I am grateful. And this is intimidating. But I'm going to pretend I'm the only one here with her clothes on this morning. How it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunate. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They're naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders. But many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we bought, We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help it is too much for us, But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. Step 1, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Step two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Step four, made us searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Step five, admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step seven, humbly asking to remove our shortcomings. Step eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out Step 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, we're willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. and see that God could and would if he were sought. Thank you, Mary Ellen. That was just beautiful. There is one thing that's very important I want to do before we get to our illustrious speaker this morning. And we want to recognize, is there anyone who is celebrating a birthday today, January 13th? Do we have any birthdays? You mean it was a bad day? Nobody got sober on the 13th in this group? Well, I have one special thing I want to do. Our speaker this morning, 1-645, celebrated 40 years of continuous sobriety. And today, she has 40 years and 7 days, and I would like you all to sing her happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Judy. Happy birthday. I wonder if she got the message. It really has been my pleasure and my delight, you know. I feel so privileged to be a member of AA. but for someone like Eve to come into my life and to have this pleasure. I talked to her after the first of the year and immediately when I heard her voice on the phone, there was a camaraderie. And it is indeed my pleasure to ask you all to welcome from the sunshine state of Florida, Eve M. Thank you. Thank you so very much. That really and truly knocked me off. I didn't expect that. I want to thank all of you for being here. Thank you for helping me celebrate my anniversary. I do appreciate it. Oh, God, I'm kind of out of breathless here. Thanks for everything. I mean, thanks for asking me. Thanks for the basket of fruit. I mean it was wonderful. I'm glad to be back in Midland. I was here once before, I think five years ago, but I'm not exactly sure of the time. And I always find a wonderful warmth and fellowship and companionship and sharing and love here in Midland AA. And you planned the meeting so well. I got everything I needed. The first night we had Joe who gave us that wonderful humor underlying that note of seriousness that makes us realize that this is really a life-and-death matter but that we have learned to laugh. and george yesterday morning one of the finest in fact the finest al-anon talk i think i've ever heard and i enjoyed hearing him because i have al-anan members in my family as well and it was good to be able to hear him share with us and in the afternoon or i guess it was the next uh talk peter talked about a little bit of history and traditions and i don't ever want to forget our history i think our history is terribly important every now and then i get really upset when I hear somebody say, Bill Wilson, who was he? You know. And some of these newer people, they don't know. And I don't ever want to forget our heritage. I don'T think we ever must forget where we've come from. We're celebrating 50 years in July. That may seem like a long time, but it isn't in the whole spectrum of humanity and life. It's a very short period of time. And look at the impact that Alcoholics Anonymous has had, starting with two people back in 1935. Let's not forget our history and our roots and where we've come from. I think it's so important, and I'm grateful that Peter touched on that yesterday. And I'm so glad that Allentine here in Texas is so active and that you produce beautiful little girls, like I shouldn't say little girls. Beautiful young women. You must forgive me for my seniority calling you a little girl, darling. Beautiful young people who are able to put their lives in order at such a young age. Would that I had had a program when I was 17 or 18. And last night, Joe. You know, Joe gave us a spiritual meeting last night. He should have been here this morning because that was a spiritual meeting as far as I was concerned last night So you see, all our needs have been met and I can go home I am indeed grateful to be here My name is Eve Marsh. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and as Kitty has told you, my dry date is 1-6-45, which is 40 years ago. But you know, that's just one day at a time, and if you think that's terribly difficult to get to be 40 years sober, I've just got one word for you. Get old! I'll be 77 in about six weeks, so you can see that it's just a question of time going by. But the important thing is that that time goes by in such a way that it goes so fast you don't realize it's gone. Because that's the wonderful thing about this program, I think. And it says so in the big book, in the chapter of the family afterwards. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. And if we didn't enjoy this sobriety, do you think we'd stay sober? Can you imagine going through life, I had a cake and a drink. I've got to get past that goddamn, oh, excuse me, bar. I mean, once we're sober, we begin to have that wonderful sense of well-being and we beginto enjoy our sobriety. We begin to enjoy living. And that's what we never did. We never were able to say yes to the challenge of life. We were saying yes to death while we were drinking. At least I was. And, of course, everything I say is my own opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole or of Midland AA, but I can only talk the way I feel. And to me this has always been a feelings illness and I think as a result of it being a feelings wellness, it is a feelings recovery. And that's why I like it in the chapter that was read just, and I love that fifth chapter and how it works. You know, we share the way, what we were like. It's not what we did, it's what we are like. What we were liked and what we're like now. and it's those differences in what we were like then and what we are like now that make the whole evolution of the AA program because as we look back we can see how we've changed we can say how we have been able to change and that is what it's all about having to change the way we feel and the way react there are a lot of things we can't change about ourselves there are many things we cant change one of the reasons I'm sure that I think, I thought that I drank was the fact that I'm so big. You know, I'm tall. Of course, I am not so tall today. I've shrunk a little. I mean, elderly people do, number one. And number two, they're growing Brooke Shields all over the place today. But in my day, they didn't have those great American beauty roses and I was enormous. And so I felt very uncomfortable being so tall. I can't change the fact than I'm told. But I can change the way I feel about being tall. And my attitude about being tall has changed. That's the only thing I can do. If I can't change, I've learned to be grateful that I'm tall. There are great advantages in being tall, you can hang on to straps and buses and subways and things like that. You can see parades standing on your diptoes if you're behind people. There are lots of advantages to being tall and then of course the other thing was this huge nose of mine. God how I hated this nose. It's an enormous thing. They used to say to me when I was a kid, you've got a Roman nose. There's Roman all over your face, you know? And I used to be so self-conscious about it and hate it. And all the time I kept saying, oh, someday when I get enough money together, I'm going to get a nose job. When I get it up money together. I'm ready to get this nose bob, you know, to get beautiful nose. I want to get an adorable nose. But there was always something to come up. You know, the kids had that private school. They had to go to summer camp. They had doctors, they had dentists. Never did get the nose job done. Good thing, holds my glasses up now. So I have been able to have a change of attitude about myself and that's what we're all about. That's what we have to learn. How to change those feelings. And I was one of those people who was absolutely miserable. I was One of those people who I believe I was an alcoholic from the very beginning. I think they believing today that many of us are born with this illness, that it has got some genetic characteristics, also that it's biochemical. They're learning so much about our illness. They still haven't learned a better way to get sober than the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's fine with me. But I was one of those people who was always uncomfortable with myself. I was one of those people who was always empty. I felt hollow inside. I felt as if there was nothing there. I felt separated. I felt apart from instead of a part of. I never felt that I belonged anywhere. I was always uncomfortable with other people. I was Always desperately fearful that nobody was going to like me. Of course, what I didn't know was that I had a very sick ego, that I had such low self-esteem that I didn't feel like a real person or a whole person. And so I went through my teen years with these feelings of discomfort and unhappiness about me. And the result was, naturally enough, when I took my first drink, I was a sitting duck for alcoholism. But I had so many of the characteristics that so many others do have. Feelings of shyness, lack of self-confidence, as I said, low self esteem, just totally feeling separated and not able to belong but like a lot of us that was real bright you know we're pretty sharp we think we're smart and we're sort of smart smart you know uh we study cramped exams and pass with flying colors and probably a week later couldn't tell you anything about what we've learned but it appeared good you know and the result was that i got into college when I was 16 years old. Now, I was much too young from the point of view of my growing up process to try and go to college. I had the marks, but I was far too young to try to cope with a social situation with which I was totally unfamiliar. My mother had died when I was 12. I have not had some of the wonderful kind of experience that a mother would provide. My two grandmothers were so different. They were totally different one was a new england methodist very very very methodist and the other one was a real cosmopolitan butterfly a new york sophisticate we used to call her dotted lines so she never could remember anything from one day to the next but she was one of the most charming delightful ladies i have ever known and they were so totally different and after my mother died one would come in and stay with us for a while then the other woman because it was like slinging a pendulum from one extreme to the other, you know. Here we were going to Sunday school. Here we're all flippity-jibbets and going off to the opera and the theater. It was totally different. But I had done one thing before I went to college because I knew that I needed to be long and I knew and I felt that I wouldn't and that is I learned to smoke. I taught myself how to smoke I went up to somebody else's apartment and, you know, practiced. I even got a holder and practiced with that, you know. Long, this kind of thing. So I arrived at my grandmother's home, the Methodist grandmother's home after I'd been in college a bit and was smoking away and she looked at me and said, You've begun to smoke? And I said, Yes. Very proud of myself. And she said, My dear, Smoking leads to drinking And drinking leads to prostitution Well Well, I thought she was real nuts, you know. I learned there was an element of truth in what she hadn't said, sadly. And, you Know, when I got to college, I was terribly upset. I felt lonely and apart from again and separated, and I didn't feel that I could stay. And I begged my father. I said, oh, Daddy, please take me home. I can't handle this here. And he said, don't be silly. You're a big girl. He was always calling me big girl, but I knew I was a big guy. I didn' t need to know that. And so he left me there. I had already gone up to my room, and I had met my roommate. I don' t know what the comparison would be here in Midland, but as far as I was concerned, she was so damn Greenwich, Connecticut that it almost threw me with the horsey set and the country clubs and the tweeds and all the rest of it. And I thought, you know, and she had kind of terrified me. But when I went back up to my room, I discovered she had requested a transfer. And I had such a moment of total and complete rejection. I thought I was going to die. I thought... I knew I shouldn't be here. Nobody's going to want a room with me and so on and so forth. And I tell this story because to me it's so epitomized as the ambivalence of our feelings, at least of my feelings for so much of the time. About five minutes later, my new roommate walked in. She had a stack of books in her hand. She wore glasses. She had long, greasy brown hair. And I looked at her and I thought, God, what a grind, you know? And here, one minute ago, I had been totally rejected, feeling absolutely insecure. and I turn around and I take one look at my new roommate and I draw myself internally up to my full height and I say, but I deserve better than this. And for years it confused me, those feelings of inferiority on the one hand and superiority on the other and it wasn't until I got into AA and began to work on the fourth step that I began to understand that ambivalence in myself and it was based on the fact that I didn't know who I was, that I had no idea of who I was that I was trying to measure up to everybody else's expectations of me without having any base inside of who Eve really was and I found that when I got to the fellowship with Alcoholics Anonymous and so I went on through my college years I didn't drink it was during prohibition some of you are too young you have no idea what prohibition was all about well prohibition is a very important thing prohibition wasn't a noble experiment nobody was ever going to drink in the United States again it was just made against the law that was all So, of course, not drinking. Nobody's going to drink. And, of course, what we had was ten years of mayhem and hijacking and killings and murder for money and so forth. Very much the same thing we have today with the drug scene. And the sad part about the end of prohibition was that what it did was to make public intoxication socially acceptable. Up until that time, it had not been. Ladies did not go to bars in the old days. Now they did. And if you got drunk, nobody cared. In fact, it was the end thing to do it was really clever to call up and say oh what did we do last night in other words indicating that you'd had a little too much and that was the end thing to do so I hadn't had a drink because I was afraid of what alcohol would do for me it was almost as if I had some sense of not I didn't want to be out of control and I didnít recognize how typical that is of the alcoholic that we have to be in control I had to be in patrol I had know what was going on I had no who was going to be there and what they might say and what the situation would be and what i was to wear and what somebody else was going to wear i had to be in control all the time and i had that feeling that if i drank i would somehow be out of control and so i decided that i was going to wait until i went to europe because at the end of my sophomore year i was going to go to europe on a tour with chaperones and young ladies the way they did things in those years my god i'm talking about 1926 how long ago that seems times have changed but anyway I went and I was going to wait until I got to Europe and I Was Going To Drink Graciously As Europeans Do A Little Wine With My Meals But Of Course I Didn't Wait Until I Got To Europe Twelve Miles Out They Began Serving And Somebody Asked Me What I'd Like I Had No Idea What To Order Somebody Ordered An Orange Blossom I Ordered An Orange Glossom And It Was Wonderful You Know What Happened It Was Just Remarkable Immediately I became five foot two, eyes of blue, and utterly adorable. Because that's what alcohol does for us. It makes us be what we cannot be in reality. It makes Us believe our fantasies have come true. And I think this is the key. And I'm so glad that people are beginning to deal with this. You know for so many years we have dealt with the end of the line in alcoholism. We have said what has alcohol done to that man? Why he's lost his jobs and his families and his wife's and his jobs. Maybe he's an alcoholic. That isn't the key. The key is what does it do for him or her? And it's what it does for us that's the key to whether or not we have a problem. Because it did for me what I could not do for myself, and that is the first symptom of alcoholism. The only problem with it is as Marty wrote many many years ago, the only problem that is that it's only recognizable to us ourselves we know but we think everybody else is drinking the same way we don't realize that we're any different and nobody else recognizes that pattern within us and of course the old thing of making excuses and giving the reasons oh poor thing she's dying she's drinking because her mother died yeah my mother died 10 years before she's thinking because her father died young he did always giving us the excuse and the reason and i was prone to hang on to those because from the very beginning I recognized the fact that when I drank I wasn't always in control. I got back to college and of course then immediately joined the social scene after having learned how to drink. Having joined the Social Scene, I got a little too social and I got kicked out at the end of my junior year. And of course that was not what I had planned. My life was not falling into the order in which I had designated it and I felt absolutely devastated by the fact that I was being expelled. My mother had gone to Vassar, my sister was going in the next year and here I was, I had been expelled. And you know how devastated we can feel on the terrible remorse that goes through us and yet we get not able to admit it. And I tell this story because to me it's also indicative of the way in which we react to things and the way which we can't really and truly deal with them. Because when my father came up to get me, I couldn't do what I really wanted to do, which was to throw myself in his arms and say, oh dad I'm so sorry. God, I didn't mean to do it, you know. No. I put on the big front and I say, you now dad, this place is terrible. I'd really consider it before I sent sis up here. Very bad school, really. If I hadn't been expelled I would have left anyway the big font, you know. Scared to death inside in the big fron. And he said to me, I've just been talking to the dean of women and she tells me that You are the most arrogant young woman they have ever had on this campus. And I was hurt. I was hit. I was shot and hurt. But I learned from that. I've learned to look at arrogance in other people and to see if I can find that sad and scared human being which is hiding underneath it, because that's what I was, and I was hiding. Anyhow, I said to my father, I know what I do want to do with my life. He said, You do? And I said, Yes, I want to be an actress. I want To be in the theater. and he said okay and he was a playwright and I had an uncle who was a star so it was no problem just make a few phone calls yes, oh fine should be up there summer stock all summer at the Lakewood Theater in Skowhegan, Maine no sweat into my uncle's company touring all over the United States wonderful no sweat eventually I left eventually my dear uncle said to me I'm so sorry darling but I'm afraid there aren't any parts large enough for you next year because you see my drinking was already out of control I had already been on stage when I should not have been I had уже been so hungover that I could barely remember my lines and I had been drunk in a performance with him and that's not acceptable behavior and so I never knew what that was all about I didn't learn about what that was about until I got into this fellowship and began to learn something about me. What was that, that whole theater business? Oh, I loved it. Don't think I didn't love it. I still do. I'm starstruck, starcrazy. The worst of them are the best of us, whichever. Anyway, I got into AA eventually and began the work of theater. Look at that. And what was that? Did I really want to go through all the hard work of being in the theater? Did I Really Want to Go Through the Heartache and the Rejection? Did I REALLY Want to Have to Study Voice and Projecting to the Last Row on the Balcony? We didn't have these things then. Did I really want to have to take dancing lessons and learn how to walk gracefully? It's a lot of hard work to become a fine technician in the theater. And if you're not a fine technician, you don't last. No, that's not what I wanted. You know what I needed. What I wanted? I wanted my name in lights. I wanted everybody to recognize me. I wanted people to come rushing up and say, Oh, Eve, you're so wonderful. Let me have your autograph. You know? That's what I want. I wanted to have approval. I think we all of us have that terrible need for approval. and that if we somehow get it from somebody else, it's going to prove to us we're okay. You see, I hadn't learned that that approval coming from outside isn't meaningful, that it doesn't mean anything until it comes from in here. I was always looking from without instead of looking to within. I did the same thing as far as my drinking is concerned. That whole pattern that we go through of having reasons and blame and all the rest of it for why we're drinking is the same things. The inability to assume responsibility for our own lives. The inability to assume accountability for our own illness, because we don't realize it's an illness at that time. So I came back from being on tour with my uncle and began to work in odd things putting on amateur shows. I did the kinds of things that one should never do, the kinds OF things an alcoholic should not do, because there was no way I could do it without maintaining that five martini level. And of course you don't maintain that five martini level, sad to say. You go up and you go down. And I had some problems with that and I ended up finally with an operation on my neck and I had to go home to New York and I guess I was about 27 years old and I felt that my life was over. I felt defeated and for the first time in my life I really recognized that inner fear that had always been with me. Fear had been a part of me from the very beginning. Fear of everything, fear of life, fear people, fear of what you were going to think of me, fear of being a failure, fear of becoming a failure. Fear of not having any money, fear of what I'd do if I had too much money. I mean, fear of whether you were going to like me or not, fear that I was not lovable, and of course, knowing that I was unlovable. So that fear thing was with me from the very beginning, but I never really truly began to examine it until I suddenly realized when I got back after that surgery that I wasn't afraid of what my life was turning into, that I was afraid of what life was going to be for me, that I was indeed a failure at 27. And it was at that time that another man came into my life. Oh, I forgot to mention that I had already started doing something else that we alcoholics do. I started getting married and I had married a young actor in the company and we'd had a darling little boy and eventually that marriage broke up. I was far too immature to handle any kind of a really in-depth relationship. I could not assume responsibility, and I had gone on tour to earn money to send back to a nurse to look after my little boy. That was one of the sadnesses of my life that I was unable to deal with him when he was real little, and i had to turn him over to somebody else because I had to earn the money. My husband was not a worker, shall we say. Anyway, be that as it may. Anyhow, I met this other man. It was interesting because he had a date with my sister, and my sister came home. We were both staying in my father's apartment in New York and she came home and said I've got a date with this charming guy but she said I'm late and I won't be ready when he gets here will you entertain him I said sure so he came in and uh I introduced myself said Ricky be out in a few minutes and he said fine I said would you like to have a drink oh he said I'd love and I said I don't know what kind of stuff my father has in here I'm sure he hasn't got any mix he said who wants a mix. I'll take it straight. I thought, gee, this is a kindred soul. So we sat and drank straight until Ricky was ready. And then they went out. She came back. She said, what did you do to Roger? She said he's done nothing but talk about you all evening. He wants to call you. I said, well, I'm sorry, darling. I didn't do a thing. Anyhow, he called me and we started dating. And he was wonderful because he drank the same way I did. He drank just along with me, and I drank along with him. And we had a marvelous time. And we fell in love, and we really and truly were made for each other, except for the fact that both of us had alcoholism, only neither one of us knew it. And we got married, and i thought everything was going to be beautiful, because we did care very deeply for one another. Like so many alcoholics, he was a beautiful spirit. He was a poet at heart. At that time, i was very much of a business snob. I shouldn't tell you out here in midland you know if somebody came to me and said i owned i i'm the president of an oil company i'd say oh really yeah but let some out-of-work actor come up or some painter who couldn't sell or some writer who never had been published and have them tell me that i'd think really how wonderful i was just an art snob if you weren't in the arts i didn't care anything about you. So Roger got by because he had been one of the early radio announcers. The fact that he'd been kicked out of the business for being drunk didn't enter my head, but he had been a radio announcer and so he was acceptable to me and we got married. And of course life wasn't as beautiful as I thought it was going to be. It couldn't be with both of us suffering from the same illness of alcoholism. I didn't know it and I found immediately that I was able to fall back on this whole business of blame and giving excuses and reasons, quote, rationalizing why I was drinking. My father said, you're drinking too much. I said, I know it's Roger. And somebody else would come to me and say, Edie, you know, youre drinking more than you used to. I'd say, I knew it was Roger. I know its Roger's fault. I had to drink with him. I couldn't stand living with a son of a bitch if I didn't, you know? i had pulled down that curtain of memory blacked out the fact that i had landed in a jail in providence rhode island for being drunk and disorderly on a train i was in a total blackout i think i'm very grateful that i was a blackout i don't want to know why i got put off that train i really don't care to know i really do but i'd forgotten about that i have an excuse for that I always blamed some man for doping a drink that I had. It wasn't true. It wasn' t true. I'd forgotten that I'd been expelled from college for drinking on the campus. That's one of the symptoms, you know, drinking when it's against your own best interest. And I had been doing it for years. But I'd forgot all that. Now it's Roger's fault. I have to blame Roger. I cannot take the responsibility for my own drinking. It's Roger' s fault. We had everything to live for. We had two beautiful little daughters. We had my son, who had been born from the earlier marriage, came and lived with us. He had a job with his family, which was fairly secure. He didn't make much money. Of course, we were always broke. My God, with two people drinking, how can you not be broke? But I was the responsible one. I wasthe one that sat there at the first of the month and said, I'll let the butcher have that much, and I'lllet the grocer have thatmuch, and I've got to pay the rent, damn it. Can't squeeze on that. Got to save that for my liquor. And, you know, harshly the money out. But at least I was doing it. He didn't care if the bills never got paid. So I was the responsible one. But in any event, we had good times and bad times. And as somebody said, the good times were when there wasn't either one of them drinking. It was wonderful. But those times got further and further apart. And the times we were both drinking were the rough times, were the hard times. And here again, my feelings were always very close to the surface. I still felt all that insecurity. And I was sure that if he were drinking, it must be because he had somebody that he liked better than me. So I always had that feeling of insecurity, which, of course, ended up by erupting in jealousy. And he the same way. I mean, he always accused me of being unfaithful to him, and I never was. And I don't believe that he was to me either. But that's the pattern of the insecurity and the feeling of unworthiness. And if I'm not worth his loving, he's going to be loving somebody else. And so I had that constant feeling of lack of self-worth and fear that I was going to lose him and fearthat my life was totally unmanageable and blaming him for it instead of my alcoholism and feeling such utter and absolute remorse and self-hatred for the way in which I was dealing with my children because I absolutely adored my children. And my two little girls were precious. They were precious to me. And my son, I thought was a wonderful young boy. He was growing up. And I put terrible burdens on him. Sometimes I would be so hungover and so sick that I would know that I could not do what I needed to do for the little girls. And I would beg him to stay home from school. I'd say, Don, stay home today, dear. I feel so sick. Stay home today and look after your little sisters. What a terrible burden to put on him, and I have to keep remembering that. I have to keep remembering that during my times of sadness that my son and I have never really and truly reestablished the relationship I would have hoped that we might have had. And so life became unmanageable, but I blamed everything except me. I blamed every thing except alcohol until finally the day came when I really and really had to come face-to-face with the fact that this was my illness. My mother-in-law had come to visit us, and she was an elderly lady. She was about 87 or something like that. Roger was the last of the children. Anyhow, her visit had been planned because she had to be brought places. She couldn't travel on her own. And so I knew she was coming, and yet I was so out of control that when she arrived, Roger and I were both in bed at 11 o'clock in the morning. He hadn't gone to work, and we both had terrible hangovers. I somehow managed to pull myself together. He went to work. He never had a real hangover because he always had a drink. And so he put it out right away. I was always trying to stop. I was Always trying to put off taking that first drink and the result was that I spent half of my life shivering and shaking terrified to take a drink and terrified not to and used to afraid I'd go into DTs and I was afraid that if I took a drink I would go into DTs I didn't know what the DTs were I just heard about them and I sometimes used to be in such terrible shape I knew I had to take a drink but I was alone with the kids and I was afraid and I'd get on the telephone and I'd dial and I get some friend of mine and I'd be on the phone, and I'd have my drink, and I'd say, hi, how are you? And they'd chat, and I'll say, oh, fine. As I had a feeling if I went nuts or something, somebody at the other end of the phone would know it, and they'd come over and rescue my children. That's how insane I was, but I didn't realize how insane that was. And anyhow, my mother-in-law came, and she only stayed one day. She left the next day, but she left a little note tacked up on the refrigerator, and i've never forgotten it. It had little pansies on the front. She was a great gardener and inside it said, my dear children, the world frowns upon inebriates. Inebriates? Some of you people who don't like the word alcoholic try inebriates on start a whole new fellowship inebrietes illuminated or something she went on in her blessed little note and said that I have written to the Alcoholic Foundation which is the precursor of General Service Office in New York and asked them to send you some literature and she had gone and about two days later the literature arrived they were faster then than they are today and that pamphlet that first pamphret that I got strangely enough I found it not too long ago amongst my papers there was a story of a woman in it and I read that story and for the first time I felt not so alone for the first time I felt maybe I wasn't the only person in the world who did what I did and felt what I felt. And of course I had not been able to forgive myself for the things I did. I had not yet learned as I was to learn in the AA program that I had to separate what I didn't know from what I am because what we do is our illness and what we are is that divine spirit within that each one of us can learn to live up to and that's where all those changes come in that we're going to make in this program and so i read that and i called aa and i asked roger if he'd go with me and he said no he said if you want to go to that god stuff go ahead he already had a knowledge of because i forced him to read the jack alexander piece in 1941 that was three years before this was in 44 and he had rejected it and i had but of course i had not read the Jack Alexander piece for myself i had read it with the point well if roger goes into that thing with those people then i won't have to drink i had not yet come to grips with my own alcoholism but he wouldn't go and i was too frightened and i was too nervous and too terrified and too full of fear uh and my ego was so sick i was i was a real mess if i could get sober my dear dearest every anyone can get sober and so i i couldn't go and it was springtime and we were going away to the country for the summer the children and i and so my son had begun to look at me with such distaste who was it that mentioned the light i think it was peter yesterday the light going out of his daughter's eyes or the light had gone out of my son's eyes and i couldn'T stand that he looked at me and he said mother i can'T stand to be around and watch you get drunk. And so I told him, I said, honey, I know I'm an alcoholic. It was the first time I'd ever said that. And I said I'm never going to drink again. And I meant that. But it was almost as if I knew that was a promise I was going to be unable to keep and I had broken so many promises to this boy of mine that I said I promise you that if I cannot do it alone, I will go to AA. And so, I had a slip during the summer months and I got back to New York and I drank for a month until October, and I could not stop. I tried desperately to stop, and I could not stop, and so finally I called AA, and I was so grateful to them as I look back at the time I was really miffed. I had read all this wonderful literature about how we will come to you. We will do anything for you, and I called and said, come, and they said, no, you come down here. I think they recognized there was a problem in the household because I think on the phone I said that I was an alcoholic and that my husband was an alcoholic and I thought the dog was an alcoholic we had a big newbie who loved to drink sherry and then he would get a little high so they said no, they didn't have anybody there right now but why didn't I call them the next morning and so I did I waited, I was in this bad shape the next morning and they kept calling me they said when are you coming down and I remember having to have several drinks before I was inshaped to go down there and I was so full of fear about going alone any place and my hands would get all perspiring and sweaty and I would tremble and shake as I got onto the bus and I finally in the afternoon went down to the old 24th Street Clubhouse which was at 324 and a half West 24th street never found out what the other half was but that was the address but I stood outside on the sidewalk and there was a if you stood out there there was a long hallway that led from the street into the back of the building and then back here there was a big room and as I stood out there I could see the light up in this room and I heard laughter and I walked down what we used to call the last mile and I walk down that path that hallway into that lighted room where I heard the laughter and found life and love because that's what AA has been all about as far as I'm concerned it's taught me how to live it's told me how to laugh it's talked me how to love and it's taught me how to say yes to life but I didn't know that when I walked in I was just scared scared to death and this delightful young man let me talk to him and I told him a little bit and he said you'll do and I thought I thought oh good and then I thought I think I better get really honest really honest I had no idea what the word honest meant, but that's all right. I said, I think there's one more thing I have to tell you. And he said, what's that? And I was desperately serious. I said, and I, I have an inferiority complex. And he burst into laughter just as some of you did. And for a minute I, you know, was startled and he called out to some people on the other side of the room. this babe says she's got an inferiority complex. And they began to laugh. And so I all of a sudden realized that they were laughing with me, that they weren't laughing at me. And I had a sense of oneness. I had the sense of belonging that I had not had in years. And i walked out of there on air because I somehow knew that this was going to be the answer as far as I was concerned. I didn't know that it was going mean a lot of hard work. I didn t know that that it was going to mean an effort to change. I didn't know any of those things. I just knew, and here again comes this feeling that we have. I just new I had that feeling that here were people who cared, who understood, and that I would find a lifeline here and that i would find the way not to drink. I did not yet differentiate between not drinking and sobriety. I didn´t know there was a difference between not drinking and really being sober. I'm glad I didn' t know all those things, I probably never would have stayed. one day at a time I was glad to hear that I could manage one day at a time and so I began to go to AA meetings and I couldn't manage the steps I couldn't handle those but I could like the slogans easy does it that to me was wonderful easy does it and but for the grace of God and the other one that meant so much to me not live and let live because I didn't know what that really meant first things first thing in your life. It's got to be your sobriety. I said, don't be ridiculous. The most important thing in my life is my children. And they said, if you go on drinking, how long are you going to keep your children? And I suddenly realized that I could lose them. And I learned almost early on as a result of that to become grateful for the first time that my husband was an alcoholic because I recognized the fact that my children who meant more to me in anything. If my husband had not been an alcoholic, he would have taken them away from me. And so I learned to try and change that attitude a little bit. It was tough going. I know a lot about Al-Anon and how Al- Anons feel because I lived with Roger for six years. I was sober and he drunk every single night. And I've gone through those feelings of, I wonder if I could get away with murdering him i understood that george i understood that perfectly and then you lie in bed at night shivering and shaking he hasn't come home yet it's four o'clock in the morning and you can't sleep and you know the kids are going to be up early for school and you say to yourself i hope the son of a bitch drops dead and then two seconds later you're saying oh god let him come home safely so i know what the alanons feel i understand that unfortunately there was no alan on back in those days and whether it would have helped i don't know i learned another thing i learned that i had to be responsible for my own actions because and things that happened to me and stop blaming everybody else i used to get black eyes roger used to hit me and i used of course think it was all his fault and blame him i was christ-like pure as the driven snow i was remarkable i was wonderful and he was a bastard you you know. But I want to tell you something, for the first six years I was sober and he got drunk every night, I never had a black eye. Doesn't that tell you something? My dirty rotten Irish tongue. I used to bait him. Of course I brought out my own black eyes. I'm not saying that he should have hit me, but I'm saying I should have kept my mouth shut. And so I began this wonderful walk in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had to walk alone. Roger never wanted to come into AA. I was only allowed to go to one meeting a week. That was all he said I could do. The rest of my responsibilities were at home. Sometimes I hear today, as we say, 90 meetings in 90 days and I think, oh My goodness. Once in a while, I could get to two if he was out drunk. That's the one time I used to be glad he was drunk. I could gets to an extra meeting. But I had problems with the children. My girls were little. They were two and five when I got sober. I had a slip over Christmas time. That's reason why I got into AA in October of 44. My sobriety date isn't until January 6th of 45 because I drank all through the Christmas holidays. Somehow, Roger was drinking. I'm not blaming him, but I didn't have enough AA to withstand anger. I became very angry with him one night because I found him beating up my son and I did not know how to handle rage and after the kids quieted down and everything, I went into the kitchen and I remember I picked up that glass and I filled it half full of whiskey and I said to myself, I'll show him. Of course, I showed myself and so I went back into AA. knowing that here were the answers but not knowing what I needed to do in order to become sober. I knew what I need to do to become dry. I knew that I had to stay away from a drink one day at a time and I was using the slogans but I was finding it very hard to receive what you were giving me. I was findng it very to receive that major component in Alcoholics Anonymous which is love. I was so locked up in myself I always had my shield up when I came into meetings and it was a long time before I put that shield down and let you in I was so fearful of rejection I was feeling so unworthy it impaired my whole first year that terrible egotistical sickness of inferiority it took me a long time to understand how egot mystical that is I had difficulty listening to Joe last night when he was talking about the third step says, make a decision. I didn't see it that way. Why do you need to make a decision? Who's God? Who is God? And I'm not worthy. God won't pay any attention to me. I'm so rotten. I am so unworthy. How can God pay any attention to me? I skipped over and made a decision and I said who's God and I'm not worthy and I had a terrible time with the third step because it didn't make the decision.I felt that I was unworthy and it took me a long time of working in the fourth step to come to understand what an ego trap that was. And that's just as egotistical as saying, I am too worthy. And I had to go back. I hadto go back Of course, right off the bat, I knew my life was unmanageable. Alcohol was my problem. The first step and the second step was wonderful. I came to believe that AA was a power greater than I. And that with AA, I could stay sober. And at that time, AA to me meant the people. I didn't understand it was a program. I've since learned, and I constantly tell new people when they get a little upset, don't confuse AA with the people in it. You know, we got nuts in here. Like me. And so I was very slow at receiving what you were so freely offering. But the fourth step to me was a wonderful experience because I really began to finally learn who I was. And I had never known who I was. I began to learn how important it was what they were telling me. The two things that they stressed at the very beginning to me, was you have to learn to forgive yourself and to love yourself. And I thought, how can I forgive myself? How can I forget myself? How can i forgive myself not only for the sins of commission but for the sins of omission and frankly there were more of those I guess than there were of the commission variety. The way I'd hurt my children, the way I had neglected them, the way i had hurt my boy, the way it embarrassed him. Teen years are such tender years and I had embarrassed him How can I forgive myself for those things? And that's when I began to learn that I must not confuse what I did with what I am. That what I dead was my illness and what I am is something wonderful and beautiful and God created and spirit and that I can go on and try and grow and mature and make spiritual progress as the book says and learn to become that human being that I can be. And of course the wonderful part about it is that it's lifelong. Isn't it marvelous that we never graduate? Imagine, I'm 40 years sober But I am learning something new every day about me, about you, about life, about love, about caring, about my defects of character. They're not all gone by any manner of means. There's some of them I cling to, kids. Every now and then I have to do it all over again. But that's what makes it a challenge. That's what make it exciting. That's why it makes it fun. can you imagine how boring it would be if we really got to be perfect there'd be nothing more to do life would be empty it would mean like being happy every day if we were happy every day how, you know it's because we wouldn't even know we were happy because it's from the sadnesses that we compare to the happiness and that's the wonderful thing about enjoying life joy is such a wonderful word I love the dictionary. I love words. Every now and then, I go to the dictionary to try and look something up and I find words. A definition of happiness, for example, uses the word felicity. What a lovely word. We don't use it anymore. We used to use the word felicity and I was felicitous of you. Nice. We don' t use that anymore. But the definition of joy, what a wonderful definition I found for joy. The expectancy of good. Isn' t that marvelous? the expectancy of good and I used to go through life expecting the worst to happen and it did it did you know but expecting joy and I have joy expectancy of goodness and then the other definition that I love and that I must share with you that I intended to share at the beginning but I'm kind of all over the place today I don't like the word elderly a few years back I was asked to speak at a symposium on alcoholism and the elderly woman don't know why they asked me I mean, I didn't like the word elderly so I went to the dictionary and I found a wonderful definition of elderly elderly is the loss of enthusiasm for life I'm not elderly I have a 55 year old son who is but you see that's the gift of the program that's spark it's that enthusiasm for adventure for change, for challenge for every 24 hours being different. All we have is today, and each day in a way is kind of a microcosm of the whole life itself. So we never know each morning what we're going to have when we get up. Imagine it was all the same. Wouldn't that be awful? But even that we could manage to handle. I must confess, every now and then I'm a little upset by things that don't go the way I planned them. I had not planned to spend tonight in Midland. In fact, I was real upset this morning when I discovered that I couldn't fly back to Fort Lauderdale today wasn't what I'd planned. But that's fun. Now we'll do something different. I've had to learn to change my attitude about things like that. I had to know and learn that people's places and things don't do what I want them to do and for years I always wanted them to do what I wanted them to do and so I began to know who I was and to forgive myself but I had a difficult time trying to learn how to love me And I'll never forget, Marty helped me a great deal with that. Marty Mann was sober about, I guess, four years when I got sober. It seemed like a lifetime in those days, you know. And she was at a closed meeting that I was at one time, and we were talking about taking the fourth step. And I was making the remark that, you now, there was nothing good about me kind of thing. And she said, look at it a different way. she said take the fourth step by examining that within you which is good everybody has something within them that is good find that and build on it and I felt encouraged and I went home and I began to try and look at what was good in me and of course there wasn't much I could find but I did find something we all of us have I guess those who are gals and I suppose men would have it the opposite and that was love of my children that was a good quality I really did love them and so I began to try and recognize when that was interfered with I began to try to nurture that as if it were a flower and then if I would see things that were interfering with that I would spot the resentment which was interfering with my outgoing of love. I would find the fear that was beginning to interfere with that outgoing of Love. I, I would found the self-pity which was interfering and so I began to recognize the fact that whatever was interfering with that within me which was best and good were those defects of character that I had to get rid of. But by putting the a positive in it first. It made it possible for me, and I have found when I'm working with girls on their fourth and fifth step, that it helps many of them a great deal. I think we're very prone to lay too much blame on ourselves without looking at what's good about us. And if we can build on the good, then we can recognize the fact that we can become the kind of people we really want to be. And so I began to work the program. Slowly at first, as I said, unable to receive at first the love you were sharing. But as soon as I was able to recognize who I was and to recognize that my fear of love and my fear of rejection was based on not whether you were going to like me but whether you Were going to approve of me. That I was Able to let down that shield, that wall that I had around me and begin to let that love out. Because I really felt very loving. and when I got over the fear and acquired some faith in my own ability to love and let the love out then it all came pouring back because you know we get what we give and we don't do it for that reason but it's just the law of correspondence in the world today life responds by corresponding as they say and so I began to try and grow in the AA program and I found that the 11th step or the making of amends I worked very hard on that I worked very hard on that. But I really and truly overdid it. I did the superficial things that we so often do and thought that was amends in the beginning. You know, run down to the department store and buy the girls beautiful little velvet dresses with little lace collars and say, see what a good mother I am. Of course, we had to eat hamburger for weeks to pay for the dresses. But you know, that kind of overcompensating, which is not really what it's all about at all. And as far as I'm concerned, the making of amends after you've done the initial fact of the thing, the making of amends is that lifelong proposition of the way in which you feel and act with the people you love. The way in Which You Share With Them. The way In Which You Love Them. And so I have tried to make amends along the line. I have a wonderful relationship with both of my daughters. I have an Al-Anon daughter and I have An A.A. daughter. And it's a miracle of A.As as far as I'm concerned because those two girls had such terrible hatred for one another such anger and hostility and such sibling rivalry as they call it today that I could not have them in the house with me for more than an hour at a time or they'd be at each other's throats and I used to dread Christmases hoping that we'd get through it without some kind of a blow up and then Ruthie my older girl got sober she has now seven and a half years and Liz was engaged to an alcoholic and therefore she went to Al-Anon And that blew up, but she stayed with Al-Anon. And then when her sister got sober, she was able to deal with her sister. And the combination of Al-ANon and A.A., with those two girls, they now care deeply for one another. It's about three years since they have had a healing, and it's been the most joyful thing in my life. Those two that I love the most in the whole world can care about each other. And it's interesting, too, because Liz is now married to an Al-Anon man and Ruthie is married to a AA man. And so we have really a family relationship and it is a family disease. Of course, every now and then, Liz, my Al-Alan daughter, and her husband, Buck, they get a little, you know, Al-Alani. every now and then Ruthie and I look at them and say oh shut up but it is nice to have AA a part of the whole family and of course my girls were brought up in the AA program in a way which my son was not because I'll never forget one time I couldn't decide whether to tell my daughters what I was doing or not And Ruthie, as I said, was about this time. She's about six when this happened. And she came running home. It was the Thanksgiving time. And she became running home, and I had been debating for hours or days whether I should tell them where I went when I went to these meetings. And shecame home and she said, Mommy, I had to write a play for Thanksgiving. Can I read it to you? And I said,"Of course, honey, read it me." So she said,"Well, everybody's names are the same because we're all going to read these lines." And I says,"Okay." And so she said, well, Diana says, my grandmother's coming to our house for Thanksgiving. And then Judy says, well we're going to go to my grandmother. My grandmother's house for thanksgiving. And then I say, we're gonna have an early dinner because my mother's going to an AA meeting. and they learned a lot about the love and fellowship and the caring once Roger and I were separated we were separated after I've been sober six years once we were celebrated I was able to have AAs in my house and the house was full of AA members of course and they learn that caring and that love and that feeling of companionship and fellowship which is such a part of AA when it's a part of your household that was another part of the sadness of the first six years I was sober and that was the fact that Roger said I don't want any drunks in my house I guess he meant except himself and so they knew what that AA program was all about and I remember Ruthie saying one day when she came running home from school I know what I want to be when I grow up I want to be a ballet dancer and a member of AA. Well, she got the wish for the AA. She never did get to be a ballet dancers but she's got seven and a half years. And so slowly I began to change and grow. And as I said it's a never ending process and that's what makes the excitement of it. And I have had so many exciting times in my life as a result of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I must share with you that in September I fell and broke my hip and I thought that I had a wonderful feeling about my higher power I knew I have learned over these years of sobriety and trying to work the AA program that that feeling of separation that I always had was really and truly separation from my source was really and surely my inability to identify with that creative whatever, that spirit, soul, instinct, God, whatever, that is the basic fundamental source of my being. And I had found that, I thought in AA. I have always felt very close to my source, as the big book says, that great inner reality. And when I fractured my hip, I was in a chair for two months and I began to feel that I had lost this contact and I'm telling you this for a reason I went into quite a depression now I'm one of those people I'm afraid over the years who has been a little prideful been a little proud of my wonderful good health here I am 75, 76 years old running all over the world and all the rest of it a little prideful and here I'm sitting in this god damn chair and I'm in a depression and I have a daughter who is a depressive and I have had pigeons who have depressed and I have said to them in my wonderful loving way the only thing that's matter with you is that you haven't been in touch with your higher power, that's all you're just not in touch with your high power, God forgive me I know now what it's like to want desperately to get back in touch with your higher power but to be in that state of depression where you do not know how where no matter how hard you try there is something that keeps you from being able to do it so all those people whom I have pontificated with please forgive me I'm very grateful for the fact that by continuing to work with the program, to recognize the all-important aspect of love and that love is the healer and that loves are the healers and that the love heals all, then I once more feel in tune. Once more I have that sense of no longer the separation. And it's a wonderful feeling even though you sometimes feel that you're groping toward some kind of sense of spirituality. It's a wonderful feeling to know that there is not that block there anymore. So give a thought to those who go through depression. You know, Bill was a depressive. Bill went through great periods of depression and many people didn't understand it. I have much more compassion now and I think that may have been something that was missing in my makeup was compassion for those who had not found that wonderful sense of belonging, that sense of spirit that I had been blessed with. I have that feeling of compassion now and instead I'm even more grateful than I was before for that ability to sense the oneness that we have, that I have with my source. And the word there is gratitude. Somebody else spoke about that during the meeting. And gratitude is such a key. Because it is not only a positive thing in itself, it is also a good thing in your life. It is not just that sense that wells up in you that makes you feel, oh, isn't it wonderful? But when you have it, you can't have these other things. So it serves a double purpose. Because if your heart is really full of gratitude, if you really are grateful for your sobriety, if you're grateful for the love that you feel and grateful for this wonderful fellowship and you're really grateful for the friends that you have and the caring that you feels if you are grateful for your sense of oneness with your higher power if you've been given this blessed gift of sobriety where is there room in your heart for the resentment and the fear and the self-pity it's not there anymore It can't be, because gratitude is something that fills us, fills us full, and it goes right along with love. And I think there's something more we need to be grateful for. I think we need TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THE FACT THAT WE ARE A PART OF SOMETHING THAT IS WONDERFUL. You stop and realize that AA isn't only functioning here in Midland, Texas, that AA is around the world. that the alcoholic, no matter where he is today, has an opportunity to find an answer. The same answer that's been given to you and me. And I know this is true because I've had the opportunity to travel around the world and I have visited with AAs in such faraway places as Japan and Singapore and Bangkok, India, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Norway, England, France, Spain. and wherever it is no matter what language it's in it's all the same I've sat in Japanese meetings and had somebody try and translate for me and I said no don't because it interferes I can't think you know I want to concentrate on the feelings here I didn't need to have a translation you know when a little man sat there oh sit on the floor I did this when I was 57 I'm not sure I could do it again you all sit around on the ground on the door you know and this little man will be sitting on the drawer And he'd go, oh, my God, what a terrible life he's had. This is sad, you know? And then two seconds later, he said, and you know, he's gotten sober and everything's okay. Because when you come right down to it, it's as Bill said. It's the language of the heart. And that's what AA is all about. Love. The language ofthe heart. And in the book of John, it says very simply, God is love. Who dwelleth in love dwellethin God. God in him. And God loves us. Thank you. Wasn't that beautiful? Thank you so much, Eve. On behalf of the committee, he has asked me to give you this remembrance for his coming to Midland. I can't tell you how much you've given me. It's been a lot more than this beautiful Waterford Crystal letter opener. You know, in her story it probably has been said many times before, she may didn't make an actress. Hollywood and Broadway may not have had her, but A.A. had a star Thank you Are there any more announcements? Not that I know of. It's just been beautiful. We hope all of you a safe return to your home, and Godspeed, and thank you for coming to the 15th Annual Midwinter Conference. Wait a minute, I have to have my sponsor to tell me. We will dismiss in the usual manner. Betty Sadler, would you lead us in the Lord's Prayer, please? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. You give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses and we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever Amen