The Insanity: Picking Up Knowing What Will Happen – Jack C.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Kate Stewart and I'm an alcoholic. I'm delighted to be here. Anytime anyone asks me to do anything in a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I consider it a real privilege. But to be invited to someplace like this, It is really a special thing, and it makes me feel real special that you asked me. And so far, it's been a wonderful weekend. And I enjoyed my little goodie bag and hearing all the speakers, and everything has just been great. I have a little prayer that I would like to say. I usually open my meeting with this, and it says, I thank you, God, for all you have given me. I thank You for all You have taken away. But most of all, I thankYou for allYou have left me. And that's just the way I feel. I am so very, very grateful to the God that I've come to know and to understand for all the blessings that He has left me you know I'm one of those people that is a I think the big book describes it as a real alcoholic I mean to tell you I was one of them one of these people that had to go all the way to hell but by the grace of God and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous one day at a time one step at a times I've been able to walk back and I feel good about that because I can look anyone in the eye and know that I would not hurt you. I love you. I really, really do. You know, anything I am, anything I would ever hope to be, I owe it all directly to Alcoholics Anonymous. Am I grateful enough? Well, we'll see if I am by the phone when it calls and another sick alcoholic needs help, am I going to go? I would pray that I would. I don't want to forget to tell you I was born and raised in West Virginia, up around Richwood, Sutton. And my husband used to say he thought he was marrying a southern belle and he wound up with a ding-a-ling. But that was my husband's problem. He had a lot of problems, and you can be assured I'll let you know about them as I go along. And my last drunk was in West Virginia. So, you know, West Virginia is really especially wonderful to me. I've seen someone with a sweatshirt just now. It says, it's cool to be a hillbilly. I wish I had one of those. I would wear it with pride. But, you know, for me, it is important for me to go back to the beginning because I believe that alcoholism is a disease. I believe it is a physical disease as well as a mental obsession. and i think it's and it's a progressive disease it always gets worse it never gets better and i like to to talk about the uh the disease and how how insidious how it just kind of creeps up on you because I was sick for a long time, and I didn't know a way out. I love that. I didn'T know what to do. But being from West Virginia, I was raised with good, hardworking, salt-of-the-earth kind of people. They didn'T drink. They were not opposed to drinking, but they just didn'T drank. And they were just good people. They believed and they practiced, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. I think it was a small family because I heard the guys saying the other night one had ten kids in a family and one had thirteen. Well, there was only eight in my family. And do you know what my parents' goal in life was? It was just to raise a decent family. line. They wanted my brothers to grow up and be gentlemen, and they wanted we four girls to grow and be ladies. And along came Kay. Now I blew their program sky high from the very beginning because it just always seemed that I wasn't able to do the things that that my parents wanted me to do. But the important thing was that I wanted to. I always wanted to please my parents, but I was just never able to meet the goal. I started drinking. I was probably 14 or 15, and I started drinkin' that old White Lightning. I said that once. and someone didn't know I meant that old moonshine, that homemade booze, and they thought it was a laundry detergent. And well, I'll tell you one thing, it'll remove a lot of stuff. And anyway, but I started drinking that moonshINE and I loved it. I liked the taste of it. I likedthe smell of it . . . me. And I was going to drink until the day I died and almost made it. But you know, this being a progressive disease, at that time there wasn't nothing to it really. I always drank on every occasion but it wasn't a big deal. And when I was 17, I went to Akron, in Ohio, I hit the big time. And you best believe me when I say it was big time because they had tall buildings and street lights and people just running every which way and beer joints and nightclubs on every corner and cars. I'd never seen so many cars because Because down home, you know, it's the four cars in a row. It must have been a big funeral. But here the little hillbilly girl was in this great big city. And wanting to become a part of, it didn't take me too long to find the right crowd. I like people that drank. And I started running around with people that drink. I still like people who drink. drink. That's the reason I love you so much, because if I just say, well, come on up and let's have a drink and talk a little bit. I love drinkers. And so anyway, I started going around to all these wonderful places. And I liked the music and the dim lights and and the good-looking boys, and the dancing, everything connected with booze. I loved it. I really loved it, but I learned one thing, that once I took a drink, I did not want to stop. Once I took the drink, I didn't stop. I'd say, let's go to your house, let' s go to my house, let's find an after-hours joint, but let's keep it moving. one. I loved it. I never wanted the party to stop. But now, I got married and I have two children. I have a son and a daughter. And I'm very grateful for this marriage because after 13 years, I was divorced. Drinking had nothing to do with that. It was just something that happened but during that period of time I believed that it was as normal as my life was to be I took my children to church to Sunday school I was active in scouting PTA the things all mothers do is just what I thought it was doing but anyway I my children turned out to be beautiful people and so but at this time time, I moved in with my parents. Mother and daddy took care of the children, and I worked hard. I was a hairdresser, and i had to work a lot of hours. I was the sole support of these two children. But then after hours, I could just go out and do my thing. Well now you know what my thing was. Let's drink, dance, live it up! and that's just what I did. I lived it up, but I've had to live a lot of it down too, I'll tell you now. And so, excuse me. A couple years ago, I was diagnosed. I have emphysema, so I do a lot if sippin'. That's kind of a new one for me because I never sipped in my life. I was a golfer. So just don't pay attention when I have a little drink. So anyway, I had to work a lot of hours, but then I'd just go out and party. And it was along about this time that I ran into this old boy. Now, I'm going to tell you that he was my kind of people. He was a good drinker. He could hold his liquor. He wasn't a fighting drunk. He was loving drunk. And that's what we'd do is just live and love and drink. And it was wonderful. Well, now the story changes a little bit because he said that I got him drunk and got him married, and I'll declare I don't know what happened, but I married the old boy. And that's when my problem really started. That's when I married Casey. Hear that one? Okay. My mother started nagging at me. My mother thought I drank too much, and I said to her, Mama, I can quit drinking any time I want to. I don't hurt nobody but myself. Stay off my back. And I remember once my mama said, she said, Kay, if you don't have any pride, if you do not care anything about yourself, at least think about these children. And I told my mother what a good mother that I was. I said, well, I never leave my children alone, and I didn't. I had a babysitter with my daughter until she was 15. Of course, she got married at 16. But I did the best I could. You know, when I came into AA, I almost beat myself to death of, you know, thinking I wasn't good this or good that. But I want you to know that I done the best i could to raise those children because I was a sick person and I didn't know it. The disease of alcoholism was really working on me, Betty, I tell you. But I'd done the best I could. And so, and Mama used to say, well, if you just wouldn't drink so much. Well, you know, I didn't know how much was too much. And I, you now, to tell an alcoholic don't drink, that's like telling someone with TB, don't cough, it's a bad habit. You know, you just got to do what you got to do. But anyway, now Casey and I, we start partying a lot, you know, well every day. And so now I don't know about you but with me I believe when I lost pride in my personal appearance was one good indication that something was the matter. But before I get to that, I'd like to tell you what a good wife I was. This is important. Because I used to take my husband any place he wanted to go. He didn't drive a car at that time. And I'd take him any place he wanted to go Now, I didn't care what beer joint it was and if he didn't suggest one, I would. good. And then we started losing our car. Now, see, these things might not have happened to you, but boy, they was happening to me. And you wake up in the morning, you look out and you don't have a car, and I had no idea where it was. And I would say, Casey, where did we park the car? He didn't know. And so I said, well, I'm going to go and I'm going to say, well my God, I take him any place he wants to go. It looks to me like he could watch where we parked the car. But he never did. And so then I, this being a progressive disease that always gets worse and it doesn't get better, I started hitting other people's cars. But it wasn't my fault because I didn't know if they were going to turn left, if they're going to turn right or if they'd stop and I just hit them. And And I used to tell the, I used say, Casey, did you see that guy give us a signal? He didn't see it. I didn't say it. And I tried to tell this to the insurance companies. They didn't believe it either. So I was canceled with a couple different companies. But drinking, drinking every day. age. And now, as I mentioned, I lost pride in my personal appearance. Now, I hear you boys tell me about what a tough time it was getting up in the morning, you're sick and shaking. You haven't seen nothing yet. You get up in the morning and you're thick and you need a drink and try to get your eyes on. Now man, Man, I'm telling you, that takes a steady hand, and I didn't have it anymore. Or try to go to the hairdresser and set under a hot dryer for an hour if you're sick. Boys, it's like putting your head in the oven. There is no way I'd tell that girl, take them things out of my hair, I might get them. And I got, andI just kept right on drinking. And now the family, particularly, they started complaining. They said, boy, Kay, you look bad. And I said, well, I am. I said I got the flu. Or I told them I had a virus. I'd tell them I have sinus trouble. That accounted for the bags that I had under my eyes. But when all else had failed, I'd say, I'm going through a change of life. I had been going through Change Your Life ten years before I ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. Society demands you've got to tell them something. I can say, oh, I just spent a landowner's house drunk for about a week. That don't get it, folks. It really doesn't get us. I'm going to tell you about one little thing. It's just one among the many, many things that happened to me. And it was a real hot day, and I was going to have all my friends in that night for a cookout. Now, all my friend's was drinking people, and I had on a bikini outfit. Now, that's just a little bit down here and a little less up here. And I was fixing the food for the evening, and as I had a little nip or two, as I did, and I decided, now all those people coming, I'd better run on to the liquor store and get a few more bottles. I never wanted to run out. So I took off in my bikinis. Now, I don't usually go around the street dressed in bikinis, but drunk, I wouldn't have done just about everything. thing. And this day was no exception. I stopped in a little bar. It was my favorite little bar for all my friends went. I thought, I better stop in, see what they're doing, see who was there, make sure the girl was sterilizing her glasses and putting all the money in a till. Strictly minding other people's business. I had a few, probably quite a few. But I went on to the liquor store. And the next thing I remember, I woke up and I looked around. Now, I've been a lot of places in my time, but I got, I'd never been here before. It didn't take me too long to find out that the little lady was in jail in my bikini. Oh my God, was I humiliated. No one in my family had ever been in jail. And I know I must have I thought, Helen, in the name of God, will I get out of this one? I was always having to cover up, you know. So I called my husband and I told him where I was at. And since he didn't drive, he got someone to come to jail and get me out. And I said that day, and I meant it too, this will never happen to me again. A little bit of bad luck. It can happen to anybody if you drink like I did or drove like I did. And I said, this will never happen again. And you know it was only about three weeks later and it seemed that I was over in Barberton and I decided to take a nap over there in one of their main intersections. infections. Well, I woke up and I looked around and baby, I knew where I was. I'd just been there before. Well I called KC and told him where I was. Now KC tried to help me, he really did, but you know it's hard to help a drunk like me. And so since he didn't drive, he got our son to come to jail to get me out. Now friends, I'm not proud of this, but this is the way it was. Our son had just got his driver's license. He was 16 and he was a pretty boy and he Was a good boy. And I loved him so so much. And I wanted that day to go up, and I wanted to put my arms around him, and I wanted say, Son, I love you, and don't want to hurt you, but I can't quit drinking. I just can't quite drink. I don't remember what my son said to me, but But I do remember, and I didn't tell him what I wanted to. But I remember saying to him, come on, come on, let's go. I need a drink. And I went out and I continued to drink. I've been arrested four times for drunk driving. You think it can't happen to you? My God, it can happen to anybody if you're an alcoholic. colic, and it being a progressive disease, it still gets worse. It never gets better. I didn't know what to do. I didn' t know what to do." We had long since stopped having booze at the house. We figured, well, if we don't have it at the house, we don' t drink so much. Now, I learned later that that is controlled drinking, And they told me that once you start trying to control your drinking, you've already lost control. But I didn't know that. So we just went to the bar, drank it quicker, got drunk faster, and that's just the way it was. Sick, sick, sick. I was sick from the time I got up all day long, all night long, and nothing but a drink would make me feel better. This one particular morning, Casey and I was up and we was having a few drinks. Now, he's doing real good. Every drink he took was staying down. Every drink I took was coming back up. You know, if you're a real alcoholic, you've just got to keep trying because you're not going to feel no better until you do. And I tried and I tried, but it didn't work. It was the blackest day in my life, and we left. We went home, and my mama was there. Mama could always be there when I didn't want her to because now I'm going to have to tell her another lie because, you see, my life was just a web of lies. But this morning I said to her, Mama, I'm sick. I'm just so sick. And she said, if you are so sick, then why don't you go to the hospital? My mom had never heard of a drying out place or a hospital for alcoholics. But I had. I had heard that there was a place called St. Thomas Hospital. And you could go there and get the cure. I didn't know that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. There's no cure for our disease. disease. I didn't know that, but I turned around to my husband and I said, Casey, will you give me the money to go to St. Thomas and get the cure? He looked at me just as cross-eyed as could be and he shook his finger at me and he said, I'll cure you myself if you'll listen to me. Now, you know, the only thing that ever kept me out of the mental hospital was he was too drunk to have me committed. But I wasn't that crazy, I wasn't about to let him try to cure me. My friends, I went in, I'd never to my knowledge had heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went in with the fullest intention of calling the hospital, but on the way in there, I picked up the phone book, I looked up and dialed Alcoholics Anonymous, now you know, I don't find that strange today because I know, and I've known for a long time, that that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. I believe that with all my heart. I told the man that I was sick from drinking, and I said, can you help me? And he said, I sure can. He said, well, I'll send a couple of women right out. I vetoed that one right away. I didn't want a couple women out there snooping around. They didn't know I drank too much. They'd go tell everybody, and I didn't want people to know I drank. And I said, oh, no, no. I said I just thought maybe you could help me to get in the hospital to quit drinking. And he said, well, now I'll tell you, I'll call you right back. He called me back, and he had made arrangements that I could go to St. Thomas Alcoholic Ward. My mother and my son took me to the ward. The next thing I remember being in there was, I woke up and this lady was sitting by my bed and she was holding my hand and I was crying. And I said to her, I'm in here because I drink too much. And she says, He says, oh yes, I know, I understand, I'm an alcoholic. And for the first time in my life, I knew that someone understood me, that I didn't have to lie anymore. And this is a wonderful event because, you know, when I called this number and this man made the arrangements for me to go to the hospital, He didn't ask me what side of the street I lived on. He didn' t ask me if I was rich or poor. He didn''t ask my politics. He didn ''t ask me religion. He didn.''t ask for my nationality. I say, thank God he didn'' t because if they hadn''t been taken with Virginians that day, I'd have been dead. But this, you know, is unbelievable. to other people, but we understand because we know what happens. So now there I am in the hospital, she's holding my hand, and the next thing I knew, she read to me the 12 suggested steps of recovery. And she said, this is a program that we try to live by. now I don't know but if you listen to Bob this morning read those 12 steps there's a lot of stuff in there and there was too much for me anyway because I was honest enough and I know again the honesty came from a power greater than myself I said you know I don' t want to drink no more but I can' t do those things I can't do those 12 steps because they had in there someplace you come to believe that there's a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity. Now, what would I need with that? And then it said someplace in there you admit to yourself, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs. I wasn't going to admit the exact nurture of my wrongs to nobody. I've been lying about it forever. Now I'm supposed to admit it? No way. No way, but I thank God that my sponsor had the wisdom and cared enough, and she said to me, Kay, maybe for you, if you will just try to the best of your ability to practice honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Very quickly she told me honesty is either true or false. Purity means pure in heart, in thought, in motive. Unselfishess, just think of the other person. And she said love. If you stay sober, you will find love for another human being that you never thought possible. Things are clicking now. Four is easier to do than 12. Little did I know at that time that these four ingredients are entwined in the 12 steps of recovery. But then I said, well, I believe I could do that. And then she told me about the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, well, what do they do at those meetings? And she said, oh, they just sit around and share their experience, their strength, and their hope with each other. And they drink coffee and smoke. And I thought, well that can't be too bad. I said how many meetings do you go to? to? Oh, she said, I go to a meeting just almost every night. And I thought, oh my God, a revival. Now, I never was hooked into those revival meetings. But I said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go to one meeting a week, if my husband will let me. And that's the the way I came home. Now, I didn't know how things were going to be at home, but whenever I got there, Casey was just tickled to death to have me back. And so I told him I was going to have to go to those meetings and he said, well, that's all right. He said, I'll go to meetings with you. And he did. He went to four or five meetings. He cut his drinking in half about that time. He gave up water. But I'm telling you, I love the program. When I come in here, I knew what my problem was. No one ever had to tell me my problem. I knew what it was. And then they told me, you know, one day at a time, you just work this program one day and a time. And they told then, they said, you have to be real careful about taking medication. They said that a lot of alcoholics have problems with medication that they can can be addicted to that. Well, they didn't have to tell me that because I never took anything but a fifth. It would cure anything from corns to snakebite. So when they were warning me about these things, I just listened to about half of it. But you know, I did manage managed to stay sober about 10 months. I'd go to meetings, I'd come home, and Casey would say it must have been a long meeting, as it was, and he'd be waiting for me, and I'd take him to the bar, and He'd tell me what a nice girl I was, because I didn't drink. I tell him it was just fine for him to drink, because that didn't bother me at all. But do you know what the God's truth is that I didn't think it would bother me and he was just too just proud as could be of me and anyway I had to go to the hospital I had to have two major operations and when I came out of there well my sister-in-law She came to visit. She lived in Kansas. I'd never met her before, and I really wanted to impress her, and I did. She'll never forget me. She wanted to go down here in West Virginia. She wanted to go to Glenville. And so I told her, well, I would do that. But see, when I left the hospital, the doctor gave me a bag of these little pills. Now, I'm telling you that they're good. I'm not knocking them because, boy, they just give you so much energy, you know. And it was a six-hour drive to West Virginia at that time. And man, on those little pills, I could have walked in six hours. Casey didn't want me to go because I really was not very good physically. I was real bad physically, to tell you the truth. But I didn't have too much trouble with him. He was still drinking a little, you know. And so anyway, I brought my sister-in-law down to Glenville. I got rid of her real quick. I went to the hotel, which was my usual pattern, ordered myself a fifth of booze, and I proceeded to get drunk. Now, when I get drunk, I get all over. My hair gets drunk, my arms get strunk, and oh I get in a mess. Now my sister-in-law came up to visit me. She didn't even know I drank. And now I was in a miss, and she called my husband and reported my condition. physician. Well, he called and he suggested that I come home. And now we only have one car in the family and I had it. But I said to him, if you want me, come and get me. Well that's the kind of a lady I was. But being a kind of gentleman that he was, that's exactly what he did. He and our son got a cab and came to six hours to get me. The only thing was, when he got there, instead of one drunk, there was two of us. Now, friends, that was my last drunk. Neither one of us remember one thing. Our son drove the car back, and And for the following three weeks, my husband and I laid in our own home, unable to get out to get a drink. We'd just call out and have it delivered. We'd wake up long enough to drink a water glass full and black right out again. You think it can't happen? Well, you know, it doesn't make any difference who you are or who you think you are. or that old booze will do the same thing to all of us if you are an alcoholic. We was just a mess. We didn't even have cats, but you know, all at once the cats started appearing. They would jump up on the bed. There was big cats, little cats, black cats, all kinds of cats. But then they'd disappear. peer. But that didn't excite me because I like cats. But I got really scared when I got up and there was a clear plastic suitcase and there was a dead man in there packed in ice. Now, buddy, that scared me. I went in and I called my sister And I told her she better get over there because Casey was seeing cats and dead people and everything. And, you know, as I told you, we were real alcoholics. We had a bucket on each side of the bed and never hit the bucket. You think of one drunk being in a bed for a week. now I'm going to tell you you get two real drunks in the same bed for three weeks you've got a hold of something and I told my sister how he was and I was dying and I had to lie on him and thank God she knew that I had been going to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she called my friend Jim and told him the situation. Jim picked up Juanita, and they came over, and they took my husband to St. Thomas Hospital, and they took me to Youngstown Clinic. At that time, you couldn't get back into the hospital to St., Thomas again. So anyway, my husband and I came home on the same day, and oh my God what a mess that place was and we managed to get the bed cleaned up and we laid down now we was as sick coming out of the hospital as some people are going in and we got that bed straightened up and we lay down Casey and I shared an awful lot of things together but this was something we didn't talk about he said to me He said, you know, Kay, at St. Thomas Hospital, they told me that prayer was essential for the recovery of the alcoholic. And I said, well, go ahead and pray. He said you do it. Now, I said it's your idea. If you want to pray, just go ahead. And he said, Kay you've had more practice at it than I have. so Casey and I said our first prayer together it was a prayer of hope it was a prayer gratitude and that's something that I still do every every night every morning every night anyway we went to meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that that first night. Now, we didn't get our sobriety by sitting home watching gun smoke, I'll tell you that. My sobriete date last month was the 25th of September. I was sober uninterrupted 29 years. All I had to do is quit drinking liquor and go to meetings. So anyway, we were so lucky at that time in Akron. We had a lot of old-timers. Of course, if they were sober three days I thought they was old-timers but it seemed like that they knew how much that we wanted to stay sober you know there's people out there dying every minute that needs this program but you have to want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it and we was willing to go to any lengths to get it. They said the first thing that we needed to do was to get honest with ourselves. Just be honest as never before. Don't be as yourself. Be willing, just be willing to change. Be willing to look for a power greater than yourself. They say, once you're just willing to do that, that that's all we ever ask. And keep an open mind. Keep an open mindset. You know, those are really simple things. And they told us that it was really important that we get rid of the resentments. They said that resentments for the alcoholic was a real killer. And they said we needed to make amends for that we had harmed somebody. Well, boy, I needed to hear that, I guess, because I just went home and I was telling the kids every time I turned around how sorry I was. How sorry I wasn't. I didn't mean to hurt you. How sorry it was. And then I heard a little Alateen speaker. And she said, would you parents please quit telling us how sorry you are? We're just glad to have you home. We're Just Glad You Aren't Drinking. And she says, when you start doing that, you're just laying the old guilt over on us. You know what the kid's supposed to say. That's all right, Mama. so from that day on I stopped apologizing to my children I tried to live and to show my children that I was not the same person that I wasn't when I first came into the fellowship and they said I needed it was really important to get active in in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. They stressed to me about sponsorship, helping another alcoholic. That's what it's all about, folks, is helping someone. I got my first girl to sponsor when I was sober one month. You think you can't do that? You haven't done the steps yet? Well, I don't no, but the sister at the hospital gave me this girl and said, Kay, I'd like you to sponsor her. And I said, my God's sister? I've only been sober a month. And she said, well, what have you been doing? And I thought, oh, I just don't drink anymore, and I go to AA meetings. And she says, well then tell that to that girl. And do you know I did? And do Do you know that's what I still do? If I get a new one, I just tell them I don't drink no more and I go to AA meetings. And I take them with me and I figure, well, I'll get them down here. Maybe you can tell them something. And one thing someone told me early on, don't ever worry about hurting an alcoholic. I hear people say that a lot of times. Did you ever? Oh, I don'T have much sobriety and I'M afraid I'LL SAY SOMETHING THAT'LL HURT HIM. You can't hurt an alcoholic. We've been hurting since the day we was born, not wanting to be what we were, wanting to beat a better people is what we've always wanted. And so you just tell them you don't drink, get them to a meeting, and it'll work. It really will. Well, you know, this program is just absolutely, just absolutely wonderful. They told me about my attitude. They said, Kay, you're going to have to change your attitude. You know, that's hard to change. I couldn't have changed my attitude at all had it not been for you. But you know, it is so important that you know that we are all on the same level. One drink will get us all back to where we were. And you know when they stressed a power greater than ourselves. You know, I knew about God, but I just used to think when I was younger, well I'll wait till I'm about 45 or 50 and then I'll start going to church but oh I don't want to be good and you know I yet because I'll miss so much fun so anyway I one day I was standing at the window and I saw the leaves they were like they are now looking out and I thought oh my god they are beautiful and And I think for the really, really first time that I knew that I didn't ever have to drink anymore because with the help of God, every day when I get up, I read about a shot glass full out of my big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can just open it any place and it's surprising what you can find. And I asked the God of my understanding just to help me through the day so that I don't have to drink anymore. That was my prayer. And look back and think where it was. I don' t find myself so often praying for sobriety because it just kind of comes naturally, you know, because I'm always with AA people, and they told me that Alcoholics Anonymous is designed just to get us back on the road of we're just like everybody else. If I'm walking down this street with some other woman today, you wouldn't know which one of us was the alcoholic, but I know. It's like when I got this emphysema, I didn't like having emphysema, and I was telling a new person about it. In fact, I was just telling my good friend Mo about it, and she said, well, okay, call it by any name you want to. And she said but you still know what you got, and that's kind of what she was telling me in a way. Well, it's like alcoholism. You can call it anything you want too, but you still better know what you got. She told me something that I thought was really good, too. She told Me, it was in the third edition, it said, I want to read it, Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober. Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate, not so much on what needs to be changed in the world, but what needs be changed in me and my attitude. Now, isn't that good? I would have missed that one completely because I don't read the third edition and it reminded me I better start doing that because there's a lot of good stuff in there. You know, when I first came in And there was this fellow, and he told me, he said, Kay, don't settle for a half a loaf. Don't settle für a halfa loaf. He said the first thing is to find a home group. A home group is go to all the meetings you can and then find a Home Group where this little bunch of people is and be there every week until they get to know you. And then that's what a home group is. So I did, I have a home groups. I belong to the Flame Breakfast Group. And I like what Franklin Williams always said. He says, if you don't believe that you belong to to the best group in the world, stick in there and make it to best group. Don't go out and screw up somebody else's group. And do you know that's exactly what I do? I go to my home group faithfully. The only thing that keeps me away from fact is it's in session right now and they'll feel my presence and think. But anyway, I think that at my group they just want to vote on everything. Vote, vote, vote. If they'd just listen to me, but they wouldn't do it. But I do try to be a good member. I don't just try to. I am a good remember. And then he says to get active in your inner group office. I don't know if you have one here or not, but a lot of you do have. And an intergroup office is the phone service where these people call for help. It is the lifeline, and it's important that we do. So along the lines, I got real active in that too. And then they said, if you do those things real good, maybe they'll let you get active in your general service. So a lot of people say, oh, general service, that's that office up in New York. They say, we don't want to hear about that. Well, we better want to Hear About It because it is the mother root of the whole thing. So I got active in the general service so that's I think it is really really important that we give herself a break and go for this the whole bundle I go to a lot of meetings but for me it's just one day at a time just one day a time and it was more and more as time has gone on The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They told me that anything we ever need to know, you'll find it in the first 164 pages of the big book. You know, it's kind of like a little girl, she was brushing his cat and petting his cat all the time, carrying it around. One of her her friends said, why are you always brushing and petting that cat for all the time? She said, well, I'm going to enter her into a cat show. And she said, now there's no need for you to do that because she can't win any prizes. And do you know that's the way it is with me? I haven't won any prizes since I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I sure met a lot of nice cats. I'm telling you, I have. I have made friends all over the world. I do mean all overthe world. A little more than five years ago, my Casey died. He got cancer and the doctor gave us three months. He didn't even know he was sick and he died and that was very, very difficult. So, you know, I used to hear him sometimes in his lead, he'd say, AA doesn't only teach you how to live, it teaches you howto die. I thought that was kind of corny. But do you know? It really, really does. And... And, but I just couldn't have handled that situation. But, you know, the AA people just came in droves. You just wouldn't believe they were, everyone was so good to us and it was just wonderful. I kind of laughed one day, this one of our friends from Cleveland, you hadn't seen him for a long time. And he came down and he was going to have KC to lead a meeting for him. And one of the fellas, the greeters told him that KC had died. and he came on in, he talked to me and I just didn't know what to say and I said well Pete, I'd just like to think that he's up there at the big meeting and Pete kind of laughed and he said, I don't know Kay, he might be down below shoveling coal but he said wherever the hell he is he's doing a good job So, you know, that was really, Casey would have loved that. But what am I doing today? I'm just running around, going to AA meetings and having a good time. These children I told you about, my son and daughter, they each have two sons. That makes me four grandsons, but that's not the worst of it. But I've got a bunch of great-grandkids, too. I've about three or four. I'm telling you, I can't keep up with them. They just drag them in and drag them out. And I said, I'm not going to worry with them because they don't carry a picture of me, and I won't carry one of them. But they really are wonderful children. I just love them to pieces. And our son wrote a letter once. He said, you and Daddy will never know how glad Kathy Jo and I were the day you quit drinking. Please don't ever start again. They call that a fringe benefit. I was out golfing with my daughter and a couple friends one day, and someone said to her, Kathy Jo, how happened you do so many things with your mother? Oh, she said mother is my best friend. And that really touched me because you see, friends, I almost lost it all. But to have these wonderful things that happen. I learned to paint a little bit. Of course, I can't hardly give them away. The kids, I think, hide them whenever I go over. But I do a little oil and a little acrylic. I learned to crochet a little bit, now that probably doesn't impress you but you didn't see me when I got here. I couldn't have held a pitchfork. So it's kind of nice to be able to do something. And so I go off, I used to golf every day, you know like five days a week, but now I just golf a couple times a week and because of this I have to take a ride, you know, a cart. But I just do about everything I want to and I am so grateful to God for this program. There is never ever a time in my life that I don't feel that he is right there not that i'm so good but that he's so good i i said a little prayer about something this weekend and it really surprised me kind of i thought boy god you're working fast and but things is really great for me i want to thank all the committee larry and And Mary Lou, I got so many cards and stuff from Mary Lou. I want to thank you for allowing me this privilege to share my experience, my strength, and my hope. And I'll close with this little poem that says, it was by Helen Steiner Rice. I messed up your singing. And it goes like this. I've never seen God, but I know how I feel. It's people like you who make him so real. My God is no stranger. He's friendly, I say, and he doesn't ask me to weep when I pray. It seems that I pass him so often each day in the faces of people I meet on my way. He's a star in heaven, a smile on some face. He's a leaf on a tree or a rose in a vase. He's winter and summer. He's autumn and spring. In short, God is every real wonderful thing. I wish I might meet him much more than I do. And there would, I would, if there were more people like you. God bless you.