The Primary Purpose That Nobody Can Take Away From Her – Virginia T.

Good morning, family. I'm Virginia, a grateful recovering alcoholic. I call you family because I was in a family thing yesterday and they were talking about families and I thought, I've got a whole world of family members. I'm grateful to God for being here and I'm thankful to the committee for having me. I feel very honored and privileged to be a member of Alcoholic Anonymous. It has been a wonderful conference for me because I'm standing with two people that I admire and love and respect and have shown me the way, the road to recovery. They've stayed on the path. they didn't have to get back on the path since I've known them. And last night as I was listening to Clancy, I was flashing back and I was thanking God. And when I was hearing Tom, I was thinking God. And so I decided this morning that the very first thing, which is what I always do, is acknowledge that since I have a threefold disease, I have three-powered God. God the Father, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Now, that's for me. I'm not a soul saver because I wouldn't know what the hell to do with them if I saved them. you know but i am grateful to god that i have something that is sufficient to my need april 8 1966 i crawled to you more dead than alive and i laugh like mad today when i hear drugs of choices or multiple descriptions of what they are i crawld into those i was driven here didn't have a drug of choice i was driven i didn't never have a a longing or hunger for booze when i had a hunger for booze i got some it was like oxygen you needed to breathe and you know i had to have it and so i am not a has-been and i'm a never was who became in this program also important and i tell you i can probably have everybody in here in tears in minutes when i tell your about my childhood and my pathetic little behavior but you know what that ain't what makes me a drunk What makes me an alcoholic is that I'm bodily and mentally different from a fellow man. That's what my book tells me, and that's what I bought. And I bought into it because I was blaming everybody, people, places, and things for what was happening to me, even really wanted to blame God for letting me be born on the wrong side of the track, for giving me delinquent parents, for leaving me barefoot and hungry, you know, for a lot of stuff, but too scared to blame God. So if you got any sense at all, you don't run around, damn God, you know. I wasn't that crazy, you Know. But I came very, very close to it, you Know. But one day my sponsor said to me, was your little sister living with you all these years? And I said, yes. How come she's not a drunk if that's the reason you are? And I had no answer. I had no solution. So I learned in this program to just simply follow direction. Kind of got mad at God when I first got here a little bit because he gave me the wrong sponsor, you know. And when I came in, they didn't allow me the privilege. I don't know how God prearranged that, but he did. I didn't get to pick out a sponsor. Now, I'll tell you what kind of sponsor I would have picked out. In my home group, there was one lady that wore different mink to meetings during chilly nights. I would have got her. Another lady who had a new Cadillac, I certainly would have gotten her. And I would have picked people out by what they could do for me because I was a very needy person when I got to you. Very, very needly. I usurped all my little energies up and used it on the streets and hustling bottles of Gallo poured wine which cost 47 cents. I'm 34 years old almost to make it to my 35th birthday and I can't quite make it there because, see, I stayed drunk a month to celebrate my own birthday because nobody else celebrated my birthday. But I made it to April 8th. I started early. I was supposed to start on April 10th but I had to start on April 8rd getting ready for May 10th. And I had to stop on April 9th on April 8th you know I just I started two days early and stopped them the rest of the time. I couldn't make it any further, and I had a little idea that if I drank one more day, that would be the end of it, you know? And a couple of times I had almost died, you know, really from little simple things like hemorrhoid surgery. I was going to just fade on out, you knows, and I felt the shade going down, and all I could see was this, and the nurse said, I just kept saying, but I ain't done nothing yet. God, don't take me now. I ain'T done nothing. And from that little pitiful childhood to that moment, I had done nothing except have a baby every year. I told you yesterday in a little session, I got fired from a birth control clinic from having too many babies. So you get pregnant every year, they don't want you working in a birth-control clinic. So I didn't fit. Whatever I was trying to do, I didn' t fit. And when I threw in the towel and I crawled to Alcoholic Anonymous, by that time I had deteriorated to the places. It was common for me to live in the ghetto. It was uncommon for me living housing project. It was commonly live in a $200-a-month apartment, you know, and I couldn't pay the rent. I'd start off with $75, and all I need is another $25 to give them at least half of the rent, and by the time I left a bar or left a liquor store one more time, I needed the whole amount of money. All you had to do was watch me walking back and forth and let me get drunk enough to go in the bar and set everybody up. Nobody knew that I had eight kids at home and that I needed to go home pay the rent or that I need to go to grocery store and buy some food. I was a negligent mom. As far as I know, they didn't miss any meals. I'd find some way to steal something or do something you know we got a lot of tricks up our sleeves so I'd pull one of those tricks down once in a blue moon they would work once in a while I would succeed so I deteriorated enough to come into these meetings and listen to this dumb sponsor that God picked out for me you know she lived in a gated community she drove a new BMW she was a real lady and she had never been on the street so I couldn't identify with her at all you know there was just no identification there God and she said things like we don't do it that way around here you don't do it this way around that way around here and I thought it was paradise I saw clean men smelling good and I though this is alright I can find Mr. Goodbar in here in a minute you know so I had my mind on Mr. Goodbar and my sponsor was the youngest old-timer at my home group and they all got with her and they made announcements to her like you're gonna have to do something with that girl and one Friday night at a meeting they said you coming to the noon meeting tomorrow she said yeah bring her with you we're going to talk to you after the meeting and tell you what to do with her. Like I wasn't there. I'm standing there looking at her. And they met with us after the meeting. They took us to Denny's for a cup of coffee. Wouldn't even buy you a sandwich, you know. And they told her what to doing with me. You tell her to stop wearing them little short dresses up the yang-yang down here. You tell her sit up front so she can hear and not be in the back surveying the crowd. I don't know how they got their wisdom, but they did. And you tell her to go to the coffee pot when she comes in at the break if there is a break. And at the end of the meeting she can have another cup of coffee. But she cannot walk back and forth to the coffee pot 100 times to be seen. Because that's what I was doing. And he put stopgaps on all my plays, and I was extremely upset. I needed to find another group. And so I was not allowed to find Mr. Good, but I couldn't talk to any of the men. I had to talk to the women except the old men, you know. And I can't play around and I can't do anything, so I would tell them what was happening and the old timers would say, this too shall pass. You didn't get like this overnight, you're not going to get well overnight. Just keep coming back. And you're in real good shape for God to bless you because you're all the way down. You're real close to those people with grave emotional and mental disorders. A lot of them recover if they have the capacity to be honest. And I said, what is capacity to my sponsor? She said, do you want to walk? and I said yeah and that's all I came to you with I just wanted to walk and I didn't even know what you had and this is the only place I've ever been where people tell me they don't know where they're going but they can show me where to go they don'T know what they're doing but they CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO they DON'T KNOW HOW THEY'RE GETTING OVER BUT THEY KNOW THE ROUTE so here I am in this mixed up organization but people and the giants are sitting in front of me i can remember you know uh i got invited one night to clance's group and he told them to give me all the directions women speakers can't wear pants and no cursing at the podium and i thought hell he wants a canned pitch ain't got no canned pitch i don't even know what i'm gonna say you know and sure enough that whole month, every week, every day I wanted to put on a pantsuit. And I had to cancel out no pants for the month to get myself ready for the meeting. He's right there on the front seat. See what you got on. Checking you out, you know. But I give a lot of credit and a lot of glory and honor to the Giants whose shoulders I stand on because they have shown me the way. Not only the way, but they've shown me how to maintain what was freely given to me. As I listened to these two men talk this week, I thought, what a blessed woman I am. Came in here at 34, couldn't make it to my 35th birthday so I couldn't celebrate. And here I am now at 73, still listening to the same people, still learning still wide open to the grace and mercies of God still extremely blessed that I know right from wrong a little bit and then I have made some better choices this program has taught me how to live with unsolved problems because it came to you loaded down we were talking about the family afterwards yesterday and I thought what kind of family did I have I guess they were just plain or ordinary country folks that didn't know nothing and I was very upset when my mother died and they said you can live with your grandmother because I knew my mom took care of my grandmother and if my mom is gone it ain't going to be nobody there my grandma was poor as blazes and we got to stay with my grandma and what did she teach me she taught me to do the best that I could with what I had she taughtme the same thing that you were trying to teach me you know try to have some morals and some values I don't know how to tell you to get them but just try to get you some you know and she gave gave me the best that she had and yet I thought she was so ignorant I was angry with her for not teaching me how to be a lady I was anger with my mom for what she didn't give me I was angrier at her for marrying an ice man and she was a cook and for loading up and having me, not giving me anything to inherit. And I had a lot of little annoyances mixed in with my screwed-up thinking. And you add that in, and it's almost impossible to stay sober. So when I got chemically free, the very thing that my sponsor had me to read over and over again is that we learned that we had to fully concede to animal cells that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. I was an alcoholic and I had no agenda. I didn't know what to ask for. I didn' t even know what to pray for. So I started adopting the prayers in the big book, my creator. God, I abandon myself to you. How many asked you to remove my shortcomings? Because I'm loaded with them. I don't even know what to call them. I don' t know which one is the worst one, which one is the best. I'm just willing to follow directions, make sure that I don'T get no screwed up directions. and that's the way I came in here following what people told me to do didn't like it because I couldn't find Mr. Goodball because I had a lousy husband at home and I blamed him for everything he was the cause of my misery my entire life from birth until that present moment if I could just find the right guy get the right car get in the right neighborhood staying sober would be a breeze because you taught me that the 12 steps to recovery are my only and first line of defense and I wrote these steps down not knowing what I was writing down you know, and when I read I used to read the Bible and my sponsor allowed me to read one verse a day a short chapter because she didn't want me to get overly involved in religion because I would have been a lost soul out there, you know. And I remember reading the Vedatines one morning and I changed them to what made sense to me. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. And I thought blessed are they that do the best they can with what they got and trust God to do the rest. You know. And so I kept seeing what I wanted to see in the bible and making it say what i saw in alcoholic anonymous and then finally one day i discovered that recovery was not just given to dr bob and bill i started reading in the bible where it was given to jeremiah and these words came out to me and it said i took the cup that made you stay out of your hand but you're still drunk just not with wine And I thought, oh my God, that's how come I'm feeling so miserable. That's how came ain't nothing no better. That's why come it ain't no hope in here. That's like if I ain't got no faith. That's high come I ain' got no nothing. Well, you know what, God? I'm just going to come back to you and tell you exactly what I need to do. Now, you now I've been looking for a job, and I need to get a job because the Sheriff's Department will not take me back. They said I was a disgrace. Now, they didn't catch me and book me with any charges when I was in the Sheriff'S Department. but they did have a thing on the list when I got ready to come back to work that said, have you ever now been affected by alcohol or drugs? And I marked yes because I heard that honesty crap from you guys. And after they got through investigating, they found out I had been drunk for a number of years in jail. And so at this point, this honesty thing got me into trouble, But I am grateful to God that even my dumb mistakes were blessed, you know, because I was not deaf and immaterial. I was nothing. God had to resurrect me and totally remake me, you Know, because i was so run and so run down. So i want to spend some time telling you what my sobriety has been like, you Know, what really happened. And there was no food in my house, and the only thing I had in that house was eight kids and some very ragged, decrepit furniture and a gambling, compulsive gambling husband who didn't bring home paychecks. And so I'm sitting in this house, and I'm trying to stay away from that liquor store. I did go back one time the next morning and took back a pint of vodka that I had. I found it in the house, and I said to my sponsor, I ain't pouring this out. I'm going to take it back to the store. And I didn't realize I went in there and bulldozed my way and walked out with a pint of vodka, didn't pay for it. I just took it because I was crazy. You know, you go to jail for doing stuff like that, but I just took it. And when I took it back, one brother said to the other one, don't give her no money back. She didn't play for it, she took it! And he said, I'm so damn glad to see this woman bringing a bottle of liquor back to the store, give her the $3.00 and let her go. So they gave me the $1.00. And so I'm at home and I'm praying and I call my small sister. She told me to write on step one. And I'm writing on step 1. I said, this is stupid. I'm sitting here writing on this step. And it's 1 o'clock and the kids are going to be home at 3.30. And I don't have any food in the house. I got to get out of here and go somewhere. So I called up and I said, I can't write no more. I've got to go somewhere. She said, where are you going? I said I don't know. She said stay there and write. So I thought this dumb woman is sitting over there living off the fat of the land and telling me to stay here and write, and I've Got Kids coming home. I knew I didn't need her for no sponsor. She ain't even in touch with reality. But I stood there and wrote because I was scared to not do what they said do. You know, that's the truth. I was just scared. If I mess up the recipe, I won't get this thing. So I sit there and I wrote. 15, 20 minutes later, I called her back and said, I got to go get some food from somebody. She said, who are you going to get it from? I said, I don't know. Well, you better stay there and write. Makes no sense. Makes no sens at all. Stayed there and then I wrote, and pretty soon I think they must have been turning tricks to get me food because they sent some strange-looking man by with a little bag of groceries. Some guy showed up to my door and he said, they told me to bring this to you. Are you a Virginian? I said, yeah, he brought eight hot dogs, eight buns, a half gallon of milk, some potato chips, and I had eight kids. They never sent me any food. Never. And that's the way they fed my kids meal by meal. and I was sitting in the club and I'm a smoker so I would try to whisper to people passing by with cigarettes could you spare a cigarette so one day I was whispering old timer sitting around the table talking and playing some bid whiz and this guy came by with a pack of cigarettes I said could you spend a cigarette I heard that here take this quarter go up on the 130th and find yourself some kind of work you've been sitting around mooching cigarettes long enough they weren't scared of hurting my feelings at all So I took the quarter and I go out the front door and I walk across the street to get on the bus to go up to 103rd Street to see what they had worked, they had. And I think, how the hell will I get back home? They don't even care. Those lying jackrabbits sit around the club all day talking about they care about the newcomer. They're sending me out here without any bus fare back. but I got on the bus because I'm scared not to do what they told me and I went up on 103rd and the guy said well we have a waiting list and we don't have any positions but I'll give you two bus tokens you can go down to Long Beach, they got a lot of positions more than we got, they don't have as many needy people as we have so then I had bus fare back home I get on to the Long Beach school employment area and I walk and he said, well we have a training program we'll give you a stipend every week but you got to live in Long Beach the house behind us is vacant maybe you can rent it in the morning if you can get the address from me I'll put that down for your address so here's the personnel at the school helping me so I walked behind the school got the address walked back in gave it to him he handed me a slip of paper he said take it across the hall I take it cross the hall and they hand me a check $100 check I think oh my god that was like a million dollars you know she said if you go over to the post office they'll cash it for you so I walk over to post office they cashed the check for me and now I got $100 left home without a penny old folks gave me a quarter for one way bus fare and I got money to go back home and get some food You know, things like that began to happen in the midst of all my trials, in the mist of all of my fears, in the mists of all my pain. These little miracles were seeping in and one night we went to a meeting and there was scientists there speaking and I was so intimidated by the education of this man. He had four or five PhDs And he was recognized one time, considered for the greatest, the Peace Award and, you know, just everything. And I said on the way home, I said, I really didn't appreciate it going to a meeting here in an educated full. My sponsor said, oh, you are jealous. How could I be jealous of an educated fool? I know I'm not an educated person. She said, that's okay. in the morning, I want you to get up and find a university to enroll in. And I thought, how in the world could I get in a university when I dropped out of school in eighth grade? This old woman had gone stone crazy. She thinks that I am a high school graduate, and I'm not. But I went to the junior college close to my house and I said, I wanna enroll in college. And the lady said, what's your curriculum? I said what is that? And she said, well, if you don't know what a curriculum is, how are you going to enroll in college? And I said, bitch, I'm here to be taught, not to be talked down to. You know. And she pushed the buzzer and the security guy put me off campus. So I went to another school in Long Beach, you know, where I had gotten this stipend. And I went on down to Long Beach. And they let me in the school. and I was so crazy and so confused and living I never had a honeymoon in Alcoholic Anonymous if I did I was on it and didn't know it but anyway as I got in school and I went to an LVN class that's a one year course and toward the ninth month I go to the school they moved the building that I was supposed to go into I left it on Friday but Monday morning it was not there and I said okay God they told me there would come a time when I had no defense I ain't got no defense I don't know what the hell they did with the building but it's gone so I drove around the building crying the final collapse of my mind had finally taken place you know, there was no more shaming no more going to me's, no more nothing I was just gonna be nutty as a fruitcake sitting up in a nut house and at that point I rode around the school, and I rode around, and finally I'm sitting there, and I started crying. God, I don't know what to do. Maybe I'm just a wet brain. Maybe I've just lost it all together, and now I'm at the building. I was sitting right in front of the building. And that's been the story of my life. Every time, my sobriety life, every time I got into that place that I feel like I can't go any further, I don' t know which way to turn, grace and mercy always shows up and escorts me on my journey. And so my life in recovery has not been la-la spiritual land it has not be I found a recipe and I know what to do I have not been allowed the privilege of flashing back blaming God, people, places and things for what happened to me I have engaged enough in this program to have reality come to me and recognize I am not what I am today because of what I did when I was a kid. I am what I are today because of what i have done with my entire life and then in this program I discovered another thing that since it's done unto me according to my belief the only thing I really had to work on for 38 plus years has been my belief because I believe that I was limited because I believed that a lot of things mattered that did not matter, because I believed that this was the golden prize, because I believe if I landed in the right neighborhood with the right kind of people, with the right kind of friends, with the right kind of car, with the right kind of income, that I would be all right. But let me tell you, about six months ago, I buried a young woman in Florida that made $90 an hour, had a Yach lived in a mansion in a very fine beach city in Florida and she committed suicide because she had all the stuff that I figured would make me happy that I never could get. But what could I get? I could learn how to live and be the best me that I am capable of being and do the very best with what I have. And that is not always good. I think I mentioned yesterday that a month or so ago, I wanted to jump down on a man's head. He was a little short man. I was going to throw him over the banister, jump on his chest, you know, kick him in the groin and choke him out. My plant exactly where 38-plus years under my belt. What stopped me? This program of recovery, the principles that have been embedded in me by the old timers that I talked about before that are still here today. And looking around across the patio, I saw a whole bunch of new people. And I thought, this is not a theory. I've got to live this crap. if i show them that i can do this for 38 years what would they do with 38 minutes and so i lost my right to be a fool you know and that's what has happened to me since i've been in this program i keep losing rights i keep changing problems and making better choices so i have less problems i'm even remarried and in December I'll celebrate 30 years of my second marriage you know because I used to shack and do everything and I never stuck with anybody and this particular husband that I have is a very real gentleman he's 33 years sober and he's a very real gentleman that I'm sure God landed in my laps perfectly because nobody else would tolerate me You know, I'm not an obedient, given kind of wife. I have boundaries set around myself. I'm slightly impatient for non-sensible kinds of behavior. Kind of like my Papa Clancy. He ain't old enough to be my daddy, but he can be my papa. You know, kind of between persistence. I'm very persistent and determined that I will accomplish that which I start out to do. But my assets are my liabilities. I'm a very loyal, but I'm also very stubborn. I'm very self serving but I'm also very motivated to share with other people control freak with red ribbons trimmed around me laughter but at the same time I want to see the best of everybody allowed to come out so you can see that mixed-up personality and that confusion were not for grace and mercy would take over. So that's why I have a very short fuse for nonsense, you know. When I found out that it was my opinion of my mom now up until last year, I had an opinion that my mom abandoned us, left us with my grandmother while she was just running around drinking and frolicking around. Only to find out in talking to my oldest aunt in Louisiana that my mom was a very loving, caring mother who worked all the time trying to bring monies and make sure we had food. But for all those years, I had these kinds of thoughts way in the back of my mind. And that's why I'm very opposed to people blaming mom and dad for what they turned out to be because I had a false impression of my mom and my dad was a little whore. He was just chipping all over town, you know, but that had nothing to do with me either because I don't choose to do that and be that today. And all I had to do was find a recipe that would allow me to work on my belief system because I a false impression as to who I was and what I was all about. I thought I was just a drunken slut. And I find out today that I'm a great imitation of that grandwoman that was my sponsor and the sponsor that I have today. You know, I have a dancing blue-eyed blonde, platinum blind broad for a sponsor who's 88 and she looks like she's 60. She's super cool and she simply continued the work of my first sponsor. She has a boyfriend who's 90. She can't remarry because her husband's trust would be cut out. So they moved in together. And her daughter who's about 65 called me up, raisin cane. That is so disgraceful. I said, what the hell can they do? It's like keep each other company. She's marvelous. She knocks me out. And we're buddies. We're friends. She kept her house vacant when she moved in with her boyfriend for three years to see if I liked Florida when I moved from California. If you don't like it, you have a house in Laguna. You can move right in whenever you get ready. You know, we're very, very close. And I love that lady. I love my family. I love our family. I love all of my AA members all over the world, wherever I go. And I have even given some credence and a lot of love and attention to my spouse now, so I'm getting real soft. You know, he has a lot of rope to move around and be in his own skin and do things his own way. So as I'm mellowing out, I'm asking God to use me, you know, and keep me fit and make me that channel that he can use. I'm askin' him to allow me the privilege to move among my fellow alcoholics and cause somebody to read my big book and want to do this deal like it's supposed to be done. Just like it says in the big book and like these old-timers are telling you, I was so delighted to see Tom and Clancy going back to the basics. No, not going back because I ain't never seen them leave. They just stayed on it. And that tells me that I'm following a pretty good crowd. Just stick with the basics and don't get so analytical that I take in this intellectual stuff and forget about the mental and emotional. My pet peeve is somebody standing up in an alcoholic anonymous meeting announcing that I'm clean and sober. And the reason I have that as a pet peev is because I know this physical, mental, emotional, spiritual illness that I have may be chemically absent but it doesn't show any emotionally, mentally, and spiritually absent. And the reason that I know that is because I don't feel right. It doesn't feel so good when I allow myself to go to the extreme and away from what I have been taught. Now, I'm still sponsoring people just like I learned in 1966. They still got to call me every day for 90 days. And then I figured, because I figured like when my sponsor told me that If I call her every day, she said somewhere around 7 o'clock in the evening because she knew 7.30 they're picking you up for 8.30 meeting. You've got to stay sober all day to be able to call them. And when you call them, you've got a report in there without any drinking. And so I still use that. You know what? It works. I still quote to them from the big book and the 12 and 12. And they think I'm a genius. They think I remember all that stuff. I got books and things by every phone in my house. You reach page 44. You'll find your solution. And they said, oh, my God. She reads me all the time. That's what I thought. But I ain't reading nobody. I do know what I know. And I know what I don't know. I don' t know at all, but I know enough to keep coming back. And I still do the same thing every morning that I did year one. Every year I take out the big book, my Bible, the 12 and 12, Daily Reflection, and two more good reading motivational books. And every morning I take those books out and I studied them for an hour because I was trained that if I kept my house clean, I didn't have to do spring house cleaning. And I am so lazy I'm just waiting for an opportunity to prove it to somebody. And I still do that. And the reason I still doing it is because it works so well. It keeps me balanced. 90% of the time I'm on pretty even keel but there's a 10% that fluctuates my very being and sprinkles my mind you know then that's when I have to watch as well as pray I had prayed for a number of years in Alcoholic Anonymous that God would remove me from a poverty of money and I would get I've traveled a lot in recovery, mostly for alcoholic analysis. But for a long time I went back and forth and found low interest monies in other countries. And so I made some decent money but I could never hold on to money. I could not get enough to get ahead. And so I kept praying and I kept praying and finally it dawned on me that I had been blessed with everything that I need. And soI started thanking God for where he had brought me thus far and I stopped making that request. When I sold my property in L.A., And bought a house in Jacksonville. And I was ready to leave, and we were ready to close the escrow. And the buyers got laid off, so I gave them $15,000 so they would have enough money to complete their down payment. And my husband, who didn't want to go to Florida in the first place, started raising hell and telling me, I ain't going nowhere. I said, that's okay. I didn't say, we are moving to Florida. I said I am moving to floor. So it's all right with me if you don't want to go. You know, I ain't holding nobody captive. God dictated to me to go, and I'm going. And he says, well, I'm not going to Florida with $5,000. That's all you got left. And I'm now going to move out of town all those many miles away from home with $6,000, and that's all I'm doing. With $5 thousand, that won't last but a minute. I said, you're absolutely right. That's why I'm goin' to Vegas with her tonight. So I packed my little overnight bag, and he jumped up and grabbed his bag. He said, she ain't taking the last $5,000 out of here. And I went to Las Vegas. And I took $10 out of my suitcase to go gamble with because I'm not a big gambler. Real chicken when it comes to giving up. So I went down to the casino, and I walked over to a nickel machine. I said, I didn't even look up to see what was in it. And I just walked straight. Spirit kept telling me, just go straight. And I walked straight and I sat down in front of this slot machine and I put the $7 in there that I had left because I bought a pack of cigarettes. And I played for about five minutes. And I heard cling, cling, clinging, all these bells and lights started flashing. And there was 1,000 people standing around me and the president of the Riviera came down. He said, I wanted to meet you. You're one in 10 million people. He said, this machine is in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Reno, and where else? Someplace else. And he said, and you won the jackpot the first time in four or five years. 900 and I think it was 89,079 cents. I was $11,000 short of being a millionaire. So I bought a timeshare to make it even. The whole point of that thing was when I stopped asking God for something and landed in the spot of belief that he had what it takes to keep me sober, that he has what it tastes to give me as I believed that I was worthy of receiving because up until that point I had not been worthy, had not be willing to share that amount of money with anybody. You know, had not being conditioned for it. But at the moment that it happened, I was totally at that place where I knew that it was of God and I knew that there was nothing else that I could ask God for that I would not receive as long as I believed and did the best I could with what I had. So by then, that spouse who wasn't going to follow me to Florida, he was over on another nickel machine. I called him to come over to my machine. He was behind me and he goes, as soon as I get my 21 nickels, I said, the hell with your 21 nickelS. Come over here. And when he came over, he almost fainted. And a little Jewish lady from New York said to me, don't give him a nickel. Don't you share. God give it to you, you keep it. Finally, I'm in that place where I'm comfortable with dollars. now Enron and some other people helped me to get rid of it but the one thing that allowed me to know my part in it because you must always find your part in it my part in it was I did not watch my money like I did other folks money I was not as careful with my money as I was with the money of people that I worked for because I guarded your money and I got up every morning and got on the telex when they didn't have the computers and saw what Wall Street was doing and made moves accordingly I didn't do that, I hired people to do that for me and they watched their pocketbooks as mine disappeared and so lo and behold one day the banker comes to my place of business and she said I didn't want you to hear it on the news I didn' t want you to receive it in the mail and nobody is going to be telling the public this but the stock market has crashed you have lost money she said what can I do to help you I said what can you do to help yourself you lost money with me there's no human power that can relieve this ism that is operating in me right now but I know there is one, and that one is God. So I'll see you later. You can't do anything for me. And I got real spiritual, and I started talking to God on quite an intimate level, sitting on the patio of my business, and asking him what should I do. And I think he chuckled for a minute because nothing came out. And then he said, get a job. Go get you a job so i got up and took the yellow pages and i faxed resumes to every government office on the yellow page and i got a call back from national safety council which told me about a position in northeast florida and i went over and applied for it and they hired me and i'm going over to the recovery agency to take a big book to a new sponsee and the CEO runs out and he said I've been calling you all day we need you we need to resign from the board and become staff and coordinate recovery services with us because we got this granted I said no man I just took a job five days a week no Saturdays no Sundays no after fives you know and I'll be in charge I don't need no job at the agency but we need your and then Spirit said you need to be here so I just picked up the phone and called the guy back and told him, you know what he told me? He said I'm so glad you're not coming I don't know what to do. He said because I thought you would take my job I said but I don' want no careers. I ain't looking for nothing. I'm just trying to pay the rent, pay the note and keep my Cadillac. You know. I aint looking for nothing.I am not trying to make no dents in nowhere But he was delighted. He says I am so relieved He said, because I had to hire you. He said but I didn't want to hire him because I was scared for my own job. So God took me away from where I wanted to be over here where he needed me to be and that was the greatest move they could have made in my life. I get a chance to practice these principles in all my affairs. I got mountains and mountains of new people that are looking for the way. Which way? Which way do I go? You know. And I get to coordinate services with some terrifically dedicated people. I found the best that Florida has to offer, and my close friends, you know. And I got to mingle with people that I never dreamed possible, you know. As a youngster, I never saw myself having dinner or lunch with the mayor. I never saw myself, you know, sitting in front of the governor. You know, I could not envision those things. George Bush gave me a personal autograph in Tallahassee, Florida, and I was amazed. And I'm so impressed with his wife because she looks like my sponsor. And my sponsor was that kind of a lady, you Know. So it just knocks me out, you know, to be able to relate to the good people in the universe and to beable to share with the weaker ones. It just knocksmeout. So I'm very content. I don't go to work, and I'm reading a book now that says God is my CEO. And I flash it on my desk so my CEO can see it. so he don't get confused. She made a statement, you guys work, I sign your paychecks, you work for me from 9 to 5, and whatever you give to the program is your gift back for what you're receiving and blah, blah. I said, sir, I don't work for you. I work for God. That's my paycheck. that's my power that is all that I work for now don't get confused and he said you know I need to pay you some amends right now because of your blankness and your firmness and the boundaries you set around yourself I have always not liked it but I have great respect for you and I thought that's all I've been after my whole life i never care whether you like me or not and i'm not too sure that i always liked you but i'm greatly happy today that i can tell you that i respect you and that i love you and it ain't no sham and i don't want nothing for the first time in my adult life i can sincerely say with all sincerity that i'm grateful to God to be who and what I am. I don't want to be nobody else. I used to want to be Liz Taylor until I saw how many skin grafts she had to have, and I don' t want to do that no more. I used to want to be Lena Horne until I saw her the other night on TV and it starts showing up on them, you know, facelifts start showing up, and i thought, god, i'm glad i didn't have enough money to get a facelift. I'm grateful to be aging in God's way and in God's time on a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual level. I feel honored to be amongst top quality sobriety and to be friends to people across this land and across other lands and to go into places and stand for something. I can remember going to family dinners while I was drinking, they would be having a discussion or a reunion of what something they were going to do. And I would speak up to say something. Oh, shut up. Everybody knows you stay drunk. You don't even know what you're saying. And being ridiculed to the point that you have no voice in your own family. But I have a voice today. The chairman of the board of directors and the CEO make very few moves without my opinion. I have a voice today because I sponsor a lot of people. And they think I know something. You know, they don't know that lack of power is still my dilemma. They don't Know that I had to plug in my spiritual cell phone in order to stay charged up to do this thing and remain in perpetual prayer. And that's where I don't have to get back to God's station. I just want to stay on your station. Now, you see me fixing to do something. Just stop me. You know, let me have a flat tire or something, you know. Just don't let me go where I ain't supposed to go. Don't let Me do what I ain' supposed to do. Don't Let Me say what I Ain't supposed To say. Because I would have been divorced instead of celebrating 30 years in December if I listened to my mind. You ever run stuff around in your head? You ever been wrong? I ain'T never wrong. When it stays up in my head, I am right. And I justify it. I looked over at my husband one night and he's right back on the platform rocker, nodding at the TV. And I thought, I'm a very blessed woman. That is a handsome man. And he's so peaceful and he're so kind. I am really blessed. Read my book a little bit more. Looked back up at him. What the hell am I talking about? He ain't handsome. He's ugly. And I'm the sucker because I'm still working and he's just sitting there. Turn that whole thing around. Now I have to stay out of there. When I go in there, I have to be armed and ready for what's in there. So it is a good thing to receive the gift of sobriety. But it is a powerful thing to maintain what you have received because if you don't maintain, you can move into the most beautiful house and garden in the world. Never pull the weeds out. Never paint the house. Never clean it up. And pretty soon you got a dump in a million dollar neighborhood. And so I believe with all my heart that it's equally important that we maintain what we have obtained. Don't try to make it be what you want it to be. You know, like I don't go to the dentist and tell him my rectum is bleeding. So I don' t come back to Alcoholic Anonymous and tell you all my ain't it awfuls. You know, I need some help because I'm in the crack house doing Bible study. I need some help because I took heroin. I need som help because I took this and I took that. I'm a workaholic. I'm sexaholic I am so many addictive personalities that would make your head swim if you had seen me when I walked in here. But through the grace of God, I've narrowed it down. And let me tell you, the gift, the greatest gift in the world is that I have a singleness of purpose activity. And I have an opportunity to do that. I have my primary purpose that nobody can take away from me. Nobody. My primary purpose, and I pray that it's yours, is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. I have a great God that handles everything, keeps me from doing dumb things that will cause me years of pain. Allows me to allow my adult children to be what they are and what they decide they want to be. And I ain't meddling in nobody's affairs. My son and his wife were having some trouble. He goes, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. I said, well, whatever you do, you've had experiences right and left to make a choice. I showed you how to get rid of them. I showed You how to Get Them In. Now You decide. And it is so much easier to mind my own business. So when You come up and tell me, well I'm doing okay but my lover is acting crazy. I don't talk about lovers. Don't tell me about your lover. Don't Tell Me About Your Husband. Don'tTellMeAboutYourWife. because your husband and your wife are not my sponsees. You are. And so I know what to do with myself sometimes, and when I don't, I go to a meeting and somebody tells me and somebody guides me and directs my path, and then every now and then I get a nudge from the judge, you can't do that. And I'm set up back on the road to recovery. I'm grateful to God to be a part of this thing. This is a gift. This is not a right. You know, I didn't do anything to earn this thing, but I'm doing a lot to keep it. I'm staying willing and I'm ready and I're wide open. You can come up to me and say, you know, crazy as a loon, I like to have sex with the catkins. I said, well, that must be mighty painful. I don't think I'd do that anymore. you know if you take it that's fine if you don't it's okay with me because I know that it takes what it takes and all of us have to go through what we got to go through to get where we're going I'm just kind of lazy and kind of tired of pain so I try to get to the solution as fast as I can never mind what the problem is never mind because I got enough in me to build up a mountain of pain. But I don't choose to climb that mountain of pain, I just walk around in the valley because there's value in the Valley there's learning in the Valleys and every now and then you get to take a swing across the Valley this is a wonderful fabulous program it is unbelievable I believe with all my heart that in the very beginning of my recovery when a chaplain was on the ward looking for me, trying to give me this little book. He gave me the truth way back when I just had a couple of few days. And on the cover of a meditation book was be still and know that I am God. I am in all creation. I have enwrapped myself in you. Know this, my child. This is the truth that is setting you free. And when my sponsor said, all you got to do is uncover, discover, and discard, and then maintain, and it's a lot easier. I uncovered a lot of stuff that I held on to. I discovered why I held onto it because I had a need. It's much easier to wash Tom's back than it is to wash my back. So I got to talk about what he does and what he doesn't do when my back is getting dirty all the time. And then I had to discard a lot of stuff that was no longer saleable, no longer serving a purpose. And then leave the space open long enough for some new orders to be written. And since I found out no human power could relieve my alcoholism, I became grossly involved with studying and listening to what could relieve my ism. My big book told me then and it tells me now that God could and would if he was thought. So I seek on a daily basis. How can I share and serve and help? And not just like, because I don't really try to help people because I ain't got what it takes no way. But I share what I have and hope that it might allow you to help yourself. So if you're new, I encourage you to keep coming back. And I know St. Thomas ain't just running over with Alcoholic Anonymous on every corner. but you can seek and I just believe that you will find and I pray that you will use that big book as your guiding force in that 12 and 12 and take every opportunity to hear these old timers so you can stand on their shoulders one day and become an old timer and I feel greatly honored to be with Clancy and Tom this weekend this is a special privilege to me and to be here to see Clancy get his chip just knocks me out. I am overpaid, wonderfully blessed, and I am not more than what God would do for anybody in this room or in this world. What I call a miracle is God's everyday way of doing things. I'm grateful that you're here. I'M GRATEFUL THAT I'M HERE AND I PRAY THAT GOD WILL PERMEATE THIS PLACE AND I'M GOING TO SIT DOWN BUT BEFORE I DO I'M GONNA KIND OF SHARE A PRAYER with you that was given to me on the birthday card at my very first birthday by the sergeant who wanted to bust me and put me in a penitentiary. And he brought me a card, and on the front it was a poem by Helen Steiner Rice, and it's Bless us, Heavenly Father, forgive our erring ways. Grant us strength to serve you. Keep putting purpose in our days. Give us understanding enough to keep us kind so that we may judge each other with our hearts and not our minds. Help us to be faithful in everything we do. Let us stay content to trust your wisdom and to follow after you. Master, help us as we falter and hear us as we pray. Grant that we may walk hand in hand with you, with each other, each day. May God richly bless and keep us all and keep us coming back to serve this primary purpose of staying sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Thank you. applause applause We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.twelvesteptapes.com