The Spiritual Muscle of Staying Teachable – Sharon B.

I didn't get moving on the first of our step workshops, but I did want to make a brief introduction since Sharon came in late last night. Some of you may not have met her. In fact, some of you might have been woken up by us in the middle of the night last night, but we've been talking back and forth with Sharon for a while now about this weekend, and I've had the opportunity to talk to her a bit more, and it is an honor to introduce you here today. So please help me welcome Sharon B. from Los Angeles, California. good morning my name is Sharon Barker I'm an alcoholic and I'd love this please restate the question okay whatever it is whatever that's my question a lot of times that's my prayers in the morning whatever let me just get out of the way so I can see it hear it feel it do what I'm supposed to do but I feel Marsha's energy still here at the podium so if I if I start doing this I guess that's that's the fothering in me coming out um i could still be very much a chameleon to fit in but like i said i am an alcoholic and i know that about myself um and i'm um since you guys do do this here i'm a member of the pacific group in west los angeles and i my sobriety date's august 20th 1975 and i've um i am definitely in the process still in my life of learning growing staying teachable and that's one thing i would like to stress first of all first of all thank everybody for bringing me here and having such a good sense of humor with me coming in late and i'm sorry if we woke a few of you up and um we'll work on amends later and from the afternoon if we've all had lunch maybe a little nap but i feel um you know it was hard to work all day or most of the day and and uh lie to my boss which oh i don't know what i'm going to do about that and um you know come to a women's conference um and to feel the joy of alcoholics anonymous because it's a nurturing thing for me to be with you um i don't plan to get much sleep i don'T plan to um you KNOW DO ANY SHOPPING i PLAN TO BE WITH YOU TO BE IN THE PROCESS OF THE GIVE AND TAKE OF GOD THIS WEEKEND AND THAT'S HEART TO HEART AND THATS EXPERIENCE that we will share that nobody can take away from us. So whatever you put into this weekend, whatever you have in your life, whatever you've put in is something that you will have a memory of. I don't come to places and look to see what I can take anymore. I come toplaces to see what I could put in and how to be of service to one of God's kids. So I want to let you know that right up front that this is my experience. Any of these workshops are my experience This is what I have to share with you That is my most valuable treasure is my experiences I didn't go to a school to learn to do this you know I've not gone to a place to learn how to read and memorize what's on every page of the big book if that worked for me I'd be doing that if we could read the book learn and memorize it we'd all be sitting at home reading and memorizing the big books we wouldn't need the fellowship we wouldn'T need the interaction and that's what always makes this type of experience joyful for me is the interaction so i hope we have a lot of that going because that that works for me and i hope it works for you because you know the circle and triangle the recovery of the steps are the base that's it that's something that only you can experience only you Can experience the steps the way you're supposed to experience the Steps I can't make you experience the step I can force you to experience steps I can hand it to you on a silver platter even if i wanted it's something that that happens from the inside as you as you take the steps of alcoholics synonymous it's your experience i believe that as we go through the steps and as we goes through experiencing life sober that there are things called you know everybody's got their own genetic makeup and code but there are things called spiritual fingerprints that could put on your soul and and whatever touches you That's your fingerprint. That's part of your fingerprint, that's part of your experience, that nobody can have that, and that is a joy for you, that is what makes you an unique person, that' s what makes me a unique person. Those experiences that have touched my soul. And I think when we share all those, we find out a lot of them come from the same source, but they're each our own individual experience, so I can't stress that enough. The steps are an individual experience now we need teachers we need guides we need you know we need loving sponsors we need kind women we need women to you know knock us over the head we need whatever we need along the way to stay teachable and i think that um you know the first three steps to me are about deflating the ego and you know i didn't understand the word ego when i got here and they said it's Well, it's thinking about yourself. I mean, it is like you think... I think about myself all the time. I mean it is just... My ego is alive and well and loud, you know? And I have learned how to put alcoholics synonymous as another voice, the healthy voice that makes that part alive, well, and loud because it is Like a muscle. You know, if I turn to this ego, loud vulture that sits on the bed even at five in the morning when I got my time this morning, you now? Five in the mornings, throw that in once. it was alive and well and waiting. It doesn't need sleep. My ego doesn't need sleep, it doesn't really need any food, it doesn' t need any coffee, it is alive and well and yapping at me before I even open my eyes. So I have learned how to put the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous that voice over the loud voice of my ego and by exercising the principles you know the unity the service the triangle the whole balance that voice has gotten a lot louder but i but i have to keep it loud you know it gets quiet it needs that voice needs food that voice means action that voice meets love that voice needs to be you know to be malleable and put in a place so that it's constantly like a heartbeat that voice need to constantly be going because this other one it i don't know it will always probably be there it is my alcoholism not my alcohol wasm you know it still is there it talks a lot in the book about how your how the alcoholism centers in the mind and it stays in the mine and it stays loud so i know that it's like a it's like a muscle you don't have to keep this one alive and well and working on it every day of my life on this planet as I trudged the road with you in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I used to hate that word, trudge, because, but it was, you know, the book was built, it was built. It was built! It was written and built! In, you now, 39 when the word trudge meant something really great because they were all trudging off to, you kno, save the world with democracy. And trudge was like a real positive word. I got a dictionary for my babies, that's 1940. so we read these words as they were written because that's like trudge oh god i trudged my whole life before i got here i felt heavy and tired and shoulders slumped and you know i trudged before i Got Here but no back when they wrote that book trudge was a powerful forceful let's do it en masse let's all go and trudge and make the world better place you know so it was it was a positive word so as we as i trudge through my life in alcoholics and i was like I envision myself, we're all kind of suited up in armor and showing up for, you know, God's fight, whatever it is today. Is it that newcomer over there? Is it this one who's hanging on to that sick relationship? You know, is it whatever we have to do? We're, you now, we are dressed and ready for battle. You know? And I kind of like that because I was always a rebel. You know. And coming to Washington, D.C., it's kind of, it's a little bit, got a little memory for me. because, you know, back in the 60s when some of you were being born I was out marching on Washington and I was doing a lot of that dressing up for battle and I had ideals that were so high and huge nobody could ever, ever match them in my life so everybody disappointed me so why do I need just a scree? I'm alone. Put my backpack on don't need anyone to see ya so on one hand I always had these wonderful ideals on the other hand it was my alcoholism that just said nobody can ever help me and nobody's ever enough and nothing's ever enough so that's my peace sign, my one finger you know peace sign it didn't work out well so coming to Washington kind of brought back a lot of those memories of how I used to get excited about oh having a cause and today my cause is to stay sober and to fit myself to be of service to God and the people about me that's my cause, if I have to have a cause and I can't do it in a big boisterous look at me hold up a placard, be on TV tear gas, whatever way people will think I'm crazy I haveto do it in a way that's got some grace and dignity, I havetodo it ina way that'sgot the walk and the talk as Marcia said this morning I havedodo itin a way that feels right inside my guts and I havedo be honest and true to who I've become, to who I am becoming. And a lot of times I just go, why me God? You know? But then I think, why not me God You know, Norm Alpe used to say, God gives the big loads to the big horses and the little loads to the guys named Norm. You know. And it's a little load to come here and be with you this weekend. You know it's a joy. It's a joy and we all have the shoulders to carry it together. I don't do anything alone. And that's a lot what the first three steps taught me is that I don't have to do anything alone again when i came here i was alone i was desperate i was lonely i was arrogant i was angry um and i didn't know any of those things because i was so rummy i was så out of it i was só dead inside um and and you know my my first sponsor god bless her There was a woman who was shorter than me, and she had a very large kind of being in her face. I just remember she had like a really big mouth and like big eyes and big fingernails. And she would like kind of get in my face like that. She was shorter then me, so I mean she would come at me like this and I'd kind of look at her, you know. I mean, if I wouldn't have been so tired, I might have just cold-cocked her or something, you know, because that's get out of my face. She was like a yapping dog. And I think Caroline knew Janet. And Janet was my first sponsor. And she was somebody who, believe me, I didn't want in my life. I didn'T know anything about a sponsor. and i got one because somebody kept bugging me to get one and he had uh he put his finger in my face as i would wash the cups after the wednesday night meeting because that's what i was capable of doing that was my commitment put her in the dishwater maybe she can wash a cup you know so this guy was the dryer and he wouldn't leave me alone you know you better get a sponsor you're going to get drunk and he had this Texas accent and I didn't like him so I got a sponsor and this woman walked me through the first five steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and you know I had no I didn' t even know where I was coming I didn''t even know I think I came to maybe in the second week going I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous you know it hadn' t even really registered I just knew these people were picking me up and dropping me off and telling me not to drink and use in between picking me up dropping me off and the joy of God working in my life before I even knew it was that God's grace had started working before I ever knew it. I was staying sober. I'm the kind of alcoholic that runs into a bar, beats my fist. I'm an alcoholic, I've got to have a drink now because they've got me a drink faster in the bars I drank at. I mean, they knew, okay, put it out. We don't want to have any sort of shakes going on here and we don't have to call the paramedics or get a drink. So that's the kind OF alcohol. I didn't wait for a drink when the craving hit me, I went for it. I didn' t wait, I didn''t think about it, I did' n't wonder. I lived my life around alcohol. I didn't try to have a semblance of a job or a real life. I just didn't. It was alcohol consumed my life, and I couldn't even see it. I couldn'T even see IT. So when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was like, of course I couldn' t even see that. I was just sitting in the rooms of AlcoholicsAnonymous when I realized, oh, I am sitting in the rooms about AlcoholicsAnenos. That's how out of it I was. So I'm not telling you I walked in here and went, oh, gee, what's step one? Let me read it, do it, figure it out, ingest it spit it out you know share it with somebody else i've got four days who's the newcomer let me help you know and it just didn't uh it didn't work that way and um god's grace began to work without my knowledge thank god because i would have gone get away god i left you in a catholic confessional when i was 19 years old because we were discussing politics and i got that priest so mad he came around and we were screaming at one another in this church and I shook my fist and I said see you God see you Catholic Church never again and it talks about reliance not defiance and I was so defiant I was just so angry and defiant I had no idea how to rely on anything but my wild crazy loud ego disease because it was powerful it was my disease in full force full form is powerful it is a tornado ripping through anybody's life who stands next to me you know i'm in the tornado but yeah most of the time and that's the size so it's the way i just live my life it's twirling twirlling twirlING and you get used to it isn't that sad we can get used to anything you know you can get use to having a mundane sobriety or you can get used having a sobriete full of excitement full of knowledge full of heart full of watching that newcomer full of I mean just adopt one you know full of new beginnings every single day of your life if you're in the game so if nothing else maybe this weekend if you are not in the team I encourage you to suit up and get in the game because sitting on the stands you can't experience what you experienced down in the playing field you know and maybe you're on the edge at first and you're not quite sure what's this game what's the ball what do I do with the ball is it hockey sack soccer football what are you doing but you're there and you're suited up you're on the field there's a chance somebody might go hey come over here I need you and you start to get in the game of the balance of the triangle recovery, unity, service of alcoholics and non-alcoholics and I think the first three steps for me in fact I think we should read them we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable that first sponsor said to me as I was 31 days sober and I went oh my god I don't have to raise it anymore because I hadn't raised for me. So I, all right, to fit in here, I'll do this. You know, um, I went 31 days. How'd that happen? How did that happen? I never waited. I had a bottle of Jose Cuervo in my bag at the bar where they're buying. I mean, I wasn't going to run out, you know? So admitting I was powerless around alcohol, my sponsor said, you raised your hand for 30 days, didn't you? And I really, I am an out-of-it newcomer. Oh, yeah. Well, you admitted it by raising your hand for 30 days. Now, what about your life being unmanageable? And I said to her, I had a broken jaw, so I really couldn't talk the first three months I was there. But I did say to her like this. I said, well, if I had matching luggage, my life would probably be manageable. I came to you with this broken jaw and nose knocked off, a paper bag, a mismatched goods, some bloody clothes for my last encounter, a quarter in my pocket. And I'm thinking matching luggage would have made my life manageable. Is that insane? That leads you right into step two. You know what I mean? But so, so she said, okay, I'll accept that for now. You knows, she said you read three pages of that big book every night. You read the black and white. You don't think about it. You Don't rewrite it. you read it and you try to remember it that was a real hard thing for me because i couldn't read when i came to alcoholic synonyms i couldn'T contain anything i am the type of person that you say something to me two weeks later in bed i will wake up at four in the morning and go i should have said this i had the great perfect comeback and i should've said that so then you walk around that person for the next two months your life waiting for them to say it again so You can do a great comeback, you know. And they say something and you come back with this totally inappropriate comeback and they all look at you like, are you living in the now? No, I wasn't living inthe now. I didn't know how to liveinthenow. It was so short-circuited. You know computers, we all have to know them these days, whether you like it or not. But, you ever look in one, it's got all this stuff that makes it happen. You know, if you yank something out, it starts to do funny things. And then there's all these wires, how do you put it back together? when Alcoholics Anonymous I was a short-circuited computer and we put things back one wire at a time one wire to time and and it took a long time for me to come back physically come back mentally come back to a point where even spiritually I could even begin to take a deep breath and open up and um emotionally I was off the charts for a while and I didn't even know because I had no feelings i was so it was like i had you know it was it was like you cut off my ride and put it over there that's the way i felt about anything was nothing it's over there i am over there yeah i wasn't in here at all my alcoholism had stripped me of myself and i had given it willingly that's the deal i gave it willingly and that's the power of alcohol no matter who what where what was laid out for me what was given to me who loved me who didn't love me The power of alcohol, I took that road every time. Every single time didn't even bat an eye because alcohol worked for me. And it talks a lot about the types of alcoholics, the doctor's opinion, the craving. And as Marcia said, I just will work with the 12 and 12 and the big book. And you guys can all help me with what page number it's on. I like my friend Howard Pollens. He, like, throws page numbers out there because he wants people to see if they're really paying attention. They'll come up and correct him afterwards. I think, no, that's on page 77, not 75. And another thing has happened to me in my maturity. I've had to get reading glasses, so... Oh, God. So you're not here now, but... But the book is. But, you know, it talks about the types of alcoholic, like and it talks about the uh in the doctor's opinion um men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol you know and i didn't see the doctor opinion for a long time until it was pointed out to me in a step study i just kind of read right over that but i think it's really important you know the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injury injurious they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false boy was that me you know i had no idea what was true was usually right in front of me and what i wanted you know and and that was all the stuff killing me all the time all the time and uh so if you're having some trouble finding out if there's some power of alcohol in your life if alcohol had some power over your life you know ask yourself a few questions make yourself a list i suggest this to people when you drink what happens turn it over when you stay sober does number one happen does number two happen does number three happen try to tell me does that happen do you wake up stuck to something or somebody in the morning and not remember who or where they are make some major points of your life when you were drinking some of those just mortifying experiences that my mother will never know nor does she have to know but you understand and you know we can identify you know make some of the write them down and look at them and janet janet had me i was so out of it janet have me read those three pages and i would ask her what does this mean and i didn't know what words meant i was always going to the dictionary you know and i'm an a student an a b student you know i was never one to be my sister who's mensa you know so i never wanted to be book read because she was you know god who's who's being hurt here attitudes like that I take into life you know I'm not reading because my sister reads you know but that's a powerful amend I had to make with my sister in life and and how being that second child behind a very brilliant woman what it did for me not to me so I hope I remember to talk about that down the road but um our lives have become unmanageable where was the power of alcohol in my life what what area of my life was was without alcohol what area of my life was manageable you know i was into defiance not reliance now and when i could finally see okay yeah maybe alcohol's a problem when i can finally admit that then she said okay then we're ready for step two you know and i i said i'm not insane i mean it's the first thing i hear from so many people is i'm not insane you know the same people are locked up well i just kept moving i really kept moving and i knew if they got a hold of me in a hospital they They wouldn't let me go. I knew that in my heart, so I kept moving a lot. So, you know, I think the first four chapters of the big book, and when we have a step study, we take four to five weeks to go through those with Bill's story and writing and sharing. We take four or five weeks. Four to five months to go though those. The identification and the time spent on that gets you comfortable enough to the point where you can accept something inside other than yourself and your ego and take that third step prayer with somebody else so that you can move into some sort of fourth step of honesty of some sortof clarity because I had no clarity it took a long time for me to get through those first three steps it really, it took me 11 months it took my, and it takes you five years, who cares I mean, if I sponsor you, I care, you know. But, I mean it's experience, it's what I feel works for me. It's what i feel works with the sick cases like me. You know, the types of alcoholics are pointed out in the big book too, you now. And we're not all alike. But if alcohol had an effect in your life that was more powerful than, you know, your mother begging you, please don't go out and drive tonight, you can't even see you know oh screw your mom give me the keys you know i mean the insanity of just that that movement right there the insanity OF MY ACTIONS when i could look back at some of my actions the insanity Of LOOKING AT SOME OF MY actions oh yeah that's right go talk to someone in the supermarket share an experience with them over the peaches as they are you know peaches are kind of a thing in the supermarket you have to take your time on you know you got to get the right ones and everybody's kind of feeling them and trying not to bruise them and get the good ones. And, you know, if they drop one, they kind of stick it back. Peaches take a while at the market. So if you're out there with the peaches and you can kind of build up a little conversation with somebody and they say, hi, how are you? Say fine. How are you okay? Well, you know once when i was in jail i mean start with a seemingly normal person over peaches doing something normally tell them about one of your escapades that will show another human being on the level of how we all have to live as human beings with each other the insanity you know i didn't put myself in danger i put other people in danger all the time you know who cares about me You know, I'm living my life and I'm footloose and fancy free and I am not hurting anybody but myself. Ego-based comment. Defiance, not reliance. And I had to be beat into a place of going, okay, maybe I don't have all the answers. Broken jaw, broken nose, rape, beaten up, thrown into alcoholic synonymous with a quarter in my pocket. Okay, okay, baby. i was tired and that's the best place to be about answers tired because retired can come teachable if the teachers are there and they were thank god i fell into alcoholics anonymous where i belong so step two was you know the way my sponsor told me how i really worked the step because i was so into how am i working the steps you know it's like I love the word taking the steps. It's like, you know, you do have to work. I mean, it's like a spiritual muscle. You've got to work at it every day of your life or I backslide. So I have to stay. It's not like brushing my teeth or my teeth fall out. I have take care of what I've been given. But I kept saying, she said, all right, do you remember when you had to go back to New Orleans to get your clothes? Now, I attended bar in New Orleans. I danced in New Angeles. I had these outfits that were costumes, but they were my clothes. And nonetheless, at about four months of sobriety, three to four months, I started to get itchy feet. And I'm a runner. I am a runner, so what do I do when things are starting to get a little tough and God, I've been here too long and they might get to know me and then they'll find out and they'll ask me to leave, so I'm going to go. I mean, that's what starts with me. I am the runner. And I have to be hip to that. You know, today I have to know where that's coming from. So I wanted to go back to get my clothes and I didn't have enough self-worth to panhandle the guys in the group for a plane ticket. So I started asking them for money for bus fare. And I would, you know, get my quarters going, maybe I'd get a dollar and I was starting to put together my bus fare and one night she got wind of what I was doing. She said, what are you doing? I said, I have no idea so I had to go back and get my clothes. You know I'm going to make home on here now and alcoholics anonymous and i've got to go back and get my clothes she said if you go back to that french quarter you're never coming back she was smarter than me she'd been down the path a little bit between me and her as air between me is me that's pretty scary so you always need a sponsor to see right through that you know um so i ended up sitting she said sit on your hands grab the seat don't move i know she's a runner too she knew how i felt she spotted it she said i don't care if you have to sit and grip the seat do not go it will pass i had never heard it will past before it doesn't pass you do something about a feeling you know celebrate a feeling so i sat there that night and i was so mad at her thank god she got the anger in me going because the anger kept me here because she made me mad i'm going to prove her wrong and i'd sit there and hang on to that seat just do it tonight you know and then i'll show up tomorrow night because i have to wash those cups hang on just do what tonight and i don't know when it happened but maybe two three four nights later i wasn't gripping the seat anymore and i realized the feeling passed she was a power greater than me that had restored me some sanity with my next move and she said that's the way you you took step two she showed me an action i had done by staying inside the doors of alcoholics and i was instead of listening to my ego in my head and um so that made it okay and then she said now we're ready for step three it's like okay i don't know about this god stuff you know believer gone awry then there's the agnostic then there'S the atheist you know um then thereS the believer no we all come in here different ways with whatever our god was is going to be has to be in order to stay sober and um to me my sponsor was my first god and alcoholics and i was she because she was the power greater than me she was louder than my head and then the group maybe became because i liked the fellowship a little bit we were starting to have a good time, you know. And eventually I got to my own God. But it was a process for me. I didn't wake up one morning, jump on my knees and go, I've got it, you now. It was a process for m. It took some time, it took some experience of being with you, it took some listening, it takes some being quiet, it took some taking a deep breath and just being still, which I don't do well. Still this day a lot of my meditation is jogging keeps my mind quiet um so we were in her house and we got on our knees and she had a young son and a young daughter and they were there and they were running around and it was a bright day and the curtains were open i don't even think the front door was open and she put me right there on the carpet took out the book page 63 we read she said we're going to read this prayer together well did i feel like an idiot or what i mean i totally felt like an idea but okay janet anything to appease her because i don't want to hear her with her mouth and her fingernails so you know when you got someone all excited about the program pulling you to your knees you know okay okay i was still surrendered enough see that's the whole point of coming in surrendered to Alcoholics Anonymous or surrendered to whatever's here in front of you, you don't even know, was to keep that surrender, to keep that teachability, to work that muscle, to get used to that person in your life, that surrender person, the one that I carry on my hip, the one that goes, okay, let me learn something today because I don't have all the answers. So we said this third step prayer and I'd like to know if we could do it together, you know. So it's on the little program if you don't know it. And it's not page 63. You want to put it in the book? We can just kind of say it together. That would be nice. Because I need it. Big selfish for a moment. Okay. God, I offer myself to thee To build with me To do with me as thou wilt Relieve me of the bondage of self That I may better do thy will Take away my difficulties That victory over them May bear witness to those I would help Of thy power, thy love And thy way of life May I do thy Will always thank you that was a nice feeling um in the room with my sponsor she had a great feeling and i've done some powerful third steps with babies that i feel it and they're going what is that all about you know so i i've been on both sides of it and i understand you know and if you're just saying the words there's no feeling there you know hold dear your efforts hold dear your efforts um she jumped up and she was just full of those you know god bumps and you know god with skin on the chicken skin they call it you know and and she was hugging me and having a good time and she's like going here and she is right here you know right in my chest just just into it and i'm going let go in my mind let go i'm not saying this to her of course let go let go and then all of a sudden i relaxed into her love and it felt good and then my next thought because i have a very sick loud ego said you must be gay That was my very first third step. So we had new issues to talk about. I was being given unconditional love, and I had no idea what it felt like, especially stark raving sober like my body was. So that was my first third steps. And I want to share with you, andI want to be able to open this up a little too, but I want to tell you that my first real god in Alcoholics Anonymous was Beacon's Moving Van and thank you for my room number 13 I love the number because there's this old bureau in there and when I looked at it I thought that would have been something Beacons would have moved and do you know how they put them in those quilty things and they wrap them around and they move them from place to place the place, and that one's got a knob off. The drawers are hard to open. It's a little tilted. It's got lots of scratch, but it made it to room 13. And that's the way I felt about my God and the Beacons truck. That was this old bureau that he had wrapped, and we had gone from New York to Wisconsin to Iowa to St. Louis to New Orleans to Mississippi to Florida to California to Colorado. We'd been a few places looking for truth, you know? But God got me to my destination, in Alcoholics Anonymous, a little scraped a little bit, you know, a little something knob off here, knob off there. But God got me to AlcoholicsAnonymous. And so when I was standing outside the Thursday night meeting and she tromped by me, she click, click, clicked these little high heels by me. I was sitting talking to newcomers. I must have been about six, seven months sober like I had. I was with the newcomers, I was at that evangelical stage of knowing everything and you've got to stay sober and this is great on fire with it not that I had even worked very many it was step shit but I was like you've gotta put us out there when we're like that that's when you should send us to bars we'll just grab all those stores so we're all excited so I was there and I was pontificating to these newcomers next to me and I said I was with my boyfriend girl meets boy on AA campus there's a little spot here where I've had my hyppendectomy because we were joined We were joined right here, and we did everything together. So we're here together and talking to the newcomers, and she click, click, clicks by me after the Thursday night meeting. She's listening to me as she's walking by. You think they're not, but they are. She said, you better get your own God or you're going to get drunk. And she walked on by. I thought, I am here with these newcomers and you're making me look bad. And you are pissing me off. And there was a Beacons truck parked across the street, and it just clicked. It was really not my fault, you know, because I couldn't have thought that fast. I was still two weeks later in bed, you now, that kind of thing. So I said, come here, Janet. You know, and for some reason she came back, and she stood there with, she had, and then she had a leg shorter than each other because she walked like, you knows, she stuck it out, did this, and hot pants and little clicky shoes. And she stuck her hand on her hip, you know. That's what she used to say when one leg was shorter than the other. I think she just liked to walk like that. She stuck her hands on her hips and she stood there. She said, yeah. And I said, that's my higher power beacons moving then. It's like, I'm like an old bureau and I got it. And I started explaining. And the newcomers are going, oh, yeah, they're getting it. They're with me, you Know. And she's just looking at me. She lets me finish, which is rare. And she said, well, good, as long as it's not you. And she walked on by. You know, you don't want to use that B word at all, but you just kind of want to say, you know what, you are. But I just kindof sat there and ate it. And I thought, I'll pray to beacons moving then till the day I die. Just to make you mad. And to this day, I was in Texas missing a plane with an old-timer named Charlie Threadgill. God bless him, but he drives slow, you know, and he had for 40 years i can't go will you hurry up there charlie you know i gotta be respectful and we're going to the airport and he's talking and i'm like sweating you know not gonna make my plane and uh like who cares but i gotta make my plane and this beacons truck goes right by us v-e-k-i big one you know and it's like i took a deep breath when i knew everything was going to be okay i need to be reminded god is god either is or he isn't and as my sponsor once wrote to me as i was getting on a plane if he isn't we're all dead anyway so get on that plane and quit being afraid because i had this terrible fear of flying i hope to talk about that in the defects too but i started the process of praying to beacons um people send me pictures they i saw one in colorado took a picture here it is you know they'll write me a note i get phone calls just saw beacoms man i want to know if you're okay you know my son who when he was you know six and seven you know he knew i prayed to beacons to have these little trucks around the house you know and so we're going to kindergarten or first grade and i'm telling him how he should be in life you know and he's like a kid you know i'm just like listening to me on mom's on one of these again you know her soapbox and he'd like look mom there's two beacoms trucks so happy to see him on the freeway you know oh okay honey and it just changed everything because I need to know God is. Every single day of my life, I have to get on my knees. And that was the point my sponsor taught me is getting on my needs. I am not in charge. Being on my knee is a position for me to be available to a power greater than me. It humbles me. It's a position of physicality that even humbles me. I feel like one of God's kids when I'm on my niece. I used to feel stupid. I used feel like God don't know where I am. Please don't put the lightning bolt down. You know? Because I would pray at 2, 3, 4 in the morning because she said you've got to get on your knees and say Thank you for all you've given me. Thank you for all you've taken away from me. Thank you for all you've left me. She wrote this down for me and I slept on her couch so I had to say these prayers. I had to be gracious. You know, I had manners so I would wait until three, four, five in the morning when I knew God was asleep and I'd sneak out of that couch and get on my knees and say the prayer and get back in. You know? And that's the way it was. I was very afraid of God for a long time and God was wrapping me in his white light and bringing me to alcoholics and I had no idea until you know i need a guide in my life i need a guy to my life and god comes to me in human forms i need god with skin on you know I really do i need the interaction of life because god is life and god is love and um you know chuck says it chuck sees to say it's a thousand to nothing it's not okay i do 50 you do 50. you know love is a thousand and nothing and when i can come from that place which is bigger than me boy i'll tell you bigger than me it's a thousand to nothing because it's for fun and for free there's nothing attached to it and um i was never ever like that before ever i was one of those self-obsessed afraid children who was defiant and angry all the time and i have had a psychic change talks about this psychic change what's the psychic change something bigger than the it's the process it comes by the experience it comes by doing what I didn't believe. You know, I didnít believe all this stuff. I just did it because this woman was more powerful than me. She was more powerfully than me to me. I listened to her because I was very afraid. I was starting to feel a little bit better physically. I started to feel a little better mentally. Emotionally took a long time and spiritually took a lot of time but I got to get... You know my boyfriend talks about this, Casey. I love him. Heís a great guy. Heís on the program almost 15 years. he talks about how God is to him sometimes and if you're driving down, like around here I don't know if they've got orchards, apple orchards I bet they do but in Iowa where I grew up they have corn rows and sometimes you drive in bean fields and it's just a nice green big bunch a couple of acres of stuff out there but then you catch out the corn in your eye you catch it all out in a row everything's all laid out planned just for a minute you get a glimpse of God just for an minute you gets a glimpse of order just for a minute you get a glimpse of it you know and that's all i need that's all i mean when i'm aware and i'm with it that's only that spiritual food for me today you know a lot of times i get it with the phone call a lot times i did it looking at my kids eyes all the time to see in the sunset a lot of times I get to read it in a poem you know God is there for me every single day of my life you know I had that psychic change so God has become within me whether I like it or not you know if i drink i'm pouring it on god i'm saying see ya it's bigger than me now alcoholics and now this is the power of my life so i there was a lot of other things i made fun little notes on but you know it happens like it happens and i'm just going to quit now and open it up to questions so like that 15 minutes of um you guys yeah thanks carol hi carol how long the process takes and stuff. And I realize sometimes I read about it and I don't know if it's true or not. Carol is asking the question, how long does the process take? She's had the same kind of experience I had when I shook my fist at God and I was a young woman. How long are you sober, Carol? Two and a half years. Two and an half years, and she's having trouble struggling to find God in your life. Am I correct with restating your question? um i uh it depends on what level you're asking me with the catholic church thing took a long time took a lot of time um finding a god took the prodding of the sponsor finding god took it was just the natural process to to come to in my life because i got you know it was for such a rebel as myself it was so great to be able to have my own god and i picked beacons by god and that's my own God you know and I knew that nobody sitting in my group had beacons as a God you know if nothing else it was my rebellion worked for me there because I began to believe in beacoms I began to believe in something other than me and to pray to something and I did my prayers on my knees whether I wanted to or not because my sponsor insisted and she would remember I used to have to tie a string around my toothbrush and that may help you guys you know she said you brush your teeth twice a day don't you and i will then start she said and tie a string around it and uh hit your knees twice a bay whether you believe it or not when you brush your teeth that's what that string is to remember and i had this leather tong i used to wear in my long braided hair and i tied it around my toothbrush and that thing was on there for a long time different toothbrushes same little leather piece and i remember when i finally gave that to somebody else to put on their toothbrush it was like a piece of me you know but you got to give it away to keep it so every once in a while I give those kind of things away when the moment hits me you know tie this if this worked for me it will work for you you know so I don't know that just came to my mind was that experience with tying that string around my toothbrush and doing it anyway on my knees and in the morning it was please keep me safe standing sober and you know like I said my prayers are a lot of whatever just let me see it and at night it's thank you and it was real simple but it was on my knees and it started you know and you might be standing there one day pontificating with people newer than you and something will strike you and you'll that'll come you know because that's bigger than you because you've cleared the channel of your ego so you know you're wanting it you're in the process you're open to it you know just keep your eyes and your heart open to you you're there you know it's like you gotta let go and you go okay but if I let go I'm standing on air you know and it's like no there's something right as soon as you let go you see where you get to grab as soon but you can't have it until you let it come and grab something new because I needed something new and I am in full amends with the Catholic Church I am come full circle with that took a long time I'll talk about that in amends thanks Carol yes oh yes Camilla the question asker good that's great I wonder, have you experienced a book about the first step? I would like to hear some more about the first step. Have you been in places where this is my experience that I am not as good now and really don't need the first step because that is manageable and then boom, something happens. Could you talk a little bit about that? Camilla. Camilla with how much time? Eight years. Eight years. She's talking about the first step and wants to know about thinking, oh, gee, I'm going along fine and I don't need the first step so much anymore because my life has now become manageable by me. Isn't that what you said? By me, yeah. Checking. And then boom, something brings you to your knees. Thank God, Camilla. Thank God something brought you back to your needs. Because when I, I mean, we can, I can be, I work at a big law firm. I work with Harvard-type, Yale-type smartest of the smart, cream-of-the-crop guys and I'm one of their managers and I have to go in and get things from them that nobody else can I've been there a long time I've got a lot of skills I've Got The Managing Partner behind me they know that I've gotten his support I think I'm powerful with these guys I can walk in, stand toe-to-toe get what I want from them and they know welcome Sharon Barker you know, they all kind of run you know it's like I have some power in this you know and then I get in my car and get on the freeway God bless you I get into my car and get out of the free way how much power do I have like right away you know if I've got my eyes open if I'm going there was a lady going I don't take the free way to work in the morning anymore because I can get up early Marsha gets up at 5 I'm not a morning person I mean maybe you can teach me how it takes everything inside of me to get out of bed in the morning I'm just not I mean 2 and 3 in the morning I'm up I'm ready I'm funny aren't I funny at 2 in the I'm a nice person but I got my spiritual reading under my belt my coffee I just dropped my son off at school getting on the freeway to go to work where I'm going to be powerful and I got my corporate suit on you know and this lady in a Valiant when did they stop making them cut me off cut me up she's got blue hair and tennis shoes I know she's Gotten penises. I can't see them, but I know. You know? Pasadena's a long way, little old lady. You know, what are you doing in my neck of the woods? And what are you doing on the freeway in the morning? You're not going to work. This is for people like me. Get out of my way. All of my calmness, spirituality, all of that God stuff, I just went, move over, God, get in the backseat, I'm driving. You know? And I'm sweating. I'm like, I'll show everybody. She cuts me off, so I'm cutting and everybody off, all the way to my off-ramp. And I'm angry, and I'm just, you know, I'm going for it. You know, get out of my way, hit me, who cares? You know? Attitude. Selfish, self-obsessed. My little designs, okay, going for It. I get to my Off-Ramp after doing a lot of work on that freeway to get ahead. She's ahead of me. She's still listening to K-Joy, which is elevator music, you now? She's so listening to that. she doesn't have a bead of sweat on her she still has a smile on her face and I looked at her I just started to laugh I thought man there's a ton of ways through the forest you just got out there in the brambles you know and she's walking the path and she said she's there ahead of me probably you know fed, watered, rested and here I am coming out of the bramble with the blueberry stains on me and bear marks and I've got the sobriety in the program right? I learned a big lesson. I learned a big lesson. God either is or isn't. He drives on freeways. He lets little old ladies have their rights in life. I am not the only one here. I am not running this. It's a gift that I get to look at your eyeballs eyeball to eyeball. It is a gift that I have a bed to sleep in tonight. It is a gift to have people in my life like Abby who came all the way from New Jersey it is a gift and if I take any of that for granted see ya I'll be history remember that nice woman Sharon Barker whatever happened to her it is a gift be gracious about your life let God in thanks we have time for one more ok what's your name my name is Kathy sorry hi Kathy I'm trying to get to know you all this week one of the big problems I've been thinking too was the idea that I have a power greater than myself. Paracelsus could be bothered with me whether I work or travel. And I just don't know. Kathy has a question about higher power and being worthy of having a loving God in your life. And where are you at in your sobriety? I just have a nine-year-to-be woman. Okay, okay. So we're getting kind of a spell between... In fact, is there anybody here in their first year? Can you just raise your hand? Oh, good. Everybody kind of look. Raise your hand, you guys. So all of us may have a little time. We've got to see all of you. Okay? All right. All right, good, okay. Good. So, you know, let's adopt somebody in their first year, you now. Let's everybody be a little bit of service. But, see, and that's a God thing to do, you know. It's like, that's not for me. It's out of my way, me first, you never, you know. but being worthy I had no worth back in California in 75 they had gas station attendants, they really did have them they would do your windows they would fill up your car it was part of what you paid for well I would tip them because I didn't even feel worthy of them washing my windows I remember I worked at Hobo Joe's I had this waitress job yeah really orange orange uniform and i can handle pumpkins but that's about it with orange and white shoes and i had my just you know those change in my pocket i was a bartender here i am waitress waitress but that sponsor says i have to be self-supporting so i'm out there you know and i went into this little store in the little mini mall where this restaurant was and they were nice to me you know and they knew I had worked over there because I had the uniform on maybe they had been in I was too self-obsessed to notice but they were nice to be and they would show me things and I couldn't afford anything in that store there was no way I could have afforded a sweater but I took all my change and bought something I needed money for cigarettes and food but because they were nice tome I had to buy something because I was breathing air in their store I had to pay my way I paid my dues here. I didn't get that. Man, I paid my dues. You've paid your dues. If you got here today, this year, last year, ten years ago, twenty, you've paid. You don't have to pay anymore. You've played your dues. And for some reason, you've been plucked from the darkness and thrown into a chance to have some light in your life, which is alcoholics anonymous. And not everybody even gets in the doors. You know? That's right there. That's a gift. That's not anything you've earned that was handed to you as a gift and the graciousness of accepting the gift which is sorry you've got it it's been handed toyou like you can't take that away you can go on network you've got it you'vegot a chance to pick up the tools not everybody who's an alcoholic gets a chance to come inside at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and judge it you know what I mean they don't even get that chance you've gotta chance you're here that's a gift say thank you you are at least to say thank you for the worthiness of that gift because if I give you a gift and you go I want your gift how does that make me feel God has handed you a good gift you say thank you that is one connection that you've got already that you can't deny so maybe just start with thank you for the gift you know and what you do with it is up to you if you want to feel worthy of keeping this gift learn to put that triangle in balance in your life and give it away and keep the circle going be a positive member of alcoholics and i was part of the force for good here and maybe you'll one day wake up and go oh i'm just like everybody else holding hands here in the lord's prayer you'll feel it from the tip of your head to the tip your toes thanks okay shall we break for lunch okay um are we gonna who's gonna close let's go a little bit differently we're gonna listen to sharon on steps four five six and seven for 30 or 40 minutes and then we'll do a real quick 5 10 15 minute break see how we feel i think and then um she'll do steps eight and nine and then will have the 30 minute question answer following that so i'll give it to shannon you're going to explain the basket basket okay yeah thanks debbie um thanks i'm sharon i'm an alcoholic see all your bright eyes in here marcia bringing up the rear good girl get the stragglers um i i wanted to let you all know that on the table is there's no is there no paper on all the table there was um you know it might be a good idea just pass a little out now because since we're going to do four steps in a row they might think of a question so that way it doesn't have to you know i sit there and have to think of it over and over again and i miss what's going on so if you think of a question because we're not having questions and answers till after the break and eight and nine if you pick up the question about four five six seven or eight nine just write it down so that you can clear your mind and enjoy the rest of the day so i'll have paper for that and then If you have a question that you really don't feel like you can trust us with or, you know, trust God with or whatever, or it's a little touchy or there's somebody... You know, sometimes I know that there's maybe somebody else in the room and, you now, you can put it, you can kind of sneak it in that basket over there as we're having our break. So you've got the option. So we're not forcing you to grow this weekend. Marsha, take notes, take names. Oh, okay. Again, my name's Sharon. I'm an alcoholic. Hi there, Sharon. And I was praying with Abby before we walked down the hill, and it was... My prayer was really just to be still and know that there is God because there's an awful lot of meat to cover in this workshop, and I just feel like we'll just scratch the surface, but again, it's your experience that is what makes the steps work in your life. so it's it's your experience of taking the steps that you have to do to get the experience so i urge you if you're stuck somewhere or sitting or waiting or can't find the perfect person you know just quit looking for excuses and get into action because that's what we ended with was three three is an action step three says made a decision you know three says you do it three doesn't say well i'm thinking about making a decision or i'll make a decision right or wrong i'll make a decision good or bad i'll make a decision to believe and that's the leap of faith that must be taken in order to go into any sort of fearless and thorough moral inventory because um who's not rooted in fear if you're an alcoholic i mean that's our our middle name and it takes an awful lot of courage to go ahead with this step and um one of the questions that i get asked a lot in our little workshop is well when do you know if you're ready you know when do you know and i didn't know when i was ready my sponsor knew when i was already um i think the girls i sponsored don't know that they're ready or they're so eager at like two months i'm ready i got it all i've been taking my notes and things are coming up and at two months I didn't have any level of honesty going at all or I didn' t have myself personally I didn't know what a moral, moral, what's that word, inventory means. And so even if I would have written one then, I mean, hold dear the effort. Who cares? You can always do it again. We don't graduate. It was said here in Marcia's set, we don't graduated. It's a process of over and over again taking the steps. But the time, I feel, is when there's a complacency that seems to set in. and even if you've got a lot of time in your life and there's some complacency setting in maybe do a little writing I find that it really moves things around what's at the bottom of that cauldron you know, it floats, don't you? stir it around and see if there's something there to float and I definitely say starting four is like taking an onion they used to talk about it's like peeling an onion well did you ever okay one two and three you said okay there's an onion i believe there's an onion maybe maybe it's insane to believe there was an onion but my sponsor there's an onion here and this is it okay we've come to this point now four five start to peel the onion you start to really and have you ever peeled an onion I mean take a raw onion and don't cut it peel it it makes noise those outer layers they go you make a ton of noise as you're peeling and you're going and it's so hard to get it started you know and you start peeling and then that layer after the the easy fluff comes off the the onion stuff the the brown stuff comes off then you start peeling that onion and it is not pretty it makes you cry it smells rank. It's, you know, people, everybody knows. Is that an onion? It's like, oh, you work on your first step? It is like everybody knows, you now. Onion. I think we should walk around that onion around our neck when we are doing a fourth step. But it is not a pretty easy thing. So it takes a lot of courage to start your fourth step, it takes that leap of faith, you know. Fear is courage that has said its prayers. So we have learned to pray now and we can move ahead and that that's what to me starting the fourth step is real a real now you're gonna do something and bring it to somebody now you're going to actually take you know the first three steps you're kind of developing your own now you bringing it to some and it's I didn't understand what a moral inventory was you know and thank God that I had a sponsor that there's no in this in the 60s in the big book okay we were talking about this earlier at 39 the big book was put out bill was four years sober 53 the 12 and 12 was put he was 18 years sober is that right I think 18 years over so I think he goes a little bit more into depth in especially six and seven in the twelve and twelve because he kind of fluffs right over it and they you know who have defects the character before I didn't I was pretty perfect then but anyway I was but past tense but you know I think that there was a lot more knowledge that he had gained and so but in the book they laid out the the spiritual tools to work your four-step now in the 60s which you tell me if I'm wrong Earl I there there was a big kind of pull away from the big book because of royalties and who's getting the royalties and where's the money going and a lot of that so in the sixties that kind of a A lot of the old-timers pulled away from the book. And it took, I think, Texas and Oklahoma to kind of push on general service in New York to get them to, the book got out there again. But people stayed sober. My sponsor stayed sober, my sponsor's sponsor was out there active. And there was a set of questions that were developed in the 60s for taking an inventory, which is what I got for my first inventory. It was a Set of Seven Questions. and, you know, who did you hurt and why? You know, what resentment is the major cause of your troubles in your life? You know. What are your defects of character? And who have you harmed? I mean, it was a set of questions and how can AA help you through this? I have to really sit to think because I don't use them anymore. But that was my first inventory. And I sat with those questions and looked at them forever. and I would start to maybe write and there was a girl named Gail in our group and I'd say Jan I can't write I'm just hyperventilating and she'd say well why don't you call somebody when you start and call somebody when you stop and sit at a desk I had a desk in my home because I moved out of the $24 a week room in with my man to be boy meets girl on a campus the hip guy and so yeah they think I'm Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson is that it my mic on and then go and buy the car come on marcia where's this mine shut up okay um but these these questions um i would sit and i would look at them and hyperventilate because i would go into job interviews and they'd say okay where were you this year where were that year where did you live what were your last three addresses i couldn't do it i mean she says finally got a cheat sheet they said oh you have a cheat sheets so we sat down and kind of fluffed my life together so i could go in and interview and oh between 80 you know or at 72 and 73 i did that and 73 and 75 will make it look like that you know dancer on bourbon street you know i used to put everything down and i was like very interesting let's uh let's call him for lunch here come on you know this is a good time but um i i just was so hyper i could i hyperventilated and so i called gail i said gail i'm starting she said good and i would sit and i'll hyperventilate and i'd call and say gail i'm done she'd say good okay done and i started thinking about it which is a mistake i'm committed at meetings i'm doing a lot of um i'm during a lot panels because i was six months sober in our group band they stick you out there on panels general hospital jails all of it they get you moving fast skid row the mission um so i was doing a lot of panels and i had this boyfriend and i was i was still waitressing but life was pretty good i got a better waitress job and and uh you know i started to think and i thought well let me ask this old timer she knows she's a sponsor and she's my sponsor sponsor let me asked her how she did her four steps so i caught her one night she spent a lot time talking about the thousand pound pencil you And I was like, pick it up and just do it. And how she did it. And then I would ask another old timer maybe a week later at another meeting. In the meantime, I'm still calling Gail. I started, okay, good. I'm done. Okay, good, not doing a thing. And it's starting to really gnaw at me. And I'm not sharing this with anybody. So I caught Gail forgetting I had just talked to her a week before about the same thing in the parking lot after a meeting. Janet's sponsor, my sponsor's sponsor. and she said i am sick of you asking me and everybody else around here how to do it you just pick up the pencil and you write it now go on i mean it was just like and i got a resentment i thought look at these old timers they talk big and then you know they don't follow through and i just i thought well she doesn't understand and that means it's janet's sponsor i can't call her and can't tell janet then she'll probably take sponsor side and i went through the book and you know i couldn't talk to anybody i had an excuse for everyone so i wasn't doing it and i was 11 months sober i wasn t sharing a lot with my sponsor because i was feeling different i felt like something's wrong with me and uh i started listening to people talking about having their slip and i thought oh boy i better hurry up and go have mine 11 months over here and i better have mine so i better go have my experience of the slip And being a smart alcoholic, I forgot that I'm only hearing people come back from their slip sharing about it. I'm not hearing the people go have their slip and never come back again. I mean, I'm thinking wrong, you know, thinking. And just in the self, a lot of self. And what happened was I ended up at the airport with a new credit card because they used to mail them out and they wanted everybody in there in 1976. That was 76. and I said I'm at the airport I'm going to Vegas because Vegas had kicked me out once I was going back to show them and I'm gonna have my slip but I'll be back don't worry and the reason I called my sponsor is because I had called her no matter if I was sharing or not sharing I called that woman every day and I knew her number by heart and I still know my sponsor's number by hearth so if I am like in a car wreck okay what number 2136249258 you know what I mean it's just I know the number I don't have to think about it in a panic situation I think it's important no matter how much time you have to know your sponsor's number by heart and the way you do that is you call so I knew her number by heart I was at the airport ready to get on a plane to go to Vegas and I said I'm going to go have my slip and she said fine she didn't say oh my god don't she said be like my friend Stella she said Stella had long dark hair she was a raven hair beauty everybody loved her she had 11 months of sobriety she went and had her slip she wouldn't finish her inventory either where did that come from it's like is she uh in my head or what and she burned up on a bed go have a good time burned up in a bed i don't really want to go burned up into bed you know how you mentally think of yourself lying there beautiful and they're all feeling sorry and oh gosh if we only would have been kinder to her you know the self-pity mea culpa and and uh she startled me back into reality and made me mad again and i sat at the coffee shop when i wrote i was my anger was stronger than my fear that's why that woman was so smart and so good for me because she was an angry woman that had learned how to live life on life's terms with her program and she spotted that me long before it was ever on my defects of character list anger and I sat and I'll show her and I wrote and I got past that point of panic in my life and um that was my first four step it wasn't you know and it was believe me it was as complete as i've ever as i ever could have done and it Was pretty long it was pretty long we sat i called her and i you know i didn't obviously didn't have my slip and i went to work the next day and you know all of that what's so important tonight if it can wait until i've learned how to let those kind of things wait until the sun comes up on him you know sure he looks gorgeous at 10 at night standing by the car after a meeting you know um but you know you don't think of the whole package involved or the next morning and i always tell my girls i said if it's that important tonight it'll be just as important in the morning when the sun comes up on it so take a deep breath and don't make those jump to decisions you know and that's uh you know that's what i've learned to do a lot of by um by calling my sponsor and by being in touch but back on the subject of step five we went and it was a week before my first birthday and i guess i could interject here about my friend pat pat yo who's married to vince maybe you know some of some of you have heard them speak they they do speaking and they're really good people i have a great message and um pat has eight days less than me and pat had done her inventory when she was maybe four months sober she had a husband dying of cancer she had to get on with her life she had again all the men she had had a lot of she had to get on she had some crucial situations in her life that life was telling her you know we've got to hurry up here before your husband dies before some things happen so her sponsor moved her quickly through the steps but it seemed to me that pat would give me that smirk every time they would read chapter five and they came steps four and steps five she would kind of look at me with that thin blue lip look like doesn't mind i know you haven't done yours you know and oh that used to make me mad so um when i did my fifth step it was a week before my birthday and i have eight more days than pat still to this day so that's a joy pat kept me sober she really did and i kept thinking you know nothing really happened it wasn't like a big long experience it was like you know i was honest i was truthful i told her things she shared back with me some of the seedy little things that i had done and the seady big things she had done to you know she pulled out her inventory and shared with me we sat on venice beach which is all night long which is not a safe place to sit you know the police sat in the car about you know they came and asked us what we were doing we kind of tried to tell them and they sat and watched us all night in their car you know from a distance so you know we did this and we laughed a lot and we cried a lot it was a real nice kind of bonding looking back on it that was just her and me all night along on a beach and and i dropped her off in the morning and I looked up at the sky and there were some clouds and L.A. doesn't have a lot of clouds but there were some really pretty fluffy clouds that morning and I remember thinking God would live there angels would sing here and I thought who said that? you know it was I had cleaned up enough crap just for a moment something came through that was peaceful and beautiful and just for one minute because it was like who said this? you know i know we've all had those moments did i just do that was i just sincere uh you know is that me must be god so i remember that happening and i remember that night at the meeting i sat a little deeper in my seat and i thought go ahead pat look at me when they're reading four and five and i just sat a little deeper in my seat and i've been sitting deeper in my seat since that first fourth and fifth it made me feel more a part of alcoholics anonymous it made me feel more joined with the human race it didn't make me feel quite so alone there's one other person and you know you plot their death if they tell anybody anything or they're talking about it in the coffee shop afterwards you know they're just going to go share parts of your story but being on the other end of four and five now for many many years um and I just want to say I have done many inventories with the Collins in the book and I know that the Collins when I was new that didn't take any sense to me no sense at all and the reason it probably didn't make much sense to me is because I never heard the last part of it where you talk about your part in it I could say what anybody's done to anything and what it did to me, how it made me feel but what's my part and that's a very important column to put with that fourth step so who, why, the cause and what my part is what my part is and um i didn't burn mine i hear people burn theirs but i think it's very important to um i want to move ahead a little bit with six and seven from that first inventory in my life because my sponsor did not have me do that we didn't go home and taking the book off the shelf you know how it says that i think page 76 correct me if i'm wrong um about taking the book down from the shelf that we uh you know we go back through our past and that's before we're you know getting ready to to look at ourselves and our own defects of character we stopped we sat on it and it got a little painful for me and i don't know if she just got too busy or didn't know and you know marcia had marcia changed sponsors uh i changed sponsors when i was four years sober because there was another woman that came into my life that had more of what i needed but um because i think we were kind of like on the same path and we were we would we'd become just real kins we become kin we had become she had taken me as far as she could or wanted to and I don't know where she is today either which breaks my heart she's not in Alcoholics Anonymous so I really don't now but I do know that she took me to that point of sitting deeper in my seat in Alcoholic Anonymous and so the people I sponsor I make sure when we're done they go home and take the book from the shelf and read and go on six and seven boom boom boom boom don't sit and wait boom boom you're opened up after doing something you regurgitate all of that out of there you've made some space you have actually made some room in your house and you know Pandora's box has been opened and sure there's some snakes and you slam it back shut maybe but at the time I did the best I could with seeing every snake that was there and letting it out so that there could be some light put on in my room it's like a dark room and you start pulling up window shades you know when when you're sitting in that room and you've been a vampire all your life you've never gone out in the daylight you know if there was a bar and it was open and the sun was up and you know french quarters a 24-hour type of joint you just didn't move until the sun went down you know i stayed there so i didn't like light anyway this i didn'T like this anyway i was too exposed i was a person of the darkness and as i sat in thatroom and my sponsor went okay we can flick this window shade up here it's like oh god that hurts I've got this lily white skin burning me you know and she said okay well that's step one and here's step two we're going to flick open another window shade a more light is coming in and then maybe you see a little mountain over there you know. And step three oh look at there's the sun coming up for God's sake and now the windows bright open you know, and step four we're opening that trunk and letting out the snakes you Now it's like, man, when does this quit? This is getting painful here. But I've made my house light and room. There's room for not just me to sit in it a little more comfortably, but for you to come and sit in that, for God to be invited. It's a way of inviting God in your life by getting rid of what you know to be fear, the pain in your live, the secrets in your lie. And I've had women come to me with a book like this. and the first thing i say to them is what's not in there tell me now you know tell me now are you i can't believe you're that self-obsessed you know have you been working with anybody or calling anybody else or you've just been home writing the greatest story ever told you know it's um i don't say it like that i'm really not that quite explicit you know it's you don't see till you see you don' hear till you hear you know and i'm not going to go beating on some door that's closed in somebody's life because the doorknob is on the inside. I have to be invited, you know, and I have to respect that even if it's open a crack. I have to peek in that crack and say, can I come in? I can't go storming in and beating on the door and going, I'm here now. We're going to change your life. You know, doesn't work that way. So the fourth step opened up my house so that I could have that one little thought. Angels would sing. God would live there. That was just the beginning of knowing that this life force that we walk around it is and with is so blessed so blessed and that I could be a part of it and that was part of the joy too I didn't think I could a part but so um fifth steps that when I do take them with people and I'm and I sponsor I used to because I remember her looking at me and they thank God it was dark on the beach so i thought okay if i ever do a fist step with somebody i'm not going to look at them so i would wear a hat i really would part of my taking you know being the sponsor of somebody taking a fifth step is wearing a hat so i'd wear a Hat so they can't see i'm staring at them or looking at their page to see what they're skipping over you didn't read that you know um even if you notice it you go what'd you leave out and they think happy no you know it's like because you got that eyeball over here but um but you know it's wearing the hat and it's having them mark with a highlighter or red pen mark that no because i tell him before when i say mark that just mark it just highlight the corner so we know to go back to it and that way you can as they're moving along i used to take notes but i thought you know why take the notes then if somebody finds the notes and so i i got really respectful about that and i make them bring a highlighter a red pen and i have a market because it's the defects of character they're showing it's the patterns it's the patterns over and over and over again expecting different results you know that's so important for especially us women to see because we groove a record in our life I don't know they have CDs now so they don't do that but records have grooves and I don' t know if you've had your favorite record and how it skips you know how it Skips over your face like oh man why did they have that and it's like this is your record of life You can't go turn it in, you know. But there's a way to get past that and make the music work again. You've got to hold it down just the right, you now, some people put a penny on it or a nickel, just the Right Way, and it'll just kind of re-groove it. It'll go through it, and the song will be there again. And if you do it too hard, it'll never sound the same again. There's a touch to it. There's timing and a touch for the fourth and fifth step. to re-groove it so you don't have to go through the same skip beat again in your life same kind of guide same kind of job same kind of relationships you know same kind of beat myself up same kind of disorders whatever it is you know in there somewhere there's room for spiritual healing this is a powerful step four and five and it seems kind of like just fluff but it's important to be thorough it's importante to put out as much as you can it's importance to really tell your secrets It's because you are as sick as you have secrets. I truly believe that. And that's just as important for me today as it was for me then. In fact, I know how much more important it is for me now. It is for my life today. So there is always a small handful of people that know all about me, no matter what it is. They know all About Me at this point in my life. One being my sponsor and some being some women in my Life. And so I feel safe and secure that I can call them up and not have to go through a litany of history if something happens and I think that's important to have that support system six and seven say but the columns in the book I've done my inventories that way my girls do my inventories that way like I said I don't have those questions anymore I look from the other day just to kind of see if I could find him and I don' t but you know many people stayed sober many people still sit still doing that way I know my friend Peggy in Nebraska does them that way with the people she sponsors but I find that the columns work because they're real explicit you know there's not a lot of room for a lot BS if you're really answering those questions and that's why I like them I'm not getting the greatest stories ever told anymore when I make him do the columns I'm not getting me inventories where I fall asleep that was so embarrassing she's still sober by the way married a doctor moved away she did very well I guess we worked on her patterns huh but you know but it was like four in the morning so I've learned how to do that kind of thing in two sittings you know you don't just plow through it I've I've had some really wonderful experiences with fifth steps where you just know the person's and there's a bond that's created that's a very important thing you know it's if there were no they didn't use the word sponsor here these the words sponsor here you know they didn t use the world that in the big book you know but I I think going to somebody who's had the experience means a lot. Now, I've gone to confession in the Catholic Church with priests. We don't discuss politics anymore. It's my time. We get to talk about me. And I like to do the face-to-face. I like To sit in the chair and do the Face-To-Face because there's a healing that can take place face-To face that I didn't experience there before. So I've got that in my life, which is a whole other side other than Alcoholics Anonymous. But I do a fourth and fifth step when necessary, and you know what? Sometimes it's every year, and sometimes it's when I go through huge traumas in my life. I've done one with every sponsor. I've had three sponsors. I'm on my third one, and I don't think I'm driving him out of here, but my first sponsor is gone. My second sponsor has less time than me by about 21 years, and my third sponsor has a ton more time thanme, um 39 almost 39 years so i've had the with my sponsors that bond of trusting and of having them look at me and having them know me enough so that they can say oh i think we've been there i don't think maybe we should go this route again do you remember the result that you got you know and a lot of that is putting back into a one two and three you know you pull those first three steps the only thing i've done perfect in my sobriety in 22 years and what's the date one month and uh 13 days is stay sober that's it the rest i have not done perfect the rest i am teachable and learning but that part of it i've been doing for a long time done perfect and that part of it thank god we get to do that part perfect you know that's a necessary ingredient in walking in the archway called sobriety and 12 steps and tools and new life is you have to be sober to get it that's the arch way there's the sobriete part six and seven my first one I sat till I was maybe a year and a half sober on those defects because I didn't have any they were all his they were all his all the way he had six more months than me he had done his inventory I'd read it he actually gave it to me to read now is that ego or what but yeah so I knew all about him which was not good you don't give a manipulator all that ammunition and but I remember one day I was I was in the kitchen and I was talking to him and I walked into the other room and he wasn't listening to me. He had the headset on. He was drawing. He was listening to music. There was a flashlight there. I took it up, and I nailed it.