Twelve Steps Are Muscles You Exercise Not Problems You Massage – Holly M.

you said you had something to give me oh boy we're getting off on a good foot aren't we good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is holly and i'm an alcoholic my sobriety date is november 11 1954. by clancy's description i'm the same big black fat lady that was here three years ago well that's what he told the people to look for when he came to pick me up but uh you know we love clancy at least i do i'll tell you one thing about the guy though if he'd had anything to do with it those controllers those air controllers never would have had a strike this man has a thing about airlines you know i don't know what it is but he has a you know it was kind of comical uh we had a little uh shall we say to do about the ticket and so forth the last time i was here naturally you wouldn't expect lightning to strike in the same place twice but it did this lady called me and she said um you had better see about your ticket before wednesday or we will have to cancel you out and i said well uh i started to laugh right away and i said well maybe you had better speak with mr clancy about that and she said well i don't know anything about anyone by the name of I said, lady, you will, though. And things moved along nicely after that, everything. It is really and truly a pleasure to be here with you again. I always am very pleased when someone asks me to speak on Saturday night, because that, to me, was the beginning of this miracle that I'm going to tell you about. And as far as I am concerned, it certainly was and still is a miracle for me to begin with. See, I had heard of this fellowship, oh, I would say about six or seven years prior to my coming into the fellowship. I'd heard about AA, rather. But I had this feeling that it might be for, you know, someone else other than me. I hadn't drank too long, only about... 20 years or something like that. And on top of all of that, you know, I wasn't a serious drinker. You know, I didn't drink all of this high-priced stuff that other people drank. I'm not going to tell you that I was a wino, because women are not winos, they're winettes. And that's exactly... Now, I know that many of you have heard me before, but please do this. Well, I'll tell you. Do it like this. See, there was a little boy one time. He had just been circumcised. And he went to school, and he squirmed and he squirmed, and the teacher asked him what was wrong with him. And naturally, he wasn't going to tell her he'd just been circumcised. So, she said, if you can't sit still, you go down to the principal's office. So, he went down to the principal's office, and the principal asked him what was wrong with him. He couldn't sit still, and he wasn't about to tell her either. About him, why he couldn't sit still. He just said, I don't feel well. So, she said, well, since you don't feel well, you go back to the class and stick it out till noon. He went back with his pants down. So, you'll... So, no, I just mean that... I don't mean that literally, you know. Nevertheless. I had my first drink, I believe, when I was about 14 years old. My first drink was out of curiosity. My grandfather had a bottle of, oh... Well, it had alcohol in it. It was whiskey, and he had ruined the whiskey by putting a lot of rock candy and herbs and crap in it like that. And he kept it in the drawer. And when the weather was bad, Grandpa would come in there, you know, and, oh, he would just cripple in. Oh, it hurt him so bad. He had arthritis or rheumatism, whatever. And he would sit down, and he would open this drawer. And he would... He would take a couple of drinks out of the bottle. And he would rub his leg, and then he could walk away. Well, I went over there one day, you know. You know, I switched over there. And I took a few slugs out of the bottle. And a few more slugs. And I crippled away, you know. That was the beginning of a long, long journey for me. And I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow description of that long... ...long journey. I did most of the things that... Well, quite a few things that some young women don't do and some do. I got married. A couple times there, I think. And marriages are like vaccinations on me they don't take. And I had a couple of children. They turned out to be... This is another miracle. They turned out to be very worthwhile people. Very worthwhile people. I was a very good mother, I would say. The children thought I was. Because I was the type of mother that... If you woke up in the morning and you wanted popsicles for breakfast... ...you got popsicles for breakfast. But who asked to cook popsicles? And they loved me for this, you know. I never beat anybody too much. I might, oh, slap them on the fanny once or twice. But, you know, I always had a guilt trip. I always felt guilty about... ...punishing my children for anything. And through the grace of God, they turned out to be pretty good kids... ...that you didn't have to beat on. I don't know why. But they were pretty fair people. They are today. And I'm very proud of both of them. And they tell me that they're very proud of me. My being the delinquent one of the family. They're proud of me. I raised those children by myself. Their father, he was a gambler. And, of course, I'm not going to tell you his story. The only thing I can tell you about that was that he was throwing it away faster than I could drink it up, so he had to go. I couldn't put up with that type of competition, you know. And being an orphan myself, I was a very possessive person. These were really two people that I wanted. You know, I didn't mind raising my children myself. As possessive as I was. I wanted. I really and truly wanted them all to myself. I wouldn't mind if the old man stayed there and kicked in a buck or two once in a while, which he wasn't about to do. But I'd always wanted someone close to me. I always wanted someone near and dear to me. My grandparents, to tell you the truth, they just weren't too fond of me by no stretch of the imagination. And, of course, I don't blame them. I was not, shall we say, the most lovable character. In our neighborhood. And I'd like to tell you here and now, AA is the only thing that I've ever been in in my life that I haven't been exiled from, excommunicated from, or any of those kind of things. They've let me stay, you know. I never went to school very long in many places that I was constantly being expelled. I remember I grew up in the state of Ohio. And I had been expelled from school so many times. I just rankled under authority. And I remember my grandmother went to school with me one day. And she told the superintendent of the school, As long as there's a school in the state of Ohio, Holly's going. He said, in that case, we'll secede from the union. So they just didn't like me. And I can't say that I was a very lovable child. I felt sorry for myself because I was an orphan. And, you know, I carried that on for years and years. And I suppose if I was still drinking, I would still be sitting around telling people I was drinking because I was an orphan. And, hell, when you get my age, you're supposed to be orphaned. But I think, but I carried that on for quite a while. And, you know, that always made people feel sorry for me and all that sort of stuff. And I just wallowed in that thing. I did have. I have along the way a few people that would tell me about my drinking, you know. You know, they might would say, you need some help with your drinking. And I'd say, the hell I do. I can drink it all by myself. Nothing like that. And I had one old gal friend. Oh, well, she was two days older than Rain. And that I used to go out with. You see. She needed me and about as badly as I needed her because when we would go out at night, you know, young, no young gentleman or no gentleman, period, would buy the young dollar drink without buying the old dollar drink. I know how that goes. I've played on both leagues. She tried to help me, though. She would tell me, you know, now, dear, tonight when we go out, if you'll just drink a little olive oil, you won't get drunk so quick. And she went on to explain to me what this olive oil and alcohol. And, you know, how they were segregated themselves against one another or something or other. The only thing difference that it made instead of being a long, tall, puking drunk, I was just a long, tall, greasy, puking drunk. And then she, I would try to explain to her about my hangovers, you know. And she would tell me, if you just do what I tell you to do, you won't have a hangover. Now, you just get you a bottle of beer and you open that and you set it down. You put it on the side of your bed and you let it get flat. And tomorrow morning, you drink it the time you wake up. I don't know whether it works or not. There's no way in hell I could go to bed with a full bottle of beer sitting down beside me. So I don't know whether that works or not. And maybe it did. Or maybe it didn't. I don't know. But it didn't work for me. Anyway. But finally, one Saturday night. I happened to be in a bar. I happened to be in a bar. I happened to be in a bar. I happened to be in a bar. I happened to be in a bar. I happened to be home. And I was sitting in the kitchen. And a story came on over the radio. And it was called The Glass Crutch. To this day, I don't remember any of the details of that story. All I know, it was about a woman that had a drinking problem. And it said, if you ever need our help, we'll be the first number in the book. Well, I felt then, that's... She's probably drinking whiskey or something. She's probably drinking whiskey or something like that. She doesn't drink the good wine that I drink. So, maybe she needs that. But, you know, that story stayed on my mind. It would come and go. I can remember walking down the street. This didn't happen every week or every month. But I can remember walking down the street. And the heel plates on my shoes would beat out the words, The Glass Crutch. I can remember... At certain times, the clock on the wall did not say, Tick-tock. It said, The Glass Crutch, The Glass Crutch. Finally, that day came. As I say, six or seven years later. Now, if any of you have ever read The Hound of Heaven, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Because if he wants you, he'll get you. One day, I was sitting in the living room trying to read the newspaper. And it seemed as if every word on that newspaper said, The Glass Crutch. And I said, The Glass Crutch. And I said, My Lord, what does this mean? And that story then came back to my mind. The Glass Crutch. Because I looked and I could not even read the newspaper without The Glass Crutch in my hand. And it dawned on me then exactly what it meant. Holly, you've got to have that bottle, that glass, everywhere you go. And this was the truth, friends. I had it everywhere I went. You'd better believe it. I remember one time someone telling me, Holly, if you would get a hobby, you wouldn't drink so much. And I've always loved flowers very dearly. And I had a flower bed out beside the little house that I lived in. And it was lovely. So I said, I will develop this flower bed. But I would take that bottle of wine out there with me. And when I would get down on my knees to pull the weeds, and I wouldn't stop, so I thought I'd put a straw down in the bottle, you know, and I wouldn't have to stop. Don't ever drink, well, don't ever drink anything out of a straw. It's no good. It goes the wrong way. But, so finally one day there was a catastrophe there. I knocked the bottle over. Oh, this was a horrible thing. And with the cunning mind of an alcoholic, I knew how to remedy that, so I just simply dug a hole in the ground and stuck the bottle. I dug a hole down in the ground, so it wouldn't tumble over. But lo and behold, before the summer was over, there was more bottles sticking up out of the ground than there was for two years. I had plenty of bottles all over the ground, you know. And it wasn't, my friends, that from time to time, I was always going to cut down, never cut out. I was always going to cut down. And there were days that I swore, today I will never drink, not today I'm not going to drink, you know. But if you don't drink, you don't drink. But if you don't drink, you don't drink. But if you don't drink, you don't drink. If you've ever heard the call of the wild goose, you've got to go where the wild goose goes. I can remember, yeah. I remember one time, it's just a weird thing. You know, you say, I know this is a big deal, this is an event, I can't drink today, you know. But we all know there's that first drink that's going to get you. But I didn't know that then, you know. I remember one of the most embarrassing, humiliating situations that could ever happen to anybody. And it took me over a long time before I could tell anybody about it. But it proved my point, you know. The little neighborhood in which I lived, we had a very small Catholic church there. I never will say that I was a practicing Catholic. I was a practicing alcoholic that went to Catholic church, let's put it that way. Well, anyhow, they had built a three-room schoolhouse, and we had the four first black nuns, they weren't big and fat either, in the state of Michigan. And we were... We were going to have a celebration. And have you ever noticed that people that do the less work do the more celebrating than anybody else, even in AA today, you know. Just don't do any work and you'll out-celebrate anybody. So that day I decided that I would go up and I would help them to get together to celebrate. Now, I made a mistake when I got there. No, Mother Speary made a mistake. She said, I said, Mother, is there anything you'd like for me to help you do? She said, oh, my child, she said, just go and enjoy yourself, and when I want you, I'll call you, I'll send for you. Never tell a practicing alcoholic to go and enjoy himself. You know, they don't ever do that. So I went down to the caretaker's house, and he had a bottle of wine sitting on the table. He shouldn't have did that. And, but it wasn't the good wine, it was that, you know, some kind of Morgan David jive or 12% or something, you know, cooking wine or something. But anyhow, he, you know, everybody from all over town was there, all the visiting dignitaries, everybody was there. And they were all drinking out of those little insult glasses like that. And all the grown people, you know, that came in, this was a festive thing in our neighborhood to have this kind of thing going on. I recently got me a gratitude glass, and I had a drink. We all know what that first drink does, don't you? So they finally ran out of wine, and I went to the drugstore or wherever and got some more, and I bet I made a mistake. They made a mistake, I didn't. I never made mistakes, you know. One time I thought I made a mistake, but that was wrong. I never made mistakes. Well, anyway, what really and truly happened, I bought two bottles, one for them and my favorite Mad Dog or whatever. And by the time that Mother Superior was ready for me to work at the wishing well, I was in pretty rough condition. To say the least. And on the way over, I thought maybe if I would get a little something to eat, this would, you know, kind of bring me back. So there I stood, the gentleman was making barbecue, and I thought maybe I'd better get a little barbecue, you know, there, and he wasn't fixing it fast enough. So I grabbed this rib there, and I stuck it down in the barbecue sauce up to there. And there stood a very foolish parishioner that had the unmitigated knowledge, the unmitigated nerve to say, Holly Martin, you can't do that. That woman shouldn't have said that to me. Well, now, they said I did this, and I presume that I did. They said I took the rib and I hit her across the head. They said I did. Well, anyhow, I do know this. You know, those bibs the nuns used to wear, when I got through waving that rib around there, everybody had red dots all over them there. I was never so ashamed in all of my life. Well, I was never so ashamed in all of my life. Well, I went home, and on my wall in the living room, I had a large picture of Our Divine Lord. And I looked at that picture, and I said, God, if I ever take a drink of alcohol again in my life, if you strike me dead. Friends, I meant that when I said it. I really meant it, you know. That guilt, that remorse, that humiliation. So the next day, dear Father sent two of the nuns down after me. So the next day, dear Father sent two of the nuns down after me. So the next day, dear Father sent two of the nuns down after me. I tried to write them a note and tell them I was sorry, but they wouldn't accept my note. It was a lovely, sunshiny day, just about like the kind of day we had today, and here come the two nuns down the street. All the neighbors come out, what's Martin done now, you know? Everybody came out of the grocery store, the pool room, and everything else. And Sister said, Father wants to see you, Holly. I said, well, Sister, can't we go down the alley? She said, no, dear, you didn't get drunk in the alley, no. She said, no, dear, you didn't get drunk in the alley, no. They drug me down the street up there to Father's house, and I got up there, and oh, my goodness. You know, you know how we can cry when you want to cry. And I didn't want to cry that day, and I did want to cry, but I don't know. So Father said to me, he said, well, he was fresh out of pledges where I was concerned anyway. He said, Holly, let's have a gentleman's agreement. Will you promise me you will never take another drink until you see me take a woman into my house? I said, yes, Father. And he said, well, then go in peace. Well, I wasn't too peaceful, because I began to think, now, I can't hang around here and watch this man see what he's going to do. Maybe I ought to get a six-pack and think about it, you know. Which I did. And when I got home, I looked at that picture, and I said, well, God, I didn't mean beer. Well, I never was too much of a beer drinker anyway. I'd drink it, but couldn't do any better. But, well, I would drink anything too thin to chew, as far as that's concerned. So beer, you know, that was kind of a primer for me. And the next thing you know, I was drinking whiskey. And I said, God, I didn't mean whiskey. Next thing you know, I was right back drinking wine again. And I said, God, just forget it. And that's the way this thing stood with me until this miracle happened. Just that I reached that plateau, whatever you want to call it. So finally, that final day came, as I told you, sitting in this chair. And it dawned on me what the glass crutch was. Now, I reluctantly went to the floor, reluctantly went to the phone book. And they said, one of the things I remember, they said, if you ever need us, we'll be the first number in the book. And I was hoping against hope that it wouldn't be there, but it was there. And I called. And the lady asked me, I tried to, I didn't want to tell her what my name was. Now, how in the world are you going to get some help without telling people what your name is, you know? One of those kind of things. Right away, have you ever made a call, and the minute you make a call, you say, what in the world did I do that for? That was me. And anyway, she said, well, someone will call you, after she got out the vital information from me, you know, my name and the telephone number. So this lady did call. It wasn't too long after she called, and she said, I hear you need some help. Well, I kind of said, yes, I guess so. She said, now if you've got anything to drink out there, get rid of it. I did, I drank it up. Now, I had now reached the stage of zombieism. That is, if you drink, you don't get drunk, and if you don't drink, you don't get sober, you know, zombie-like. But you know, alcohol, cunning, baffling and powerful, everything that book says it is, everything people have told me it is, is just that. A couple of friends of mine, just about 45 minutes before time for me to go to that first meeting, came by and they gave me a couple of drinks of something or other, and it was the same as pouring coal oil on the dying embers. I got drunk. Well, it, you know, it livened it back up, you know, all those kind of things. But when that lady came to see me, she said one of the most important things that I have ever heard in my life. I told her, I said, you know, I've got to do something on the count of these children of mine. And this is the important thing that that woman told me. She said, you have got to do something on the count of you. And, you know, all of these years that has stayed with me. You must do something on the count of you. You know, people will say, oh, there's no mess in the program. There's no mess in the big book. Well, then you must read it. There's a lot of mess in there, you know. There's some mess in there. There's quite a few. And, you know, you hear so many screwy things nowadays that I don't go along with this crap about. Just fake it until you can make it. El Toro poo-poo. You see, I have been faking it all my life. I've been a phony all my life. Now I had a chance to be for real. So when anybody tells you to fake it until you can make it, you tell them the little bull story, you know. Exactly, because that's the way it is. So as time went on, one of the most amazing things, the beginning of my miracle, was, now here's when I felt a sense of belonging. Oh, I didn't have a bag or that kind of sponsor. People sponsored people a little differently in those days. Nobody called you up and asked you, do you feel like a meeting tonight? Oh, no, no, no. I'll be on over, Holly. Just be ready. Okay. And one of those kind of things. And so away we would go. But I'll tell you another thing that made me feel oh so important. One night. One night. Somebody in the group asked me, the chairman, asked me to read chapter five. You know one thing? Don't build a fence around yourself for getting little clicks and don't ask the new person to do anything. Or don't ask him, you know, to do a lot of things, but little things like that, you know. Love that. Once in my life, somebody asked me to read out of that big book. And I fell madly in love with it. And they again said, 90 days and 90 meetings. You know, there's something, you know, I want to tell you right now. We oftentimes, pardon me, say 90 days and 90 meetings. You know what scares a person away sometimes? Tell that person, yes, give me 90 days and 90 meetings. But tell them, look, you don't have to put in a dollar. Right away that person, he or she is beginning to think, I don't have $90. You know how we feel. You know. See, we neglect to tell people things like this. And they figure, oh, I can't go 90 days and 90 meetings. You know, I can't go 90 times because if I do, I've got to put in a dollar every time. Or I've got to put in a quarter every time. They say 90 days, 90 meetings. They say, look, you don't have to put in nothing. You just put in yourself. Because, you see, of course, when I first came in, people weren't putting a dollar in the basket. They were putting a quarter in the basket. But, you know, I didn't have a quarter 90 days out of the time, you know. And nobody expected it, and they told me that. And we sometimes neglect to tell people, look, hon, it's free. It's free. It don't cost anything. You don't have to put anything when they pass the basket around. And, you know, sometimes you see a new person kind of hide down. You know, he feels bad because he don't have a quarter or anything. But tell him he don't have to have one. You know, one of those kind of things. So as time went on, you see, I had been working in the bar off and on for 20 years because I believed in on-the-job training, you know. And one of the things my sponsor told me, he said, you have to come out from behind that bar, you know. And, you know. And now that frightened me, of course. What will I do? What else can I possibly do? She said, there's other kinds of jobs you can get. You know, I know how the new person feels when he or she goes to get a new job. You want the job so bad, you don't know what to do. But, you know, the first day that you go to work, you're scared to death, you know. You're just petrified. But I went. Because I had the kind of sponsor that's going to see that you get places and go. And do things. But as time went on, then I began to think, how must I put this fellowship, this program into practice? And here is one of the things that I came up with among many other things. I'm going to tell you a story about the legend of the white butterfly. There was once a little boy that was born. That was born, or seemingly so. A hopeless cripple. He'd been in a wheelchair practically all of his life. His father had every kind of therapist and whatever you could get for him. But all to no avail. The child could not walk. So one day, when his father was down in old Mexico. He was a businessman. And he saw an old Indian chief making moccasins. And he said, I think I'll buy my son a pair of those. And the chief told him. He said, there's a beautiful story that goes. A legend. Called the legend of the white butterfly. That goes along with anyone that wears those moccasins. And the man says, my son cannot walk. He will never be able to walk in the moccasins. But he can just put them on. He said, well listen to the story. He said, whoever wears these moccasins. If they have any kind of infirmity. If while wearing the moccasins. They will capture a white butterfly. And press the white butterfly. To whatever injured part of their body. That they have. They will recover. Well the good father. Took the moccasins home. And just as an afterthought. He gave the child. He told the child the story. Of the white butterfly. That if he could capture this butterfly. And press it to his legs possibly. That he could get well. But you see sometimes. When we tell someone. That possibly something can happen. Perhaps. It stays in there. So each and every morning. This child would go down. Into his father's flower garden. In his wheelchair. And he would try to capture a white butterfly. All to no avail. Who can capture a butterfly. In a wheelchair. So what happened. He asked his father for a pair of braces. And his father gave him the braces. And you realize how very heavy. And cumbersome. A pair of braces could be. But he would go down there every day. And he would try. And all to no avail. So finally one day. He asked his father for a pair of crutches. Well who can capture a white butterfly. Or any kind of butterfly. With leaning on two crutches. Finally he asked his father for a cane. And his father gave him the cane. And when he went down to the flower garden. That day. As he reached out to capture the butterfly. The cane fell from under his arm. And the child found out that he could take a step. And he could take one. And he could take one. And one. And one. More and more. Now you and I know very well. That no white butterfly. Caused this child to recover. But there's one thing that we do know. And that is this. What had been happening all the time. With all of the therapists. That his good father had provided for him. That only been massaging. The muscles. Of his poor legs. But when he began to try. He began to exercise them. And because he began to exercise them. He could walk. Many times. Didn't I. Massage. My problem. You know. I didn't do anything about it. I just simply massaged him. And how I massaged him. Never exercising him. Well one of the. This child. Knew then that I had begun to do something. That I had never done before. He began to use muscles. Instead of massaging it. He began to use muscles. And the first muscle. That he used. Was the muscle of honesty. And that was the first muscle. That I had to use. When I admitted. That I was powerless over alcohol. And my life was unmanageable. That was the first muscle. That I had to use. And I had to realize. That my honesty meant. That I must use this for myself. I had to be honest about it and I really and truly did not know what that word honesty meant because when I first heard it it scared me to death honesty when I looked in that book and it says that this demanded rigorous honesty that scared the hell out of me rigorous I thought you were talking about rigorous martyrs or something like that it scared me to death but it also meant to me this thing that for me to be honest do you honestly no more manipulating no more trying to con your way out of things no more saying that I'm going to stay sober for this event or that event you know no more sometimes you know we want to stay sober until we can get this back or get that back and oh what a grand job I could do from time to time say and then take credit for it oh look I stayed so well hell wonderful wonderful time I did. I stayed sober one time for 40 days. But before Lent was over, I hated the Pope, the Bush, the nuns, and all the boys. I hated everybody. So we can stay sober, you know, when you want something, you know. But see, that's just it. No more conning and manipulating. If I want something, I've got to keep my mouth shut and listen to try to get it, you know. And then I mustn't take any credit for it. You know, one day, two geese were going to fly south. And like these geese, you know, once you get what you want, you know, oh, to heck with it. Sometimes we want a job. Sometimes you want your family back. And that's how you get all these things back. Uh-uh. And then we're right back where we started. Because I was only doing it for one particular thing. Like these two geese that were flying south. And there was a frog asked, could he go along? And they told the frog, man, you can't fly, or frog, you can't fly, rather. You can't fly. But the frog begged so hard to go. So the geese felt sorry for him, and they found a corn stalk there. And they told, and one of the geese said, you put one in in your mouth, and I'll put one in in my mouth. And they told the frog, now you hang on and keep your mouth shut, and you'll go. So, you know, away they went. And what happened, two hunters was out looking up, and they saw this apparition going through the air with the frog hanging on. And so one of them said to the, one of the hunters said to the other hunter, he says, isn't that a strange thing? He says, I wonder who thought that up. The old frog opened his mouth and said, I did. You see, he got what he wanted, but he lost what he had. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So there's many times that we get what we want, but we lose what we got, you know. So I realized that I had to be honest, that I wanted this above all things. I wanted this peace of mind. I wanted to feel good about Holly. I wanted to feel good with Holly. No more manipulating and conning and saying, well, I'll stay sober if such and such a thing happens, or I will stay sober for such and such a thing. It just didn't work. And like this child, I had to be honest. I had to be honest. I had to be honest. I had to be honest. Well, I had to use the muscle of open-mindedness. I had to believe in something outside of myself, you know. That was, it wasn't hard for me to believe in God. It was simply hard for me to trust God. Oh, I thought I always trusted God, but I found out that I wasn't trusting anybody. So I kept an open mind about this. God could and would not trust me. I had to do it if he was sought. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Sane thinking. I know when this child went down into that garden, he had to keep an open mind. He didn't know whether this was going to work or not, but he was going to try. And he felt if I can get my hands on this butterfly, there's a possibility I'll get well. So believing in God and believing God was two different things. You see, I was almost afraid to pray and ask God to help me to stay sober. I really was. Because, you see, I'd always been one of those kind of people when I prayed, you know, I used to pray to the saints and tell them, don't tell God I said that, you know. So, you know, I must have been pretty insane. Being restored to sanity, many times one might become frightened in being restored to sanity because being restored to sanity means taking up a certain responsibility. And, you know, nobody's going to ask a crazy person to do anything. You know how sometimes we play crazy to keep from doing anything? So who's going to ask a nitwit to do anything? But being restored to sanity means that I must take up my responsibilities. And sometimes that's why I got drunk, because of my responsibilities. But I was so glad that I could be free. Because that was what the next step was going to give me. You know, many times when one can accept a power greater than himself. That second step is a beautiful thing. When we can come to believe in a power greater than yourself, it can restore you the same thing. I'm going to tell you. You know, now there's a step, my friends. When one comes to believe in a power greater than himself, it can restore him to sanity. You know, you can throw that antabuse away. You know that? That's right. That's right. Yeah. You can restore him to sanity. Just throw that antibusery away. You know that. Because you don't have to put that little pill up beside the grace of God. Because the book says God could and would if he was sought. You know? It's there. Read it. It's there. Now, I'm not telling you, oh, if somebody told you to take it, I'm not here to tell you what to do or what not to do. But I'm just telling you what can be done. And that's what can be done. When one can believe in a Paul greater than himself. You know, see, here's another thing. There was once, the book of books tells me, that a man had lain by a pool for 38 years. There was something wrong with him. And as the book of books tells me, that every once in a while the angels would come down and trouble the waters. And whoever got into the pool first came out and they were made well. And our divine Lord asked this man one day as he came by there, he said, wilt thou be made whole? That man acted. This is about like one of us. He didn't say yes or no. He started talking about, well, you know, every time I try to get down in the pool, somebody beats me to it. You know, one of those guys. He didn't ask him that. He asked him, do you want to get well? You know? See? And sometimes we'll ask people, do you want to get well? They start telling you a whole lot of other crap. You didn't say that. You didn't get well. See? Okay. Yes, that's something. But you see, the punchline of it was this. Our divine Lord told him, then take up. Take up your bed and walk. That included the springs and mattress, too, you know? See, a lot of us would like to get well, but we don't want the responsibility of taking up your springs and mattress. You know, all this goes on with dinner. So we'd rather stay drunk and play crazy. You know? But not me. So I kept an open mind, you know? And I realized that, Holly, you're going to have to do this all the way because the big book tells us that halfway measures availeth nothing. And since it told me that. Halfway measures availeth nothing. That meant the springs and mattress. That meant everything. It meant this. Anytime any person, place, or thing is so important, you've got to get drunk about it. That's a person, place, or thing you don't need. And then this child had to use the muscle of willingness, you know, to become really willing. This muscle of willingness is freedom. Was he willing to get up and go down there every day? Am I willing? Am I willing, as the big book tells me, to go to any length? I went to any length to get a drink. Any length. I remember one day I wanted a drink so bad and my girlfriend came over. She was one of them Avon ladies, you know? And she came over and I needed a drink so bad. And Lois said, so she first went out and collected some money from some of the people that owed her. And she came back and I drank that up and that still didn't do any good. And so then she decided we'd sell the samples in the box. And she sold the samples. We drank that up and for the day. It was over, you know, we hawked the case. And that's going to any length, you know? And I have gone to any length to get a drink. So that's what that willingness means to me. Am I willing to go to any length to get it? Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. See, this to me is a step of freedom. Made a decision. You know, it says, Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over. To the care of God. You know, it doesn't say make a decision to turn my life, my will and my life over to... Well, I have to see what Harry says about it, you know. Well, I would go to meeting tonight, but you know, I don't know. I'll go, but, well, I went last night and he didn't do no different than what he did the night before after I went. So there's no point in my going, you know. What am I trying to do? Impress somebody? No. Sometimes, you know, you get angry. Well, I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. And so and so. Still acting like they always do. Still acting like they always do. Well, he didn't make no decision to turn his will and life over to the care of God. He did, you know. Now, I'm going to get mad at you because you don't do that. No. But I love it. The way that it's written, Made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God. Not waiting to see, well, I'll do this if Johnny acts better or Mary acts better. Regardless, this is what I must do. I must make that decision, you know. Now, not only must I make the decision, I must act upon the decision. You know, I thought, when I first came in here, all I had to do that was one time, make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. And everything was cool from there on in. But oh, no. See, I'm Holly. I have to make this all during the day. You know, many times during the day. And to me, when I do this third step, when I put it into practice, I realize that I am in. As long as I'm in the confines of His will. I like to look at this third step as God's playpen, you know. Because, you know, when you put a child in a playpen, you don't put him in there because you hate him, to get rid of him or something. And you don't put axes and razor blades and scissors and knives in there. You might feel like it, but you don't. You put everything in there that is soft. And as long as I stay within the confines of God's will, things turn out much better. You know, much better. Because this, pardon me, is the step of freedom. When I have the privilege, you see, this is a privilege that alcohol never gave me. Alcohol made decisions for me. Alcohol knocked me down on my knees and, see, when I got on my knees, now I can get up. How many times have I got out on my knees, alcohol knocked me down, and I couldn't get up. And, you know, the bed will go around, and you say, well, I'll catch it next time it comes around. And you can't catch up with it. That son of a gun can outrun anything as well. But this step frees me from it. That, you know, frees me from that completely. And then he had to use the muscle of integrity. Ah, and this was a lovely, utter sincerity, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of us all. And I'm sure that this youngster made this kind of inventory. See, alcohol has a way, at least it did for me, I don't know about anybody else, it seems to bring out all the meanness, the spite, the violence. Now, as long as you're massaging me, everything's, oh, I'm a wonderful person to get along with. But when things go in the wrong direction, it brings out the meanness, the ugliness, the spitefulness within me. And that was it with me. But now, when they told me about this searching and fearless moral inventory, and it meant utter sincerity, sincerity with who? With me. See, this was the... the disrobing time of my life. The disrobing time. You know, like the first two people that were created when the world was still fresh from the hands of Almighty God. These two people through disobedience, you know, discovered that they were naked. You know, naked. That's what alcohol did for me. It rendered me naked. There's a difference between being nude and naked. Nude means you don't have any clothes on. Naked means you are defenseless. And when I took a searching and fearless moral inventory, and I'm so glad it was right after that third step, because then I didn't have to be frightened at my nakedness. And like these two people that Almighty God had first created, I too had made a garment out of fig leaves. The first fig leaf that I put on was fear. And then it was pride. And then it was self-pity. And then it was remorse. And then it was self-pity. And then it was remorse. And now an inventory I had a chance to disrobe. And this to me was a relief. You know, it went something like this with me. You know, there was once a man that always had to have his way about everything. And one night he got into a terrible argument with his friend. And during this terrible argument with his friend, he killed his friend. And he hid the body of the man. Now this man was a very handsome, very comely man, and very well-loved in the neighborhood. Hypocrisy, of course. And as he would go through the neighborhood, all the ladies would smile, and the men would tip their hats, and all that jive, and he just fell for that, you know. So he couldn't let these people know that he would commit a murder because of his violent temper. See, he kept his temper here, you know. He ought to pull that on special occasions on special people. Okay, so what happened was one evening when he went home, the spirit of the man was there. And this man says, You've got to admit that you murdered me. And he says, Oh, no, anything but that. I will do anything but that. So the man, the spirit of the man said, Well, I'll tell you what you do from now on. Carry me around on your back, and I will be the invisible man. No one will know that I am there but you. And the man agreed to this. And each and every day, this invisible man, the spirit, would mount his back. And he went out. Now, the first day, carrying a burden isn't too bad, you know. And he'd go along, he could smile, and he could speak, and everything was fine. But you see, those bones grew heavier and heavier and heavier. And with the flesh falling off of those bones, the stench grew greater and greater and greater. And no one can walk up straight with a bag of bones on his back. Nor can you smile with the stench of flesh in your nostrils. And someone knew that there was something wrong. And finally that day came when he had to admit it. And then he could walk up straight again. And that's what inventory did for me. That's what let me walk up straight again. When I stopped smelling the stench, and when I got rid of that bag of bones, and it took courage, because I had some of this stuff I had to admit to God, ourselves, and to another human being. And that was a muscle that I had to use. It was that muscle of courage, you know. Many times, you know, we might say, at least I said to my family, how could I have done this? Oh, me. Holly Martin done something like this? Oh, just like that man, you know. Well, you know, here's one of the things that alcohol helped me with. It was always my ally, of course. I was reading one time about a certain vegetation that had sprung up over in England after the World War II because of the terrific amount of bombing that had gone on over there. And this, whatever you call these people, geologists, or whoever fools with weeds and that sort of stuff, I don't know what you call them. Well, nevertheless, they discovered that because the earth had been bombed so badly, that this caused this vegetation to manifest itself again. After all of these years. It hadn't been there in thousands of years. And I looked at that with myself. You ask yourself, how could you? After the terrific bombing you have been through, and then you're going to ask yourself, how could you have done that? Those things were there, Holly. But alcohol helped you to bring them out, you know. And many times, in taking the fifth step, you know, I realize it's a tough titty, but you need the milk, you know. And it's hard, but it's fair. But sometimes when we look at step five, see, and I want to be honest about it. Why, Holly? The exact nature, many times the exact nature of a person's wrongs is merely loneliness. See, loneliness has caused more crime than poverty ever dreamed of. Many times we do things simply because we are very lonely people. The wrong thing is about when I tell you why I did it. Many times I went many places and did many things, and I come back and I told you, oh yeah, you know, I was down there and I turned everybody on. I was down there because I had nowhere else to go, you know. I'd alienated myself from everybody that was decent. Nobody else really wanted to be bothered with me. But I wanted to make you think I went down there to be a big shot. I could look down on those people, you know. But those people, do you know one thing? One drunk knows another drunk. I wasn't putting nothing over on them that they didn't know. Nothing at all. And then this youngster, as he began to recover from his illness, he used the muscle of self-respect. Sometimes we feel that when we speak of these little things, when one gets to the place where he's entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, he thinks it's some great big thing. Oh, defect of character, that's got to be something real big. No. Entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Those little bitties, stupid things, like begging and conning and manipulating. The kind of little stupid things like that I used to do, conning people out of things. Have you ever been around anybody, you know, and you could be talking to them about the weather or something else, you know, and they happen to open their wallet or pocketbook and you see more than two fives in there and you just got to borrow one of them, you know? Just got to. Have you ever been around anybody, you know, that he always left his cigarette in his room or in the car or someplace like that, you know? Always got to be one up on somebody. It don't make any difference if he comes to your house, he's got to have a matchstick or anything. Just got to be begging and conning, manipulating. It doesn't have to be any great big thing. Those little bitty things, you know, the ones that seem to steal my self-respect, the little bitty things that I wouldn't want anybody, you know, to know that I would do. And how sometimes we beg for compliments. We want people to compliment us. Somebody, maybe you can play the piano real well. Not at me, I can't play anything. But anyhow, someone will say to you, well, you know, you played beautifully. Oh, you think so? You know damn well you played the best. They keep asking. Keep asking. Oh, do you think, tell them, hell no, I just said that, you know, to get rid of them, you know? Because in here we don't have to beg for anything. Almighty God will give each and every one of us what we need, and all we've got to do is to say thank you to our fellow man because we have learned to appreciate them. And then on the other hand, entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Probably when this child was still ill, people cleaned up behind him, behind him, behind him. There's a great possibility that he threw tantrums and messed up things, or he was incompetent and people cleaned up. See, we are big boys and girls, and I realize you've grown up now. You don't need anybody to lie for you. You don't need anybody to clean up. Anything that you've done wrong, admit it, you know? You don't need that. You don't need for anybody to pick up the phone and say, well, Holly can't come today because she's got the croup or this or that or whatever. Holly can't come today for two reasons. Either she really is ill or she just doesn't want to come. That's all there is to it. It's just that simple, you know? You know, sometimes a person will say, if you don't get over here, you're going to get fired. I say, you can't fire me. I'm retired. How are you going to fire me? I'm going to come if I want to come. Now, this youngster, he also had to use the muscle of patience. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. That's one of the reasons why, you know, when we first come into fellowship and someone says, well, I'm going to take the group as my higher power. That's fine. That's all right for the first week or two or month or two to take the group as your higher power. But you're not going to make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of the group. Not to members of my group, you wouldn't. Okay. Entirely ready? To have God remove these defects of character? I wish somebody in the group would monkey with my character defects. They better take care of their own, you know. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. I bet you haven't got a member in your group that you're going to let remove any of your shortcomings. You're going to remove him first, aren't you? Uh-huh. So, you see, by the time we get down this far in the program, God couldn't would. God couldn't would if he was on. That's what makes it important. But this youngster, I'm sure he had to use the muscle of patience. And I had to use the muscle of patience. He had to keep going down there day in and day out. Regardless of what the weather was, patience. Sometimes he might have thought, why am I not getting well? I remember many times I thought, look, am I not ever going to get over this urging, this craving for attention? And then my dear old sponsor would say, yes, you might have an urge, you might have a craving, but you don't have a compulsion. And that's right. You see, you can't have a compulsion without first consent of the will. And I had made up my mind, with God's help, I will not take a drink. You know, when somebody comes and takes it, that old compulsion hit me. You're lying like a dog. You will not have a compulsion until you pick up that first drink. Say, uh-uh. Urges and desires, yes. But God and I can handle that. See, I've had urges and desires to slap judges, but I didn't. And I never was compelled, is it? Uh-uh. Sometimes, you know, we get mad and we will say, or we might hear someone else say, well, you know, after all, I don't see how I got railroaded into this thing anyhow. Impatient. God doesn't answer my prayers. Oh, yes, God answers all prayers. This is a divine snub. You're not ready yet, you know. You get that every once in a while, you know. And then, you know, this child, he realized as he was on the road to recovery, he had to use the muscle of amends. Now, that is a big one. That muscle of amends. You know, where we want to straighten out things with people. To make a direct amend, I didn't think that I would ever do. We're entirely ready. We're entirely ready, you know, to have God remove these defects of character. I didn't also recognize that one of my biggest defects of character was that it was hard for me to ever say, I'm wrong, you know. That was hard to say. But now, when it comes down to amends, made a list of all persons we've harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends whenever possible. The first thing that I had to learn to do was to forgive myself. And that was hard. But who am I? If Almighty God in all of his goodness and greatness can forgive me, am I greater than him to say, oh, I can't forgive me? He did. But yet, I can't, you know. But continuing going to meetings. You see, human contact changes human conduct. By contacting people that were like myself. That were struggling with the same thing that I was struggling with. I was able to do this. But it was hard. It was very, very hard. But then, another beautiful thing that happened when it come down to making amends was that feeling that I had within me. Once that it was over with. And that person did not accept me. Then they had a problem. I didn't have them on anymore. But they did. Now, of course, I didn't have such a rough time looking people up. Because, see, people got away from me right quick. They didn't let me do too much to them to begin with. You see, when I first came in AA, you know, I hated everybody. And then as I got, become sober, I just hated the people I knew. You know. So. That helped me, you know, quite. That helped me quite a bit. And then this youngster, he had to use the muscle of preservation. He had to continue to exercise because he wanted to preserve what he had. So he had to continue to exercise. Each and every day. Now, I have to continue to exercise. One of the ways not to continue to exercise is to go down there and sit on that bar stool to see if my fanny still fits it, you know. Mm-mm. Sometimes, you know, we get real great. Well, you know, I'm going to go down here and I'm going to show people that I can sit here and have just as good a time as anybody else and I don't drink. Oh. Well, you know, that's. And I'm going. If I'm down here, sitting down here, I can influence somebody. You better watch out. You better watch out that you don't get influenced first, you know. So this child, he didn't go down there every day and sit in this chair. And sometimes, you know, we can feel so great that I'm going down here and I'm going to change everybody. You know, one time the eagle was looking at a seal that had just come up out of the water. And the seal was laying on the bank. That's where he wanted to be, on the bank, in the slop there. And this eagle was feeling so great. And he says, I'm going and I'm going to pull this seal up on dry land where I think he should be. He has no business in this slop. So he swoops down on the seal and he fathoms his talons into the seal. And the seal did not want to be pulled up by this eagle. And there would begin a frustration. You see, many times when we stick our talons into something or somebody that doesn't want to be pulled back, frustration sets in. The more they pull one way, the harder we pull. And this eagle, instead of releasing his talons, he became so frustrated that he stuck them in deeper and deeper. And that seal pulled him right on out in the ocean and drowned him. And I have had to learn that in every facet of my life. That when frustration makes me think that you're going to pull something out, you're going to change things your way, I must remember, baby, you might get pulled down that much deeper. So you'd better cool it, you know. And I have had to use that in many ways. That when I think that I'm going to take over and I'm going to make somebody do what I want them to do, and when that frustration sets in instead of me releasing my talons and I dig in deeper, frustration sets in and I might get pulled down too. And it does happen. So I have to continue to exercise also humility, which is very, very hard because I don't have very much of it, very little. But I have to remind myself, you are God's child. You are not God, you know. That's it. That's it. I heard somebody, when they read the big chapter five there one time, was saying when this person got to, what an order I can't go through with it, that a voice spoke out and it was God saying, what an order I can't go through with it, with this person, you know. And then this youngster, as he began to improve, he had to use, he began to use the muscle of gratitude. Thought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. Praying only for the knowledge of His will. Isn't that wonderful? Only for the knowledge of His will. It didn't say Harry, Mary, Jane, or John. Only for the knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out. You know, I like that. I'll tell you why I like that. For more than one reason. It, uh, alleviates me from making all them dumb promises I used to make. Praying only for the knowledge, I'll tell you what you ought to do, I'm praying only for the knowledge of His will, not your will. And the power to carry that out. See, man's adversity is God's opportunity. Possibly, had this illness, disease, whichever you choose to call it, had not happened to me, I would not have known the freedom that I know this day. And I know and I enjoy and I love every bit of it. Every bit of it. To walk as a free woman. To be God's woman. See, I love it. So here's where gratitude comes in for me. Yes, I must go to any lengths to help my fellow man. This is true. But do you know, there's one of the things that I keep in mind always. One of the disciples asked me, I was a good master one time, how far shall I go with my fellow man? And he said, to the edge of the pit. He didn't say anything about falling off down in there with him. So this is gratitude. To be able to reach out my hand to someone. It is gratitude when I can get down on my knees at night. And sometimes I don't wait till I get down on my knees. My heart kneels. Because I think of the story of the shepherd's crook. He takes the sheep out each day into the pasture so that he can feed them, feed themselves, whatever. When they come home at night and there's anything, any burr sticks in their ear or a scratch on their nose, there's anything wrong with them. The old shepherd, he takes his crook and he touches this sheep if there's anything wrong. And he touches him so he'll step out of line. And as the rest of the sheep go into the corral, then the sheep that has been injured comes back and the shepherd can administer to him. And the little sheep, out of gratitude, a dumb sheep that can't say a word, will lay his head on the shepherd's knee just to let him know that he's grateful and he's thankful. And do you know how many times you and I, especially this I, forget that a dumb sheep has got more sense than you have. After all that he's done for you, you cannot say thank you and be grateful. The minute adversity strikes, you get angry. Sometimes I have to think it's just but the touch of the shepherd's crook. You know, I often think of this beautiful step in correlation to the 23rd Psalm. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Most of the time, you know, he knocketh me down and got sense enough to lie down. Then this youngster, he began to use the greatest muscle of all, the muscle of usefulness. See, a plastic spoon is useful, and when we get through with it, we discard it and throw it away. But a silver spoon is not only useful, it's valuable. And that's what we try to do. It's to be useful to our fellow man and valuable to our maker and our master. To carry the message. Oh, you know, if we had to use these great big words and all that sort of stuff, I'd never make it. You know, because they told me in the first place to keep it simple. But it is a privilege to me to be able to carry the message. You see, when I was drinking, I carried the message. You better believe it, I always had some kind of message. If I didn't have one, I invented one. You know what I mean, see. But now to carry a message that other people say. And the message, first message that I must carry, because the big book tells me, be sure that your own house is in order. And also, it's the promises. And every one of those promises that I have found in the big book, see, or in the book of books, because did he not say, and I will restore unto you the years that the locusts have eaten. And isn't it wonderful that I can think that he will restore, that he has restored unto me the years that the locusts have eaten. And all that it took, my friends, was to admit, accept, and surrender. And believing that God could and would if he was sought. And another promise that he promised you and I. If we will get up out of that wheelchair of emotional and mental and spiritual disorder. Knowing that God could and would if he was sought. The book of books tells me. And we will mount up as if on wings of an angel. And wings of an eagle. And we will run and not be weary. And we will walk and not faint. God bless you. Thank you.