Why the Big Book’s Concept of Higher Power’s Will Is Baffling – Marilyn S.

Hi, I am Marilyn and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm really happy to be here, grateful to Philo for the invitation to speak. But even more than that, I'm grateful that he calls me an old-timer. That has been a bone of contention in my sobriety for many, many years Because when I was new, my sobriety date is February 8th, 1972. An old timer was 10 years sober or more. And by the time I reached 10 and got into my teens, Pasadena set up an old timers meeting and old timERS were 20 years and more. And so I looked forward to that day when I'd be an old timer. and on my 20th birthday, I was overjoyed and pretty soon that meeting was announced and old timers were 30 years sober and more. So I waited another 10 years and then it happened. On my 30th birthday in happy anticipation, I looked for the flyer, and it was 40 years or more. And I don't think they even have that meeting anymore. I haven't heard about it. But it is so wonderful that Philo finally gave me that title that I so longed for, old-timer. So I'm really happy to be here. I welcome everybody, and it's thrilling to see people from all over the world just such an advantage of Zoom, and it makes me feel like I'm engaging in international travel. I'm going to Lithuania because a sponsee lives there, and so I can go to her meeting on Sundays, and then I am going to Rio where John holds a meeting, and that's become a regular step study of mine. And it reminds me of my drinking days when I also engaged in international travel in a similar way, because I was working in a lab. And after I discovered alcohol, I began to go out to bars with my lab mates. And one of them was the Matador in Los Angeles, West Los Angeles. and it was fantastic. It was kind of a flamenco place and there were flamenca dancers that would leap up onto tables with castanets and dance and it wasn't just wild guitar music playing and at the same time I was drinking Black Russians. That was one of my favorite drinks and that's when I felt like this is international travel just like Zoom all over the world but sitting in my living room or sitting in a bar as the past was. This is, that was a time of great joy in my life. I had my first spiritual awakening as a result of either a bar called The Ore House or Shakey's Pizza Parlor. And that spiritual awakening was a big pitcher of beer. I had suffered a lot of psychic pain up until that time largely because of my own selfishness and self-centered living and character defects and while I was approaching that spiritual awakening where spirits came into my life, namely alcohol I was paying a big tab for all of these things dishonesty, telling lies to everybody just to get you to like me And I felt if I could get away with it, then you would like me and I would be a happy person. You would respect me if I told you a wild tale about winning the Nobel Prize or something. And yet I didn't realize that I was paying the tab. I knew that I Was a liar. I knew That I stole from local stores. I just knew all of those things about myself, but thought that I was safe if you didn't catch me in a life. You didn't find out about it. So as I said, a life lived like that is bound to produce pain. And it did. And what it caused me to do was just to hate everybody around me because I was sure you were the source of the pain and misery. i thought that the that my happiness lay in becoming a scientist and my mother was a saintly person and supported my education and i went away to a good school to study science and i met and married a scientist there so i was on my way to happiness i just felt that that would be it if somehow i could finally being the misfit that i was be a scientist maybe even win the nobel prize Then I would finally have some friends. I would have people to respect me. I could pin it on my shirt and I could walk down the street and they would say, oh, there goes Marilyn. Marilyn, that Nobel Prize winner. And I just, I so long for that, people to expect me. And I've often thought that what I really wanted was to be able to walk into a room, a crowded room and people would turn toward the door And they would begin to say, Marilyn, Marilyn is here. Maybe fall to their knees and creep toward me and maybe come up and kiss my rings. And yet there was something inside of me that knew that even if that happened, I would think to myself, but you don't really mean it, do you? I know you don'T really mean IT. And so I was just locked into that kind of world of unhappiness and imaginings. And yet, as I said, I was approaching that goal. And by the 1960s, I had married Bill, my scientist, a physicist, and he had become a professor at UCLA. And I was a graduate student at that time working in a lab. It was a well-funded lab with a great director. and I had what was a promising career. I was working on a doctorate in physiology, biochemistry, had a big project that was given to me by the director and still, I just felt like they don't like me. My work is not going well. Well, why was my work not going? Well, because I kind of abandoned what the director said. here is a good thing to do. And sort of went off on my own, not paying any attention to any direction, mixing a few things together, causing a few explosions, spilling over into other people's experiments and wondering why don't they adore me and love me and praise me? So I had lost hope at that point. You see, I had gotten to that terrible, terrible place for alcoholics, which is even far worse than not getting what I wanted, which made me unhappy. Frustration always resulted when I didn't have instant gratification. But far worse was getting just what I always wanted and realizing, no, that's not it. I mean, here, I was in a lab doing science. I had a white lab coat. I looked like a scientist. I even had a slide rule. And here, I was married to a scientist, so we could talk about Gaggenbauer polynomials and the theory of gravity. And what happened was it only produced hideous arguments. I remember one time I presented Bill with my theory of gravitational force, and he being a physicist way ahead of me in every way pointed out that that's ridiculous and impossible and I was filled with such embarrassment and hatred at that point that he had challenged me that I stopped talking to him for about two years well, that really upset me because when that happened, he got real happy and then finally i relented and began to talk to him again which was you really don't love me do you that's why i'm so miserable so this was our relationship what i thought was going to make me a happy person so here i was confronted in the 60s with everything i'd always wanted and being crazier and more miserable than ever and that's when as i said i had the first spiritual awakening because the 60s was just such a magic time for people like us. And if you're young and missed it, too bad. I mean, it was an amazing time. All was forgiven, it seemed. And we just began to drink a lot of alcohol. We started with a wonderful reagent on the shelf, which was ethanol, 90% alcohol, which is a mighty good drink, 180 proof. And then we'd go out to bars. And I thought it was science at long last that had made me a happy person. But what it was, was what I had needed to be a happy person, namely large amounts of alcohol. And that became a way of life for me. I had done a little bit of work in the lab before that time. But when alcohol became a way of life for me, I pretty much quit working entirely. And that was the 60s where money was flowing freely into science. It was the era of big science. So they supported leeches like me. And I'm happy to tell you, if you pay taxes, that your money is much better spent now. It's very difficult to get grants from NIH and the various funding agencies. and you have to make good use of it. And baggage like me is gotten rid of in a hurry. But in those days, I was indulged for about three years. At the end of that time, the director asked me to write up what I'd been doing and that was the kiss of death for me. I went from pure joy to pure misery in a very short time. I had nothing to write up and just left the lab, sat on my couch for a long time, like months, and mailed the keys back because I had nothing to write up after all that time. And that was the end of my career in science. It seemed to me time for despair. And during this time, the only planning and managing that I was doing was how to get out of the house, get more to drink, get it back and just stay in that state where it was almost bearable rather than bringing me joy and fulfillment. Now, alcohol was that kind of friend that made the unbearable just pretty much almost bear able on a daily basis. What I wasn't planning for was to give birth to a lot of children, but that was happening too because I had lost control of my life big time. And I just, I couldn't figure out how it was happening in sobriety. I kind of got it all figured out. But in those days, it just seemed to be happening. And it was making my husband ever more alarmed because he had to work a lot. He was trying to establish his career in science and spend a lot of time in the lab. And when he'd get home sometimes i wouldn't even be there i'd be out trying to get more to drink the children would be at home alone and as a consequence he brought his mother in to take care of the situation ah yes we have this phrase that seemingly good and the seemingly bad as necessary for my growth please help me god to accept the seemingly good and the seemingly bad. Well, that certainly seemed bad to me. She really scared me. She talked to me about my drinking. Unless I got control of my life and stopped drinking so much, she'd see that I was locked up and I'd never see the children again. Seemingly bad. Now I realize that was seemingly good, because she saved the children. Really, they were in danger from crazy alcoholic mom. And she took care of things until she got tired, and then my mother would come in. And we did that for a while. I visited the program largely at their urging in 1969, but it didn't take because I was not hopeless enough. I somehow felt that if I can just get them to go home and stop drinking, at least for a little while. Then I can control my drinking. I must do that to keep them away. Well, you know how that works for a real alcoholic. The one thing I can't do is simultaneously control and enjoy my drinking, so that trip into AA did not work, but it did make me well actually it ruined my drinking because after that visit everything was set on making rules only two drinks a day which always worked so I could up it to maybe six drinks a day all of those rules fell through and the grandmas moved back in lectured me about drinking finally in 1972 um a miracle happened and i look back on that time now and i was an atheist scientist that's what i said to myself that's when i believed there could be no god because i believed in reason i believed in science and you can't do experiments on god God is like Easter Bunny. God is Like Santa Claus. God islike Count Dracula. I mean, these are myths and they're interesting and they probably serve some purpose for people who are weak. But I was strong. I believed in science. I believe that life is hard and then you die and that's it. Accept it. So here I was presented with this program which was spiritual but it began in such an easy way i called central office to argue with them but they sent a 12-step caller to visit me and she didn't talk to me like my mother-in-law talked to me she told her story and it was safe it was so safe that if she talked about descent into depravity with alcohol. I began to feel terribly sorry for her. I mean, what a life. This is terrible. You ought to do something about that problem. And then I learned that she did something about that program. She went to Alcoholics Anonymous and she began smiling and clearly her life was better now. In fact, it was downright good. She attributed it all to this fellowship and told me that she would take me to a meeting. Now, before I called central office, I looked back on that time and that was a time of final hopelessness, waking at four o'clock in the morning, night after night, knowing, you know, I'm going to make that rule. I'm not going to drink today. And you know? I'm gonna violate that rule and I am going to drank today and it's not going be in control and I'm gunna end the day in a blackout and people are gunna be disappointed and give me those lectures. And it's going to be like this day after day after day until I die an alcoholic death and I may cause other people to go down with me. So after one of those nights, I essentially said a prayer and that prayer was call central office, ask for help. And I realize now that my higher power heard that prayer and i believe now this is not stated in a literature this is a disclaimer but it's my belief and that is that once we say i'm ready please please help me i'm desperate that god moves heaven and earth to come to our rescue and somehow i was taken to a meeting where the perfect sponsor for me was the main speaker. I was just given every advantage to gain and maintain sobriety, and I was taking into what now seems like the perfect AA group for me, which at that time seemed like a nightmare, and that was the big Pacific group in West Los Angeles. It was custodial care for me essentially, and in those days, that was February 8th, 1972. There were not the good recovery places that there are now to get people into steps and into a program, drying out places, Chic Shadel, aversion therapy, that type of thing. So I needed custodial care. And that group pretty much provided it. I probably called my sponsor eight times every day. First, just how to get out of bed. And she began to walk me into what I have now come to recognize as just normal living. First, get me into the program, our three legacies, unity recovery service, big time fellowship and all the activities, service, take commitments at every meeting, recovery. Hey, we have these steps here. I know they're scary. They mentioned God, but don't worry about that. But also she began to And help me through the day, because a large part of the day I was not at an AA meeting. And that's when I depended on Marion. And in those early days, when my mother-in-law left and I was there taking care of the house and the children, Marion said, OK, let us just begin with the basics. I want you to, let's get a count on the children. Let's see what we're dealing with. And there were only three. I mean, there had seemed like so many more in those drinking days. And she was simplifying my life. And she would say, all right, now let's make a list. And you get the children out of bed and you get them washed up and you put clothes on them and then they need food. and then she told me just as i say it was so elementary but it was stuff that i had not been doing i'd been sitting in the garage mostly drinking and so i just needed that kind of direction and i was surrendered enough thank god to take it now why was that so because i had the wonderful wonderful character defect of unhealthy dependency that bill wilson talks so much about He talks about that being the source of so much of our dis-ease. And I actually formed parasitic relationships. I would attach to you and try to eat your soul. Just do for me what I ought to be doing for myself. Take care of me, love me, pet me, be kind to me. And I formed that attachment to Marianne. But she had such a sense of her own self and purpose that she would just flick me off of her side and say, get to work, do the stuff on your list. Or at meetings she would tell me to go talk to this newcomer that looks more miserable than you do kind of thing. So I was being weaned from that kind of unhealthy dependency by Marian's good direction. So here I was in this fellowship taking these steps And at the same time, I just thought, because they involve God, I just don't know what that means. Turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand God. Well, I didn't understand God at all. And the concept of God's will was even farther removed. At that time, I was not a seeker. Our chapter five, which we heard read, said that God could and would if sought. But I was right now in that state of just being baffled. And somebody handed me that lovely meditation of Thomas Merton that circulates through the fellowship of I have no idea where I'm going. I do not see the road ahead. And it is a long meditation, But the essence of it is that this Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, not an alcoholic, but a person that was a convert. He had gone through what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. And it took him to an abbey in Gethsemane. And he prayed maybe every waking hour of the day trying to discern God's will. And he says in that meditation, I don't know God'swill and I never will know it. That made me feel so happy to read that. I mean, if somebody ought to know it, he should. But he said that if I have the desire to please God, and in the AA sense, God as I understand God, then I will be led along the right path, though I don't even understand it at the time. And I'll end up in doing God's will, and I willbe safe. And even though I face some terrible things, shadow of death, I will not be afraid because I know you'll never leave me to face my troubles all alone. And that became the basis for the third step for me that I didn't really know if anything was there, but I had a higher power and that was my sponsor. And that was the program. And as long as I sought to please, to please my higher power, then i'll be led along the right path and that's my belief today although as a result of the steps i have come to know god as i understand god i had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps but that still stays with me i don't get a telegram when i do my 11th step in the morning I try to get centered and try to ask God to use me today instead of my proclivity, which is selfish and self-centered living. I try To get out of that. But I don't get any kind of vision or telegram, or even email from God that says, Marilyn, this is what I have in mind for you today. So I have to depend on that thing that has sustained me, which is if I desire to please my higher power, which I experienced through the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. In other words, if I try to be a member in good standing in AA with my sponsees, with my sponsor, then I will be led along the right path. And as I look back over sobriety, I can see, my gosh, that's true. My life straightened up once I got sober, and when I give a talk, I realize there is a pattern. There is a coherent pattern. The pattern is recovery, that I was sick physically and I was led into physical health, and I began to learn the basics of normal living, a kind of mental change so that my thoughts became directed toward recovery, And eventually that psychic change that we need, that is talked about in there is a solution. Dr. Carl Jung talked about these emotional transformations, these deep changes that have to occur in recovery before we gain peace of mind. And a lot of that is through letting go of all of these character defects, these things that have hung us up for years and years. and that had to happen that had to happen in the fellowship and I could see that indeed that did happen but as it was happening I didn't understand it at the time that's what did happen but what seemed to happen to me was just well this is daily living taking direction and one of those first things was that as I became physically sober and my mind started coming back to some extent, I began to realize that my amends have got to be lifetime amends to my family. My children that I had neglected, my mother and my mother-in-law that I had been so cruel to me, my husband, good, good man that I had been a witch to or something that rhymes with that because that's probably not, I don't know whether we can say the B word here but that's what I was and my long-suffering husband put up with that for a lot of years and so I had a lifetime of amends to make to these people, my family and those few people left in my life. I also wanted to go back to work but I was told take a job in AA and then when the time is right you'll get a knock on the door if you're supposed to go back work in the real world but right now you have this family with little children and you have jobs in aa southern california convention jobs at every meeting just do those to the best of your ability forget about going back to work in an outside world well that was good news because I had no resume, sat in garage for three years, drank beer in a lab. I mean, that didn't look too good on the resume. So what I did though was make amends to the director of that lab. And that was really painful because I apologized and he just acted embarrassed. And after a short time, put his hand on the door of his office taken by me as a symbol of time to go now and I walked out and I felt terrible I apologized but felt worse than ever and I called an old-timer who pointed out to me saying sorry is not what we mean by amends that could be a beginning that can start the conversation and I said but he wanted me to leave his office I even offered to undo the damage I'd caused but he just wanted me to go. And so she said, well, I guess you're going to have to make amends to the universe. And I said, but how do I do that? And she said well if there may be an occasion when you can pay it back monetarily. You squandered a lot of funds and you certainly may be able to contribute in ways other than the scene of the crime. So here I was just back doing one day at a time and forgot about that and began to make amends to the children and trying to make up to Bill by taking direction from Marion. A part of that was that Marion said, ah, fizzy drink, that was the direction. Marion said you know you should get involved in the children's school. You should be a a responsible parent and start serving the community too and the other children. So I want you to go to the PTA. I thought, you know, like make this sign of the cross and rub garlic all over to keep the Dracula away. What an order. I can't go through with it. I explained I'm not a PTA type person. And Marion said, all the more reason why you need to go the PDA. Parent teacher's organization. Oh, my gosh. I just imagined women there in flowery dresses with baths and proper talk. And oh, my God, it was so foreign to me. And yet Marianne wanted me to do that. Wanting to please Marianne, I did it. And I walked in. And sure enough, a big beautiful woman in a big frilly dress with flowers came over and she said her name. And, and she said, and what is your name? And welcome. And I said, I am Marilyn. I am a scientist. That's often how I started a conversation. And most of the time people just ran away in terror. But on this occasion, the PTA lady looked at me and she said, we've been waiting for you. I want you to be our science chairman. I thought, no, this means I'll have to go back. And we're supposed to say yes. And I thought what would Marion want me to do? And I ended up agreeing to that. And here I was the science chairman and they asked me to make a chemistry kit for the elementary grades to do little experiments. And Marion egged me on, and she said, do it. Just do it! That's one of these amends that you can make to the universe. And so when I was in the lab and the director had suggested a project, I thought, no, I'm too smart for that. I want a real project. That was a part of the motivation for not really doing good work there. And here, in sobriety, with all of my feelings right out on the surface of inadequacy and I can't go through with it, why are you asking me to do something impossible? All of that coming to the surface, I just thought, I can'T do it. And and even though it was an elementary chemistry kit for second, first, second, third graders, it seemed way beyond anything I could do. But Marian said, do it. So I had Becky, David, Susie, my three, and they became the little guinea pigs. And we do experiments if they said, oh, that's that's good. then that went in the chemistry kit. And if they just said, what? Then we threw that one out. And so I made this chemistry kit and wrote up a little lab manual. And they began to use it in the elementary grades around our area. And I had to go out and talk to the teachers about it, which was so scary. But Marianne said, do it. AndI kept being walked into things that I would not do just because I wanted her approval and that was getting me up and out of that state that I was in the psychic change that we needed internal rearrangement so that I became another person in Alcoholics Anonymous and I gave a copy of that land manual to Marion to get approval from my sponsor and she thumbed through it. And, and she said, Marilyn, that's good that you did that. And I want you to understand and think about this. You have to realize that it's good that for the first time in your life, you actually helped somebody else gave something back for the good education you received and my gosh I realized that it had all been selfishness up to that point and Marion had led me into something that was so out of my ordinary living which made me happy. I had never been happy from getting something for myself but I was really really happy that I was able to do that. Years went by, not too many, a couple years, and the director of that lab called me and invited me back to the lab. Was it because I made amends? I have no idea. But I went back to The Scene of the Crime and worked there in the lab and eventually went into information science, handling medical and scientific information, which was much safer than doing wet chemistry, where I always seemed to explode things. And that made a nice career. And it all began with simple amends. Just be willing and take that first step to make amends, likewise with the family. I began to play with the children. Eventually we began to climb a lot of mountains together. And they grew up and they became happy, productive people. And I would often talk about that in my AA talks, that the program working through me extended into the rest of the family by some kind of osmosis, just as my alcoholism when I was practicing it went out to everybody and started ruining their lives. Recovery seemed to have this wonderful effect on the family. And in the sixth and seventh step, we let go of these character defects. And one that I had to let go off was guilt about the children. And by making amends and coming to understand that we're all children of God, that I head not ruin their lives. We're just here on earth to carry out what is in front of us. I had released a lot of that guilt, and in fact it had grown into a kind of pride that we really have a wonderful family. And I was most grateful to it for that thing that had happened. And it's a funny thing with character defects. I don't think they are removed and disappear entirely. I think they were just stashed away in the closet of character defects. And every now and then that door bumps open, and they creep out. And I experienced them all over again. And they come out so subtly. And Pride was one of those big ones. And I kind of looked at other families where children had problems with alcohol. And I just thought, well, maybe you don't work the kind of program that I do. Otherwise, your family would be happier. And it was a kind of condescending attitude. And I was kind of embarrassed when I gave AA talks because it was kind of bragging and I knew that there were people that were suffering. But I didn't really consciously experience it as pride. And when I was 40 years sober, I was giving my talk at the state line roundup or retreat, whatever they call that thing, state line in Las Vegas and talking about step two and God. And God is with me in extreme, terrible conditions. And I needed to hear that because when I got away from the podium, I saw frantic phone calls on my cell phone from Becky and Susie, our two daughters, from Bill. Nobody could find David, our son. He was 41, had a beautiful life, had gone to work, but didn't come home from work. And his young wife was frantic. and by 11 o'clock we learned that he had hanged himself in his office and my whole world fell apart the bottom dropped out of my world and I was far away in Las Vegas our family members were scattered all over the place and Bill was at home alone when he learned the truth from me that his beloved son was no more and I heard his heart shatter on the phone. And my sponsor, Clancy, was at Stateline and it was close to midnight but I called him and woke him up and at first he was grumpy and then he heard what I was saying. I'm a little emotional because we lost Clancy a few weeks ago and uh and clancy as he always did uh when the occasion required he just stepped into that telephone booth took off his suit and became superman and he began to talk to me and he pointed out this is indeed a terrible thing but you have 40 years of alcoholics anonymous behind you. And your husband is home alone and has no program to prop him up. And you've got to get there, you've Got to go home and be a source of comfort to him and the rest of your family. So I started back from Las Vegas, it's a five hour drive. And I had the comfort of the wonderful Sandy B, who also is has left us for the larger life. and he had lost his two daughters the year before, he told me exactly what to do. You go out to your higher power. And I had come into a friendly relationship with God by that time, established that relationship. And then he says, when you really begin to grieve and react, guess who comes back with you? And I can tell you that that is true. I called my longtime friend, Diana, who lives in New York at three o'clock in the morning and she talked to me the rest of the way home and there began the recovery and there was Alcoholics Anonymous people who had experienced similar things like Julie St. J lost her son 10 years before and I knew her she is sponsored by my best friend in AA I saw her walk through that of course Sandy Sandy B my hero in sobriety walked through it and were happy. And everyone who had suffered a similar thing said, Marilyn, your first task is acceptance. If you can accept, then you will find that there are many blessings. I just couldn't believe that. But now more than nine years have passed, and I can tell you that that is true. Many blessings. I was teaching at a lifelong learning institute at the time, and i was elected president shortly after that and that was such a distraction i could throw myself into that and into even more active aa paying attention to my sponsees listening more what did we miss from david he seemed to have the good life what what did мы miss i try to listen more and one of the assignments i have is that when anybody experiences such a tragedy i just say this is a circle you don't want to be in but i am in that circle and i have a joyful life now and i'm going to hold out my hand and draw you into that circle and we will share with you just what to do and then one day you will extend your hand and pulled the others in. I thought I was the only person in the world when I got that news that such a thing had happened to. And yet, anytime I give an AA talk, I usually hear about somebody who has experienced something very similar. And so that's one of my assignments. It's a funny thing. Not a funny things. It's natural thing. If you live a long time, I've lived a long-time. I am 81 years old. I'm still going strong and I feel younger than ever and have a blessed life. But my husband was eight years older and he got up in years. And so if you live a long time, the natural thing is that you begin to experience other people transitioning to the life beyond. And a little over a year ago, My beloved Bill left planet Earth and went to whatever lies beyond. But it was so different from our loss of David. Bill had science as his higher power, but in the last year, the last month, he was on hospice care in our living room. And he began to have a lot of visitors. some were colleagues, some were my AA friends, but some were from colleagues who had died years before. His mother and father used to visit him. Now, I have no idea what that was all about, but it gave him some kind of consolation. And Bill the scientist, who had been not really an atheist because he didn't argue or fight, he just knew that you can't know, but he came to know in those last months. Somehow he came to know that life is much more complex and there is something beyond. And before he left this life, he said he would be on the other side waiting for me. We always had that opportunity to express love for each other in that sweet, quiet way. And one night before he left, he said, perfect marriage. And then he said oh not so perfect and I thought yeah you remember don't you those terrible years, and then he added, not perfect because it only lasted 60 years. and when I heard that I thought oh my gosh I am forgiven the slate is clean now he didn't have to forgive me because he was a good man he didnít hold crudges he just lived one day at a time and accepted what was going on but I felt truly forgiven I feel not only forgiven about life but i got just what i always wanted i didn't even know what it was until i got it and that was to live comfortably on life's terms the greatest gift of all thank you very much