Willingness and the Shift from ‘I Know’ to ‘I Don’t’ – Debbie D.

hi everybody I'm Debbie Davis and I'm an alcoholic and it is so delightful to be here again I can't get over this is this is time when you go golfing this is nap time usually at a conference and yet and you gotta for this you got to want to come here you know you just don't pop in and stuff like that you've you've come a long way and i really thank you for the invitation bob and derrick and your hard work uh this for me was going to be like a big love-in because i know just about all the speakers and then i thought there were two i didn't know there was only one of them and our speaker tomorrow night which i who i do know and then the new one I got to meet was Courtney she's I'm her new girlfriend so you know you're gonna go away with a lot of girlfriends this weekend in a new sort of sense of you know what I mean but I know that today I I know there are two people having AA birthdays. I know that Derek is 25. Where's Derek? Derek, I can't see you. Bob B is 18. There's Derek. Bob B's 18. Yes. Does anybody else have an AA birthday today? So just you two are special. Well, this is for you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Elkies Happy birthday to you. We have fun, don't we? I love that. I got the topic of the principles of service yesterday and today. And every active member of AA I know is in service because I know the glow that comes from service. I know that my lifeline depends on that active service and not a historical tense. and before i came to you i was only self-serving i was the only one that mattered and you quickly showed me and told me that that was gonna have to change that that would not last long. And so the day finally came for me, I was introduced to you 10 months before I hit that bottom. I'd heard you talk about bottoms and I knew intellectually what you were talking about but I didn't know the experience of it. I knew that. I didn' t know what that felt like. And the day that finally came, it was a Saturday. It was the result of a second relapse and it wasn't any big deal. It's really pretty lame. It is as exciting as when you blow up a balloon and then you let the air out and it goes. That was it. You know, that's how exciting it was and it's really embarrassing, but that would be the day. It wasn't an event, but I've listened to our stories and rarely is it a big blowout event. It's a moment sometime maybe after the event. And for me it was that I don't want to keep living like this anymore. And the shift happened to me because for 10 months I'd been living up here in the yakety-yak world. I know, I know. But really what I've learned from myself is when somebody tells me, I know, I know. It's code for back off. It's cod for you can keep talking, but I'm all done listening. So when I have a sponsee tell me that I say, we have to eliminate those words from your vocabulary. You can say, I agree, I believe that, but you have to get rid of the words I know because it just shuts me off when I do that. It shuts me out from any learning, any changing, any growing. And so I had the I knows going on pretty bad and I already had one relapse. It was basically because I knew I would drink again. I didn't know the when or the where of it. And I only went to one AA meeting a month. It's not exactly the road to rocky recovery, but there won't be any recovery. It's a road to self-will run riot. And I had that first relapse and I learned my lesson is how I looked at it and I ramped my meetings up from one a month to one a week. Boy, that was a lot of meetings to me when you don't want to do anything here. and finally the day came it was a Friday I had been in California on that last relapse and made renewed acquaintances with my friends and five weeks later I get a letter in the mail and it had one joint in it and I decided to keep it because I thought well you just never know when you might need something like this it turned out I needed it the next day So, you know, it just was, wow, that was timing. Yeah, whoa, right? Yeah. And I smoked that one joint. I call it my driest martini because I am an alcoholic to the core. I know that. The other things that I introduced into my life were just to make the drink and go longer and more colorful and brighter. But it was always about to enhance the drinking. and I smoked that one joint and I had no idea that that would be the substance that would kick me off the fence of reservation and indecision as to whether or not I was an alcoholic. I didn't tell anybody about that because, well, my attitude was none of their business. It was going to be one of those secrets. But the problem was is in those dry months I'd acquired a conscience and I knew I had done it and I didn't want to keep living that way this constant useless, purposeless empty life and I just had that knew I had had that surrender to that innermost self and it was like between this heartbeat which was, I am done. I don't want to live this way anymore if this is the way living's going to be. And this heartbeat, the thought came into my mind, those people in AA seemed to know what to do. And it wasn't like I went, it was just that one degree shift of being willing, which I had not been till that moment. I had the psychic change happen to me on that day because that afternoon all the differences that I'd been finding between me and you the number one was I'm too young to be an alcoholic I didn't drink as long as you did I didn' t drink as much as you d I would find all those excuses of why we're different that was that afternoon And that psychic change, which I did not pray for, ask God for, do a task to create, would happen. And the differences that I saw that afternoon were like fog that began to melt because the sunlight of the Spirit began to shine on it. And I began to see our similarities. And that's what helped me walk through these doors into the rooms of willingness, that room, the attitude of willingness. And so that was a Saturday, and I got up on Sunday, and I was sober all day long, and the way I went to meetings was I walked in when it started, I left when it was over, got her done, checked that off of the to-do list for the week, got AA done. And I might as well have been sitting out in the parking lot for all I did or listened. Today, I would have been in the back of the room texting the whole time, somehow distracting me or you because I need to be entertained. And that I didn't do that. I decided, you know, I'm going to go early. I went 20 minutes early and compared to what I'd been doing, that was like going the day before, you now. Who goes that early? Well, if you go 20 minutes early, then I found out these old-timers are there that are probably like on their second cup of coffee. You know, that's how long they've been already at the meeting. So that goofy people like me can ask questions. And the other thing I don't do is I don' t ask questions because that indicates I don t know. Now, I don t know, I'm about as clueless as I can get. but I want to just kind of secretly figure it out without you knowing that I don't know. So I don' t ask you for help in the direct line of vision way. What I just said was, what do you do to stay sober? And they knew the kid meant business. They'd seen me dancing around here for those 10 months and this was the first time I gave kind of a heartbeat of interest, of openness and their service to me was they shared what they did and they began to share with me the guidelines that they lived by and invited me to do the same. There was no you have to's, you gotta's, you should's, your oughta's, you musts. It was, this is what we've done, you might want to try it. And that was such an attraction to me that I didn't have any deadline to meet or a pace to keep up with, but I wanted to fall into that line of step. And they began to tell me the first thing was, one day at a time, and I still believe this today, that one day to time, we don't take the first drink or anything else that affects us from the neck up in my particular case and we get a sobriety date and I thought you know what, I know I'm all in and I'm willing today to make that commitment to sobriery which to me became recovery not just about physically being sober but that's where I started and so I took that as my sobriity date and it still is today, and that's February the 8th, 1976, which means I've been walking with you for 41 years. Now, there's people here sober longer than me, so that feels, you know, I love that. Thank you, Sharon. And I also got sober young. I mean, I loved being 41 years sober and 39 years old. You know,I just love how that works. I really do. But I technically, chronologically got sober at 18 years old. I had my first drink at 12 and I got sober at 18. It wasn't my plan. It wasn' t my intention. But sometimes we don' t I just look at God had more work for me to do here than to continue to do the wreckage of my life out there. I'd been introduced to AA I finally picked up and took the grace that had been given to me and is available to everyone. I finally tapped into that with that willingness to do something next in February of 76. And my journey would begin there. Now, service to me when I walked into the rooms with you was not what I saw. Now, I'm not, you know, there's a lot of things that's been kind of mentioned a few times, like Ellen, what was said doesn't mean what was heard and how something comes in but it gets retranslated out. And I think many of us can be like that. I know I certainly am too. When I was born an only child, so the world revolving around you and your family is the natural thing. You're generally the center of attention. You like that, right? So that doesn't translate to the world at large, however. And they're thinking the same thing about them. They're not thinking that you are the center. They're thinking they are the centre. And so there begins the beginning of conflict with people. It is a world that exists with people, I'm fine without them, but that isn't the real world. And so I had to learn how to be in service once I got here, but prior to that it was all about self-service. From the night I took my first drink, it was all about me. And what am I? I, I, I. I never did anything for you without a requirement on the front end. There was no for free and for fun that service was done for you. There was always a checklist item or a keeping score that I did. And that was one of the things you told me I had to absolutely get rid of was the scoreboard. Because no matter what you did for me, I always had more tick marks on my side than you did on your side. And I had to get rid of that because love doesn't keep score. And then a free heart had to do it without that scoreboard so those kinds of things were those early things you showed me that I was a scorekeeper. The service that began was in the beginning of staying sober. That was kind of my first little bit of service, but by staying sober I wasn't doing and behaving the way that I Was. Little bits at a time. I was better employee. I was a better person in that halfway house. And I began to stay sober which led to the rest of the kinds of service that I would be introduced to. So they started me off with that sobriety date. And it's still my sobriery date to date, but it's the remainder of the things they shared with me that has allowed me to keep that. They talked to me about a home group. They said we go to a lot of meetings and we get a home group. And I have had, I've lived in four different parts of the country. I've had four different home groups as the result of that. So far to date, that's the only reason I've changed home groups. Hasn't been because I haven't wanted to, but it just, the reason I'm just chosen to stay there. I also realized on this last move, I've also had four different last names. So each city kind of had its own last name. And I was talking to our speaker tomorrow night, and he said, I think I've heard you in Dallas. I said, yeah, I've had, I don't know, I think all three of my last names have all talked there, you know? And so it's kind of fun to figure out what people know me by. But a home group was the very beginning of learning about service. Very beginning. I was terrified to take a commitment. You don't understand, I'm not trustworthy. I said, you know, we just do this one meeting at a time. Oh, okay, I could do that. That I could grab onto. Okay, but I was so scared to let you down, so scared that I would flake. And yet those are the very things that began to really nourish my recovery and to grow in it. They were really clear that you always have a commitment in your home group that was not an option, that just wasn't an option. No matter how many commitments we have, if you want a commitment, we will break down a commitment into two people or four people or five. I remember I had a coffee cleanup commitment and again, we didn't, we had a lot of people but it wasn't that many commitments and so I broke that down. You're on that coffee pot, you're on the other side You're on that coffee pot. You get the grounds. You put it away. I mean, you can divvy up commitments because I know from the beginning it gave me purpose. It was the first time that I could be anonymously in service, anonymously useful. It wasn't about the big deal in the front of the room or the pat on the back or the spotlight. I needed to know how you did that, That it wasn't a weekly credit for it or any admiration for it. I needed to learn how to get my ego out of the way of that recognition and the center of attention and move into those anonymous opportunities of service. And so a home group showed me that. I've had all kinds of commitments in my home group. In 41 years in four home groups, I've only been secretary, which is maybe called different things in different home groups, the leader or kind of the one in charge for a period of time, or chairperson, whatever that might be called in your group, three times. Because I've always rather been serving in other ways and have in my community in the Bay Area right now, Um, the majority, the personality of every area I've lived in is different. Very different. We're all staying sober, got the same three legacies, but whatever something got started, that kind of is what got duplicated. So what got duplicated in my community is a short speaker and then a, uh, the balance of the hour is, um, discussion. They pick a topic and the balance is discussion. and that's fine, but there's a six-month rotation and you only need to have six months and 30 seconds of sobriety to qualify for secretary and run in that meeting. I have an opinion about that which I won't share. So when I work with the women I sponsor, I said that is not okay. I want you to know the group that you're going to be serving and that you need to do other commitments in that group or meeting before you make yourself available for secretary. Because the way to get to know it is the greeter position, the coffee maker position like Courtney talked about. By getting there early, you see the new people coming in not knowing where to go or what to do and you get that opportunity of that quiet time. And so the service that I got to learn at that home group level and again I've had all kinds of commitments I love them probably I think Doug reminded me of one of them I had I was for that commitment that year I was the toilet paper in the ladies room commitment now we know that is a vital commitment it's right up there with coffee okay nobody knows who brings it but you know if we're out right? Really key. So I've had all kinds, and what I like doing when we rotate commitments, we do it every year at our group, is I just say to the secretary, what do you need me to do for you? What didn't get filled in? How can I be of service to you this year? I don't care. I find it so much better when I let God or somebody else pick the commitment for me. Because otherwise, I want the birthday girl all the time because I really do that the best, right? I don't sing Marilyn Monroe to them, but you know, I get the birthday going. But whatever it is, there's some stuff you really like doing. And so it's so much better for me to, if I'm really here in an attitude of service, to not pick it. to let someone else be the birthday girl or the greeter, another great job I love doing. But I know how much it meant to me to do those commitments. It's my way to be of service in a way, if you will, to let others also have that wonderful opportunity and me do something else that needs getting done. So you've shown me service in that group. you've shown me how to be in business meetings and to be able to walk out and still like everybody because I don't know about your home group but with the four I've had there's always been a couple people that I know would be happier in somebody else's home group have you ever had those people in your group? yeah I never tell them that but I had to realize I was the common denominator and there's there's this one person in my current group and when her sponsor moved on to she left AA and I thought she would move to another home group but she didn't. So it's vitally important that I always say hello to her and be kind. Now we don't have long conversations, we don'T go out to coffee, but it's very important to me that no one in my home group knows who I am not fond of. That is a service. that I work the room placing principles before personalities. That's important to me because I never know if maybe one day in the future God has usefulness of me to be to her or vice versa. But if I kill that by snubbing somebody or dissing them or something, that would not feel right on my heart. So you've taught me how to place principles before personalities, especially my personality. Because there's a lot of people that seem to like her, right? There's people that go up and hey and hug and I just think what am I missing, right. But I also have the reality that not everybody will kind of mash and go on vacation together. So that's okay. My home group has saved my life many times. Courtney mentioned about knowing where to go, that she was so grateful she had Alcoholics Anonymous to go to. And there have been those many days for me where I might have woken up on some Monday morning and the bottom feels like it's fallen out or the wheels are falling off, there isn't a question of where I'm going to go that night. Home group night is Monday night. Now, I'm in other meetings, but I mean, it's like I always have that safe place to go, but happy days are rainy days. Monday is home group night. That's not a, wonder what I should do tonight. Gee, there's a really great new this or that. That's home group. That's sacred night. that's what a home group means to me is that that gets number one priority that isn't even again optional that is not something that's left for the emergencies of where I'm deathly ill or I'm out of town which I try to do very rarely be out of Town on a Monday and if I am I'm probably in another meeting somewhere but a home group has shown me that I remember being 17 years sober I'm now in Southern California I'm in my third home group I have I was married for five years and nine months and we separated and I was doing really well this home group really kept me focused on place and principles before personalities about really working the room I needed those newcomers way more than they needed me about it my guideline was if I know where they are I'm not doing my job thoroughly or deep enough and so I really focused on the back of the room because I all rooms tilt to the back and newcomers kind of roll to the backs so you know that's that's where I'm hovering and as Tom I used say trolling for drunks you know and six months have gone by now I think I've held up together pretty good and you know one meeting at a time it doesn't mean I don't have feelings or thoughts or whatever but when I rolled up in the car whatever my personal thing was going on it was left in the car because I've only got one bit of service to do I got one primary purpose to do here, and that's to carry the message to the alcoholic who's still suffering. And I happen to be the one suffering today. And so I need to carry that message of hope and recovery so it kind of bounces back onto me as well. Now I might get back in the car and yell and scream and holler and cry and cuss and swear and all that kind of stuff if that's what needs to be, but it's in the privacy and the appropriateness of the car. And And so time has gone on, it's about six months. I remember it's a Thursday and I had a regular Thursday night meeting. And I don't know why, I thought I would be immune to it. But all of a sudden that particular day the self-pity faucet started to drip. it got a little bit more dripping and it got louder and then it's full on. And then off in the distance I see the tsunami coming this way, just headed toward me. And I start to cry and then it just starts to get just where you're kind of in a brownout almost of crying. I slide down that wall and I was so consumed with it and it's like I had this other voice say, okay, you've got about 30 minutes to let it rip. But then you've gotta go get your face on and your hair fixed and go because you have a greeting commitment at the meeting tonight. And I say that because the commitments I've made I don't always have to leave the house cheerfully to go do them, but I need to go doing them. I need to do what I say I'm going to do, like Carla said. That is service. I don't like to use, I promise I'll do, I'll promise. That is a word I abused so much. And so I like to just feel that when I say I'm gonna do something, that I will do that. And if I can't make that commitment that I'm proactive and I let you know something has been rearranged and something happened, let me do that another time or look can we make another arrangement he taught me how to be responsible and that's part of the service I never knew about I would just blow it off oh well no big deal so what that's how I treated everything before I got here and so that kind of service you showed me all through a home group they talked to me about sponsorship and that we get for those of you who might be new a sponsor is for me has always been someone who shared their experience strength and hope I've never had somebody militantly in my life telling me what to do but they've given me their guidance and experience they've They've shown me the three legacies of this program as my guides. And their service to me was to be there. They answered their phones. They lived this as a way of life, to show us that shining example. And that's what I try to do too. But sponsorship doesn't, you know, what gets passed on to me, the glow doesn't stay unless I'm passing it on. And so I get to sponsor a bunch of gals. I remember when I was living in Long Beach, and I remember saying to God, you know, if you ever make it possible for me to not have to work to be self-supporting, I could really be of more service to you. And he said, okay. And not that I won the lottery or anything, but when I got married and I moved to Northern California, You know, Kent and I were in a position that I didn't need to work. And God said, okay, now here we go. And I am busier now not working than when I was. My days start earlier, they end later. And not that I've made it a job. I don't get paid for any of that. But wow, do I get spiritually filled up on a regular basis of usefulness. My prayer at the end of every day is empty me out. Use me up. And there's days when he absolutely does. I go to bed just kind of roomy feeling, and it's the best feeling in the world that I've given everything I've got. And then I'll sleep and get refilled up and we'll do it all again tomorrow. And I know so many of you in here are just like that. sponsorship i don't have time for takers because i know what you're going to get by service it could be in any kind of service but sponsorship to watch the dead come to life is one of our great gifts here i think because i've gotten to see so many and it doesn't mean just newcomers I've watched people with 20 years come here dying from alcoholism with dead eyes, and they don't know why. They've lost the spark of service. Service is the secret. It really, really is because I'm getting out of me for a period of time, and when they start getting into service and you get to watch that light come on on the inside again, God, that is so, we've got you again. And service really is that spark and that key. So you talked to me about sponsorship. You talked to my about taking the steps. And I was, my first few years, I kind of bumbled and fumbled through the steps because I had a sponsor. But when I got sober in that Minneapolis area, it wasn't about sitting down knee-to-knee and book-to book as we've kind of developed, which I love doing. But it was, here's the book and we'll talk about it, read it, whatnot. So I kind of bumbled and fumbled through it. I was about four years sober when I moved to Atlanta and I got a home group locked in, I got a sponsor locked in. I took a four-year birthday cake and I decided I know something now. I have no idea what I knew, but I knew it. I was convinced that seven meetings a week is an awful lot of meetings to go to. Now as someone new in a community, that would have been the perfect thing to do to get to know my new community. But no, I've heard this thing called balance. I'm going to get me some of that. And I about balanced myself out of Alcoholics Anonymous is what happened to me. And over the next two years, I went from those seven to two meetings a week and my arrival time and my departure time started shrinking in as well. And pretty soon we're down to at six years sober. We're arriving about five minutes before the meeting, grab and get that coffee and sit down, because you don't want to come in late. And as soon as the meeting's over, it's amen, shake, shake. And you're looking at my taillights out the door. In my mind, I could sit there and justify, well, I'm doing everything they asked me to do. I'm not drinking. Nobody's asked me to sponsor them. So yeah, I mean trying to be of service. Uh-huh. Wink, wink. Right? So no action there. I have a commitment. It's passing the seventh tradition basket. I mean, so there's no effort, no involvement. But I could justify that. And I decided that six years sober, I was so miserable. And I came up with a plan that people, places, and things are going to make me happy. Now the real wording is called men, money, and mansions are going to make you happy, okay? So I'm on a mission. And that mission was to find a little fella, and by gosh, three weeks later, there he is. and he's been sober 13 years, hadn't been to a meeting in three. He's got all the things I'm looking for. I'll fall in love with him, I'm sure, but right now we're focused on priorities, necessary requirements first and my gosh, he hadn't been in a meeting a while. I'm going to get him in here. We're going to help him, okay? And we're going to get AA couple here going on and I just was in this and this three-month whirlwind romance, of which I was the only one involved. Hate those kind. And this guy went off and married somebody else. So I let him go, and I went over. All right, so let's start over. And I met another little fellow, did this dance of delusion for three months, And he went down the aisle with somebody else. And 6.9 years of sobriety, I am, as we so often say, stark, raving sober. I was so miserable on the inside. I was sick from untreated alcoholism. Just everything hurt and ached. And I still kept trudging that road of unhappy destiny. And at 6.9 years, I came crashing and sliding into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous again. I never left you. I was physically in the room, but then got her done. Check it off the list of things to do this week. There was no spirit, and service without spirit just is empty for me. and it was like in February 76 I surrendered at a depth I'd never known before to the substances and yes my life got better and things looked good and things started shifting and changing but at this point it was almost like I surrendered to the illness of alcoholism and I took the steps as if I'd ever seen them before with a new vigor I had the ability this time to kind of put words to the feelings, to articulate what I'm thinking and feeling, which I did not have for the first several years. I was super, super active in service, but what I found out is that does not replace the taking of the 12 steps. That is good, but that alone wasn't going to keep the fire lit on the inside. It would keep me busy. But I had to take the 12 steps that would change my trajectory. And when it got to the 12th step, it didn't say start over. Do more analysis of those 12 steps and why do you still do that defective character? It was about, girl, you got your marching orders. Get out there and carry the message to someone who doesn't know because every time I do walk someone through those 12 Steps, I am taking them again, but it's not all about the self-analysis of it and that more information will change my action. It was about when I changed that action, I get to give that hope and learn how to do it differently by watching you. And so the steps became that service as well for me. They told me the 12 traditions, those aren't just for the group, that you are a member of a group. You need to know about those traditions to be an informed member of the group. They didn't say it in these words, but it was about get invested in your group. Make an investment. Get there early. Stay late. Be at the business meetings. Don't be an attender. Be a member. Membership has action to me. membership is service in its glory in its beauty not just sitting in the meeting maybe throwing some money in the basket and think I'm a member of that group no, it looks different to me I'm not giving you a definition of what membership looks like but that's what it looks like for me that I needed to learn how those traditions work in a group level, and while you're at it, why don't you try to apply those in your personal life? And those became the greatest relationship tools. And I'm not talking guy-gal or that kind of... Yes, there. But I needed an overhauling with all the relationships in my life because, again, the selfish and the self-centeredness of it was so prominent. and I began to have different relationships with people because the mirror had always been in front of my face and then when you pull it down but with the traditions it's like there's people there all right I'm not in this alone although I want to be in it by myself that's not the real world because I don't have conflict with myself so because I do it right so you know I don'T have any conflict with them but so the traditions gave me tools to be of service to you and to the service of the people around me. You talked to me about that we're in service. So clearly, again, home group, not an option. You have a service commitment. Even if they told me today, ah, we're all full up, I would make myself, I'd make a commitment. Well, then I'll be the parking lot greeter. I'll get them before the greeters get them. I would make something up I currently in my home group have that I'm the literature person in my Home Group and I have a few things that I do that are not like during the meeting I'm The Gatekeeper and I'm church liaison and I do one of our MPI panel at one of our treatment centers that is one of H&I commitments H&i we most areas call it corrections or treatment facilities in California we call it HNI hospitals and institutions and so I have that privilege to do so we being in service was outside of the group level so service like that's always inconvenient because it's not on meeting nights you know it's the extra stuff it's the 12-step calls you go on it's again the service at the hospitals or the the going into San Quentin, things like that. And sharing your story wherever you're asked. And I think one of my favorite stories to kind of tell on myself was maybe about four or five years ago, I guess. I got a call inviting me to speak at a 6.30 a.m. meeting. Now, I emphasize the a.n. part. That may not be early for you, But for me, I might as well stay up all night to get there on time. I don't wake up and look like this. This takes planning, and you need to be alert and attentive to what's getting put together. This is a big package that you roll it up. and so i'm i i check the calendar yes i'm available to hang up and i'm thinking does he know how early i have to get up to do this and like they care you know um so i know i'm going to keep the commitment i've made the commitment but i keep thinking how am i going to get out of it maybe i'll be sick the day before maybe something will happen now i know I'm not going to cancel it but i still have these back and forth thoughts. These two voices of, I want to get out of it. No, you're not going to get out. Blah, blah, blah. And it was, one day there was like this timeout. I'm really obsessed with this Friday 630 AM invitation. Timeout. Let's just look at this. Okay. So what you're saying is that somebody's asked you to share your story at 6.30 a.m. on a Friday morning for anyone who wants to listen to some message of hope and recovery and whatever of what your experience has been, and you're saying that's inconvenient. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, let's flip that over. If they said at Friday, 6. 30 a. m., that location was where the booze and the boys were going to be, would that have been inconvenient? Oh my God, no. Right? We're there at six o'clock. They're late. They'RE late. Where are they? Come on. Come on. Let's go. Let'S go. That silly little analogy made me realize I never gave a second thought to that. I never had a pause, I never had a hesitation, it was never too early or too late, too far or I was too tired or I don't have any money or I gotta go to work the next day there was nothing but yes for those kind of invitations and here on living and recovery and connecting in this spiritual progress path we're on, I'm going to give a hesitation. I say yes, but I want the spirit of enthusiasm to follow that as well. Now, I'll grumble on the inside, but i'll show up no problem. And I'll showup as if I'm enthusiastic about being there at 630 on Friday morning. So that's what I want to lead out with me. I hate having to bring it up to that. So I keep working on that, the enthusiasm of where I am and to carry this message. I mean, why wouldn't I want to with the life that I've gotten to live? Now being in service, I've got to do all kinds of different things, whether it's be on H&I panels like I said. And I think in all these years, I have never had a bad experience, a problem. We go in there with a lot of confidence. We're all AAs or whatever that might be. But I had an experience about a year and a half ago that was interesting. And I'm glad if it had to happen, it happened to me. So I was going and taking, carrying the message into this adolescent psychiatric unit. And I really enjoyed doing that. Most of them weren't alcoholics, but they had been carrying the message in there for a long time, a number of years. And so I decided, you know, I'm, you know, I mean, I wasn't ever put in an adolescent psychiatric unit, but I thought I could maybe be of service. So I'm in there one day and I'm sitting here and my partner is sitting here, y'all was going with too, we're everything, we're doing everything quote-unquote correctly. And we're talking to about 10 or 11 kids in front of us and I sharing a little bit and a little bit about what AA is and how it's in my life, blah, blah. And out of the corner of my eye, kind of peripherally, I see a young man and he's walking toward me. Now, he hadn't been in part of the group, but he's talking to me. He's walking towards me. And I stopped and I made eye contact. I said, hello. And then I turned back around to the group. Now there are the staff in there, but he continues to approach me and he gets beside me. and I think he's going to give me a hug, like a side hug or something like that. No, that's not what he does. He grabs and he puts me in a choke hold and he throws me down onto the ground. And he's on top of me. And I hear the commotion. His crook of his elbow is in my larynx. I cannot breathe. I can't swallow. I can do anything. My hands are pinned underneath me. Now, I just had turned 40 years sober two days before that. And there was this weird kind of calm that came over me that was, okay, God, I know that I'm not going to die on this adolescent psychiatric unit floor, but you better get him off of me pretty quick. You know, it's a little nervous here. And so they remove him and he had had a psychotic snap and they remove Him. They'd never had anything like that in all my years of service and whatnot. I've never heard anybody have an incident. Not, I guess maybe they have happened, but you know, and my partner was a lot more freaked out. I'm like, what in the world just happened here? So we go into the other room, and are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, but just so out of the so split-second fast. And so she says, well, let's pray for him. I said, yeah. That's a good idea. So it kind of brought us back into the moment, and we're praying for this young man that he gets the help here that he needs, that we're okay, and so forth. So talk to the staff. Are you okay? Are you Okay? I'm good. I really am. I don't feel I'm in shock or anything. I'm fine. I drive home. I get home, and I tell Ken, I said, I want you to know the end result is I'm fine, but I need to just tell you this back story on it so you don't freak out because I'm not going to stop going. But I want you to know I'm okay. So I tell him that. So what happens is I start looking back and I think, what if that would have been my last day? We don't always know. What if that could have been? Am I good? Yeah, I am. Is there anything undone? Nope. Everybody who knows I love them knows. Not by, oh sure they know. No, it's by my words, by my actions. If that had been my last day, I was thinking, well, they could have said, well, she died in service and in her high heels. I mean, hey, you know, what a way to go, you Know? But certain things will make you stop and kind of catch your breath in this moment. Are you present? Are you in service? Because that's where the glow is. The glow is in the service that I do here. And I know many of you in here. Service is your middle name. I know that. You know, God wasn't done with me. I've had many opportunities since to serve. My mother moved out to live with us. As I said, I'm an only child, so I'm kind of the only option. And she moved out with us about a year and a few months ago. And that's interesting because we've never been close. Part of my ongoing amends after I made the direct amends was to call her every month, and that's what I did. And I would see her every few years. We just never were close. And so when the words start going out about, well, I'll just come to California and live with you. Well, I just moved to California. I said to Kent, I think this is kind of coming soon. This may be something on our lifestyle change. How about that? So he is an incredible guy. And he said, sure, that'd be fine. So she's been with us and it hasn't like all of a sudden now we're like just best buds and warm and fuzzy. But as I look at this, this is my opportunity to make this a safe place for her, a comfortable place to be as best of a daughter as I can be. And still living my life. And she knows it's not like I was all of a sudden going to quit living the way I do and in service to sit there and watch television with her 24-7. But that she can do. I don't run her life. I allow her to do with joy whatever you want to do. You want to go here, you want to go there and whatnot. I don't make decisions for her or judgments on what she does. That's my service to just allow her cheerfully to be who she is. And so she moves in with us a year ago May. In late December we get this call. Now Kent has twin daughters. They each have a daughter, one child and it's a daughter as well. For whatever their reasons are, they've chosen for the last three, four years to not be in our life even though they live within a very short driving distance from us. We've continued to do our service in AA, etc. We get a call late December from one of them, again we haven't heard from her in close to three years. And she said, CPS, Child Protection Services has taken her daughter Amber and they're looking for family placement and would you be willing to take her? He says, I need to talk to Debbie about that. And I'm so grateful he did that. So we have this conversation. Now, I'm not mother material. I don't really have any paternal instincts. I was a cat in another life, I swear. Never was destined to be a mother. so we're like whoa this is a big question so it was a month of prayer and meditation and guidance and getting some more information and we said okay we'll throw our hat in the ring and that for the next couple of months all the preparation we had to do and the classes and the this and the that because one of the things is when it was presented to us was, you know what, Kent? We've said our life is one of service, but we don't always get to choose what it is. This has come into our life. We tried to invite it in before. Now it's really kind of, whew. So let's do what we can do. So we go through all the classes and the training and all this and that, but the reality of it is I'm not able to be like a mother to a three-year-old on a full-time basis and do my life. So what do we do? Do we shut off our life in AA? And I know many of you have had children and you've been in service and all that, and you know how to do that. But I'm like, what do I do? so we got to be grandparents and things like that because the final decision hadn't been made and we have to move because we're doing a big remodel we need to move out of the house that interrupts the flow of things and then a few about a month later we're on a pre-planned trip long before we ever knew about this and it's many commitments so we take this trip and again that changes the dynamics of things. So we get home and we learn that the other twin offered to take and those two hadn't talked in five years, the other twin offered to takethe three-year-old the granddaughter because it doesn't look like the mother's going to make what she needs to do to get her daughter back. She's one of us clearly has been one of us. She knows it, we know it and so but we let her do what she's got to do and so it came down to you know, it broke our heart that we couldn't be all things to all people that we could not do what we do and be that full time parent to her but what we want to do is be grandparents and it's so funny I remembered what Ellen said that we wanted to have the adoptive family whoever they might be will they also take the grandparents so we don't know it's still in limbo as of this moment as to whether we can even get to see her again. And so I'm at that point where, okay, God, do you know what? If that's all the time that we got to have with her, thank you. I know you've got a plan for us. And service is not what we always get to pick, but what comes into our life. That's the reason that I wanted that reading done today that we did You know, my friend Bill Mason now passed on. He used to say, if you want this deal, you've got to get some skin in the game. You've gotto get some skim in the gme. I can't sit there and be an attender and get the joy of living from this. I want to just close with this, And that was what Dr. Bob said in his talk at the International, his only International. Many of you have heard it, but I wrote it down so I would not misquote anything. Part of his talk is, quote, our 12 steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words love and service. We understand what love is and we understand what service is. So let's bear those two things in mind. Let us also remember to guard that erring member, the tongue, and if we must use it, let's use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance. And one more thing. None of us would be here today if somebody hadn't taken time to explain things to us, to give us a little pat on the back to take us to a meeting or two to have done numerous little kind and thoughtful acts on our behalf so let us never get the degree of smug complacency so that we're not willing to extend or attempt to that which has been so beneficial to us to our less fortunate brother this has been the kind of thing that the little acts of kindness remember we had a retreat one time and the topic was what made you come back to your second meeting and every one of those women in their own way said the same thing which was someone was kind that's what brought them back you have been so kind to me and his last words were which are going to be mine thank you very much thank you