The 20th Cornhusker Roundup in Omaha, NE Part 2 of 2 August 14th 1997

You know, God is already installed. All you have to do is be quiet because He's waiting on the inside just to be recognized and for us to ask for His help. That's all God's asking for us, you know, and that's the biggest resource you're ever going to have in your life is that inner strength that you have. And you have it whether you know it's there or not. It is there. All you have to do is just tap it. And these ideas help me to get rid of those prejudices they had and they helped me to look inside myself. And guess what? When I found God, I found Mary Pearl,

and I prefer to believe that God. I believe in God because it works for me, you know, That's one of the main things it works for me. And I found that God comes to those who seek him, who honestly look for him. And I sought, he came and I became whole. That's what filled up the whole inside of me. So my answers were spiritual because my problems were spiritual. When I get out of whack spiritually, it makes my thinking weird, it makes my emotions weird. And when they get weird, the actions follow, you know,

So that's what I have to do now. My answers were in the program of action and that's where it started out in the house, how to work the program in chapter 5. But you see all that other stuff. I, I hate it when people say open the book to chapter 5 because you're missing the whole deal if you don't go for, you know, it's just like reading the end of the book. You missed the book. Why read the book if you're going to read the ending? You know, So you start at the front of the book and

on the chapter 5 begin to tell me what actions to take. They're going to make my life different,

those actions that will make my life different. And there were some keywords, you know, like thoroughly, you know, this is not hit or miss, but you got to be consistent and then willing to go to any length. I love people when they say, oh God, it takes 15 minutes to get to the meeting. I don't have that kind of time.

You know, when I think about people out in California that drive an hour and a half one way, you know, to get to a meeting, it's not that many miles. But you when you're in that moving parking lot on the freeway, you know, it just takes forever. And the people at home, they just have a conniption if they have to. And I can remember, you know, we would go to meetings in these little other towns and around because you either went there to take a meeting or to help another group get started, or you were going over there to, to There's been many times I've gone to those meetings not to take anything, but to slurp something up,

go be a sponge because you know, you're not up every day of your life. It's just not that way. And then it says, you know, you tried to hold on to all ideas. You know, that was what I had done, doing the same things over and over, getting those same crappy results. That's what old ideas do for you. And the results are nil till you let go. Absolutely. And you quit debating and you surrender to thinking other than your own. That's all that meant to me. And then our thinking is cunning, baffling and powerful. Well, I couldn't trust my thinking. My best thinking told me to kill JD

and it still does.

Sometimes I look at him and I think he needs to die,

you know,

That's what I'm thinking I'll do for me. Aren't you glad you're here to hear this, honey?

And it says without help, it's too much for us. That tells you you're gonna need God and other people. You're gonna need help from outside yourself. And the half measures of value? Nothing. You know, you'd think if you worked half, you'd get half, but it doesn't work that way here. And if my thinking was sick, then I had to accept the three things and that that I was obsessive compulsive and couldn't manage my own life. That probably no human power could have restored my sanity, and that God couldn't would if he were sought.

All of this work so well for me

and then I found a prayer that was going to help change my life and that was the third step prayer. It took me a long time. I said the words for a long time for that I ever knew what they meant, you know, relieve me of the bondage yourself. What exactly was the bondage yourself? You know, I did a lot of prayer and meditation, talked to my sponsor and a lot of people about the bondage of self. And then no matter, it doesn't hurt to tell God what you want as long as you tell Him. Not my will, but yours. You know

I love thy way of life. May I do thy will always

not my will. And then that inventory, that written list of your assets and liabilities, those things that shut me off from the sunlight of the spirit. You know, I learned that I had to live and be free of the anger because the book told me I wasn't mature enough to know how to handle anger. And I resented the fact that the book told me I was immature. But I can totally concur with that today. You know, you take it as and each year as you go through it and as you continue to work the program, you, you'll realize how much you don't know.

You know, when I was about five years in the program, I pretty much knew everything. I think that's sort of a curse of about a 5 year old.

They know everything. And then there was a period of time when you think you know more than your teachers. And then all of a sudden you grow up and you realize you don't know. And when you don't know is when you can learn. Because if you don't know, then you're willing to listen, you know? And all I knew that was, was the anger that I had inside of me. The only way I knew how to deal with that anger was to hurt other people. And that was because it brought revenge, and revenge always brought violence for me. And I didn't know a healthy way to work through my emotions. And then the book gave me the tools.

And I learned, too, that the people that had harmed me were spiritually sick and that they had not done that on purpose to hurt me. They did that because they, in fact, were hurting. And, you know, it's sort of like, have you ever saw a dog hit on the side of the road? If you go to try to help the dog, he'll bite you because he feels the pain, but he doesn't know where the pain is coming from. And that's just how I was. I was a hit dog on the side of the road. I bit people who were trying to help me, you know, and

it's working. The program is hard sometimes it's really hard to be to avoid retaliation and to go back and do those things, you know, in instinctively when something happens, my first, the first inclination I'll have will be the old fault. It's been there. You know, I've been trying to do it a new way for 20 years, but that's just a drop in the bucket. Hell, I'm 55, I've done it a long time the other way. And so that thought's going to be first and then it follows with, no, we don't do that anymore. You know, it's like a self correction process in your head.

And I had to learn to give JD the right to be right as well as the right to be wrong. And I had to cease fighting with him over things. And we had a major war here started two years ago. Do you know, it was the cat, It was him. You know, I've had these little ongoing things. I went to Kentucky one weekend and I came back and JD and I had talked. I take that back. JD had talked.

I had never considered it in my mind, you know, I mean, he would talk and I would block it out because it wasn't what I wanted to hear. You know how that goes. And we call it communication. And

JD had talked about wanting to build a water garden in the backyard. Well, now our backyard looks like rooms in a house as it is. We have the cactus garden, we have the meditation garden, we have the turtle arena. I mean, we've got all these wonderful things out there. And thank God we have a big backyard. But JD said he wanted a water garden. And he was showing me pictures and in this book. And I somehow I heard in my mind that it was going to be about maybe 6 foot long and about 3 foot wide. And I'm thinking, well,

that's not too bad. And so I came home from Kentucky and it was late on Sunday night and I went to bed. And next morning I got up and JD had gone to work and I was talking to my sponsor on the phone. Then I got up and I put on my glasses in my world, came into view and everything focused. And I went, oh, my God, I'm in a river of mud because my carpet was all muddy. There was mud on my furniture. You see those? I have these two poodles that have dog doors

and they had been out in the backyard romping and rolling in the river of mud. You see, JD had dug the water garden while I was gone. He failed to mention that and it was a little bigger. You know how the alcoholic bigger is better too, you know, I mean, he has that too. And the the three by six became 18 by 12.

Now a standard water garden is about 18 inches deep. Ours is 5 foot.

We have a ponder pool, however you want to put. But at that point it was an empty, muddy hole because it rained all night. And he never thinks ahead. And so it was like, what do you do with each wheelbarrow? Dirt of which they are legion. And it's like, I'll dump them and spread them across the yard. We'll build the yard up.

He didn't think it was going to rain for several months, obviously. And so, I mean, I just went hysterical and I bathed my dogs and I put them on leashes, which they, they're, they're just, they're saying, why do we have to go out on a leash? And I'm saying because your daddy has screwed up the backyard.

And so when JD came home, I looked at him and I said I don't want anything from you other than a solution.

And he walked in the house and then he saw the river of mud. And when I came back in from walking the dogs,

he had his head in his hands going, oh God, oh God. I said, I've got you now,

what are you going to do about it? And he said, well, well, we're going to build a fence. We're going to build a fence. And so we had our backyard cross fence for several months as the water garden took place. And then we have an annual yard party in May of every year. And I'm saying, well, where are we going to put people inside the fence? I mean, where are we going to put people? And so he got with a friend of ours and he saw did half the yard, half the yard.

And so now we have green on top instead of brown, you know, and I'm saying, but what about the other half there? Well, we ran out of sod. I don't know where they were getting Assad. Don't even want to go there. And

I looked for yards that, you know, ever in the paper is stolen yard. You know, I'm looking, I'm looking, you know, because he was pretty frantic because I was mad. I mean, it was like I had the dogs under each arm. We're going to a motel. We'll be back whenever this is done. You know we're leaving. You and

I came home one afternoon and he had Astroturf the backyard.

Now the purpose of putting in the water garden himself was to save money. I forgot to mention that on the front end, you know the water garden. I mean, we could have had three swimming pools for what we have a water garden for now. But

you know, this was this was war. I wanted to kill him every time something went wrong. And I told him, I said the dogs are not going out in the backyard because I said they'll drowned in the pool.

He said, well, they can swim. I said not forever,

because he had. He had gotten these beautiful big sheets of marble and broke them up with a hammer and made a mosaic design around the pool. It may look like a swimming pool, did not look like a water garden in any way, he says. It isn't it different,

He said. Can you tell me what it is you don't like about the water garden? And I said the water garden,

I resented being left out of the loop #1 to come home. I, I hated the sneakiness of it, doing it. Not telling you that was another thing, you know,

Only I'm allowed to do that.

The dimensions were beyond belief. And the fact that the dogs could run across the yard and go right across that marble and right into the pond when there's no way to get back out was was not going to get it. And so JD says, you're being a fanatic. And I said, maybe so, but the dogs aren't going in there. And as you all know, JD raises turtles and he has these beautiful box turtles. And one afternoon, there were two turtles floating upside down in the pond.

You see, they can't swim forever either.

And I was so glad that it was the turtles because if it had been one of my dogs, JD would have been in the pond. But you know, the, you know, the part that really proves to me that the that you never get well in this program. You would think a man who has been drowned would not build another water hazard.

Sobriety is by the beginning.

The thing about it is I have to learn about me and emit the nature of my wrongs as it says in the steps. And then we come to live without those coping mechanisms, those things that I did that separated me from God and other people talks about it in the seventh step prayer. And in eight I learned to take responsibility for those harms that I've done and to make the amends. And, you know, one of the hardest amends was to make to the ex-husband, you know, to make to the ex-husband because I had done him a lot of wrong. And it took me probably

five or six years to get around to doing that. And I justified and rationalized except when to do so. Boy, don't you love that one. And you know, it doesn't say whenever it says wherever on that. And when I finally did that, I had a freedom come over me that was unlike anything I had had. You know, the these steps are for us. They're not for the other people. They're for us. They're for the person who does it. You know,

it says in the book an alcoholic like a tornado. Well, you know, Al Anon's are tornadoes too. We're a whirling dervishes at any rate.

And you know, just as sobriety is not enough for the alcoholic, you know, he has a lot of work to do, So do I. I have a lot of relationships and things that I had damaged over the years. And this was long before I married an alcoholic, long before, you know, and talking the talks easy. You can come around these rooms in a few months. You can get a handle on the jargon and what have you. But walk in the walk is another thing. And I think a lot of us talk to talk before we walk the walk. You do what you can do,

but it is helped me to have healthy relationships today,

You know, you know, I had to do the things I didn't want to do in order to get the results that I wanted to have.

And making amends when I'm wrong and forgiving myself is learning how to live. You know, I'm learning to go with the flow instead of being like the the Dern salmon that, you know, has to kill himself, you know, going back up, you know, he has to go against the flow. He has to bang himself on the rock so that when he gets to the other end, he dies. He's wasted all of his energy. And that was the way I did stuff all my life. And then, you know, it tells you they're in the book on pages 83 and 84 about the promises that will come true in your life. But you know, there's so many more promises like

throughout the book and that's what I want. And then step 10 helps me to grow an understanding and effectiveness and it says love and tolerance is our code. Sometimes I go love and tolerance is our code. You know, that's really hard for me. But this is where I've learned to develop my God consciousness because the more that I am in touch with my step 1011 and 12, the more I am able to be loving and tolerant of other people, you know, and working on your God relationship in step 11. It's just like anything else, you know, you develop a relationship

2:00 and 3:00 and then you have to work on it. You know, I couldn't believe Mr. Trump when he said he wouldn't have a relationship he had to work on. You know, I thought, good Lord in heaven, you know, I just couldn't believe that because my relationships, I have to work on my relationships with the people I love, especially because, you know, those are the people that I can get the maddest at is the people that I love. It's because I care the most about those people. Those are the ones that can just really do you up. And I learned that in that step living that I've got to spend

with God. If I'm going to have a relationship with you, I've got to spend some time with you. I've got to get to know you. I've got to feel comfortable with you. And that's what the meditation process was all about for me. And it's very important. It requires a lot of effort on my part. You know, it says salt. That tells me you got to seek, you got to look, you got to do more than just show up occasionally. You know, you got to do more. And then step 12 was carrying the message, you know, practicing the principles in all our affairs and, and, and how do you do that? How do you go about carrying?

Well, the book tells you in Chapter 7 tells you exactly, you know, and when you're reading the book and it tells you how to work with other people, it tells you that, first of all, don't forget they're sick. You know, sometimes we expect people, newcomers coming in to get well overnight and we try to give them too much too soon. We forget you got to crawl before you walk. And it says don't be an evangelist or a reformer. You know, those are really good guidelines because it's real funny. It's just like when you become a reformed smoker, you all of a sudden you just want to go out and get the whole world

quit doing it, you know? And that's the same thing with Al Anon. You get a little bit of recovery. You go out and you want to evangelize. And that's not what it's about. Just being helpful is what it's about. Don't try to force them to change. If they want to stay sick, let them stay sick.

It also tells you that if the person doesn't want what you got to give, let them go and go on to somebody who does. Now, I don't know about you, but in Allen we have a tendency. We want to just stand there and we're going to give it to Burke Gordon till they get it, you know, And we're not giving up on this one. We're not letting this one go, you know,

And the bottom line is every time I've done that, they end up going anyway. And then there you are, and you've wasted all that time and energy on somebody that doesn't want it. And it tells you to describe how you came to believe. In other words, don't be afraid to talk to God. Tell them about God. Don't be afraid of that. And also, you know, one of the most important things is recovery is not dependent upon people, is dependent upon God, you know, and it's real important. So my main job there is just to be of helpfulness to others.

And then they have the chapter to the Wise. Now to the Wise

written in 1939, Al Anon started in 1951 and it talks all about the do's and don'ts and how to keep people to recovery mutually. You know, and one of the neat thing about this is it in the book in 1939, they're urging you to work the 12 step program. It's telling you in the book in 1939 that you're to work the program. Well, what program was that?

It was a program in that book, 'cause that's all they had, you know. And if it hadn't happened that way, you know,

it wouldn't work. You know, they're encouraging us to work the a, a program because we got sick together as families. Let's get well together as families. And they were doing that. Then the chapter of the family afterward gives me lots of good actions to take, lots of good actions. It emphasizes my need for tolerance, understanding and love. It teaches me to turn that past to good account and to learn from the experience that I had. See, all along I had experiences, but I didn't learn from my experience.

That's reason I keep having to have the same kinds of experiences over and over and over. Because you didn't learn. And once you learn, you don't have to keep going back in having the cockamamies all the time. You don't have to do that. And another thing, have you ever noticed how much you can learn from other people? Used to, I would tell you, I cannot learn from another person. I have to do it myself. Well, today I found that being a little more mature in the program, I don't always have to go out and kill myself. I can look at other people and say I don't want to do that,

You know, I can learn from other people in their experiences. And I think that's one of the signs of maturity that we get from being in the program.

And it tells me not to keep secrets. Don't keep secrets, you know? And it tells you that the Fellowship is a good place to open up the doors of those closets and to talk about those secrets and those things because you're with other people, first of all, who are going to understand. Don't try to explain to someone who's never lived like we've lived about how you've lived because they don't have a clue. You know, I used to go to people and say, my husband has a drinking problem. He's a drunk. And they'd say divorcing.

I have never hurt anyone in the rooms of AA and Al Anon just because someone is an alcoholic site, divorcing

just because of that. And people are not going to say to you, how can you love an alcoholic?

Because we're here because we do, you know, we're here because we love Alcoholics and we've been affected by the disease of alcoholism. But the bottom line is I am happiest when I am around a bunch of sober Alcoholics. I'm still not thrilled with a wet alcoholic. You know, I had an experience in Hawaii with one here just a month or so ago.

I went to the, I was staying in Kauai at the Hyatt and it's, I call it the aerobic hotel because you have to walk miles to get to any place. And so I had gone from one end of the flight and I and I pasted it off and it was 12150 paces

from my room down to the laundry. And then you put your clothes in and then you walk back to your room another 1250. And then you go down a 1250 and you put the clothes in the dryer. And then you walk back to 12:50 and then you take the 12:50 and you go down to get your clothes out of the dryer

and someone has taken your wet clothes out of the dryer and put them over on a counter and have dried their clothes in your dryer.

Love and tolerance is our code.

It might have been on the 1st 212 fifties but by now it's not. And so I put the clothes in another dryer and I decide rather than to walk the thing back. Now, you got to remember, I've been touring all day long, and I was tired. And so my sister had come down with me to fold clothes, which we didn't have to fold because they were still wet.

And there was a gentleman there that was from South Carolina. And I asked him, I said, did you see by any chance someone put their clothes and take the wet clothes out and lay them over here? And he said, no, ma'am, they were there. And I came. And he said it sort of sincerely. So I really didn't even question that. And I said, well, we're going to wait and see who shows up to get the clothes out of the dryer.

Well, in about 30 minutes, here it came. It was doing the little zigzag walk. I could smell it from 50 yards. And I said, wouldn't you know? Wouldn't you know?

Well, I'm not well yet,

so I followed it into the laundry room and it's there and it's perched in, it's opening my dryer and it's taking out its clothes. And I said, excuse me, Sir, he said.

And I said, would you like to explain to me why you took my clothes out of that dryer while they were wet and put your clothes in?

And I said, oh really? I don't believe you, He said. I didn't do it

and I said you didn't. And he said no, no, no, no. There was this old man that there was this old man and he was in here and he took him out and put mine in. I said, Now let me get this straight,

You were standing here minding your own business

and this complete stranger rips open the door, throws my clothes over on there, rips yours out of your hands, put them in there, starts to dry and you're afraid to take them out and do the right thing. Is this your story?

I didn't do it and I thought to myself, this is not an alcoholic. An alcoholic would have had a much better story than that.

I'm much better story than that. That was just too dumb, you know. And so my sister said to Owen that the young guy, he was there and there and he says I was beautiful. He said I was afraid I was going to have to defend you there. And I said,

now

I can take care of myself here. I said I've had a lot of experience in this area.

You know, I got thinking about it later and I'm thinking, why did you have to stand there and confront him? You know, it's like, well, I had to let him know he did wrong.

You know not well yet. You know, not well yet.

This chapter also tells me about anonymity warning you about it. You know, it talks about the sensitivity of the alcoholic. Well, I got a newsflash. I can be as sensitive as any alcoholic ever was. All you have to do is just rub those little feelings, you know, the little fur the wrong way, boy. And I can be sensitive is everything. And when you've got two people in the house, both being sensitive, it can be pretty tricky sometimes.

And it talks about being a person of extremes.

My God, is that not my life? I have always been a person of extremes and I lived in that world of make believe, you know, And I don't have to do that because now I have a world where I have a purpose. There is a purpose for me. If you ever need to know what your purpose is, your purpose is to be a maximum service to your fellow man and to God. That's what your purpose is. If you haven't known before, let me tell you. That's it, that's it, you know, and we can, you know, it tells me too, that I need to keep my head and can be in the clouds, but I need to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

At home we sort of say, you know, don't get so, you know, heavenly pure, you know, earthly good, you know, those kind of things.

And one of the most marvelous parts of this book is when it talks about my personal favorite happiness, joy and freedom. You know, it says we're not a glum lot. We insist upon having fun. Well, dear God in heaven, you know, I love having fun. I enjoy having fun and I never have any more fun than I'm with y'all. It just makes it says we insist on enjoying life, and cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness, you know?

And sure, we're sure God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.

And that's the way I feel. I'm a person who is happy, joyous and free. And I want to feel that way every day. And, you know, I get up every day and I tell myself I am, whether I feel like it or not, because I'm not a morning person. You know, it's hard to be happy, joyous and free early in the morning. It's much easier to be happy, Joyce and free at midnight.

But you know, I believe in love and I believe in laughter. And so at my Home group, which is the Rose Citigroup, and we are known as the big book, Black belt, Al Anon family Group and Hall. We have a group motto and our motto is Rose City, where love and laughter come together in recovery. You know, because I, I feel that if your recovery doesn't have the love and laughter and it's missing a lot, it's missing a lot. And it says avoid the deliberate manufacturer of misery. You know, my mother was one of the best

examples to help me in this because my mother enjoyed being miserable more than anybody I have ever known in my life. And you hated to be around someone like that, that no matter what happens, they always got the wet blanket to throw on you. You know, I can remember one time when I got a new car and I drove over and I said, see my new cars, I bet you can't afford to pay for that. You know, immediately throw in that wet blanket on your, you know, hey, I'm going to get married, you know. Oh, really?

You know, I mean, we, we break people's spirits with those kind of comments and that's,

and that's being miserable because people who are miserable won't to pass on, you know, misery loves company,

you know, and that's the same thing here in reverse, though, where we have the freedom and the love and the laughter. We want to share that too. And it's much more inviting, you know, than it is to be miserable.

And your God directs your life. And it's amazing to me sometimes the way God does it. Dorothy, like I say, my sister got very, very ill. And I was supposed to go to New Orleans to do a step study. And I had taken her to the doctors all week long, in and out of doctor's offices, trying to figure out what was wrong with her.

And she told me on Thursday, she said, well, my name,

next appointment is Tuesday. And I said, well, that'll work. I said, JD can come over and check on you and what have you, and I'll go on down to New Orleans. And so I got up that morning and I dressed and got ready for my flight. And I thought, well, I'll call and check on Dorothy. And I didn't get an answer. And it scared me to death because she was in such bad shape. And so when I ran over there, I couldn't find my sister. Now this is sort of amazing since

I'm the only family she has and I, I mean I looked in the floor under the bed in case she had fallen out of bed and went under it. I mean I was just desperate looking for it and I'm going what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

And the program has taught me that in a crisis, do what you would normally do to the best of your ability. And I said normally I would be getting on a plane going to New Orleans. And so I will go get on the plane and go to New Orleans. And that was one of the hardest things I ever did. And when I got to Dallas to make my connection, I'm standing there and I don't believe what I'm seeing because Gates 20 and 21, one is going to New Orleans, the other one is going back to Little Rock.

And I'm going, God, I've got to make a decision. Do I need to go home and try to find Dorothy or what? I mean, I'm just really, really troubled.

And so I went over to the Bank of telephones there and I began to call to see if I could find where Dorothy was. And I began to call her doctor, the different doctors. And then finally I found her primary care physician. He was out of town, but his assistant told me that my sister had been put in the hospital with a heart failure and said she was probably being admitted. So I called the hospital and I got a hold of my sister, and I said, how could you do this? Where the hell were you? Why didn't you call me? You know,

it's like she's she's dying, but I'm gonna question her. And you know, we'd my also like the Jack Webb of our family. Just the facts. Just the facts.

And she said that I didn't want to worry you. I said, well, you didn't scare the guts out of me, but you didn't worry me. I said we're such a small word compared to how I feel. And she said that the doctor told her that she had congestive heart failure. And I said, well, do I need to come home? I mean, how serious is this? What is the deal? She said, Oh, well, it's not that big a deal, I don't think.

And I'm thinking, yeah, it is a big deal. And she said, you go on and see, that's the thing. My sister's you'd rather be with those people than with me, you know. So I mean, I've got this I'm working with and and every time I've ever needed you, you've always been with those people. Well, I'm with those people most of the time. And because I are one of those people, you know. But anyway,

I'm there and I don't know what to do. And so I'm praying. I'm saying God, I don't know what to do. What should I do? What should I do?

And so I hung up the phone and I called a girl that I sponsor and I said Dorothy's at the hospital and I explained briefly to her and I said, they're calling the plane. I've got to decide what I'm going to do. And I said I just don't know. But you need to get a hold of JD and tell him. That was the reason I was telling her. And I said, God, I need a sign. I need something to tell me definitively here. I don't need no, just little something. I need a sign. I need to know if I need to get on the plane going back to Little Rock or if I should go on to New Orleans.

And at that precise moment, here came Father Hilary being pushed in a wheelchair through the airport. And I said, Hillary, Hillary, I need to talk to you, he said, we don't have time to talk, Mark said. We got to carry the message what we do best.

And I said, I don't believe that. I said I'm going to New Orleans. So I got on the plane, cried all the way to New Orleans because I was so scared. And it was like, it's like I knew I needed to be in New Orleans, but there was a part of me that wanted to be back in Little Rock, even if I couldn't do a thing, but just to be there. And I went to the where I was staying and I called back and the girl I sponsored answered the phone

and my sister's room. And there were five or six people that I sponsored.

And they took around the clock and stayed with JD there with my sister at the hospital the whole weekend. And when I heard their voices and I knew they were there, I knew they were doing for me what I couldn't do and that I was to do what I was supposed to do. I could carry a message. And that's what I could do that weekend. And I surrendered, let go. And I didn't worry about my sister that whole weekend. God did for me what I couldn't do for myself.

And when I got back home, my sister, they had taken

in just three days time, they'd taken over 50 lbs of fluid off of her heart and they had to go on and do the heart surgery and, and she had blood clots in her lungs. But you know, I had people walk with me through that every step of the way. I never had to do that by myself. And I had lots of people there at the hospital that were staying with her so I didn't have to stay over there. And the funniest one was this little newcomer to our group,

he came in and they were all talking about, they was asking me what can I do? And I say, well, just help me out by going over there at the hospital

a little bit. It would help. And so this little young guy came up to me and he said, what hospital? What room? What's her name?

And I said, OK, And I'm thinking, who is he? Who is he? And so my sister said she came to at one point and she looked across and there was this complete stranger to her because she'd seen a lot of them in the past few weeks. And she said, she said, who are you? And he said, oh, I'm John and I'm a newcomer, but I'm here.

And he said, I heard that you needed people and I'm here. And she said, oh, and then later she said, did I dream that? I said, no, he didn't dream that,

but that was neat. That was neat, you know, and he wanted to be a part of. So everybody was going to help, so he wanted to help too. You know, in the vision for you, it explains all about that. It's about our fellowship. We're not consigned to a life that is glum and boring. And I, you don't have to be stupid. It becomes a substitute for the liquor. In my case, the fellowship became a substitute for the obsessing, the bitching, the craziness that was going on in my life.

And, you know, it tells you how Doctor Bob and Bill got together

and how they saw the necessity of bringing the family members into the spiritual way of life. They invited the family members to those first open a A meetings. They invited the family members. They knew then it was a family illness. You know, it gives us hope when it talks about how more is going to be revealed. And it's 'cause you never graduate. You just keep learning and you come in and learning and relearning and unlearning and relearning

until your own house is in order. You know the answers will come. The answers will come to you when your house is in order, when you don't have those resentments, when you don't have those things operating in your life, You'll be surprised how clear the answers can be sometimes. And it also tells you you can't transmit what you don't have. You know, you cannot give away that you don't have, you know, and that's the reason that, you know, I, I wondered about doing this talk because I said, I know it's not going to be popular in a lot of places where they're so adamant about the big book. But you know, this is

message, you know, I want people to know it's there. It's there in the book and the promises are there and and it's part of my spiritual growth and it's part of my walk in recovery that I did it that way. You know, it tells you to abandon yourself to God as you understand God and admit your faults to him and your fellow. Clear away the wreckage of the past. Give freely of what you have and what you find and enjoying us. You're going to have to keep working those steps over and over and over. You don't just do it once. You can't remain static,

you know, I see people say, well, I'm coasting. Well, as far as I know, coasting goes downhill. It doesn't go up. I've never known one to coast their way up the hill,

but it says and we will be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and surely you'll meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny.

You know I'm never alone. I must do the job if I want the results. It's work. But I get the I get the results when I do the work.