The 34th Annual Area 29 Maryland State Convention in Hagerstown, MD

My name is Benoit Shaw, and I'm a member of Al Anon. Hi, Benoit. Hi, y'all. I came into this, magnificent program February 7, 1969, in Lubbock, Texas. The county of Lubbock.

I call it Lubbock County all the time and Lubbock County is about as big as this room and or it was when I was first came in this fellowship. I want to thank, Shirley and the committee for having me. This is a real treat. This is the second time I've been in Oregon. Was in Roseburg.

The last fall I believe was my first trip over here and it's just magnificent. I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can. They said there's no PA system tonight. Some of y'all screwed that up this afternoon before I got here, and I just don't project well.

I'm sorry. If you'll wave your hand from time to time, I'll try to remember to speak up, and you should've gotten here earlier and got a front seat. We'll have it in the morning. Okay. I'm gonna speak a language that we can all understand.

You may not understand my accent. Some people have trouble with it up here. Y'all talk a little funnier than I do and, some people from time to time don't know some of the expressions I use and some of the words, so you're just on your own. I have a Texas friend here from El Paso. She can help you.

The language I'm gonna speak of is, my fellowship language. I know no other. I'll use no words except Al Anon words. I'll have no no experience except Al Anon experience. So I think we all should be able to understand each other.

I speak another language, I hope, language of the heart, and if I get out of that, we're all in trouble. I am not a professional. Nothing. I'm just an Al Anon that's been here and worked a long time and I probably I'm not any different than anybody sitting in this room. I would assume the reason I've been asked here is just simply because I've done it a little bit longer than y'all.

That's probably the only difference. I don't do anything different particularly except I don't do what I used to do as long and I don't do it near as often and that kind of does it. I don't get paid for doing this. You all paid my, plane ticket here and you'll pay my plane ticket back, hopefully. And, and that's it.

I'm just one of us. I love the way we start off in this program when the first step the first word is we, and that's and that's what I do. It's a a we. It's a we thing. I wanna tell you a little bit about, who I am tonight and then, the only thing I know that works for me that, has ever worked for me, is the tools of this program and that's what I'm gonna talk about all weekend.

It's the tools of the program that's helped me get where I'm at and and doing what I do. As I told you, I think some of you think I'm from California. I am not. I'm sleeping out there, but I'm from Texas. And my, family is Baptist.

I don't know if y'all know what that means up here, but that's almost a disease in its own self. And I am not a Baptist. They were Baptist and tried to tell me Baptist things, but Baptist things sounded very boring to me. You couldn't do nothing especially dance and, Jim and Crickets, that's what I learned to do real real quick. I I have a mama and a daddy, neither of whom have a problem with alcoholism.

However, it's all in my family. I have uncles and aunts and grandfathers and grandparents and everybody that you can think of as you come on down, the disease has been there. I think it's very interesting what I've heard over the news lately. I suppose y'all have too. It's been all the news in the in the newspaper.

They cut the heads open of a bunch of dead alcoholics and looked in there and found a gene and they called it, I think, the pleasure seeking behavior gene. Isn't that a word? Yeah. There's some of those pleasure seeking dudes. I woulda helped them open their brain out to take a yeah.

Take a look at it. Don't you think it'd be fun if they opened up Al Anon's brains and saw what was crawling around in there? I mean, as as as long back as I remember, I was chasing the pleasure seeking behavior gentlemen. I found them in my own pleasure seeking in a place called the West Texas Honky Tonk, which is absolutely magnificent. I'm sorry that you some of you here have experienced those and they're just wonderful.

I think y'all had a meeting earlier that I missed because I was flying in and so I'm kinda behind it. And just for my own, just just because, how many are here in the room? Yeah. How many AAs are in the room? Yay.

How exciting. Y'all are the ones I hang out with. I think Al Anon's are boring overall. How many of you this is your very first conference ever in in Al Anon, RAA, or any place. Yeah.

34567. Great. You're in such an experience. One of the things that I found out when I got here is that there's power in this very room. You're gonna find so much healing going on this weekend in this very room, and this room didn't have much power till we walked in.

When everybody sat down here, we've all got the power. I just think that's the most amazing thing because some of you don't look like you got much power than nothing. Like, somebody's been here all night, hadn't you? I didn't know I had power when I walked in here. I absolutely didn't know, but inside of me was a god already there just waiting for me to, you know, to acknowledge it, and I didn't even know that.

When I got here, I was married to a practicing alcoholic. I had 2 children, and I came to Alon because of that practicing alcoholic, hoping to get him sober, hoping I'd get alright, hoping the madness would stop at my house. There was just total madness there. Now this poor old guy didn't have anything to do with the madness of my own, nothing. I just just chased him, you know, till I caught him.

He didn't have nothing to do with my disease. He had nothing to do with making me an Al Anon. I did not marry a sweet little young guy looking for college and going off and I I was out looking for the drunks way before I even knew that's what I was looking for. I have personality that needs I'll call it personality. I'm just hooked on them like I am sugar, you know, and chocolate.

There's something about them that, fixes some things in me. We just kinda fit like a glove. I discovered that, I have some alanon isms. Alcoholics have alcoholism and I have discovered through my own inventories, through listening to some of your inventories, through just setting and listening meetings like this, that we have personalities that are quite alike. We come from different places, from different backgrounds, but we have a lot of them.

Shirley was talking about relationships. My relationship started when I was a little kid and didn't even know that's what it was and up until this day I'm not real sure that this is a relationship problem. I just love it, you know, when I just love the the words that we can come up with mercy, you know, like a meaningful relationship. No. We just call it shacked up when I was, you know, back.

You know, it's and I wanna be married, but you don't tell anybody you wanna be married. Ain't that dumb? I mean, you just wanna be married. That's the that's the whole scheme of life. Because you're a little kid and you play with little dolls and that's gonna be your baby someday and you play, you know, house.

I had a lot of fun playing house. I don't know about y'all, but I got into some fun stuff playing house. Playing married and, I mean, from the get go, we wanna be married and then we play like we don't wanna be and we, you know, it's just the dumbest thing in the world, I think, some of the stuff we do ourselves. I had these -isms, I guess, from right out of the chute. I'm addicted to excitement.

I love excitement. I'm a nurturing person. I take care of. I am a controlling person, a need to control. I think it's wonderful when we learn that we can't control the alcoholics, so we come in and we get to be GRs.

I have this thing about me that's so magnificent. I mean, it's just the most magnificent thing. I always know best. In any situation, I always know best. And if you'll just give me 3, 4 minutes, you know, I'll explain to you how you can straighten up your whole life.

G and I were talking about on the way up here today, you know, I just know what everybody should be doing on any given day. I can give you directions of how you should walk, talk, sit, act, not act, what to say to him, what not to say to him, how to be a mother, how to be a wife. I can just do that. Now I have noticed that nobody really seems to care. I've been blessed like this.

I have this thing called denial. I mean absolute total denial. I mean there's things going on that I say and I do that I have no more idea of than the man in the moon. There is things that went on in my life forever that I had no idea. It is a protective thing I discovered.

As long as I'm in denial, I don't have to do anything about anything. I just keep on doing what I'm doing and if I keep on doing what I'm doing, I keep on getting what I'm getting. Real simple. I have this thing that's, I don't know why I got this one, but it's this martyr syndrome. I mean, just god.

Yeah. That's dumb to be a martyr. I mean, it's really I mean, it's dumb, but I you know, it's like, will you please take the trash out? No. They won't.

So it's, you know, I never mind. I'll do it myself. Why do I do that? I don't know. You know, it's just get off your dead butt and get the trash out.

I'm busy, but I won't do that. You know, I just I'll do it. Don't know that one. I have this there is something in me that to this very day, I mean, like, day before yesterday, fights being wrong. God, I don't wanna be wrong.

If I'm wrong, that makes you right. And I do not want to tell him he's right about anything any day of the week. He kinda, you know, gets with it and reminds you over and over and over. The 10th step is probably the hardest one I've ever had to do. I don't like to be wrong.

I like to be right on top of things and know how to do it. I have to blame. I mean, if he didn't, I wouldn't. If they hadn't have, I wouldn't have. If you could, I couldn't.

You know, it's just it's just what I do. I just blame and complain. Oh, mercy. If you just knew what I really have to put up with. If you just knew that, you would understand why I'm such a mess, which, of course, leads into I have this thing that needs self pity.

You can tell me just about anything. You can say, Benoit, you're having resentment today and I say, yeah, I probably am. You can say, Benoit, you know, you're angry today. Yeah. That's true.

Benoit, you're feeling fear today. Yeah. I really am. Benoit, you're feeling self pity today. How dare you tell me I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Ain't that strange? Don't y'all do that? I don't know why that is. I'll take any character defect that you name and work with it except self pity. Don't tell me I'm feeling sorry for myself.

That's fighting words and I don't know where I got that. I have no idea. So you put all this stuff plus some others and you get that in me and you get me out in life. Now I come from a family that did the very best they could. My brother broke his neck at a real, young age.

I was real young. I had, 3 brothers, mom and dad. And daddy had a little business. He went broke trying to take care of my brother. So we're we're broke and I grew up, many many years in just poverty.

Several of those years I was put out with some friends and and, an aunt and uncle to keep me. I'd stay here a while and stay there a while, stay here a while because my family was trying to put things together and is trying to take care of my brother who was in a hospital in a in a different state. So I was, I felt unnecessary. I felt in the way and I was, you know, I, I was in the way but they were kind and they were gracious to me and they, they never felt made me feel, that I was imposing. But I just was, I didn't belong in those families and and I took that right in here in my soul and I kept it for a long, long time.

When we did get back together and everything kinda started, trying to put things together, my house, our home, it smelled like a hospital. It had bad smells in it. I don't know. For some reason, the smells get to me. There was a smell of rotting flesh in my home.

There was smell of urine, stale urine, in my home. It there was a lot of silence in my home. I didn't I invite people over to my house. It was not a pleasant place to be. It was silence except for the occasional explosions of my parents who just exploded from time to time due to the stress and strain that they wonder.

Seeing my daddy grow broke was not a fun thing. My family's religion came to their aid and I was this little kid and I see these Christians coming and I think most Christians all look alike, you know, all our colleagues look like. Christians look alike. They have gray hair, silver looking, and they have and they're all they all love peach cobbler and apple pie. And they they pull up in front of the house and they're bringing in their peach cobblers and the app and their apple pie and they all have this silver little gray hair and their purple lips and they're all plump and they all smell like roses and they come up and they hug you and they tell you Jesus loves you and they you're just smothered in these big old boobs.

And and I and I'll turn around try to escape and I see my mother sit on the couch and start crying and I see my daddy go out in the backyard with this real funny look on his face. And in my head as a kid, all this is very negative. What they've done is they brought in sacks and sacks and sacks of groceries. They brought us food, and evidently it's hard on my father's ego. Evidently my mother was so in gratitude that she was crying, but I didn't know that's what's going on.

So I made a decision that the Christian folks and Jesus was not in part of my life. And I don't know. I don't 7, 8 years old maybe. 6 years old. 7 years.

I don't know. But that was it. The only time I went to church thereafter was with a girlfriend that I ran around with and her mama made her get up and leave, I mean, go to church. And when it was Easter, you could buy a new dress. I always got a new dress on Easter.

We just had Easter and I had a bunch of people at my house and after we just kinda sitting around laying around the floor and I asked everybody in the room, tell me your favorite Easter. And so many of them can remember. I can remember Easters just about year after year after year and whenever I left, I really got to think about that. Me and a friend of mine was talking about it. Two reasons, I think.

Number 1, I'm in the zoo. I mean, California is the zoo. I don't if you're from California, God love you, and BJ, I'm so glad you escaped. But there are some really different lifestyles in California. And one of them is they're not they're not Baptist out there.

They did not come from the Southern Baptist belt like I did. And Easter and Christmas is it, and it's very heavy on the religious part. But bigger than that is an Easter dress. I always got an Easter dress. It was the one time a year I got an Easter dress and a pair of shoes, guaranteed.

So listen, I know about Easter. So here I am with this kind of religious background and, got all these isms and I find the honky tonk and I'm tall, I'm skinny, I have no personality and I walk in and hear just smorgasbord of drunks, excitement. God. People who, you know, they're just about to fall off the stool and I run over and catch them and nurture them and take care of them and and, yeah. What a blessing, you know.

What a bless I have heard over and over and over and over, alcoholics describe their first drink, describe what it did to them and I knew exactly the feeling they was talking about. It took me a long time to figure out what that feeling was. Alcoholics say this from behind this podium, when they take a drink, they're tall and skinny like I was and no personality like I was, fearful like I was, they don't know how to face the world like I didn't. They go in, they find a drink. They take that drink and it goes down.

All that warm feeling hits their stomach and it just explodes. It goes boom. Explodes and they just feel it coming out, just tingling and they just makes them feel just right. Haven't you all heard them say that over and over and over and I just knew I knew that but I couldn't exactly figure it out. So one time it hit it dawned on me.

I'm in the honky tonk. It's closing time. The lights are low. The excitement on. I just got one almost falling off of a stool.

We're out there on that dance floor. We're whirling, whirling and it's just beautiful and the music's just right. You know, it's one of those belly rubbing ones and and he's, he's right here in this ear and he's nuzzling and he's just telling me all the cutest things you ever heard and, all of a sudden he reaches down and whispers, baby, I need you. Yeah. Everything in me comes alive.

Everything in me comes alive. And I take this wonderful, god loving mister home with me. And I find the things that I've been looking for so long, but I don't even know what I'm looking for. He holds me in his arms. There's a human being holding me in their arms, and I've never experienced this, but I know of except playing half when I was a kid.

My folks didn't hold me. My folks didn't hug me. My folks were hardworking, busy people that didn't know how to do that. I was never told that I remember out loud by my folks, I love you. I only remember hearing that from anybody.

It just didn't happen and, most of you didn't hear that either. We just didn't in in our disease that we all wound up in this very room. So here's someone holding me in their skin, touching skin, and it's warm and it's alive. And I absolutely did not know that's what I was looking for. And I guarantee you, I sold my soul to get that feeling.

I sold everything that I've been taught. I stripped myself of all the dignity that a lady can strip herself for, to hear those words and to feel that feeling. And they'd say, I love you. And God, what a marvelous thing that was and and the feelings and the emotions and the the trauma and the, God, I loved it. And the next morning they'd be gone.

And then that stuff would hit me again. And and I'd know one more time what I'd known over and over and over. There's just something a little wrong with me. There's something that I know that gets proven over and over and over, And it's that I'm unlovable. And I don't know how that happened.

I have no other idea what's left out of me. What happened to me as a kid? What can I do now to fix it? There's this thing inside my soul, inside my gut that I can't be loved. I'll never know what it's like to be loved.

And that's just the saddest damn feeling in this world. It's a terrible thing to live with that. It always comes over me in big huge waves right after you turn the light out at night and you're in bed whether you're with somebody or whether you ain't. It's the saddest time for me is when I turn that light off and I'm laying there that instant before sleep or the instant before I toss and turn on that. It's a terrible feeling.

And I carried it for with me for many, many years. I get in those honky tonks, and and I do all the things that we do to get our dignity stripped. And I'm from one man to another man, and I meet this first major alcoholic. He's a gangster. And, didn't know that.

I become pregnant by him. We're living together. Meaningful relationship. I have this child and he doesn't want the responsibility of me and this child, so he kicks me out. I'm hurt.

I'm rejected. So what do I do? I do the only thing I know to do is is, manipulate, control, fix, hurt, get back, jab, punch, do whatever you can do. And I flaunted myself in that it didn't like. And, the result of that is one night, he took shotguns when this man's head off.

So I have a little girl whose daddy is a murderer, and I've got a man's life on my conscience. And a man going to the penitentiary, a young man, 2 all of them young. We were all young. What a horrible thing. It just it just drove me further down in my disease.

It drove me further down to knowing exactly who and what I was. It was a piece of garbage. Just garbage with no way out. And the only thing I could think of was to get a a different hem. God.

You know, a hymn for all that's gonna fix me. So I get out of that crap. I I was at a place called the Bloody Bucket. I mean, I I was the lower companions the other people were seeking, you know. So I did what you're supposed to do.

I got a different hem. I went over to the rodeo grounds. I figured I'd get somebody over there. They're all bloodied red American cowboy. For god's sakes, how can you go wrong doing that?

So I got one. And we whirled around that dance floor and it was closing time. It was midnight and he got right here and he whispered and off we was running. And somehow or another, I captured this one. I captured him the same way that I had lived and the way I was continue to live till I got this program.

He punched me in the chest one night, and I belted him over the head with an empty cork beer bottle. Just busted it all over. We dug glass out of it, man. And when he came back over a few minutes, he left me. He said, I think you're just not sensitive to me.

I think we ought to get married. Of course, we should, and we did. And, it was an absolutely fantastic marriage for the 1st 6 days. And then we're off and running. We're doing the same things that everybody in this room has done and knows real well.

He's in the progression of his alcoholism. I'm in the progression of my alonisms, and down we go. Off we're running. There's violence. There's awful, awful violence in my home.

I started he started. It was just terrible. You never knew in the middle of the night what was gonna come out my windows or my door at my house. Neighbors looked at us funny. I never looked up when I walked in out of my doors because I didn't know what the neighbors was thinking or what they'd seen.

Any given day, you can see my clothes in the street or his clothes in the street or my clothes on top of the car or whatever. It was just a terrible place. I had black eyes, busted lips. I've been shot at. I've been stabbed.

I've been pistol whipped. I've been thrown out of cars and doors. You know, I just treated myself so ungodly. I don't even know how I'm alive except by the grace of a very loving God. Why we put ourselves through that, I don't know.

I discovered after I got here, there was a lot of things. I felt so guilty for who and what I was. I felt so guilty. I needed punished. So I lived in this punishment, this absolute hell for so many years.

I decided to keep this little cowboy home was to give him a boy, and I did. I had a little boy, and I was so thrilled for about 6 days. And then there he was. He's off and gone. And I I there's nothing that's gonna fix this thing down here.

Children don't fix it. Husbands don't fix it. Nothing fixes it. I'm unlovable. I know it.

And look at him show the world because he's not here that I'm unlovable. And we just keep on doing that thing one day at times, like, couldn't do it no more till I found y'all. And it's a it's a alcoholism is just ugly, ain't it. I mean, there's nothing ugly about it. One more time in my house was the smell of of rotten flesh.

One more time, my house was stale urine. One more time was the smell of blood from time to time. Burnt food. Staled trash that I didn't take out. Kids that was quiet and stayed in their room out of mama's way, not out of the drunk's way, my way.

It's a very silent house unless the explosion happened, the screaming and the yelling and the throwing and the just the madness that we all know. And I tried everything that y'all tried. We all tried to do something about that man. If you don't know if you're like I was, I didn't know what I was fighting. I had no idea what I was fighting.

I didn't know what a resentment was. I didn't know. Oh, you're in fear. Get a grip. I mean, he wasn't home.

You know? And I did all. I'd leave. I'd come back. I'd hide.

I just did everything. 1 Thursday, I had 2 black eyes, and this busted lip was up over my nose, and I couldn't eat. And I knew he was gonna come home. He worked out of town on Fridays and he was coming home Thursday. And I knew I couldn't do another Friday.

I couldn't do it. There was not there was nothing in me that could do that. Nothing. And I still know what to do. I absolutely did not know what to do.

I was as desperate and full of despair as anything I anybody ever seen or heard of. I did not know how to breathe in. I didn't know how to breathe out. I just thought I didn't know what to do. I was through.

I was absolutely, totally through. And what was the solution? I didn't have any Earth ideas. And for some reason, I don't know why, but for some reason, I got up and I picked up the phone. And I called Alcoholics Anonymous in the yellow page.

And this man called and I told him that that, I needed to see about stopping someone's drinking. And he gave me another telephone number and this lady came over. I mean, called. I talked to her and she said, come over. And I went over to her house.

Now I didn't go to anybody's house. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't get out of my house. I didn't do nothing. I just kinda sit there.

And here I am going to Toll's ranger lady's house. Showed up the door, and she took me through her house. And you know what I remember? I think it's so funny if everybody had time to tell exactly what they first remembered. You'd hear the darndest stuff.

Because this is what I remember. We walked through her living room through the kitchen into the den. As I walked through the kitchen, I looked in the kitchen sink, I looked on the cabinets, and I looked on the table. And I thought, I wonder what her dishes are. That's strange.

And she talked to me, and her husband came in a little bit. He talked to me. And before long, I agreed to go to a meeting, and they took me to a meeting. And I walked into a room much like this very room. And things was going on just like there was tonight, to this afternoon, last night, whatever y'all got here.

You you know, you just if you're a newcomer, how many of you are here with a year or less? Anybody? Yeah. Great. It is so awesome here.

It's so awesome to see and hear laughter, chimney, cricket, laughing. That's the first thing I heard when they opened the door at the aid club. I opened the door and walked in. These 2 guys were laughing. And I just stood there and just stopped and was listening.

They were laughing. And the man and the woman had to kind of gently push me on in. I hadn't heard that in so long. I hadn't cried in so long. I hadn't talked in so long.

I hadn't yelled in so long. I hadn't done nothing. I just sat in a chair. And when we get here in this room, kinda look what's happened already. I mean, you've insulted each other.

You've hugged each other. You've lied to each other. You said, I'm fine. Some of you have already cried with each other, and some of you have prayed already for each other. It is in this room.

In this very room is the most powerful thing on us known to man. And I didn't even know it when I walked in. Didn't have the slightest idea what was gonna change my life. It's just not a thing. And I want you to know my life is changed.

That was 21 years ago. And I am absolutely not that person, and that person died a very slow death. And I was reborn. Y'all have taught me every every absolute everything that I am tonight. Y'all taught me.

You taught me how to talk. I don't talk trash anymore. Occasionally. But, I don't talk trash anymore. You taught me to be a lady.

I mean, a lady. I was telling Judy, I am so uncomfortable tonight. I just can't tell you how uncomfortable I am. I have on jeans. I don't do that.

As far as I as far as I know, this is my very first time in history of getting behind the podium and speaking without a dress on. And, I'm sure it doesn't matter to y'all. It matters to me. It matters to me. I was told by my sponsor to present the very best of me that I can while I'm in front of you because this minute, this is all I'm going on up here, And I should be dressed the very finest I've got for you all because y'all taught me how to do that, and I apologize.

I don't know where I was at. I was thinking about freezing and rain, and I've got boots. I've got coats. I've got sweaters. I got socks.

I got long handles. I have everything but my 2 skirts, and I really apologize. That makes me feel real bad, newcomers. And if you're here and you're behind the podium, I suggest that you always dress the very best. It wouldn't matter to me if we was out here in a rock pile.

It doesn't matter to me that we're out in a forest. It matters to me that I tell you how sincerely I love you. I want to show you how sincerely I love you. God, you give me everything I am. Everything.

You taught me how to dress. You taught me how to act. You taught me how to one lady taught me how to use a knife and fork properly. Now if you think that isn't going somewhere, you've taught me everything. You taught me about a God of my own understanding.

You've taught me how to be a friend. You've taught me how to be a wife, a mother, a daughter. God, everyone of you has taught me that. Some of you taught me what to do. Some of you taught me what taught me what not to do by watching you.

You just, I mean, you've made everything in me that I am today in this very room, sharing the way we're gonna share all weekend. What a marvelous thing. It's absolutely totally, you know, for free. It's for fun. It's because it makes me feel better.

If you think I come up here to impress y'all, you're crazy. I came up here to tell y'all thank you. I came up here to tell y'all I need you. I need to be here. I need to be talking.

I need to be doing these things. I just come through one of the worst years I've had in a long, long time in this program. God, I need you. I need to be doing this. I need to remind be reminded of what a miracle I am because I am a miracle.

There's nothing I've done. I've come to this very room, and you've given it to me. I've come here, and you've shared who and what you are. And you've changed my life. Because you've changed my life, there's so many people around me that are really grateful too, like my mama, my kid, my husband.

I wanna share with you rest of the weekend my journey in this fellowship. It is magnificent. I just asked my I got the favorite story of all stories that I've ever heard. It's mine. I love it Because you told me what you did, and I put it inside my little gut.

And I churned with it, and I fixed it, and I changed it. And then I come back and ask you how you did it again, and I put it all together. It's gonna come out the way it comes out this weekend. It's gonna come out, I hope, the way it was given to me. I hope that I don't add anything of my magnificent mind to it.

I hope that I just give you a program that was exactly the way it was given to me. I hope I don't change nothing because I see and I hear so much in our fellowship that's being changed. It just scares the hell out of me. And I do not ever want to screw up anything in this fellowship. I'm gonna tell you anything new and wonderful.

I have no psychobabble to give you. I I have Al Anon to give you. I have 12 steps to give you. And if there's one thing that I would ask you when I leave here is you give it away exactly the way you give it. Don't start nothing new.

Don't add nothing to this fellowship. We don't need you. We don't need your I know best syndrome. Let's do it the way it was given to us. Let's keep it exactly the way we found it.

Let's do it the only way I know to do it. Let me share with you my 12 steps this weekend. Let me share you with you the experience that I had working them and what it's done for me and what I'm like today as the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us to do. If you'll let me do that, it'd be a thrill. It'd be a pleasure, and it'd be something that I really need.

Thank you, Shirley. This is the end of session 1, the start of session 2. Lord, she's crazy. Good morning, everybody. My name is Benoit Shaw, and I'm a member of Al Anon.

I understand that there's a a microphone coming. So if you can't hear, just hang on. She's not back yet because I can't talk real loud. I do the best I can, but that's it. So, hopefully, we're gonna have one, and it should be on its way.

Uh-huh. This should turn out to be an extremely interesting weekend. There's no shower. There's no toilet. Shirley and a few others don't even have toothbrushes.

Sure glad y'all invited me up here. What, does anybody have a program tell me when I'm supposed to hush? 10:30? Thank you. Thanks.

When Shelly first called me and when she sent me a tentative outline, she said that she would like the theme of this weekend to be step into relationships, I think. Is that what it is? Yeah. And I thought about that when she said it to me, and I said, well, you know, of course. That's what we do here.

We step right into them, and how we step into them is the 12 steps of our program. Thank you, dear. I found something. You know, we're always talking about relationships, aren't we? I mean, it's just that seems to be what makes the world go round is, relationships.

And when you say relationships to me, I'm always thinking about the hen and the shin. You know? That's what a relationship means to me until I got in here and figured out that relationships meant a whole lot of different things. And my relationships with everybody in my life and where they've come and I saw this not too long ago and it just really blew me away. About relationships, it says steps 89 are concerned with relationships.

First, we took a look backward and tried to discover where we had been at fault. Next, we make a vigorous attempt to repair the damage we have done. And 3rd, having thus cleaned away the debris of the past, we consider how, with our new found knowledge of ourselves, we may develop the very best possible relations with every human being that we know. This is a very large order. It's a task which we may perform with increasing skill but never really finish.

Learning how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, and brotherhood and or sisterhood with all men and women of whatever description is a moving and a fascinating adventure. And I, of course, indeed have found that flow in my life. It's very moving to be with all of you in this very room. It's a very moving thing. It certainly is an adventure, and so has my years in this program.

And the way I got the best possible relationship with every human being that I know today is through the 12 steps of our program. That's the only thing that's ever worked for me. I've done other things, but the only thing that's ever worked for me is the twelve steps of this program, meetings, sponsorship, and staying within the traditions. That's what works for me. It keeps my life just right.

Just exactly right, and it's wonderful. Unfortunately, the last several years and it's just been, I don't know, maybe 10 years, 15 years. Somebody that's been around a little longer can probably help me remember. But the first 5 years out of 6 to 7 years I was in the program, we studied and did our steps out of the the experts where they got it, and that was the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous in that age 1212. And after about 5 or 6 years, somehow or another, somebody started saying, well, excuse me.

We had a conference, and we voted on conference for approved letter, and somehow or another, the big book was not discussed or just kinda left out. So a couple years later, the 2 year wanders that got into the program started saying, excuse me. That's not on this list we have here. And I thought, you know, well, that's, oh, okay. We didn't think the same word about it.

We just said, oh, okay. And this is my opinion. This is my experience. It is not up for debate. I don't debate it.

So when I get down, this, you know, this is my time behind this podium. You'll have your time and you can do whatever you want to. But my experience has come from the big book of alcohol exam and the 12/12 and the Al Anon 12/12 years later as it came about And the one day time book, that's all we had. We didn't have the 1212 when I first came in for years. So my experience is that and I cannot change it and that's what I'm gonna share with you.

Also, my friend Arbutus, some of you, I'm sure know Arbutus. If you don't, you really are missing a treat. She's the war horse of the South. Has pointed out to many of us and, she was on the very first panel of our World Service Office. She's delegate number 1 from Texas.

She was such a magnificent lady. They were broke. They had no money. She got on Greyhound buses and traveled all over Texas setting up what we now know as our conference. And what a magnificent lady.

And she refuses to put any of her information in the archives till they say that she can put in a big big book because that's all she knows. I just love her. She also pointed this out. This is our literature. The 12 steps and 12 traditions of Al Anon.

This has been opened and put down on a piece of paper, and copied so you'll know what it is. This is the front and the back. And this is on the 5th tradition of Al Anon. 5th tradition, Al Anon says, each Al Anon family group has but one purpose. Now this I put into myself.

All the traditions I have, put into the I form since I've been here. After I was here a while, we went to we went through them as a group and we put them in the I form. It changed my life. If you hadn't done that, do it. It's a great meeting.