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

I didn't know what to do with any of my kids. I didn't know. I just sent them to the room. There was madness in my house. There was madness going on there and I didn't know what to do with my kids And we lived that way for long many years My daughter told me the other day that she she listens to all my tapes.

I take I talk around the country from time to time, and she always gets a hold of my tapes to see what I'm thinking about her, she said. Because we can't talk today. We do our best. And I had to surrender her. I had to give her up as best I could and she went on in her life and my sponsor and I walked through this thing and and one more time, this daughter is not the source of my happiness.

I can it's it's fruitless for me to offer her the thing that works for me. It just is. And when I was able to do that and walk my own life, God could take care of her. Her. As long as I'm there hovering over her, God can't get through mama.

If mama can step back, God can see that He's own kid and He can do something with her. I block the sunlight of the spirit from my own daughter. So God said leave her alone, and it's the hardest thing I've ever done is to admit that I am powerless over my daughter. There's a mother daughter thing that goes on that's tougher for me, tougher for more people I know than the mother son stuff. Mother daughter stuff is just cracking.

I know there's some mama and daughters here this weekend. I'm just delighted y'all are sharing it. It's wonderful. I moved out from the state of Texas. I was in Oklahoma.

I found another major alcoholic. When I was over in Oklahoma, I went back to the to Lubbock, my hometown, for a convention five and a half years ago and, on a Thursday night I went to this convention, my daughter went with me just so she could pay, you know, what she had to do, just pay her dues, be with mother for a minute while mother was in town and, she went to this convention with me on Thursday night so she could get it over with. She said she liked to hear the racy stories and then they go out the bar and talk about it and this Thursday night, five and a half years ago, she heard her story. My daughter is sober. 5 and a half years.

There is no miracle in my life greater than that, I don't think. God, I love my daughter. I love her. She's just such a pain in the ass. I hope she hears that one.

Give me one of them. She's sober and it was absolutely nothing I did. It was nothing nothing. Possibly, possibly because I walk. I try to walk when I talk.

Possibly. That had something to do with it. Possibly because I stayed out of her life that, had something to do with it. Possibly. I sat across the room that night and I watched a man in Alcoholics Anonymous that I had known for years 12 Step my daughter.

It's this 12 step that went on here last night at the table. Did y'all know that? A 12 step was made in this very room. Is that, a miracle or what? Is that amazing or what?

And I watched it. I watched this man I've known for years to rest at my daughter and what a sad it was. I'm telling you, I stood across that room and just sobbed and I watched her. I watched her face. I watched the pain and I watched the anger and then I saw some hope and then I'd go back to the pain and then it was the hope.

It was mine. That man told her something that she shared with me that I always try to share. He said to her, Tracy, God puts a piece of white velvet inside of every human being. He allows nothing to touch that white piece of velvet. Nothing.

And that's what He loves and strokes and touches and I could not wait till the next day. I went to the store and I bought her a piece of white velvet and I bought this gorgeous very pink, fluffy frame and put that white velvet and gave it to my daughter, and it's still beside her bed. It's just a marvelous thing for me. And she's walking through this program admitting that she's powerless in what's going on her life. What a miracle.

Shortly thereafter, my 11 year old son now he's 11. He's okay. He's 11. I mean, what can 11 year old do except play baseball? They called me from school.

He and his buddy were in the closet sniffing a chemical up their nose. I said, excuse me? And I went and got him and, we went to the doctor and we did all that stuff and we got him home and I said, I've been in the program a long time and I looked at him and I said, Why? Did you do that? And he he said the words that just made my blood turn cold and stop moving in my veins.

I've heard it a jillion times from this podium. He said, mama, I like the way it makes me feel. I want you to know at that moment, I surrendered. At that moment, I admitted defeat. At that moment, I knew I was lost and so I got into action.

I called my sponsor. I called an AA person. I said, I need some help here. This is my son. He's 11.

For God's sakes, he's gonna die. Help me. Then we decided to put him in the boys' ranch to save his life. His drunk daddy found out about it, come and kidnapped him, and off they went and I hadn't seen him harvest him. He's 22.

When I did hear from him, he called and said, Momma, I'm alright and I'm going to stay with my daddy. Bye. I thought, well, you a grateful little son of a bitch after him. So I release with love. No problem.

My son didn't live with me after that and I really didn't even, I tried to go see him and his daddy after a while. They moved to Houston and they come back. I try to go there and visit. His daddy was just an insane man, and I just brought up the insanity. I mean, there was something hooked to me that he just just sent him off like a flash.

And the last time I saw my son, I went over there with this and with a My son didn't live with me after that and I really didn't even, I tried to go see him and his daddy after a while. They moved to Houston and they come back and I try to go there and visit and his daddy was just an insane man and I just brought up the insanity. I mean, there was something hooked to me that he just just sent him off like flash and the last time I saw my son, I went over there and was fishing with him. I left and, of course, I didn't do something right and the drunk was about half drunk and he he chased me out the the yard and he kicked me right in the middle of the back. I don't want I never have figured out here.

Hey. He kicked me and he was running. I was running. And I landed over this fence. I just grabbed this fence and tore my arms and there's people out.

It was Sunday afternoon. People were watching and I was so humiliated. I knew at that point that was it. I really surrendered there was just no way and I called my sponsor and she said you're probably gonna have to let him be and I'll just let him be And, it was a painful thing for me, but after a while, it got to be okay. And and one of the terrible things that I had to admit to my sponsor much later was I don't want him back.

I don't want the madness in my house. I've had all I can take. I can't stand anymore. I've lost my husband. I've lost my daughter.

This is my son. I've got a little peace at home. I'm alone, but I got some peace and I don't want that child back. It was the hardest thing I had to admit and she said, Remember the story that this man told and I remembered it. It's this story.

It's a snake. It's a rattlesnake and it's winter and he's laying on the ground. It's just cold with ice and snowstorm out. The man comes by and the snake says, oh, please, mister. I'm freezing to death.

Could you get me and just put me inside your shirt for just a while and get me warm? And the man said, You gotta be crazy. I said, You know, you're a rattlesnake. He's, Oh, but wait a minute. Look at this leather.

Do you think that I would do anything if you would help me? I just need to get warm. Please, just put me in your shirt for a little while. I won't do anything. Just get me there.

I promise. I promise you. All I need is just a little bit of warmth or I'm going to die. I'll die. The man said, Well, okay.

You promise. He picked him up and put him in there and got him all warm. The snake said, Oh, yes. I am warm. Oh, I am so grateful.

Thanks. And then he bites him and spreads his venom. The man yanks him out and threw him down. He said, You promised me. Why did you do that?

And the snake looked up and he said, you knew exactly what I was when you picked me up. I knew exactly what my little son was. I knew exactly what he was headed for. He had the disease of alcoholism and I could not literally I did not have the strength of the heart and the soul to do that and I had to surrender. The only thing that kept me absolutely sane through all this was my sponsor taught me about step 2.

And step 2 says, came to believe that there's a power grave in me that can restore me to sanity. That's the only thing that kept me sane, a power greater than myself. She says and they said came, came to, and then came to believe. See, I believe in your power as a group. I believe in the power of my sponsor because she lived a life that was incredible to me and I believe that and so I would go with what she said and how she said it.

Step 2 said to me, said she, that there's a power, it's higher than you. Look at the electricity in this room. She said, there's a switch over there. If you want the light on, you go flip the electric switch, don't you? Do you ever stop and think about the kilowatt?

About the passage, about the pole, and where the light is? And I said, well, no. If I want a light, I go switch the power on. She said, That's all you have to do is just switch your power. Flip the switch and see what happens.

See, I didn't believe in God, and I didn't want to, and I told her that on a regular basis, but I wanted some sane thinking. She said, just for today, there's a power greater than you. If it's the group, fine. And you are. You were my group.

You were my power. She was my higher power at this point. I did everything she told me to do just the way she told me to do it. So I came to believe that there was a power here, a power that could move and change my life, a power that it was so simple that I almost missed it. You see, y'all don't look like you got much power, especially where you are this morning.

I'm looking laying around here like a bunch of women hadn't had any sleep or or something, but you have power. It's in this very room. Have y'all felt it? Sure you have. It's power and we all got it.

We don't even know it. It's God in us and I didn't know that, but that there was power here and I came to believe in this higher power. She said, Saturday meant for me on a daily basis what to do on a daily basis. This is Saturday. You don't need no sanity forever.

Saturday, the power will get you up. You don't have to believe it all right now, said she. Just believe that there's a power. Doesn't matter whatever. Just a power.

Then she read me this. This is out of the page of the wife of the alcoholic. A great and nameless fear can only be cured by great hope. When all else fails, when we have repeatedly failed and failed our loved ones, we can only become whole again once more by discovering a great hope and a great faith in something dependable. Y'all were my hope.

I heard hope from you, the first man to walk in. Y'all were dependable because every Wednesday night you were sitting in your chair. I could depend on you and when you weren't in your chair at your committed meeting, I got scared. Do you hear that old timers who get tired and wanna watch the Academy Awards on television? When you weren't there, I was scared.

I needed you to be dependable, and you were. You were at your meeting in that in your chair week after week after saying the same boring old thing. Often borne in us by the example of some other person whose life was as badly wrecked as ours, but who had found new peace of mind in a successful way of living. We gain no hope from observing the triumph of the strong. It is a victory of the weak who have triumphed over their weaknesses, who have power greater than themselves which inspires our hope.

When a great hope is born within us, we can return to sanity. What seems impossible will become easy. We have been living in confusion. Our lives will now become orderly and clear. We had lacked direction and purpose.

We shall find a new purpose for living. We shall enjoy the thrill of setting goals and achieving it. Others have done it. So shall we. My power my sponsor was my higher power.

She gave me direction and I took it. I turned my life and my will over the care of my sponsor as I understood her and I did everything she told me, Not always willingly. Today I still do that and let me tell you it's not willingly today because I'm sometimes a lot smarter than she is. She seems to have forgotten that. My sponsor says if I can't trust and and listen and follow directions to someone here on earth, how can I follow directions of God?

And I believe that. My sponsor gives me direction and suggestions, and I do them. She doesn't say, yes. I'll be your sponsor. If you ever need me sometime, call me.

I don't know when I need her. God's sakes. If I knew when I need her, I wouldn't need her. I call my sponsor once a week now. Back then, it was a lot more.

I have a direction from my sponsor to return me to sanity. She said you pray in the morning, you get on your knees. I don't know how to pray, said she. Say, please. You get on your knees at night and you say, thank you.

That's all you can say right now. She let me say things later on but please and thank you. You be at that meeting. At the meeting, she said, why don't you pick up those coffee cups and take them in and rinse them out and put them in the dishwasher? What a thrill.

I was a part of passing the logs, setting up the chairs, I didn't have to talk to anybody. I could go do something and look busy that I looked a part of. It was very interesting. It was very wonderful. And she says, If the phone don't ring, go make up your bed.

If the phone rings, answer it. I don't know what your house looked like when you got here, but my sponsor, not being at my house, knew what my house looked like. It still amazes me. She said, start with 1 room in your house, keep the bathroom clean. And then later on she said, how's that bathroom looking?

Well, it's spotless. Well, why don't you start making bed every day? Then she said, clean the kitchen up, but do one shelf at a time. I mean, little simple things that, you know, a grown up like me shouldn't have to be be told to do. She said, get old pieces of paper and write things on them and tape them up all over your house.

So I did. Everywhere, there were just little things on my mirror where I put my makeup on, where I brushed my teeth. I do. Yay. Yeah.

Out the back door, in my car, everywhere were these little pieces of paper. At this time, I still remember about a drunk cowboy. I'm born, you should have seen a look on his face. He said my friends are gonna come in here and you're really gonna embarrass me with this stuff everywhere, you know, on the refrigerator. Be still know that I am God, you know.

What if they think of when they go there and get a beer? I said, I really don't care what they think. She said, think of something that will remind you that there's a power greater than yourself so it will keep in your mind all day. Well, the thing that I thought of is we were talking that instant. I looked over at the this sounds so dumb, but this is where I was, folks.

There was the doorknob. I was standing there in the kitchen leaning up against the wall and I saw the doorknob and I thought, well, doorknobs, I see them all day. I said, okay. Well, when I hung up, I thought about doorknobs, so I went to the back door doorknob and the bath bedroom doorknob, the bathroom doorknob, and the doorknob to my car and I got to work with this little doorknob, so all the cosmetic cases and stuff. And doorknobs became my click to if there's a power that's greater than me.

Ain't that the silliest thing? But do you know it worked? It just worked. And I tell that people I sponsor and, you know, they just look at me like I'm some kind of idiot. This is the way I did it.

This is the way and in the big book of our college anonymous, it says, when I was reading about the second step, it said that God doesn't make the terms too hard for us to mean. He just doesn't. I mean, somebody as simple minded as I can do it. It says in here, much to our relief we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however, inadequate was sufficient to make the approach.

Do I now believe or am I willing to believe that there's a power greater than my self? As soon as a man can say that he does believe or is willing to believe, he has emphatically on his way. And I was on my way and I didn't even know it. I remember one time she said we're gonna have to do step 3. I said excuse me because I'd heard them talk about step 3.

Made a decision to turn our lives and our will over the care of God as we understand him. Now I didn't know what life was and I know what will was and that was too much for me to even understand or have any concept of. And she said, why don't you think about this way? Instead of wife and will, why don't you say attitude and actions? Why don't you turn your attitude and your actions over the care that's got as you understand him?

And I thought, well, I could do that. Now I was sitting in there one night and I looked up and on my wall it says the 12 steps are there and I looked and it said, God, as we understood him. And I realized that I didn't understand him at all and that I could start from there. It was absolutely marvelous and that's where I started. It was a spiritual awakening for me.

And then I started thinking, what does as we understood him mean? So I started listening to y'all as y'all talked about God as you understood him. And I could take a little piece of your God and that made sense to me. Your God didn't make sense to me. Yours did.

Yours did. Yours did. And I just listened to us talk about our God, and he began to make sense to me. One that didn't make sense to me that just absolutely drove me insane was Vonna. Vonna said 1 night at a meeting that she opened her refrigerator door and the egg fell out of the door and she reached down and she grabbed it before it hit the floor and she said, oh, thank you, God.

I never in my life heard anything so stupid. God in an egg? Come on. Get serious. And I went home and I thought about that and I thought about that.

An egg? She's crazy. God wouldn't care about an egg. You realize it's 21 years later and I'm still talking about the egg and God? That impressed me so much that I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought about it.

Do you really think God cares about even an egg falling and hitting the floor? Do you really think that? It just has blown my mind away that God does those things. So we we took the 3rd step together. I do it different a little bit than what, my sponsor and I did because I learned as I went through and I've shared this with her as I went back, there was a man who told me about this.

In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, they talk about what your life and will is because I didn't know. When I was talking to this gentleman, his name is Albert Myers, some of you may have heard him. He is such a great AA member and he and his wife are speakers. So if y'all ever need some speakers, they're great. And Albert and I were talking with him.

He said, Get the big book out and look at, step 3, and it describes what your life and will is. Instead of saying we, say I and read it out loud and see what that does for you. I said, Oh, okay. I picked up, Oh, yuck. It is so awful.

When you find out what your life will is, you don't want it. I mean, you'll turn it over and anybody will take it. Briefly, I'm not gonna go through all of it, but it says it's right after the ABC's, it says we're at step 3. Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do? Self will.

You can't win on self will. It says, We are like, each person like the actor who would run the whole show. I read it this way, I am like the actor who would run the whole show. I am forever trying to arrange the lights in the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in my own way if they would just stay where I put them. If only people was doing as I wished, the show would go off great.

Everybody, including myself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements, I may sometimes be quite virtuous. I may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest in self sacrificing. Or, on the other hand, I may be mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest to get you to do exactly as I want.

But as most humans, I am most likely to have all these very traits at one time or another. I'm a sprain one more time, you see. What usually happens, the shell doesn't come off very well. I begin to think life doesn't treat me right, so I try to exert myself even more. I become, on the next occasion, even still more demanding or gracious, whichever the case may be.

It still didn't come out right, so admitting that I may be somewhat at fault. I'm sure that other people are quite more than blame. I become angry and dicking at self pitying. Am I I am a self seeker. I'm a victim of delusion that I can get happiness out of the world if only I can manage it and control it right.

Isn't it evident to everybody else that if they just let me do it everything will be alright? Selfish and self centeredness, that is the root of my problems. This is what I just absolutely hate. Listen to this. Driven by a 100 forms of fear, a hundred.

You go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, that's a 100 forms of fear, a 100 forms of self delusion, a 100 forms of self seeking, a 100 forms of self pity. Listen to what I do. I step on the toes of my fellows and they retaliate. After I step on their toes, they retaliate. Sometimes, they hurt me seemingly without provocation, but I invariably find that sometime in the past I made decisions based on self which later put me in a position to be hurt.

I don't like that. That sounds so awful to me. So our troubles are, we think, of our own making. We can change it. God makes that possible.

This is how and this is why we have to quit playing God. It don't work. We just have to quit. We have to find out that God is the principle, we are the agent. He is the father, I am the children.

Now listen to what happens. When we take such a sincerely disposition, all sorts of remarkable things follow. Isn't that a fantastic word? Remarkable. I have found it true.

I mean, I'm standing here by the what's this? Mackenzie River? It's the prettiest plate in God's earth and here I'm standing. This is remarkable to me. You can't get here in Oregon by this river from Lubbock County.

It don't work. Remarkable things have happened to me. I had a new employer being all powerful, He, God, provided what I needed if I kept close to Him and performed His work well, and I think that means to me. If I stick close to God, that means stick in my meetings, stick to my sponsor, stick to the people I sponsor, be there at my committed meetings, which are 3 a week, I do those things, then I'm staying right smack dab in this very room where the power is. And I'm performing his work well by showing up, by passing along, by 12 stepping somebody over this table last night, by coming here and talking, by doing His work, my life just runs.

Remarkable things happen. I feel new power. New peace flows in. I discover I can face life successfully. I discover I'm in the presence of God.

Is that something in this very room God is? I was reborn. And then it has a third step prayer which we're all very familiar with that I say on a daily basis. God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with Thee, and do with me as Thou will. Relieve me of the bondage of death, that I may better do Thy will.

Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help with Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life at the McKenzie River in Oregon. May I do thy will always. We think well before taking this step, making sure we're ready, that we could abandon ourselves utterly to God. It says, This is only a very beginning if honestly and humbly met an effect a very great one was sometimes felt at once. And the third step has brought power in my life.

I'm not powerless anymore. I know that there is a power. I took the 3rd step, but nothing happened for me, 3rd step. You know what happened to me? I made a decision.

I just made a decision. There was no burning bush. I didn't turn spiritual. I didn't become a Christian. I made a decision.

That's all I I thought if I make that decision, I'm gonna be an actor beating them tambourines, and she said no. She said make a decision and then we'll work the steps and we'll see what happens in the 12th step when it says having had a spiritual experience or awakening as a result of these steps. All you're doing right now is making a decision to see what's going to happen. So, oh, I can do that. That's all it is.

I can do that. I can make a decision to try. That's all I'm going to do. I think right now, I'm gonna make a decision to go potty if they're working. Thanks.

The bodies are working. But what we do have to remind you is if you catch any one of them just running and running and running and not stopping, let us know because that shuts off all of the water to all the rest of the building. And when the water isn't running, if that happens, please don't leave the tap open because then we end up water put water on the ground. This is the end of session 2, the start of session 3. You've had a nice lunch.

It's warm in here. If I see anybody nodding while I'm up here pouring my guts out, I happen to have a kettle pot. Let me tell you a couple of things I forgot. I I used to do this, on women's weekend like this. I used to do it on Friday night or somebody does.

It's just a fun thing that we learned back home a long time ago. Then and y'all may do this. I don't know. If you do, well, just have patience with me. And it's looking for your Word.

On a weekend like this, you're gonna hear a word or a phrase over and over and over. I think I have mine but I can't wait and see because it just it just popped up. You know, you'll hear it from a speaker, you'll hear it in the dining room, or you'll hear it, you know, just as people are you'll just overhear it. You'll hear it a lot. It'll be used a lot, and that's your word.

It's either something you need to work on or have worked on or God's given you a message. So we always kinda look for our word, and on the way back home in the car, we always compare. Well, what was your word? And we'll talk about where we are in that. Another thing that we've always talked about is our own personal angel that that's at one of these weekends.

We all have an angel. They will give us the word or they'll give us the message or they'll say something. They'll hug us when we really need a hug or we'll be sitting off by ourselves and somebody comes and sits with us and maybe they didn't do a thing, maybe they just were. But you'll have an angel here and this is such a cute idea if you have an angel, we'll write her a note. Couple other things, tonight at the candlelight ceremony, if you all bring a a little piece of paper and a pen, we're gonna do something a little different.

I think, look at that. Look at that. Just spilled it all over. That's so hard. Put me on your throat.

Just And let me explain what this is. Someone had asked me about it. This is a gift that was given to me and it was bound up just for me. It's the sweetest little thing. It's the first 164 pages of the big book and the age 12 and 12, the 12 steps.

It's bound together in this little thing. It has my little name on it. Isn't that cute? That old fool I'm married to had that done for me. Yeah.

So it's it's that's what that is. What this is this is a big huge book that some, people in Odessa, Texas put together about all the information, only a step, out of all the literature. Some of it's excerpts out of the One Day at a Time, The Life of the Alcoholics, The Limb of the Alcoholics, some is the A1212, some is the A's big book. They're all things that they worked out in their group and one of the girls that I sponsor named Susan very lovingly put all this together for me. Isn't that nice?

And I've used it to study the steps myself and to give the steps many, many times, so it's kinda shot and worn out, and I just absolutely love it. So this is what this is. It's nothing but our conference to prove stuff, except for the paper. Okay. Somebody said to me a while ago that they were having a terrible time trying to get the 4 steps started, they just couldn't do it, and I said what was said to me, if you're having a terrible time doing the 4 step, perhaps you better back up because if you're having that big a time with the 4th step, then you haven't really probably made a decision.

You haven't done your 3rd step correctly and or if there is a correct, become willing, whatever that takes. It says in here, in the book that has the directions in it, which I love to kinda look at, the big book, about step 3, you know, when it says that we get through and sometimes a spiritual thing will happen to us, sometimes immediately, sometimes it's a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks, but always, always with the people I sponsor when they and I, we and I, me and I, Blanche was here, she'd do it when she started, we kneel together and we take that third step prayer together and either they have a very real experience right then or it's a couple days they always have one and I tell them, be sure and let me know what it is because God talks to them only in a way they can hear and only way they can understand and I don't know what it is. I'm real selfish, you know. So they they tell me what it is. That's always a fun thing to look for what God's gonna give you to know so that you'll know God heard that you're gonna try.

That's it. It's no burning bush. He just knows that you're gonna try and he'll let you know in some way that only you can understand that he's done that. So after we take the 3rd step, it says in the directions, next, we launched on a course of vigorous action. The first step which is personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted.

Though our decision was vital and a crucial step, the 3rd step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once, at once, followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which would have been blocking us. So we had to get down to causes and conditions, therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was step 4. And I bet that y'all like I was, I bet. Who wants to take 4 steps?

Anybody just couldn't wait to do it? I don't know how. I don't know when. I don't know where to start. I don't know all that stuff.

My sponsor and her sponsor, decided this is so funny, I love to tell it. Decide they were new and sponsored. Back then, you know, you're talking 21 years ago, they just didn't the sponsorship has grown as we've grown and they decided what they would do with me, my sponsor, and my grand sponsor had a girl that she was, you know, questioning if she had any sanity either. They decided to get us together and on a Sunday afternoon and they would set us down and they would show us and explain, because we're so hard headed, how to do an inventory. So they took us over there.

They I don't even know what they said. They just didn't they just didn't said you're supposed to write these things, and she said, this is the way we do it, and she handed me a little pad and handed Flo a little pad and hand us pencils and pens, and we were supposed to start writing. So I went a little bit and I thought, well, I'm not sure if this is right or not. So finally, I said, excuse me, but I need to know if this is what you mean about what we're supposed to take as an inventory. Do you, I mean, like, I wasn't married when I had my daughter.

Is that what you meant? Flo nearly comes up out of here because she's known me for a long time. She says, I didn't think you were ever married, and I thought she was lying. I knew it. I knew it.

My sponsor and my grandsposter both turn wise a sheep and my sponsor yanked me up and took me back in the back bedroom so we could visit quietly. So their one group inventory did not work. So we waited a while and and, I suffered over that. I just suffered over that and she did too. She was one of the worst ones to ever, ever, ever take an inventory of my sponsor.

She just whined about it and carried on about it and a lot of the Alimonds in our group at that time hadn't done it. So the Alimonds in my group back then before I came in worked with the AA women and said how do you do it? And the AA women told it because they had to work these steps to stay alive. So they were sharing with with my heritage people. I think many of you have met one of my heritage people.

I heard somebody couldn't hardly carry her bag, Marcy White. She's my great great grand sponsor and, she just worked with the AA women. She loved them and they taught her and the AA guys taught her how to work steps and she taught Octavia and Octavia taught Pat and Pat taught me. So that's my line of heritage which I absolutely love. If you don't know your heritage, you better find out what it is.

Who's your great sponsor and your grand grand sponsor and your great grand you better find out who they are, See if they're real. See if they're working a problem. See if they're still doing the steps. See if they're still sponsoring people. See if they're still going to meetings.

See where your heritage is. Mine are still in meetings every week, they're still sponsoring, they're still doing all the things they're supposed to be doing because that's what they were taught, that's what I was taught, that's what I do. So, inventory. My sponsor, whining and whining and whining is this lady that got her one day just turned around, flipped at her, and she just really jumped all over. She said either what was it?

Either get off the pot. She's sick and tired of hearing about it. Either ride or don't. We'll pat. Just, you know, just really powered over it, but she went home and she wrote.

So finally, she listened to me enough that that's the same thing she told me. She said, you just gotta write. Get a pencil and paper. Write. And then we left the big book.

The big book says resentment, fear, sex. It's just so simple. If you don't know how, sometimes if you look in the how to book, it shows you. It tells exactly right on fear, resentment, and sex. Some people make a grudge list.

Some people done that 4 step column which I've never been able to do because I I just don't know how to do that. It's just simply that. The 4 step columnist in the big book that they have suggested tells who you resent and why you resent them. If I knew that, I wouldn't need to take it anyway. So I just and I can't name my stuff.

I can't name it. So what we did was just write on those three areas. My first inventory was on those three areas. I went back as far as I could remember about the people I was in and why. I went back as far as I can remember about the things I was afraid of and why, and I went back as far as I can remember about sex and why and how many and where.

Getting it was rather long and the things that I did because of that. There is nothing worse than having an inventory and holding it because you don't have to do it. Do you put in your purse where your kids might find it? Do you lay it down on the kitchen table where he might find it? I mean, what do you do with an inventory after you've written it?

That's the biggest dilemma I ever had. The reasons to write inventory. If we don't, we don't get well. If the alcoholic don't, they get drunk. It's just that simple.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says in there it's written, written, written. 17 times it says, inventory, written. 17 times, I counted one time and marked them off. So because, see, the reason I bring that up is when I set meetings, my head was, well, I've been here long enough. I've heard everything.

I pretty well figured it out now, I know, and I really don't have to write that. I've heard enough of what's said and it has to be written for it to be a success and, if you want, what the program has to offer. The timing of an inventory is really important. Now this is probably and please listen to me and don't judge me, don't get pissed off at me, listen to me. Probably one of the things that I really hurt and hate about treatment is they put these people in there and they're in there 2 or 3 weeks and they tell them they've gotten the 4th step done and they let them out and they think they've done a 4th and 5th step.

For God's sakes, you can't do that. Do you hear me? You can't do that. This it just can't be done. You might ride in there.

You bet. You might find some things in there. You bet. But until you get here and and know that there's alcoholism, know that you're surrendered to it, take a third step, and most of us don't like God or don't want God when we get here anyway or we're confused about God, you've got get that digested. Then you've got to trust the people in here.