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

You know, because I have to keep going back and back and back, but this is the directions. It tells me how to get into it. The prayer that I absolutely is my favorite prayer and I is the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi's. I've got it all over my house. I've got gifts, which I absolutely love.

I've got 4 of them out in my backyard in California. One of the nice things about California is the beauty, of course, and I have the prettiest backyard that you have. I mean, I got flowers out there. Reminds me of breakfast. I don't know what they are.

You know, I just I have no idea what they are, and they're just they're magnificent. And I have 3 Saint Francis out there just planted right in the middle of all that gorgeous stuff, and it is the most wonderful place to sit with a cup of coffee and look at my day. It's nice. I have a girl that I sponsor and she just, you know, she just wears me out. She's just one of those that just and she's got somebody identifies.

Betty? Yeah. And everything you tell you, she's got 10 things to find ain't gonna work. She'll have 10 years. I think in 2 more weeks, she's gonna have 10 magnificent years in this program.

And she said to me this was a few years ago. At that time, I had a beautiful place that I got up in the morning and had my coffee and it was a big beautiful bay window and the plants and the trees. It was gorgeous. And she said, well, you've got all the stuff again. Now I don't have nothing.

I actually live in this apartment. I look at my window and I see a bow and it's just it was just, you know, one of those. I said, why don't you do this, Debbie? Why don't you go to your kitchen, get a bowl, put some water in it, grab a leaf off the tree, throw it in there, and watch the damn thing float. You know?

It does not matter where you're at. It doesn't matter what position you're at. It matters that you're doing it, discovered eye. So this is the prayer that I mean is so meaningful in my life. When I am really down and out, when something's happened that I don't know what to do, when I'm discouraged and I don't know why, when I'm tired and I don't know why, when my husband has hurt my feelings so bad I can hardly hold my head up and I don't know why and or do know why, when I'm tired and I don't wanna get up and do anything, This I mean, it's just like a boat of electricity to me.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace that where there is hatred, I may bring love, that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness, that where there is discord, I may bring harmony, that where there is error, I may bring truth, that where there is doubt, I may bring faith, where there is despair, I may bring hope, That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved, for it is by self forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is dying that one awakens to eternal life.

There there hadn't been a line in that thing that hadn't jumped at me at one point or the other, and I've read it a jigging times. Now I've heard some girls talking about their, their relationships. How do you have a relationship? You know? How do you get prepared for that wonderful, magnificent man that's gonna be in your life?

And I was told a long time ago to look at this prayer and to become it, to put it on my shoes and walk it, and that I would become then exactly what I needed. I I would become loving. I would become someone rather to love than be loved, comfort than be comforted, and that would draw to me this kind of a person. I think I missed. Just kidding.

He's wonderful. So what I need from a man, what I need from you, I try to become and this is the directions. This 11 step prayer is the direction for me. When I'm hurt about something, it shows me in here. It's maybe I am in despair.

Maybe I'm in despair over something, which I certainly have been from time to time. And maybe there's a shadow in my life. It tells me one more time, as long as I'm looking here, it ain't gonna work. If I'll take it down and look at you, it's gonna work. It has always been that way.

If I'll just tend to Sunday if I will just tend to Sunday's business and stay under the umbrella of grace, then god's gonna take care of Monday and Thursday and Wednesday and all those things. And all I have to do is this. Why don't I attend to Sunday and look at you and see what's happened to you today? It it brings me out every time. I am my own personal thing, and what you do is your own my own personal thing and what you do is your own journey, of course, and it's what you have to do, of course.

But I have done this enough that I know what's comforting for me and I change it from time to time but most of it goes like this. In the morning upon awakening, I say the 3rd first three, steps in prayer form. I say the serenity I mean, the 3rd step prayer, kind of in my own words. I say part of that 7 step prayer. Then I do read.

I get up. This has been a commitment off and on for me through the years. It depends on what's going on in my life. My commitment again is now to get out of that bed and roll over on those knees. It's god doesn't need it.

I need it. And I get up off those knees and I go get my coffee and or sometimes my husband does the most precious thing for me. He always has my coffee made. And most times brings it to me. I have 3 books that I read.

I read out of the big book. I read the instructions because it reminds me what I'm supposed to think about today and what I'm doing. I have the one day time book. I have God Calling. It is not conference approved, but it's God calling.

It's one of the most precious books. Those of you who read the, little 24 hour book of, know a lot of I read that. A lot of god callings put in there. And I've been given one that have been added to me that I absolutely love. It's and, again, it's not a conference approved.

One of the girls I sponsored found it, and it's a Christian 12 step little daily book. You know, I are a Christian now. You know? It's just the way things can go. I make fun of the Christians, but I are one.

It's a little Christian book that, has a a scripture out of it and then it ties up with the step for that day, and it's really magnificent. And I read those things. I don't get bogged down in reading too much because I used to have them all around me. I had oral books and Jimmy's books and Jim and Tammy's tapes and, you know, anything. I had it piled around me, and and those were good for me and I needed them.

I've read them all, just read them all, and just had a lot of magnificent times with them. But, for now, for quite some time, this is what I do in the morning. And I get up and I go on. There's a big difference in faith and trust in me in my prayer and meditation time. Faith, I talk about a lot in the big book and faith is something I think you're I don't I don't know what it is.

You just know it's gonna happen and and I trust is more, I think, a word that I use and use a lot rather than faith. My trust in in this God and in prayer and the whole thing came in in a simple little way. My trust came in the group. I walked into a group of people that I absolutely did not know and never seen before in my life and and y'all just you had my immediate attention, you had my immediate trust. Now isn't that amazing?

As sick as I was when I walked into your this very room, I mean, I trusted you. Now that just doesn't make any sense to me. That has to be from something other than myself. From you, I've picked out that sponsor, and I trusted her. Not in a lot of things she told me, but I wanted her acceptance and her approval so desperately that I did anything she asked me.

And the only thing she asked me was do this program. She'd asked me anything outside of it and because I wanted her approval and because I trusted her, I did what she asked me to do. That was the step. I trusted her belief in God. I didn't have one, didn't believe there was one particularly, but she believed it and I trusted her belief.

And I used her for a long time, and then I used her god for a long time. And then I trusted these steps. I trusted what you said because it worked for you, and I was willing to go any steps. And then I had my own experience. Remember I told you I sat there, I looked up the board, and it said God as we understood him?

And I thought I can start from there. That was my first spiritual awakening. I trusted that you said when I take a 4 step, something would happen. I did it and there was that guy who looked into my soul and then I trusted you that I could take make these amends and it would work and they did. So I trusted you.

I've had enough experiences now that I know. I have a old book that I've kept for many years. It's called My Miracle Book. It's one of these little cute ones. You know?

It has a cute little cover and you open it up to see what's in there. There's nothing. Just blank pages. And I call that my miracle book and I write down these things. Many of you have had a miracle this weekend and I write them down because I forget them.

In 6 months, I think, well, I wonder if there is a God. You know, after all this stuff's happened to me, and anything bad happens, I blame it on God and just silly stuff. So I would have this little miracle book and nothing's in there but miracle. Absolutely the neatest thing in this world to read. I go back and I say, oh, yeah.

That did happen. Impossible things. When there is a situation that is totally and completely impossible, that's when God does it and I forget that. So that's why I have to go to my miracle book and I say, oh, yeah. This could not have happened.

It was impossible. In God's green earth, this couldn't happen. And look at there. It did. This is what happened.

So my trust was built. This little story that my spouse told me once, I just love it about faith and trust. This man was a high wire walker and he was going to do this real neat trick. He's going to get him a wheelbarrow and he was gonna go this, inch cable over Niagara Falls and his buddy went with him said, oh, you can do that. You can do that.

And the guy said, do you think I really can't? Oh, yeah, man. I have all faith, the world, and you can push that thing over and not make a bobble. And he went with him and and just, you know, was really encouraging. The news people came and the crowds gathered and they were just all around and the guy was real nervous.

His buddy said, hey. I have faith. You're gonna make that. Don't you worry one second. He said, do you really trust me, the guy with the wheelbarrow?

I said, sure. I know you can do it. He said, oh, good. Would you get in? Mhmm.

And that's the difference sometimes in faith and trust for me. I may have the faith, but back it ain't getting in. I'll watch you. I'll watch God. And when there's absolutely no other way, no other way in this side of Niagara Falls is gonna fall into eternity, I might get in.

Maybe, kinda, almost. So for me, it's had to be action. One more time, it's had to be action. It's having to build that trust and to pray and meditate. No way I know how.

And I certainly can't tell you how to do that. There's just no way. It's your journey, and I think it's an exciting journey for all of us. And it's really the longer I've done it, the more it's held me in good stead. BJ and I were talking about it yesterday.

You know what? The things that we do here over and over and she said it last night, it's the most precious thing that she knows right now is that she knows it's gonna be okay no matter what And Debbie wrote read some last night out of the, AAS 1212 on that 11th step where it says, you know, what we have here and what we do. In fact, I'm I'm gonna read a little bit of that that she didn't because when times are bad, this is another thing that I go to. The 11th step, we discover that we do receive guidance for our lives just about the extent we start making demands on people to give it to us on our order and our terms. Almost every experienced AA and or Al Anon will tell how his affairs have taken remarkable and unexpected turns for the better as he tried to improve his conscious contact with God.

He will also report that at every season of grief or suffering when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, New lessons for living were learned. New resources of courage were uncovered and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does move the mysterious way his wonders to perform. All this should be very encouraging news for those of you who recoil from prayer because they don't believe in it or because they feel themselves cut off from God's help and direction. All of us without exception pass through these times when we can only pray with the greatest exertion of will. Occasionally, we go even further than this.

We are seized with a rebellion so sickening we simply won't pray. When these things happen, we should not think too ill of ourselves. We should simply resume prayer as soon as we can, doing what we know to be good for us. Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is a sense of belonging that comes to us. We no longer live in a completely hostile world.

We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless. The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin to see truth, justice, and love as the real and eternal things in life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by the seemingly evidence to the contrary that surrounds us in pure human affairs. We know that God lovingly watches over us. We know that when we turn to him, all will be well with us here and hereafter. The seemingly bad, I think it's bad, but if I leave it alone, it's not so bad.

Another of my sponsors' favorite story that is the king, the kingdom, and and he passed out these little pieces of material with directions to everybody in the kingdom, and he was gonna have this giant big huge thing made that was gonna be over his long court hall. And everybody was thrilled to death if you were chosen to do a piece. And this one lady got a piece and it was just to be blue, just dark blue, nothing else. Her neighbor had sequins in hers and jewels and everything. It just really made her mad.

The seemingly bad thing was she got this yucky and her friend was getting the real good stuff and she didn't like it. So she snuck and got the stuff and made hers as pretty as her neighbors. And then they come and gathered all this stuff up and they took it and they brought it and they took it and put it all together in the king's court. And he invited all these people and was going to give them praise and honor and give them some little something for doing their part. And when they got to the great hall and the banquet was there and they pull back the curtain, here was this magnificent, magnificent thing.

It had the river and the mountains and these jewels and everything and right up in the big middle of this giant blue sky was this ugly thing with sequins all over it. She'd screwed up the whole tapestry. Seemingly bad, she thought she had been put down. There's a jillion stories I could tell you about my 11th step and how what I've done with it, but I think I'm gonna tell you about my last year. As I told you, we wound up in California because we went broke.

I didn't know, and it's still an amazing lesson for me, how a man and his finances are so hooked. It's like me and you and our kids, me and you and our recipe box. You know? That's who we are. And a man and his business, his ability to make a living to support his loved ones is really who they are.

And I just wasn't aware of that. I've heard about it, but I wasn't really aware of it. Because when I got married, we'll be married 8 years pretty quick. I mean I was rich for about 30 minutes and honey, I loved it. Wow.

It was great. I had been broke all my life. Well, then he had invested his life savings in a building that I mean, in a business that he had in California. He sold all that, took all that money, and went back to Oklahoma and invested it back there right before the oil bust. And he lost everything, just everything.

So we moved from there to Dallas trying to get it put together. Of course, we couldn't, so we and that will took about 4, 5, 6 years there. And it was going downhill slowly each day, each week, each month till we lost the home. We lost the all the real estate. We lost the oil leases.

We lost you know, it's just a little bit of time. It was just like taking a big plug of his flesh out and just big chunk of him, all the time. And if those chunks went, he got a little testy. As he got testy, I got testy and we started having trouble and the honeymoon was over. We started having trouble in our marriage and I thought when you got married to a sober alcoholic, life was gonna be wonderful.

Yes, sir. You know? And slowly, things started deteriorating, and we were not kind to each other. And then we moved to Dallas, and it didn't get any better at all. And then he announced to me that we were going to California and or that he was if I wanted to.

And I called my sponsor, and I was just whining and carrying on. I don't want to. I'm not going to. I'll divorce him. I'm staying here.

You know? I've had I don't like him anyway. I'm fed up with him. She's, I don't think so. She's, why don't you let him go on out and you stay back there for a couple of months and, let him get things put together and see and make sure that it's gonna be alright.

So so that sounded great to me. Now I went to him with a proposition and he's and he almost sounded relieved. So he packed up his stuff and I packed up my stuff. And we put some in storage and I had this we sold some and, you know, it was just god awful. Sorting this pile over here and fixing that pile over here and packing it and unpacking it and selling it and getting his stuff for him and my stuff for me, and it just seemed like it went on forever.

And I moved into my daughter's corner of her living room in a one bedroom apartment with her and my 3 year old grandbaby. Her with, what, 4 years of sobriety, 3 and a half years sobriety, me with my wonderful alanine, and we were looking excited. Thanks. We were, really excited about it. Just me and her having fun camping out.

Oh, woah. So he goes off, and I stay there. And at first I was really relieved and it was kinda good and it was kinda nice and and then I really started missing him. I missed his companionship. I missed him doing the little thing.

I missed my coffee. I missed him taking care of the car. I missed him jumping all over me if I forgot to call him, you know, if I was gonna be late. I missed I missed my husband. Now I realized that, yes, I did wanna be with him.

So in June, he moved me out there and in June it was just I was just a ripping away of my Texas that I love, my home, my family's back there. My daughter and my 3 year old granddaughter had intended to move out with us and at the last minute she she just didn't feel welcome. She didn't feel it was the right time and she just didn't go and I was devastated. The only reason I really was gonna go is because she and that baby were coming. That baby is my second chance.

That baby is the light of my life. And my daughter is, you know, she's busy and laughing. I'm just quite sure if I wasn't there to take care of the baby, BJ, that, you know, who's gonna take care of that baby? And I was just crushed when I left. And I got out to California, and he's a typical man.

He is driving down the street, saw this apartment for rent size, and just wheeled in there and rented it, and it was about as big as this little podium. And we had a great time going out there. We ran this big huge truck and one of his sponsorees drove the truck out. One of my sponsorees now this tells you how insane some of the people I sponsor is, and y'all really ought to have some pity on me when you hear some of this stuff that I have to put up with. Her name is Cindy and John, and they live in Billings, Montana.

They drove from Billings, Montana to Oklahoma to help us leave from a conference that we were at. They helped us drive all the way to California. Cindy drove with me. John was in his little truck helping us carry my treasures. So here we caravaned the 3 of us out to California, and they were helping me try to get this stuff in this apartment as big as this podium.

And I started crying. At that point, I started crying. There was just no place to put my stuff. I mean, this is my stuff, the only stuff that I have left in this I can't say that word. This guy, you know, had screwed up my life anyway and here's my stuff, sat down on this lawn, I didn't know what I was gonna do with it.

So we had to separate out there on the lawn, I was taking out stuff and putting it back in boxes, repacking and do it one more time to store it so I could get a place. And we were in that place till October, and I find this is June. He thought we was gonna get out of there in July. We're stuck in there till October, and I begged off in October. And I found the place and we moved again in October.

I was just getting settled in there. I was just getting, you know, things put up and done and, you know, Al Anon out there is, you know, not right. They don't do it right out there, you know. I have no support and and it's just it's really strange. And the last of October, we got this phone call.

My husband's brother, who was, an alcoholic but sober in his church, could sing, God, he sang. He came to all the conferences that we had anything to do with and sang, and he just was my husband's favorite favorite brother. He just dropped dead. He was singing at a podium on a Sunday night at a revival, and he started having chest pains and had a heart attack and died. So my husband had to borrow some money and fly back to Florida for the funeral.

He got back and 10 days later is when I got the call about my brother Jimmy's suicide. And I go and I go through all that and I see my mother and I see all that stuff and and I see my son and his madness and and I come back and, while I'm there, my daughter decides that she's she misses me a lot, so she decides that she wants to move out. So So we get the arrangements done while I'm back there, and I bring the baby back with me. And I get there on, I think it's Wednesday. Thursday, my house is gonna be full of AA people for Thanksgiving dinner, and I do that.

And then it's Christmas, and I hate Christmas. I was supposed to go back. It was my year to go back to Texas to be with my family. Of course, I can't because we've had all this money that, we spent on funerals, and I mean, Christmas was not my family. It was just awful and my marriage is just stinks.

I just don't like it and, someone talked about it last night and was so glad to hear it, you know, we were all in pain. Everybody was in their own individual pain. Jim couldn't comfort me and I couldn't comfort him and I just he was too needy and I just didn't want him around me and I was too needy and he just didn't want me around him and and, our marriage was just dead. And he was being so hateful to me, I couldn't tolerate it. And one day right after Christmas, I said to him, I can't handle this, and I'm leaving.

And, if you'll give me time to get a job and get some money put together, I just need to leave. And, he was that was fine with him. And in a few days, he, came to me and he said, we have talked about going to marriage counseling in Dallas. Are you still interested in that? And I said, yeah.

And he said, it was a the lady was a friend of his. And, yeah, it was. And I suggested maybe we ought to pick somebody else because he got mad, and I thought, well, talk to my sponsor about it. She said, well, go because you want you just go and tell her. If she's a professional, she'll send you somewhere else.

But this lady doesn't go to Al Anon. She's married an alcoholic. She thinks Al Anon are puky and boring and she don't want anything to do with them. She goes to open a meeting. She's not an alcoholic, and she's a therapist.

And she works with us. So we go and we sit down and, I mean, I've been stripped before, but I mean, I've stripped in that little hour. And it was like I'd cry, and she had a box of Kleenex over by her chair that she gives her clients when they cry. Wouldn't you do that? If it's your house, you have a box of Kleenex and somebody's snotch dripping it.

Yeah. When you hand them a she didn't give me a Kleenex. She was totally on Jim's side. I promise you. And I'm not saying this out of prejudice.

I mean, she was on his side. She kept referring to, her husband and her daughter. Everything was brought up. And finally, I said, you know, if we're basing this on experience, your experience, strength, and hope here, you don't have the same experience that we've got. Boy, you can see hate fly across our face.

I'm a professional. I said, well, good. Let's get into professionally and not your experience because, you know, this is not right. And I was just I really was ripped apart in that thing and when we left there, we got up. Jim stood up.

She hugged him and she started out and I took a step forward and had my arms up like this and she walked right past me. And I was I mean, I was stripped. I thought, you witch. And we got out of there and all I could think about was that. I mean, that was total rejection at the height that and she was sitting there saying we weren't gonna make it.

And the way that you used to try is what she was saying. But if we did want to to go home and write all this stuff down that we didn't like about each other and bring it back to her, and, I told her I didn't wanna come back to her and that what my sponsor said and, well, that went over like a flood balloon. So when we got out of there, I said, do you notice that she didn't hug me? Well, he didn't know what I was talking about. And, he had basically told her he was through, that there was anything that he could think of.

There was no rewards in his marriage and that he was through. And, literally, what he brought me there for that day was to, hear it be said in that situation, I think, that he was through with me. And that was it. The marriage was said, and it was okay. It was I was real sad, and I was real hurt.

It was okay. And I got home, and he moved into the other bedroom, and, it was just that was it. I was hurt. I was crushed. I thought, well, God is in control of my destiny.

No man. And I went and I got this book and I got my Bible and I read what I was supposed to read and I did what I was supposed to do. And I prayed and meditated like you would never believe, and I had to know that that marriage was dead. It was dead. And if it was ever brought back to life, it had nothing to do with me.

It was not mine. And I remembered this one word that kept bothering me and it was word commitment. Jim and I had made a commitment a long time ago that we were gonna be married. No matter what, we was gonna work through it, and that kept bothering me. When Jim and I first dated, he was so scared of me that he dumped me.

Anyway, we dated, and I was supposed to move out and marry him out in California. He got frightened and dumped me, and I didn't see him for nearly 2 years. And I was at a convention and he came to that convention. We saw each other again and got back together and got married. And I remember that story.

I thought, I I you know, this is amazing to me. This seemingly bad thing is totally out of is impossible. This is an impossible situation. This is one of those that perhaps I better turn over to god. Hear my old story because he knew he was having some trouble.

He said, Boy, aren't you glad therapy didn't work? I said, Oh yes. The only thing we had left was the program. I mean that's all we had left left was the program. Therapy doesn't work for me.

Therapy, they work up here and they have an earthly idea about impossible situations. They only have a slice idea about miracles. They think and they worked. Lord, I can't work on nothing. It just didn't work and I had to go.

The only thing that's ever worked for me is the program. So, I admitted that I was powerless. I knew that there was a power that was going to help me. It wouldn't matter anything else that would help me and I dug into this 11th step. I mean, I dug into it.

I was meditating, I was praying and I was trusting and I just kind of got okay with it and I knew whatever came out of a seemingly bad thing, it was going to be the best for both of us And a couple weeks passed and I was going to a convention to talk and my husband came in there and he was going to join me because he had to because the convention paper thing and everybody expected us there and he had, he just came. And as I I was going over earlier, it's like an hour drive and and he came in and he gave me some money. He stayed in my room that whole weekend. He just hugged me and loved me and held on me. We got home Sunday night and and I went to bed and he was in there and I thought I'm not gonna wait to see if he goes.

This bedroom will drive me nuts. And I went in there and I said, Jim, are you coming back to our bed? And he said, yes. I love you and I wanna try this. And I said, I love you.

Thanks. And I don't know what happened. I have no earthly idea what happened except the seemingly bad thing. I turned over the only way I know how to turn it over. I want you to know that we're just like we were when I first met him.

We're holy on each other. We're hugging each other. We love each other. I respect him. I'm looking at him and I think he didn't he didn't got his old.

I thought he'd gotten And he's tender and he's sweet and I'm tender in his sleep. You know what I was told to do during that time? Be light and polite, no meaningful conversation and we started from that being light and polite, no meaningful conversation. Again, we were courteous to each other. We respected each other.

And God has put this thing back together. It's much sweeter. It's much wonderful. It is it's just it's like it should be, I guess, between a man and woman. We have released each other.

We love each other, and and I'm just enjoying it for the day. Having had a spiritual awakening is a result of these steps I've tried to share with you. It says in here that we take this message to others. This message, my message that I'm trying to share with you is having had a spiritual lightning as a result of these steps. It's the result of the steps.

Period. I have nothing else to give anybody anytime anywhere. It's the result of these steps. It's what's happened to me. It's my marvelous story.

It says in here that we try to practice these principles in all of our affairs. I try to practice it in my marriage as I've told you. I try to practice it as a daughter. I try to practice these affairs with, my children, my group, and all my affairs. It's not easy to do this, is it?

We used to do a long time ago a thing called a 12 Step Call. Long time ago. Y'all remember that VJ? Yes. Twestet calls?

God, they were marvelous. They were magnificent. We just it's like you find a pot of gold anymore. If somebody said you won't go trust that call, we'd kill to get on it. So many people think a trust that call today is asking about their insurance and driving over to the hospital.

Unfortunately, that's a 12 Step call these days. Let me tell you what they used to be like. We'd get a call and they'd say, Benoit, I've got this drunk and he's got a wife over there. Can you get some gals and come and meet us over there? I'd say, you bet.

You bet. And I'd call some girls and we'd go over there. We'd take the woman and or the husband and or the kids into the kitchen. You know, we always get in the kitchen. You know how the airlines always get in the kitchen?

We would sit there and we would talk to them and we would tell them what we were doing down at the group And I'd say what happened to me and and she'd marry and say what happened to her and Pat say what happened to her. And as the book says, you would see some light coming from very tired of lives. They, you know, I I sit in somebody's building and they told me about this funny. It they told me about it and they said come go with us. And I went with them and they held my hand.

God, it used to be so wonderful. It was so magnificent to be able to go on a 12 step call. God, I loved it. And what we now call a 12 step call is let me see your insurance card. Unfortunately, from time to time you might get the opportunity.

If you get the opportunity, this is how you can get it. You can call your central office if you have 1. You can call AA's number if you have 1 and you might tell them, hey, if you ever have an Al Anon call, would you call me? Give me a chance. God tried.

You just can't imagine how magnificent it is. It's wonderful. We have volunteers who answer the central office phone. Dallas, they said take the tapes. I don't know what that meant, but you had that they after the central office closed, you can have they have a little recording.

If you need some help, call this number, and we put our names and telephone numbers on there and people could call us. Us. This is great. Number 1, the first part of this is having had a spiritual awakening. It doesn't say sure hope you have 1, folks.

If possible, you might have. We sure hope you do. It says, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So you know you're gonna get it, don't you? I mean, is that a promise?

Is that exciting or what? Period. That's all it says. 2nd part says, carry the message to others. We tried to practice the we tried to carry this message to others.

How do you carry your message? You know the most important one you do for me, and I told you about it a long time ago. Sitting in your chair on your committed meeting, on your committed home group, week after week after week, bro, you carry me a message. You carry me a message that's working and you need it and change and you love it and it's god, I love that. Please don't ever stop doing that for me.

Please don't. How many of you it's just I don't want to know the answer but just think about it. How many of you in your group have people with more than 10 years sitting in your group. Ain't it interesting? It's really interesting.

10 years or more. It's really interesting how many is there. I don't know where they go. But let me tell you, I'm here, and you're gonna see me every Thursday night in my chair. And don't you get my chair.

You don't see me Monday night in my chair. Wednesday night, the big AA meeting, I'm sitting by my husband and we're recovering from our disease in our chairs. We're there. That's a huge message to carry. I carry the message by going on 12 step calls when they call me.

I carry the message by going and sitting up the room, and we have to we have one key that we have. We got $20.25 deposit on it, so that's the most important message that we carry in my group. You, the key carrier, better be there on time and have the key. That's a real message. Shirley did a real message.

She carried a message. She stood up here and she took all the flack and you know there's a lot of flack. Can you imagine how we whine and complain? I was in Palm Springs, California and you know how famous that place is. You know, it's just a luxury joint and I was in this fancy dance just a few weeks ago, tell you how wonderful you got a speaker up here this morning.

It's this grand hotel. I mean the fufu stuff is just everywhere. It's just everywhere and they didn't have me registered and I didn't have a room and they took me to the wrong room and I sat there just and I thought, good lord, girl, get a grip. I mean, you're in Palm Springs, California. You're not Lubbock County out there in front of the bar wondering who's gonna come out that you can grab.

I mean, And I'm complaining. I'm complaining. And I find myself doing that over and over and over. Now what kind of message was I carrying this bellhop that I was just eating his butt up and all he was doing was carrying my luggage, you know? I have a favorite story about carrying the message.

I'm way over. My a girl in Norman, Oklahoma, big tall gal, just the big I mean, she makes me look like a mentor and she hug like them Christians. You know? She hug you. And people literally kinda run from her.

They don't think, oh, no. She's like a football player. And she was not, she was slow. Just not, you know, just slow. Just a wonderful sweet gal and she was slow.

She had the same job for, like, 17 years of passing a salad from this refrigerator to the line, this refrigerator to the line and that's what she did and she loved doing that. And she came in and she's looking for a sponsor and everybody was and she came over and she asked me to be her sponsor and I thought, oh, Jimmy Crickets, you know. And I said, yes. You know, I'm trying to look enthusiastic, you know. God, what a joy.

What a treat. She is the most magnificent gal you've ever seen in your life. She and I just had a hell of a trip on these steps. She couldn't read too well, so we read together. Tired me all over.

She couldn't drive, so we, got a private tutor, and she now has her own driver's license. My girls picked up once a week and took her to the meeting and bought her back, and and, she now just she'll kill you if you try to take some newcomer home or pick them up. That's her job. Right? But one of the things that I always ask my brand new girl to to feel a part of is what they asked me to do.