The Friday night speaker at the CPH12 v8 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Hi. I'm Carrie. I'm an alcoholic. Hey. I really wanna thank you guys for having me here.

Your beautiful city and your beautiful country and, the amazing people that I've met thus far. You're gonna have to bear with me tonight. I I landed at 8 o'clock this morning and I haven't slept since yesterday, which is my normal state when drinking but not necessarily sober. But on the other hand, I do believe in the power of God and I believe that when God says that I have to be somewhere, I need to show up and do the best that I can and leave the results in His hands. So it's really gonna be in His hands tonight.

Tomorrow? I don't know. But tonight, based on my own, track record, I'm gonna lie, manipulate, boast, you know, my usual. So let's let God do the job tonight. So I wanna before I start talking and, lying, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna say a prayer because I find that when we come together, we're a spiritual body.

All of us here are here in order to to grow closer to God and we grow I grow closer to God by letting go what I think I know about myself and what I think I know about you and asking God to show me what it is that I need to hear. Or well. So I'm gonna ask God to please open our hearts and our minds tonight, to put the love in our hearts and the words in my mouth, and help us all to see the truth tonight. Amen. So my sub my sobriety date is September 6, 1994.

I'm 30 years old. Let me get that out of the way. And I have 3 kids and I'm married. So I've had an interest in sobriety. God has graced me with so many gifts, so many things, so many people.

I can't even begin to, to describe. But I mean, I'm here to tell you a little bit about who I am, how I got here, and what the power of god in AA has done for my life. You know? And I'm here to sell you something. I'm here to sell you my experience with the steps and tell you that I've had an experience with this program which has completely revolutionized the way that I look at and deal with things in my life.

And by doing this and having this experience, I no longer believe that alcohol solution to any of my problems and I'm free. And I'm gonna sell you that because that's my job. My job is here to come come here and tell you my experience so you can say to yourself, I was like her and maybe I can have that experience that she had. You know, because the fact is is that I'm not special. There's no virtue in what I do or who I am.

The fact is I'm a a hopeless alcoholic. And I was lucky enough to meet somebody who showed me a solution to my problem. And that solution has done for me, and God has done for me what I could not do for myself, period. And I'm lucky enough to know people who invited me here to tell you a little bit about how this happened in my life. It doesn't make me any more sober or spiritual than anybody else.

It just makes me who I am and my experience what it is. And I say I get that out of the gate because I don't like the cult of personality or the guru crap that I see that goes on sometimes in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't want you to put me there because I'm not on a pedestal. I am no different than anybody else, and I know nothing more about God and myself or the 12 steps than any other person in this room. It doesn't make me special.

It just makes me a vessel of God. I'm here to be an agent of God in order to share my experience with you so that I can grow closer to God and maybe you can too. Bottom line. That's why I'm here. And I get that out the gate because I don't want this weekend I don't I don't want to start believing my own press clippings, that I'm special, that I get flown to Denmark and therefore, I know something because I don't.

What I know is that I'm an alcoholic, I'm hopeless, and that I need a power greater than myself in order for me to take a breath in the morning. Because based on my own track record, I will not do that. I will drink myself to death. That's been my experience. So let me tell you my experience.

I grew up in a typical, you know, middle class household in New Jersey. I'm a Jersey girl all the way. I mean, that's who I am. I mean, a housewife soccer mom from Jersey. You know, this is this is who I am and I grew up and you know, you hear this in AA all the time.

I know you guys hear this. You hear, I was different. There was something that just wasn't right about me. Somehow I didn't fit in. You know, somehow everybody else seemed to know something I didn't know.

You know? And if you hear that long enough in Alcoholics Anonymous, you start to think, Well, maybe that's the state of the alcoholic without alcohol. And that's my experience is that for some reason, I don't know how I got this way. I don't try to even posit any theories about this, but I did feel like there was something missing inside of me. You know, I walked through my life as a small child and I thought, you know, there's something wrong with me and I don't really know what it is.

I was full of fear. I was terrified. I can remember being, like, 6 years old and being in my bed and swearing that my house was going to catch fire and how was I going to get out and save my family. And I didn't sleep but I would just sit there with the blankets waiting the fire to come, waiting for the disaster to come, waiting. You know?

I lied at an early age. I would tell you anything anything anything that I thought you wanted me to tell you in order for you to love me. I don't know how I learned this. I don't know how I got this way. I just know that this is who I was.

And I walked through my life desperate for love and acceptance and approval and doing anything or anything I could do to get it and absolutely terrified that the rug was going to get pulled out from me at any moment and I was gonna be devastated. And I was like this in the very early, early, early in my life. I don't remember ever not being like this. You know? So you take a personality like that and it's pretty difficult to stay in that state for any extended period of time.

I mean, it's pretty much hell. You know, living in my mind without god is, well, it's a trip to hell. It absolutely is. I can do I can be so trapped within self and so full of fear and so, lost that, I that I could actually I can remember going to church as a little girl. And I can remember, you know, sitting in the pew.

And I remember praying about certain things that were going on in my life. And I remember praying and asking God to please, God, you know, please let these these things, these circumstances, these things stop happening. God, please, you know, I'll do anything you say. I'll do anything. I'll be a nun.

I'll, you know, I'll never lie. I'll never disobey my parents. And, you know, I wake up the next morning and the circumstances in my life would be exactly the same. And I would think to myself, you know, God doesn't love me because he didn't give me what I thought I wanted for myself. My parents don't love me.

Nobody loves me. I'm not good enough and I might as well die. So, I did what any good self respecting alcoholic did. I started to drink. You know?

I picked up my first drink when I was 9 years old. I hit my first rehab by the time I was 13 and I was sober by the time I was 18. My story is not long. What it is is very sad. And it's not sad in the sense that I have a terrible story.

Everybody's got a terrible story. Everything that you had to do in order to get here to be in this room is everything that absolutely needed to happen in order for you to be here. And it has to be terrible because you have to surrender and that's really, you know, what the last conversation, last talk was all about. So I'm not going to be redundant, but, you know, the fact is that for me to be willing to give up everything that I think that I know about myself and my life and be willing to put that aside in order to find out what the heck is going on in AA, things have to be pretty darn bad. And it doesn't mean externally.

Because for me, external conditions mean absolutely nothing. I could be I could be the star of the show and still feel like crap. You know, my external life means absolutely nothing. It has absolutely no impact on my internal condition. My internal condition is directly connected to whether or not I'm willing to place my life and my will and myself into the care of a power greater than myself.

Period. And if I'm willing to do that, my external my internal life is wonderful despite my external circumstances. You know, so with that, you know, I picked up a drink and I did and I had the experience that alcoholics have, which is I found that once I started drinking, I couldn't stop. You know, and we all know that, you know, the rational person would say, well, gee, if I had this experience and I can't stop drinking once I start, maybe I shouldn't drink. But see, there was this amazing thing that alcohol did for me what I could not do for myself.

It relieved me of that absolute stark raving terror that I live with my, you know, in my life. The the volume that was in my head, every moment of every day got turned down just a little bit. And I was willing to do anything in order to have that experience again. Because it was that experience, that little bit of shift in the volume, in the craziness in my head, I was willing to sell my soul for it and I did. My my parents are very, very, smart and wonderful people.

They knew about alcoholism. They knew about Alcoholics Anonymous. And they didn't put up with a lot of crap from me. So I didn't get to I didn't stay or, I didn't get to live in denial about my problem very long. What I did get to do was not care.

You know, in the end of my drinking, if you asked me, you know, well, why do you do it? You know, why do you continue to drink? If you know that, you know, one more drink just means that you're gonna be back in rehab, you're gonna be back in jail, you're gonna be back living on the streets, you're gonna be back in hell, why would you do it? And I'd say, because I really don't give a crap. I don't care anymore.

I just wanna die. In the end and I, you know, I don't like you know, it's been a long time since I've actually told my story and mainly because I don't like to do that. Because I believe that, and this is my experience, is that my story is my story and it inspires people and it inspires me, but your story is more inspirational to you than mine. Everything that happened to you in order for you to be in this room is everything that you needed to experience. And what I need to do is I need to present enough information about what happened to me and who I am so that you can compare your experience with mine and ask yourself, well, if Carrie had that wonderful miracle that she's saying happened to her, maybe that could happen to me.

Or did I have that miracle? Or can I have it again? Because this is the amazing thing about this program is I can keep coming back for more. I can keep coming back for more spiritual experiences. It's not a one shot deal for me.

The question is, can I go broader? Can I go deeper? Can I go more? Can I accept can I open myself up to God more? Can I open my life up to God more?

You know, in my experiences, that's true. So I don't like to go into the the drunk log, and I won't. But I'm gonna tell you that, you know, I have craving, and I explained it to you. Once I start drinking, I can't stop. I have a spirituality and I explained that.

That living in my head is an absolute terror in hell. The volume never gets turned down unless I'm drunk or unconscious. And basically, I would do anything or anything in order to not feel. Period. To not be present.

And if I could not be present, life would be wonderful. And I have this mind that tells me that alcohol is the solution to that. And I go back to it over and over again. And then I have a mind that tells me, once I know that alcohol is not the solution, that says, so what? So what?

And so I'm gonna skip ahead to the day that I died. And I'm like, I I get to actually have that. Like, I actually died. I actually killed myself and then it didn't work. And I told you, when I was a little girl, I used to go to church and I would beg God, you know, like I grew up in an alcoholic household and I'd be like, please, you know, let my brother stop drinking.

You know, please God, you know, make make my dad stop hitting us. You know, please God, make my mom stop crying in the middle of the night. Please God, make my family okay. And it didn't happen and everybody continued to do what they were doing and then I started drinking and I started doing it too. And I stopped believing in God.

I stopped believing in anything and I stopped caring. And then when I was 16 years old, in one of my multiple suicide attempts, I ate all the medicine in the medicine cabinet and I died. And then I woke up 3 days later in the intensive care unit with, intubated and I realized that God didn't even want me either. And I thought about it. It's like, you know, I can't even die.

I can't live. I can't drink. I can't do anything. I can't be in my own skin. I can't look in the mirror.

I can't function and I can't even die. And I continue to drink because the fact is is that the threat of death doesn't scare me. There's nothing that's gonna deter me from picking up a drink. Nothing. Fear doesn't sober me up.

Control, self control, you know, relationships, changing circumstances in my life, geographical cures. I can be sent to you know, my parents parents sent me to live out into the country with my sister in the woods, you know. I grew up I live right outside of New York and I got sent to, like, you know, the boonies, you know, a couple hours away in the woods and, you know, basically you have to walk, like, an hour in order to get to the liquor store and I managed to find ways to drink them. And the fact is is that you can't remove an alcoholic from alcohol. You can't do it.

You know, I got I didn't get done with alcohol. Alcohol got done with me. And, you know, I thought that I could check out, and I couldn't do that either. So I woke up in the intensive care unit rejected by god, can't drink, can't function, and what do I do? So I said to god, I said, god, you know, if you don't want me, I don't want you.

You didn't help me anyway. I had a terrible life. I'm a 16 year old alcoholic. I can't even freaking die. You know what?

Screw you. Screw you. I'm not playing with you anymore. You're not my friend. And I didn't and I didn't care.

And between the ages of 16 18, I tried to die on a daily basis, and I just didn't care. And, one day, after having, lost everything and been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for many years and I can't get it and I can't figure out why and this thing doesn't work for me and, you know, I used to go to there's a fact you know, I used to go to NA and they used to have these, this saying in the beginning of the meeting used to say that, if you have drugs or paraphernalia on you, you should leave it outside the door. And every time they did that I'd wait about 5 minutes and go outside and smoke and start kicking the bushes to see if, you know, somebody actually did that. You know? You know, to me, coming to these fellowships was a complete joke.

I mean, you guys talked about God. God didn't want me. God threw me out. God said, you know what? The devil didn't want me.

God didn't want me. I couldn't die, couldn't drink. And you guys I came to this fellowship and you guys are God's answer to your problems. And I'm like, God God is my pre op my problem. You know, God gave me this life.

He gave me this disease and now I'm trapped here. Screw that. You know, so I came to AA and I came to the fellowships and my full intention was to exploit this program for everything that it was worth because you guys were stooges. You know. You'd give me money if I asked you for it.

Give me rides. I mean, I used to con people. I used to go to meetings and get rides to go go, you know, buy booze and cop drugs. You know, I would just, you know, say, you know, yeah. You know what?

I gotta go do homework with somebody. Can you give me a ride to, like, you know, the middle of the ghetto? You know. I'll only be 5 minutes. You know?

And the fact, you know, so I looked at Alcoholics Anonymous as, a place where I could get over, not a place where I can get sober. And I didn't think that it would work for me. So I used it up for what I could and when I was done, I left. And, I was 17 years old and, I completely gave up on any concept or any possibility of being sober. And I intended to drink myself to death.

And I tried. You know? And, I did that. I started I went out to drink 1 night, and I drank for 4 months and I couldn't stop. And I remember waking up in someone's basement because at this point, I was homeless.

I was living on the streets. And I was doing absolutely anything or anything I could do in order to get money or, have a place to sleep. And, I had become everything that I had hated in my life. And, I couldn't look at myself. And I I had one set of clothes and, I smelled and I don't remember the last time I brushed my teeth or my hair.

And I remember crawling out of this basement and I was covered in my own piss. And I remember just thinking, you know, I I don't know what to do. Where do I go? And something in the back of my head, and then now I know it to be God, said, you know, those people in AA weren't all that bad, and at least they care about you. You know, maybe you should go back.

And I remember walking about 2 hours to to the AA meeting, you know, because, you know, I didn't have any money because I had spent it all the night before. And I was still covered in my own piss. It's not like I changed my clothes or anything. So, you know, I walk into this AA meeting and there was a bunch of old guys. It's like 1 o'clock in the afternoon, that was a big book meeting.

And I walked in and I said, you know, I'm coming back. And they all looked at me and I was just, you know, covered in bodily fluids and disgusting. And I got a hug from this little old man and I thought to myself, I'm like, you know, I'm disgusting. I stink. And this man, they gave me a hug.

And I was like, well, if I'm gonna die someplace, I might as well die here. You know? So I stayed around for a little bit. You know, I did eventually change my clothes. And, my first couple meetings back, I mean, I was vomiting in the bathroom and people would, you know because I was detoxing.

I didn't have any money. I didn't have detox. You know, my parents had thrown me out. Nobody would speak to me. You know, I had nowhere to go.

I was still, you know, homeless. And people took me in. And I was detoxing and I was throwing up and I was a mess. And like just the nasty stuff that I had been doing was just pouring out of my pores. And I mean, it was just horrible.

And these people took care of me. You know, they gave me a place to stay. You know, they, they held my hair while I threw up in the in the bathroom at the meeting. You know, and I remember thinking, you know, like, don't they know how disgusting I am? Don't they know all the things I had to do in order to get here?

How broken I am? How can they love me? I'm broken. And they did. And I I don't know how it happened.

I don't know why I didn't drink. All I know is that I just kept coming back and I didn't drink. And slowly, things started to change. Like, I started to believe there might be a possibility that I might be able to have some kind of a life because these people were sharing with me all the things that had happened to them, the same things that I had done. You know, robbing and stealing and prostituting themselves and, you know, doing things and, you know, they had done those things and they were happy.

You know, and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, it might work for me. The problem was is, you know, when I got sober, people didn't necessarily work the steps. You know, they went to about 3 meetings a day. They made coffee. You know, they dated a lot.

You know, they did 90 dances in 90 days. And then you take somebody like me with the amount of psychic and spiritual pain that I walk into the rooms with, as broken as I was, I couldn't stay without a drink or a God. Like, I couldn't stay in that limbo. That limbo was the most excruciating thing for me. You know, so I was able to stay around for a little while and I started to think about, you know, drinking again.

And a miracle happened. I found out that I was pregnant. And the big question was did I get pregnant before or after I stopped drinking? Turned out after. Thank God.

But, you know, I ended up getting pregnant and god did for me exactly what I could not do for myself because I didn't have a higher power. But he gave me a higher power. He gave me a reason to live. And he gave me a reason to live long enough till I found somebody to help me with the steps and to show me what this program is to get me to God so that I could really live. And, you know, I had my daughter when I was 10 months over.

And a year later, I was sitting in a meeting in Staten Island and somebody was talking about the big book. And in fact, it was a guy named Joe Hawk. He was talking about the 9th step. And there was this guy. He looks like Captain Kangaroo.

You know, he's this weird looking guy with the handlebar mustache. It's like if you put, like, you know, David Crosby and Captain Kangaroo together and smooshed them, it would be like Joe Hawk. And so here's this guy, you know, sitting there talking about the 9 Step, talking about amends and I'm thinking, you know, Who the hell is hate? Like, where is he, you know, where is he from California? What the hell is Staten Island, you know?

What are you doing here? And, you know, and like, I didn't know who he was. Like, I didn't know what he did. I didn't know he did these conferences and stuff. In It was right before he took off to go stay with the Dalai Lama.

And I I remember thinking, like, who the hell is this guy? Why is everybody, like, you know, genuflecting and kneeling and, you know, oh, Joe. And I'm like, you know, it's an old man, you know. You know, I'm 19 at the time. I'm like, who the hell is this guy?

And he started to talk and he was talking about amends and freedom and it was a freedom that I don't have or I didn't have at that time. It was something I didn't understand at all. And he was talking about it and he said it with such conviction. He talked about having this freedom with such conviction, you know, that I remember going up to him afterwards and I'm like, well, you know, what did you do? You know?

And he kinda laughed at me and he was like, You know, you know that book? You know that, coaster that you've been using? The thing that you used to open your window, you might want to read it. I had no idea that the 12 steps of the program of recovery was found in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought that the program of recovery was sitting in, you know, step meetings and talking about my problems and the topic of the day, talking about steps that I never worked, things that I didn't even understand.

You know? That's what I thought recovery was and that recovery wasn't doing it for me. It just wasn't cutting the mustard. Shortly thereafter, I started to work with one of his and they really helped me. They sat down.

They went through the big book sentence by sentence, page by page, paragraph by paragraph. And, and my life began to change. And I experienced an incredible miracle. I didn't hate myself. I didn't hate myself.

You know, and that sounds like a very simple thing, but for somebody like me, it was absolute freedom to not hate myself for 5 minutes. You know, and then that 5 minutes became 10 minutes. And then 10 minutes became 20 minutes. And then I would go a whole week where I didn't hate myself. And that's a beautiful thing.

You know? Because I'm one of these people that my my spiritual sickness turns into absolute self loathing and hatred, which then I take out on you. You know? So my my my insanity is is that I hate myself, so I begin to hate you even more. You know?

Because you make me this way. But what I like to talk about, and now that we got that out of the way, what I like to talk about is about how I had this incredible experience and it changed my life. And here I was, this kid who couldn't even die, who was rejected by god in her mind, who began to have an experience with god. And then, a couple years later, you know, I began to run the show again. I began to think that I was in charge.

I began to think I ran my life. I began to think that I made decisions for myself, you know, because I began to think that I was the alpha and the omega. You know? I slowly but surely, my ego eased God out. And all of a sudden, I became God again.

And I wondered why I wasn't happy in my life. You know? And the fact is, and this is for me, You know, we talk about this all the time. We say, alcohol is not my problem. For me, lack of power is my dilemma.

That I have to find a power by which I can live, and it has to be a power greater than myself. I made so many things in my life my higher power. I made men my higher power. I made how people saw me my higher power. I made, achievement my higher power.

I made failure my higher power. I turned everything or anything into a human power or a higher power. And I used it in order to distract myself from the fact that I was completely empty and devoid of Spirit. And I ran around chasing my tail. And I thought that I was chasing God.

You ever experience that? Yes. You know, when when you know you can't drink, you know that there's a better way, and you're so trapped within yourself you just can't get there. And it's how do I how do you bridge that gap? How do you bridge how do you get through that?

You know, and for me, it was it was I it was hitting a spiritual bottom in recovery. It was losing it all after I had gotten what I thought I wanted for myself. It was, recognizing and seeing that my life was run on self will. See, I didn't realize, but I had turned the program in recovery. I had twisted it into something that it wasn't supposed to be.

I lost the entire spiritual intent of this program. You know, I did the work. I wrote inventory. I made amends. I did all these things and it looked like I was doing the work but what I was really doing was doing the work to not do the work.

And I really wasn't honest with myself. I would tell you 95 percent of how I really felt, but I would keep that 5% because it was that 5% that made me look bad. It was that 5% that was real. And it would sound to you like I was being really honest. I would tell you how selfish and dishonest I was, you know.

But it was always about holding back just enough so that I would never really be free. You know, so I had gotten free. I had gotten free from alcohol, but I hadn't gotten free for myself. And I was beating myself back And I was slowly but surely easing my way out of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I was 5 years sober and I was as miserable as I was before I had gone through the steps in the 1st place.

And, I didn't realize that going through the steps the first time was just, for me, a dress rehearsal and that I needed to continue to go back through the steps and constantly reevaluate my spiritual life. Constantly go back to God. Constantly say, God, what else is blocking me off from you? Because the fact is is that and I'm sure you've heard this, is that often I'm asleep dreaming that I'm awake. You know, I don't know if you guys of course, you guys have heard of it, but The Matrix, you know, this movie.

You ever, like, I remember watching it and thinking, oh my god, you know, that is me. It's honestly, you know, I go through my life and I think I'm okay until I'm not. And I'm like, how the hell did I get here? You know, and that's been my experience is that, you know, I need and this is just for me. I need to keep close to God.

I need to constantly renew my connection with god. Because what happens to me is that I slowly become disconnected from god and then I'm my own higher power and you all suck and I'm gonna go drink. And I can't afford that luxury, you know, because I am powerless over alcohol. I'm powerless over you and I'm powerless over my spiritual condition. I recently went through the work or the step.

I hate using the words the work' because the steps are not work. They're they're a beautiful process and they're often painful and difficult, but they are incredibly wonderful. But I use the work because it's a lazy habit. But I went through the steps just recently, about a year and a half ago. And I went through a really intense process with it and it was, it was interesting.

You know, I was 10 years sober and, I wasn't allowed to share in meetings. I had to shut my mouth like a newcomer. I had to learn to be humble once again after I thought that I knew something. And I'll tell you what. It was probably the greatest experience with the process of recovery in my life.

You know? It was real interesting to sit in a discussion meeting where everybody's talking about their problems. And, of course, I know the answer to your problems. But my sponsor politely pointed out, if I knew the answer to their problems, you know, if I know the answer to everybody else's problems, why is it that I'm miserable in my life? You know, and she's absolutely correct.

So I had to learn to sit quiet and go within. And it was an absolutely beautiful experience, you know. And I tell you what, I found out that I had a lot of attachments and a lot of beliefs about who I was. And the reason why, like, I didn't talk too much about drinking or any of those things is because I'd rather talk to you about what I'm doing now. You know, if you wanna hear about my story, you can download it.

I'm sure it's around. But I wanna tell you about what I'm doing now and what my current experience is because I think that what I'm doing now is absolutely wonderful and has changed my life. I've learned I've experienced a level of accountability in my spiritual life that has, changed me to such a degree that it's actually hard to verbalize. I'll tell you one of the things that I do. Well, you know, I went through this process, and I, you know, I wasn't allowed share or speak at a at a meeting until I had completed all of my amends.

And then my sponsor had me do some things in meditation. I had to, you know, do an inventory and I had to go back and I had to make all these amends. And one of the things that my sponsor had me do was make amends to all the people that I judge. You know, all the people that I had judgment against, I was to go back and not say, Look, I thought you were a complete jerk. But to go back to them and say, you know what?

I wasn't the friend, employee, sister, wife, whatever that I should have been. That I was not kind or loving to you, and what can I do to set that right? See, these people didn't even know that I had harmed them. It was everything that I had done in my head because I got so sick in my head I behaved well and thought horribly. I was the girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead.

When I was good, I was oh so good. And when I was bad, I was hard. You know? And I had to go back to these people. My sponsor instructed me to go back to these people and to make amends to them.

And I've got to tell you what. It was incredibly humbling and incredibly freeing. I mean, a lot of people were like, So what? You know? And a lot of people were like, I didn't really care what you thought of me.

And that was nice. And a lot of people were like, Thank you for you know, I knew I knew that you would look at me and there was something funny about the way that you looked at me and I didn't understand it and I thought I had done something wrong. You know? And I was able to, you know, to set right those harms because I'm harming people all the time and I don't even know it because I'm blind to the fact that I'm a selfish, self centered jerk and I think that I'm okay. And I say and do things that hurt people all the time.

And it's my job in my life to continue to go back to you and to God and say, 'Hey. What did I do to harm you? You know, have I hurt your feelings lately? When was the last time you asked somebody that you lived with, your husband or your wife, have I done something to harm you recently? My husband and I try to do this on a regular basis.

I ask my kids on a regular basis. I say, You know, my daughter's 11 years old and she's got some answers for me. But I go back to my daughter and I say to her, I say, you know, how am I doing, dad? What kind of mom am I? Are you you approve of my job of the job I'm doing?

What could I do differently? What would you like me to do? And I get some great answers because, you know, one of the things that I really I try very hard to bring into my my prayer meditation in my spiritual life is to stop fighting for my right to be right. You know, I've learned through this process, and excuse my language, but I'm an ass and you're an ass. And there's no difference between you and me except for the fact that I'm me and you are you.

That we're all children of god, and no one's right and no one's wrong. That everybody's entitled to their own version of the truth. And when I really accepted that in my heart, when I really accepted that as part of my spiritual life, as part of my spiritual axiom, then I can ask people instead of deciding what would be better for what I could do better for them so that I could better be of service to them, I began to ask people in my life, What can I do to be of service to you? How can I be a better friend to you? How can I be a better mom?

How could I be a better wife? How do I treat you? Because for so long I was so afraid of being wrong, so afraid of looking bad or having you tell me the truth about what you thought that I was. That I didn't ask. I just hunkered down and prayed that I didn't piss you off so much that you'd leave.

You know? And of course, if I live like that, that means I don't have a higher power. You're my higher power. I make you I make you my god because I make what you think of me more important than what god thinks of me. You know, decide what decide what it is that I'm doing, but ask people what I'm doing, to get a report card.

And I get some great feedback. Sometimes I don't like it. Sometimes I have to bite my tongue. And other times, I'm like, you know what? You are absolutely right.

Absolutely right. And I'm gonna do better do better with that. So that's one of the interesting things that I've, you know, been doing with this process that I'm doing lately. One of the other things, and this is a little controversial, and, when I talk about it, some people like to, to fight with me. I do something and it's called have you guys ever heard of something called the 10 Step Buddy?

10 Step Buddy? Yeah. Oh, you guys do. You see this in the USA and they're like, oh no, I can't do that.' so I have this thing. It's like whenever I'm disturbed, whenever I'm blocked by fear, whenever I'm caught up in myself, you know, obviously, I get that feeling in my gut and I just know.

I know that I'm not connected to God. And I say, Okay, well what's going on? Where am I being selfish, dishonest, resentful, or afraid? You know. And then I pick up the phone and I call one of my 10 step buddies and I have a handful of them and I say, Look.

Hey. So and so. So and so is not behaving the way I want them to. I'm selfish. Oh, I'm not even allowed to tell them what it is that person's doing.

So I can't call them up and be like, you know, my husband, he said this. He said I was fat. You know, I'm not allowed to do that. So I call them up and I say, so and so is not behaving the way I want them to. I'm being selfish because I expect them to behave the way I want them to when I'm making demands.

I'm delusional that I have any right to make any demands on anybody. I'm in fear because maybe I'm not getting what I think that I want. I ask god to remove it. I'm sharing it with you. What can I do to be of service to you today?

And I tell you what. Poof. It's gone. You know, I used to try to think my way through my own resentment, my own selfishness, my own fear. And what I found out and what my big book tells me is I'm as powerless over those things as I am over alcohol.

So if I try to think my way through it, all I'm doing is bringing the same sick mind to that sort of to those things, and I'm just compounding it, rationalizing it, justifying it, and making it worse. So what I found was that, that if I was humble and I opened myself up to you, that I would find freedom there. Because it's been my experience that the humility and the following direction from another human being, and doing what they asked me to do without question and following directions, that there's virtue in those things. That it's not that, you know, my sponsor dictates things and I just do what they say blindly, but I trust that she knows what's best for me just as I trust god knows what's best for me. You know, I placed my life in god's hands and god made my sponsor and the people in my network and the people in my life.

They're agents of god. And the things that they have to say to me, the things that they have to give to me, I need to stop and take a look at and not fight with them so much and try to defend my position, you know, and to open up and listen to what they have to say. You know, and for so long, I used the big book to justify and rationalize my position all the time instead of being open to what these people and the people in my life, nonalcoholics to alcoholics, my sup my sponses with 30 days, my sponses with 25 years, have to tell me about who they think that I am. You know, and not make that my definition of myself, but ask myself, is that true? You know, and what I found out was that I'm not as good as I think I am.