An Al-anon Step Study in Bellevue, NE

And I picked up my gallon and we're walking out. And Jennifer turns to me and she said, I didn't know you worked for Sears. I said, I don't. And she said, well, why didn't you warn me? And I said, you heard it the same time I did.

I don't know why that happens. It's sorta like you're playing a game and you just wanna see how far it's gonna go and where it's gonna end. It's it's just, and she said and I hate Jennifer. You know? She's so sweet and naive and wonderful.

And she said, well, wasn't that dishonest? And I said, yes. And she said, well, what are you gonna do about that? And I said, well, Jennifer, I'm going to write Sears and tell them about the nice young man in the paint department who was so helpful. I said, that's how I'm gonna make an amends for that because I don't feel like I hurt that little boy.

And I said, maybe that's justification and rationalization, but I said, I can swear I did not have one idea that was gonna happen until I heard it. Now I don't know what kind of defense that you would take against a mind like that. So I'm here to tell you I'm still sick, but at least the sickness that I'm doing today is not harmful to other people like it I mean, you know, I didn't have to buy this deal of dinner. Okay. Another thing I found about myself that I was gonna have to give up was arrogance, that acting is superior.

And a lot of times, I didn't feel I was acting. I looked at people and found them wanting a lot. That was one of those cases where I was over overeducated beyond my intelligence. But you see, this was another shield that I would put up to protect me from you. I had a lot of things that I did to protect me from you, and I had to become willing to learn to live without doing these kind of things.

And it's hard and it's scary, but you have to try over and over and over, over and over. And what was my best motivator for wanting to change? Pain. Pain is always. When I hurt so long practicing a particular defect that I can't stand to get hurt like that anymore, then I'll generously give it up.

You know? And I would be willing to give God those defects. Now the anger. Anger was very hard for me to give up. I was willing to give up physical violence.

That was hard too. I enjoyed physical violence. Have you ever noticed how that when you're really, really mad, if you can do some physical activity, it just lets it go? Well, if you can punch people out, it just really goes quick, and I enjoyed that. But I blamed everybody for my anger whenever anything went wrong.

It wasn't them. It was me. Prime example, I sent away for a preserved fern. Now, a preserved fern is a real fern that they've done some little weird chemical process to that you don't ever have to water it, feed it, nothing. You just plunk it in a little straw basket and forget about it.

Doesn't have to have light, doesn't have to have water, and I paid a king's ransom for this fern. And it came in this box with these long fronds and this little basket and this little hanger to hang it with, one of these little rope macrame type things. And I asked JD to help me with that fern. Mistake number 1. Needless to say, communication was not one of our biggies.

I got all these little things arranged and it was just gorgeous. It was just draping. It was just absolutely fantastic. And I said, here, hold it. Now what I meant when I said hold it was hold the flowerpot, hold the little gift so I can put the little macrame thing on it.

But that's not what I said, I said hold it and he did. He held the little hanger and I held the hanger. Now the fern hit and hit the floor. Now are you familiar with airplanes on an aircraft carrier deck? You know how the little wings are folded up?

That's the way the fern fronds will go out and down like that. You know, they just they were just broken just into little it was horrible. And I looked at it and I couldn't believe that happened. And it was all his fault because he hadn't held the pot. And my sane reaction to this was I stomp the fern to death in the carpet.

Tap mess like this all over my fern. It didn't help anything. He looked startled, and I felt like an idiot. I could no longer justify that kind of behavior. And I looked at him and I said, I didn't make myself clear.

I meant hole the pot. He said, I didn't understand it. I said, I know. But that before would have caused physical violence. It did to the firm.

And I began to realize that that kind of behavior was like a little kid. You know when a little kid doesn't get their way, they have a little stomping fit? At least I used to. Still had one there. I became willing to not do it that way and to get rid of the anger.

I became willing and I said, god, how can I get rid of anger? Well, how I got rid of a lot of these things, I have not been relieved of anger. I have been relieved of the anger that would cause physical harm to people, places, and things. I think nowhere in the book does it show where anybody has ever been removed of all of their character defects or any, but you will have enough of them enough of a particular defect removed that you will be socially acceptable. Okay?

I was not socially acceptable, you know. Okay. And it says, no matter how far you progressed, you will have desires which oppose the grace of God. And I thought that this feeling I had, a lot of these defects would be removed and they'd be removed once and for all. Take the one that would say let's be unfaithful.

That one I asked god, I was more than willing to have that one removed. And I hadn't had any problem with it for years, and then all of a sudden one day I was attracted. And I said, oh god, that defect is back. Now I have a choice. Do I follow through with that knowing full well what the consequences are?

I want to. Because see, your mind will reflect back on how exciting that was. It's like with the alcoholic forgetting the consequences of the drink they took, only remembering the pleasure how good it tasted. And I sit there and I played with that for a day or 2, and I knew that the longer I played with that, the more dangerous I was getting. So I called and I asked if this person would pray for me that I had an, the urge to do something I knew I shouldn't do.

And I wouldn't tell her what it was because see, I was ashamed that you could be an alanon and still have these kind of feelings for God's sake. And she said, okay. I'll pray. And it didn't do me much good because you see I was keeping it a secret, going right back and keeping it secret. So I called her back in a day or 2, and I said, I'm gonna have to tell you what this is because it's getting stronger.

And she said, okay. And I told her what it was that I'd been attracted to this person, and they seemed to be attracted back, and it was not a very good situation. And she said, I'll pray. And I said, well, she said, what do you want me to pray for? And I said, you pray for God to remove for me the desire to do something I know I shouldn't do because I alone do not have the strength to do it myself.

And so some time went by and I was put in the proximity of this person, And I was sitting there reading my one day at a time book, and then he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm reading a one day at a time book. He said, what's that? And I said, well, it's a book for the families and friends of alcoholics. And he said, my god.

People bitch about people's drinking all the time. I tell you what, this whole world's down on poor people that drink and he just and I thought he's one of them. No wonder I was attracted to him. And I laughed because the desire had been removed. So that's what I'm saying, you know, when you become entirely ready to have it.

And I became entirely ready when I became entirely ready to become clean and tell her what the nature of the problem was. Okay. Now we go on to step 7. Now just becoming ready don't get it. You gotta do more than just be ready.

Then you've gotta humbly ask God to do it. Now, humbly doesn't mean God take this one. It doesn't mean giving him his orders. It means sincerely having humility in your heart, recognizing you can't do it by yourself, that you're gonna become teachable to a new way to live so that you don't have to do it. That's all it means.

It's just to become willing. Now I found that for a lot of character defects, there's positive opposites. Something that's the opposite of what you're doing. So what I do is I pray and I ask god and then I move over into the act as if. I go over and I remove myself from situations that I know have the power to hurt me.

And that's what I was doing in this situation. I was moving myself away from that person because the problem was. Okay. Now, we go on to step 7. Now just becoming ready don't get it.

You gotta do more than just be ready. Then you've gotta humbly ask God to do it. Now, humbly doesn't mean God take this one. It doesn't mean giving him his orders. It means sincerely having humility in your heart, recognizing you can't do it by yourself, that you're gonna become teachable to a new way to live so that you don't have to do it.

That's all it means. It's just to become willing. Now I found that for a lot of character defects, there's positive opposites. Something that's the opposite of what you're doing. So what I do is I pray and I ask god and then I move over into the act as if.

I go over and I remove myself from situations that I know have the power to hurt me. And that's what I was doing in this situation. I was moving myself away from that person because I knew he had the power to hurt me if I played that game. Those are sick games that we sometimes play with people, and you have to be willing not to play the game. So when I would find myself in a situation where I was getting mad at somebody, Instead of staying there for the bitter end, I found I can walk away.

I don't have to stay there. I don't have to keep putting myself into situations that hurt me. In that 4th and 5th step, I saw patterns of my life that I do this and this would happen. You don't have to keep going back because you know now what situations have the power to hurt you. And when you go back and you play that game, you get what you asked for.

You're gonna get hurt, you ask for it, you got it, you drive your Toyota. And that's the truth because I have I've gone back and played silly games and gotten hurt and I knew better. And that's because I asked for I didn't do any what I was supposed to do. So, when I do my morning prayer, I do my step 3 prayer. And if you notice at the end of the 3rd step prayer in the big book it doesn't say amen.

The amen comes after the 7th step prayer. So I say those 2 together, and I try to pray those 2 together instead of just saying them. But to listen to what they say and to do that and to ask god to remove any defective character that stands in the way of my usefulness to him or my fellow man this day, today. And you know every day we're given opportunities to grow, to practice a defect, or to practice recovery. We can live in the sickness or we can live in the recovery.

I hear so many people say, but you don't understand. I was so affected by my father's drinking or my mother's drinking or my my dog's howling or or whatever. It doesn't make any difference how you got your ass in the mud. Get it out. Living in this sickness makes me sicker.

Have you ever been to a meeting where you play, can you top this? They'll come in and say, oh my god. It was so bad at the house tonight. This one did this and this one did that. Well, you think that's bad.

Let me tell you what happened over here. And I would sit there in those meetings, and I would remember going back to the active alcoholism in my mind and they would be talking about these things and they would go on and I'd say, well, let me tell you what JD did one time and I'd go home and I'd say, you are a scum sucking pig. Get mad all over again because we're living in the sickness. I don't like to go to meetings where we live in the sickness or we say, has anybody got a problem? Who hasn't?

And who cares? Has anybody got a solution? You know. You gotta live in the solution. And so in our group when somebody comes in and they said, oh, it's so bad over at my house.

We have started a little chorus that goes 123. Poor baby. Who cares? And then we go on. You you get no sympathy in our group.

Alright. I had to become willing to give up fear. And this has been a real big thing for me, to become willing to give up fear. Because what'll happen to you? You know, it's scary.

Okay? The fear of storms. Fear is always scary, ain't it? I told god, I said, you know, I'm willing to give you that fear of those tarnitus because I can't stand what it's doing to my gut. I can't stand it.

And what happened? We begin to have lots of tornadoes. How can you get over something if you ain't experiencing it? You know, how do you get patients? By being put in situations where you gotta use it.

Sponsorship's a real good area for that. We begin to have tornado after tornado, and I would just I'd say, god god, this is not what I meant. I meant take the tornadoes away. Take them away. And now that's not getting rid of the tornadoes.

The fear of tornadoes, that's getting rid of tornadoes. And all of a sudden one day I'm sitting there and meditating and it hit me. It's not tornadoes that's killing me. It's the fear of tornadoes that's killing me. Tornado ain't hitting me yet.

Fear hits me every damn time. Now how does that work? Well, the first thing that happens is they put that darn little blip signal on the TV. And they have at home, they got a little old funnel cloud. You know, God just makes you feel so good back in to put an ice cream cone.

You know, they put they shoot at our house. We should be afraid of those too. And I would sit there and I'd look at and pretty soon I can't see the picture. Now it's only this tall, but all I can see is that tornado symbol. And then I'll go and turn on another TV on another channel just to get to see 2 of them.

I'll turn on the radio and find out what they're doing on the radio. They say, well, it's coming up from Texarkana. See, Texas sends us tornadoes, and they and and they seem to follow a path, and they come right up the interstate right into Little Rock. So it's at Arkadelphia. It's on its way Camden.

It's on its way to Camden. It's on its way to Saline County. Saline County is right next to Pulaski County. Pulaski County is where I live. By the time it would get there, I'd just be, you know, I would just be berserk.

And then I couldn't get the damn dogs together to get them in the closet. They'd be biting on me. It was a nerve wracking mess. And I found out, you know, one of the best things I could do? Turn off the TV.

Don't turn on the radio. Don't feed the fear. Because see, I had my little map there and I'm and I'm getting I'm getting more terrified the closer it gets. I'm mapping it right on up there. And by the time it had got there, I couldn't have done anything if I'd had to.

But if I turn off the TV and turn off the radio and turn it over to God and ask him to help me and then fill my mind with something else and get busy working on something else. Then if the siren went off, I would say I've gotta get in the closet and I go get in the closet. I would not feel like grazing daisies in the closet, but I was not sitting in there just going to pieces. My heart wasn't, you know, my blood pressure wasn't shooting out. I wasn't ejaculating in the key of c.

You know, I was just there. Okay. Now went over to this little old place down a few miles out of Little Rock, have supper with my sister one night. We got out to go get back in our car. The wind was blowing, the rain was coming, and I'm trying to get in the car door and I can hardly get it open from the force of the wind and I am mad because I'm getting wet.

We couldn't see how to drive. I had to pull off the side of the road and sit there, and there's all sorts of debris in the air, and I said, this is a mess. A mess. Went on down the road after a little bit, turned on the radio, tornado goes a block away from us. The church was totally destroyed.

I said, oh my god. I was in the tornado. I'm okay. I'm okay. Even if the tornado comes, I'm okay.

God can take care of you in the tornado. I'm okay. I've never found it necessary to go into that terror again. I could if I would play the game and feed the fear, but I know now what steps to take because god has given me the sanity to know what not to do so that I can be relieved of the fear of the storms. Now what about the dentist?

Got the storms down. Now what about the dentist? How long has it been since you've been to this? Long time. Have very good teeth.

It's a good thing. But you see, god knew I had to have good teeth. He knew I wasn't gonna go to the dentist. I'm sitting at the hospital emergency room with my mother who's supposedly having a heart attack and my filling falls out. Bad news.

I was more concerned about my filling than mother. As it turned out, she wasn't having a heart attack but I did lose the filling. I go home from the hospital and I said, now, you can do what you've always done and lose the tooth. Have a choice. Always before you don't go when it hurts.

After a while, you can't stand hot in your mouth. After a while, you can't stand cold in your mouth. After a while, you can't stand your tongue in your mouth. After a while, you can't stand the pain any longer, and then you go and they pull the tooth because there's nothing left. I'm not gonna do it.

I'm I'm gonna do something different. If you do what you've always done, you get what you've always got. I've always had the toothache and always lost the tooth. I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna go to a dentist.

Maybe I they can't take me. Well, if I'd had to wait, I might have chickened out. See, god knows what you need. So I went. Now I pulled up in front of this building and there was a little arrow and it's showing that it's up on the 2nd floor and there's a set of stairs and there's a major thoroughfare out here.

And I flipped a coin, I go lay in the thoroughfare or I'll walk up the stairs. I walked up the stairs. I walked in. She set me down. She said, we'll be with you in just a moment.

I said, sure. And about 2 seconds later, another one came and got me, took me in there, flipped me in this chair, and my heart's well, now back in the days, the last time I went to the dentist, which was 26 years ago, few years, like, they had all this stuff hanging down and it looked terrible in there, and I was all braced for all and there wasn't any of that. There weren't no light stuff hanging down. And they had a little lounge chair to lay in for god's son. And she flipped me back and up on the ceiling, it said, god, grant me the serenity to accept the gun.

And I knew I was gonna be okay. When I was sitting in the waiting room, there the music was on, and it was on to the local, radio channel where one of my grandbabies is a DJ, and I heard her say, have a good day out there. That made me feel good too. I got in there and I told the dentist about my fear, and I'm still here to tell you I've been back many times and the man has never hurt me yet. I have never felt the first pain in that.

Now I don't know if that's all him, I think part of it's God, but I'm no longer afraid to go and I just go for my regular check ups and they're just bouncing, having a good time. And they've worked on my feet and they don't hurt. So you see, god removed that fear. Now the fear of heights, I've been working on that one slowly. I'm the person who saw the Grand Canyon on her belly.

Well, you can't walk over there. You gotta crawl and peek into it's not and then you back up. Because when I stand up, I get this pitching forward sensation and I just know I'm gonna die. I mean, it's horrible. It's horrible.

Have you ever been in one of these buildings that have an elevator on the outside that's glass? Shades of towering inferno. It's horrible. I want you to know that I told God I was ready to have this one removed, and the opportunities for growth have become for Christmas, the people who love me so much, who I sponsor, have given me a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride. So the 30th April this year is our big moment.

Well, to get me prepared for that, a few weeks ago, I was in Kentucky at a conference and they provided me with a suite of rooms. One person, I was lost. There's more forest space there than half my home, you know. And there's a private elevator, it's glass, it was on the outside of this building. And I said, I'm going to do it.

And, god, you just help me. And god and I looked out at the Ohio River as we went up and down and up and down, and I want you to know that elevator even hung between floors and jerked, you know, but I was okay. So I just know that it's going to be okay and that god is relieving me of that fear as I become willing to have it removed. Our defects call to the defects in others. Have you ever noticed that one?

Like, for instance, one of my defects is anger. Say yours is procrastination. If you make me wait, you made me mad. See how that calls from one to the other? If you have a tendency to exaggerate, I have a tendency to not believe you and be doubting.

You know, it's real funny, but our defects call to one another. Sick calls to sick, and well calls to well. And I find that when I am around people who are really, really sick, I have to really watch myself or I have a tendency to play, have a tendency to go over there and play. I believe I have what I call the black dog, white dog syndrome. And in this, I mean that there's 2 dogs that are at war inside of me.

There's a black dog representing all my negative thoughts, and the white dog representing my positive. Now, they're always in a war, the positive over the negative. Now, who wins the war? Whatever dog I feed the most. I have a responsibility to fill myself with positives instead of negatives.

And when I begin to feel that negative, I have a responsibility at that point to ask god to relieve me from the need to play with that negative and then get on with living in the positive, acting as if. Now we're down to step 8. Now, so far, you know, we've taken care of getting here and getting a relationship with God started, and we've taken a look at ourselves and we've become willing to change, and that all that's all fine and dandy. But did you know while we were out there practicing all that bull, we hurt a lot of people. And now if we're gonna be alright to live in today, we've got to take care of yesterday.

Now in that 4th step, I saw the people I had harmed, and that began my list. And I had a another thing you can always start off with is your resentment list. Put everybody you resent on that list, chances are you've done list. Put everybody you resent on that list, chances are you've done something to them. It's time to get right with ourselves and our fellow man.

That's what the 8th 9th steps are all about. I had hurt nearly everyone that I had ever come in contact with that I had allowed to care for me. I had hurt these people. Now I'm talking there's a difference between making somebody mad or irritating somebody or some of those I'm talking about a harm done. It doesn't say everybody that we just aggravated.

It says people we've harmed. People that we have done harm to. So I list. I think it's better to list too many people than not list enough. And as you will work on this, God will reveal to you which were these are valid and which are not.

And as time goes on, you will add more people to this list. I still have my ongoing list. All my major amends from the very beginning after doing that first, 4th, and 5th step, I've taken care of, but it took me years to get them done. Years. So I made 3 columns on this.

I put those that I was willing to make an amends to today. I put the ones that I was wanting to make an amends to, but I wasn't really ready right now. And then I put those over there that I wasn't gonna do nothing for them if the world came to an end. And the funny thing about it was as I began to work on this list, this middle list moved over. And as I did, the 3rd list moved to the middle.

And so there's no one on there now that I would not make an amends to, but it was a period of time. And I think the reason we write down a list is because we have a tendency to forget what we wanna forget. I'm big on list, I have to be. I can remember when my mother was my age and I thought she had brain damage because she couldn't remember anything and she'd forget stuff, and I know exactly how she felt now. The aging process does come and if I don't do it now and if I don't write it down, it may never get done.

So I have found that writing a list is the best thing. It also gives me encouragement because when I have my list and as I do, I might get to mark them off and you get a sense of accomplishment where you wouldn't have if you didn't write it down. But you gotta be careful about your willingness because self deception and denial will get you here. If you're not careful, you'll go back into, I didn't really hurt them. Not really.

It wasn't really that bad. But one of the keys are, how do you feel when you're around them? Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you wish you didn't have to see them? Do you have that vague feeling that you just wish they had dissolved?

Maybe at that family reunion, you know, you hope they don't come. Or if you look at them, you can't give them eye to eye contact. Sort of avoid them, look over their shoulder. Hello? Chances are there's something wrong between you and that person, and there's only one thing you can do about, and that's your part of it.

That is your part of it. And it's good for you to do something about your part of it. In the 12 and 12, it tells us to be calm but be kind. I don't think it's necessary when I'm making this list to worry about making the amends because the step doesn't say make the amends, it says make the list and get ready. When it says get ready, it means get ready.

Because when you become ready, you'd be surprised how that next step is gonna come right in there and God's gonna help you with that. You're not gonna you're not gonna have to make these amends till you're ready, but you get ready. And when you realize you're doing it for you instead of the other person, it makes a lot more sense because sometimes you may find that that person will not accept your amends. I found that to be in a couple of cases, but I felt better because I've done what the steps said to do. So I'm gonna get the benefit regardless, so you put them on the list.

You have to be willing to go to any length to get a close contact with your higher power. And if you've done all against your brother or sister, this will stand between you and your higher power. You know, we're quick, and if you notice in the lord's prayer, it says forgive us as we forgive those. You see how your forgiveness is contingent? So I wanna take care of the things that I've done wrong.

And, you know, the funny thing about this is is I become willing to make right the wrongs I've done. I found that there were some things that were happening in my life that people were coming to me about things that they had done wrong. It's funny how this will all sorta go in a circle. You have to take the responsibility for your actions. You can no longer justify and rationalize them away.

I become responsible for what I did to you. And then I am to make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Good judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage, and prudence are qualities we take. That was really, really scary. I said, but but what if what if they don't accept that?

What if they throw it back in my face? What if they do? So what if they do? I had an instance where I went up to a girl that I had harmed and I told her that I was trying you gotta remember, this says make direct amends, it doesn't say make direct apology. I think so many times we'd like to get off and say, I'm sorry.

I want to tell you one thing from being on the receiving end of I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. After a while, you wanna say, you sure are. Okay?

I'm sorry. It doesn't change anything. So I found that for me, I will tell you that I regret what I have done to you. Now what can I do to make it up to you? And I don't have to worry about making amends because, see, you'll tell me what I need to do.

I don't have to sit there and figure it out. Now if I have robbed you of $500, I know I owe you $500 plus interest. Now that's obvious. But I'm just saying, if I don't know how to make up what I've done for you, let you tell me. And if it is within reason and humanly possible, do it.

And then you don't have to worry with it. Well, I went to this girl and I told her, I said, I regret the harm that I've done you. And I didn't find it necessary to go into great detail and bring all that back to her again. And I said, but could you give me tell me what I could do to make this up to you? And she said, I don't ever wanna see you again as long as I live.

I said, I can handle it. Thank you very much. And I have tried my best to stay out of her way because that's what she asked of me to do. That is not without reason, and that is humanly possible. And the best I can do is to not be around her anymore.

Okay. Now I had that ex husband. Now I had done some pretty tacky things to this man, and I'm not just talking about the obscenities I used to write on his hard boiled eggs and his lunches. I caused him lots of embarrassment on his job. He was in the military, But one of the tackiest things I had done was that, he had an inheritance when his grandfather died that came to the house in the form of a cashier's check, which I endorsed and spent and didn't tell him about until he came home one day and noticed we had a whole house full of furniture.

And he was very upset about the fact that I had gone out and bought furniture and charged all this to him, and I told him he didn't worry about it. It was paid for, and that grandfather he hated had given it to me, which was not quite the truth, you know. And so I wondered how I was gonna make an amends for an entire high school of furniture, but I knew what the amount of the money was and I didn't have it to pay back and then so I began to do this. Now I'm willing to make this amends if God will put him in my path. Now in my path meant right out in front of my house.

Now I didn't know that's what it meant, but you see self deception is strong. And so I kept waiting and he never came in front of my house. And, every year at Christmas, he would send my mother a Christmas card. So this particular year, he had, well, see, there was another thing. Thing.

I justified this even better. I said, you know, he's remarried, has a family. I don't know how I would feel if I were her and the ex wife was trying to get a hold of him. It might cause her some problem. I just won't do that.

Just let sleeping dogs lie. But the truth was I was scared, but I couldn't see the truth. The fear was blocking me. And so years down the line, my mother got a, a card from him and a letter around Christmas time said his wife had, cancer. And then later on in the early part of that year, she received a letter from him and his wife had died.

Well, my excuse is gone, isn't it? I ignored that. And a couple of weeks later, my mother got another letter from him. Well, see, she never got mail like this from him, and my mother would always say, I got a letter from Wes. You ought to read it.

And I would force myself to go do that. You know how nosy we are. So I'd go over there and I'd read this letter, and he never mentioned me in his letter. And I would think, see there, he's forgotten, but it just it began to eat I got it right across my forehead and I couldn't I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, anything. It was just make your amends.

Make your amends. Make your amends. And so I said, I've gotta go lay down and take a nap. I can't handle it. So I went and laid down and dreamed about making amends.

And I got up and I said, okay, god. I hear you. I hear you. I lied. I wasn't ready, but I'll do it anyway.

I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll get the phone number. He lives in Texas.

I'll call down information, see if they've got maybe they don't have a number. Maybe it's not listed. I called, of course, it was listed. I said, now, God, if it's not your will, don't let anybody be there. You know, you hang on to the bitter end here, you know.

And his daughter answered the phone. And I said, is your dad there? And she said, yes. May I ask who's calling? Well, I didn't know how to answer that child.

I didn't know if he had told her he'd been married before or what. And I said, just tell him it's someone from the past. And so when he came to the phone, we talked for a few minutes and about his loss of his wife and what have you. And the funny part about it though was when I called and I said, I guess you're wondering who this is. And he said, yes.

He said, who is this? And I said, this is Mary Pearl. And he said, Mary Pearl who? Don't you love it? He never once called me Mary Pearl.

I said, it's babe. And he said, oh. He said, well, you don't sound like you used to. And I said, I hope I'm not like I used to be. And we got to talking, I said, I guess you're wondering why I called.

He said, the thought has crossed my mind. And I said, well, I belong to a fellowship that says that in order for me to live well in today, I must take care of the harm from the past. And I've done a lot of things that have caused you great harm over the years, and I would like to make amends for those things and change those if I may. If there's something I can do to make that up, and I would like to arrange a payment schedule to pay you back the money that I ripped you off. He said, are you in AA?

And I said, no. Close. I'm in Illinois. And I said, how'd you know about AA? And he said, I've been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous for 8 months.

And I said, but you didn't drink when we were together. He said, but after we divorced, he said, I went to Vietnam, and and I got involved in the drugs and alcohol over there. And I said, I can't believe that. So we were able to sit there and to share program for a while, and I told him I do need to make this amends. He said, you know, he said, you're on my amends list.

He said, you know, I I never bought you that house full of furniture that you he said, there was very few things that you really asked of me and I was so tight with money that I just wouldn't he said, why don't you let me make my amends to you by giving you that furniture and giving you that stuff? And why don't we just consider ourselves friends at this point? That's how you can make it up to me. Well, to tell you I was relieved is a small word. But, you know, I realized then that it wouldn't made any difference.

The money wouldn't have made any difference. If he had said pay me back, it wouldn't have been a big deal. But for the first time, Wes and I could talk as equals, as friends in the same fellowship. We had something in common for the first time in all those years. And that healed that relationship.

And when I got off that phone, I felt free. I no longer I didn't realize how that had been burdened me down. I didn't realize the freedom that I was gonna get from that. And I know that he's my friend now. I don't have to be afraid of him.

I don't have to be worried if I meet him, if I see him, because things are clean between us now. And God did that through an amends. Okay? Another amends. My relationship with JD was not too hot.

You know? I mean, I've probably tried to kill him. You know? And I love the little no smoking signs. I know there's those of you out there who are in agony because I am an ex smoker and I know how that is.

And so, you know, how it is to wake up in the morning and not have a cigarette. Now my husband quit drinking and smoking at the same time. Actually, he quit drinking and quit buying cigarettes. And I would get up and he would have smoked my last cigarette. Now, boy, that makes you mad.

And we would have this war, and I would jump all in his case and tell him about, how could you do this to me? This was my last cigarette and we'd have a big knockdown drag out. In this particular day, he left and went over to my mother's to mow her grass, just eat and get away from me. And I was just fuming and I mean, I was having a fit and the phone rang and it was this girl on Al Anon. She said, what what were you?

And I told her about this thief that I live with who had stole my last cigarette. And she said, honey, do you not have any more money? I said, certainly, I've got money. She said, well, how far is the nearest grocery store? And I said, peuil blanc.

She said, well, why don't you go get you some and shut up? Well, he shoulda had to go down and get them because, I mean, he was the one. She said, he's not doing without the cigarette. Okay. And she says, and how are you gonna make an amends for that?