An Al-anon Step Study in Bellevue, NE

That no matter what happened, I didn't feel alone. Now I established that in that third step, but you see, I didn't know how to get close to god. I got closer to god when I was able to come through those defects, to give some of them away, to be alright with my fellow man. Now it's just me and god. I don't have all that wall standing between me and god.

And I begin to see things in my daily life that I never saw before. Things that were there, I'm sure. Like, for instance, when you get have you ever gotten to a point where things are just not going very well in your home and you're getting a little fearful? And all of a sudden when you when you get into that fear, your one of your main fears will come back upon you. It's just real funny when you play with fear.

And so mine, one of those was the financial deal. And so I was sitting there and I was just we seem to be in a really bad place financially, and I didn't know what to do. There wasn't anything to do, and I was scared. And so that morning, when I had prayed, I had told god. I said, god, I'm scared about this.

I don't know what we're gonna do here. And then I went over before I sit down to meditate and I fed my fish. Well, I got this aquarium, and I put my little fish feet on the top of the water, and I sat down and I just started looking at that aquarium. I got just really looking at that aquarium. And, you know, there were fish that were eating off the top, and then they'd get that food and some of it go down through the middle and there were fish that were eating in the middle.

And when they hit it, it would splatter some more and then there were those that were eating across the bottom. Now there was one little daily of fish food on the top of the water, but everybody was getting what they needed right where they were. Nobody had to get the fish that live on the bottom didn't have to come to the top for it. It came down. Those that swam through the middle didn't have to go to the top.

It came down. So everybody got what they needed. And when you feed your fish, if you've ever had any, if you put in 2 days fish food, you'll kill your fish. The water will suck. So you have to put one day at a time what they need.

And I said, that's it. God's gonna give me one day at a time everything I need. And I was able to turn it over. And I've never worried that much. That's not saying I don't get concerned, but I've not found it necessary to go into that panic anymore because I know what I was given that day in the meditation, that it's okay, that I'm gonna get what I'm supposed to have right where I'm at.

I don't have to worry about yours. I don't have to worry about you getting mine. I'm gonna get everything I need. I don't know. You know, we have our one dead time book.

Now there are 3,000,000 meditation books out. There's a lot of good meditation books. And I don't know about y'all, but I have a tendency to just if it's worth doing, do it till you die on the spot. So I had a tendency to get 5 or 6 meditation books and sit down and meditate. And I'd read this one, and then I'd read the next one.

And by the time I got to the third one, I didn't know what the first one said. So I found it for me. I read one spiritual reading in the morning and the reading out of either the, ODAP or the ADAP. Now I found for me here a few years ago, I had read my one day at a time over and over and over and over till I knew it in my heart. And I would shortchange myself because I'd pick it up, look at a page, start reading, and say, I remember this one.

And I just give it lip service more or less. I just glance down through it. I didn't stop and meditate on it. I just read it. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember that. I remember this. So I took took the alateen a day at a time. I'd never read it before.

And I started going through it. And if you haven't read the allotine a day at a time, you're missing something because it is they cut through all of the the sweet stuff and they put it just like it is. It is an excellent meditation book. So now I am reading. I'm in my 3rd year of the 8, Allotene book, and I'm getting new stuff out of it every year.

And I'm reading my one spiritual reading in the morning. And then at night, if I wanna read something else, I read it at night. But I try not to cram too much because I don't know about you, but I cannot retain a lot. So I need to have just some main thing that I can center in on and meditate on that, and it's a spiritual truth. Now you say, well, I don't know how to meditate.

Can you worry? If you can worry, you can meditate because it's the same thing. You just you just worry about something good instead of something bad. You just think. Give the the undivided attention.

You know? Have you ever thought about when you're worrying how that you can keep no matter what you're doing, you can run-in your mind and go back to the problem that make it as what you're doing, try doing it with something positive. Try doing it with something positive. I can always hear god's voice when I am in good spiritual shape. And now I'm not talking about an audible voice that says Mary Pearl.

It's not that at all. It's that intuitive voice that tells you do this. Don't do that. Why don't you do this? The thoughts that come to you.

The the things that give you strength to go on, that little nudge of encouragement when you feel down, those are the things that when I am in good spiritual contact with my higher power, when I'm not carrying resentments, when I'm not holding unforgiveness in my heart, all those things will keep me from experiencing the sunlight of the spirit. All those things are those shadows that separate me from God's love. You know, the the step says we sought. Now sought. Think about sought a minute.

It means you gotta sleep. You gotta go looking for it. You don't just sit there and wait for it to flip a deal on you. You know? You gotta think through the prayer and the meditation.

You're gonna have to spend some time. You're gonna have to take some time for yourself. And I found so many times that I'd I'd say, well, I'm running late this morning. I don't have time to do prayer and meditation. I've got time to screw up my day, but I don't have time to set the tone for my day.

If you're already late, you're late. So be a little later and take time to do. Because when I was late, even when I when I'd stop and take time for prayer and meditation, my day went better. You know how it used to when you were running late to seem like the whole day is playing catch up? When I start off with a prayer and meditation, somewhere along the line, it all catches up.

And I'm not playing that game because I am getting my spiritual nourishment first. It's getting a positive start. Now I wanna tell you something about prayers. It doesn't even have to be your prayers, prayers of others. Prayers of the people in your group are very important for you.

When you're in a bad place, call and ask there's times when I get mad at god and I can't pray. And so I call somebody else and I'll say, I'm mad at god. Would you pray for me? Now a lot of us are afraid to say we're mad at god. Well, he knows it.

See, when I get mad at you, I don't talk to you. So, therefore, when I get mad at god, I don't talk to him either. I treat everybody's son. JD got cancer. That made me mad.

And so I wouldn't talk to god about it. And I didn't wanna talk to people about it because it was one of those things that the more you talk about it, the more real it became. Let's stay in denial. I don't wanna talk about it. It's not really happening.

It's not hell, and I'm not here. You know? I was so scared. And one of the girls that I sponsored called me, and I was crying. And she said, what's the matter?

And I said, nothing. You know? I'll be good. Well, she hung up the phone and she called all the others in the group, and she said, there's something wrong with Murph. Let's pay for it.

Well, I can't tell you when it happened, but somewhere during the course of that night between 11 midnight, peace came over me. I didn't know if Teddy was gonna live or he was gonna die, but I knew we were gonna be okay. Now what happened? It was the prayers that were being answered for these girls who didn't even know what they were praying for because, see, god knew what I needed. So there's always a time that it's good for you to pray for other people.

They need the prayer. You need the practice. So pray for them. Every good thought you have can be a prayer. When you're thinking about somebody, somebody comes to your mind, God bless so and so.

God may be putting them in your mind for a reason. And you see, Linda didn't know when she was praying for me what was gonna happen. But when that piece came over me, I knew it would be okay. JD had the surgery. That's been 10, 11 years ago, and he's fine.

He's fine. But the thing of it is, I was fine before he ever went in for the surgery, the prayers of other people. We have in our group a prayer request. After the meeting is over and after we say keep coming back, if anybody wants anybody to pray for them, they say, remember me. Pray for me.

Pray for my aunt. Pray for my uncle. Whatever. And we do. And we don't even have to know why or who they are by name.

And I find it myself. You know, I used to beat myself when I'd say I can't remember who it was that they needed prayer. God, you remember. I'm putting in the prayer. You put it where it needs to go.

Because I don't remember, but I'm doing what I'm asked to do. And I think that that keeps me I developed god consciousness. God goes with me. I bring him with me. I take him with me.

I go places with him. We do lots of things together. I don't like to do things without god. Because when I do things without god, then I'm off by my step and sometimes I get scared. But if I take god with me, do you think there's any way I could come to Omaha, Nebraska and share my insights with you this weekend if I had not asked my god to be with me?

Nobody wants to expose themselves like that. I have to ask god to take care of my thinking. If god takes care of my thinking, my actions takes care of themselves because my actions will follow my thinking a lot of times. Now in the beginning, we have to take actions against our thinking. But then after a while, I can get to the point where I can have God to direct my thinking.

And when I have got God in my mind, it's very hard for me to act ugly towards you. I found that the best way God has showed me a lot of tools in dealing with people, and one of those is to act as if. Now we have a expression called fake it till you make it. I don't like that because it sounds so phony. But to act as if until I can, that I can grab on to.

Like, for instance, I can act as if the kind and loving daughter until I can become 1. I can act as if the kind and loving wife until I become 1. And if I don't know how to be a kind and loving wife, ask someone who is and say, how do you do that? How do you do that? God will reveal these things to you if you're willing to reach out and ask the other people to help you.

That's what we're there for. And it's it's just a darn shame that people will die in this program, and I have seen people die in this program for the lack of ability to reach out and say, I need help. And I'll tell you who the worst ones about it, and that's your old timers. I have been the old timer in my group, and I would be dying and refuse to reach out for help because, you see, I didn't want my ego wouldn't let me go back to those others for help, and that's crazy. Sometimes the oldest member in the group is the one that's in the worst shape in your meeting.

Don't forget, your old timers. Trying to ask god for decisions or answers to my problem. You know, it says asking only for the knowledge of god's will for your life. God, what do you want me to do today? What do you want me to do?

If I've got a decision that's really bothering me and it's something that has to require action, say, like, I've got something I've gotta know by this afternoon. I'll say, god, this is the deal. I've gotta know by this afternoon. I've gotta give somebody an answer. Now what would you have me do?

And nothing happened. Okay? I'll say, well, god, these seem to be my choices. And I will talk my choices over with someone, and I'll say, do you see any other choices? Is there another option out there that I haven't seen?

You know, sometimes we don't have you know, I used to think you have to do something. You don't always have to do something. Sometimes you can just not do, and it's okay. But sometimes things require immediate action. And so I say, okay, god.

I don't seem to be getting a direct message here. It's something that I can really put my hand on. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this. And if this is not what you would have me to do, shut the doors.

And I've learned that I have to follow this up with something else. And god show me a shut door. It's funny how I'll bang into a shut door time after time after time after time and not know it's a shut door. So I need god to show me a closed door. You know, I can beat my face flat trying to get to a closed door.

And And you have to be careful because self will will tell you that door is open when it is not. You know, when I say it has to be this way or no other way, and then you get there and say, well, maybe I can change it a little bit. I'll be willing to settle for this or that. I find that that doesn't work. So many times, you'll just you'll get to the situation.

Somebody asks you something. You hear something come out of your mouth that you didn't even know was there, and there's the answer to your solution. A lot of times in talking over your problem with someone else, you'll know what your solution is. But what you're wanting is somebody to rubber stamp your cockamamie idea. You know, I find this especially true when you have to call 10 people.

When you do that, you're trying to find somebody to agree with you. You don't want the answer. One of the lowest points for me was after I came in the program, and it was when I was that sickness number, and I could not reach out and ask for help. And I was afraid that if I told you that I was in the state I was in, that you wouldn't love me anymore. You'd say, she's a phony.

And so I went to my group and it really hurt, but I had gotten on my knees in my living room and it didn't seem low enough somehow. So I got flat on my face in the floor, and I said, god, my life's unmanageable. I'm powerless, and I'm hurting, and I need help. And I went back to my group and I told them that very thing. I said, I am in pain.

I'm hurting. My programs just shot out the window. I'm back to Hello Al Anon. And I cried, and that was something that I just wouldn't do it in front of a group for god's sake. And I just knew that they weren't gonna love me anymore.

And after the meeting was over that night, a little old girl came over to me, and she said, you know, I love you more tonight than I've ever loved you because you became human. She said, when you never came to the group and told us about your problems, I always felt like I was doing wrong if I had a problem. That if I'd been working the program like I should have, I wouldn't have had a problem. And I'm not here to tell you that's not the truth. You're gonna have problems.

Problems call life. Life is a set a series of problems that we learn by going through. You don't learn by hiding from. You don't learn by evading. You learn by walking through it to the other side, and you don't have to walk alone.

Not in here. I love the 11 step prayer, that prayer of Saint Francis. You know what's amazing to me is the God doing the little everyday miracles. I love little everyday miracles. Like, for instance, these earrings.

These earrings are a miracle. Not the fact that I have them, but the fact that I lost them and have them. Now one of the girls I sponsored gave me these one year for Christmas. And this past Christmas, I was out at the mall looking for some Christmas gifts, and I missed them. I missed one.

And so I went back to the JCPenney's where I thought I had maybe lost it, and I asked the woman, did they see anything? We all looked around. We couldn't find it. And I left her my card, and I said, just in case it turns up. And it it did upset me there for a minute.

And then I said, wait a minute, god. I'm gonna give these earrings to you. And if I'm supposed to have it back, okay? And if not, you help me to accept it. So I went on, and nothing happened.

3 weeks later now 3 weeks, Christmastime rush, you know, 3 weeks. And they called and they said, you know, it's the strangest thing, but we found your earring. Now I saw your card on my desk yesterday morning, and I said to myself, if we hadn't found it by now, might as well throw the card away, and I forgot to. And she said, we've got your earring. And I said, that's fantastic.

I said, god, it's so good. And I went out to get my earring. And when I went out there to get it, I was waiting for her to wait on this other girl, and sitting right there at the counter was this black wool skirt with a drop waist. And I've been wanting one for a long time and hadn't ever found one, and it was in my size. And then when she got there, I said, what's with this skirt?

And she said, I don't know. We've had it in the back. I don't know how come we hadn't had it out, but the only one we've got like that. And I'd give it to you for $15 if you wanted. And I said, you know, god really has a sense of humor.

I said, I need that. It wasn't that I just want it, but I had been needing it as it turned out in my first experience where it was served, you know. But, nonetheless, it was so funny because, you know, I just went back to get the earring and got to something else that I've been wanting it anyway right there for me at a price that I could afford without any problem. Then let's see. It's like your meditation is like having an insurance policy.

I used to work in insurance for years. An An insurance policy is something that you pay premiums on and hope to God you never have to use, you know, because I work in life insurance. In order to collect that your friends do there and your loved ones do, you don't. But, you know, it's like paying up that insurance policy. Someday, you may need that insurance.

I may not need it today, but I want it to be there if the if the situation comes up where I have to have it. And that's where my prayer and meditation comes in. I pray and I meditate. And I may not be in a crisis situation today or there might not be something terrible coming down, but I don't wanna have to be I used to do that all my life, those crisis communications and going, god, god, god, help me, help me, god. Oh my god.

It's in a mess. I don't have to do that because I've got a daily contact. I've got a conscious contact so that when these situations come up, I don't have to reestablish a contact and feel guilty for asking for help when I hadn't been there before. And I used to live like that. But now I don't feel guilty about asking god for help.

That's what he's there for. That's what he's there for. And when you have a good spiritual condition, you have more emotional balance in your life. A spiritual prayer and meditation will give you emotional balance, And it never dawned on me that I had to get well spiritually first so that I could get emotionally well so that I could get physically well. I had lots of physical problems.

I don't have near the problem physical problem that I once had, and it's because I don't have the stress factor I once had. God has the stress. Don't you know god must be stressed out sometimes with all this? God gives me blessing after blessing. And no matter how much I've received from God, he never gets tired of giving.

And, you know, my God enjoys the presence of my company. He enjoys hearing from me just like I think your parents do or you would enjoy hearing from your children. You enjoy hearing good message, not just I need money. But, hey. I love you.

You know, I was reading here a while back, and it said, do you love god? You know, I was real concerned about the fact god loving me, and I didn't think about did I love god. And I thought, well, do I love God? Now that's something to think about. I'm glad that I have God, and I love God for what he does.

Uh-huh. But do I love God just for what he is? And then I got to looking around, and there's a piece of God in every one of you, and, certainly, I love God. I love the God in everybody. And I also love what my God has done for me as a person.

Having had the spiritual awakening as the result of the steps, You're not gonna get the spiritual awakening without doing the steps. There's a promise that you will get it. Now for me, it was a gradual thing. That's what an awakening is. I am not a good you know, the minute the alarm goes off, I don't go ta da.

About 4 hours later, I go ta da. You know? But it says that you will be skyrocketed into a new plane of living. That's the happy, joyous, and free. That's where I'm trying to live now.

I'm a spiritual being. God lives inside of me, so I try to take care of god's blessing place. I try to get in contact with the God that lives within me. Now one of the best ways that we can do practicing these principles and carrying a message, let's try sponsorship. Not from the giving in, but from the I mean, not from the receiving end, but from the giving in.

In sponsorship, I carry the message, not the person. I used to be guilty of trying to carry the person and trying to do it for them. You want it so bad for them. You'll do it for them, and they never get it. And you wonder why they don't have to because you're doing it for them.

So I have learned that the best way that I can carry the message is by living it. By living it. Not just talking it, but living it and showing them and having them around so they can see. I've tried to be a good sponsor, and I'm not always successful. I'm a human being.

I make plenty of mistakes. And I think some of my earlier babies were my guinea pigs, you know, and they tell me now that I'm mellowing out. You know, that I'm not near so vicious as I once was with the new ones. The new ones bitch all the time about it. But, you know, as a sponsor, we sow the seeds.

That's all I'm responsible, to sow the seeds. But as a person, I'd like to be there and help cultivate and harvest the crop. I'd love to do that. That's not always the case. There was, a little girl that kept calling me.

She lived in another town, and when she would run away from home to Little Rock to a motel for the weekend, she would call and tell me how terrible things were in her life and ta da ta da, and she had my name and number. And I'd say, have you gone to meetings in where the town you're from? And she'd say, no. But I'm gonna do that just as soon as I get back there. And the next time, a couple of months later, she'd be back up at the motel calling me again, and she'd and I'd say, well, have you been to the meet?

No. I just hadn't got around to doing that yet, but I'm gonna do that. And so when she called the 3rd time and she said, I'm up here. I said, have you been to me? She said, no.

And I said, I'm sorry. I can't help you anymore. Do what I told you to do and don't call me back till you hang up. Then my husband looked at me and he said, that was one of the cruelest things I believe I ever saw a person do to another person. And I said, all I'm doing is keeping her from a meeting.

I'm giving her a booster shot every time she calls. I said, I'm not really helping her. Well, a couple of years later, I was at a conference, and this little girl came up to me and she said, I wanna introduce myself. And it was the same little girl. She said, you made me for damn minute.

I went back to them just so I could call you again. I'm not saying that's the way to do it. I'm just saying that's was my experience. Then there was, a girl that came to our group and was there for a long time. And, I tried so hard and it just didn't seem to take, and she went away.

And several years later, a friend of ours had been to Saint Louis. And when they came in, they had met this girl there, and she was active up there. So you never know. The seeds that you plant today may not take root for a long time, but all I'm responsible for is to plant the seeds. Then it's in God's in their hands, whatever they do in their time.

And you've gotta remember, the program is not for people who need it. It's for people who want it. The little boy that's no longer with us today had 3 opportunities to make this program, and he didn't want it. God knows the negative, but he didn't want it. I find that in sponsorship, I do best when I walk beside you instead of behind you trying to push you.

I do better when I'm walking beside you. But you're funny. JD talked to me one time and he wanted to know if I'd be his sponsor. And I was sort of shocked by that, and I said, well, you know, first your ego says And I said, you what? And he said, yeah.

In that way, I'd get to see some of you. Yeah. I had to look at that. You know? And it was.

I had gotten so carried away that I was not doing my homework. You know, the program begins at home. A lot of times, I think that when we first start working the program, we work it in our group where it's real easy because everybody's gonna accept you and love you even if you are just a real dip. You know? You can squall all the time and they'll say, it's okay.

Keep coming back. But you gotta take it home. If you can't take it home, you don't have much with you. And home was the last place I took it. I took it to the office.

I took it here, there, and everywhere, and finally, it hit me. You know, you gotta take this program home. And here my husband was what he was saying is you never have any time for me, and that was the truth. I don't know. We had gotten so you know, you they tell you take your focus off the alcoholic.

I really did. And we've become 2 different units instead of a home. He was going to his meetings doing his thing, and I was over here going to my meetings doing my thing, and we didn't have any our thing. We didn't have an our thing. So we had to take a look at that.

And, one of the things that was very good that came out of that was I found that I had a whole new person at home. That he had changed and I had changed, and we were no longer the people we were. And in some instances, when this happens, you find in common the only thing you have was your sickness and you don't have anything. But thank God that was not our case. And we had we found that we could love one another in recovery.

We could accept each other as we were. But how we begin to do this was we began to practice the traditions in our relationships. And it never dawned on me that you could do that, but now think about it. If traditions can keep groups of sickies together and functioning okay, why couldn't it keep a couple of sickies functioning and together? And we began to try to practice this principle.

Now you can't work the traditions at home if you can't do the steps. It won't work because you won't have the tools. But we started doing that. And we found that we could begin and and Jadie and I hold hands again like little kids. We have fun.

We can do things together without hassling one another because we both wanna be there and we both wanna make it work. I got into service in a big way. Alternate g r, g r, d r, all the little r's are. Area officers, I held area officers and all this kind of stuff. I found it for me at this point in my life that I'm not active at the service level other than at my group right now.

I'm our literature chairman. I gotta make sure that they keep them damn blueprint for progress out of there. Believe it or not, I carry some. What did I do? What was I like before I got here as compared to I have now?

I'm not the same person I was when I came here. I have a message to carry now. I didn't have a message to carry then. I had sickness, and I carried it and passed it on real well. So what I'm trying to do today is I'm trying to carry the message of recovery to show you what I used to be like, what happened, and what I'm trying to be like one day at a time.

And did you know 12 stepping can be done on anyone regardless of their time in the program? Because I have found it necessary sometimes to go to these old timers and to be honest about what you're seeing. That's hard. But once you go up to somebody and say, you're not the same as you used to be. The joy seems to have gone out.

I love you, and I care. You can 12 step your old timer. Principles above personalities. What if there's someone you just don't like? Do you ever meet anybody you just don't like?

What have they got that you got? What is there about them that you do? That always irritates me, but that's the truth. Usually, when I don't like somebody, it's because they're like I can be on any given day. And, you know, every once in a while, god is really neat and shows you you, how you used to be, lest you go back there.

I was in Hawaii a couple of summers ago, and I got stranded down in the Waipio Valley, which is a very rustic area. And we were in the middle of a river at the time. And the tour guide, we were supposedly fording this river. And there had been a mudslide the night before and the terrain had changed a little bit. And we went down and the water came over and we were there.

And the water must have been about waist deep, I guess. And he said, well, we're here. Now there was a man in that truck or in that van that said, get us up. And the lion said, we're here. He said, I can't.

The starter's underwater. And this guy threw a fit. I mean, a fit. And he ran up and down the bank for hours just having a connection. I was sitting over under the palm.

Now on the side of our van, it said an adventure you'll not soon forget. I figured this is it. And this guy kept running up and down, and he ran his mouth the whole time. Well, we had 2 rescue vehicles that come and got us before it was all over with, and it was a long ordeal for a whole day. But when we finally got back to the hotel, this one guy was just absolutely fopping at the mouth, cussing, screaming, hollering, saying we're gonna sue.

We want our money back. He was just going through all this. And he was trying to get a riot started from the people that were there in the van and get us all to attack the management of the hotel. And I've listened to that all that I wanted to hear all day long. And so when he came to me, he said, what do you think?

I said, it says in adventure you'll not soon forget. I got mine. I don't know what your problem is. And he just looked at me, and I went on back to my room. Well, it was about 2, 3 minutes after I got back.

The hotel called and said they were refunding the money before he ever had a chance to jump them. But we listened to this guy for the rest of the tour. 2 weeks later, he's still bitching about this deal down in the park. And that was Mary Pearl. I saw me the way I used to be.

And I said, you know, that's an humbling experience because I said, I used to bitch and rave and carry on and blow it out. And you wouldn't even recognize that story by the time 2 weeks hence was from what it really was when it happened. He had that blown into such a big deal. You wouldn't believe it. They should be have their license stripped away from them.

They should have done this. They should have done that. I never heard so much. And I thought, god, I am so glad I don't have to live like that anymore, that I have principles that I can live by. I found my place here.

Did you ever feel like it never fit? I found my place. Did you know what I found? Like, I like to make coffee. I wouldn't drink that stuff for nothing.

Hate coffee. But I make some of the best coffee for our group, and JD said I'm the best coffeemaker for somebody that doesn't drink coffee because he really drinks coffee. But I found that that was how I could go over there and get my group. I could go over there and open up the building and turn on the air conditioner so it'd be nice when everybody got there. Or I could go over and turn on the heat.

Or I could be the litigator chairman, or I could do all these things. I can go over there and set up the table. This is my place. My place is to be here. That's my home.

And I don't want people coming in and cutting up my home. I get real protective about the building. There's another reason I'm protective about our building. Now my grandfather died in the state hospital from alcoholism, But that man built the building that we meet in. So, you know, his life wasn't in vain because even though he died of this disease, there's people every day of the world that are getting help in a place that he provided.

And that's a special place. To me, it's like my home away from home. When I go in there, there's something about going through the door. I have peace. I'm home.

I'm safe. I don't have to worry about being loved, accepted, or anything in here. This is safe. That's how I feel about Illinois. You know, the family afterward experiences the thing of supreme value in life.

This is true only if one is willing to turn the past to good account. If I can live realizing what I've done that doesn't work and quit doing it that way, I can turn my past to good account. I can live better today because I know how to live today. I never knew how to live before. That's what the steps are for me.

They're the guidelines for living. How I can live my life with the steps and the traditions will keep me in harmony with my god, myself, and my fellow man. They will work in all my relationships. I mean, even the casual people that you meet on the street. I'm a tell you about remember how I was so vicious at the grocery store?

Don't tell you about me at the grocery store. I'm the kind of customer they love to have because I go in, and my way of making amends is to be the most cheerful customer they've ever had. I get Christmas cards from bad boys. When they're gonna move from one store to another in home, the assistant manager and, one of the others, there's come a couple of checkers and a boy in the produce department, they came and they said, miss Thompson, we're moving over to Campbell Road. Why don't you come over and stop there?

Now Campbell Road's on the other side of town for me, and I go over there because those are my friends now. I could never do that before. People actually want me to come in and shop at their store, And they said, we always know we're gonna have a good day when you come because you're always so up. I got my car fixed with this little boy. He's just started a new business.

He's trying real hard. His wife said, miss Thompson I took my car in and got it fixed on a Monday. She said, this is the best Monday we've had in a long time. Your attitude is so good. Would you call us every Monday?

So when I'm home, I try to make a purchase, and I'll say, this is your perky little Monday call. Are y'all having a good day down there today? And she said, you don't know how much that means. And I can tell you another thing. Do you know what kind of service I get at these places?

You know, there's a spiritual principle. What goes around comes around. What you sow, you reap. When you do good for people, you get good back. It don't have to be from the ones you're doing it for.

You know, I always thought I kept score. I've done this for you, so therefore, you owe me this. Well, that's not the spiritual principle. This principle is just to give freely. Freely you've received, so clearly you give.

So I'm real good to you. And so what happens to me? I get my earrings back. That's what happens. I do good.

Good comes to me. When I do bad, bad comes to me. The other day, I'm touring down the road, and they've moved the UPS place. Now they should never move the UPS place. I love the little UPS trucks.

And I had and they told me they said, now it's east of the airport. Now is the north, south, east, and west, but I'm an up, down, left, and right. And so when this guy said, he's gonna know where the hell he was. So I got off, and I said, god, come on. We're gonna go find the upstairs place.

And I got off, and I took this exit off freeway. And I got over there, and then there were 3 roads to choose from. Pick a road. This can't be the way to UPS. I was in a really bad area, which I knew was not safe to for a woman to be there alone.

I could identify that. So I pulled in this driveway of this burnt out house, and I said, god, this can't be it. Where is the UPS place? I would really appreciate some direction. And about that time, I started backing out.

And in my mirror, I caught an UPS truck, a little down truck. I followed him all the way to that place. Now several people said, what if he'd been making deliveries? God knew I needed to go to this place. He wouldn't know me making deliveries.