Steps 8 & 9 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

Good afternoon. My name is Sharon Crane. I'm an alcoholic.

I got a lot of bottles and cans up here. It's good. Makes me feel right at home.

I thank you Bob for the invite and thank you Kim hosting. And I've got a lot of

women here that I know and love and, and one particular man that I know and love and a few other, but not in the biblical sense. My husband Casey, I'm glad he's here with me.

I've really, it's interesting that it's been talked about a lot of self will, self, self self directing, running the show. And I must say that I would not be here at all if it wasn't for a loving God and for a sponsorship. A sponsorship has been extremely important in my sobriety, my 33 years and

Clancy, who is my sponsor now, just told me if I'm doing good I can mention him

and if I'm not talk about my second sponsor a lot. So but I won't blow his cover. We'll have to wait and see how I'm doing.

Anyway. I I love 8:00 and 9:00 and I love everybody that has brought me to this point, most of whom are sitting over there

of opening up our our minds and our hearts. And one of my favorite parts of the book is the,

and there's a solution and it's kind of where we, we've just been. And it's the this, this, it just makes me feel so hopeful. The central fact,

the central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. And I am not up here by myself. I am up here as a an amazing culmination of a spirit that has been transformed with a lot of help and a lot of prayers of people who love me and people who probably resented me, but they still had to pray for me.

And I'm

sober and Alcoholics Anonymous, not by myself. And I want to always remember that, that God is. And God, you know, my second sponsor, Jenny, they'll talk about her. Clancy wrote me a note once. I was going home actually to do some more amends. And she wrote me a note and I was afraid to fly. And I remember she said go talk to Clancy because he was her sponsor at the meeting. He flies all the time. I mean, I flew all the time drinking, but

now I'm sober and I'm like just really have this huge fear of flying. And so I went talk to clients at the meeting. I said Jenny said I need to talk to you because I'm afraid to fly. Said, don't watch the wings,

don't watch the wings. So I'm on one of those night flights where the wings we're in a storm, so I can see the wings. I don't want to see the wings, but I'm sitting by the wings and you know, they're doing this all night. You know, they're not, they're moving too much. And so it's like, OK, Clancy says, don't watch the wings. You know, I'm looking through my hands at the wings and, and and I landed and I had a successful

amends process. But you know, that's what she wrote me. That note. God either is or he isn't. If he isn't, we're all dead anyway.

Was like, OK, I got it.

Too many clothes and I'm on a stage and GAIL, whatever,

wrap it around your pole. It's become Gail's pole now, you know.

But you know, I just, I

the, the hearts that have been opened this weekend and the, the 8:00 AM with Peggy and Steve last night was keeping his composure with everything going on. And, and, and, and GAIL, I love, I love her, her passion for the archives. And

you know, I just got so much out of your talk, Don. You just brought me right into, right into the black and white of the book and right into the love of God. And, you know, and I know there's so much more to come and I'm just kind of a filler in between

all of that and Clancy tonight and and Mike and

Carl tomorrow morning. So I just here to do my job. And MNS are one of my absolute favorites. And there's 8 pages of instructions in the book and it's pretty specific, you know, and it talks about a couple of times what Kim talked about that we've, you know, it says it twice in there. OK, we made this pact. You know, it's like I always every time I see it, I think, OK, I made a pact with God, not with the devil that I would go to any links for victory over alcohol And it says it a couple of times

in these eight specific pages of how to make amends when you know it has a lot to do with other people and and if it'll affect them, that is the immense going to hurt them. It's got a lot of specifics. It talks about the tornado, love the tornado. It talks about, you know, my real purpose, which is I'm a blackout drinker. So when I saw that on page 77 that my real purpose,

my real purpose is to fit myself, to be a maximum service to God and the people about me, it gave me some peace.

You know, I came in here with a bag of rocks and then we unearthed more as Don talked about. And then I put more rocks in my bag. And I remember a man named Chuck Nesbitt looked at me when I was really new with my broken jaw. And I'm wired up. I can't talk. The first three months I'm an A, a I too didn't look at anybody. I couldn't speak. I couldn't eat. I wasn't a lot of fun to hang around. I drooled

and this man Chuck walked up to me and I I had a backpack and had a book and it called Be Here Now by Baba Ramdas. Like I knew a lot about being here now, but I was,

you know, it's my book and and I'm a runner and I don't stand anywhere long enough for any consequences. But I'm in a a now and I'm tired. And this man walked out to me. Check this. But he said, you look tired, kid. I thought, how's he know? How does he know? He said, you look tired, Take off your pack and stay with us a while. And and he walked away. And then he came back and he must have thought about it for just a second. He said, no, you look really tired.

It's like, and he invited me to stay longer than 30 days. I think he said stay with us for 30 days the first time. And then he came back and he said stay with us for 90 days or something. And so I thought, OK,

he knows I'm tired and he just invited me here to stay with you. So I came in here with an obvious pack of rocks on me. I couldn't even lift my my body up straight. I was, I had been victimized. I was in,

I had to go to court. My jaw had been broken. My nose had been broken. I was, I had a tooth kicked out. I was sucking on red wine through the wires on the jaw where the tooth had been. When I woke up on August 20th of 1975 and the guy that I was staying with said to me,

you got to leave, you're depressing me. And it's like

it wasn't really what you wanted to hear from a drinking buddy. And so I called my mother, my mom, who has four children. And much like you're on I'm, I'm the middle child. And I have my hero sister. I have my nurse Sally, who wanted to be a nurse when she was 4. And that's what she did and moved to Alaska and she's still there. Then I have my brother who carried the family name. And I was that middle child.

I am the only alcoholic in my family. I'm still the only alcoholic in my family. And there were many, many, many nights my mother did not sleep at night because Alcoholics Anonymous now has given her the the nights of sleep. And I thank you for that. And you know, they say that in much of the immense stuff, it's because it's so much not about me. And I thought it was

I, I, they say that when an alcoholic goes out the door that immediately. And these are people that are pretty new because once you stick around a while, you have, you know, your life touches a lot of other lives.

But immediately, 10 people are affected immediately. So if you're kind of new in here and in your first year and you think that going and taking a drink is not going to affect anyone, there's ten people that are exhaling tonight because they know you're sitting in a a. There's ten people that will sleep at night because they know you're here. There's ten people that might digest their dinner because they know you're in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and that you are safe. So it is not about you. If you're new

or newer now, you can go back to thinking about yourself, which is your favorite person.

But I called my mother that morning and she had had a couple of sleepless nights not knowing what shape her daughter was in because she had gotten a call from that hospital in Palm Springs that I had been beaten up and abused and drugged around and was just in bad shape and intensive care. And they didn't tell her what hospital I was in.

They just said it was California. So my mother in Iowa and my sister in New York called all these hospitals, and for two days

until they found me, my mother did not know how her daughter was. So when I called my mom on August 20th, that morning

and was a three weeks before that, she wasn't sleeping at night worrying about her daughter,

not knowing what shape she was in. You would think because I'm a parent, you would jump. OK, come home, I'll send you an airline ticket, she said. Sharon, I can't help you anymore. Go to the Salvation Army

and I so want to be grateful for that moment for my mother saying no because of as normality talked about the seconds and inches at each one of us have the privilege of being here. That was that was the second there if she would have said $20 and then don't call him anymore. So my mother had been

very much involved in my alcoholism, whether she was watching me or not. She was very much in love with her daughter and very much worried about her daughter

so that my mother sleeps at night. That is a continual amend that I get to make by being sober in the room of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And then I ended up with you. I woke up a drinker and I ended up with you that night. And I have not had a drink or a taupe or head of acid or any of that other fun stuff that was out there in the 60s 'cause it wasn't just say no, it's just say thanks.

And that's a moment of grace. And we each have had that moment of grace. And the central fact that I have, that central fact, it is indeed miraculous. And I, I do know that. So the immense step is something that after I finally did my inventory with a woman named Janet, and I finally did my fifth step because it seemed like in my group

there was peer pressure to

have your inventory done by the time you blew out that candle on your first cake. And I think peer pressure could be kind of good sometimes. There was a woman in a that was newer than me that came in eight days after me named Pat, who many of you know, she spoke here last year. And

Pat came in eight days after me. And Alcoholics Anonymous stole my Thunder, if I had any, because I was the drooling, couldn't talk newcomer. So it didn't seem like the old timers were hanging out with me too much, but the old timers just gravitated towards Pat. So I was a little resentful of Pat. And she seemed to have gone through her steps much quicker than I was going through my steps. And it seemed to me that, you know, they would read steps 4:00 and 5:00 and

she would turn around, look at me like

I'm in my amends. You haven't even done yours yet. You know, that was the look it seemed to me she was giving me at the meeting when they would read the steps. So I thought, you know, I, I went through a lot of struggle, but I ended up finishing my fifth step with Janet and I, I was ready that night. It was right before I turn 1 and I was going to turn 18 days before Pat. Believe me, I didn't want to give up those eight days.

There were times and I thought I can't have less time than her. I was just stick it out tonight. You know, I'll just

day one more night because I don't have less time than the one who had done all the steps so perfectly. So I finally did my fifth step and I was waiting for her that night to turn around because she was going to look at me. And I know she was. See, she had a husband dying of cancer and they wanted her to start living amends with him. They wanted her to hurry up and get through. I didn't know any of that. I just thought she cried a lot, got a lot of attention and was better than me. And you know, my perception.

She judged me. And so she turned around and looked at night. But someone had told her.

But Sharon finally did her first step. You know, she's going to be one on Thursday. But she finally did her first step. And she gave me the biggest smile. And I, I didn't want to like her, but I started to like her. And the joy of that is, is that Pat and I still celebrate our birthdays every August. Me August 20th, her August 28th

every year. But Pat's peer pressure, you know, it's just there was something about it. I had to get that that inventory done.

I had to. Now, I had no defects of character. It was kind of like it was, it was the half a page in the book. That was kind of as quickly as we ran through it, me and Janet, it seemed like. I don't know if she knew much about it, but you know, OK, well, I'm angry sometimes. You know, it was really just very cursory and not very deep. And I was really out of it for a while. I was really

not firing on all my circuits for a while.

It took a while to put this back together, this human being, you know, step by step by step. And Janet had had me make my list from my fifth step, my 4th step. So I made this big long list and it include everybody that I owed amendments to and that owed amends to me. You know, everybody that I hurt and that everybody that hurt me, you know, I thought, well, I'm going to go talk to them, you know.

So I was pretty innocent about all that. And I remember Janet taking the

the list and starting across people out. It was like she said, Sharon, you're not a victim anymore.

You know, it talks about in there that, you know, we're, you know, we don't go scraping in front of anybody. And it uses that word and that terminology. And so I was like, OK. But the biggest one she said I needed to start with was my family. And I was

biggest one on my list, my father and I was, you know, I risk playing the accordion, my father's check. And the accordion was not cool back in the 60s. Sometimes it's maybe still not cool now, but,

you know, I was the little girl. I could paint the pictures that were hanging in the restaurants in the little town in Iowa that I grew up in. And we would walk down the street and look at the painting Sharon had done in in the restaurants. And so Daddy, you know, I wanted to make him proud. And he had the, the he had the Mensa first daughter, He, you know, who saved my life when I was nine in a fire. So how do you compete? You just can't, you know.

You can't, you know. So you hate her. You know, she read every, you know, those little things that came up. She read every book. She would order every book on those little papers

that came out as she grew up. Her whole under her bed was full of books. So I thought, well, she's reading and I'll never read,

you know, And it's like, OK, so I start reading the classics and sobriety because I've not read and I love reading now. But it was like not going to be like her. And so Nancy was that one and

my my dad had that relationship with her that was special. And so I wanted something. So I painted the pictures and I played the accordion and, and I I remember I was up for Miss Eastern Iowa. I know so.

And I know you couldn't sleep your way to the top with that one either. I'll tell you they were all Shriners. You know, drunk. And anyway,

so I was, I was in this like convertible and in this, I remember I had this white Piquet, cotton with Navy accents dress. My hair was just, you know, you go to the hairdresser, I want to look like this and, you know, never does. But so I'm trying to comb it out and they gave me roses. I had roses and I had gloves on and my Miss Mount Vernon sash, you know, And I'm in the Miss Eastern Iowa contest. And

my dad was so proud of me.

So proud of me. I mean, he stood there with his buddies and Cedar Rapids, IA as the car has come around and, you know, and they're all like cheered when I came by and I was so hung over. I was so hungover. Even in the picture, you can see the dark circles I was trying to cover up. So he was still hoping, you know, as I was that age. But things were starting to turn. And my father got to know way too much about me and my father got to know way too much about my life. And my father would ask me what was wrong. And I

tell him I would tell him things that you shouldn't tell your father.

And my father and I stopped speaking. My father and I stopped having breakfast at the same table. My father and I stopped communicating. My mother said at one point when I came back in my trials to live, live at home and recuperate a little bit. She said, you can stay here, but you upset your father. Please don't get in his way.

And I was the thing that lived upstairs. So I stayed out of my dad's way and we didn't look at each other and we had no communication after I was about 18 1/2 years old.

And he tried to help and he got close to me. And every time I got close to me, I would hurt him again. And he just stopped trying. So my dad and I had no relationship and

it affected my relationship with men not having that healed with my father. And I didn't know that until the immense process was through and the innocence came back, something I didn't expect from the immense process with my father.

But I got on that plane. I watched the wings. I didn't watch the wings, you know, whatever I had to do. And I went home and,

and I had to make those amends. My father, who was first on my list, I talked to my mother. My mother and I are fine. We've always been fine. My mother and I are have this heart to heart bond that just seems that can't be broken. It's very, very tight. And we're almost of the same heart at times, my mom and I. And that went very, very well. And my father, it didn't go so well. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of talking to him. I was afraid of disappointing him. I'm the alcoholic.

They don't know what to think. She's in they they didn't understand it. You know, I remember my mother said, she told me later that my grandma said Sharon looks really good. What's what's going on with her? And my mother said, the aunt even whispered, she said, hey, you know, it's like nobody in the family could say it.

So talk about being an example. I mean, I'm the only one that they've seen. And so I go home and I'm having a pretty good time. And I hadn't, you know, my dad and I were not eye contact. We're not really riding in the car alone together yet, because God knows he might. We might start having a talk about,

you know, politics or the 60s or what I did or that guy or

something and or the money or something. And I just, I thought, you know, we're putting my bags in the trunk. I'm going back to Los Angeles. I've been here for 10 days. My sponsor sent me on this trip explicitly to make amends in my mother and father. And I haven't done it yet. And I said I better do it now or if I get off that plane, she will put me back on the plane and she will kill me if I don't get it done. So

sponsor louder than your head when you're new is really important. And so my dad's putting the bags in the trunk and I say I need to talk to you. And no, he's OK. And I, I can still feel this moment. It was a incredibly powerful moment for me because I was trying to come clean. And boy, I lived a life of the carnival, the French Quarter, I mean,

hitchhiking.

I lived a life that you don't come clean. I don't drink in the bars where they say, how are you? And I say, well, I think I want to come clean with you today. Or,

you know, I'm having this kind of emotion. Let's talk about it. You know, nobody taught. We had aliases. Nobody cared who's buying. That's what we cared about. And so I'm trying to come clean with my father. And we lay against the car. He's leaning. I'm leaning. The car is parked on sand. I remember it was an Indian summer day. It was warm. The sun was on my shoulders. The back of the car was warm on my back

and we made holes in the sand with our toes

and nobody looked at each other. We were looking down and I was making a hole in the sand with my toe, talking. And then he was making a homeless and talking. And I said my little script scripted amends to my father, which was short and sweet and about two sentences. And, you know, I don't even think I knew enough then to to say anything except, you know, I'm sorry. And what can I do? At the end?

I didn't even know how to say, how can I make it right? I didn't know how to do that. And he said, I just always wanted you to be happy. It was it. That was it. And the sponsor I got off the plane, she said, did you do it? And I said, yeah. She said, good. It's a start, start. It's a start.

So Janet had me go through this list and you know, I, I had a lot of lights. Not very good up here.

I had a lot of moments with them,

umm, my list with her that have come to fruition that I never thought would. And, and one of them, one of them totally being

New Orleans and I had

been involved Mardi Gras, my last Mardi Gras out there drinking. I had been involved with a friend of mine as a, as a friend. We were buddies. He was a bouncer at Pat O'Brien's. He was a good guy. We partied a lot together. We partied that night.

I was at the end of. I got sober in August. That was in March. I was really bloated, toxic, alcoholic mess, gallbladder gone pancreatitis, working in a CD Lower Decatur St. bar where you could smell the bathroom as you walked in. Even my alcoholic friends didn't want to hang with me anymore.

And Michael was one of my buddies and he when he would get off Pat O'Brien's, we would party and we party rod that Mardi Gras 9th the night before and Mardi Gras day. And and he had a gun. And I just kind of remember I was in the brown out and I remember being on on Bourbon Street and he was pointing the gun at somebody because he didn't like their costume. And this was so out of character for my friend. I just said, oh, come on, Michael, it's Mardi Gras day. Put your gun away. You know, that's how my reality was. And we ended up at where I was staying, sleeping on my friend Denny's couch and

and there's a party and I guess we went out for wine and he was shooting at people off the balcony. And the police were called and

I was the last person to talk to him alive. I closed the door and the next thing I remember, the shots were fired and everybody hit the deck. And my friend Michael, I didn't open the door. I went and took a bath. I said, I'm taking a bath. Everybody hit the deck. That was my reality. I couldn't even look. I couldn't. I'm taking a bath. And I made the police breakdown the door. So this is my friend

who I don't know if he's dead or dying outside my door. I am. I am the last person to talk to him alive. I'm interrogated by New Orleans police all Mardi Gras day as the floats are going by down there. I'm drunk. They're saying horrible things about me. My friend who is on the forest came and read me the report and he said, you better get out of town. We found some stuff. I was already a convicted felon. It was hard timing. Angola, get out of town.

And by the way, your friend Michael is dead.

And

I, I was the last one to talk to him alive. I don't know what I said. I don't know if I had anything to do with it. I'm a blackout drinker. So that was on my list. My friends in New Orleans that I had cheated, the ones that I had hurt, the ones that we had, you know, we had done very, not very nice things to each other as women.

They were all on my list. And I had no idea how all of this New Orleans stuff was going to play out because I was afraid to go back there.

Want to know the truth? And guess what? Was 1980 where the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous was in New Orleans? And I was like, what? We're going to go to that drinking town and have a sober get together

and our group, we save. We save money and we go, we have kind of a bank account. We put money in for years and then we get the plane tickets and we get to go. So I did that and we went down to New Orleans as a group and I'm on the plane. I know it's Alabama on the plane. Clancy was on the plane.

I mean, I thought, OK, I'm all right today, you know? But then I'm thinking, this is my alcoholic think. And then if we go down, they're not going to know me because Clancy's going to be on the plane. Alabama's going to play on the plane. I'll just be one of the passengers, you know?

So, yeah, how we think, right, Right. So we get to New Orleans and I kind of take him on a field trip, and we went back to the scene of the crime. Very many different places,

Clancy and the bunch. We all went to this place called Buster Holmes and we begged him to let us in and, and I got behind the bar and I put out root beers for everybody. And Clancy, we all say Mickey Mouse firm. That was the place I would go. I could get red beans and rice,

real French bread and butter for $0.95, and I would eat there a lot. And they brought out their best for us. And I went out that night and I saw my old roommate, the one I was sleeping on her couch, and my friend Michael was killed. She didn't recognize me. Just how you had cleaned me up in Alcoholics Anonymous at almost five years of sobriety spoke volumes. I didn't have to say a word. And I stood in front of her and told her who I was,

and she was blown away.

We were staying at the Hyatt Hotel where my other friend Robin, who was one of my other good friends, was a cocktail waitress. So she came out to my room the same a drunk as a skunk. She lay it on my bed. I remember her cocktail waitress uniform. I had to kind of snap it up for her. It was like coming open and she's got the big book. I wish I would have had a camera. She's coming out of her little cocktail thing. She's got the big book. She's passed out. She doesn't remember coming to see me at all.

And

Denny is sober in January. 25 years

Robin is sober. 25 years in Boston and I'm her sponsor

and they weren't ready that day, but just being an example of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I got to go back to New Orleans a few years later, and Denny

introduced me to the man who lived downstairs of the apartment where I stayed on her couch. And that Mardi Gras thing happened

with my friend Michael being killed. And the man was an Alcoholics Anonymous, and he sat and talked to me because he heard everything that happened that morning. And I found out that I had nothing to do with him pulling the gun on the cop who killed him. I had nothing to do with kicking him out. I had nothing to do with it

and it was an amazing piece of freedom that came from being willing.

Talks about willingness is all over these 8 pages. I was willing to face it. I was willing to do what I had to do and by being an Alcoholics Anonymous I got to have that healing happen. The circle got to close and another beautiful thing about that is

Danny went back to law school and one day for fun and for free because I was very embarrassed about being a felon. She went

researched, found out, got me in a general pardon from the state of Louisiana of people who were one time offenders,

and sent me that piece of paper in the mail that freed me. So talk about knowing a new freedom and a new happiness. That definitely was a gift from Alcoholics Anonymous. And I,

I got to,

I got to go home and be with my family on my sister's wedding.

And Ginny, a woman named Jenny, became my sponsor at about 5:00. And she was terrific. She softened me up and taught me how to be a woman. And

one day I called her and I said I was talking about my husband because he was being mean to me that day. And so I called her and started to whine. And she said, Sharon, I think it's time you call your father and ask me if you can start making financial amends.

And it's like, no, we're talking about something, you know, my husband being mean. I want a Hawaiian a minute. But she was, I don't know. I think they go to sponsor school or something happens and they're ready there by the phone with a checklist and

doesn't matter if you call in your, you know, he broke your leg. I think it's time you go call and make financial amends because it's next on the checklist. And

so I, I kind of argued that, you know, only quietly through the phone. I said, OK, I'll call him. And my father had been and walked me down the aisle when I was 2 1/2 years sober to another member of Alcoholics Anonymous and gave me away. My father had gone to the Pacific group with me and met all of you and liked you.

My father, somebody gave him the book, you know, literature, took it home and read it because that's how he is. And there's a moment that I never want to forget because I found this photograph only a few years ago, and it was my wedding day and it was my father talking to me. It was at the end of my wedding because I was having a Peggy Lee moment. Is that all there is to a wedding? You know,

everybody's leaving. I want everybody to stay. We're having a good time. And

I was like this with my chin on my hand and my wedding garb. And my father was right here

and we were eye to eye on that photograph. And it had been years. And I just found that photograph a few years ago. And I remember what he said to me that day. He said, Sharon, look at your life. If you think about doing what you're doing before, think twice because you've got it made. He was beginning to see the results of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he liked all of you. So when I called my father, Jenny had me call him at around five years of sobriety and asked him if I could make amends. He said sure.

He had read the book

on page 78, it says most Alcoholics owe money. And he put the calculator tape, my father, the Capricorn, on that page. And he had worked on my dossier and figured it out. And my brother said my dossier was about 3 inches thick. He said he saw it once in the office. It was pretty thick. So my father's, you know, he's an accounting kind of head, and he kept track of everything. So he worked it out. And when I called that day and he had a total for me, I was shocked.

I was what? And then the second thought was, it's too high. You know, it's like,

because you know how we are.

And so I called her back and I said, oh, my God, it's this much. And so she's, you know, let me rant a little bit. And he was ready for me. And, you know, my mother said that he's told her too. If I called and I stay sober long enough and get to this part of the book, I will call. And if I'm not home, would you please give her this figure here? And she said it was

circled in red. It was circled in red.

So I get a new resentment, you know, just

keep those sponsors busy. And so she said, all right, call him back in two days and see if he'll accept your payment terms.

Well, I thought, OK, that's right. I didn't go to Europe like the rest of the children.

They all graduated from college and he bought them a trip to Europe. Oh, that's right, I didn't graduate from college. Let's see.

But he bought them all a car too. Oh, that's right. I took two.

I kept thinking he might amend it a little bit.

I was hopeful when I made that call in two days. And he said he accepted my terms. He didn't say, oh, Gee, I've been thinking about it. I know it's a little high, you know, I know you're working hard. You're sponsoring people. You're trying to be of service. No, he just said OK. And he accepted my payment terms. That was like, I called Jenny right back. I said, oh, my God, he accepted my term. She said good then, without fail,

because you may be the only example of Alcoholics Anonymous your father ever sees. I don't know about you. I know it's Bill's birthday here,

but there's something that makes my spine straighten when somebody says you may be the only example of Alcoholic Anonymous that that person will ever see.

There's no way I can do it justice, But I want to try to do my best. I want to shine up my cheeks and shine up my shoes and straighten on up and press my clothes and be a good example. And so she used that line on me and she got me, you know, she got me. She said don't be late with that check. Do not be late with that check

and make sure that, you know, you send it on time so he gets it on time every month, every single month. And she said one more thing because, you know, sponsors want more for you than you want for them, for yourself. She wanted more for me than I wanted for myself. She said, are you willing to grow through this with your father? Because she didn't say you're willing to heal. You only have a wonderful relationship. Are you willing to have the guilt go away? Because I always said that's not possible. She said, are you willing to grow through this?

And that's been my process in Alcoholics Anonymous is growth. And so I understood what she was saying. I said, OK, you know, we had grown. We had grown into a better relationship as father and daughter. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't it wasn't real emotional or comfortable yet, but we were growing towards something. So I said OK, She said, then don't send that check alone in the mail.

Put a note with it about your life. Do not send the cold hard cash alone. It was, I don't. He doesn't really care about my

life, you know,

OK. So the first time I did it, she said she didn't care. Do it anyway. I told him about some panel I had gone to at the women's prison, you know, thinking he's not going to want to hear from me again. But I'm such a little bit of a rebellion person. And I just wrote about the panel. I went. He was interested, you know, my dad was interested in my life. And he thought that, you know, he liked you people. My father was not an alcoholic, but I don't know, he seemed to have a lot of the ilk of the humor that we have,

so he liked that. I would share with him some of the fun things that I got to do in Alcoholics Anonymous and facts. So much so that he would walk down the street and blow my anonymity to people. I go back to class reunions and they go, God, you've been in how long now? You know, It's like, yeah, your dad was telling me all about you coffee the other day. I was like, okay,

so my dad got a check in a note, a check in the card. I remember Father's Day wasn't so hard, You know, I remember I would stand over the card in my early sobriety, the Father's Day cards and I would sweat. I would, and I'm not a sweater, but I would literally have beads of sweat because I, oh God, oh, that's so close. But it's not saying, Oh yeah, that that's too mushy. Can't have, you know, I would sometimes walk away and not even get a Father's Day card. I would just give him a flower card and write something in it. But I, I seem that as I was in this process of that,

that note or that checking that card, that the Father's Day thing got easier. It seemed like the trips home got a little more comfortable. We could talk about something in the newspaper or something on the news, or we could discuss a little bit more about my life. And

I was in the middle of this process when I went home for my sister's wedding. Long segue

and they picked me up at the airport. I'm I'm coming alone.

I was on a night flight. I got stuck in Chicago. My neck was like this. I slept somewhere on the seat with the air conditioning blowing on me. It's early morning, they're all in the van. It's like they've already been there having a good time. They're fed, watered and rested, you know what I mean? And they're picking me up early in the morning. I'm getting off the plane in Cedar Rapids, IA and I get in the van and it's like, hi, hi, hi, hi. And then,

OK, my sister's back with the same conversation with my father. It seemed like they just picked up 10 years ago talking about finance. He's even asking her opinion and she's, you know, and he's listening to her. So number one sisters in the front with all of my dad's attention. Well, OK, so I look in the back and there's my mom and hi, mom. Hi. She's talking to my sister, the bride to be right about, you know, the wedding dress or the gifts or something. And I'm thinking, well, you know what?

I got married. I know a little bit about that. And Dad, don't you remember him giving you back the money I owe you? You know, I'm doing better now. And my brother is talking fishing with his new brother-in-law. And it's like, well, I know how to beta hook, you know, I've even, you know, eaten the trout right from the stream. And but nobody cares. They're like all in their stuff. And I'm sitting in the middle of the van and before I know it, I'm having a cathartic sobbing,