The Woman to Woman Conference in Kansas City, KS

Hello, my name is Norma and I'm a real alcoholic.

I'm so glad to be here. This has really been an incredible, incredible event and I applaud all of y'all. It worked so hard for the last year, whether it was with your hands or with your heart, you know, putting together this incredible, you know, gathering and and I want to say that I love our fellowship. I love a A.

It is the most incredible thing to know that worldwide we have a spiritual family to turn to anytime, any place, anywhere.

And I also want to say thank you, Al Anon,

because Al Anon loved us when nobody else would. So I want to say, let's hear it for Al Anon

and newcomers, welcome home.

We've been saving you a chair

and you're in for the adventure of your life, a rocket ride like one had never been part of before. So stick around.

The theme of our gathering is keep it simple,

and that's really important in the world. Thank you. Of today's complexities,

Bill Wilson was the one that wrote. Genuine simplicity today is to be found in whatever principles, practices and service that can permanently ensure our widespread harmony and effectiveness. And that unity for us is a matter of life and death. You know, we have to keep it simple

if we want to live and if we want to enjoy our lives.

And I feel that my life didn't begin

until I found our fellowship,

The Big Book says.

Well, first of all, let me say that I've been clean and sober since August 1st, 1983.

I celebrated 26 years this last August and it was a celebration, celebration of life. And I always like to reflect on what God shared with me in the last year. And this last year, what I felt I got from God is that

what you do is less important than who you are, and that getting what you want is far less important than wanting what you have. And that understanding God is less important than knowing that God understands you.

What I was like, what happened? What I am like now. I grew up in the Woodstock era with Janice Joplin singing our freedom songs and Bob Dylan. And you know, I live in Austin, TX, so I became a songwriter too. It's just part of it all.

And I wrote a song that was reflective of my life experiences when I was in the disease, and some of it went like this. The beers turned to wine, the wine is turned to gin, my laughter turns to size. The good times, the good friends, our memories. And all that's left to understand is the glass in my hand.

My life story was predictable. Anybody could have written it. I was a young girl searching, requitting the 6th St. bars down in Austin. Depressed,

at times suicidal, in and out of relationships with men of questionable character.

I changed my jobs often. I had no permanent home. I seldom contacted my family. I missed work a lot. Those periods of depression got closer and closer together and there was little hope for my future. The pages of time begin to turn and the riding on the wall was clear to everyone but me.

Because, like it says, in the doctor's opinion, we are unable to differentiate what is true from what is false.

My life seemed normal to me, but my friends, my family, my coworkers, they would know, but they might not say that. They expected that phone call from the police, a car wreck, an overdose, a mental hospital, the phone call with the bad news,

or no call at all. But there was no tragic ending to my life.

Why? Because God brought Himself into my story,

and when he did, everything changed.

The Big Book describes alcoholism as a family disease, and I was affected by the disease and its symptoms growing up, long before I took my first strength. My mom was an alcoholic, always had a drink in her hand from the time I was little till the time I left the house. Dad a rageaholic. Every family member was affected. One sister seriously overweight in an abusive relationship.

Another sister ran with the hair on gang running guns doing heroin speed. Another brother just divorced himself emotionally from all of us. And then I have

last brother who's dying now.

Every mark about the holism upon it

now. There's nothing so tragic as being alive but not enjoying your life.

I escaped that home environment eventually, and I made a number of those geographical changes. You know how we are. And it was on one of these trips that I accidentally found recovery. It was a time in my life when I was at an emotional bottom of 2000 miles away from my family and friends. And things look good on the outside, but on the inside,

you know, I'll look in the mirror. Loneliness and despair

staring back in my face. And it was during this time that I took a bottle of pills and I was intending to kill myself. Someone found me, rescued me, and after that I just went through the motions. A little robot, eating, sleeping, working, but not really wanting to be alive.

And it was shortly after this that I met a girl on New Year's Eve. We were playing pool together

and she wasn't drinking on New Year's Eve and I couldn't figure this out.

And she told me that she was in recovery and she told me her story.

And this affected me because after hearing it, I began to question myself. I couldn't drink anymore without thinking about why. You know what they say, You know you got to head full of a A and a belly full of foods and it just doesn't work anymore.

And I found an old low bottom Trunk Club in Richmond, VA and I became a member of a A and the incredible journey of recovery began. But while I let go of the booze and the tequila, I still held on to a lot of sick ways of living.

I married my first husband during this time, and I didn't recognize him as an addict, an alcoholic, or an abuser. But he knew a victim when he saw one,

and looking back, I realized I had married that kind of man who needed to put other people down in order to build himself up. See, he thought that me being in recovery was great, that was okay being an alcoholic. But he thought that marijuana was a medicinal herb and that maybe I need to mellow out again. So every night he would offer me some night after night after night.

And the moment came that I gave in to the pull of temptation.

I found myself back in the grips of obsession, Step one staring me in the face.

See, now at this time in my life, I've got three years in the program, but to be honest, all I had was abstinence. I had the fellowship and I had the meetings, but I hadn't worked the steps. I hadn't used to sponsor. I didn't have a relationship with God. I had found relief, but I hadn't found recovery.

Here I am in the midst of denial,

rationalization, self justification, an unhappy marriage, a new baby I didn't have any idea how to take care of, overwhelming fear.

I hadn't found the solution the program offers. So when I relapsed on pot, this fully opened the door to every other addiction I had. And they were all calling my name loud.

And

I decided I I had to come back in, pick up a new desire trip and start over.

At this point, I'm pretty desperate. I'm searching for the answer. Because you see, I knew other people had succeeded where I had felt. And I had this new willingness driving me on. And I started listening to speaker tape, you know, where had I missed the boat? Somewhere I had to find that answer,

and I listen to all of these tapes over and over and over. I heard the same thing, and it was no surprise. Work the steps, work the steps, work the steps.

Anything had to change. So I picked up this baby and I left the abusive relationship and fled. From what I saw, my childhood repeating itself in the next few years was a long process of learning how to let go, how to live,

and how to let God in my life. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

It says in the 12 and 12, without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. All AAS have found, too, that unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required for just sobriety, they still haven't much chance of becoming truly happy without it. They cannot live too much useful purpose or in adversity be able to summon the faith

that can meet any emergency.

I've heard that surrender is not giving up or giving in. It's joining the women's side. And I'll never forget that first time that I had my surrender. I was never homeless, but there was a time that I didn't have a home. When I took that baby and left, all I had was a car and a bunch of stuff in the car in my last paycheck from work.

And so I lived on this couch for a while and I stayed with that relative for a week. One person here, another person there.

That was a hard situation because nobody could really keep a woman and her baby. No job, no way to support themselves for very long. It's tough.

One night I found myself at one of the little clubs a, a clubs down in Austin. They're having to dance there, the babies with his daddy. And I'm sitting there on the steps and I'm thinking, you know, this is my turning point. Either I'm going to go out, get drunk, relapse, lose the baby and die. I'm going to go forward into recovery. It was that point at which I thought, you know, either God is

and what these people have is real or God isn't and they're just a bunch of fools and hypocrites.

But I somehow believe that what they had was genuine. And I made a decision in my heart that night that I was going to do the next right thing. And if God was who God says he is, then

going to take care of me and my baby. And all I had to do is stay sober that day

spreading. Within a few minutes, somebody came up to me and offered me a place to stay. I said, well, I don't have a lot of money. I said, well, I've got a little trailer in South Austin. You can have a ram in it for 50 bucks a night. You think you can do that? I said, yeah, yeah, I think I can swing that. And it was about 10 miles out of town. And there was a lot of other people in that trailer. Some of them were drinking. But you know, when you decided to go forward, it doesn't matter what other people are doing.

So I did odd jobs. I cleaned houses. I go for a mechanic in three months after the hot summer was over, I got a nice job, I got a little apartment and I moved in before the electricity was even turned on. I was so glad to have my own space,

but I'll never forget God coming through for me that night.

There's an old AA saying you can take the trunk out of the gutter, but how do you take the gutter out of the truck? Takes the grace of God

and I found this out as God began to bring me through a number of experiences of different areas of my life, all of them bringing me to different points of surrender at about five years of the program and I began to pray about a number of different things. I began to let go and let God the area of relationships. I played that game of boy meets girl on a a campus.

I met a few sick people.

Things weren't working out because, you know, water shits on level healthy man wasn't going to have much to do with me. And you know, I was attracting all of the guys that were as sick as I was. It wasn't their fault, wasn't my fault, you know, but things were not working out and the relationships naturally failed. And I began to talk to God,

and I said, you know God, I've tried to make things happen and I have failed over and over again. And the pain of trying to do this,

it's just too great. I can't make it happen. I surrender. I give up. I'm done. And I said, God, if there's a man out there he's meant to be for me,

you're going to have to land them in my lap because I'm just not going to look. And I began to look for God's will every day instead of a husband.

I was hungry at this time also for more spiritual deaths. I asked God to lead me to people who had spiritual wisdom

and also refused to sink into that self pity trap of staying home not after lonely night on the weekends. You know, that what they say, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So I thought, you know, I'm not going to isolate. I'm going to get my act together. I'm going to call people up at the club and I'm going to say, hey, let's all go out to dinner. Let's all go out to a movie, you know, and I begin to do these things for myself.

So

instead of staying home depressed, there was one night I decided I'd heard about this little open mic downtown. There's a little coffee house. And I grabbed my guitar. I'll play a few tunes. And I went on down there and I walked in and there's this guy and he's singing songs about God and he's playing the harmonica and he's got a pal on the side, Blues guitar.

And they were bringing the house down

and this man would go over to the side after he was done and he would pray with people.

And I walked over and I said,

introduce myself

and say, do you really believe in God or do you just like to sing about it?

And he said, Oh yes, I believe. And we began a friendship

and two years later we married. It was my husband. They call him Blind Dave. I wish he could be it because I've never known anyone else so much in love with the Fellowship as this man. I've seen him go to the ends of earth for people. He doesn't give up on anyone. And he studies the big books so much that he's virtually memorized it.

In fact, one of the conferences we went to this year, they found a little button and they pinned it on him. And it's a walking big butt.

Davis always been there for me,

helping me to walk it and not just talk it. And I have helped him travel his path because, you know, Dave was born blind and he can't walk without me by his side. But when I'm beside him, it is his spiritual vision that guides me.

His compassion, his wisdom, His faith has brought me and many others something that the Big Book calls better than gold,

and it is God's purpose between us. Let's produce something I can only describe as a supernatural experience in our marriage. We celebrated this last summer, 20 years together

and I've always been grateful to my husband for being such a wonderful father to the son I brought into our marriage. And he also has a son. I want to tell you a little bit about him. We didn't see my stepson Caesar for the 1st 10 years that Dave and I were married because he was speed freak and they're a little paranoid. You just have to wave at them in the distance, you know?

His aim was to be the best methamphetamine cooked

Texas and he was well on the way to achieve this glory. But you know, the day came when Caesar decided he was going to take charge of his own destiny and we were happy to participate. We were happy to help him and he wanted to make some life changes, but he was unsuccessful because he didn't recognize the problem of addiction in his life.

He needed more than we could get. Family members can't help other family members.

You know this. We do not have the objectivity. We're too close

and so we had to begin that long, painful journey. Letting go of this son addiction caused a lot of damage in our family. There were those crises, the late night phone calls, the legal problems, the interruptions, many visits to jail. The last one cost him three years of his young life.

And when Cesar went to jail one summer, I was really still angry at him. I knew these resentments were wrong. I knew they were fear based and I knew they would interfere in my relationship with this son and in my marriage

and I knew I had to do something.

And I begin to pray that I would have a mother's heart for Caesar.

And so, you know, when I had to write letters for Day, I would begin riding him, encouraging things. I begin to look for the good things he was saying and doing. And I prayed for him as I would pray for my own son. By the time he got paroled out of prison, I was able to welcome him home sincerely

and I saw not that arrogant self-centered young man that left, but an humble broken child of God hoping for a new chance of life. We laid out a plan of action for him to follow as he began life and then one of the rules was he couldn't stay home alone if we left, he went with us. So as it happened this first several weeks, my husband and I were speaking at a A clubs all over Texas.

And on one of these nights, he came up behind me and he put his arms around me,

and he said, I'm really proud to be part of who you are, and I hope that one day I can be like you.

It was such a beautiful moment of intimacy, one that would never have occurred, that I continued to harbor selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.

As it says in the 12 and 12, whenever we had to choose join character and comfort, the character building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness. Seldom did we look at character building and something desirable in and of itself. We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.

I'm so grateful for the 12 steps that taught me this and grateful for the healing in my family, especially now.

You know, things weren't always perfect then, but they were a whole lot better than they used to be because instead of jail and cellmates, these are now found the family in the home. And instead of cooking math, they're selling drugs. He built his own little reconstruction business, and he was doing a good job at it, too. He brought us a beautiful little granddaughter.

She brings us so much joy,

Cesar told us once. Dad, I know I'm not like you and Norma are in recovery with Dave and I are very passionate in our recovery life, but my sobriety is important to me. And you know, that had to be enough for us

during these years. As long as I continue to remember that my purpose in this situation was to encourage and help Caesar to treat him as I would a newcomer, that I could get out of the way and let things be. Doctor Paul and his story reminds me there's a bit of good and the worst of us and a bit of bad and the best of us and that we are all children of God.

Caesar came over one September, kind of like now. The weather was cool and crisp and we had a really nice visit. And we talked about making popcorn balls and carbon pumpkins. Looking forward to that first really good cool cold snap. Maybe having a little family barbecue in the backyard.

You know what made the visit nicest? It was so normal. There's no crisis. Nobody's asking for money.

There is, you know, no tension, no problems. I just begin to

lack and believe that, you know, maybe things are going to be OK.

It's been 2 years. Caesar was living in a nice, normal life.

The next week I was at work and I got called into the office and they said you got a phone call

and it was the hospital. They said, see, there's been in a car accident. His heart stopped on the way and they were unable to revive him.

I'm sorry, they said. But but he's died.

Out of all the possible scenarios for our future, I never imagined this one

tragedy cast shadow across our path and threatened to block the sunlight of the Spirit.

But it was the arms of the fellowship that reached out to me and Dave over the next few days. God showed Himself and carried out His purpose in so many ways.

At a time of great need, I can say that God did not disappear from us, but He made Himself visible through all of you.

When the hand of God seemed heavy

and even unjust, new lessons for living were learned,

new research resources for courage were uncovered, and the conviction came. God doesn't have a mysterious life. His wonders to perform

in more ways than I can tell you. In here and now,

Dave and I found strength beyond our own grace and a Peace of Mind that stood firm in the face of difficult circumstances.

We had many people come up to us, young and old, in recovery,

so I'm watching you and Gabe walk through what you just did.

It's made me want to recommit

for what we ate

and we can't bring Caesar back, but we can remember the good things that he said and did.

Like every alcoholic who had the wreckage of the past try and make up for, Caesar had his share of shame, pain, guilt and remorse. He was unable to finish his immense before he died,

but I keep a vision in my mind's eye of how he would have been had he lived to accomplish all he wanted to do.

Can I see his blue eyes? It's mischievous smile on the face of a a little 3 year old girl who's wrapped herself around my heart

and I see God's purpose in this.

My face has been built most in the last few years over the slow process of surrendering my son Sean.

Sean, such a wonderful child, very bright, high maintenance, you know the kind. Strong willed red surface around me. Took a lot of consistency, a lot of encouragement, a lot of discipline, unity and prayer for Dave and I to raise this young man.

When he was 12 or 13, he decided that he was going to go live with his father. Well, this brought up plenty of fear. This is the ex-husband

who is so unforgiving and still bitter. So my young teenager and I, we we had an on and off relationship. It was touch and go during these years, and I had the challenge of having to stick to my convictions in the middle of it all at the risk of losing his love and affection.

But you know, there can't be peace at any price, right? Sometimes he called, he'd be rude on the phone and I'd take a stand and I'd say, Sean, this isn't acceptable in our house, and he would hang up. Click might be six months where I heard from him again. But I wasn't willing to let go of my principles out of fear. And, you know, I really wanted to be there to make sure that he was brushing his teeth, doing his homework, hanging out with the right friends.

The proximity doesn't really guarantee us mothers anything. You know that

Sean was 16 when he stepped off the bus near his father's house, ran out in front of a car and was hit.

The hospital called. He had a head injury. They found a library card in his pocket and they traced him back to me. Dave and I left immediately for the hospital

we found I'm still unconscious and bloody on the Gurney. Dave and I prayed for him right there before they rolled them into ICU.

And I wanted to stay with him for 24 hours a day until he got better, until he could sit up, until he could eat again. And I learned I could pray for 24 hours a day. I didn't eat and I didn't sleep because prayer was my mainstay. My fear was almost overwhelming. Could you see? Doctors can't tell you when somebody's got a head injury, how it's going to turn out. They don't know.

They can't tell you from one day to the next what's going to happen. I was facing powerlessness like I had never experienced it before.

Is it going to live or is he going to die? And if he lives, what's he going to turn out like? Is he going to come back with everything or is he going to be a vegetable? Modern science can only go so far. The rest is in God's hands.

They continue to

encouraged me saying Norma, God's going to be with us no matter how this goes and somewhere in the middle of it we're going to find a gift.

Sean within ICU for 12 days and then one day his father showed up demanding that I leave. He said Sean doesn't want me there. He said get out.

So imagine this picture. Your son has a head injury. He's not out of ICU. He's in and out of consciousness. The ex-husband wants his own mother to leave. No one could believe this.

I went with the head nurse into her office and we sat together pouring over every legal document I could dig up, looking for some loophole that would allow me to say, because you see, when fathers, when the father took custody, I signed some papers. You know, I'm not really thinking I'm going to need legal rights anymore. Sean's, you know, almost grown. He's 12 or 13 by now.

We couldn't find anything as we looked over these papers.

I was allowed to visitation rights and that was it. And nothing covered this particular situation.

And so the head nurse left saying I'm sorry, there's really nothing I can do.

So I'm sitting there in this little cubicle all alone

with all the divorce papers and the child custody documents and everything the state of Texas had sent me.

And I remembered the big Book said

that God enables us to match calamity with serenity.

So I did the only thing that I need to do. I got down on my knees and I prayed. And I said, God, I cannot imagine why you would want me to be at my side at this time in your life. Why not? But if it is your will, then I accept it and perhaps one day I'll know why.

And I picked myself up and left, not knowing if I'd ever see my son alive again.

The next day I got a call from the nurse. She asked would I please come down and attend a meeting And we were going to try to work things out. And I said sure, I'll be there. So I showed up and went into this room and there was one of those long walnut polished tables and there was the head nurse and there was my ex-husband. There was the chaplain and the at risk nurse and the bouncer and the social worker. And I mean, I don't know who I was there, but we were all there. We were all going to work it out.

Sean is still an ICU.

I'm worried about my son. I still have it slept. I'm a shell of a person. My ex is spouting off life. I'm doing what I can to defend myself in this situation but you know it's my word against his. This is all going nowhere and I have nothing left,

but something unexpected happen

that later I saw as miraculous.

One of the young nurses caring for Sean quietly spoke up and said, Sir, did you know that when his mother's with him, his vital signs begin to perk up on the monitor?

He said no, I didn't know that.

She said yes, Sir. And when he sits, when she sits beside him during the day, he's calm. But when she's not there, he becomes combative and we have to sedate him.

He said no, I didn't know that. She said yes Sir, and as long as his mother is beside him during the night, he'll go to sleep.

But when she leaves, he tries to get up and follow her.

He falls down to injure himself so we have to time to the bed.

How big old 16 year old boy tied to the bed?

He said. No, I didn't know that. Well, I don't want my son drugged and tied to the bed. I guess she can stay.

You know, when things were looking so dark, what caused this sudden turn of events? What made this bitter, controlling man change his mind?

He wasn't Breckenridge Hospital. It wasn't the head nurse. It wasn't the state of Texas. It wasn't me. It wasn't my ex

and no one is going to convince me anything more than it was the power of God that allowed me to sit by my son instead until he fully recovered from all of his injuries.

Well, except for a limp and one leg that has exempted him from active military service.

I'm sorry,

we'll have to show our patriotism in some other way, and we will.

Sean left the hospital later on and he went to live with his dad and of course that brought up even more fear.

But the day came when these two came to blows because it was like two teenagers in one house and

came to live with me

and we went through six months of hell. Because you see, the young man that came home was not the same as the one that left. He had all the characteristics of self will combined with teenage heritage. You know, we gave him everything he could have ever wanted. But teenagers demand perfection and we simply can't deliver.

The hardest moment of my life was when I had to release him, to suffer the consequences of his own choices, and I sent him back to death.

But he didn't go back to that. He went to a youth shelter

and CPS Child Protective Services stepped in and made him a ward of the state.

The next three years he was at foster care in these years were the most difficult that I'd ever experienced, traumatic for both of us. He was transferred around to numerous foster homes all over the place. Sometimes he would run away, sometimes he would make a suicide attempt. You know, the only way I survived my emotional trauma and fear was by focusing on the truth,

on prayer and service.

And remember that just because I don't see the evidence, past experience shows me God is on the scene, working behind the lines.

And yet, I really wanted the clock to turn back. I wanted that little boy in his room. I couldn't accept that he had grown up and then he wasn't a little boy anymore. I wasted many precious moments of today looking. For years I felt they'd been stolen. But I caused my own measure. God didn't do it.

CS Lewis says that pain is God's Clarion call to a deaf world.

The 12 and 12 says pain is the touchstone of growth on which our character is carved. I can tell you that pain propels my program. You know nothing and no one could text the amount of sheer powerlessness I felt over the next few years. I was forced by circumstances to my knees and God came through because during the next few years, my faith became strong as I began to live. The solution? This program,

the mainstay of my sanity was to throw myself into service work. Literally every night of the week I was working one-on-one IT with a group, do step work, speaking at treatment centers, sharing my experience, strength and hope at meetings, actively looking for the newcomer who may still be suffering.

Remember 1 Christmas?

Another Christmas for that Sean. I was trying to put on a brave face for my husband at least, but I was pretty depressed.

The phone rings 8:30 in the morning. Christmas, One of my sponsees, she's depressed. We talked for 3045 minutes on the phone and I hang up and I'm a different person. Suddenly my life is better than I thought it was.

You know

I had a good Christmas that year.

It's just like it says and build story. Many times I've gone to my old hospital in despair on talking to a man there I would be amazingly lifted up and sat on my feet. It is a design for living that works in Refill.

Sometimes I'd get a call. I'm at work. He's run away again. We don't know where he is. We'll let you know if we find him. I would have to wipe away my tears, go down to the club, find a girl to do their step work. The third step, the 4th step, the 5th step. You know, I don't know what they got out of it, but I got what I needed every single day. And I refused to think of the word remorse. Morgan reflection I focused on today.

I envision the good. I prayed for other people's teenagers too,

and it was during this time when I had so much uncertainty, so much fear, and such great despair. I felt like I was the one God was carrying when there was just one set of footsteps in the sand. I was experiencing the kind of faith that works under all circumstances. And I lived and breathed that third step

every day, not with resignation, but with strength. This was a time that I felt I wasn't carrying the message. The message was carrying me

into a place of conviction and comfort, whatever it was that I needed to live in that day. And through all of this, God transformed me.

I remember the day that I finally and fully surrendered Sean, because it was Mother's Day and another letter had come in the mail. Mark returned to Cinder in his handwriting and I finally broke and I stopped giving him the power to hurt me anymore,

and I wrote about it in my journal.

All right, dear God, I realize how much I've continued struggling to make something happen between me and my son, and how the failure of Jeffrey has further depressed me and pushed me into despair, and how I've shouted oh, oh, I have great faith that God will restore my son to me.

Still whistling in the dark, pretending happiness, yet afraid and doubtful. I realized that for me, my son has become my drug of choice. But I'm only happy when I'm in a relationship with him, unhappy when he's not here, and that while we're still on, I'm still worried that you know it's going to end if I don't do or say that right thing. And I desperately try to buy His love.

My phone calls, my emails, they're acts of desperation

and sometimes He manipulates me because He knows my fear will drive me to do just about anything. And I feel guilty for going on with my life. My prayers are tainted with begging and pleading with God.

God, I hope that today I can put my desperation on the altar and put first the desire for your will in my life and in my son's life. I hope I can base my future happiness on my relationship with You,

not on the presence or absence of my son. I pray I can accept this day for what it is and let you make things happen in your own time, as my efforts have failed miserably. Help me surrender this desire. Give me peace and strength no matter what my present circumstances. Help me look for your will today, not my son, And help me be more grateful for the rich, beautiful life I had and for each person in it.

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Never again did I return to the level of despair that I had before. I cried out in anguish and God answered me with freedom.

You know faith isn't really faith until it's all you got left to hang on to.

My response to anguish have been to sit at the door of God's purpose and enter the slow death of self pity. I would not be the person I am today

because pain without purpose is just pain. The uncertainties, the impossibilities of my life without God is purely a human experience. But when I invite God in, learn what I'm supposed to learn, turn in faith toward His loving care, then and only then does God assign a purpose to that pain, using it for higher good in my life and in the lives of others.

When all I have is misery and fear against life's impossibilities, I'm left with nothing but depression and despair. But if I invite God in against the impossibilities of life, against my fear, what was merely a human experience has now become a divine experience, and therefore no longer hopeless. And I have found that God can away any balance.

I heard someone say something once that I have never forgotten,

that if God can accomplish His purpose in this world through a broken heart, then I have to thank Him for breaking mine,

Einstein said. There's two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as low. Everything is America,

Bill Wilson said. The good is the enemy of the best, and it took me a long time to understand what he meant by that. But finally, one day I understood Bill meant what is a good thing for him may not be the very best thing for everyone involved. Because only God really knows what's best

when I don't have to know it all. That I can live in the present moment and trust that God will protect and provide for me today,

tomorrow, and in the future. Living by faith, not sight, blind faith,

when I can get to this place in my heart and mind. It is a place that is beyond acceptance of life's uncertainties, beyond surrendering. It's a place of total abandonment. Abandonment of all of me, all I have, all I am, and all I know. My husband calls it free, falling

into the grace of God.

Can I let go of all I wish to happen in my life for what God wants to happen instead? And believing this, can I understand that if it is God's will, it's better than anything I can possibly dream up?

Make your list of what you think your life ought to be.

Scratch it and throw it away, girls, for what God wants it to be, because it's going to be a whole lot better than anything you can dream up. That's what the Big Book says. When we look back, we realize the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in anew and wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances.

If I can accept joy in life,

can I not accept sorrow too?

The answer is yes, because you see God, and only God can turn what was meant for bad into something good.

And what if things don't turn out the way I hope?

It may seem that my life is fraught with tragedy, but

if my response is to turn to God in the midst of it, than something different pans out. Because when things don't turn out the way I hope, I truly believe that because of God's will fully operating in my life, I will still have purpose, power, and peace. My happiness can never be dependent on something or someone outside of me, but only on my relationship with the Almighty. What about you?

Did you hope to end up tonight addicted and afflicted?