Steps 4 and 5 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

OK, I am to talk 72 minutes.

My name is Polly Pistol and I'm an alcoholic by God's grace in a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. I haven't had a drink since April the 11th of 1977. And for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you. I have a Home group and that's the third legacy group in Bellingham, WA. Woo Hoo. And I think that's the best group and all of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're ever in Bellingham, WA, we meet on Monday night at 7:00

and just give Dave or IA call and we'll take you to a meeting. And one of the great things about being sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous as Dave and I are in the phone book. So if you're ever there, just look us up in the phone book. It's amazing what happens when you get sober. And I have a sponsor, her name is Dotty H and she has a sponsor. And those are the things that make me a member in good standing in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. However,

that is not what keeps me sober. What keeps me sober is a loving God,

the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and working with others.

I am so honored to be here. Thank you so much, Bob. I've had the honor of being able to share with you at other things and it's just this is beautiful. And and I just with everybody that's here, I just feel humbled by it all. And I just thank you so much for allowing me to be here. And I was talking to my husband just a few minutes ago,

and I'm one of these people and Alcoholics Anonymous who comes to this podium and I am full of anxiety. I'm scared. And I'm glad to hear the other people were scared, too. And so I was telling my husband that a few minutes ago. And I would just, you know, I was just telling him I'm just full of anxiety. And he says, for God's sakes, Polly,

you're doing steps 4:00 and 5:00.

Why are you so full of anxiety? You sit at that dining room table at least once a week with that book open doing that. And it doesn't matter

because if if I took an inventory right now, I would find out that I'm really full of pride because what it is is is I want you to think well of me. And so that's the deal. So

anyway, what we're going to do today is talk about steps four and five. Now I have, I have met Charlie and Kate, but I'll tell you something, Charlie, you rocked my world last night. You have, I mean, step one was fabulous. And I just thank you so much that you were able to put that into words. Thank you.

The gift of gab. It's wonderful and it's wonderful. And Clancy I've his seconds and inches. I've been privileged to hear that talk before and I never, ever get tired of hearing it. I always hear more and more and it then I'm like, it's like reading the big book when I hear people speak again. A lot of times I'll be going somewhere and somebody will say, well, why do you want to go? You've heard them so many times. Yeah, but I haven't heard them

time and I know this time they're going to say something different and they always do. It's always something different. And and then Kelly and Kelly, I've never heard you speak and you are just beautiful. And I felt a kindred, you know, spirit towards you because your story is a lot like mine as you we probably know that it's that's a lot like mine. And I, I heard that today,

as you were telling, timelines are a little bit different, but certainly like mine. And I appreciate you, Sharon. Thank you so much. Beautiful step 2:00 and 3:00. I've never been to this conference before. I feel so honored to be here. But I've heard all the tapes from this conference. So I just thank you, Bob, for doing something. I I, to tell you the truth, yesterday, that was December the 11th, until you said

we're honoring Bill W's birthday, it never even registered with me. So fabulous. I think that's we honor everything else. Why not our co-founder? We honor Bob, you know his birthday, why not Bill's? We needed him to stay sober and show us away. OK, enough of the getting up. Let's get down to steps

four and five and let's start with Step 4. Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was step 4A. Business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a comperson, a person taking a commercial inventory, is a fact finding

and fact facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock and trade. One object is to disclose damage or unusable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. And the reason I read that paragraph, and it's not one that a lot of people usually highlight,

but the reason I read that

is because I didn't realize some of the things in me that were not valuable. And I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous very delusional and very naive. And I'm one of the people that say most everything I did that most people talk about

and Alcoholics Anonymous, such as having affairs, having abortions,

all of that kind of thing. I did sober in a, a

what happened for me as I was pretty naive. I grew up in a family that did not drink,

and I had parents that were married. Now, were they perfect and no more? And of course not. They weren't perfect. And what I did is I held on to all the things that my parents did that were the worst. And there was a psychologist. She may still be in Southern California, but I used to ride the freeways of Southern California an hour and a half each way to work every day. And in the afternoon, I would hear this lady,

and her name was Barbara De Angelis. She's not alcoholic. She's just a psychologist. But she said something to me that has resonated for many, many years. And she said we get to act out our parents pathology so we learn to forgive them. And that's what I got to do. I hung on to the things about my parents that were the worst

yet the truth is, is I was a very blessed child. And I can talk about this woman and a lot of people may know her, but I know my Texas friends know who she is. There was a woman, an Al Anon woman in Texas that was someone I loved a lot and was very dear to me. And her name was Marcy White. And Marcy White used to do Brownwood and all the stuff that that we all did getting sober.

And Marcy used to talk about the blessing. And she says that most people do not get the blessing until they get sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and then they get the blessing. And the blessing is, is that all of us deserve to be loved, cherished and adored,

but we don't get to feel that and a lot of our homes until we come to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. But she says there are some of us who come into the rooms and they have received the blessing

before they came here. And I am a woman who received the blessing. But I can assure you I had not a clue that I had received the blessing for a lot of years. I was sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had parents who are loving and they loved me. I'm an only child. I was a cherished child.

Were my parents perfect? Of course not. But what happened was because of a spiritual malady

and a disease called alcoholism, I never appreciated that. But I am so grateful to the inventory steps because it is through the inventory steps that I got to see the truth about the people in my life. And the truth is, is that I was the problem.

And the thing that happened for me is I was a military wife. I wasn't out, you know, having affairs, doing all that kind of stuff that was not becoming a military wife. And I was hidden away and my husband was always gone. But I had two little boys, and I was responsible for these two little boys. And I was absolutely incapable of taking care of these two little boys.

So when I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I got sober and I'm, I'm kind of the reluctant to get sober. I didn't come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and say, geez, there's a big book and a cup of coffee. I think I'll get sober. I didn't even know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm going to tell you this, which is really strange. I didn't even know an alcoholic until I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And the whole time I was in the military, I was the only one who drank like I drank. So it was a huge big secret. And even today, all the people that I've known in the military, none of them are NAA. And as far as I know, none of them need to be. So I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. What I did know was I'd seen 2 movies

that showed a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous and of one of them was Days of Wine and Roses and I'll Cry Tomorrow and I really didn't have a lot of identification with that. But what happened was, is I ended up going to treatment

to a county detox and go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, I don't know what happened from the time I ended up in that treatment center from having had that car wreck to the third time. I mean,

it's really kind of a blur because the first time I stayed sober for 58 days and the only thing that I was really interested in during that treatment center was another guy in the treatment center.

And we went off and we, you know, walked into Happy Destiny for 58 days. And then I was 12, stepped out of a sleazy motel and Euless, TX and brought back into that same treatment center, beaten up and a number numerous 100 other things. And I was brought back into that treatment center

and I was full of shame and had reached that place of incomparable

demoralization. I just, I knew that there's no way I can stay sober because now I'm sober again for the second time. And I know what happened in that motel. I know what happened behind closed doors with what I was doing to my two sons that nobody else knew was happening.

And I just, there was no way I believed I could live sober

because I felt like I had, I had hurt my parents, I had hurt my husband, I had hurt my children. I had demoralized myself. And I just, there was just no way I could stay sober. And that's why I love to hear Clancy talk about the feelings of an alcoholic. Because what happens is, is my problem start when I get sober?

I all of that stuff, all of that shame,

all of that, those feelings, everything comes up when I get sober.

Not didn't know anything about these steps.

I didn't know anything really about IAI hadn't hung around long enough to really, you know, learn anything. And So what happened was is I am a person who's tried to take my life three times and this was the third time I was going. I just couldn't suit up and show up for life. I just could not do life on life's terms. And So what I did is that was a seven day detox and I stayed in that treatment center seven days.

And when that detox was over, I got in my car and I got a script of Valium, which was absolutely no problem. Carswell Air Force Base would give me all the Valium I needed. And I went and got a script of Valium and a bottle of Scotch and I checked into a motel.

I believe that all of us have an Angel in in their life, an Angel, someone who leads us to this program. And this woman I worked with, she was an alcoholic. She just loved me. And she said something came over her. And that day she went looking for me and she found me in this. She found my car outside this motel and I hadn't shut. The door was just kind of closed. And she pushed it open. And on April the 8th of 1977,

I was pronounced dead on arrival in a hospital in Bedford, TX.

I believe that God's grace. I love when we talk about God's grace because I believe that that's what we all get to experience is God's grace. We get to have a gift unearned. Because I love what Johnny Harris says. I hope you're not sitting next to me if I ever get what I deserve because that's the deal. I hope you're not sitting. And, you know, I'm, I walk around

and Alcoholics Anonymous and sometimes I, I

get the privilege of sponsoring people who've done a lot of therapy and I understand that I did that too. I want it on the fast track to a a too. So I understand all the therapy and all of that good stuff. And but I just, you know, and they'll walk around saying, well, I deserve it.

Well, you know, it's like I am so grateful that my God is so merciful that I haven't gotten what I deserve because I have been given so much grace. I've been given so much grace

and one of the things about the disease of alcoholism and we've heard it over and over is that

we just can't, we can't differentiate the truth from the false. I don't know what's true and I don't know what's false. And So what happened for me is I got court committed to a treatment center in Dallas, TX and I got that. A Fort Worth judge said that I was a detriment to myself and others and I was court committed to treatment. And I entered that treatment center on April the 11th of 1977

and by God's grace, in a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, haven't had a drink since. Now this treatment center was a five step treatment center. So we went in there and in order to get out of there and especially if your court committed there, you had to work five steps. So we got step one. And I'm not real sure

what they said. They sure didn't say what you said, Charlie. And if they did, I didn't hear them.

And they told us about Step 2 and and I know we all did the prayer for step three. And then they had us write an inventory. Now what I ended up writing, and maybe some of you have had, you know, the privilege of doing this as well as I got to write a Hazleton autobiography. Now

I will guarantee you that that does not do anything for inventory. I would, I saw how I had been so abused as a child by an angry father. I saw how my mother who just had, she was such an abused child herself that she had, no, she just didn't have any self worth and self esteem and she couldn't give me any of that. And she let my daddy knock her around,

all of this kind of stuff. And I saw how my mother didn't show me how to be a, you know, to be a woman and all of this crazy, nutsy stuff and how I had been abused and the Baptist Church by my, you know, now I have spiritual abuse and then the,

and then the Air Force. I'm in the military and my husband's gone all the time. And, and I have to be responsible for these kids and, and oh, I'm so abused because I'm such a neglected wife and on and on and on. And I'll tell you, when I got out of treatment, I didn't realize it. Now, I had been separated from alcohol. So that was fabulous. I had been separated from alcohol.

But what happened for me is I was such a victim

and I felt so sorry for myself. And I had not done any kind of inventory whatsoever. I had done nothing about what Chuck Chamberlain says uncover, discover and discard. I mean, I had just uncovered, discovered and hung on, and that's what I'd done. And that's the kind of inventory I had taken.

And I'm here to tell you, you can get really, really sick.

And I went into Alcoholics Anonymous and I can sort of say this now because I'm, I'm kind of old and, but 33 years ago or 32 years ago, I'm not 33, not till April, 32 years ago,

I was kind of cute and thin and long red hair and, and I really, really, really wanted attention.

I had just sort of, you know, laid low for all these years and drank and just sort of tried to hang on and be and just to live the life I was living. And my husband had been medically retired from the military. He was 100% disabled vet.

And so now I'm in the workplace, I'm having to work, I'm having to do some stuff and, and I really don't know how to do all this because I hooked up with him when I was 18 years old and I really don't know how to do life and to do anything outside the shelter of the military. But now I'm doing that and I'm drinking really, really heavy and I get sober

and I don't know what happened to me. Well, I do know what happened to me. It's like my whole senses came awake and I was 36 years old and I was sure I was 18 again and, and I wanted male attention.

I wanted a lot of male attention. And believe me, I got it. And I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I, Kelly, I just loved your story because it just sounds so much like mine. Our timelines are a little different and but it's the same. And I just wanted all this attention. Now I'm sober and I'm going to meetings and you can, you can stay sober and go to meetings. You can hang on

for a long time. You hung on a really long time. I didn't make it that you know as long, but you can stay sober a long time on just going to meetings, you know going to do service. Just stay sober and work 12. You know, you can stay sober a long time doing those things,

and that's what I did. But the thing I love the most was male attention. And so I guess I say this to my girls all the time, whatever you think the most of is your higher power. I wonder why I know that because it seemed like what did I think the most of men. Now let's don't you know, I don't want anybody to think that any divorce or anything had taken place here.

I was still

married,

but that was of no, I mean, so you know, so if you want to talk about being an attraction for Alcoholics Anonymous that this is a spiritual program. Not hardly. And I would go to meetings, talk about dressing appropriately. I would go to meetings with this red hair with two ponytails just like Daisy Mae

cut off Levi shorts and a halter top, and then I'm going.

Now I'm sober, but that's not why I'm at the meeting.

So I just loved the attention. I just loved the attention. And what happened for me is, is that the man who had 12 stepped me out of this motel and brought me back into this treatment center

was a man who at that time was the director of this treatment center. And Frank Fitzpatrick is in the big meeting in the sky today. And I am so grateful that he did for me what he did. But he 12 step me and I asked a couple of people to be my sponsor. One woman I asked to be my sponsor and her and I went to Alcapulco and I invited one of the my boyfriends to come to Al Capu

to meet us. And while I'm there enjoying him, she gets drunk. So I mean, all this crazy stuff was going on, and I'm sober and so Frank,

I just went to talk to him one day and it's amazing how God puts people in your life that you don't even expect. And Frank was an only child. He was also a Monsignor priest.

He had been in the Catholic Church. He was a Monsignor priest. He had become a priest because his mom wanted him to, and as soon as his mother died, he left the priesthood and married the woman he had loved all his life.

And he was a captain in the Navy. So all of the things that I thought were my problem. I'm an only child.

I was raised Southern Baptists and I'm an Air Force wife. All of these things, these are my problems. These are what make me drink.

These are my problem. Because see, I wasn't really sure about step one. I knew that everybody else told me I was an alcoholic and I know that I had the DTS and stuff really bad, so I needed physical detox. But I didn't understand about the steps and

and in God's infinite wisdom, I was led to Frank and Frank had started talking to me about the steps

and and I just proceeded to say to him, I've already done the steps. I've done the first five steps. I did the first five steps in treatment. So I've done the steps and I'm a know it all.

I've got a lot of arrogance. I really don't know much about all these Alcoholics and but I'm certainly liking a lot of the men. And Frank looked at me and he said, you know, Polly Bottoms

are something that happens in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't know what's going to happen to you,

but you may have to hit a bottom sober. And if you do, I'll assure you that wit will be a lot worse than the bottom you hit drunk.

And and I continue to act out in sobriety. And at three years of sobriety, I went crawling back to Frank and

he started the process of the steps with me and a lot of the things that that we've talked about with step 1-2 and three. But what was the

what was beautiful is is that Frank started doing the steps, the four step with me and we set. He got me first. He said I want you to get a spiral notebook and I want you to take that spiral notebook and I want you to draw a line down each page

and we're going to make 4 columns and we're going to start to see who you really are because you don't have a clue who you really are. The only thing you're doing to me right now is you're coming in here crawling to me because your children are having so many problems and you're sober and you thought just as soon as you got sober everything was going to be OK. You think that the only thing that's wrong with

you is that you drink too much,

and he said. We need to sit down here and find out how sick you really are.

And there was there was a guy

and in Texas, and I love this story because you know how we can all get talked about and gossiped about. And that's what happens. And I certainly had my share of that. And this guy got up at a podium taking his birthday cake one day and he said, Oh yeah. He said me and this guy were in love with the same woman until we were finally found out how sick she really was.

So I mean, I had all of this gossip, you know, that was going on about how sick I really was. And

so Frank started teaching me, started taking me through the steps and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I still do this today and this is what Frank did with me. I have some readings in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that are outstanding readings.

And this was a thing that we did in Texas, or at least in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And we called it back to basics. And they were just readings on step one, readings on Step 2, readings on step three and four. That could take you through the steps quickly so that we could get to that place of working with others so that quickly we could begin to work with others. And Frank started taking me through the steps

of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I also had a hero besides Frank, and it was a man called David Aronofsky. And David was in my area, and David was always doing the steps, and David was always doing the traditions. And I was just one of those little groupies that everywhere David went, I went to learn about the steps. And Frank began to take me through the steps. And what Frank did is exactly what I do today

with the women that I sponsor and the women who just want to be taken through the steps. Because one of the things that has sort of evolved, and I'll talk about that a little bit later, but what was my experience is I didn't even know how to start a four step. And we got down and we read about this and he started to point out to me, when the spiritual

malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.

Because I'm certain that I'm crazy and I'm certain that my sons are crazy. Because I've got this one kid that's now that I'm three years sober, he already belongs in AA and I've got this other kid who's trying to commit suicide every other day.

And I'm, I'm, I'm stressed out. I just, you know, finally what hits me is what's going on with my two sons because I can't bear to see what's happening to them. And so he begins to say we need to do a four step

and he wants me to start with my mother and I just can't, I just can't. I just have to start, well, what's going on with my sons and I need to talk about my sons and all of this. And he said we're not even to that inventory. He said your boys do not belong on your resentment inventory. He says your boys belong on your sex and harms done inventory because what you have done to them

is harm. What we're going to do first is a resentment inventory. And he set me down and he started, he says let's start with mother. You know, poor mother where mothers always the biggest problem. So we start with mother and I start to write about my mother and he allows me to write. He says put her in the first column. And he says then the 'cause you start to my mother wouldn't stand up for herself. She always let my dad knock her around

whenever she wanted to do something. She hid it because she was afraid of what he was going to say. And on and on and on and on about my mother, because in my head I saw her as being so weak.

And then he would die. He had me go look at what does this affect?

Does this affect yourself esteem? And he had me write about this. What is this, that what's going on here?

Well, I'm embarrassed. I don't want people to see her. You know, I don't like for them to see her being so weak and, you know, and, and just the way she is, I just didn't like that she just, she just wouldn't stand up for herself. And she was always saying yes ma'am to everybody. And it just, I just saw her as weak And she he would ask me, well, is this affecting your pocketbook? And I said, I guess so. It's costing me enough in therapy

and all of this kind of, you know, and I he just started having me look at that of what it was affecting. And then he got over here and he says, well, where were you? Selfish, self-centered, dishonest and frightened.

And

and I had to start looking at my mistakes and I'm like, wow,

where was I selfish?

I want her to act like I want her. I have no acceptance of who she is and the woman she is.

I'm self seeking because I'm constantly trying for her to be like me, be more social, be more personable, be more out there like my dad

who was Mr. Personality

a jerk at home, but Mr. Personality out where everybody saw him.

And I wanted her not to be

just so meek.

And where was I dishonest? I didn't realize that my mother was the person in our family who was educated. My mother was a nurse. My father had a 9th grade education. My mother was a nurse. My mother is the one who made the most money.

My mother was the one who went to jobs and my father did really well because he was a builder and a contractor. But my mother was the one who had gone to school, who had done the things, who was the rock solid. And my father was like me. You walked on egg shells so around him so he wouldn't blow because he was so, so hot headed and so was I.

And where was I frightened?

What was I afraid of? I was afraid that people identified me with my mother

and I never even saw what a beautiful woman she was. And in through the years she would continue to show me that as my dad died when I was two years sober. My dad was only 60 years old when he died.

Any dry. He died from cancer

and my mother lived until she was 87 years old. She was widowed 27 years. She never remarried. She continued to be self supporting, took care of herself until about the last three years of her life when she when she had Alzheimer's and it was so bad that she no longer could. But she,

she was the hero and I never even saw it. And as the years went by, I continued to see it.

But what he began to do was show me how to do this inventory

and how to do the resentments. Now, I want you to know that a lot of my behavior was not changing even though I was in this inventory. I was. I had some character defects that was not willing to give up, and that was extra marital affairs. I was not quite ready to give this up. So I was continuing this life as I was in this inventory process.

So we went through the people that had the resentment list. Now believe me, one of the things that I love about inventory as this does not have to be the only time I ever do the inventory. And all he said was let's get this as much out as you can now. And I just sat at his table and wrote and he helped me with the first one.

And as it's amazing what happens as we get the first one down, man, they just start coming.

They just start coming and you just, you know, you're just writing like crazy and you don't have to write a novel. I'd already written the novel. So we didn't need to do the novel anymore. We just needed to look at the calls and start to set up a pattern of why I think and feel the way I think and feel

and see what my mistakes were and where what part I had played in my own life.

And then he went to the fear inventory.

And

the fear inventory is

what I didn't realize is I was just afraid of everything. And he says, Polly, I want you to write down your fears. And I started writing down my fears, and I was afraid of everything.

I was afraid.

I was afraid that

of I was afraid of what you would think of me. I was afraid that people were going to find out about me. I was afraid that I was going to drink again and on and on and on and on. And he said, OK, I want you to write these fears down,

and I want you to tell me why you have the fear.

And I would go and I'd say why I had the fear,

but what would happen? It was like, I'm afraid people won't like me. Well, why are you afraid people won't like me? Because of what I've done in the past. And they're going to find out. Well, why are you afraid they're going to find out? Because then if they find out, they're going to find out that I'm not what I'm acting like I'm going to be. And he would just help me break down the fear. Just keep on talking about the fear and breaking down the fear. And most of the time what it ended up.

Being as I was afraid I was going to die, I was afraid there was no God, that what would happen eventually is that I was going to die and there was no God.

And I had no idea that that was what was going on with me and my fears. I'm afraid today to come up here. I have that anxiety going well, what do we learn to do? We learn to walk through fear,

and one of the things the book talks about is that men of courage

walk through fear. And you know, if I didn't, I hear this all the time. You can't have fear and faith at the same time.

We know it tells me I'm going to commence to walk through fear. Well, today I'm still commencing to walk through fear because I can still have it. What I do today is I take actions contrary to the way I feel. If I'm afraid, maybe I'll talk to somebody, I'll talk to God and I'll take an action contrary to the way I feel.

I have someone I sponsor

who's afraid to fly. She is absolutely terrified to fly. So what she does is she would be so afraid to fly that we'd say, well, let me tell you, you love to help people. There's probably nobody on the planet who loves to help people more than Michael. She loves to help people. So what she would do is she'd go into the airports. There'd be all these little ladies that wish they were struggling with their luggage or what have you,

and she would help them whether they wanted it or not. She was going to help them because she had to do something so she could get on that airplane. And those are the things that she did. She started to commence to outgrow fear by doing things that would help her to outgrow the fear.

I'm going to kind of sum all these three up and a little kind of together because then I want to do some stuff around the inventories in Step 5. But I'd like to talk a little bit about my own.

And then I'm going to talk a little bit of how I work with other people doing the inventory steps Now about sex.

What I learned is, is that the sex and the harms done, I put on the same inventory. And this what happens in the sex inventory is not about who's harmed me. Now, if we have, there's a lot of the women I sponsor who have some huge

sexual things that have happened to them, things that have happened to little girls that should never have happened. Those belong on the resentment inventory. And one of the things that I've had with women that have sponsor, because it's not my experience is they've they've contracted sexually transmitted diseases.

Those belong on the resentment inventory because the sex inventory is about the people I've harmed.

And what I found out was, is that I had harmed a lot of people. I had used a lot of men and Alcoholics Anonymous to make me feel better. Because if you would show me attention and if I could get attention from you, then what would happen is is it would make me feel better and somehow have value.

And what I had done is I had harmed them. I had told them things and done things that were dishonest.

I had been inconsiderate. I had done things to get what I want, to arouse jealousy.

I had harmed them in a lot of ways. And what I had to do was get that lit, you know, to get those people on my inventory list and see where I had harmed them. And in this inventory, it talks about where had I been selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate. Who have I heard? When did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion and bitterness?

And I had to look at all of that stuff. Where had I done that?

And then the hardest thing was

on the Harms Done list is that, Frank told me. That's the list that your sons belong on.

And I had to look at where I had harmed my sons. And I've never, I'm really grateful that I didn't get watered down AA when I did this first inventory because of the fact that early on in sobriety I needed to face that I had been a child abuser, that my children had been

abused in every way I had physically, spiritually, mentally,

every way, and mostly blatant neglect. I had abused my children. And he looked at me and he said you are a child abuser. And he said you owe those boys on a man's. And I had to write down all that stuff about how I had harmed my sons

and then knowing how I had acted out. But he didn't fire me as a sponsee. He just let me take enough rope to hang myself

so that I would be so shamed by my behavior.

And when I was willing to listen, he was willing to tell me.

And then he looked at me and he said, and now you're going to put down all the harms you've done these boys sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And what you have done as a sober mother. And how you have behaved in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. How you have brought shame to your sons.

And how you have brought shame to your husband.

You're going to put all of those down. And at that point I let him know that I had because this was like 3 years of sobriety, that at two years of sobriety I had had an abortion. Now again, all I'm about is selfishness and self seeking. First of all,

everybody in AAA knows what I'm doing, but somehow I guess I don't think they know.

And the other is, well, what will people think if they find out I'm pregnant? What will my husband think? What will my sons think? So here I am, two years sober, in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, sitting in an abortion clinic with 14 year olds having an abortion. And he said

you owe you have harmed your husband,

your children, and most of all that unborn child. All because of your own selfish self seeking motives. All because it's all about you feeling good about you.

And

that day I had a rude awakening and I sat at his table and I did all three of those inventories that day.

And

we sat and we talked about it.

And Frank, look at me and he said there are ways that you can clean this up

and how you're going to have to continue to clean this up all the days of your life.

Because

I haven't always been 69 years old.

And Dave and I got married when I was three years sober and he was four years sober, so I was 39. And you know, when you first get married, Oh my God, it's just you can't get enough of each other. You're just so crazy about each other. And it's just you're so in love. You just can't even already stand it. It hurts so much.

And then a few years down the line

because she doesn't pay as much attention as it used to,

and all of a sudden I want to do all those same things again

because, you know, I'm alcoholic. I like the,

and as you stay married a while to kind of just kind of, you know, and but the good news is, is I had a sponsor and I had inventory and I continued to take actions contrary to the way I feel.

And along about 10 years of sobriety, I started being asked to speak and go in different places. And at first it wasn't very much and then it got to be more. And, you know, I'm still just, you know, kind of mid 40s fifty, and I'm still pretty hot at that age and getting a little attention here and there

and being tempted by all that stuff.

But I'm so glad that I could go back to my room and I could write about it and I could talk to my sponsor about it because I didn't have anything to hide. And I learned through these steps, just because I thought it, I didn't have to do it, that I could take actions