The New Horizons group in Bend, OR

Thank you, Joel. My name is Sharon. I'm an alcoholic and it's good to be here sitting down. I've been out with my dog and it's hot today and she didn't, she wanted to come in before me today. So that's a good walk with my dog. Anyway, it's good to see everybody here. I think today have 16,432 days. So it's like I I'd like to count my days right now because I remember every single day that I woke up.

I remember every single one of those days. And that's an awesome thing that we wake up sober. And I know I want to I want to welcome was a Katerina, Katharina and yeah, Katherina and Randy. Congrats on 30 days. Stay with us. I just love that the age of miracles is still with us. And I'm just going to read this little paragraph. It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy, respected and useful once more. How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute, and hopelessness?

The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The Age of Miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that and I

I love that I constantly find new things in in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I think because of they say any spiritual book will continue to grow with you.

And that is very, very true in my experience. And as my friend Sandy Beach said that the big book, it is not the treasure, it is the treasure map. So if you have that book in your hand and you have a guide, because you know, if we go out there looking for treasure, you know, we're going to have to have a guy 'cause you know, you can't go climb a mountain you've never seen before without a guide or something, a map, you know. So I'm so grateful to have had guys in my life the last,

gosh, almost 45 years.

So yeah, it's amazing. I've been a little bit nostalgic because I think that happens at every milestone in life, whether it's a birth, a death, a great joy, a great sadness. I think that milestones, as my sponsor Clancy says he's been my sponsor the last 35 of my almost 45 years. He said they're just signposts on the road telling you you're on the right path. So it doesn't matter if you have two days, four days, 30 days,

50 years, we're on the right path if you're seeing those signposts, and that's a good thing.

So I guess I, I grew up in Iowa and it was my first resentment and I couldn't wait to get out of there. I was a seeker and I was, I was seeking, I don't know what I was seeking something bigger than me. That's it. You know, I think I was seeking something bigger than me. I used to think I was seeking, you know, Gandhi's teachings and, and seeking, you know, the mothership. Where is it? You know, I was seeking those things, but I was seeking something bigger than me because I knew whatever I had, my father couldn't fix it. And he's got

for children and everybody, everybody but me, kind of followed the yellow brick road to what you're supposed to do in life. And I was the one that I was the rebellious 1, the defiant one. I didn't start out that way, but that's where it started. After I started drinking, I had to change a personality, really. And I started to do things like skip school, find the booze, steal the booze, whatever it was, I loved it. I loved what alcohol did for me. It connected me to you.

It connected me to, to whatever the that I needed to be connected to, whether it was you, whether it was, you know, something in the sky, something, you know, way out there. I felt connected. And alcohol could do that for me in a, in a, in a room alone. It made me feel connected. So I was connected to alcohol from the beginning. And they say that one out of 10 people have that adverse obsession, which I had to write down for my first step. I had to write down how I could only have one drink if there was sometimes my sponsor had

that down and there were sometimes. But as I went along my defiant way in my life, I began to have to, you know, slide across the bar. My dad's love, slide across the bar, my art talent, slide across the bar, my dignity, slide across the bar, the, you know, the love of my family, slide across the bar, my loving God, slide across the bar, my passion for life, slide across the bar. Everything important to me, because any time there was a fork in the road, I took alcohol.

And that's where that's what I got kicked out of places that people were living on the edge like a commune that that in Huntington Beach that ended up panhandling for a living. And I was a terrible pan handler and I'm a drinker and they're not, they're not drinkers. So of course I stood out. So of course when I drank the bong wine, they got mad at me, took me on a picnic and and left me on a mountain.

Of course I was going to have some physical problems. As I you know, I had a gallbladder not working. I had pancreatitis in the end of my drinking.

I, I got, I got asked to leave the organ. Well, I left before the organic people came up, came back. I ended up in an organic community in northern Wisconsin where somebody said, let me take care of you. And it was not taking care of me. It was working. If you're on an organic community, you're working. But they all went off and did primal therapy and I, you know, I was already kind of, you know, persona non gratis around any of those people

because I told them what I thought about them. And when I get drunk, I'm rebellious and

I'll kick their banjo and take off their hootenanny records. You guys are boring. So they went off to do primal therapy and I, we had 50 head of our organic sheet, which I got drunk and streamed at. And that was my primal. And, and I, I went to harvest the my crop back in the woods. Maui Wowie seeds, one seed at a time. A lot of organic sheep dung on it. Shark growing season tall, beautiful

crop. And so I thought I'm going to harvest that before they come back and getting out of town. And that was, that was a place for my mother thought maybe Sharon will make it because she knew the guy I was with, she, he had grown up together.

She thought, OK, maybe she'll make it. I mean, I remember we gave them like Maple syrup we had made. If you've ever made Maple syrup, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And we had to give and I had made some logos. And so everybody that holiday got Maple syrup we had made. And, you know, it was just that she thought, OK, well, maybe this will work. So when I harvested my crop and and didn't make the money 'cause I forgot the crop back on the farm

and I joined the carnival because it was there

that was my way out of town. And I called my mother from Arkansas and she said, I said, mom, I'm in Arkansas now. And I, I joined a carnival called Matt Armstrong shows and she was really quiet, really quiet. It's not a day you want to hear your daughter call, say, hey, mom, I'm with the carnival now. So I'm not hurting anyone but me. Please don't cry. I'm not hurting anyone but me. I'm writing a book, mother, I'm writing a book.

But that was the time I saw that my mom kind of just she couldn't believe my life anymore. My mom stuck with me all the way. My dad and I, you could cut the tension with a knife after after I was in in my 19th year of life, because I always I always had to argue with him about anything, anything. And one day my father asked me, how are you? You look weird. I know he was a weird, but you look not good.

Tell me what's going on. OK, Dad, sit down.

And I told dad things that dads don't need to know about their daughters. So I saw my father look away, set his jaw so that he wouldn't say anything. And that's the way my dad and I live for eight years, never rode the same car, never had breakfast at the same table. And you know, if I called home and he answered, the phone went right to mom. So now my mother is crying, and she's not buying it. And she had to literally go back up to that

farm in northern Wisconsin from eastern Iowa, which is a 5 hour trip to get her things back that she had given me for possibly

making a life for myself. Like some of her antique furniture and things like that she gave to me. She used. And that non insulated schoolhouse that we were living in. Cold it would be -30 And we have to stoke a fire to get warm. If you want to have tea or, you know, boil anything, you got to stoke a fire. It was, oh, what am I doing here? And I am the drinker that stands out.

So after the carnival

call with mom, it was like don't even call home anymore. So I felt very separated from my family by king alcohol. But it was a fork in the road and I took it. I took it because I could still count on alcohol working in my life and eventually the carnival

said to get rid of me too. So I didn't even fit in with the carnies, which are all off the grid. They're all off the grid. And you know, because I had this little shooting gallery and I didn't want to give away teddy bears, even though those little 12 year old boys, you know, they had their BB guns and they shot down the appropriate amount of targets to win a teddy bear. And I would say, no, you didn't.

And they say, yes, we didn't know. You didn't, you know. And I popped that target up and I they'd say, well, we're going to tell our dads, go ahead, go Hawaii. I'm drinking tequila. I am not nice. And so the dads would come and then there'd be some argument and then it would be bigger. And then if all the other carnies, you know, that was the code we had to help each other. So they would come and then I would Mace somebody because I hitchhiked a lot. So I always had Mason one of my boots. And then we get closed down. That would have to peel off some of his money

in his pocket. And by our way out of town. And the second time it happened, it was in Louisiana. And that's where the owner of the show, that's where he wintered. That's his home base. That's where he knows all of the all of the cops all around. I don't even know what they call them. We call them the parish finest because it was parish by parish by parish down there. So Matt said to those guys, go get that little girl. She's staying at this motel. She's trouble. I don't want her in the carnival anymore. I'll get my stuff back. But

she's got stuff in that room and you can find it here and here and here. And they came in at 8:00 AM one morning, which of course I'm not awake, and pushed the door open. And that was me going off to Bogalusa, LA lock up. Talk about a big bug. Oh my God, They could drag your shoes across the floor at night. You know, somebody was like making a wagon and trying to train them to pull a little. I mean, it was insane. And I had actual D TS there. I mean, I people, I had auditories, I had things that

happen from time to time, but this was actual DTS with things that, you know, on the TV talking to me that wasn't, it was in the lobby and I could see it and they were talking to me and, and people had pointed heads and, and I'm like anxiety ridden. So I took a piece of glass I found and made little cuts all over my face and arms because they came in at night in this big pen of women and, and took one out one at a time and then brought them back at at daylight. It was a crazy place, but they left me alone

because she's, they said she's crazy. And I would just like with my blood, I would go and they did leave me alone. I'm a survivor. My defiance will keep me alive. That's the beauty of being as defined as I was when I ran with these people that really didn't care for human life. You know, they cared about themselves. And the carnival never came back. And so I, they cuffed me one day. I was there maybe a week and a half, threw me in this room, drove me somewhere, threw me in this office building. And there was my father

who had gotten on a plane in Iowa. Nobody in my family's alcoholic, nobody in my family's been to jail. Nobody in my family's caused so much heartache and broken hearts. So I'm so grateful we got to the immense process in the beginning of my sobriety. I'm so grateful. I think, I think I had 35 years with my mom sober and 20,

four years with my No 20. Yeah, 24 years with my dad sober.

So we had a lot of time to mend the fences, but I didn't know that then. But I just remember how I felt that day. He tried to buy. They said they were letting me go. And he wrote a big check to this bail bondsman and the lawyer and the judge. So it was kangaroo court. And they sent me back to jail and they didn't let me out. And my dad went home to Iowa and thought they let me out. And that's he was just doing the patriarchal thing because that's my dad.

But I talked to my dad when I was 20 years sober about that day, and he said,

all you said the whole time they asked you anything was I'm not guilty and it's not my fault. And I totally believe that I am building a case. I am the victim. I am the victim and I'm good at building a case. And so I found the French Quarter of New Orleans when they finally let me out. And that's where I drank hard and heavy and my blackouts were getting longer. And my blackouts were I, I said to myself, I remember saying to myself after I woke up in Florida swimming with dolphins, I thought they were sharks.

I had started drinking in a bar in the French Quarter and I and I was with these people I didn't know who were really mad at me. And they finally someone said, well, you know, you drove the wrong way on the freeway. We were all screaming and you wouldn't get off. And I was like, oh, I was kind of shocked with that one. I didn't. I didn't remember any of it. So I thought to myself, I better take better care of myself in my blackouts.

It's not like, Oh my God, you're drinking too much and burn down your life. You're sick with this pancreatitis that comes your gallbladder's been removed.

You're starting to lose jobs in the French Quarter, which is hard to do when you're working at a local bar. And so in 1975, from April to when I get sober on August 20th, it's, it's when my alcoholism really took me down. And because I was always looking for another way, I was always looking for the easier, softer way somehow. But now in April, I'm unemployable. I got asked to leave my very CD Sorry Little bar in the French

order because I have a bad attitude and my alcoholic friends aren't drinking with me anymore because they don't want to because I was hitting bottom before they were. They told me two of my friends are sober and they said yes, you were hitting pot way before we did and I found myself trying to get out of town. I ended up at Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood where I saw the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, second edition, big white letters on that Navy blue.

And it's, it was she was passed out by the book and coming to and people were signing something, which I think it was her court card. But I'm drinking in there and feeling sorry for her. She's got to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And the bartender called her a taxi. She took her book. She wobbled out the door and fell into a cab. And we, I had my Jose Cuervo, nice and neat, no lime, no salt, big rock glass. That's the way I drank my tequila and we all gave her a toast

out the door. Go for your Chris Garnet, Ana. And I was going to not be able to get a job. I was. I was asked to leave after, I don't know, just a short shift because I couldn't remember where the glasses where the drinks on my tray went. And the owner came over and had to help me as I stood in the middle of the floor. And he said, we'll pay it for tonight. Please don't come back. And I got to tell you, I was bloated. I was wearing this red dashiki and I had a Panama hat on,

wouldn't look at my eyes, had all my possessions that I cared about, which was not much in a backpack. And I had a book by Baba Ramdas called Be Here Now, which meant to me was in a big spiritual search. It was I can do what I want when I want to do it, and that's the way I live. No more dogs, no more boyfriends, no more calling home. My mother didn't know where I was and I was unemployable and I had no place to live.

And somebody was kind to me, and I lived in one place for a while until I locked them out of the kitchen and threw food all over the walls because I don't even know I'm doing this.

I don't even know that I'm at the end of my drinking. And I ended up back in New Orleans for a brief period and met somebody going to Hawaii. And I said, let's go because it seemed to me I couldn't even get my job back anywhere in the French Quarter. And it seemed to me all my friends didn't want to hang with me anymore. And it was true. So there I am again, stuck at Barney's Beanery and

I make this girl who I stay in touch with her through a friend of mine who's sober.

I stay in touch about her and she's the last picture I saw of her. Oh man, she doesn't look anything like the person I remember who was rough when I met her and she's still her. Her her brother died and I don't know how she's alive, but that's that's what scares me. If I would go out, I don't know if I'd die right away, but I might look just like just like my friend and

I live a long time in pain and agony and be too chicken to jump off a 44

floor building. And so as a reminder. But I met her and we partied together.

I had no place to live, and I'd sleep in a garage with cots where there's somebody always provided the vodka in the freezer. And that's we'd all get up and hit on that vodka. Now my mother thinks I'm back in the French Quarter somewhere. My mother has no idea that I'm homeless in Los Angeles, and it's not a friendly city to be homeless in. But most of the people that took me in were drinkers like me. And on July 27th, my friend and I met some guys at the bar and we went out to Palm Springs

on Harley's and I think they just needed a little extra weight. It was very windy going through the desert. We left it like 3:00 in the morning or something. And so they needed a little extra weight. So I was about, you know, I weigh 140, but I was like 175 lbs. I was very bloated and very sick and very toxic and I unbathed water hurt. I don't know about you, but showers hurt.

And that was that was what was getting ready to come to you to Alcoholics Anonymous. But it took one final thing for me to slide across the bar

and that was my life because at some point this girl left me in the car. I'm so grateful for this moment, my life. I'm sorry. It's like a it's like this, this emotion of gratitude for my bottom, which got me here. And I hope to goodness sakes, you've hit a bottom if you're new. And there's going to be other emotional and spiritual bottoms in sobriety too, which to me signify growth. If you stayed the hallway,

the hallway is crowded with people between what was and what could be. And and going back that way, going back where you came in, doesn't guarantee anything. But to me, if I stay one day at a time in whatever hallway I'm in, the door opens on a new beautiful view I didn't even imagine. So my last drinking bout, I ended up in a car. She left me in a car with people we didn't know. They took me somewhere. They broke my jaw three places. They smashed my.

They basically drugged me around on the Samantha. The doctor said you were very lucky that another bone in your face didn't break because my cheekbones were just so sore. I couldn't even touch them for six months. And they rolled me off the side of the road. And that's when I had my spiritual experience because I lifted my head up even though I had a concussion. I lifted my head up because I heard the car door slam and I thought they're coming back

and I thought, who cares? But what I heard was a voice. Deep down with that, that fact deep down within us, I heard a voice. I believe that's where it came from.

It said, get up, I want to live. And I guess I did. And I guess I ended up somewhere where I someone called the ambulance and I was in the hospital being prepped for surgery to put my job back on and set my nose. And I was the victim because the police were there. And this was, you know, my name was after the word victim that I wrote. And it was like, Oh my God, finally somebody knows what I am.

I mean, really, it's like, you know, Barry McCabe. But I was thinking if I could have smiled and said thank you for that, I would have.

And I was in the hospital for two weeks and they just morphed me up. It was like, and they I saw the chart one day. It said addictive personality because they weren't coming fast enough. I never wasn't morphing girl or a heroin girl or, you know, a Reds girl or any of that. I'm up and running and, you know, people that were faced on going let's party, you know, was like, OK, have your party on the floor. I'm out of here. You know, it's just the way I was and

and so but with that morphine that kept giving me and then they didn't come in time. And so I addicted personality on my chart,

but I got no cards. I had no friendly direction. I had nothing. I didn't know where I was going to do. And this man who was actually dating the girl with the big book in the bar who had heard about what had happened to me because my friend came back to Barney's and said, well, this happened to Sharon, you know, and so she knew what happened. So I think she sent her boyfriend out to get me because I had nowhere to go. She was in and out of a A until she died a wet brain at 31 years old. Her name was Chris

and he came and got me and said I know you don't have a place to go. You can sleep on my couch and I was grateful for it. And then on August 20th he was buying me cheap red wine and and have to unscrew the top and stick a straw on that cheap gallon of wine and stick a straw through the wires on my face where the tooth had been kicked out so I could suck on the line. I'm just stuck on the line. There is no more. Let's go start over. Phoenix has drive through liquor stores. It's on a grid N SE WI thought well, I can always go to

because I could find my way around and go through drive through liquor stores. I thought that was fabulous. I had never seen them before, but I was bone tired and he said to me, Sharon, you got to leave you depressing me. And so I called my mom. I had nobody else to call and I talked like this

and my mother said,

Sharon, we can't help you anymore. Go to the Salvation Army

and if my mother would have sent $20, you'd have another speaker. Norm Elpeach talked a lot when I was knowing. He talked about seconds and inches, seconds and inches, seconds and inches. That we are the lucky ones to be here.

And if that $20 bill would have come in the mail to where I was staying, I would not be here because what I did was pick up a phone number which was on the table with the telephone. We used to have these phones and the telephone book. It could have been slid under the telephone book and I wouldn't have called her. But that girl Chris's number was there. I don't know if she's dating this guy. I just know she was always nice to me. So I called her and I think about the seconds and inches of that phone number being there looking at me

and she said, Sharon, I can't help you. I heard what happened to you. But this girl Suzanne can because she was drinking that day. So she gave me a five year sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous to call. I don't know that I'm calling a member of AAI. Just need help.

So what happened was she sent over two beautiful girls to get me. She knew what liquor store I was living above. She knew where to tell me to sit. She knew. She just like knew. She said, put your drink, put your joint down. I thought, where is she? How does she know this? You know, she read my mail, got my attention. I went out and sat on the steps of going up to the apartment where we lived at that liquor store. And this car pulls up with these shiny beautiful faces and it's like, no,

their hair is shiny, they're shiny, the car is shiny. But I was so tired. They literally just each picked me up by 1 arm

and took me and put me in the back of the Volkswagen where I couldn't get out. And all I remember was they talked incessantly about themselves trying to, you know, show their experience, strength and hope with me. But I don't hear anything. I just think, when are they going to ask me about me? I've got this newspaper clipping in my pocket. I don't know where they're going. I just think I'm getting a place to stay. I don't know. They're members of AAI am not tracking on that. And we go to a church, and I go, oh, a church,

let me. And God had a big fight,

one fingered peace sign when I left that Catholic Church and gave it to the priest. And I just thought, God, stay on your side of the world. I'll stay on my side of the world. And I thought, OK, I got to play the game because I need a place to stay. So I'm sitting there people looking at me like or shaking my hand and saying welcome. I thought, well, this is weird and and you look tired kid, take your pack off and stay with us. How does he know I'm tired?

I was a mess when I came here and the guy at the podium, I thought was the preacher and he, he rang my bell. He said he always waited for the spaceship to land and say, you can come home now, Bill. And I thought,

oh, my God, I'm with spaceship people. Finally, finally. That's what connected me. That's what woke up a little ember of life in there. So I was like, oh, spaceship people. And then this guy came up to me and put a big book down in front of me, Alcoholics Anonymous. And is that where I am? OK, You know, they're nice to me. I don't know what I'm doing. And he wrote in my book, my sobriety date. He got my name out of me. I couldn't talk the first three months. And as I, I was in a, a,

let me tell you, everybody talked to me. They're going to talk to people who can't. We like to talk. I mean, if you can't talk back, you're just a willing person in this conversation to be a good listener. And I learned a lot by listening to you guys. But Maury Solitaire, who was a Hollywood writer, he wrote about Marilyn Monroe and all kinds of people. He met all the stars. He was a great guy. He was a smart man. And he wrote in my big book, Echo Park, LA, California, August 20th, 1975.

And my name, Sharon, and it's in pencil. It's in pencil. I love it. I can barely read it now. I don't know. I'm going to put something over it to read more to keep Maurices riding in there because he's at the big mating in the sky. And that's what started. Their sponsor had said don't send her up until those liquor store lights turn off

because I I'm still in touch with both of them today. There's still sober. One went out, but she's back. And they remind me all the time of how I was when they picked me up and how we sat in that car. And in August, unwashed, detoxing, sitting in the back of a Volkswagen, can't get out, just sitting there trying to breathe and listen to them who are sharing with me things I didn't understand. And as soon as the liquor store lights turned off, their sponsors said they could send me back upstairs to sleep one more night. And then they moved me out

and I slept on floors and I, I was not able to go to a recovery house. They had one recovery house in West LA for women and they wouldn't take them because I my physical appearance. They couldn't feed me. I couldn't feed me. My mother finally sent me a blender so I could eat through the straw.

And then a spy had a sponsor 'cause they wouldn't leave me alone. And the sponsor said, you know, you can come sleep on my couch. I was like, Oh my God, get a sponsor. Your life gets better. That's how simple it was for me in the beginning,

you know, But you just saw that I was worth saving and it gave me a shot. And Chuxi talks about that, he said Everybody gets a shot, everybody gets grace, everybody gets compassion. Love is 1000 to nothing. It's not 1000 to one, it's 1000 to nothing. We do this for fun and for free.

And you know, if you're new, there's a couple fairly new that 10 people's lives have gotten better the moment you come in and sit down with us that they know you're OK. So now you know when a big awakenings in my my life sober has been man, it wasn't even about me from the beginning. It takes a long time to get there, though. I'd be awake and then to understand even my coming day. A was healing for my parents.

My mother used to to say when I would call home at the holidays because the family knew. The family on both sides knew something was wrong with me

because I would have fits. I would come drunk, I would have to drive alone.

I would sit with the children at the card tables instead of the big table at Thanksgiving. Well, they actually put me there, so it's like, all right.

And I just was not cooperative and I didn't engage with my family. So when they found out I was doing better and I would call it the holidays and my mother would be with one family or the other family, but I'd have to call both and tell her Merry Christmas. And then she would get off the phone and my brother said all of the ants would come around and grandpa would come around and go, how's she doing?

And my mother would say in a whisper, she's an A A. She didn't know what a A was,

but, you know, it was anonymous, so she knew to whisper it. I was gonna be the example for Alcoholics Anonymous to my my family,

which is a ripple. If you think about what the example is that we give. Whether it's, you know, pausing and not reacting, getting in your car and driving to, you know, call your sponsor somewhere and coming back and helping the family do the dishes or helping the family wrap presents or, you know, volunteer to go get food. Be just a good daughter, a good family member. Boy, that pause button made a big difference because I could have blown it with my family.

There was one time in the van that my dad picked me up. It was my sister's wedding, my younger sister's wedding. I flew in from California. I was tired. It was a night flight. They're picking me up in Cedar Rapids, IA at like 7:00 AM. And when I connected in Chicago, I found a place to sit to do my morning meditation. Thank you, God, because that's what I need every morning. I need to find my pause button again. I need to find my compassion that can't. I can't discriminate

compassion. I can't have that kind of compassion. That way you get it, you don't get it, You get it you because that's coming from me

and I want to come from intuitive thought in a higher source. So I had found my little spot to meditate and so my dad picked me up. Everybody's in the car and we're going driving down Cedar River Rd. It's a beautiful place. I grew up in a beautiful part of the world and my daddy's driving. My sister's in the front seat and they're talking finance.

And it's like always with the Mensa, always with the brilliant one, always you and her talking about your business. OK. And then I listen to my younger sister, who's getting married in the backseat with my mom, and they're talking about fashion and what she's going to buy for the, the, you know, the bridesmaid and all of her people standing up for her, the gifts. And I thought I just got off a plane of California, not going to ask me what's what's hip?

Fashionista here, mom, sister. But no, they didn't ask.

And then my brother, this was the big one, sitting with the brother-in-law in the second seat talking about fishing. And he's a commercial fisherman in Alaska to this day. But my brother is talking to him. And I almost said, come on, Miles. I taught you how to put a worm on a hook because we live by a river. I taught you how to fish. And then I'm realizing that I'm having this sobbing cathartic in the middle of the van, making noise, slobbering, making noise.

And my dad stops the van, turns around that looks at me and he said, are you OK?

They're all here, all of them. I, I've got to pull out my my case list. I've got, I've got this, this, you know, soapbox. That's just, I can put it right down and get ready. But what I had was a voice from that pause button. It said, get out of the van. So my dad gave me some water. I got out of the van,

they're back to their conversations. Like I just didn't have this big upheaval. And I stood outside of the van and I was like, I felt like I was in a different zone. And I looked at the the sun and the beautiful morning sun. And there was a beautiful cornfield there. And it had the sun was shining and there's like a layer of life above the cornfield. I mean, you can listen to corn grow. It is just the most beautiful thing to lay in a cornfield and hear it grow.

I've done third steps in cornfields is they've been, it's been fabulous.

But I saw the life, I saw the clouds, I saw the beauty. And I said

it's OK to be from Iowa. It's OK to be part of that family. And I got back on the van and I kept my mouth shut.

And I kept my mouth shut so much because I, you know, I went home and made my meds after my inventory very cursory with my dad. He just wanted me to be happy. My mom and I were fine. I five years, I got another sponsor. My dad walked me down the aisle at 2 1/2 years and, and we went to a meeting and you took him to the literature table. So my father's a reader and he read the big book and he's got books stacked by his chair. That's the way my dad is. He's, you know, maybe as the TV on, but he's reading, he's always reading.

And that's my older sister, just like dad, always reading. That's why they were smart, I think. So I thought while they're reading, I'm not going to read.

I was reading the classics and sobriety that I said I'm not reading that funny. So my dad read it and he ran a calculator tape because he saw there in the book most Alcoholics owe money in the immense part. And my sponsor had said to me, you know what, it's time to call your dad and paying back the money you owe him. I was five years sober and I went, OK, he doesn't need it. So I called him and he gave me a total. He answered the phone, gave me the total. I like my mouth hung open. It was So

I called my sponsor back. She laughed. And my mother told me after my father was killed in 99 on a freak accident on his land, he was gone in a second. But my my mother told me some things about my dad after he was gone because she knows I'm defiant. If she would have said your father read that in the book, went out to the office, took out your dossier, but every receipt, everything in there, I had forgotten about the car I took. That's what made it so high,

Everything in there. He ran the calculator tape. He put it on page 78, where most Alcoholics owe money, circled it in red. And my mother said, he told me

if I call and ask, there it is and he's not home, but he was home and he gave it to me. It was like, Oh my God, so high. She laughed. And then I called him back, 'cause we talked about my better job and payment terms. I said he accepted. She said, OK, then you're not going to be late with that check. Bill and Bob are watching you. What? So I always sent that check on time because Bill and Bob are watching me.

And then she said. Because I have been

loved by the Giants and Alcoholics Anonymous and many aren't here. Many aren't here anymore.

OK, so she's even up there now, but she said I'm willing to grow through this with your dad, which meant to me something more she wants because she knew the experience, strength and hope she had She could she could show me a new view that I didn't think was possible. It says in the book my little designs and plans my little. It also said she she showed me remember at the beginning we agreed that we go for it to any links for victory over alcohol.

We agreed, OK, I don't remember but you know, they pull these things out at the right time. So I said, OK, what do you want? And she said put a note about your life with that check. Do not send the cold hard cash alone in an envelope and don't be late because Bill and Bob are watching. So she check on me if I wrote the note, yes, it was hard. It was very hard. But somewhere in those four and ten months of my dad getting a consistent check and a consistent note and letter, something started to heal.

And after four years and about 10 months, my dad called me the day after Christmas. He said, Merry Christmas, daughter, I don't want your money anymore. No more. It's done. But don't stop sending me your notes. And the healing was there because are you willing to grow through this with your dad? My sponsors have always given me truth with kindness, truth with a solution. That's the kindness. You're not going to tell me that I'm, I'm a defiant, you know, loner or whatever it is,

but you're going to give me the solution to that.

And that's, I've never heard anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous say we don't stay sober through that. You got to leave. There's an answer, a solution for everything here.

You just stay through it and get through the hallway. And yeah, so my mother also told me that. Did you know your father? 12 step the town drunk? I said no,

and I think I could have blown it that day of the man, right? I could have blown it so that he would have said Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work. What he said to this guy, John, who is the town drunk, came to my dad because people came to my dad. And he said, Nope, it's not your wife's fault. You're not getting a divorce, John. You're an alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous has helped my daughter. Maybe it'll help you and gave him the book

and this was after my dad was gone. Have no idea. And I spoke about it because it was on my heart at a meeting north of north of LA.