Mildred F. from Toronto, NJ sharing her story at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I welcome Mildred.

Well, well,

here we are. Being left to the last is like being left to the last. I'm nervous tonight. My name is Mildred and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody.

My dry days is May the 18th, 1973. I belong to the Rocks Glen Traditional group. I had the same sponsor for 44 years. I'm still at the Roxglen Traditional. I have a different sponsor and I'm active in that group and those are all the statistics you're going to get for now. So there, OK,

It's a very special time in my life. It's very special for three reasons to be up here tonight talking to you. It's special because

I'm in my hometown, and it's very different speaking in your hometown than it is somewhere in the world where people look at you and maybe you know 10 people in the crowd. I love many of you, know you very personally

and you know me very personally and I'm happy to be here. Do not expect a different story from me. I'm a different person. But the things that happened to me and how I got here tonight is is really the same in in many ways. We've added a few things in the last couple of years.

The second reason why this is special is because

on May the 18th, we celebrated my 50th anniversary and

and

I say that not to get praise. I say it because 50 years sober belongs to everybody. It doesn't just belong to me. I've just done the IT one day at a time longer than you. And if you're sober 50 days and you're sober 50 hours, that's all important because I got to 50 years just by staying alive and doing the work. But what it has brought up is

people came out of the woodwork.

People came from really kind of all over the world one way or the other, to be at one or other of the parties or events that that happened. And what it did was bring up memories. My head is full of memories these days. It brought up memories. It brought up the thought of miracles. It brought up the thought of love and goodness and how fortunate I am.

And the third reason that it's special to be here tonight at 50 years of sobriety. I am very happy publicly to thank my God for everything that has happened in these 50 years and to make these 50 years possible. Yes, I'm very grateful to every one of you who has been kind, who has taught me, who has

done things with me that have helped me to grow, but ultimately it is the source.

It is God as I understand God. And if you are sitting out there and you're new and you hear God and you get nervous, just put your nervousness down because I'm not trying to get you to believe anything. I'm just telling you what has occurred in my life and to what I attribute it. I love AAI, love the people in a A, but I realize you can't do for me what needs to be done. That transformation that we experience in the program,

who can't do it for me and I can't do it for you. And so who gets the praise for that? I had two teachers that I will mention right now. One was Chuck Chamberlain. Chuck Chamberlain, at a certain time in my life, when I was come to meeting stoned, he was trying to talk sense into me. And that didn't work so well.

But Chuck used to say, I believe he said that we in a a are doing the work that we're here for

to help the suffering alcoholic to get sober. But he said, I think he said that the real purpose God will use a A to bring God back to the world. And if you think that that's outrageous, listen to some of his talks. He didn't say it often, but he said it publicly a couple of times. So that was one thing. And the other person that really

set me straight

from the way I thought was Tom Ivester. If you have not heard Tom Ivester speak, do find a talk by his. Tom was somebody who killed two people in a vehicular accident when he was 18, was sent to penitentiary. And while he was there, as he said to me, he took me aside when I was about three years sober. And he said, you know, Mildred, I think you're having a lot of trouble with God.

He said, I want to tell you something. I have found the power of good. And he went on to tell me how he had killed the two people, went to penitentiary. And he said while I was there one night, I went to an, a, a meeting. And this is the thing I I never want to forget. He said there was a little man there who was on fire and I caught the fire. And I hope that that's what this day is about,

that we all catch the fire and then take it out into the world that needs it so badly. And he said what happened, he said, was that he became a good member of AA. He was released early and one thing led to the other and he became a warden. And he said, how does that happen? He said I, I had killed two people. And he said I used to be the the crankiest person around. And then I changed and he did this.

He said that power has guided me. And I have to say that power has guided me. I'm not the a perfect person. I'm not the person I was. However, 50 years ago, you know, about 3 days before my, my actual birth anniversary date, I thought, where was I 50 years ago today? And where I was, was on a park bench living like a tramp, homeless and penniless. And how does that happen?

The power of good. I could accept that when I couldn't accept the idea of God. So I'm here to share with you my experience, strength and hope. How did this happen in my life? I was born on a farm in Saskatchewan. To some of you, that will mean nothing. We were Roman Catholic and there were ten of us, and I was the afterthought. By the time I came along, the others were all more on the way to being adults, living adult,

and I was well treated. I don't have a nasty story. I wasn't abused in any way, shape or form. But I started to cry a lot. I had a sister who at that time they said was retarded. They kept her in Grade 3 till she was 16 and she cried a lot. She knew. She used to say to me, I'm different and I don't know how to handle that. And she'd cry and I'd cry. And I wanted the world to change.

I learned at that time, you see, we went to church. We were Roman Catholic. Plus we lived in this space in where you could see the open skies. And as a little one, I used to lie on the grass at night and look up at the stars. And the stars would dance and the moon would be out. And some nights the Aurora borealis would be out. And a lot of nights there'd be a magnificent sunset. And I knew that that

God that we went to church for was really quite special.

So I went to my brothers and sisters and I gave them their marching orders. I was only a little one. You got to do something, help Dora to stop crying. And it didn't happen. What I didn't understand at three and five years old, I didn't understand that at that time, psychology wasn't that big. My parents weren't educated. They were good people, but they wouldn't have analyzed things for me. And I, I grew up then thinking

nobody cares, life is tough, nobody cares what I think and so on and so on.

And I went to God if people won't fix it, because that was obvious. If people don't fix it, I'm going to God. And I gave God his marching orders. Have you ever done that? Good luck.

Seemingly nothing happened and God for me became kind of a useless twit. What good is it that you can make stars and you can make all those beautiful things I see in the heavens, but you can't do a simple thing like get my sister to stop crying. And so I was then became an unhappy child. And I'll take these rings off so you don't hear them slap on

the on the wood. And

then things changed. At five, I took a drink. Now, if you think that an alcohol, you can't be alcoholic at five years, I'll tell you different because from the time I took that drink, my world changed. And that's what I chased for the next 35 years. I, I was two people when I didn't have Booth, I learned there was something, there's something that fixes the world. This stuff in the bottle. I've got to have the stuff in the bottle,

and if I have the stuff in the bottle, I'm OK. See, Doctor describes it perfectly, he says. We get a sense of ease and comfort.

He didn't say we get ease and comfort because it's not the real thing. It's a sense of ease and comfort. And then that wears off and then I've got to have some more. And that's how my life went. I chased that to the gates of insanity and death, I can tell you. So how did that all play out in my life? How does a 5 year old drink? You learn where the booze is, and then you learn to lie and you cheat and you steal and you learn to always have an excuse

to be where that stuff is so you can get as much of it and as often as you can. I graduated high school when I was 14. I don't fit because I I, I'm smart, so they said. I graduated high school when I was 14. I don't fit. I couldn't get into university. So in our hometown, there was a crowd of boys

who had a choir or a singing group, so I joined them.

I tell you this because it's part of something else that happened in my life.

That part from about 14 to 17 that was happy drinking. We chased around. I was wild as could be. We got drunk, we ran the streets, we sang at different places. I had a good time. And then somebody spoiled it. Somebody always spoils it.

One of the girls announced she was going to become a nun and all of the all the power, all the interest was off me and everybody made a fossil for her. I do not like that

and so I waited about 3 weeks and then I announced I'm going to become a nun.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Nobody made a fuss. As a matter of fact, they said that's crazy, you don't belong in a convent. Well, don't tell me I can't do stuff. I then went looking for convent and I found one in the United States because that's where the swinging convents are. And they sent me to one in Hamilton, and I entered there and they took me without smelling me.

I can tell you I was in that convent 15 years and I was drunk as much of the time as I could be

and I'm not going to get into that. People say how did you get booze in the convent? If I were on Mars, I'd find booze. That's just the way it is. I was in the convent. Was it a bad place? Not at all. They were good to me. They and they gave me a great education. I learned to do all kinds of things there and I had opportunities. I used to have a 300 voice choir and I directed operettas and on and on.

And you know, it's amazing when you do a lot of stuff successfully, people don't see that there's something wrong. I was drinking the whole time. And finally we had a mother superior who I would say was enlightened and she had been checking under my mattress and she said she called me one day and she said, you know, sister, I don't think you belong here. She said. I think that

you're young enough, you know, you're so vibrant and you're so

you do so much. You know, maybe we should right to wrong. Like if you're if you take vows in it as I did, you can't just walk away one day and say I'm gone. You're fugitive If you do that and they call the police to find you. So we wrote to Rome. I got my dispensation. And I can tell you I was a well educated young woman. And I remember standing on the convent steps. I was no longer Sister Mary Eugenia. I had my secular clothes back and

dispensed from the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Had fiddled around with them anyway as necessary

and

I remember thinking I'm good to go, I'm good to go, the world's waiting for me. It was down at the bar. I have never seen a bar. When I left Saskatchewan we had beer parlors. Stinky, smelly beer parlors. This had red carpets. It had these fancy seats and it had lots of men and I was in my heaven and so were they. Believe me, they thought it was quite all right, this ex nun coming

and her nice black dress under her high heels and she's willing to take a drink with us and do some other things as well. And so I started to live a life of degradation, 15 years in the convent, 6 hours a day of spiritual, you know, works of one kind or another doesn't save you from what happened to me. Three months I'm out of the convent and I'm in jail. And I said to the policeman, you can't do this. I'm an ex nun. He said watch

as he locked the door.

I made such a fuss. Finally they called the chief of police. I never want to forget this because

I had thoughts about who I was and what was happening to me and why the convent hadn't worked and where's God in all this And they called the chief of police and he came down. I still remember him coming and he had a sheet and on that sheet were written the charges against me. And he was angry. He I found out later he was a devout Catholic and to see an ex nun in jail having done the things I had done,

he was not happy. And I remember him standing over me saying what's wrong with you? How do you answer that? He said you disgust me. He said I've been a chief of police for a while and he said I have never seen an ex nun in jail. And he said, I guarantee you, you make damn sure you never get to this jail again.

What do you do with that? And when he left,

I remember thinking, I remember the day I took vows. I remember the day you're just. I was dressed all in white. The that convent Chapel had big huge coloured glass windows. The sun was shining in, the organ was playing and the choir was singing Magnificat anime Dominum, which translated means my soul magnifies the Lord.

And if you're the one get doing the vows, you walk up to the front and you prostate on the floor and you give your life to God. And that's what I did. And I remember that, remember thinking, it's over now, all the pain and all the craziness and the drinking and I've given my life to God and I'm good to go. Well, three days later I was drunk.

How does that happen? How does that? What's wrong with me?

Is there something really wrong with me? I didn't know how to. I didn't understand what what was really going on.

And

that began A7 year stint 5 1/2 which I went to a a my brother had gotten sober and my father called me and said this was they didn't. At that point the family didn't know I had a problem. He just called me to tell me how wonderful this new organization that has come to Saskatchewan is, said they call it Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, I don't know what it is, but he said it's so good. And he started to cry.

And when my father cried, that meant something. And I remember this because I was starting to be put into psych wards. 1973, there were no treatment centers in in Toronto. And so they put me in the psych wards. I've been there 32 times actually. I've had 38 electroshock treatments. I've had hours of therapy and I couldn't stop. You know, in the book where it talks about those methods that people use to stop drinking,

I read that and I said that doesn't belong to me and it doesn't. I never tried to stop drinking. I didn't want to stop drinking because I liked what happened to me. Because all that stuff that I felt, nobody loves me. I'm I'm different. Nobody cares about me. Nobody listens to me. It quieted down when I drank and then I became nice. You liked me and I liked you and I wanted that all the time,

but it didn't work that way because I drink too much and they put me back in the psych wards and while that was happening.

There was a doctor there, Doctor Hoffer. If you know our history, you know who he was. He knew Bill Wilson and he went to my doctor and he said this girl doesn't have all these illnesses. He said she should go to a a she's an alcoholic. And my doctor said that can't be. He said it would interfere with her treatment. That's where the psychiatric world was in 1973 or whatever. And

finally he did agree. And I went to a A,

you know, when I hear the speakers, I wasn't here for everything today, but I did hear Chris and I did hear Ollis a part of it. And I did hear Teresa. And, you know, over the years I've heard hundreds, maybe thousands of speakers. I'm always amazed at how they seem to have grasped something that I didn't grasp. I just, I just, I just didn't get what was happening.

I came to a A and I marched in and I thought my dad said, this is good. People get transformed here. I'm going to get transformed. I didn't know what it meant and I didn't ask because I'm smart. And so I marched to the front row on this side third seat over. That's where I sat. And two weeks about it took until I realized I don't do well if I don't have alcohol in me.

And so I, I knew about pills

I took, I sat there stoned for 5 1/2 years. That's where I met Chuck, Chuck Chamberlain. That's where I met people like Cease Cargo and Matt Cheater and I could go on and on. Heroes who are the foundation who built this program, who lived this program and taught other people to live it, but I just couldn't get it. I drank again. I left a A after 5 1/2 years.

Wanted nothing more to do with with this business and

just went right down the tubes. I had married my psychiatrist, by the way.

You know, if you think of as somebody as having done some really stupid things, one would be going to a convent with the mindset that I had. The other would be marrying a psychiatrist. Anyway, we led the highlight for a bit, but he too was alcoholic. And I'll keep it short. We lost everything. You know, you can have the high life. And I remember we used to entertain some of the psychiatrists that used to come and work

work in the hospital and they remembered they had seen me at some point or come across me in one of my hospitalizations. And now I'm just I'm the directors wife. But that didn't you know, I'll leave that all alone. It's just a whole lot of craziness. I wound up on a park bench,

homeless, penniless,

friendless,

the only place I knew to go, and I lived there for two months like a tramp.

I'm not proud of that, but I also never want to forget where this thing takes me. You know what I think, really, as I look at life today and the things that I've learned,

I think, like the book says on page 23, it says the main problem rests in the mind, not in the body. You know, alcohol was a solution. That's why I went after it so wildly. Like I would drink Chanel #5 if I couldn't find alcohol, I would drink vanilla. I didn't care what it was, just change the way I feel because I can't do it sober.

And so I wind up on the park bench. On the morning of May the 8th,

the police picked me off the park bench. I don't know why. And I never had the courage to ask. And they took me to a psych ward and that's where I came to. And I was kind of paralyzed from what I had taken. But Sunday morning, two days later, I could walk. So the nurse came in and said to me,

we're going to discharge you today.

Now, maybe for some people being discharged is good news. For me, it had all the marks of terror that you can't imagine because I had no home, I had no money, I had no friends. I had no clue about what I could do. And I remember distinctly, I did an inventory, not four step. I took a look at my life. What could I do?

You know, I was saying enough to think, where are my smarts? What might I do if they put me out on the street?

What, what? What could I do? I've tried music, I've tried the university, I've tried education, I've tried the church, I've tried the convent and I went on and on and none of them have worked. It works for you, not for me. There's something not OK with me. I don't know how to do life. I'm telling you, that is one of the most important realities that I faced because

the power that I believe in now,

not a power that rewards good behavior, that kind of thing, it's a power that will work with me if I allow it. All my life, I have the fists up. I want this and I want it to go that way, and if I can have that, I'm OK. They should love me. They should make me feel good. I had life all out of joint, all wrong. That's the way I thought, however,

and I thought I don't know how to live.

That is the most special, most wonderful decision I've ever come to. And

so I made a decision. I'm going to take my life going to end it. I can't do this anymore. I've had it up to the eyeballs. And I asked the nurse to get my coat because after all, if you're going to commit suicide, you should be warm. So she went to get my coat and the unbelievable happened. See, I don't think that these things happen at random.

I look at my life in these 50 years. My life has been a series of, of situations that have proved to me

that there is a power of good and that how do I get to that? Well, our, our steps, our program, everything that we learn here. But in my personal life, I also have seen this, that my attitude toward life, my attitude toward people, isn't that what the program is about? I didn't know that then. But I really believe strongly. I've come to believe in that power of good. So

I remember as clearly as I'm standing here,

the compulsion and the obsession were taken like that. I stood there. In one minute I was the old Mildred, and the next minute something had happened to me. I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. You know, I was saying to Allie last night,

God does things in silence, doesn't he? There was no frou frou and I was changed. I can guarantee you the the morning that I woke up,

May the 20th, that's my God day. The 18th is my sober day, the 20th is my God day because that's the day that I was transformed. Now that doesn't mean I had was totally changed. It means that I the compulsion was taken, The obsession was taken. I who wouldn't stay sober 5 minutes if I could walk over you and get booze. It was all taken

and I remember thinking,

oh, I'm clean inside. I don't have to drink anymore. And you know something, when the Spirit teach it acts, you can trust what happens because that's absolutely true. In 50 years, I have not been an Angel, but I can tell you this, I have not ever had the compulsion or even a thought that

maybe a drink would make this better. That was removed.

So I remember saying I don't know how to live sober. And that's one of the most truthful things that I have ever said. I don't know how to live sober. You'll have to send me somebody. And there was a wrap on the door. I swear to you, I'm telling you the truth. A man stood there.

You know William James said this, he said when you are contemplating your relationship with God, He said your intellect is not useful concepts can't reach how big and whatever God is go to your experience. That's my experience. May the 20th, 1973 and it's a solid today as there's no other reason.

Understand there is a power. And this man stood at the door. Why was he there right at that time when I said that? And there he was. He said I saw you in the hallway. He said you're in trouble, aren't you? And I said yes, you want to make something of it. And he said no. He said I came to see if I could help you and he told me about Don Wood and I won't get into that. He said there's this hospital treatment center kind of thing. And he said it probably

be good for you and if you would go, I will take you tomorrow. And I said sure, I'll go. And he came and he took me and I felt a different spirit in me. I stayed there for, I stayed there for I guess 28 days

and when 28 days were over, it was time back to the street. I still had no home and all of that. And they gave me enough money to get a room on Skid Row.

I had never lived on Skid Row. Lived on a park bench. Didn't know what Skid Row was like but I was to find out.

The other thing I think that I remember from this whole situation was God has never left me without that which I have needed, that which is appropriate.

I had no friends. I had nobody in my life at that time except the chief psychiatrist at Donwood. He took us a liking to me and he said I want you to come and see me once a week. And I went and he was my thread of goodness.

I don't remember what we talked about. And I used to think, what does he want me to come for? I I'm not pretty. I'm not OK. I haven't got anything smart to say. Why does he want me? I know why he wanted me. He was a dedicated Hindu. He never talked religion. What I do remember was was stuck in my head. He'd say, Mildred, whatever you do, don't drink and don't drug, He said

somehow or other, it'll workout. And it was right. Six months into the INTO being sober, I was in the institution and a man invited me to a meeting, and that's how I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, there's one thing to come into the INTO program with a head full of arrogance. I know nobody can teach me anything. It's got to go my way or to come in broken. I was broken. I know what it's like to be poor. I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to have where you can't think. If I had a phone, who would iPhone? There was nobody,

don't feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for myself. It was I had pulled, I had made my life the way I had made my life. And that's where it took me, you know, and I think back to my my 50 year anniversary, I think everything has been perfect. Some of it has been really hard. So I got a sponsor in a A and you know, what I remember is the people who stepped up and said,

you're too sick to stay here if you don't do the steps. Two men, you know, not all men are out to get sex and to get laid, believe it or not. And these two men came and said, you know, you're, you're too sick to stay here if you don't do the steps. And they held me accountable. I had never allowed anybody to make me accountable. I'm too smart. I know what I'm doing. I'll do it my way. And that was broken. That was broken.

OK, They I went, they took, they read the book to me. They told me what to do. And you know what? I I stayed sober, I stayed active and I got a job one year. My friend Ken in San Diego, he talks about God shots, a God shot. I got a job and that's when

the change started to take place. It's one thing to live by yourself, walk alone on the street,

go sweep a factory floor, go shut the door and go back to your room. That's one thing. But to walk into a room with 2000 students 20 years old? To walk into a, an office with 200 adult teachers

that I, I, I didn't have any skills for that. I was a broken human being. And you know,

it has been my observation that the right people have always come along, the right people to guide me, to chastise me if necessary, to teach me, to show me. And that's what happened there. I started to grow and I had a sponsor and he was a man. And he too, he all, he said to me, you know, I'll help you. But you know, when I think back 44 years I had of this

wonderful man, what did he do? He taught me the program. He taught me the program by how he lived the program. And he taught me something else that I value today. He taught me what? The steps,

I don't have time to talk about that, but he taught me the value of the how you apply the steps to real life. Like, I had a group of students

that weren't doing what I had said they should do. And I yelled at them. And he said to me, Mildred, you have to make that right, that life doesn't work that way. And he taught me. He said, tomorrow morning you're going to walk into that school, into your classroom, and you are going to have a chat with those students telling them that you have been misbehaving. I said I haven't been misbehaving. They have. I can't do that,

he said. Do it or get another sponsor because he said I have an understanding of how things work and you keep on the way you're going and you're going to lose your job. He was perfectly right. That's just one small

example of how he we did the steps again, I did the steps with him and then he would teach me as I got involved in life. You remember I said the morning that I had the spiritual experience,

I said to whoever was there, whatever that spirit was, I don't know how to live sober. And I still say that some days because it's one thing to put the booze aside, but it's another thing to live the way we're asked to live. One of the things that has anyway. At the end of

six years,

I bought my first house

and I was to buy many houses, and I became very wealthy and I built my own place. And I remember the day I got the keys to that house. And why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because I'm trying to convey what the spirit, what life has been for me in Alcoholics Anonymous as opposed to what it was when I was using alcohol to solve my problems.

I thought

I had gotten it into my head because my father was wealthy and all of that, and I thought if I could just, you know, get stuff, get a good car, get great clothes, go places and so on and so on, people are going to like me.

Anybody there understand that?

And you know what it did? Zero. I don't think anybody cared that I, I built my house. I don't think anybody cared that I owned 10 houses downtown or what. Whatever the case was, it didn't solve it. And so the day came, I'm 21 years sober. I'm going to to comprise this because I'm there's something I want to talk about

other than the desperate part.

The 1st 21 years. I think God used those years to help me learn how to live in the third dimension. You know, I don't care how much you meditate. I don't care how much you you spare to work, how much I do. I still have a real life where I have to come in here and deal with people I know, people I don't know, people I like, people I don't like,

where page 51 says

within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God.

If that is the case, then I've got to be careful, as Teresa talked about, you know, I've got to be careful how I treat you, how I talk to you, how I think about you. And so this idea that I was going to get a lot of stuff and I'd be okay, that wasn't the way it worked. So my first 21 years, I think there were a lot of good people and I was a good member of a. A If you went to that group that I was out, they would tell you I was.

Member but you know, you can be a good member and do the things on the outside. I was enjoying the people I met in the meetings and all of that, but I didn't pray. You know why? Because I had no relationship with God. And you know, I think if you study the big book, it's full of what we do so that we have a relationship with God. Not that we get stuff, not that people like us not that that that people

isn't she wonder that's not it, but that we fulfill what Saint Francis you know which reminds me Ollie. I wanted to it should thank you for inviting me to do this, even though it's it's kind of tough talking to people that I feel I know and people who know me. But but

Ali has I remember the day Ali and I discussed this conference and he told me he had a dream and he was going perhaps and what did I think about it? Do you remember that day? And

what has I? What I want to say is what I love about you, Ali, is that through it all, you have maintained your manhood in peace and you live with humility. It's obvious to me and I love you for that. So back to

21 years sober,

I believe. As I look at my life, I believe

that there has been a hand that has guided me. It has guided me as perfectly as I could possibly think. When I was about 18 years sober. I wasn't praying at that time and I was coming home from something thinking, you know, I live alone and whatever. And I saw this across the dashboard.

Was it really there? I didn't. It wasn't, obviously, but that's what I saw in my mind's eye.

The day will come when faced by a self-imposed crisis, you will have to make a decision. Either God is everything or God is nothing.

I nearly drove the car in the ditch. I was so shocked. And I thought, what am I going to say to that? I'm going to make that choice.

Really. I think maybe God is nothing. And, you know, at that time, I didn't know. I didn't have

a relationship with that power, that I could feel that power was at work in my life. And I thought, well, I guess I'm, I've got a little Catholic guilt in me. And I should say, after I left the convent, I left the Catholic Church too. Not because I hate the Catholic Church, not because of anything like that. The church never heard me, and the convent never heard me either. At some point I realized it

didn't fit. I fit here. I fit when I pick up the big book, I know what it tells me. I can hear it, my soul listens to it and it helps me to live the right way and a 21 years. So I said, and what? Be careful what you say, because I remember saying, well, God,

I guess I'm going to say you're everything, but you'll have to teach me.

You know, people can teach us some things.

I've, I've had some big revelations about this.

I was talking to Marty before and I said, you know, Marty, I've had the most impressive years in my sobriety in the about the last five years. It takes what it takes.

You know, it's not about I'm sober that long and therefore I've got this together and that together. And the speakers have said that today. I mean, you live with what it is that you have to learn

about. Well, 10 years ago, no, first, at 21 years, God put a teacher in my life who taught me some things I needed to know. I'm not going to get into it. But you know how we take on things in the subconscious when we're little and how those ideas affect us. And Bill Wilson knew it. He wrote about it in step eight. In the 12 and 12, he says we've got stuff buried below the level of.

And he goes on to say at the time of these occurrences, they have given our emotions violent twists. That's Bill's language, not mine, and have discolored our personalities and altered our lives for the worst. That was me as far as relationship, as far as many things in the world were concerned. I went to the teacher. I learned some things. I learned what,

what, how I could handle that. I learned to understand it.

You know, there are some things I know only God can heal my soul. I know understand that. And there are old ideas that I, I can do all the reading and all the talking and all the writing and all of it. And like it doesn't take it away. You know, the Aramaic teachers, they talked about that power that is within us. I believe today, you know, that God grows the apples on the trees,

God grows the seeds we plant and God grows our souls. Because have there been a lot of people who have contributed to my life? Absolutely. I couldn't even begin. I couldn't even begin to tell you the number of people even today, hearing Theresa speak, hearing what the part I heard from all us, hearing Christ, Chris, I mean it.

I heard stuff that were good, that was good for my soul.

But there are things also you have to learn. Personally,

it was at that time I've started to meditate at 21 years sober, and I've meditated pretty well every day since. It's become part of my relationship with God. I have a relationship with God today. I have a relationship with people today because I have been changed. You know when you live up here,

and that's where I lived a lot of my life. I'm smart. That's what I was told.

She's the brilliant one. She and I relied on my head. And then I think of what William James said. He said you can't you, you can't build a relationship with God, with your concepts and with your brain. So what happened to me was

I was at a party one afternoon

and the talk went to

something that had happened and two of the women started to cry.

And I, in my best snotty fashion, said, why are you crying?

And they said because we feel sad,

you know, I never get over how God uses

when the time is right, I hear what I need to hear. It might be Eddie, it might be Allie, it might be Samantha, it might be somebody. I don't know, but I hear it.

I'm crying. We're crying because we're sad. You know what I heard

You, Mildred, have a closed heart.

Changed everything. I still remember when

I came to the program, there was a man I used to follow,

not because I wanted something from him, I wanted to be with him because he had something. He seemed to like everybody and everybody liked him and he was not an ass kisser. He he just had that energy about him. And I used to say to him, how do you do that?

And he'd say, what are you talking about?