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Source: Mary T. (Pearl) – 12 Step Study Part 2 1998 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mary-t-pearl-12-step-study-part-2-1998-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:09:17
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Bottom line is, I can't. That's what the first step's all about. I can't do it. Step two says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That's sort of insulting, if you think about it. You know, I was the one who had kept the family together. I had worked. I had paid all the bills. I had a good position in the community. I kept Immaculate Home. I'm a gourmet cook.
How could someone who did all of that possibly be insane? How could that happen? Of course, I could admit on occasion or two, I might have run them up just a tad. But I always felt like if you'd have been in the place that I was, you'd have done the same thing, too. See, that was that convincing I do for myself. And for years, my sister would say things to me like, things happen to you that don't happen to another living soul.
And I'd say, yeah. And today I know why. Because I would put myself in positions to do things that another living soul wouldn't do. You know, just crazy, you know. One of the things that used to bother me so much was his disappearing acts. And I would miss him. And then when I would miss him, I would have to go looking. You know, we played hide and seek. He'd hide and I'd seek him. And it would worry me. And so I wanted him to know how that felt.
To love someone and not know where they were. So one night he came in and he was drinking. And I just decided, I said, I've had it. You know, I did one of my real theatrical things. You know, you do everything so bizarre. And I said, I've had it. I'm leaving. Unless you wonder where I'm at. I went out and got in my car and I drove away. And I parked a block away. Well, I wanted to see him writhing in agony over this, you know.
And so what I did was I parked the car and I sneaked back to the house to see. I wanted him to be pacing the floor saying, where is she? Where is she at? Who is she with? What are they doing? I don't hear this. And so I decided, well, it was a little cold out. So I would go into my laundry room and I would sit in there and I would wait for the agony. And to see him drive off looking for me. So I got in there and I got tired standing up in the laundry room.
And so I sat down on top of the washing machine. And I just got my legs under me and I sat there like a little Indian, you know. And I sat there so long that my legs went to sleep. Now, I tried to get off the washing machine. But you see, when your legs don't have any feeling, you know, I fell off the washing machine. And I hurt myself. And I ran into the house to tell him I was hurt and he was asleep.
There's something wrong with this picture. And you see, when I would go this hide and seek with him, I would go to those bars. And he would have that lower companion with him. I knew what they were. I'd been there, done that. I knew that. And so I'd go in there and I would, you know, just sail past everybody and flip the table upside down. Slap her flat. Throw a drink in his face. Proceed to pulverize him.
And the bouncer would throw me out. I'm sober. And every once in a while, you know, they use gorillas to do that. And every once in a while, I'd just get a little too much with the bouncer. And I'd go around or two of them and then I'd go to jail. J.D. has never been barred from a club. I've been barred from three clubs and two pawn shops. Now, I was not pawning my stuff. I was retrieving my stuff.
He never pawned anything of his. He didn't have anything. It was all mine. And then, you know, there were just insane things that would happen, like, you know, the inability to say no to people. Just like, you know, my mother-in-law told me one weekend she had helped me. We went pea picking. And we had all of these bushels of peas and she helped me put them up in the freezer. And my husband and my father-in-law and his brother had all gone on a weekend fishing trip on the Little Red River up in central, north-central Arkansas.
And my mother-in-law loves to fish. And so when we finished this stuff, it's around 11 o'clock at night, and I'm just sitting there exhausted. And she says, Why don't we go and join the boys for early morning fishing? Oh, man, I can't wait to do this. And I said, Miss Virgie, are you sure you want to do that? I said, I'm awful tired. She said, Oh, but I just love it. I said, You know, I can fry chicken real quick and we can take that chicken and we can go up there and we can surprise them and be there for fishing, you know, like 4 o'clock in the morning, you know, when the sun comes up.
Oh, God, that's when I like to go to bed. I'm sort of like a vampire, you know. The light's up, I'm out. And so I felt like that I owed her that, you know, that because she'd helped me all day long. How could I refuse her? Oh, I hate this woman. And she was a good woman. And so anyway, we started up there and it started raining. And I said, It's raining. Let's go home.
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She said, It might not be raining where they are.
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You know, this is a woman who's dedicated to fishing. And it was raining harder as we got to where we were going. And we went through this little town that's right outside of the river there. And the water was almost running bore deep. You know, she's going, Forge on, forge on. So like a fool, I go on and we go out there and then we turn off of the highway onto a red gumbo road. Now, rain and a red gumbo road.
I'm just fishtailing all over that road. And then I came to this little narrow one lane bridge and water's going across the bridge. And I said, We can't go across the bridge. And she said, I've been across it a million times. I hate it when she said that because you know what that meant. I had to do it. I had to do it. The challenge was on. Don't tell me you can do something I can't do. And so now the car is off the bridge and we're down in the river.
And because we got up halfway across in the bridge collapsed. And so my mother-in-law screaming, I can't swim. And I'm saying the chicken can't either. It's floating in the back seat. And I'm mad about this. Now, see, I don't have enough sense to realize that I may be dying momentarily here. I'm mad. I'm mad about this. And so I'm going now I've got to save her life. And there goes the chicken. And so I got out and I'm trying to hang on to her and trying to get over to the edge of the thing to hang on.
And there's these little roots and bushes and stuff out there. And all of a sudden I begin to have this tremendous pain in my chest. And I thought, Oh, God, I'm going to die right here. I finally got her pushed up on the bank. And then I took care of the pain in my chest. And I finally see this damn perch that got hung in my bra. Got swept in there with the flood runners. And he was just feeding me to death.
And so I got the perch out, climbed up on the bank. And just time to see the cargo completely under. And I said, Dale, this is wonderful. So we walked down this road to where my husband and his father and the brother were. And lo and behold, the boat had sunk. They're all drunk in the tent. The stuff is floating around in the tent, you know. And I am so mad. I can't tell you how mad I was. Well, anyway, it was our truck.
So my husband, anyway, we get him to. And so I tell him, I said, the car is in the river. That's it. And I said, it's right down there. It's right down there. And he said, well, we're going to have to get it out the same way it went in. And I said, no joke. And I said, do you happen to notice something missing here? Like the bridge. And he just. Well, it's the wee hours of the morning. You know, it's just through the lightning flash that you're seeing all this, you know.
And so, anyway, we got out and we got across the thing again, got over to the other side, got to go for help because it's the only way out. And we struggled across, hanging on to stuff as we're trying to get across at a shallower place. And we got over there. And I said, right before I turned onto this red gumbo road, I noticed this house. And I said, maybe we could go there for help. And we didn't look too good.
I mean, well, I mean, how wet can you get? I've already been in the river. You know, I mean, how wet can you get? So we get over there and there's this giant German shepherd. He comes loping out to us, you know. And I said, don't give me any shit. And I hit that dog. And he went, woof, woof, woof, woof. That was the guard dog. Went up and beat on that door and said, open that door, we need help out here.
And you could hear him. Are you opening the door? No, I'm not opening the door. Are you opening the door? No, I'm not opening the door. Had these people terrified in their own house. Well, unbeknownst to me, they had had a prison break a few miles away. God help the prisoners if I'd have got it. I'm daring to tell you. So we had to walk 12 miles into town. And the pouring rain and the thunder and lightning.
And the only thing that was, they had pay phones, but they were in the little town. So pay phones were inside of businesses. There weren't any pay phones that were where you could just get to them. So the only place that was open was the funeral home. So went to the funeral home. And I went in, I said, I just need a place to rest. I've had it. It's been a hell of a night. And JD says, honey, is there anything I can do for you?
And I said, yes. Ring out my ponytail. Because that cold water kept running down my back. And I had this big long ponytail. So he rang out my ponytail. And we called his uncle who lived in a nearby town who came with a big tractor.
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And they were going to pull the car out of the creek. Well, it took us, like I say, several hours in the daylight to accomplish that. And then I heard my father-in-law, who had continued drinking, say to my husband, you know, Jim, I think if we got old roadie, that was the car's name, if we get old roadie going fast enough, we can jump that creek. And my mind says, no, I didn't hear that. And all of a sudden I heard, now we have the truck in the rear.
We didn't have a vehicle. It didn't smell like a sardine. I'm here to tell you, you know, now those are insane instances, you know, but the insanity that was going on. Those are insane instances, you know, but the insanity that was with me on a daily business, daily basis, I'll get out here in a minute, was that doing the same thing over and over and over, that doesn't work, thinking this time it's going to be different.
Because, see, nothing's different until something's different. And I kept doing it the same way, you know. I kept trying to head him off at the pass to control him. And I got news for you, you know, sanity doesn't just strike the minute you come into the program. You know, sanity is a process. It's a process, and it doesn't return instantly, you know. There was one morning I got up, and it was the day to take the dogs to the groomer, and J.D. had lost his job, and we're in the program, you know.
We got in the program, and guess what? Things got worse, but we got better. Now, see, there's the key, you know. Things usually get worse, but we got better. Well, so I'm laying there, and I'm thinking, you know, I woke up, and I looked out, and I thought, Oh, God, it's raining. He'll probably get drunk today. Days that y'all like today when I got here is gloomy and everything. Those were real good drinking days for him.
I hated those kind of days, because he just didn't deal well with them. And then I happened to glance over at the calendar, and the calendar said it was his daughter's birthday, and his daughter doesn't want to have anything to do with him. And so, therefore, I know now he's going to get drunk today. No question in my mind. So I turned to him, and now keep in mind, he's asleep, but I've already got it planned.
And I turned to him, and I said, Wake up. We've got to take the dogs to the groomer. And he said, Why do I have to take the dogs to the groomer? I said, You're here. And I said, We'll do it. And he said, But who takes them when I'm not here? I said, Well, I take them all the time, but you need to go too. And he said, Why? And I said, You just want to stay home and get drunk, don't you? He goes, I just want to sleep.
I just want to sleep. And I said, No, you want to get drunk. It's raining out, and it's Vicki's birthday. You want to get drunk. He says, Is it Vicki's birthday? You know what I mean? And so I was just furious with him. But you don't miss the groomer appointment. So I went in, and I went in there, and I got ready. I'm out in the car. I'm driving down the road. I'm halfway to the groomers when it occurred to me.
I don't have the dogs. And I go back home, and there's my poodle sitting there with their little collars and leashes on at the door going, What is wrong with you? You know, they're just looking at you with that, you know, scorn, poodle scorn, you know. So I got my dogs. See, that's the insanity, the things that we do. You know, and I had an attack at Sears. The guy, you know, Sears is not a good, I don't buy, I don't go into Sears now.
You know, I finally learned after the millionth time, Sears is a bad place for you. You know, because if it's going to screw up, it's going to be at Sears. You know, everybody else can go to the catalog sales and get what they order. I can't. It's impossible. I can't do it. They know it's me. You know, it's like I told a guy at the grocery store the other day, I got ready to reach into the produce.
You know, I'm one of these, I love lots of fruits and vegetables. And so I go over to the produce, but I go like, because if I don't, you know, the little sprinkling system, I get bathed. I get a bath in produce. You know, and I told him, I started, I wet my hand like this and the water came out a little bit and it stopped. And then I went like this. It's like, you know, suddenly I put my hand there, there it was wet.
And I said, it knows it's me. And he says, yes, it's an alert. He says, we know when you enter the store, we say, turn on the water, she's coming. Now we were laughing about it, but that's how I used to think. I would have seriously thought that was a plot to drive me nuts at the store. You know, you know, I had a day from hell a few months ago. It started one morning. I got up. I didn't have any diet right in the refrigerator.
Now that may not be a big deal, but I'm addicted to diet, right? Love diet, right? Cola. And I got up and I didn't have any. Well, now the thing is, I'm supposed to have diet, right? Cola in there. The other person who lives at our house, that's his job is to bring it from the laundry room and put it in the refrigerator. And there isn't any in the refrigerator. I'm not happy. Now, the next thing was, it was the day that we were going to clean the aquarium.
Now, that's a disaster. That's a two and a half, three hour job. Now, that's a disaster. That's a two-and-a-half, three-hour job at least to clean out the aquarium
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with all that stuff. And we were siphoning the water out when my husband took the hose and missed the bucket. And so I was putting, you know, 50 gallons of fish water on my carpet. So I was not happy about that one. And then, when we were trying to put water back in the aquarium, the water was brown. What is the matter with the water? They're flushing the water mains in your area. It's like, this can't be happening. This cannot be happening.
And so then I go out to light the gas grill. And it goes, rusted off. Just more? Oh, my God. But I've got company coming. That means we're going to go buy a new grill. Get it up. Get it up. You know, change the menu. Hell, no. We're going to have grills. I'm going to have something go my way this day. You know, girl, I sponsor came over that night. And she says, could you use some help? And I said, absolutely not. I've got it all under control. And I just went. And she looked. I said, yes, I need help. I said, I most certainly need help. You know, the thing about it is you wonder to yourself, you know, I got up that morning. I did my reading, prayer and meditation. What would have happened if I didn't? It's got to be frightening, you know, if it was that bad to start with. Now, my higher power, you know, my higher power when I was sort of a combination of a gimme God and a gotcha God, you know, something like Santa Claus made a list, checking it twice.
You've been naughty. Nothing. This is the way it's going to be for you. And then also I could see him, you know, sort of like George, Judge Wapner up there, that little sarcastic face, you know, just saying all those things. And see, the truth of the matter was I judged me and I thought because I judged me that God would judge me, too. But the step says came to believe, came to believe and God meet you where you are. God meet you what you are.
He knows what it takes to get you. You know, I've been going to the meetings. I hear in the meetings like going like God, like going like God. You know, you don't hear that so much in meetings anymore. Wonder why? You know, I was thinking about that the other day at home. You know, we have meetings on lots of topics and things, but you don't hear the meetings on like going like God, like going like God. I still don't understand.
But anyway, that's all I could hear. Seemed like when I go to meetings, that's all I could hear. Didn't want to hear that, but that's all I could hear. And so I'm driving down the road and I have this great big station wagon I just love. And it just became powerless. Just turned itself off. Just turned itself off. Now, when you've got a big car that runs on power, your windows run on power, your door locks run on power and you got power steering, power brakes, everything's power, no power, nothing works. You know, and it's like you have to cattle herd it off to the side of the road and hope it stops. And I thought, what in the world is the matter? So I took it in and the guy said, well, your carburetor is all trashy, got a bunch of crap in it. And he said, it needs to be cleaned, need to have it rebuilt. And so anyway, he gave me this astronomical amount of money that was going to cost. And here was JD. He was been sober for about maybe two months and he didn't have a job. And I had all the financial responsibility of paying everything.
And I just, we shouldn't have the money to do that. And I said, I don't understand. He said, well, it's like it's the heart of the car and it's all clogged up and you're going to have to clean it out. And I said, well, not today. And I said, is there anything else we can do? You know, give me another answer. And he said, well, I'll give you a little guess, a bottle of gasoline. And he said, you can take the breather off and you can pour a few, a little bit in the carburetor from the top and it'll backfire. Maybe it'll knock that trash loose, but sooner or later, you're going to have to get it cleaned out.
And so that's what I was doing. I was going down the road and I'd stop in the car, turn itself off. I'd get out, take off my breather. And I always loved guys. You know, they go, there's a woman with the hood up. Like she knows what she's doing. Just tickle the shit out of me. When I pour that in there, that thing, it's starting, I'd go on, you know. But it got to where I was having to do it instead of a couple times a week, I was having to do it every day. And then it got to where I was having to do it a couple of times a day. It was getting worse, you know. And I was getting more frustrated, more frustrated.
See, the key to it is when you're powerless, frustration is the natural consequence. When you keep trying to exert power where you're powerless, you get frustrated, you know. And so anyway, I had been over to see the nemesis that day, mother. And I was going home and the car had stopped three or four times on me earlier in the day. And then here I'm going home and I thought, I can't handle it. I just can't handle it anymore. And I heard, let go and let God. And I'm going, but wait, you don't understand. You see, if I ask God to do something for me, truly ask God, if there is a God and he knows it's me and he doesn't happen, that means there's no hope. So as long as you don't ask, there's always the
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possibility that it's there. But if you ask and it's not, then it's all over. And I was scared, but I was more frustrated than I was scared that day. And so I said, okay, I'm going to do this. And so I sit there and I, in my car and I said, okay, God, if there is a God, this is Mary Pearl Thompson. I live at 409 Healy street, North Little Rock, Arkansas. I want him to be sure he knew who he was dealing with here. Now you laugh about that, but I was very sincere about that. And I said, uh, I need help. All I want to do is get home.
I'm real tired. I just want to get home. And so I got out because my sponsor told me if there's any action to take on your part, you do your part. So I got out and there was a little bit of that gas left in that bottle. And I took the breather off. I poured that gas in. I tried to start the car and it wouldn't start. It would just sputter and sputter and sputter. And I put the breather back on and I sit there for a minute and I said, God, it won't get there like that. He won't get me there like that. I'm asking you now, if you care anything about me at all, help me get home. And I turned the key and it sputtered a couple and then boy, I mean it caught and it went to zoom. And when I got home, when I got out of my car, my driveway, I knelt down by the side of my car and I thanked to God that I didn't know because you see inside, I knew that I had asked in desperation and God had answered my prayer and I got home. Now there were people later who would say that was a coincidence, but a coincidence to me is a miracle where God prefers to remain anonymous. And I went on in the house that night and a strange series of events began to unfold in my life. You see, when you have just a little bit, when you give God just a little bit of a chance, he'll come right zooming in there for you. You just got to get it out of the way. And the phone was a girl that I hadn't talked to in several years I've gone to school with and it was telling her, of course, you know how we tell anybody complete strangers what our problems are. And so I was telling Carolyn about the fact that my car had been doing this deal for me. And she said, well, you know, my dad was the head mechanic over at the Chevrolet company for years. He retired last year. He's got his own place. She said, why don't you get dad to fix it? And I said, well, I don't have the money to get it fixed. She said, well, dad had fixed it for you and let you pay for it. And I said, do you reckon? And she said, I bet. And so I made the call and within 15 or 20 minutes he came over with the wrecker and got my car and took it over there. You know, it's like the series of events that things begin to happen now for me, you know, and God did it in a way that I could understand. And, you know, and looking back at that, you see, there was my problem. You know, I was dirty on the inside and I needed to be cleaned out and those little spurts and things. The thing is, it's going to have to be rebuilt.
In other words, you ain't going to be able to just stop here and here. You're going to have to go on with the steps. That's what this was all about. It was so funny to me later when I realized what an illustration, you know, but see the insanity that comes in my life is it comes in the form of mad, you know, when you get mad, you know, the word mad means insane. And the kind of anger that I would have was because it was so magnified.
It was so magnified because I was full of rage from the age of 12, full of rage over the fact that things hadn't been the way I wanted it. So that whenever anything spilled out, it was the anger that came out of me. That's the reason I couldn't deal with frustration because I didn't, I was so full already. There wasn't any room for it to go, you know? And if you want to know if your actions are sane, just ask yourself this question. Do they work?
Do they work? You know, mine don't. So see, seeing was believing. And then I had my sponsor, you know, and I knew she believed. And I began to believe in the fact that she believed. You know, I couldn't do that deal with God right off, you know? And then like I say, when I was able to do that, because see, all my life I had challenged God. I had challenged God with thought and action. There's days I had got up and say, okay, hit me with it early. God, I can take it. Because I always felt like that God was getting me, you know?
So I just tell him, you know, hit me with it early. I can take it. You know, what the hell? You know, that insanity that would do that. See, I didn't feel like a child of God. I didn't feel like that. I felt that I was bad. I had done some very bad things. I had compromised my own belief system. I had done things all my life that I thought and judged myself as being bad and then thought God would look at me that way or even worse. So I couldn't be a child of God, you know? I wanted to believe, but I was afraid to believe, you know? But things began to work anyway. See, you don't have to believe it for it to work. You just have to do the deal. So I started doing the deal. And my sponsor said, if you can just say, please, in the morning, get out of bed, get on your knees. I don't like getting on my knees. She said, I didn't care if you like getting on your knees. I don't care what you
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want to do. Do it anyway. And so there was an AA speaker and I heard him talking about it and he said that he didn't like doing it either. So what he did at night was he threw his shoes under the bed so that in the morning he had to get on his knees to get the shoes off of the bed. And since he's already down there, he can say prayer. Works for me. Yeah. So they started doing that, you know, see, that's the thing. I started putting into action the things that I had heard. And so I would be down there and I would say, please. And then at night when I threw them in there, I was supposed to say, thank you. And so I'd get down there and I'd say, please. And thank you. Now, like I say, here's JD out of work and here it is coming up and we've got a bill that's going to be due this weekend and we don't have the money to pay it. And what in the world are we going to do? And God, I got to have, I've got to have this amount of money. I've just got to have it. You know, I've got to have this $130. I just, I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't have it, you know, that kind of a deal. And I went to the office and I was sitting there and the girl from personnel call and she said, we need to talk to you for the days out on something. And I said, okay. So I went on with everything and I got thinking later in the day, I wonder if they want me to do an evaluation or something. And anyway, I went on around there at the end of the day and she said, you know, the auditors were going over our books and we underpaid you last year. And here's a check for $140. And I can went back to my office and I sit down and I call my sponsor and I cried and I said, only needed 130. And she said, well, see there, God sometimes believes in giving you extras to, you know, don't limit God on what he can do for you. But see, I didn't feel worthy of that kind of deal. And so then more time would go on. And, and, uh, my sponsor said, are y'all going to go to the state convention, AA convention, the old granddad in hot Springs.
And I said, how can we go to our convention? I mean, he's not got a job. He hadn't had a job. It's been over six months. Uh, how, how can we afford it? It's all I can do to pay a bill. I'm having to call everybody. She said, I just asked you a yes or no question. You know, somebody asked us what time we tell them how to build a watch. You know, I mean, got to get them the whole story here, you know? And so, uh, I said, well, I guess, because I mean, we hadn't been to a convention. What did we know a convention was about, but everybody said, Oh, you'll just love it. You're just, well, yeah, we want to do, we want to participate.
If everybody else is going to do something, don't you want to go and do too? You know, God, I don't want to be left out. And so, uh, she said, well, why don't you pray about it? And that was her solution for everything. I just hated it. And, um, so I went in, I talked to JD and I said, well, do you want to pray about it? And he said, well, I guess we can. And I said, well, do you want to pray about it together? And he said, well, we can.
And so that was a first. We knelt by the side of the bed and we held hands and we said, God, if it's your will, we'd like to go to the convention. There's the prayer. Just that simple. Next morning, got up. Is there any action to take? Make a reservation. Call down there on the Watts line. Made a reservation. 30 minutes later, JD called. He had a job. He had a job. And you know, the, the amazing thing about that is he's still working at that same job. Still working there. Uh, so now what are you going to do? Well, well, I didn't think we'd go. So now, I mean, we're taking a little bit of money. We're having to pay a bunch of the stuff that hadn't been. And we're, you know, it's real hard to try and get it all put in little divisions and, and pay what you need to be paying and the people you promised you and then still save money to go to a convention. And so I figured up the bare minimum, what it would cost to go if we had cheese and crackers in the room and didn't have to buy any meals. And it's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday conference.
And so I thought, God, you know, all those nights in the hotel and the tax and all like this figured it all up. And so we started working toward that. And then JD came in one night and he said, you know, I don't have a thing to wear. And that's true because JD smoked and when he smoked and drank, his clothes look like colanders. He's constantly setting himself on fire. Remember, this is the days of polyester where you burn little circles all over yourself. Remember those leisure suits? And so, uh, anyway, I said, well, there was this brochure had come in the mail and I said, it couldn't be much though, because see a suit was at least three or $400 to my way of thinking. And they had these clothes out on a reversible vest, two pairs of pants and a, and a sport coat for 49.95. Couldn't be much, you know, couldn't be much. And I said, but what the heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, uh, well ordered it. And, uh, the very week of the convention where I had sit down there that morning, uh, Monday. And I said, well, we're going to have to call and cancel the reservation because we don't have enough money. We're $35 short of the bare minimum. That's it. And he said, okay. And the mailman came and he brought the package with the suit and JD said, well, I think I'll try it on. And I said, well, okay. So he's in there trying on, he comes in, he says, what do you think? And I said, oh, I think he looks really good.
And I said, oh, I think it looks really nice, gosh, that's a nice looking suit, I can't believe it's that nice.
[00:30:01]
For that, my God, that looks better than some of the ones we paid $300 or $400 for. And so anyway, he's twirling around, he says, let me go try on the other pair of pants, and so he goes right in there, tries on the other pair of pants, he comes in, he says, wait a minute, he says, something's scrunching here in the pocket. And he reached in, and he pulled out a 20, a 10, and a 5. I would never have thought to tell God to do it that way.
Would never have thought to tell God to do it that way. And we cried, we just sat there and we cried, and we held on to each other, and we went to the conference. And you know, the funny thing about it was that every meal, someone came and says, why don't y'all come to breakfast with us, why don't y'all come to lunch with us, why don't y'all come to supper with us, you know, we didn't, we had that cheese and crackers, now here it's a banquet night, you know, and God, they had this big ballroom, and you had all these little banquet tickets, and the people that weren't buying the banquet tickets were having to sit in this other room with closed circuit TV, a big screen, but closed circuit TV.
And of course, you know, we don't want to miss anything, and so we're in there feeling sorry for ourselves. Now, we're at the convention, something we didn't think would happen, we've had all these meals, something we didn't think would happen, we're pissing and whining about it. Aren't, isn't that the way we are, no matter how much you get, I want more, more, more, you know. And so we're, I'm getting ready to break out the cheese and crackers, you know, I'm going to be martyring, you know.
And the thing about martyrdom, you know, it tells you right there, martyr is dumb, you know what I mean, it tells you that right there in the work. But there was this knock at the door, and when I went to the door, and opened the door, there wasn't anybody there. And I shut the door, and then I looked, and there was down, there was an envelope in the floor. And I reached down there, and there were two banquet tickets, two banquet tickets that had come to our door.
And we went to the banquet that night, and we sat at the table with the speakers. We were given a really prime place to sit. You see, the people of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Nan loved us, they knew we were trying, you know. And there's no greater gift than that, than to help one another. And it was the first time that we had ever heard Jim W. speak from Texas, and if y'all have ever heard Jim, you know what a funny speaker is all about.
And I sat there, and I laughed, and I fell in love with Jim, and I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. Fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. And you see, God was restoring us. God was. You know, you see, I came, and I came to, and I could believe. It was a process for me. I had to come a long time. And that restoration of sanity, you know, it's a process. The old has to go before the new can be put in place.
You have to be willing to let go, it says. You know, we have to get rid of old ideas. You have to get rid of those old ideas. And I realized that God was a God that was for all seasons, and for every change in my life. And if you're having a God problem, read the chapter in the big book about to the agnostic. It's very, very good in helping you to come to believe. It's very, very good. Step three. Oops.
Made a decision to turn our will… We may go over a moment. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. That's the God of my understanding, not my mother's, my father's, my sister's, my brother's. It's so funny. You see, everyone in our health was a different faith. So you never discussed it. You never discussed it. But I can remember, you know, when I came in the program, there was an Indian woman from Oklahoma.
Her name was Ramona. And Ramona said, you know, I'd give you my God if I could. I'd give you my God if I could. And she said, but if I did, I'd take away from you the joy of finding that God for yourself. And that's true, you know. And I had no understanding of God and I didn't have any trust. So how could I turn my will and my life over, you know? Just because God had done these little isolated things, I still wasn't convinced.
I wasn't convinced. It's like there'll come a day when you've run out of your quota of what God's going to do for you. You know, you only get so many shots at it. That was my idea. My sponsor pointed out to me that what I had to do in this step was not turn my will and my life over to God, but make a decision to do that. She said, all you're doing here is making a decision whether you're going to live with your will or God's will.
That's all this is. You just make a decision. You know, and it's so funny because most of us see it so different. And so one night I'm sitting there in my living room and I prayed about it and prayed about it. And finally I said, OK, what if God don't want my will? I'm going to turn my will and my life over. You know, I get thinking again. You know how sick we are. I get thinking. And so I said, what if God don't want my will?
And so I'm praying and everything. And I said, OK, God, get ready. I'm going to turn my will and my life over. I'm going to turn it over to your care. OK. How do you do that? How do you do that? You know, I'm going to make that decision. OK, God, just give me a sign or something here that you're going to take it.
[00:35:01]
Here it is. Are you going to take it? And nothing happened. And I got real confused and I got upset. And so I thought, oh. So I ran in and I went through the closet down in the bottom and I got this Bible that I was given in Sunday school when I was a kid. And I brought it in there and I held it. You know how you'll do and go. You know, and I opened it up and I pointed and didn't make any sense whatsoever to me.
And so I said, OK, and so try another place, you know, make another one. You know, I did that three or four times and nothing meant anything. And so I just God didn't want me. It was pretty obvious to me. And so I was pretty depressed. And so when J.D. came home from work, he was sitting there and I looked at him. I said, you know, God don't God don't want me. God don't want anything to do with me.
And I told him what I'd done. And he said, oh, honey, he said, God loves you. And I said, well, easy for you. He said, well, yeah, because J.D. had had a higher power from almost the beginning. And I was struggling with it. Not J.D. I saw J.D. one night when I was fixing supper. I happened to look out in the backyard and J.D. was underneath the pecan tree at the back. And he was down on his knees. And I thought he was working in the flyers and stuff out there because that's what he loved.
Never occurred to me was anything else. He came back in the house and later he said to me, you know, I don't ever have to drink again if I don't want to. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, God took away from me the desire to drink. And I said, really? He said, yeah, out there under the pecan tree. And I prayed and God took that away. And he said, and I know in my heart I don't ever have to drink again if I don't choose to.
Well, I was happy for him, but I was resentful, too, because I didn't have that kind of deal. And I don't want anybody else having something I ain't got, you know. And so here he is telling me, don't worry, baby, you'll be okay. So the next morning I got up and now, you know, it's sort of pitiful, you know. I get up and I do my pleas. I don't have any faith in my pleas, though. But, you know, I'm doing it anyway because that's what I've been taught to do.
And I go in there and so what do I normally do? I start off with my pleas and then I go read my reading for the day. Well, I had put that Bible on top of my ODAT book. And boy, when I saw that Bible on my ODAT book, I thought, you're contaminating my book. And I just snatched my book out from under it. And when I did, the Bible fell on the floor. And I read my book for that morning and I did my meditation on it.
Because, I mean, what else do you do? I believed in Elanon. And so I got ready to go about my day and I reached down to pick up the Bible and to go put it back in the bottom of that box. And when I glanced at it, I saw, be still and know, that I am God. And I don't know where that was in the Bible. I didn't know. If I'd have been trying to find that, I couldn't have. But I knew that I had my answer.
You know, and it's like God is not on demand. God answers in His time and in His way. You know, and it was when I had give up and accepted that there it came. There it came, one more time. And the step says, through the care of God. You see, He knows and He cares. He cares for me and He cares for each one of you. Now, I had lots of religious training as a child and as a young adult. And every time, because I went to this Baptist church, and every time they had altar call at the end of the church service, I remember seeing people go down and dedicate their life to God and all like this.
And I wanted to feel on the inside like they looked like they felt on the outside. And I didn't seem to have that feeling. So I thought that God didn't want me. And I would stand there and pray, and, God, I want to do. I want to do. And it was like, it was hopeless for me. I just felt like that. I wasn't going to be there. And then someday, one day somebody talked about, there's only a certain number that are going to go in.
Well, it was obvious I wasn't in that number. So then I got mad and I got even. And I just went ahead and I said, I'll live my life the hell way I want to. I don't have to do anything with this deal because I'm not going anyway. Who cares? And I cared. But I didn't want to act like I cared. And I didn't want to tell you how hurt I was. But in step two, I came to believe that this idea was wrong because it didn't work for me.
It didn't. So then my sponsor sat down with me when I told her, I said, all right, I've done this thing and I've got my be still and no. And I said, but I'm still, I don't know. And she said, well, how would you want God to be if you could have a designer God? If you could design your own, how would you want him? And I said, well, I want a God that was down here. I don't need a God up in the heaven somewhere.
I've never had too much problem with what was going on up there. But I said, it's right down here. And I want a God that will love me and that won't hold grudges and that he'll forgive me and he'll forget about it and not throw it up to me later like people do. And I want to know that he's there no matter what I'm doing.
[00:40:00]
That even though I'm doing bad, he's still loving me and he's looking out for me. And that even when I'm a jerk, that it doesn't make any difference. He loves and he's never too busy to listen to me. You know, because all my life I had gone and, shut up, don't you see I'm busy? You know, I didn't want that. And he understands me whether I understand him or not. And he'll make something good come out of something bad.
And have patience, because I'm not patient. And he'll let me try again and again and be there to help me and do that. I want him to be kind and I want him to be there for me even though I can't feel it. I want him to be there. And she said, he can be and he will be if that's what you want. And I thought, I don't believe this. This is too good. This is just too good. And she said, God could be all of those things and even more.
You see, God could be good orderly directions. Good orderly directions. And I, you know, I had trouble determining what good orderly directions were. You know, when you meditate, you know, I say, what are my good orderly directions? And a lot of times I don't know what they are, but I know what they're not. I know the things I'm not supposed to do. So if I don't do the things I'm not supposed to do, there's a pretty good chance I'm 50% where they're.
You know, I can't be too far off. And if I get up and just suit up, show up and take the next right action. And sometimes my good orderly directions are, get off your butt and clean the house. It was those things like my sponsor had been telling me, join the stream of life. Get up and do the things that you're supposed to do. If you've got a job, get up and go to your job. Do your job. Do your job honestly.
Do it cheerfully. Do it with a good attitude. You may have a crappy job, but you can make it better for you if you just look at yourself and say, I'm going to have a good attitude, you know. And what do you think about the most during the course of the day? Whatever you're thinking about becomes your higher power for that point in time, you know. You know, I can look at JD in bed and say, I wonder what kind of day I'm going to have.
And by looking at him and wondering that, that means I've turned my will and my life over to a practicing alcoholic, you know. I mean, I did that for years. You know, whatever he did depended how I felt. And that's crazy. You know, you don't have to do that. I turned my will and my life over to cars on the freeway. Have you ever let the car behind you drive your car? I have. He's too close on your bumper, isn't he?
He saw him pull up like that and just squeak up behind you. Well, you slow down even more. And so then he pulls in front of you. And then what do you do? You pull up on his bumper, show him how that felt. And so then he looks in the rearview mirror and sees what you've done. So he slows down and then he pulls out and you go around and then he does you again. And you do that on down the freeway and then he gets off.
The only problem is your exit was three back. You turned your will and your life over to the car behind you, you know. You know, it's crazy. I've turned it over to a TV set, a remote. You ever notice how a remote control. Now, there ought to be a program called Clickers Anonymous. And it's all men. Isn't it amazing that he can sit there and you can ask him what he wants for a meal and he can't tell you.
But that he can determine in 140th of a second if he wants to see a program or not. You know, the damn remote. How do they know? They haven't even seen it. They don't know, you know. But there's no life living in someone else. What another person does or doesn't do doesn't have to affect me unless I choose to let it. You know, that's what it's all about. I had to let go and let God. And whenever I would say to God, I'm going to let go of this, you better get it quick.
Because I knew if he didn't, I'd just jerk it right back again and go right at it, you know. And I love that t-shirt. It says, everything I ever let go, I've had claw marks all over it. You know. I don't have to do it that long sometimes. But I had to develop that relationship with the God of my understanding. And that I would feel comfortable in turning my will and my life over to that God wasn't going to zap me.
See, that's the thing. All those times I felt like I got zapped were, guess what? The consequences of my actions. It wasn't God zapping me, it was the natural consequence of the action I had taken. And I gave God credit for it. You know, God gets more bum raps than anybody I know. And it doesn't make any difference when you're turning your will over to who you're God, just get you one. Now, I had a girl I sponsored that her higher power was the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Now, that's a little different, you know. But she believed, and guess what? It worked for her. And one day we landed the spaceship. And one day God walked out. You know, she had to do it the way she had to. you know, allow people, just so long as they believe in something, just let them believe
[00:45:01]
in something. You know, and following God's will doesn't mean drifting with the tide, you know. It doesn't mean that. It means having order in your life and not confusion. If you've got confusion, there's something the matter there. You know, and then you've got to quit playing God so that you can find God. And I was so obsessed, so self-absorbed, I went over to the Srini house one day, and they have a great big blackboard over there, and someone had taken chalk and had written, today there's only one God. No, it says, there is only one God, and today you're not him. That's what he said. And so I looked at that and I got my feelings hurt. And I went in and I told Joe, I said, why did you put that on the board? And he said, put what? And I said that. And he said, well, it's been up there ten years. You see, my ego thought that I was so important they would have done that for me. You know, see, there's that taking that stuff personal that's not intended. You know, an ego just eases God out. That's what the ego is all about. And I use the third step prayer that's on page 63 of the big book every morning. You know, it's a reaffirmation of that decision. I make that decision one time and I reaffirm it each day. I don't have to decide. You know, it's like people say, well, I don't know if I'm going to the meeting tonight or not. And that just is amazing to me. Because you see, I made a decision a long time ago that I'm going to those meetings. So it's never a decision to make. You just go. You know what I mean? What do you mean you're sitting there deciding whether you're going to go or not? You go. You know, it's like I'm going to decide whether I breathe or not. You don't. You just do. You know, but people will do that. I begin to learn how to practice the presence of God in my life by inviting God to go with me from the point I got up in the morning. God, come go with me. And I talked out loud to God. I'd say, God, come on, we're going to go in here and we're going to go to work. And we go out in the car and, you know, sometimes it's Buckley's seatbelt or whatever, you know, just something to give me an idea that God was with me because that was so foreign to me. I had to start doing that. There was a girl in the group one night and I was talking about talking to God in the car and she said, people think you're nuts. I said, well, better people to think I'm nuts than for them to know I'm nuts. Because if I'm not doing this, I am nuts.
Same woman, a little later one day, she came in. She said she got over the problem. I said, what'd you do? She said, well, she got this little car seat and she put a little doll in the car so that, you know, it looked like she was talking to a baby. And I said, I got a newsflash for you. If I saw someone talking to a cabbage patch doll, I'd wonder about them. But then with this running conversation, I also got me a God can, or I have a, what I call a God jar, but it means I can't God can. And I write down the things that are troubling me. I write down those things and I put them in that jar and I'll leave them in that jar. And if I think about them, I go, wait a minute, I see myself when I put it in a jar, I'm saying, God, I'm giving it to you. And I see that hand taking that problem and putting that on there and putting that lid on that jar and leave it alone. If I can't keep bothering me, I write it down again, put it back in the jar again. And then sometimes six, seven months later, I opened the jar up and I'll see what has God done with all these things I had. And you know, they're usually all taken care of and why they can get taken care of is that I get out of the way. Cause so many times when you're trying to figure the solution out, when you're trying to figure the thing to do, you are standing in God's way. They're the only part that you may play in that is to get the heck out of the way so that God can operate. God uses lots of people. You're not the only one.
And then one day I was bitching about the fact that, you know how we forget the things that God does for us. We're real quick to ask for those things. And you hear about your miracle, you know, and then maybe two weeks later you forget that you've even had that miracle because you act as if it never happened. And you go, oh yeah, God did it. I, you know, so what I started doing was I started taking marbles and I had a tall glass cylinder that I kept on my sink on the windowsill by my sink. The windowsill is below the sink, Mary Pearl.
Anyway, I put this jar there and I would put these marbles every time I would see God working in my life. Every time I would see those things that I saw a mirror and it may be the parking place when there wasn't one in the pouring down rain. That's one of those little things that just a little freebie, those little gifts from God. And I began to put them. And on those days when I didn't think that God was working my life, I could look at that jar and see all those colors of that sun shining through that. And it would create rainbows in my kitchen.
And I'd say, see, these are the promises of the miracle. These are the things that's happening. Honey, I've got things all over my house. The big things that are full of marbles, you know, over the years, because those things keep happening. They keep happening. And when you think that they're not there, look at what God's done for you. Why would God not do this? Why would God not do this? And I've got big marbles and little marbles. And I put those in what I call my rainbow jars. The thing about this step is when you take it, hang on to the
[00:50:00]
seat of your pants because things are about to happen. You know, when you start turning things over and when you begin to ask God for the good order of directions and doing those things, the miracles happen. J.D. finally, like I say, had his job and he worked on it. And then they told him they were going to put him on night shift. Well, he had an old drunk truck and it was in such great shape that the only way the doors stayed on when you went around the corner was bungee cords. And you'd take one and you put it in the door in the little window facing and then hang it in the ashtray. And it was sort of like having seatbelts. And we prayed about it, you know, because I mean, like I say, financially, we were really in a crunch at that time. And so we started looking for a truck and we couldn't find one.
We couldn't find one. J.D. just wanted, he said, a plain vanilla truck, no frills, just a plain vanilla truck. And so we started looking and we didn't find anything. And then one night he had gone to the meeting that night and I was sitting there at the house doing some work and he said, I got a telephone call and they said, I understand that, um, yeah, that you're trying to find J.D. a truck. And I said, yeah, we're trying to find him a truck. And they said, well, with a $3,000 help. And, uh, this is like back in the seventies. And I said, oh yeah, that would help a bunch. You know, that would be a really good payment on one. And he said, um, well, um, I think we can do that. And I said, but I can't, I don't know how to pay and said, no, this is a gift. This is a gift. And so they, they came over and when J.D. came home from the meeting, I had $3,000 in cash sitting there on the table, just looking at it. And he said, what did you do? And I told him what had happened. And I, and so the next day we got up and we went all the places we had looked before, but when we put on this one lot, there was a little white, plain vanilla truck sitting over to the side. And, uh, they said they had ordered it for this company and that they didn't get it in in time and they'd bought a truck someplace else.
And so really all they wanted to do was just get their money out of it. And so, um, the, the person that couldn't afford a truck here, and, uh, we were talking about, we couldn't afford big car payments. That's the reason we hadn't bought anything. Uh, we paid payments for one year, $60. And with our $3,000 down, we had that truck and J we called it our God truck. Cause it was like, you got in it, you know, it was plain vanilla, exactly what you ordered. It was a little white truck and we called it Teddy. And the reason we called it Teddy, it was rough riding because it had a little short wheelbase and it was sort of like, uh, uh, Teddy Roosevelt.
It was a rough riding son of a bitch, but it was a gift from God. No, we loved it. You know, um, an old timer in AA gave me a real good prayer too. He says, God helped me to let you work in my life today. Help me stay out of your way and don't let me push you aside. You know, cause that's the two things we get in God's way or we push him aside. And the things that kept me in the bondage yourself were those self-centered fears.
You know, the self-centeredness, you know, and when I really want to do God's will in a situation and I don't seem to have a definitive answer, I pray and I pray. And then I finally, I'll say, God, here's what I'm going to do. This is the course of action I'm going to do. And if this is not what you got, your will close the doors, show me in a way I can understand. And for God's sakes, let me recognize a closed door to banging into it time and time again, you know, and then I go ahead and God will show you. But see the things that, that hurt me here are the selfishness, you know, in our literature, it talks about selfishness and self-centeredness and self-seeking.
It's all a disease of self. That's that ism, I, self and me. That's a disease and selfishness is how's it going to affect me. And the self-seeking is what's in it for me. And then the self-centeredness is it's all about me. That's where we have. And you've got to use God for the little stuff. You know, the big things in life are usually not, not big of a deal, but it's the little everyday fleas and ticks of life that drive you nuts. Let God work there too.
That's for tonight. We'll start with step four tomorrow. She said she really loved that strawberry pie. I thought, hell, she's starting on mine. She looks so funny and she goes, Oh, we'll get you another piece of that. No, it's okay. No matter. It's just food. Ain't no such thing as bad food. Oh Lord. Well, she's already taken over for this morning because I was going to start with step four and she's done mine.
[00:55:00]
Always remember Charlene, when you're doing that, when they follow you bad timing, honey, bad timing, bad timing. You know, that's like I say, my last desire sometime is to follow Quincy. Anyway, where he doesn't have a chance for rebuttal. Okay. Step four, by the way, good morning. It's real early for me. You know, our time frame is different. So if I nod off here, let me know. Step four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
You know, the hardest part for me to get started on step four was because I saw step five. You know, you ever notice on family feud, you know, they only reveal the answer as you holler. That's the way they all do the steps for newcomers. Cause you know, you could get it done a lot easier if you didn't have to read ahead and see what was going to happen to you next. You know, it'd be so much easier to write that stuff down if you didn't ever have to say it to somebody, you know, and then you look at that next step.
And so every time I think about it, I said, no, I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. Those are those secrets that you have on the inside that, uh, that keep you sick. You know, you're just as sick as those secrets that you keep. And you see, I had lots of fears and I had lots of guilt and lots of shame about my past behaviors. And, uh, you know, one of my biggest secrets in the whole world that I was so afraid for anybody to find out was I hated my mother. I hated her. And you know, it's not socially acceptable to go around saying, I hate my mother. It is in here, but, um, you can hate anybody in here. We don't care.
Oh, by the way, there's the girl from Kentucky that's late because she was drying that hair. No, I hated my mother. And that was something I had on the inside of me. And, and you know, I was afraid of people found out they go bad. There's something wrong with a kid that hates its mother. And see, I always felt like what was wrong with me that my mother didn't love me. You know, that was the thing. I knew something bad was wrong on the inside. I just couldn't identify. And I hated her for not loving me because it made me not. Okay. That's how I feel.
I blame my feeling of not. Okay. Because my mother didn't love me now. I felt all long when things were going wrong. Like say when my daddy died, that I just started turned away from God and I just went ahead and I just did what I wanted to because I didn't feel like there was any hope left anyway. But every time anything bad happened to me in my life, I blame God or other people. You know, I, I just blamed everybody else. Cause see, you know, I'm just a poor little victim here, you know, God bless it. And I felt God was punishing me for being a bad person.
And every time I think about my mother and I, that rage would come upon me. Um, I would think, you know, there's no hope for me here. And I wanted to be all those things, those values that I had, I wanted to be those things. And I couldn't, I compromised every belief in value I'd ever had. And so I didn't want to look at myself. It was easier to look at you and blame you for how I felt than it was to look at me and accept the consequences for that. And so, uh, I was told that I had to do an inventory and, and I would sit in the meetings and I would listen to them when they talk about inventory. And I just started to get real quiet. And as y'all know, that's not my norm. And then I realized at a point later on, I was doing an inventory. There was this lady in our group that was my sponsor sponsor. And I took Ethel's inventory. She irritated me a lot.
And so what I did, I got me a little book and I made a list of all the things about Ethel. And I had it a title, things I hate about Ethel. On this page paper, I had these things. And every time I'd go to the meeting, I'd read my little list before I went because I didn't want to duplicate anything. And so I would look for something new about Ethel that I didn't like. And Ethel reminded me a lot of my mother.
And, uh, there were just, uh, I just didn't care for Ethel at all. And so one night I'm going through my little list and I'm looking and JD says, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm looking at my list of things I hate about Ethel. And he just looked at me and he said, what? And I said, she just gets on my last nerve. I'm here to tell you. And he said, well, and I, and every time they start off a sentence about NAA, you know, it's not going to be good news.
That holier-than-thou NAA attitude. And he said, well, in AA, they teach us that there's good in everybody. I said, there's no good. There Is a Solution, More About Alcoholism, We Agnostics, How It Works, Into Action, Working
[01:00:48]
So I came home and I turned my little sheet over and I put things I like about ethyl on that side, and I said, ethyl likes plants. That was the only good thing I could find out about ethyl. But it wasn't, say, a bad thing, you know. And so then, when I would go to the meeting, I started looking at the other side of the list, and then after I got both sides of that page filled up with things I hate about ethyl and things I like about ethyl, I was studying my list, we were going to a potluck that Saturday night, and I'm looking at that list and I went, oh God.
And J.D. says, what's the matter? And I said, I just discovered something. And he said, what? And I said, I know why I don't like ethyl. And he said, why? And I said, I think we're just alive. Because I was putting down all the things that I liked on the one side that she liked, you see. And it was. So my sponsor laughingly told me, when I told her about my list, she laughed and she said, you can always do that.
Anytime you take anybody else's inventory, you can just mark their name and put yours at the top and you've done the deal. Because you always hate worse than others what you have within yourself. When you see that mirror coming back, when you're looking this way, it never looks as bad as when it's coming back. And she said, that's what the deal is there. And she said, remember, when you're pointing your finger, you got three coming back is three times as worse coming back.
And I don't like that. I said, how can point like that? You know, see, that's the thing. I've always got that little deal. You know, don't you see my deal is different. And I say I was so eaten up with self-righteousness and I never knew I had that quality. I worked real hard, you know, to keep things going. And I was the one that did everything. And then I tried so hard. And and so it just wasn't my fault when things didn't work out.
Somebody hadn't followed directions, but it wasn't my fault. Wasn't my fault, you know. But the accurate inventory was real necessary. And, you know, the the twelve and twelve talks about it. The problem is extremes in distinct instinctive drives, you know, the extremes. And every time a person tries to impose their will upon another person or their instincts, then you're going to be unhappy. Something bad is going to happen there. And see, I demanded all the time.
I demanded attention. It was impossible for anyone to fill that need for me. It was impossible. You know, I failed. And if you didn't give me the attention I thought I should have got, then I felt like you didn't love me. And you see what you think and what you feel doesn't have anything to do sometimes with reality. You know, because my thinking was off and feelings aren't necessarily facts, you know.
They're just are. And I didn't love me. And when I didn't love me, there wasn't enough love out there to make me feel love. You know, when the problem's on the inside, the solution has to be on the inside. And I think we take a lot of stuff from the outside trying to make the inside okay. It's like I can sit there and say, well, you know, next week everything will be okay because this is going to happen.
Or when I get this, something will be okay. Or when I get that, you know, it's called the disease of more. You know, and there's never enough. There's never enough when you've got the disease of more. And I'm married to a man who has that disease of more. And no matter what, you know, I mean, you know, he says, oh, I've just got to have, I've just got to have, I've just got to have. And then he gets and then it's all right for about a day and a half.
And then we go into the next got to have thing, you know, and I can do that too. He does it in one area and I do it in another. But the bottom line is you keep trying to fill the hole on the inside with something out there. And something out there didn't break it. So something out there is not going to fix it. Now, the most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity and depression.
Well, are we all familiar with those? You know, and I never thought about myself being emotionally insecure. You know, it's like I wanted to be like I appeared to be. Now, I appeared to be in control, in charge and what have you. That's the front that I put up so that you wouldn't know how scared, how insecure I was on the other side of that.
[01:05:00]
You know, God forbid. And sometimes if I was doing it real good, I could even forget I had the problem. Because, you know, it's like I would get in there and you would look like I was doing okay. And so therefore I think I was doing okay, you know, that kind of a deal. But I suffered from this terminal uniqueness. You know, and the reason I tell you it's terminal is if you don't get over it, it'll kill you.
Because in here we all got to be alike because if we're not alike and if we don't focus on our samenesses, we got nothing to do here. You know, a lot of times we come in nowadays and you hear there's this little group over here and they say, Well, I'm children of alcoholics. I'm different. And this over here says, Well, I'm a spouse of an alcoholic. Don't you know I'm different. And then we got the, I'm the alcoholic who's sick with the Al-Nan disease and I'm different.
And then we've got the uncles of alcoholics and they're different. And then we got the dogs of alcoholics and they're different. And I was told when I came in here to focus on what we have alike. Don't focus on your little individual quirks and stuff. If you just go ahead and focus on what we have in common, work step by step, you'll find out we're all alike, you know. The thing is, it's the feeling. It's the feelings are just the same.
I don't care where you came in on the deal. The feelings are just the same. Now I was told I was going to have to write this down. Now that's a scary proposition because somebody might find it. You know, it's not like you can put it in a computer these days and it'll go away. That's what's real scary too. You know, you know, if life could have been a computer, you know, if you put all this stuff in, all of a sudden it just disappears.
You wonder where the hell that went, you know. But the trouble is, I had to write this stuff down. And I didn't want to write down because what if somebody found that, you know. I got into the what if. And, you know, my sponsor said, well, you've got to take some words out of your vocabulary. And I said, like what? She said, well, like what if, yes, but, no, no. And she'd tell me, she said, I'm not going to listen to those.
And I said, well, what does that mean? She said, it means just what I said. I'm not going to listen to that. So we'd be talking and I'd say, well, what if so and so, and there'd be a dial tone. And I would call her and I'd say, I think we got disconnected. And she'd say, oh. And so we'd go on and talk a few minutes and then I'd get a dial tone. And finally, you know, I mean, even as dense as I was, you know, it finally occurred to me about three hangups in a row there that, are you hanging up on me?
And she said, I told you I wasn't going to listen to those. So therefore, you have to get a little creative. And I would say, however, therefore, you know. I mean, remember that education would pop right in every time. But the thing about it was, I wasn't getting the deal. I wasn't getting the deal. And I said, all right, I'm going to have to write it down. And so the first thing that I had was what everybody had in those days.
That's all we had. And that was a wonderful little blueprint for progress. Now, of all of, now this, remember, this is my experience. And from my experience, the blueprint for progress is the poorest piece of design literature we have in the alumni program for what it's supposed to do. I'm sorry, you know. And I was riding in a car with a lady from the airport to a conference one day. And she was from the World Service Office.
And I was very disturbed. She was the literature secretary. And I said to her, you know, this is how I feel about this. She said, well, thank you. I wrote that. And I said, I don't care. I still say it. You know, the thing about it is, you know, I was telling her how I felt about it. And she said, well, she said it might interest you to know that when they came to her and told her to write the piece, she had never done one.
And I said, well, that's probably obvious here. Now, it may work for some people. And there are people who have told me across the country that it worked really good for them. And I'm glad. But it didn't work for me. There were a lot of things that I needed to address that were not mentioned in that. And I need to be nailed to the wall. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person that unless you ask me the exact question worded in the exact thing, you're not going to get the whole truth.
You know, it's just not going to happen here. You know, you know, you can't be vague. You can't be in general and you can't be delicate. You know, and when you do all that, I'm going to find a way around that. I'm going to work around that. And I'm not going to tell you the whole. You know, it's like when you go to court, if you ever notice, they tell you to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
See, they know. They've dealt with Al-Anon.