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Source: Mary T. (Pearl) – 12 Step Study Part 4 1998 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mary-t-pearl-12-step-study-part-4-1998-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:05:33
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Sufferance Point. If you're going to be accused of it, you got a free shot. That's how I look at it. You know, if you're going to carry the name, you might as well play the game. What the hell? So now the chain is about four foot long. And he hooks it on. He said, whatever you do, don't stop fast going home or I'll be up in the truck. Well, it's obvious to me I can't please him, so I just didn't stop. Stop sign, stop light, what the hell? So when we got home, he got out of the car and he walked up and he said, never again in the echoing corridors of time will you pull me. And I thought, yeah, I will. And when I do.
So you wait. I have infinite patience when it comes to waiting for revenge because it's sweet. Three years later, he's over at his mother's. His fuel pump goes out on his little car. By now, I have the big station wagon like I wanted all along. And he calls and he says, honey, my fuel pump's going out. Will you come out to mom's and tow me home? And I said, yeah, I'd be glad to. And hung up the phone and I stood there for a minute and I went, he's mine. There is a God. And so I go out to my mother-in-law's. She's got this real long driveway. We hooked the thing on. He's still got this little short piece of chain. He was always going to get another one, you know, always going to. So he hooks it on. And when I look at him in my rear view mirror, I can't even see the front end of that car, but I see the windshield in his little face. It's enough. So really serenely, I pull him out and I get over to the main highway. And when I make that lift onto the main highway, 80 miles an hour. Now you can feel a little bit of drag. You can see smoke from his little tires. That's a 450 horsepower engine here going. And that little old four cylinder MG ain't going nowhere. You know, I mean, it's just out there and you can see his eyes and they were big as beer cans, you know? And he's going like that, like that.
And I'm just, and I'm just so happy. I'm tooling down the road and there's three cars in front of me. I'll pass them. They're in a car. You know, we got home. We went 19 miles in 15 minutes. Called his daddy and I said, we're home. And he said, where's Jim? I said, laying in the front yard, crying like a baby. He's never asked me to tell him again. Now we laugh about that, but now that wouldn't have been funny if you'd have been on the road that day. You know, I put my life in danger, his life in danger. And anyone on the road that day was in danger because I was on a quest. I was going to get revenge if it killed him and it could have, you know, see, that's the kind of anger that is insane. That revenge type of thing. And see, I had waited for it all that time. And I must tell you, it was fun until you, until reality comes in and reality says, oh my God, you know, God certainly takes care of fools and drunks. You know, he takes care of us. And I've looked at those defects characters that were the defects of characters that were so apparent in that fifth step. And why in the world would anyone not want to get rid of stuff that doesn't work and that has caused you so much pain? Why wouldn't you, you know, and it's because those were the protections. Those were my protections. And you told me I had to become willing to give up exaggeration. Oh my God. You know, I was told that that's lying. And I thought, Ooh, bummer. You know, how are you ever going to tell anybody what's going on in your life?
See, I always had to make it bigger than life. And truly my life was big enough as it was. I didn't have to embellish it any, you know, but I did it to get attention. That was the reason I did. I had to get attention and I had to quit acting superior. And that's what it was. It was an act, you know, because I was the one who had an inferiority complex and I masked that by pretending that I was superior to everybody else because I felt
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so I was, you know, I was even a little paranoid from time to time. And you know, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you though. I don't want you know that, but self-centered fear, that was the biggest thing I had was the self-centered fear. And I, and I was afraid to live without those coping mechanisms, but all I had to do was become willing. And it's comforting to know that nowhere on the record does it show that God has removed any of our instincts. You know, God removes from the defect or whatever the part that causes you the most problems. You know, the thing that hurts your relationship with him and your fellow man, that's the thing, you know, I'm always, you know, to get mad is not a bad thing. If you get angry over something that there, you should get angry about, you know, if I see someone abusing a little child or an animal or something, there's an anger in me that says, stop that, you know, let's not have that. And that's a healthy kind of anger. The kind of anger I had was go over there, you know, rip the hair out of the person that would do, you see what I mean? It was, it was not, it was not the good thing. In other words, you're going to have to strive for perfection, but accept progress here. And this willingness, I try to be willing and this step or none other is practiced with absolute perfection. It's an ideal, but the thing is that you get started and you make a beginning. You got to become willing to get started. And it's a beginning of a lifetime process. It doesn't just happen overnight. You know, it's a process.
It came on as a process and it goes off as a process. And over the years I found that the more fear that I had, I had more than I ever imagined. And I have become willing one by one to give those fears up and to become. And the result is, is I become willing to give those up. And as the next step takes place in my life, I can enjoy the life that God had intended me to do. You know, I only have to become willing and then I can proceed to step seven. I'm going to stop now so that they can do their raffle and then we can get off to lunch on time. Okay.
I tell you what, y'all are just a strange little group of people have to really get you to get you to move in here. Huh? Thank you. Thank you. Could we skip seven? I don't think so. Maybe that's the way you are the way you are. Maybe you did skip seven. Don't bullshit the old bullshitter here. You know, step seven, I'm going to ask him to remove our shortcomings. Well, obviously we're going to ask God, that's who him is, I believe in here, uh, to remove our shortcomings. That means that we don't know how to do it. If we knew how to do it, we would have done it long before now. So we're going to ask God to do it. And you know, once I asked God to do it, then I have a responsibility. Now what's my responsibility? I act as if he did. That's, that's real simple, isn't it? You know, there's some little things, you know, it's called practice the positive opposite. In other words, if you have a tendency to be dishonest, then you act as if you're honest and then you do what honest people do. And when you take the action, doesn't matter whether you want to, doesn't matter whether you think it'll work, doesn't matter anything, it'll work. It's just really amazing how it does. You know, if I'm going to try and allow God to remove fear from my life, I practice improving my faith. And the more that I work on improving my faith, the less fearful I become and slow it. But surely as I keep doing these things, all of a sudden I realized one day I'm not acting as if it has become. And that's because I get out of the way long enough to allow God to do the deal. And I have to be honest about wanting to be rid of these things though. That's the reason that six is so important.
These two go together, you know, you become entirely ready and then you ask God to do it and it says, umbly. And I believe umbly in the original, it said on our knees and I don't have a problem with that. You know, like I say, I, I learned to do it by getting shoes out from under the bed. So on the knees, you know, and every morning when I get up, I do the third step prayer and then I finished with the seven step prayer. Now, uh, those of you who have any familiarity at all with the big book of alcoholic synonyms, third step prayers on page 63 and there's no amen at the end of it. That's real significant to me because once the end of the seven step prayer, there is an amen. So it's to me, it's like those are the two parts of the prayer and the amen finishes it off. And so that's like what I do. I reaffirm that each day and I become willing and the prayer basically says God, I offer myself that you should have all of me, the good and the bad and then remove from me any defective character or whatever that was standing in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellow man. Then God grant me strength and always ask for wisdom too. As
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I go out today to do your bidding. In other words, this is what I want to do. I want to be, let God decide what it is that needs to be removed from me. Cause see a lot of times the thing that I think is wrong with me is not what's wrong with me that day. So each day I get up and I reaffirm this and then I go about doing what's right in front of me to do and trying to live following the principles. Now, remember I told you about these self-centered fears. I'm going to show you how this works. You know, I had to be willing to give up the fear of storms. Now, how do you give up the fear of storms? Now, here's what would happen to me. Let me tell you about my fear of storms. Now, like I say, I told you as a child, we went to the Frady hole. Well, I'd just soon be wiped out by the storm and go in the Frady hole. So don't own one. Don't want one. All right. Now, J.D.
worked nights and usually when the tornadoes come through, of course, you know, Arkansas is right in the middle of the tornado alley. They come right up the freeway. They come right up the interstate from Texas. They send them right on up and they go right across the straight and go on out. You know what I mean? That's just the path of the tornadoes for the majority or they'll come from the Northwest. And so what I would do, I'd be sitting there at the house by myself because most tornadoes come in the afternoon, the late afternoon, early evening time or later on and he's working nights. So I'm by myself.
I'm sitting there talking to my dogs and all of a sudden the little tornado symbol comes up on the TV screen. I'm looking at the tornado symbol now. I become focused on the symbol. Okay. That tells me danger, danger, danger. I've got an alarm going off inside of me. Now they put that little symbol up there to make you aware. Well, see, I'm from Arkansas. They don't have to put that little thing up there for me to be aware. When I get up and I feel that storm feeling, when the concrete begins to sweat and the wind's blowing and everything, you know you're going to have a storm before the day's over. I mean, you just know that if you've been there. Don't take a weatherman and tell me that, you know.
And so I begin to get a little uneasy when I see that concrete sweating. And then when I see the little symbol up there, it's going to happen now. It's going to happen. Tornado is going to happen. And so then all of a sudden they will interrupt the program and show you the progression. And they'll say, see, it's coming up the freeway. I'll say, I know what's coming up the freeway. It always comes up the freeway. But now my fear's being confirmed.
See, as I'm watching it, you know. Now, when it gets about to Arkadafia, which is about halfway from Texas to Little Rock, I get to get out my weather radio. See, now I have a weather radio too, you know. That way you can get it in stereo. You can have fear in stereo. You can watch the little symbol and you can hear about it over here at the same time. Now, when the tornado is on the ground in the county, the sirens, the civil defense sirens start. Okay. So by the time the civil defense sirens start, I have been ahead of them two hours. I have, my alarm has been going off for two hours in my brain. And by this time now I am jangled, just jangled. You know, I'm just, now I'm trying to gather up the dogs, empty out the closet, get in the closet with the dogs. Now the dogs don't want to be in the closet. Now the dogs will go in the closet until there's a storm. When there's a storm, they don't want to go in the closet. You know, I have, I have shut the door and missed the dog for half a day and then realized later he was in the closet.
But come the storm, you can't get in. He's like a spider on a web. You can't get him in there. His legs are out like this. So I've got to fight the dogs to get in the closet. Now I'm sitting in the bottom of the closet and I'm just quivering, you know, because I know the storm is going to wipe us off the face of the earth. And the phone rings. Now that means you got to get out of the closet. Now my sponsor said, why would you get out of the closet? I said, because if you died, you'd always wonder who called.
Let's say nowadays you got a cell phone. You can go in the closet with a phone. You know, it's different now than it used to be. But anyway, I'd be in there in the closet and then you'd hear the sirens. And I mean, I would be sitting there and my heart would just be pounding. And if the power went off, then you're in the dark there in the closet and you're scared and the dogs are barking and growling at each other and you're having a nervous breakdown. And that happened every time there was a tornado alert.
Now the tornado never got me, but the fear of the tornado got me every time. You know, it's like it would have been a relief to have been wiped out. You know, I mean, I mean, that's the truth, you know? And I, and I said, I really hate that. I hate being terrified like that. I hate being sitting there alone by myself in the dark and being that scared. I just hated that feeling. I just hated it. And I told God, I said, I really wish you'd take that away from me. I don't want it. I've done all that I want to do, and I don't know how to get rid of that. So I said, God, please take that away from me. And I'd pray about that and I'd say, God, remove. And when I'd get up and then I'd feel that feeling and you see the concrete sweat, I'd say, God, I don't want this. Well, all of a sudden one day it occurred to me, you feed your fear. And I sit in there and I'm saying, how is And I'm sitting there and I'm saying, how is that?
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And it came to me in meditation. Because you focus on the storm from the time that you feel that feeling when you get up to when you see that deal and you get that other radio out and you get it all together and then when the siren comes, it just terrorizes you. That's the final thing. The siren tells you it's here and it's going to kill you. Quit feeding your fear. What do you do? Turn off the TV.
So I turned off the TV. And I didn't get out the radio. And I read a book and I would pray. And I would read. And I would get focused in the book. When the siren would get off, go off, I'm not terrorized now. And I would pick up the dogs because the dogs would sense my terror. The dogs would sense my terror. Now the dogs are manageable. And I get the dogs and we go take the normal precaution. And we go to shelter.
And then the storm is over. And we come back out. And we're okay. Now that's really neat. That's really neat for me. And so one afternoon my sister called and she said they've got a new pizza place down the road place. She said how about let's go have pizza tonight. I said okay. Didn't pay any attention to the weather or anything that day, the report or whatever. And so we got in the car and we went to the pizza place.
And Dorothy had gotten her hair done that day. And she's one of these that gets one of those old-fashioned shampoo and set. She's fairly older. And so she's real picky about don't want to get her hair wet at all because she only goes once a week. And you've got to make it last a week. You know how that is. You know how that deal goes. And so when we got ready to come out of the pizza place, there was a lot of wind out there.
And there was blowing a bunch of trash around in the air. And I told her, I said, it looks like it's come up cloud. And she said, yeah, and we're trying to get out to the car. And the wind is continuing to blow. And the rain is coming down. And she's going, I'm getting my hair wet. I'm getting my hair wet. Well, I don't care if my hair gets wet. I wash it a couple times a day anyway. So I said, no big deal.
So Dorothy got in on her side of the car. I went around trying to get in. I couldn't get the car door open. I'm standing. The wind is blowing so strong. And there's all this trash in the air. It's just driving me nuts. I said, I can't stand getting this wet now, darn it. And so I'm trying to get the door open. I finally get the door open. I get in the car. And I try to drive. And the wind is blowing so hard against the car.
And I said, well, let's just stay here and wait till whatever this is is over. And so we sat there. And so there was a bunch of stuff blowed over and out there from the signs from service stations and stuff like that, the little things that are going across the road and everything. And when it was over, I said, well, let's go on home. So I pull out and turn on the radio. And they were talking about the tornado in Indian Hills.
I was in Indian Hills. And that debris that was irritating me was the church from a block away. It was passing through. And so, I mean, I just pulled off the road and I sit there and I said, well, I'll be damned. And Dorothy said, what? I said, I was in a tornado. And Dorothy said, yeah, we were. And I said, well, I don't guess I have to worry about that anymore. And I said, because, you know, if you don't build your fear, if you don't feed your fear, and if you see that God's going to take care of you, even if you are in a tornado, why do you have to worry about a tornado?
You know, God's going to take care of you where you are. But you see, that was a process. Once I became willing, then the process could become. And so now I'm not afraid of storms. I take normal precautions when I have to, but I'm not. Like, for instance, now, I don't even, when the siren goes off, if I don't think it's close, I don't even get in the closet. Now, that can be good or bad, because, I mean, we had a girl spend the night with us one time, and it was around Christmas time.
We don't normally have tornadoes at Christmas, but we did that year. We had 26 in two days. And coming through, and I was laying in bed that morning, and I had the radio on. I was just listening. It was the day after Christmas, and I heard them say that there was a tornado on the ground at Woodson, and it was moving at 30 miles an hour. And I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking, well, from the time that they see the tornado at Woodson and the time that it takes to get it on the radio broadcast would mean that it's getting at 30 miles an hour.
It should be here. And so I hollered, everybody up! And we all went and got in the closet, and all of a sudden, the louvers on the attic fan began to open and close on their own. Took the ventilators off the roof. It was in the air, but it wasn't on the ground, but it was going over, you know. So it's like you take the precaution that you need to, but you don't terrorize yourself. Now, there was a fear of the spiders.
Remember, it's going to eat my face. This is one that was really a long time. You know, I'd become willing to give it up, and then somehow or another, you know how you wake up in the morning and you look on the ceiling, one of those little black house spiders is up there on the ceiling. It's like, you know, you can get your house sprayed every other day, and you're still going to find them little spiders on the ceiling.
And it's like, I can't move. I can't move. He's going to get me. I know he's going to get me, and he's going to eat my face. And it's like you can't even roll off and get under the bed quick enough.
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I mean, you know, and then you have to scream for help. When you're the only one there except for the poodles, it's a long time to stay under the bed, you know. And so you've got to get out of the room. So I'd leave the room, and then the thing about it is you can't go away, because if you do, he might go somewhere, and you wouldn't know where he is. I mean, there's a real dilemma here. And then if you hit at him, and you know you're going to miss him, and if you don't, they're going to get you.
It's like that, you know. So, I mean, it was a real trial for me. And I started off with little teeny spiders. And I would say, God, help me to do that. And I want you to know now, I can go into places, and if I see spiders, I can, you know, put them out of their misery or put them out of my misery, whatever. And unless it's a tarantula, I haven't overcome those yet. I just don't want to have anything to do with those.
But the others, I can take care of myself now. And I don't have to be panicked, and I don't have to whatever. I can actually go and kill them and not worry that they're going to get me first. You know, I figure that when the spider sees me, he ought to say, person, person! You know, instead of spider, because good spiders are dead spiders. And so that was one thing. And now the dentist, hated dentist.
Afraid of dentists. Dentists hurt you, and they enjoy it, too. They're really sick people. I mean, you got one here, you ought to know. But anyway, I was always terrified to go to the dentist. And the only way I went to the dentist when I was in Newfoundland was when they threatened my husband if I didn't go to the dentist, you know, because we didn't have care at the local area. You had to go to the base for your dental care if you were a dependent.
And I just, and they never touched me or ever looked at me. And so anyway, I came back home, and I had been 26 years between dental visits. I don't recommend that, but, you know, that's what fear can do for you. So that means that you have to, you know, really take good care of your teeth when you're that afraid, you know. It had a mixed blessing. I was very, very careful. And I had to take Mother to the emergency room.
Mother had said she was having a heart attack, and I thought that'd be like her to do that. She'd have a heart attack and die before I can get a men's made with her. I knew she was going to do something like this. And so I'm not real happy with her because she's dying on purpose just to upset me. I know it, you know. And I'm sitting there in the waiting room at the hospital waiting on them, and I'm hearing Mother screaming and carrying on back there, give me my bra, I'm not going without my bra, and all this kind of fight.
And I don't know, I might have been gritting my teeth, I don't know, but my filling fell out. I had a filling that I'd had for 26 years, and it fell out of my mouth. And all of a sudden, whether Mother was having a heart attack or not, paled in significance because, see, this was mine. This was mine. And finally the nurse came out and said, no, she's not having a heart attack. It's a hiatal hernia, and they're going to keep her overnight for observation.
I'm saying, but you don't understand. I just had a filling fall out of my mouth. You know, I don't care if she's having a heart attack. I have a filling to deal with here. You know, not that we're self-absorbed. But I'm sitting there, and I'm in a panic. I mean, the sweat and everything, I'm just in a panic. And it's like, you know, you have the program, and you're trying to work the program, and all this kind of thing, and you're saying, you know, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got.
And what did you always do? Nothing. You ignore it. It will go away. Only a tooth does not go away. And the thing about it is, after a while, you know, it begins to abscess. If you don't do anything about it long enough, then there comes a point where you can't stand any hot in your mouth. And then there comes a point where you can't stand any cold in your mouth. And then there comes a point you can't stand your tongue in your mouth.
And nothing to touch it. And then you lose the tooth. I mean, that's how it goes. That's the process. And so I said, do I want to do that? Do I want to do that now? I fly a lot, and I read these crummy little flight magazines. And there was an article in them, and they were doing an interview in nursing homes. Isn't that uplifting to read on your flight? And they were asking people, if you could live your life over, what would you do differently?
And the consensus of opinion was they would have taken better care of their teeth. Because they're over there in the nursing home gumming it up, you know. And so I thought, you know, if I lose enough teeth, I'm going to be in the nursing home gumming it up. I don't want to be doing that. So that means I'm going to have to do something different. And I said, God, I'm so scared. I am so scared. You know, I'm just so terrified here.
God, I need some help. I need some help. I'm willing to give this up, but God, I need some help. And so I'm right there at the hospital. So I go to the waiting room. I'm in the waiting room. I go over to the telephones, open the phone book, to the dentist pages and the yellow pages. And there's his half-page ads. It says, we cater to cowards. Laughter And I went, yes! You know, and so I call the number from the waiting room at the hospital.
And you know how we are. When I called her, I had to tell her about it. It's 26 years between visits. I don't have a family dentist. And I'm scared to death. I got hurt by a dentist when I was nine years old.
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And I went through this thing, you know, and then she said, could you come right now? Laughter Well, now, this is not your family dentist. It's not anybody that knows you. Why would they give you an appointment for right now? And it's, see, God knew if I waited, I wouldn't go. You know, it's like I was willing at that point. And when you become willing, God kicks in. But you've got to have the willingness.
And so I said, now? And she said, yeah. And so I went over there. And it was on the second floor of this building. And they had a little hand there that had a little arrow. And it says, we cater to cowards, pointing up. And I looked out there at the freeway. And I looked up there. And I thought, six in one, half dozen in the other. I can go lay in the freeway, or I can go up those stairs. Laughter And so I said, got to go quick.
So I ran up the stairs. I ran up the stairs. And I went in. I'm standing there like that, you know. And the girl said, you must be the lady who called. And I'm wondering, how did she know? Laughter And so she gives me this form to fill out. Now, you know, we've had free dental care for a long time. My husband's company, that's one of our benefits. But see, I'd never gone, you know. And so I'm writing all this stuff.
And I'm trying to write. And it's not even my handwriting. I'm so scared, you know. I'm just shaking like a leaf writing this stuff. And I'm saying, God, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can do this. Because I used to have, when I would go to the dentist, they had to give me tranquilizers to get me out of the chair to get me into the office. I mean, that's how bad it was. And I'm sitting there thinking, do I need to tell him I need something?
Do I need to tell him? And all of a sudden, over the music came the voice of the girl who does the FM station. And she was talking. And she happens to be my grandbaby in sponsorship. I heard Ann's voice. And Ann's voice is a real, of course, you know, radio voices, they have these really neat voices, you know. She's a dog, but her voice is good, you know. Sorry, Ann. Anyway, do you know what I mean?
It's just really amazing. But anyway, her voice has a real calming effect to it. And so all of a sudden, it's like it was a familiar voice in a strange place, and I began to feel a little more calm on the inside. And I began to get it together, and I wasn't hyperventilating. And I went over there, and I hand the girl, I was shaking, but I hand the girl my form, and all of a sudden they opened the door, and they said, Mrs. Thompson.
And I'm looking, where is she? You know, it's like, oh, God, that's me, you know. And I went in, and when I got in there, and the last time that I had gone to the dentist, it looked like an old barber chair with a tarantula hanging over it. That's the way a dentist's office used to look with all those things. And it didn't look that way. It was a nice little leather chaise, you know. And so she said, just, you know, sit here, and I did, and I leaned you back.
And I look up, and I'm expecting the tarantula, and instead there's panels, lighted panels over the ceiling just like in here, and only they had a poster over one of those panels. And the poster said, God, grant me the serenity. There was the serenity prayer on that panel over my head, and it's like I knew God was there. See, each step along the way, I knew God was there. And so when the dentist came in, he is a really soft-spoken man.
I just love him to death. And Dr. Joe, he said, I understand that you're afraid. And I said, yes. And I told him, I said, I'm real scared. And he said, well, we're going to try really hard not to hurt you. And he never has. He never has. And so that began a thing for me that, you know, I can go to the dentist when I need to. I can go get those regular checkups. I can do all those things, and it's a good thing because now as I'm getting older, I'm beginning to have a little more problems with some of the areas.
And I had another filling to come out this summer. And so I called Dr. Joe, and I said, my filling just came out. I need to see you. And they said, Mary Pearl, you come on over. And so, I mean, it's just like right like that. I went over there to the office, and Dr. Joe took a look at it, and he said, you know, he says, what do you think about us filling your tooth without giving you anything this time?
And my mind says, what would you think about me ripping your balls off? I mean, now that's my mind. But instead, I said, oh, I hadn't really given much thought to that at all. And he said, well, he says, there's no decay or anything. He says, I think that it wouldn't hurt. And he says, if it does a slice a little bit, he said, all you do is just put your hand up. And he says, and we'll stop, and we'll give you something.
And I thought, OK. I'm willing to try. See, he's never hurt me. I'm willing to try. I'm here to tell you, I got my tooth filled without anything. Whoa! You know, for where I came from, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. And then I was sitting in a restaurant here about a month ago, and I was eating a bowl of cheese soup. And I broke a tooth. Now, that gives you something to think about. and I broke a tooth. Now that gives you something to think about. Cheese soup, you know.
[00:30:00]
Now I'm sitting there and I thought, what is that? Rough something. And I reached around and I went, it's part of my tooth, part of my wisdom tooth had come off. And just, whatever. And so I called, it was real funny, my sister was sitting there having lunch with me, and I got up, went to the phone, right there in the restaurant, and I called and I said, I've just lost a piece of tooth in my hand. I just have a piece of tooth.
They said, what were you eating? I said, cheese soup. And they said, well, could you come right now? I said, sure. I went back and told my sister, finish your lunch, see you later. And just left her there and drove over there to the dentist. And I went in and he looked at it and he says, that's amazing because, I mean, they x-rayed my teeth just a month or so before for my annual checkup. He said, must be a crack in it or something. Anyway, and so he said, we'll give you a temporary filling.
And he said, you go back and finish your soup. And I said, okie doke. So I got my little temporary filling, no big deal. And I went back to the place and I told him, I said, boy, when he said temporary, he meant temporary. It didn't last 20 minutes. I'd eat my filling. You know, when they say temporary, they really mean that. But anyway, I went back in a couple of weeks and then we got that one taken care of.
But what I'm saying is, that's not a big deal for most people. But for me, that's a big deal because from where I came, that's a big deal for me. The fear of height, you know, I told you how that deal went. Well, one year I decided this was a year for height. And I was sick and tired to see all these things that I was afraid of put limitations on my life. That's what it amounts to. You know, if you want to live life happy, joyous and free, you got to get rid of all those limitations.
And so here I am and I'm thinking about that. And so I prayed and I said, God, I'd really like to become willing to get rid of this fear of height. I'd really like to be, you know, a lot of times I pray for the willingness to become willing, you know, and for whatever reason. And so I had been over to Hot Springs and wanted to go to the Hot Springs Tower. And I think my fingerprints are still in the railing.
I said, God, I don't like feeling like this and I'd like something different. And so for Christmas that year, several of the people I sponsored, who have a real sick sense of humor, went together and got me a ticket for a hot air balloon ride. And I said, thank you so much. And they had put together this giant poster with all their names and everything. And it had hot air balloons and it's like my heart like this.
So what I did was I put it on the ceiling over my bed, right over where I sleep. So every night when I would go to bed, the last thing I would see would be those hot air balloons and Merck goes for a ride. You know, that's what it said on the sign. And I said, OK. And so June the 5th, I got the courage to go. You know, I got it for Christmas, but it just took me that long to get the courage and to work out a time frame with the pilot.
And it's the big Arkansas balloon that we have at home and the big razorback on the side of it. I wanted to make sure it was the biggest balloon we had because I figured, you know, it was going to have to carry me. So we needed to make sure it was going to be able to do the job. And so I told everybody, I said, I've set that up and I said, we're going to see if this will work. I said, I'm just who it would just give me cold chills to think about it.
And so here the morning of June the 5th came and I went out to the place where they were going to air up the balloon and everything. And that's quite a process to go see if you've never done it. First of all, the balloons are put together with Velcro. Didn't know if you knew that or not your life is hanging with Velcro. That does a lot for your fear. And although the little baskets under them are stainless steel that are covered in the little wicker stuff, you know, and then they got those big propane or butane tanks or something in there.
So if you hit real hard, you can explode. But I mean, it's not really a big deal. And so anyway, they're airing up the balloon there. They're putting this out. They have a big fan that they started with and the fan gets the thing going. And then once it gets to a certain point, then they turn the air. And once that process starts, I mean, it goes up pretty quick. And all of the people in my home group had come out as they referred it for the ascension.
And send her up, up and away. And so JD went with me and talked to the pilot of the balloon. And he said that his uncle was there and that he had never flown and he was going to let him fly with us in the balloon. And so there was the four of us in the balloon. And I had this video camera. I want to take pictures, you know, from the balloon. It's going to be great. I hand the camera to a guy I sponsored and I said, here, take a picture of us.
And it occurred to me when I was way up in the air that he still had the camera. You know, it's hard for him to take a picture of us and me to have it too at the same time. You know, missed it a little there. And so when I got up there, I said, well, hell. And the guy said, what's the matter? I said, well, my camera's down there. He said, that's not the half of it. So is my two-way radio. And I said, well, what does that mean?
He said, well, that's how we keep in contact with the chase car. And he said, I guess we got off without it too. And I said, how long have you been flying these things? He said, 21 years. And I said, oh. And he says, first time I've ever done that. I knew then.
[00:35:00]
I knew then. Okay. So we're flying and it's really amazing because you're up there in the air and you can hear everything on the ground. You know, you can be standing out here and just talking in normal tone of voice. And 250 feet up, we can hear every word you're saying. You know, it's just amazing how sound goes up like that. You know, it's like the guys that circle the earth in the space things, they ought to be able to hear this.
You know, it's just amazing to me how you can hear when you're up there. And every dog in the neighborhood you terrorize. You know, the sound of that air over their heads evidently just terrorizes the dogs. But anyway, we're going on and there's no feeling of height to it. It's not like being in a plane because, you know, planes are loud and noisy. You're buckled in. But up there, you're not. You know, you're standing there looking over the edge or whatever.
And all of a sudden you realize it's just so totally different. And you're moving with the wind. And there's just a total feeling of peace and restfulness. It's just unlike anything you've ever felt before. And all of a sudden it occurred to me. I was looking straight down. I didn't have the feeling I was pitching over. I didn't have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. That was gone. And I was enjoying my flight.
I really enjoyed it. And the pilots, after we flew around for about an hour, the pilot said that he had planned ahead of time to land over at this particular area, Sam's parking lot over on the other side of town. And we got there. They have this big long thing. It looks like parachute webbing. And they click it like with a dog clip on the thing. And they throw it over and that helps guide you right down.
Well, he just forgot to clip it. He clipped midair and threw it. And so now we don't have our landing stabilizer. And he said, I've never done that before either. So we're not coming down, so we've got to go up again now because there's power lines and stuff over there. And if you don't have that guide thing, and so we've got to get up above those power lines lest we be fricasseed. And we go over those and all of a sudden we're heading out over the freeway and we're just going on and on and on.
And I said, well, this is neat. I said, I'm going to get a double flight for the price of one. And he said, we're running out of fuel. Oh, and I said, well, how do we stop now? And he said, well, we'll have to do it like the old days. He said, we're going to have to hang on a tree. Hang on a tree. What does that mean? Now, they tell you when you're flying, when you reach out and grab leaves off the trees you go past, these are called lucky leaves.
Well, I have lucky limbs. We landed in the top of a big oak tree. And we just started teetering there because he was trying to lower us And we just started teetering there because he was trying to lower us and drag on the tree and we dragged a little too close. And so now we got hung in the top of a tree. And that's when I realized fear of height was totally gone because height is good. Ground is bad.
Height is good. It's ground that's bad. And you're looking down, you know, and you go, oh, my God, we're going to crash down on the ground. And so anyway, we're breaking off these limbs and everything that's holding us until we get enough broken off so that we can ascend again. And then we come on up and we went over and we landed in a field out in a thoroughbred horse ranch. And they were not real thrilled about that.
But they had just mowed the hay and the hay was laying out there. So it was a nice soft landing in this, you know, field of fresh mowed hay. And the pilot did give us some instructions before the crash landing. I mean, it's going to be a crash landing at best. And he told us and he said the key to it is not to get hurt. He says you got to bend your knees. He says your knees are your shock absorbers.
And he said if you bend your knees when I holler now, he said then your knees will absorb the shock and you won't break an arm or a leg or anything as we go down. And he said it's going to fall over and we're going to be drugged for a distance until it stops. And he said it'll be okay. You'll be okay if you just follow the directions. And I thought bend your knees, what a concept. And so said a prayer.
And when we got to that point, he hollered now we bend our knees, we fell over, we went, and there we were. The flight was over and they rip a cord on the thing when they're doing it, which takes one of those panels to let the air go out pretty quick once you are coming right down. And it was just fine. And so I'm laying there in the thing and got back up, looked out, and I said that was fun. Let's do that some more.
And it's really neat. If you've never done the hot air ballooning, try it one time just for fun. Try it one time. Don't try the around-the-world thing like these people are doing. But the normal little flights are great fun. And we have what we call the hounds and the hare where they send the one balloon and then the rest of them try to chase it. So it's a fun thing. But see, my life is so much fuller because I don't have those fears.
It's just so much fuller. I got to a point where I was afraid of flying. Now that sounds funny from somebody who can balloon, but I'm talking about airplane flying. Now I don't know if you all remember or not,
[00:40:01]
but a few years ago they had a crash in Dallas, and I had to fly in the next day right after the crash. Well, you know, it's like you hear of plane crashes usually two or three of them at a time, you know, so you always have that in the back of your mind on a situation like that. And so when I'm coming into Dallas, they still had the remains and stuff out there where they hadn't gotten all the plane off.
But right before we made our approach to come into Dallas Airport, I was in a 727 and we rolled. Now this is not an acrobatical plane. And what happened was we got too close to the air of a jumbo jet. And it's just like when you're on the lake and the big boat goes by and you get caught by the wave and it can capsize you. Well, we got too close on the approach where they had just had a big jet take off.
We came into that air and the turbulence caused us to roll. And we just went over them once. That's enough. And you'd be surprised how the stuff comes out of the overheads and you would think there'd be a lot of screaming, but it wasn't. It was everybody was just… And there was this lady sitting next to me and she had told me earlier in the flight it was her first flight. And so when the plane rolled, she grabbed me by the leg and she says, Is this normal?
And I said, No. No, it is not normal. And you can always tell when the pilots have screwed up. I'll give you a clue. If you fly, you can always tell. You know how at the end when you finish your flight, they open the cockpit and say, Thank you for coming and whatever and whatever. They don't open those doors for nothing. They're not going to let you get to them. And when he came back on the thing, and like I say, when we made the roll, it wasn't like we just made a roll and quit, but then there's this and this and this trying to get control of the plane again.
And so it seemed like it lasted for a long time. I'm sure it wasn't a matter of seconds, but it seems like a long time. And then he came on the radio and he said, Sorry about that. And it's like, I want to kill him. And he said that was what had happened to us. But it made me scared. That scared me really bad. And then to land and see the wreck over there. You know, I mean, it was just a bad sequence of events.
But I had to get on another plane to go to Colorado. And so when I got on the plane to Colorado, I was a white knuckle. And then I didn't tell anybody about it because, you see, I had made fun of people that were afraid to fly because I'd been flying for years and years and years. Ever since I was like 17 years old, I'd been flying across the country. So it just never occurred to me when people were talking about being afraid to fly how terrible that fear could be.
And I didn't mention it to anybody, not my sponsor, not anybody. And every time I had to go to fly, which is two or three times a month, here it would come again. And it would get worse and it would get worse. And I just knew that the plane I was on was going to crash and I was going to die and I'd get in. Especially when you have to go on the little commuter planes, you know, where there's like six or seven people.
You know, when you fly on these wasps. It just, I mean, I was just dying. And so one day I had to go down to Texas City, Texas. And when I left from Dallas, I was in one of those little teeny commuter planes and I was just sick at my stomach with fear. And when I got there, I was staying at a hotel over by the airport. And when I went back to my room that night after going to the meeting and coming back, I was telling God, I said, you know, God, I can't do this anymore.
I can't do it anymore. And if this is what I'm supposed to do, if I'm supposed to go and if I'm supposed to fly on these planes and go and do this deal, I'm going to have to have this fear removed from me because I can't stand it anymore. It's killing me. I said, I can't do this white-knuckle flying. It's just not what I can do. And I don't know what I'm going to do, but I can't do it. And I cried and I cried and I prayed.
And then I went on, went to the meeting the next day and there was a girl that was there. And after the meeting, she was talking about being afraid of flying. She says, how do you do it? And I said, I don't know because I'm scared to death. And I told somebody. I did the process. I admitted to God, myself, and someone else what was going on with that fear. And I went back to my room that night knowing I was going to have to leave the next morning.
And it was raining the next morning. And having to go out there and get on that plane and I was just a nervous wreck. And I said, God, you've got to do the deal for me. I got on the plane. And as I sat there, I thought I'll read my book a little bit. And I fell asleep. I never knew when the plane took off. I never knew when I landed in Dallas until we were taxiing down the runway. And I thought I was leaving Texas City and instead I was in Dallas.
You see, God did for me what I couldn't do for myself. And I realized God's taken care of me and I haven't been afraid to fly. You know, that's the thing. You have to become willing to let go of those things. And when you are entirely ready to do that, God will take away those things that separate you from being able to enjoy life like he wants you to. Now, there's a thing, too. You have to be willing to get ready.
Now, there's a thing too, you have to be willing to get rid of your defects because your defects of character call to other defects of character.
[00:45:00]
Defects of character never play by themselves. They like to be, you know, tell me when you've ever used one defect of character? When you get afraid, what do you do? You lie. Oh well, fear called to lying. You know, it called to being something you weren't, you know, they play. And not only that, they will call to the defects in others. When you're practicing your defect, a lot of times you bring out intolerance in other people.
You bring out judgment and criticism in other people. You know, those things work back and forth. So that's another reason I wanted to get rid of them. And I was told that it's like this. Inside of every person is a black dog and a white dog. Now the black dog represents all of your negative character traits. And the white dog represents God and all the positive character traits. Now those are all in there and they're always in a war.
The black dog and the white dog are always at war. Now which dog wins? The dog you feed the most. You know, the dog you feed the most. So you got to feed it with positives. You got to do those positive actions. You got to be willing to get rid of the negatives and feed the white dog. Now when I ask God to remove that defect, I have to like say act as if. Now I was very aggressive in driving. I know you don't believe that, but I was.
You know, God forbid that you pull in front of me and do something weird. Or that you pull in front of me. I mean, God, don't you know we got to be at the head of the line? I mean, what is it about being in front? Don't you hate driving behind people? You just got to be in front. You know, you got to be in front. And so when that person would do that deal, move in front of me, I would have words to tell them.
I would yell at them whether they could hear it or not. I would make obscene gestures. Honk at them, you know, whatever. And so I told God, you know, I said, I really don't like me when I do that because I don't like it when, you know, there's those days you get up and you know you're not on. Your reflexes are just not there for that day. You know, it's the day you get in your car and you're driving down the road and you go through that stop sign and you really didn't mean to.
You forgot it was there. Or you're a little slow putting on the brakes and you end up half out in the intersection. And there's somebody behind you going, meh, meh. And it's like, I know I screwed up. Let's make an announcement of it. You know, I mean, does that do one thing to help your feelings? It doesn't mind. What it does is it makes me more nervous. And then the more nervous I become, the more focused I become on the screw-ups I make and the more screw-ups I make.
And I thought, you know, maybe the other people are that way too. So when I see somebody do something weird like that, instead of cussing at them or screaming at them or honking at them or flipping them off, I say, God bless that person. Help that person because that person can be me tomorrow. You know, that's the way I can be on any given day. And all of a sudden I begin to see that I became a more courteous driver.
I can let people in front of me. It's not a big deal. You know, I don't have to be the first one in line all the time. If I'm driving along and somebody climbs on my bumper, I can pull over to the other lane and let them go around. I don't have to sit there and say, I'm doing the speed limit. If they want to go faster than me, then they can go around on the shoulder of the road. I just don't care because I'm doing the speed limit.
You know, I don't have to get into that posture. I can allow them to go ahead and do what they need to do and let the cop get them further down the road. You know, I have found it more difficult not to be cheerful when that happens. You know, but I want to tell you, there's a real benefit to that though because, you know, like I say, sometimes I make the mistake. I got me a new car and two days later I decided to take a trip of a month which was 10,000 miles.
And I told my sister she'd been bitching all these years about never getting to go anywhere. You're the one who always gets to go. I never get to go. And so I told her, I said, go pack your bags. We're going on a trip. She said, where are we going? I said, everywhere. And we did. And I was zipping along. I had just been up to the Badlands and I was going across to Wyoming and I saw a sign that said Devil's Tower.
And I said, oh, that's the thing from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I knew that from the girl I had sponsored. And so I said, we're going to go see Devil's Tower. You know, why not? So I just whipped off the freeway and off to Devil's Tower we went, you know. And as I topped this rise, it started a little rolling out that way. As I topped this rise, there was this car, a cop car coming facing me, almost sucked him sideways as I went past.
And my sister said, aren't you speeding? I said, a little. Well, see, I had not disengaged cruise control. I was still doing 80 and it was a 35 zone. Well, we were talking, you know. Wasn't paying attention. That's the bottom line. Wasn't paying attention until I saw the cop. Isn't it funny how when you see a cop, it makes your eyes go to the speedometer every time? You know, that's just a normal thing.
You check it out, you know. And I knew I was dead meat. I mean, there was no question in my mind if he was awake, you know, driving, that I was gone. And so, anyway, I'm zooming along. And sure enough, in a little bit, I saw him in the rearview mirror as he came across.
[00:50:02]
And then the little light and everything. And so he got up there along even with me and he said, you realize you were going a little fast? I said, yes, I did, as soon as I saw you. And he looked at me and I said, the minute I saw you, I went, oh. And I said, yeah, I was going too fast. And he said, do you know how fast you were going? And I said, pretty much. Do you? He said, well, my gun said 85. I said, oh, well, I thought it was 80.
Well, give or take. And so, anyway, he goes back in. And, of course, he's running my license. I mean, that's obvious. And then he comes back up to me and he said, what are you girls doing? And I said, well, we're out seeing the world. And I said, you're along the road. And I said, I said, I like your car. It's sort of like mine, only mine has leather seats. And he says, mine has a cage in the back.
He said, are you enjoying Wyoming? I said, yes, up until now, it's been really nice. He said, well, you know, I'd like to see you enjoy Wyoming, too. So I'm going to give you, if you promise not to litter the road with it, I'm going to give you a warning. A warning. You know, only 50 miles over the speed limit. He's going to give me a warning, you know. And I said, I will promise you. I will not throw away the warning ticket.
And so he wrote me a warning ticket. He said, just go and enjoy your vacation, you know. And my sister said, they would have given me a ticket in a heartbeat. And I said, well, you know, the one thing I've learned is don't lie. You know, and I said, don't insult his intelligence by acting like you haven't done anything. I said, I knew I'd done it. I said, before, I would have said, I don't know what you're talking about.
I was just doing so and so. I would have done some cockamamie something. Instead, I said, you know, if I got a ticket, I got a ticket. Pay the ticket. I mean, that was the deal. You know, and see, that comes from that change in attitude about that driving, not being angry. I wasn't mad at myself. I was just, you know, I was inattentive. And I accepted the fact I was a human being, not screwed up. And I think that comes easier to accept other people screw up when I realize I do it too.
Then I had resentments like dressing J.D. I don't know if that, how many of you have your little boys you have to dress? Now, if they're over the age of nine, you're in trouble. Well, mine was 40. And, you know, I had this problem of not being on time, not being on time. And see, it's hard to be on time when you have to dress somebody else. And you have to go through the fight of, but I don't want to wear that.
But, yes, you need to wear that. And you have to explain to them why they have to wear this. And you have to go through all this stuff, lay the clothes out, make sure they got them on, do this. And then you can go take care of yourself. And then he's at the door saying, I don't know why she's never ready. So I told my sponsor about that. And she says, well, you just become willing to not do that. And I said, well, how do you do that?
She said, by not doing it. In other words, whether I'm willing to do it or not, she said, no, just quit doing it. Just quit doing it. You know, you can get brain damage, stuff like that. You know, just not doing what you want to do. So I told him, I said, OK, I'm not going to dress you anymore. I'm not going to play your mom anymore. And so, you know, it's real. Sometimes when you quit doing something, the hardest things to do are the things you have to quit doing.
A lot of things you have to start doing, things you have to quit doing. And because it's so ingrained. And so he decided that I was going to continue to dress him because he didn't want to go through the trouble of having to figure out what went with what. It was that simple. He was lazy. What the heck? So he came in there and he says, well, it's time to go to the meeting. What do you want me to wear?
And I said, I don't care what you wear. And he said, oh, yeah, sure. And I said, I'm not dressing you anymore. I told you. He said, well, we'll see. So he goes in there and he comes out and he's got a boot on one foot and a shoe on the other. I mean, it's pretty obvious, you know, he's going to force me to dress him. Well, you know, I done told my sponsor I wasn't going to do it. So, I mean, I can't lie to my sponsor.
I can't lie to my husband, but I can't lie to my sponsor. My life depends on my sponsor. You know, so I just decided, OK. And then he put this shirt and pair of pants that didn't go anywhere together with one another, you know. And I said, well, yes, we're going to the meeting. I got as far away from him as I could. You know, we got out and we came back home and he said, I'm so embarrassed. He said, I'm just so embarrassed.
And I said, well, I told you I wasn't going to do that anymore. And so later he would come in and he said, would you do this? And I said, what? And he said, if I ask you, does this go together? And it doesn't. Can you say no? Let me talk to my sponsor about that one. And she said I could say no. If he came and asked me, she says that's not telling him what to do. And she says if he's asking for help, that's one thing.
But as far as you going in there and doing it, because she said all those years you were doing it, he wasn't paying attention. You know, now he'll have to pay attention. Well, now my husband's very well dressed and he does it himself. And we're both grateful, you know. And then I was very impatient. And when you get ready to give up impatience, you know how that comes.
[00:55:00]
You have to learn a little bit of tolerance, you know. And so God put sponsorship in my life. Oh, is that a trip? Pigeons will help you develop patience. Now, let me tell you, you know, because you have to tell them over and over and over and over again. You know, it's like you will really understand and love your sponsor that much more when you have some of those. Because, you know, I was one of those.
You know, what goes around comes around. If you were an asshole being sponsored, you're going to get them. That's the way it goes, you know. You know, I've got I've had those that, you know, when they when they come in the room, I'm going, oh, God, not that one. Not that one. And it's like they just like you've got these magnets, you know, just boom. And they're right on you. You know, there's the sickest of the sick, you know.
But there but, you know, really, those are the biggest. Those are the biggest miracles. Because when you get to see someone come in like that and begin to grow and begin to change. God, you get to see the miracle. You know, I'm the one who gets the blessing because I get to see the miracle. And then the one of the prayers that's helped me a lot on this is God treat me tomorrow as I treat others today.
Now, that'll make you shape up your act. You know, because what goes around comes around. We know that, you know. So if you treat others like you want to be treated, then you're going to have a pretty good day. Step eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Well, we've now gotten from a point of being OK with ourselves and OK with our higher power.
And now it's time to go back and clean up the wreckage of the past and get OK with people. And, you know, this is where you have to accept responsibility for all that stuff that you've done. And that's a bitter pill. Because, you see, all my life I was like a dog that got hit by a car. Have you ever seen a dog that's been hit by a car? When you go to help it, it'll bite you in a heartbeat. Because it's hurting and it doesn't know where the source of its pain's coming from.
And you're there. And that's the way I treated people. I was like a hit dog. I was in pain, and so I bit people that came to be around me that tried to help me. And I was dangerous to be around, especially when I was in pain. Now, you know, this tells you to make a list. Well, why do you need a list, for God's sake? Well, I have a tendency to forget things I don't write down. That's why. And, you know, we make a list so that we don't omit anything, that we get everything in.
And remember on that fourth step, when we did the fifth, we started this list? Well, now we go on and we add the other things. And you see, with a list, you can't conveniently forget people that you don't want to put on there. You just can't conveniently. And I was told that it was better to put more people on there than necessary than to leave one off that was. You know, and so the way I used it was anybody that I knew I had done a harm to, anybody that I had a problem with, like how I felt about them, put that on there.
You know, like I don't like that one and this one. And, you know, like when you go to the family reunion and you go, I don't want to see so-and-so, their name goes on the list. There's a reason you don't want to see so-and-so. And anybody that you couldn't look in the eye, put their little name on the list. You know, those kind of things. And the people that you hated, be sure and put them on the list.
And the people that you think has done the worst things in the world to you, put their names on the list. And I'm saying, why should I put those? And they said, because most people are reactors. And obviously you've done something that they reacted. And maybe you don't even know what it was you did, but their reaction was something they did to you. And if you pray about that, God will show you these things.
And so my sponsor told me, she says, and never forget that you are on the list. And this is a living amends you make to you because you've hurt you more than anybody else has. You have hurt you more than anybody else has. Because, you see, the other people I tried to manage, control, manipulate and what have you, but I had lied to me and I had set myself up for hurts time and time again. I had done that.
And I found out that, you know, that when I was making this list, I was told that I could make three columns for this list because I was having a hard time because, you know, I didn't want to make amends to some of these people. And I didn't want to put their name on the list because, see, I'm a list checker-offer. And, you know, if you can't check their name off, you don't want them on the list. You know how that goes.
And so I was told that the list could have three columns. The first column would be people I can make amends to right now. And the second one is people I know I need to make amends to but I just can't do it right now. And the third is I'm never making amends to them as long as I live, you know. Going to have that list over there, the never list. And so that helped me to go ahead and be able to get everybody on the list.
And so I put them down. Everybody on the list, and so I put them down, and I also wrote why they were on the list, why I thought they were on the list, what my part of the deal was. I need to make amends because this is what I did, and I was told that I couldn't put because they did this to me, I couldn't start that mess, just put exactly what I did
[01:00:04]
to them, and there were people on there that I knew I didn't have a good relationship with, but I didn't know what I'd done to them, I didn't have a clue, but their names were on the list, and they said just put them on the list, so I put them on the later, and I was never to say I could make any amends for somebody except, we didn't want to have an except, so that would worry with the nevers. So on the now list I put my fellow workers because I had been real hard on the people that worked for me.
My boss used to tell me, he said, you get more work out of these people than anybody I have ever seen in my life, he said, I think they're scared to death of you. I think he was right, you know, because I intimidated them, and I didn't give them any slack, and the thing about the tragedy to that was I had worked myself up in that position to be the boss, so I had done every job in the department, so I knew how to do every job in the department, and if you didn't do it the way I did it, it wasn't the right way.
You know, I didn't let them have the initiative to do it on their own, you know, there's more than one way to do a good job, and I wouldn't allow them the freedom to take their job and to do it to the best of their ability, and maybe even do it an easier, softer way than what, because I had done it this way, you had to do it that way. And so I said, well, how am I going to do that? And so my sponsor says, well, you're going to do the real amends, you're going to say you were wrong.
Not good, not good. And so anyway, I put all these people down, and I had my company on that list, you know, where I had scrounged all that stuff, you know, that was an amends to make there. And then I had people, the checkers and the sackers at the grocery store. I was really cruel to the sackers and the checkers, to the point where the manager had to check me out at Skaggs, because they would see me come in, they'd take a bathroom break, they'd leave, they'd do whatever.
I said, don't want to mess with her, because I was mad when I came into the grocery store. I didn't want to be bothered to have to go to the grocery store. The prices kept going up, that irritated me, and didn't they know I had bigger things to do than come spend my time in a grocery store, and inevitably they'd make a mistake on my bill that I'd have to point it out to them. And so, and I was so kind in pointing it out to them.
You know, one of the girls in our group, or ladies in our group, is an ex-checker, and she says, oh God, we had a lot of you. You know, she said, it wasn't just you, there was a lot of them like you. And I said, you know, part of my amends, other than changing my behavior, was that, is, you know, I try to be super nice to this lady, because I know if she had people like me, she's been through hell.
And then there was my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law was well-meaning, but drove me nuts. And then, under the later, I had the alcoholic. Under the later, I had some friends. Under the later, I also had my group, because I had done tacky things in the group, in the group. And on my never list, at the head of the list was, mother, yes, we have a list, we're alike. And then was my brother-in-law. And then was my first husband.
And then there was a girlfriend that I had an affair with her husband. That was on the never list. You know, but the purpose of the list is to get an idea of the damage done from the past. And if you aren't willing to make amends in some area, then this is where you make the list and you ask God to make you willing. This is it. You get the list, and then you ask God to make you willing. And the ones that you're ready to work, then you go on.
You see, our purpose is to fit ourselves to maximum service to God and the people about us. And we can't do that if we're carrying around all this garbage with us. And that's what this wreckage of the past is with these relationships. It's all that garbage. And if you never have to clean it up, you'll continue to make it. There's something about once you clean up a mess and see how big the mess is, you're a little more careful.
I mean, don't you do this in your house? What happens when you clean the oven? Do you ever want to cook again? Same principle, you know, when you get the area cleaned up, you don't want to get it dirty again. And so, you know, now the book will tell you it's harder to go to an enemy more than a friend. It's harder to go to the enemy, but it's much more beneficial to you. I try to look at this list.
You know, what was the harm that I did to the other person? You know, how did I feel when stuff like that happened to me? And to realize that the things that I did where I got even, you know, my revenge thing, that hurt people. That really hurt people. And that destroyed, it made them feel bad about themselves. And if you felt like that and allowed people to do that to you like I had, you know how painful that is.
And you'll want to clean that up. And not only that, I had to be willing to go to any length to get closer to God. And I can't get closer to God when I'm doing this garbage to other of God's kids. That'll separate you from God. You know, I just can't do it and hold unforgiveness in my heart towards someone else. And so this step is asking me to do some forgiveness too. I've got to forgive myself for the things that's done here, you know.
[01:05:00]
I've got to grow up and become mature and I've got to be the one to change. And God will bring each and every one of those people to my life in his time. You know, in his time and in his way. Remember here though, delay can be costly and you know, and it says, you know, it's like my brother-in-law, while I was waiting around when I had him on the list, while I was waiting around, my brother-in-law died on me.
And I had to do a graveside amends and that's, that's totally different. Step nine is making direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so it injured them or others.