Audio
Transcript
Source: Sarah L. & Brian W – OAR 2022 Saturday 10am Panel – 2 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sarah-l-and-brian-w-oar-2022-saturday-10am-panel-2-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:44:36
============================================================
Thank you. Our first speaker is Sarah L., and she's from Westside Women's Saturday in the Cleveland area, and she's going to speak to us on Live, Laugh, and Love. Good morning. Good morning. I am so thrilled, honored, and humbled to be here standing in front of you. You are all amazing humans. It saved my life when I needed you, and everything that was recorded, leads, panels, were my lifeline when I came in.
So to stand up here and feel like I have something to share with you might help somebody. It's one of the greatest honors. I'm really delighted that I was asked to do it. I'm so nervous. My clients are eight. I'm a teacher by trade. They have the attention span of gnats, and so I talk fast. And then we also have clocks, so it's real helpful to know I've got 30 minutes to teach you about AR sounds. And then I can pace myself better, so I'm going to try and use my watch here.
Anyhow, and I really feel very cool sitting next to Bill, because you have no idea. When I met Bo T. here a couple years ago, I was like, my God, I was meeting a movie star. So this is legit. No kidding, when I say I love every circuit speaker and everybody that gets up here and chairs, you don't have to feel that way about me. But I'm just really honored to be here. My God, and the topic. Dude, I spent most of my life not living, laughing, or loving.
But seven years ago when I came in here, just about seven, that's all I do to the nth degree. So, I'm also not a good, I write lesson plans every week and they stay in the drawer, so I'm going to try and, you know, kids aren't black and white, you can't follow a plan. So, anyhow, I'm going to get started, but I still am just awestruck by all of you and standing at this podium. So, here's my story. Life back then. I am the oldest of four children. Let me start with this. From survival to recovery, they say it best.
I was conceived, born, and raised in a home suffering from the sickness of alcoholism. And I qualify as, my father was an alcoholic and my husband is a sober alcoholic. Oldest of four children. I was quiet, believe it or not. I was super anxious. My brother that's two years younger had a lot of energy and demanded a lot of attention and he got it and I was happy to offer it up. Super sensitive and overly observant, meaning I didn't miss anything. I picked up on behaviors, I picked up on, you know, who needed help in the house, what my role was to just shut up and be invisible.
Grew up in North Olmstead in Cleveland here, west side. And very Catholic. My mom was a Catholic school teacher and then principal. We went to all Catholic schools, Catholic colleges. And my mom and dad, our home was chaotic. I just chose all these C words. Chaotic, critical, complicated, and codependent. My dad was the alcoholic. My mom had isms that I'll never understand. I think she also grew up in a home with alcoholism. But she, my dad also was bipolar. So it's hard to know chicken or egg, you know, we're the two. But it was super chaotic. There were the car wrecks, there were the, you know, being left at home, people at your house.
But there was also, I mean, we had a well-pressed shirt in our house and matching outfits and we went to mass and we even had a picket fence. So there was this facade. We all looked real good. But the chaos was incredible. And my mom is, she just passed away a year ago today. Not nurturing at all. I didn't get the mom I was meant to have. And again, I'm sensitive. So touch me, brush my hair, tell me you love me.
I don't know what her story is. She died without leaving me anything to go on. But it was really hard growing up in that. And the codependency came from the fact that she really loved the chaos. So I never felt safe. I never felt taken care of.
[00:05:08]
I didn't understand either. I got to tell you, my best friends growing up, their parents were immigrants from Italy. And so, you know, they worked. You know, they came to this new country and they worked hard and their heat never got turned off. And their dad always went to work. And I just wanted my dad to go work at McDonald's. But he's this proud, college educated, very intelligent man. But he couldn't hold a job and he couldn't do menial work. It just wasn't part of our lifestyle.
So it was just so confusing. I'd say that I spent most of my life being perpetually on guard, picking shrapnel out of my body. And it was exhausting trying to figure out how to survive. Because it was definitely survival of the fittest. And I was not the fittest. So most of this exhausting behavior was trying to figure out my role in the house, trying to find out how other people do it. I spent a lot of years just studying other families to see, well, this is what a mom should do, so I'll do it.
And then part of my job was also to recreate the mother role. So I played with baby dolls until I was like 12. And I also had a little baby brother that was born 12 years after me. And so it was comical. I mean, I pretended he was my child, you know, and I would leave notes for the babysitter and I would mix his bed. It was great because now I could show you how to do it right, mom. You're doing it wrong.
But another thing that came into this was martyrdom. And that was a classic line in my house. My mom ever complained, I'm just being a martyr, Jane. But there was a time in my life where I really felt like God chose me. I mean, why complain? I mean, this shit sucks, but I mean, I'll carry that cross for you. I mean, I got it. I've been chosen as his special little martyr. And so, you know, I'm thinking, so that kept me going for a long time. I just was resigned to the fact that life was going to suck, but God chose me. And I'm going to do it for you, God. Damn it, I'm good at it.
And so, and life was terrible. I mean, I just wanted out. I had good friends and boyfriends and it was important that I always, I mean, I just played the role right, you know, like I never got too attached to you as a boyfriend because I knew you didn't really want to. So I just played every card great. I mean, it was exhausting until I met Brian. The love of my life. I mean, we are two little nuggets. I'm barely 17. He's just graduated from college. He's the first public school boy I ever dated.
And it was like, oh my God. It was great. And he was like, I call him my flatliner to this day because he's just not like this, you know, so he fit the bill of my dad. He's like, oh, and you don't mind working at Heinen's like the rest of your life? Could you just do it? Could you promise me you're just going to be, I don't mean anybody smart because there's nothing good about an IQ. I learned that in my house.
And then could you just go to work every day? So I'm thinking, I got my out, man. I have got my out. This guy is just going to go to work and he's like a flatline. There's no, well, there's no affection either. So I often think I married my mother. But at the time, and I was talking about this in my lead a little bit ago, you know, I came from faulty foundation. He came from an alcoholic home. We had a faulty foundation. We tried to build this home together, damn it. We were stupid.
But we were so happy together. Everything was better together. It didn't really matter that we had sucky stuff and that we were not going to be compatible and we're babies. We're better together. So we did that for a long time. We got married. It got bad pretty quickly because he's a flatliner and I need so much attention. I'm free hugs all day long. Anyhow, I need a lot of attention. I'm so sensitive and I want you to talk to me and I can't know how to manual as a kid. I want you to teach me how to do things and I want to talk about our finances and should we have kids and where do they want to go to school. He doesn't want to talk about anything.
Anyhow, so here's what happened. Survival was harder. Exhaustion was greater. And the stakes were a lot higher. At this point, Brian had been through a couple bouts of rehab.
[00:10:14]
I can't go into all these details. Talk to me later. So here's the thing. Bipolar gets worse and the meds don't work after a while. My dad's running from air and doing crazy things. I'm like, I gotta leave. I'm moving. I was living next door to my parents' dysfunction junction. I'm the only kid that stayed in Cleveland. So, mom, I can't do this. I'm leaving. We're moving. And the only way you're ever going to see your grandkids again is if you come with us. I mean, what the F? I mean, I never liked this woman ever, right? I'm like, let's build a spot for you on my house, on our faulty foundation.
So we take my mom, we build this lovely home. I give birth to baby number three, three weeks before we move in, sell two homes. As you can imagine, the cycle of chaos continued. And it got worse and worse. Baby number four came. Anyhow, we look good on the outside. Looks like my mom's helpful, but she's not. And she's getting a lot of kudos. She might be narcissistic. She's not around to validate that, but that's what my therapist says.
Anyhow, outside of the house, she was real helpful to everybody else but me. And my husband got to witness it when he was sober. He often says, never saw somebody work so hard to make your life so miserable. It got really, really bad in 2015. And Brian was drinking a whole lot. I'm struggling with these four kids and working. And I love this line from Survival to Recovery. I was at the end of my rope and holding the scissors. Hope was absent. I was suicidal. I told my mom I was going to kill myself. And she turned around and emptied the dishwasher.
And so I melted down at school and I spent some time. I call it the clinker because it really wasn't a very nice hospital. I just needed to sleep and eat. I didn't look like this. This is happiness. I was like 30 pounds lighter. I hadn't slept and just a bag of bones. My dad had died a year prior to that. He was a sick, sick man, but he would have been there for me. Never, you know, addict, bipolar, he still would have been there for me. So I had a real hard time on that day. Anywho, that didn't really help. I didn't get all that better.
I'm not going to tell you my whole story now. I'm going to move on to laughing then. Laughing then, see this is why we have clocks on the wall. Laughing then was at the expense of me because I was dumb, quiet, sensitive, or sarcastic and at the expense of everybody else. Because they were all just not as smart, not as cute, and not as important, but they held jobs. And so it was an awful way to live. And I just remember they would be like, get down here, we're having Sunday breakfast together. And you'd all march down and eat and it was like, whoa.
And God, if you laughed. I just still remember. If I laugh in the morning, I'm crying at night. It was like clockwork. So you try not to let go. That was the cycle of crazy. And I was definitely a too practical kid. It's kind of a waste of time to laugh at things. We've got to plan. You've got to work harder, try harder. There's no time for funny little jokes and laughs in movies. We've got to focus here on survival of the fittest. So there was no laughing. As I said, loving then, there was no body of evidence of love. I can't give you one thing that I held onto of my mom.
I can't tell you one time that she ever made me feel good. And she's not my qualifier. But my dad's crazy. It was mental illness. It was all I ever wanted in life though. I mean, I really was desperately seeking love my entire life. And that just led to distorted thinking, illness. Distorted thinking, illness, but I'm here, okay.
[00:15:06]
I mean, by the grace of God, a therapist that called me out. I was still suicidal when I got out of the hospital. My mom took me home and left me there. She goes, you're fine, right? Like, yeah, I'm all good, ma'am. Yep, you just go, I don't know, water, plants, whatever you got to do, it's more important than me. And she said, you know what, I want you to go to an Al-Anon meeting, or you're going to have to go back in the hospital, because you're not better.
And I mean, now, my dad was in the program, my mom being the front of the program. I'd been, like, buying serenity prayer shit for, like, years, right? Like, I didn't even know the words, but I was wearing the jerseys from my dad, and I'm like, yeah, because mom's making fun of you, but I'll be here for you, dad. I'll go to the family meeting and all these things. So I was like, I'm looking it up, and I get to this meeting, and I am a bad, I mean, you can't, they'll tell you.
I was just a hot mess, never stopped crying. I mean, I did always put on new makeup, but it was like a five times a day gig, you know, cry, cry, cry, and then redo the makeup, cry, cry, cry. All these leads saved me, though. That's the only thing that stopped the tears. Anyhoo, so I walked in these rooms, and my life changed. Let me just make sure I'm not getting, I'm going to mix this a little bit with loving.
Look at me, I'm just like, I'm getting real comfy up here. Um, life is epic. I mean, it is amazing, I can't even tell you. I hope that my enthusiasm shares with you how giddy I am about this program, and I am, by the grace of God, the luckiest girl alive, because it started the second I walked in these rooms. Um, I walked in on November 25th, Wednesday before Thanksgiving, my dad's birthday, so cluttered and everything, didn't even realize it, and I cried, and they said, keep coming back, and wait, do you want some meeting suggestions?
I got the hugs, they're like, can I have a hug? I'm like, honey, you can have a hug for as long as you want, and you want me to come back? And that line, you know, we love you in a way, like we already love you in a very special way, blah, blah, blah. I mean, like, you guys, and I mean, now, I'm such, like I'm still a child, right, like the mentality of a child. When you say that, I believed it. I was like, and I used to say that to my mom, I don't really care how you feel about me, could you just say I love you?
Could you just put it in a card, anything? You know, I was just so desperate for it, and I got it in these rooms, for a buck. I mean, I was like, what the? So, I kept coming back, I was so proud, I went back to see the doctors, went to six meetings, and anybody that was around at the very beginning, I was, hi, I'm Sarah, and this is my third meeting. Hi, I'm Sarah, and this is my fourth. I mean, I was so excited, like I'm here now, I'm not here long, but I love it, and every day I'm getting better, but I'm still new, so make sure you teach me things.
I mean, I don't say that anymore, and I don't know why I didn't at the beginning, but I just was so proud, and I was so excited, and I'm grateful this doctor was in a 12-step program herself, that our paths crossed, and had I not gone to the clinker, she wouldn't have been there. So, it all worked out. So, life works now because I have tools, because I have clarity, and because the steps allow me to look at myself, accept my part in things, walk away from stuff that isn't my part.
Today, you guys, Brian and I, and there's a part of that story, like where I spent like three years in grad school just trying to save up to divorce him, but I wanted to get the kids Christmas, so it was like, well, where do you spend the money? But my therapist was like, just stick him around, he's just a babysitter. So, like really, I mean, we were going to get divorced. And now, I mean, we are so deeply in love, so deeply connected.
I can't even put into words the joy we have. And one day at a time, and gratitude comes into it. Every day is a blessing. We loved each other from the beginning as babies, with sick homes and faulty foundations. By the grace of God, we found a way to fall back in love. And honest to God, I have four beautiful children
[00:20:01]
that I can't get enough of. I mean, I always loved them, but they were kind of like at a distance. I mean, they are my life. I cherish every moment with them. It is authentic, it's joy-filled. It is, it's not, I'm just your mom. And I have the best friends in this program where I can be myself, where I can let down all my guard, where I can ask for help. That gratitude comes from being here and being in a community where I belong, and for you making me feel like I'm not lonely.
So I'm going to go real fast. Laughing now. My friends will love this. I mean, I'm a one-man show in the audience, right? But I laugh my ass off of myself all day long, right? All day long. It doesn't take much, okay? But those leads, too, you know, when I'm preparing, I don't know, it kind of opens up some thinking when I'm listening to them. So I'll listen to them on my way to school and back, and laughing my ass off.
You know, Father Tom, somebody said Mary Pearl, you know, somebody mentioned Kathy H. I'm like, God, I just listened to her last week. I mean, these people saved my life. That's why, like, when Bo walked in here, I was like, my God. Savior! I mean, like, I could tell you parts of your story because it was the one line or whatever the one thread of similarity that kept me going. Loving, I mean, I love this program, okay?
I mean, I loved it the second I walked in and I was, like, it was my new boyfriend, like, Sarah plus Al-Anon on every piece of paper. You know, like, anybody that wanted to talk to me and be like, Al-Anon? I'm an Al-Anon. Yes, I'm all better now. I'm an Al-Anon. Anyway, now it's like, I don't need, God, kind of I want to keep it all to myself. I just, I'm living it. I mean, I hope to the best of my ability to talk to my sponsor later.
But I love everything to the point where when my mom died, you know, it was a rough time again. It was crisis. You know, I needed my sponsor. I needed meetings that I walked into crying because in this program, from survival to recovery, I can never earn the love of those unable to love me, but I can find others who are able. And I accept the unconditional love of this program from survival to recovery.
My love for this program has no bounds. I'm filled to overwhelming. And I'll end with this. This came to me just a couple weeks ago. I spent most of my life wanting to meet God and go, what the? I mean, you put these two nut jobs together. You gave them four kids. You put me in there all sensitive. I mean, what were you thinking? And then I marry an elk. I mean, come on, God. I mean, I tried to carry that damn cross, but you really threw me for a ringer.
And then, and you know what? Today, and this came up like in the lunchroom, I can't wait to get there. I can't wait to say thank you. Every single moment up to now brought me here. And what a gift. I can't damn any of it. I am so glad that I made it through it. I don't think I would have without this program and a higher power. I know I wouldn't have. And this is the final thought. Although I really do like it.
I mean, if you need anybody, like somebody gets sick, just give me a topic and I'll get it to you. Anyhow, this comes from Survival to Recovery in the section When Crisis Strikes. God, I love this. And I read it in preparation. And that's the other gift of being asked. Because I was asked to do my lead like last week. I was like, I got four kids, I work, and I can't do all this. But the prep work, the reading, the talking to your sponsor, my God, never say no.
Page 131. Al-Anon is a perfect program. It is we who are not perfect. And we don't have to be. Love. That's it. Love, my friends, is what we find here. That about covers it. Love is the reason it works. Al-Anon is the reason I work. The reason why I'm living, laughing, and loving. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:25:01]
Okay, could anybody else have done that better? Wow. Sarah, thank you so much for showing us that there is this life in recovery. That we can really live the good life if we work the program. And that we can laugh without laughing at somebody or having somebody laugh at us. And that there is truly love in the world if we look for it. And if we can't find it anyplace else, we find it in these rooms.
And I could feel your love for all of us. And I want to say thank you Thank you. Okay, our last speaker of the morning is Brian W. from Mercer PA. And he's going to talk to us about Discovering Dignity. Thank you. Glad I got my cheering support over here. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to the committee for asking me to do this. And though you did set me up, those are three hard acts to follow.
Thank you, Kathy, Denise, and Sarah. As a matter of fact, Sarah, if you want these notes and want to continue up here, just go right ahead. You're on a roll. I kind of want to start with I've been in this program just a little over eight years. And one of the things about listening to these three women is while I met them all today I feel like I know them already. And that is because of this program.
One of the things that Donna said just before was and these are the important words if you work the program. One of the things that as we're going through this process and just thinking about the gold one day at a time and dignity they all go together. None of the things we really talk about in these meetings are a singular thing. They all have connections to other things and that's an important thing.
So when I was asked to talk about discovering dignity unlike my lead here's my story I have to do research and take notes I want to talk a little bit about when I got into the program typically none of us walk through the door in our greatest state let's put it that way and I was the same I was desperate to say life was messy I was kind of taken messy over what I had things were hard and one of the things that kept me in the program is that I walked into a room feeling like an open wound and what I got from the people around me was not only support but I could see what's going on on the other side of the table somebody going yeah I've been there done that gotten through some of these things so to say I wanted what everyone else had it's like no one's not the right word I needed it and it's actually one of the things because dignity is one of the things that if you'd asked me to look it up at that point but I don't really know it now life has beat me down a little bit but one of the things I want to start off is actually the definition of dignity and this is right out of Google which you can always trust but it says a state of quality or being worthy of honor or respect or a sense of pride in oneself and one of the things I want to note and what I've learned in this program is it's listed in the dictionary as a noun As Kathy said at one particular point, it's an action.
This is a verb to me.
[00:30:01]
Because we have to put these things into action. In order to rediscover it, we have to work for it. And that's an important part of what we do. And I'm going to follow up here because it mentions pride in oneself. It says a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements or consciousness of one's own dignity. And there's a couple words in these definitions that are important.
Quality, worthy, honor, respect, achievements, pleasure. When you hear the words gratitude, when you go through one day at a time, when you talk about laugh, love, live, these words come into play. And like I said, it's all very much an interconnection. And one of the things is God gives you what you need when you need it. And it's the people that have been in this program for a long time that have given what they have that make this program possible.
I've heard my wife say, and I do want to start with some gratitude, she started her program eight years ago, and she's been sober for that entire time, and it is to this day, which I'm incredibly grateful for. I couldn't help her. I had to hand that over. I tried many times, many ways, all kinds of that, but I couldn't do it. But she found people who could. So for that I'm eternally grateful. And the help I needed was here.
And that's important. So when I came into the program, I was not in great shape. And one of the things, and again, God gives you what you need to hear at a moment, is I'm late on preparing for things. So Wednesday I go to my weekly meeting, and of course I've got a slight outline for this, but I'm not ready yet. And the topic was honesty. And in one of the sayings, Encourage a Change, it had a saying of where is the dignity without honesty?
And it's like, okay, there's my connection. Got it. And it really brings me to the steps, working the steps. And going through things. I'm eternally grateful for not only the program, but I worked the steps a couple times with my sponsor and with another guy that I'm eternally grateful for. And these books, those tapes, these books, and these are my favorite kind of books, used. Written in. Worked.
Those books aren't bad, but they're not used yet. And that's the part that makes the difference. Because I can literally go back at any point and look at this book and see what I wrote and go, wow, that brings me back. Or I've grown from that point. Or maybe I need to revisit that. But one of the things that was important for me at the time, and especially when you get around to step four, because a lot of people dread step four because it's a moral inventory.
And a lot of people dread it because it's, oh, God, now I'm going to find all the things that I've done wrong. But out of this book, there are several topics, and they include self-worth, gratitude, love, values, and spirituality. These are the things that help build you up. One of the things that I realized in going through all of this is, and when you work the steps, is it is important to be honest with yourself.
You must accept things as they are. The situation you are currently in, learn from it. You're not changing it. I'm not going backwards and changing the past. My DeLorean's broke. And I'm out of plutonium. But I can't go do that. And in all honesty, who says that if I did, I'd make it correct? So I have to take what I have and learn from the things that I have. I had to recognize, am I an enabler?
[00:35:00]
Absolutely, world class, thank you. Do I still do that to this day? Yeah, I do. There are things that we learn from as we go through, but it did give me a perspective. It gave me a place to start with. And part of gaining my dignity, or part of discovering the dignity that I have, is realize the worth, the purpose, the things that, and a realization that I did the best I could with the situation I had, with the knowledge that I had.
It's been talked about before of, if I knew now what I knew then, I would have done it differently. But guess what? I didn't know now what I know then. So I did with what I had. And no, it's not perfect. There were a lot of days, and still to this day, that it's just, the accomplishment is actually get through the day. Sometimes it is just those little steps. One of the things I live by, especially when I'm feeling not at my best, is what's the next right thing?
We talk about one day at a time, and it's been mentioned, that sometimes that's a minute at a time, sometimes it's an hour at a time, whatever it is. But you have the moment you have in front of you, and it is important to be present in that moment. Part of doing the steps is looking in a rear view mirror, and discovering who you are, what you've gone through, how you got to these points, and every once in a while you discover that nugget, and usually through a lot of hard work, and not the first time you see it, of where something came from, the root of maybe an issue, or a personality trait, or whatever it is.
I know that probably hearing one day at a time, the first time I heard it, I didn't go, oh my god, that's amazing. The tenth time, it eventually kicks in. But this is the part of showing up. This is the part of being part of the action. And this is the part of the persistence. One of the things I realized is that through all of this time, dignity, like gratitude, like all of the other parts of our program, are actually available to us at all times.
We're just not always open to it. And part of being open to it is the work. You know, I would love to take a week off, or I'd love to, you know, but I know my mind. I will go back into old thinking. Autopilot is not my friend. Because I will go back into those behaviors. And it's one of the things that's important to remember, and important to work on, but I also can't live there. You know, I made a mistake.
Oh, there's money I shouldn't have spent. There's a time I didn't take here, or there's this or that there. That's all in the past. What can I do now, moving forward, to make things better? One of the things in here is like, you know, life, you know, it was already said many times, and I agree, life is messy. You know, no matter how good things are, like, I'll have my really great days, and this and that, life's going to throw good and bad things at you.
We had, you know, and, you know, like, I have to do a bit of a side story here about God putting together what you, you know, in front of you, what's needed. We're working on breakfast. Somebody was working on breakfast for last night, and, you know, and, oh, I was going to make this, but I forgot apples. Well, I brought three apples for no particular reason, because I just wanted to have them. And guess what?
All of a sudden, there's a call that says, oh, we have everything except apples. Okay. There you go. It's a God moment. You know, what do you do? You know, and that's the things that honestly clue you into that he's there. Your higher power is available when you need him. He's available when you don't think you need him, too. You know, and it's important. Somebody told me a long time ago, it says that times you need meetings are when you know you need a meeting
[00:40:01]
and when you really don't think you need a meeting. You know, because complacency is, does not work well. You know, we continue to have to work the program. We have to continue to do the things every day. One of the things that I recognize in my growth is about awareness. You know, when I'm starting to go through a bad time, before I started the program, those bad times would last days, weeks, because I didn't have a tool to help get me out of it.
But now I've got lots of tools, and now I'll be partway into it and go, okay, stop. What do I have? Do I have a book? Okay, let's bring the book out. Maybe I need to listen to a CD. Whatever it is, there's a tool to help me get to a better place. So when it comes around to the discovering dignity, it's not just about the discovering, it's keeping it and working at it and doing that from day to day, because, again, while we're all flawed, you know, we're all flawed, we're not perfect, things are messy, we're also valued.
We also have purpose. And we also contribute. But, again, it comes down to the action of doing the work. You know, if we sit on the sidelines, you know, I know that doesn't work for me. I need to be part of my own actions and part of making things better. My wife is going through a lot of medical issues. And so worries about alcoholism, you know, aren't the, let's just say on a daily basis, aren't the highest thing, because she's doing well in her recovery, but like life does, it replaces with other things that you've got issues with.
But these are ways of life. These are things that help in, you know, everywhere. And it's helped me gain confidence. It's helped me get through days that I didn't think I could get through. And that's the part of dignity, because there are times where, if I'm at work or if I'm at home, like, you know, next couple days, I'm gonna find out what's underneath all the stuff in my garage. There may be a floor there, I'm not sure.
But at the end of it, you know, I'm not there yet. But, you know, that will be an accomplishment. I can go, wow, look at that. Some of the days, like I mentioned, it's just, you know, I got through today and didn't hurt anybody. Or didn't, you know, I made it through and I did the things I needed to do. You know, and those are important, you know. So, you know, again, thank you to the committee. And thank you for all the previous speakers.
And with that, I'll pass. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Brian, thank you so much for that. I know that finding dignity was an important part of my recovery, because I came in with a lot of shame. A mother who raised two alcoholic children, I mean, it had to have been my fault, right?
And for the reminder that it's available to anybody who wants it, if we work for it. And I want to thank the committee also for these journals. This was an inspiration. I forgot my journal. And I get to write down things like, like where is dignity without honesty, that Brian said. What is the next right thing? And I'm going to take this journal back to my home group, and we're going to talk about all these things that I write down.
And I encourage you all to do the same thing with your groups. For the people who are not here, so that they can understand how valuable this program is. And that's why we have 20 of us here in our group. Because we know. Thank you very much. Applause