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Source: DICOBE-00637 – Lois W – 12TH ANNUAL SOUTHEAST CONF – 1956-08-13.mp3 File: dicobe-00637-lois-w-12th-annual-southeast-conf-1956-08-13.mp3 Duration: 00:58:08
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Good morning friends. I'm so glad to be with you at this great convention. These large gatherings of A.A.s and their families serve many useful purposes. Not the least of them is the thrill and inspiration derived from the mass demonstration of the positive power of good and from the assurance that lives can be changed, that the most miserable, through God's grace, can be raised up. These are assurances that great numbers of humanity all over the world are seeking. And we, the families of A.A.s, are particularly blessed to be able to observe these miracles at first hand in our own homes. It makes most of us want to try to do something to better our own lives, to live by the Twelve Steps ourselves, and to help others who still are frustrated and alone to do likewise. These large gatherings also mean to me the flowering of the dreams of all the early A.A. members of A.A.s and their families, including Bill and myself. We hope and believe that the A.A. principles would work on a permanent basis, and for the many as well as for the few. This assembly is irrefutable proof that they do thus work.
I deeply believe our A.A. principles coincide with the highest precepts of mankind, with the fundamental laws of the universe, and with matters why they have been so greatly used by God to perform his work. My personal gratitude is unbounded to a miracle in my own life. I thought you might like to hear not only how that miracle came about, but a little concerning Bill's and my early life together, both before and after A.A.
When we were engaged, I was particularly proud of the fact that Bill never touched a drop of liquor. You see, he'd been brought up in a family where liquor had caused great damage. His father and mother had been separated because of it, and his grandfather also had drunk too much. They both got over it, but nevertheless Bill had been told that he must not take a drop of liquor, and he believed him. I used to think it was so wonderful when he would go with the boys to the saloon to take ginger ale or some other soft drink. We have always liked outdoor life, and used to spend much time together in open. This came in very handily later in his drinking days when I was still able to engineer outdoor weekends that helped him not only physically, but kept him away from the bottle. But to get back to the days when we were engaged, I think most of us women actually pick our husbands. I know I am very conscious of the fact that I deliberately went out and picked mine. Bill was quite young, several years younger than me, I have to admit, and still in college, so that we had a long engagement.
One winter his class was suspended a term because of hazing, and he chopped wood in order to get enough money to come to New York to see his fiancee, to buy a new suit, an overcoat, and an engagement ring for his girl. One Saturday during his visit, we thought it would be fun to boil a steak over an open fire on Staten Island, which was then the only woods in real country within New York City. We thought we were very good woodsmen, but we were not apparently as smart as we thought.
Before we'd even eaten a steak, the wind changed and blew the leaves all into our fire, and the fire into the leaves, and Staten Island was ablaze. We beat it out as fast as we could, but we soon realized that it had gotten beyond us. I went to the nearest house and telephoned the fire department. The people in the house were very kind and told us that we had better stay in hiding, because we were the third party in a week that had set Staten Island afire.
And the police department was furious.
[00:04:59]
These kind folks not only hid us from the law, but lent us clothes to go home.
[00:05:04]
You see, Bill's overcoat was burnt to a cinder, and his suit was very badly scorched, and I had lost my hat. In those days, you had to have a hat to go home. You couldn't be seen in the street without one. So this lady went down to the cellar, and in the little trunk, dug out a dilapidated velvet hat with a big brim and a feather sticking up on top. Thus we went home by trolley, by ferryboat, and by subway.
I'm sure there was a bus in there somewhere. And on whichever conveyance we went, people got up and changed their seats. After a while, we realized why they kept moving away. Because we smelt so terribly. You all know the awful smell of scorched wool. In the evening, the reception which Mother had planned for her son-in-law to be continued in the days ludicrous vain. Bill is an unusually tall man. My father was an unusually short man, but a very, very determined gentleman.
He knew that Bill didn't have a coat to wear, and it was too late to buy one. He also knew his cutaway, Dad's cutaway, with long tails would be just the thing for Bill. And nothing else would do. The cutaway covered Bill all right in the back, but it was a bit odd at the waistline, and the sleeves were nearly up to his elbows. Thus he made his debut into his future wife's family. When we got married, Bill was a young officer in the heavy artillery, and stationed at New Bedford, Mass., during the First World War.
The society women there liked to be in the front row. The society women there liked to invite young officers to the post for cocktail parties. I often showed kid Bill by saying that he could resist the men when they asked him to have a drink, but he couldn't resist the gals when they offered him cocktails. They were his downfall. From the very first, he got drunk. I remember coming home one day and finding that the boys had brought him home, put him in bed, and placed two huge pails at his head.
That isn't a very pretty picture, and it was a shocking one to me. I didn't know just what I was going to do about the matter, but I was very sure I'd be able to give him enough love and real purpose in life so that he wouldn't need the artificial stimulant of alcohol. That I'd be able to fix him. Then he went overseas, and he, of course, was pretty of drinking and friends. When he got back, we didn't know exactly what he was going to do.
He had engineering training, but he wasn't particularly interested in that. So we decided we would take a long hike across Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont with our Tent and Provisions in Army packs on our backs. with our Tent and Provisions in Army packs on our backs. Maybe by the time we got home, feeling physically fit, we'd be able to decide what was best for Bill to go into. Well, when we did get back, he just got a job at an insurance company, but he studied law at night.
Then later, he became quite interested in the stock market. He had an idea that when you want to buy a thing, you learn as much about it as you can first. He remembered how his grandfather, when he was going to buy a cow, would go and feed the cow, and feel the cow, and see how much milk it gave, and how much it would cost to feed it, and what the market for milk was, and so on. So he thought that same principle ought to be applied in the stock market.
And he offered his services to several different groups of people to thus analyze various companies in which they were interested. But no one seemed to think there was much in the idea. So Bill got the notion that he would go and do it himself anyway. We had a motorcycle with a sidecar, or bathtub at that time. We set out for a year's trip. We packed all our belongings, as well as ourselves, on this motorcycle.
And we must have been a funny sight. I loved to drive, but Bill liked better to think. So he used to sit and ponder in the bathtub, with his long legs draped over the bow, while I, a mere peanut, drove. I made waterproof slipcovers for everything, including ourselves. We each wore one of those zipper overalls that cover you completely, the same kind of thing Churchill has taken to wearing lately. So we were right in style.
[00:10:02]
My idea in going away was not the same as Bill's. Of course I was interested in his work, but I really had a deeper motive. I wanted to get him away from his thinking. I thought a year out in the open, just by ourselves, would be a wonderful thing. And it did work out pretty well. We didn't have too much trouble, because we could always get up and move away. We had really a wonderful year, traveling all over the country and living in the open.
And finally, Bill did convince his business associate back in New York that it was useful to have reports on the state of the companies where their investments were. He had a particularly good way of analyzing a company from every possible angle. This started him off in the stock market, and he really became quite successful, and would have been very successful, I think, if he hadn't been drinking it all away at the same time.
And his drinking got worse and worse and worse as time went on. Since we had no children, my one purpose in life was to help him get over this frightful habit. Finally, our whole life simmered down to one terrific fight against alcohol. At one time, we tried to adopt children. But with no success. We applied to one of the finest adoption societies, but they refused us. They never told us why, but Bill always thought it was because of his drinking.
We still spent as many weekends together in the open as we could manage. When Bill wasn't too bad, we'd go off on some kind of a trek or other. I think one of the reasons why Bill lasted so long was because he did have a breath of clean air occasionally, and he did do something on weekends to keep up his physical health. When things got so bad, he wasn't able to bring in any money or hold any job. He'd make something in the stock market once in a while, but it would be very rarely.
I not only had to go to work, but had to make all decisions and take all responsibility. I remember one episode when I was working in Macy's. We all know Macy's is the biggest store in the world, and the furniture floor where I worked was particularly spacious. It was the afternoon of our anniversary, and I could see Bill way off, a block away, weaving up the aisle with a little bouquet in one hand and a white tissue paper bundle in the other.
When he got up to where I was, he presented these. By this time, quite a few people were interested. Bill insisted I open the parcel then and there, which not only contained a wristwatch, but a check for $2,000. I was simply flabbergasted. But the next morning, he was a little more sober and said, well, about that $2,000 I gave you, I really need that in my business. So that was the end of the $2,000.
One time, when still on the motorcycle, we were coming home from investigating some company in Montreal. Just before we reached the international bridge between Canada and the United States, where there's a rather slumish area with all kinds of low-billed buildings, Bill called me and said he'd like to get some cigarettes. As a matter of fact, cigarettes were a very popular drink in the United States.
So he must have some. This was in the early evening, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. No Bill. He'd been so fine on this trip that he carried the pocketbook. I didn't have any money. Kept getting later and later. I didn't know what to do, since we were leaving Montreal. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do, since we were leaving Montreal, and there wasn't any place for him to go to but the motorcycle. And I was afraid he wouldn't be able to find his way back. So I started out to look for him. I first made a little circle around the bike, and I went further and further. Finally, after going into every last bar and saloon in the area, about 3 o'clock in the morning, I found him, and led him wobbling back to the motorcycle.
I didn't know what to do, since we were leaving Montreal, and there wasn't any place for him to go to but the motorcycle. All the time that Bill was drinking, I tried every way I possibly could to help him. I tried every way I possibly could to help him. I tried to change or moderate his drinking habits. I tried to change or moderate his drinking habits. Sometimes I would drink with him. In fact, I got drunk a couple of times, just to let him see how awful it was.
just to let him see how awful it was. But that didn't work. I tried never having liquor in the house. Of course, many a time, I would pour the liquor I found down the sink, and do all the things that the confused, frustrated wife does. and do all the things that the confused, frustrated wife does. But nothing, nothing worked. But nothing, nothing worked. Nothing works. I think it was in 1932 that Bill really woke up to the fact that he couldn't stop drinking.
[00:15:08]
Till then he had thought, well, I can sober up when I get ready. I've always done what I made up my mind to do. I'm just not quite ready. He would make promises to me, thousands of them, without my asking him. But deep down, he really wasn't quite ready to stop. An episode happened that revealed his real situation to him. He had finally gotten a good job, and because of his reputation, his new bosses had made him sign a contract saying that he would not touch a drop of liquor during the duration of this job. It never occurred to him that he would not be able to keep the contract.
Signing his name to anything was a very serious thing to him. So he was sure he would do it. One night he was over in Jersey with the engineers on the job there. They were playing cards and passing around the jug. He refused the jug every time it came around. He was getting awfully bored because he'd never been interested in cards and was just sitting watching. Finally, when the jug came around again, he said, by the way, what's in that jug? At their answer of Jersey Lightning, he began to think, Jersey Lightning? I've never had any Jersey Lightning.
Why wouldn't it be awful if I should go to my grave and never have had any Jersey Lightning? So that was the end of that. However, this sad experience woke him up to the fact that when he seriously wanted to stop drinking, not only because he loved his wife and wanted to please her, because he wanted to for himself and was putting all his strength into it, he was unable to do it. From then on, he was the most tragic figure you could imagine.
Knowing that he could not lift the alcohol problem, he felt completely beaten. He was just as low as any human could be. I think it is one of the saddest sights in this world to see such a fine person lose all hope. Then in 1934, I beg your pardon, a friend whom he had thought an awful drunkard came to see him. The friend was clear-eyed and bright and told of his release from alcohol. During the several weeks after his friend's visit, though Bill continued to drink, his friend's words kept ringing constantly in his ears. He finally went to the hospital so he could think the matter out clearly. And there he had the tremendous spiritual experience that you have all heard about.
I was terribly moved by this and was sure that a real miracle had happened. When Bill came out, he wanted to sober up all the drunks in the world. I believe he must have brought at least half of them home to the house. There were four floors to my father's house in Brooklyn where we lived and they were all full of drunks in every state of sobriety and of every condition that you can imagine. Many amusing, interesting, inspiring, also tragic things happened there.
One day we were going to have pancakes for breakfast and I invited the boys to come up. I fed them occasionally but not all the time. Wes, the boy in the basement, was very slow in arriving so the others had a head start. Wes had a huge appetite and ate all the pancakes that were left, then put on his hat and coat. When I asked him where he was going, he said, I'm going to Charles' restaurant for pancakes.
One story lay in the vestibule all one rainy night, screaming infectives at me because I would not let him in. He called me the most awful names you ever heard. Everybody that passed by stopped and looked, wondering I suppose who this awful woman was who wouldn't take the poor man in out of the rain. Another day, when we wouldn't let in Wes, the fat man with the big appetite, he slid down the cold chute into the cellar. Why he didn't get stuck in it, I'll never know. He did get stuck in the bath tub once.
One man committed suicide in our house. You see, in those days, we didn't have a mighty man to educate us on alcoholism. We really didn't know too much about alcoholism. We were trying to spread sweetness and light and do the job for the alcoholic, just as I had tried to do the job for Bill.
[00:20:19]
We gave him a home, clothing and money. Anything we had was theirs. I believe we actually killed this man with kindness. All this time I was deeply grateful for the wonderful thing that had happened to Bill. But one day I realized I wasn't as happy as I ought to be under the circumstances. This is how it came about. We were going to a meeting with a friend that brought Bill the message. We went with him every week to certain religious meetings. Bill said to me, hurry up and get ready, so we won't be late for the meeting.
I had a shoe in my hand and I threw it just as hard as I could and said, darn your old meeting. I was so surprised myself with this display of bad temper over nothing and for no reason that I could see that I began to wonder if there might possibly be something wrong with me. Why wasn't I as happy as I ought to be? Why did I lose my temper so easily? Could it be my fault that I was irritated and frustrated when everything ought to be so wonderful? When everything that I had been working for and looking forward to all my married life had happened? Why was it?
Thus I started seriously thinking about my own behavior in relation to Bill and the other alcoholics and the world at large. I had just taken myself for granted before that. It was only by degrees that I really understood a little about myself and I began to realize that I had been full of self-pity. That I had resented the fact that someone else had done the job in a few minutes that I had tried so long to accomplish.
But I had felt that Bill didn't really appreciate all I had done for him through the years. Of course I had stayed with him because I loved him, not from any sense of duty, but nevertheless I had put up with a lot of hard things. Also I missed the importance of responsibility. During his drinking Bill had really been dependent upon me for everything. Then all of a sudden the sense of responsibility, the feeling of being needed had been taken away. I didn't know just what my real purpose in life was. I had had one before. It was to sober up Bill. Now that that had gone I was confused and didn't know just where I fitted in the picture.
These alcoholics seemed to be always bugging around together. Bill was going all over the countryside bringing home drunks. He was too busy to take time out for weekends with me in the country and I missed his companionship badly. It took me many years before I really saw that I had been and was smug and resentful and full of self-pity. Smugness I think is one of the most vicious sins in this world. And one of the difficult things that we wives of alcoholics have to face is that the world thinks we have been so wonderful.
I don't mean to say that we haven't done a darn good job. But that isn't any reason why we should think that we can't do still a better job. Why we should sit back on our haunches or that no further development is necessary. We often become very twisted in our thinking after having lived with an alcoholic all these years. We've had to mother, nourish, protect and direct him. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. But sometimes we continue to act as mother, not wife, after the alcoholic has sobered up.
It's very, very hard for us not to hold on to the reins, to keep from nagging, forcing and directing. We've gotten into the habit. But it isn't much help to an alcoholic after he's started trying to sober up in AA. He resents being told and badly needs our love and understanding and cooperation in his AA work. In the summer of 35, Bill went to Akron on business. Because he was tempted to drink, he searched out another alcoholic and thus came in contact with Dr. Bob. And that is when AA really started.
[00:25:16]
Annie Smith invited me out there for my vacation. I loved Annie from the minute I saw her. She not only had a heart as big as all outdoors, but it contained great wisdom. She was able to quickly put her finger on the crux of any matter. And both the alcoholic and his wife sought her advice. Bob's tireless work with alcoholics at the hospital brought numbers of them to Akron to be hospitalized. After their treatment, Annie and Bob would take many of them in for a more or less protected stay at their home. Hosts of groups sprang from this contact. And in these early groups, both married partners were indefatigable in working with alcoholics and their wives.
I wonder if you realize how slowly AA grew in the beginning. By 1939, there were only a hundred members in a handful of groups. But as the numbers swelled, members of the older groups visited as many of the new as possible. Bill and I were freer to do more of this traveling than were Annie and Bob. Wherever we visited, there was always an opportunity for Annie and me to talk to the local wives. We always told these new mates how we had found that we also needed a 12-step.
Most of us felt a desire, even from the beginning, to get together and discuss our side of the alcohol problem and to search for ways for our own development. In 1940, in New York, we met regularly for a while in an attempt to form some sort of a mate's discussion group. But we were still too close to our shattering experiences. We still could not see ourselves or the problem objectively. But slowly, spontaneously, over the country, small bands pressed by this same feeling of need grew together. A few later fell apart, but most of them stuck.
These pioneer groups of our fellowship saw that the best way to help the alcoholics as well as themselves was to straighten out their own thinking. They developed a regular program for personal improvement, studied the problem of alcoholism, and tried to help the new mates as more alcoholics flocked to AA. In 1950 and 51, when Bill visited AA throughout the country in order to organize AA's general service conference, he went to several fine, large family group meetings. These so impressed him that when he returned, he urged me to get in touch with all existing family groups to see if they would like to have a clearinghouse or central service office in New York where we could pool our experiences so I might benefit from them.
A place where inquiring relatives of alcoholics anywhere in the world could obtain information and help. Where overall public relations could be handled and literature published. This proposal was enthusiastically welcomed. To this encouragement, Ann B., a close friend and neighbor and family group enthusiast, and I started the work immediately at home. Soon, however, we were able to get the use of AA's first clubhouse on 24th Street in New York and moved our activities there.
Many other volunteers came to help us out. Now our groups have increased at such a rate that it is necessary to employ one of our girls as general secretary three days a week with two paid assistants besides the 25 or so volunteers. We also employ another of our gals to edit our monthly forum. Our groups are named from our official count but are not active groups. So to date, we now have about 800 groups registered. The St. Louis convention last year not only was a great opportunity for our family groups, but it marked the debut of our own book.
We are glad to report that the book, the Al-Anon family group's book sales have been most gratifying. The first printing of 5,000 lasted just a year and we are now on our second printing. We were scared, Bill, that we would miss out. And we are now on our second printing. We were scared, Bill, that we'd have the 5,000 for years and years, but it all went in a year.
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In conclusion, I want to tell you how grateful I am for your loyalty and support of headquarters, for all the time and loving effort you have spent in helping others, and for your devotion to the ideal of practicing AA's principles in all your affairs. It seems to me we relatives of alcoholics, who far outnumber them, have limitless opportunities for service and growth. When we dream about our future, endless vistas open up of the spread of our principles from person to person and area to area, like the proverbial ripples when a pebble is dropped in the sea.
I sincerely believe that we, like AA, can be a positive force for good in a confused world, if we will but let God use us. I am deeply grateful to a loving God for blessing us so greatly. Thank you. Applause I'm sure that every person who is in this meeting today feels simply ablaze with inspiration. The last thing I should like to say is something I hope we will remember. There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of one small candle.
However dim that light is, let's keep it, brightening any corner where we are. Let us stand and pray the Lord's Prayer. Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Applause Before we begin our program officially, I want to tell you how very grateful we are to have you here with us, especially the AA friends. This is the first time that Al-Anon, in these state conventions, has urged and invited especially our many wonderful AA friends throughout the state. We hope that this program will give you an idea of what we are attempting to do.
Al-Anon is not always run exactly according to H.O.I.L. And you'll have to admit there are some AA meetings too that aren't always run exactly according to the way you say too. But at least we do have a format. You have a format. And 99 out of 100 times, the programs follow that. In all groups, everywhere. And so this afternoon, we didn't want to call it a model meeting because we didn't want you to think that we thought that this is the only way to have a meeting.
We are just reproducing for you one of our Tuesday night meetings for your consideration. After we begin our program officially, we are going to play like that we are back in our wonderful AA club room, our Al-Anon club room at the AA club in Gulfport, where we have our meetings every Tuesday night. And right here I wish to express our deep appreciation to our own AA friends and our AAs in Gulfport who have given us the privilege of this lovely room at our clubhouse to meet in.
They have backed us up all the way. We appreciate it. This afternoon, this program for your consideration is given by the members of our Al-Anon.
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After the meeting, we hope that you will come up and will have an opportunity to chat. Thank you again for coming. We do hope that you enjoy it. My name is Ruth Massey, and I am chairman for this month. I am here in order to learn how better to live with me. And now we'll open our meeting with a silent prayer, followed in unison by the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen. Martha, will you welcome us to the fellowship, please? Welcome to our fellowship. We hope that you will find the help and the friendship that we have been privileged to enjoy. We would like for you to feel that we understand, as perhaps few can. We were lonely and frustrated, but here we have found that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened.
Thank you, Martha. Irma, how about the Al-Anon Preamble, please? The Al-Anon family group consists of relatives and friends of alcoholics who realize that by banding together, they can better solve their common problems. Both before and after the alcoholic joins AA, there is much that families can do to help the alcoholics and themselves. We urge you to try our program. Without spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us.
We become nervous, irritable, unreasonable, our thinking becomes confused, and our perspective becomes distorted. A change in our attitude is of boundless help to the AA members and often is the force for good that finally inspires the alcoholic to join AA. But there is no need for discouragement, and even though, the alcoholic is still drinking. Rarely have we seen a family that was not greatly benefited when both husband and wife tried to leave the AA program.
Working in unity for a common purpose does more than strengthen both partners individually. It also drives them together. The 12 steps of AA which we try to follow are not easy. At first we may think that some of them are unnecessary, but if we are thoroughly honest with ourselves, we will find that they all apply to us as well as to the alcoholic. The benefits derived from a strict and constant observance of them can be limitless.
We best make ourselves ready to receive God's gift of serenity. Thank you, Alma. Mildred, would you give us our meeting prayer, please? Our Father, we come to you as a friend. You have said that where two or three are gathered together in your name, there you will be in the midst. We believe that you are here with us now. We believe this is something you would have us to do, and it has your blessing.
We pledge with you always to be honest and to search our hearts for weakness and errors, that we may accept your help. We believe that you want us to be real partners with you in this business of living, accepting our full responsibility and certain that the rewards will be freedom, growth, and happiness.
[00:40:02]
For this we are grateful. We ask you at all times to guide us, help us daily to come closer to you, and grant us new ways of living of gratitude. Amen. Thank you, Mildred. And the purpose of Al-Anon and our most important principle. The purpose of Al-Anon is to help the families of alcoholics understand the problem and learn to live serenely with or without its solution. However, we find many times that the changed attitude of families on the subject of alcoholism is often the force needed to eventually lead the problem drinker to make inquiry about AA.
We do not advocate trying to interest him in it. He or she must come to that decision himself. An important principle of Al-Anon is that there should be no gossip nor complaints of the alcoholic's faults at meetings. Thank you, Mildred. AA has no rules, but of course we do. No gossip in full cap. And now, Lorraine, would you read the first half of our twelve steps adopted from the AA which we attempt to follow?
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understand him, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Thank you, Lorraine. Alan, would you finish the twelve steps for us, please? Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so were into them or others. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, properly admitted it. Fought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Thank you, Alan. And of course, we attempt to help with our alimony as those we're closest to in carrying the message. And now for today's study, we happen to be on the fourth step. And I'm so delighted that one of our members has consented to talk to us on the fourth step.
Lorraine has truly lived this program, and I am most delighted to present Lorraine to you girls. I'm Lorraine, and I'm here in the interest of my husband, who is an alcoholic, that I might better learn more about the disease of alcoholism and how I might better live, that I might help him in reaching sobriety and maintaining permanent sobriety. Several weeks ago, my little daughter was in a piano recital.
She came home the afternoon before and asked me if she could have a risk aside. She said that her teacher had told her if she had one and she could, when she got on the stage, she could pull it off and put it on the piano, and it would do away with her nerves and she could play better. I should have checked with her and found out if this worked and asked Ruth to get me a risk aside this afternoon. I feel sort of like that one-legged man I heard about last week.
This afternoon, I want you to think just a little while with me on the four steps.
[00:45:09]
Made a mile, made a searching and filling small inventory of ourselves. This, like all the other steps in AA, is not a new thought because I think since time was, since Mayan began, that he has looked within himself and tried to find those characteristics that he had that were good, that he could use, and those traits of personality that were not so good that he could improve on so that he might better live with himself and with his fellow Mayan.
But never do I think has it been put so well as it has been worded by AA in this step. Herefore, I think we have thought of inventory in a material sense of a thing, in goods, in tangible goods that we could hold in our hands, that we could see. So we could put on paper and debits and credits and add them up and find our net worth. In phrasing this step, I think the AAs here gave us something tangible we could hold on to.
They gave us a formula, you might say, where we could look at our traits of character, put those down that were good and those that were not so good, and add them up and get our mile net worth. And by seeing them like this, plain and clear, we could find a better way in which we might improve ourselves morally and how we might better live with our fellow Mayans. When Jerry was still an active alcoholic before his disease was arrested, back in those years when I lived with him when he did drink, I think at that time perhaps the greatest problem that I had in my life was drinking.
And I felt that everything that was wrong in my life, everything that was unpleasant, every problem that came up, every discomfort we had was due to his drinking. Now since this was something that I was not doing and my life was being marred and spoiled and ruined by a force outside of me, I think I placed myself in a rather righteous position. I rather marred myself. I felt that here was my life being ruined by something that I had no control over.
So when Jerry did find AA and sobriety, I immediately thought that everything in my life was corrected, that now life was going to be perfect. For well do I remember the first Al-Anon meeting I went to. That was years ago. At that time we called it NAA. We didn't meet as often, and the meetings were not as well planned. They were in Albus, and the same sense of trying to help one another was via. And Ruth was chairman that night.
And I remember around the end of the program she said, well, now let's take time out to ask the new members if they have any problems they would like to discuss. And I thought, well, what manner of people are these that think that we have any problems? I certainly don't have any. Jerry's sober now, and I said so. I said, problem? I have no problem. Jerry's sober. And I really felt this way. I felt this happy, wonderful glow of life just being completely perfect for a long time.
I think even after that 90-day shift or maybe that six-month one. But suddenly something began to happen. It wasn't a big thing. It wasn't really too bad yet, but AA was losing some of its claws. It wasn't quite as perfect as it had been. And I found myself thinking, well, does he have to go to a meeting three nights a week and then talk out of town on Friday? And just little slight questions, and I began to think I could have seen the great improvement in Jerry.
He was talking about trying to be tolerant and not taking this person's inventory and making amends. Then I said, well, now, wait a minute. Maybe you better go back down there and take another look at what those Al-Anons are talking about. And you can see what was happening. Jerry was on the program. And Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of growth, of self-improvement. And Jerry was working there. But I was remaining just as I was. Of course, a lot of my nerves and a lot of my tension had gone.
But I still was the same person that I was when Jerry came into AA.
[00:50:00]
I hadn't changed any at all. And when I looked at myself, now I was really ready to take this fourth step. I was shocked to find the things that had happened to me. And I don't know why I should have been, because for years Jerry had told me that when he married me, he thought I had the best disposition in the world. And suddenly he realized I had the worst. And I always came back, well, naturally, you've done it to me.
And this, of course, was just that blabbering of two people that were at crossroads. But we didn't realize actually the truth that was in it. Because actually my personality had changed. And he had had a great deal to do with it. Now, I don't want to leave the impression that I was the perfect person before I married Jerry, because I wasn't. But I was a very happy person and a very idiotic one, I might say, because I had never looked into myself.
I had just accepted life as it came along and been completely happy. But nothing real bad or real big had ever happened to me. And now when this drinking problem did come up, I was not ready to cope with it and didn't know how to cope with it. And so all of the bad characteristics that I had in my personality just became worse. And the few good ones that I had just disappeared. So actually, I had become probably the owner of the worst disposition in the world.
So I decided then, well, I really was going to take a look at myself. I was going to see just exactly what has happened, what has taken place here. And I found that I had quite a bit of Indian resentment. In fact, it was reflecting now. Wasn't I Indian AA a little bit? Perhaps deep down I was Indian AA for getting Jerry sober, something I had tried for so many years to do and had not been able to. And then I was, was not quite so pleased with the fact that people were taking me off of that pedestal that I had been on for so many years and saying, you know, Jerry really deserves a lot of credit.
He's really doing a good job. You know, anybody that can get sober that has a problem like he did and stays sober, he really deserves a lot of credit. Well, here to four, I thought I had completely disliked the pity that people felt for me and I really hated it. I didn't want anybody feeling sorry for me. But yet I knew that I had always said, well, that girl certainly puts up with a lot. She certainly does.
You know, she really deserves a lot of credit to be able to walk around with her head up. And suddenly I wasn't getting this anymore. Jerry was. So I was knocked off again and I realized that I had to do something about this because I was very grateful to AA and I did not want to have anything to my right. So I lined up my character traits and looked at them. And I found that I had quite a few. I was full of hatred.
In fact, I think I was very intolerant of the whole world for placing me in this position, for handing me the situation I was in. And I thought of the times that I had been so completely dishonored and I thought, well, I must get rid of violence. So I began to check in. I found that along with my bad characteristics, I did have some good ones. I was very grateful to AA, very, very grateful. And I was very cooperative.
I was willing to do anything that I could to help Jerry in maintaining sobriety and maintaining peace. I was very cooperative. I was willing to do anything that I could to help Jerry in maintaining sobriety and to help myself and to put this wonderful way of life to work in our life. I was open-minded. I was willing to go to all the meetings, to listen to everybody, to take all the advice I could find, and to use it as it was best suited for our purpose in life and making our life a happier one.
And I had the tolerance and the patience to work on this. As I looked back into my life, I realized, too, what dangerous grounds that we had, that have lived with alcoholics, were on. You know, injury, the Bible tells us, is the rottenness of the bones. And resentment is like cancer. A cancer of the mind, a cancer of the characteristics of the body can just eat one completely up and destroy a person.
So we want to fill our life with joy and peace and happiness.
[00:55:06]
There's a story told, or legend, of two young men who set weeds in each of their own looms. A supply of yarn each morning was placed before them. One day a little group of gold threads of joy in life was put in the loom. Well, Ivan saw these, and he just discarded them. He didn't think there were enough threads there to be bothered with, and so he did nothing with them. But John gathered them up and he carefully wove them into his loom in a beautiful pattern.
And the purple threads of sorrow came. And Ivan added his with harshness and dark patches in his loom. But John wove his with sympathy, and his garment began to glow with a royal rose. And the threads of disappointment came, and pain, and they were shot with bitterness and revulsion to Ivan's loom. But John put his together with patience and courage. Success and failure came, and they were both used.
One day an overseer came to see the mats after they were finished, and he explained the same things were given to both of you, and Ivan has turned out harsh and ugly and not of use for anyone. But John's is beautiful and glowing, a work of art, and so it is with our lives. Since the same thing is handed to each of us, but it's up to us what we do with it. We can use each unhappiness, each misery, each happiness and each joy that comes into our lives and make just exactly out of it what we want to.
And it's up to us because we are the only person that can do anything about our lives. Now I hope I'm not giving the impression that I have taken this stale a beautiful work of art as John has because I haven't. In fact, this isn't a step that one can master. It's a step that you have to tread each day of your life as long as you live, just as you take the step to reach your highest. Each day you've got to go through it.
Some days I find that I can clear the step all the way. I find that I feel no resentment, that I'm pleasing to everyone, that I can be tolerant, that I can say, oh, that's all right. And other days I find that I fall flat right in the middle of the step and just say that. And that's the way life is. And that's the way taking an inventory is. We can't ever master it. When we do, we will not be of this world anymore.