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Source: DICOBE-00071 – Lynn E – NEBRASKA STATE REUNION – 1980-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00071-lynn-e-nebraska-state-reunion-1980-06-15.mp3 Duration: 01:07:48
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About all the occupations and professions that are represented here, and I thought I heard them all. This afternoon, my next speaker discussed her career with me as a Korean Chigger Mounter. I'd be more than happy to go into detail, but what an order, I can't go through with it. Right now, I'd like to introduce Lynn. Thank you, Jerry. You know, it's quite a pleasure to be on the platform with three young people.
However, I must admit, it does make me feel something like Grandma Moses. Jerry mentioned that the three of us, or rather the four of us, did have lunch together this noon, trying to get acquainted with one another. And Jerry shared some very exciting news with the other three of us that I would like to share with you tonight. Jerry very excitedly told us that his Fourth Step inventory had just been purchased by the Christian Herald.
Now, I think that's rather refreshing to know that even among us drunks, there are some clean livers. Now, I know that it's running much later than we had anticipated tonight, but doggone it, I came a long ways to talk to you people, and I'm going to talk. So, just bear with me and hang in there. My name is Lynn. In fact, to be more exact, my name is Lynn Sears Berry Dushall Williams Deaver Williams E..
I am an alcoholic. You know, if there was a loser within a hundred miles, I could find him. Now, you know, with a track record like that, I've often said in the 10 years that I have been sober that perhaps one of the smartest things I have done is stay sober. I mean, not stay sober. Yes, absolutely stay sober, but stay single in the 10 years I have been sober. Of course, I do have a friend that has suggested to me that perhaps I had to get a little bit of sobriety under my belt to be able to distinguish between being in love and being in heat.
You know, the young lady over here tonight, she said she liked tall men. Well, I want you to know I like tall ones, short ones, fat ones, skinny ones. In introducing myself, I used to say that I was between currently between husbands. But then when that no longer applied, I rather casually changed it to I'm currently between boyfriends. And then when that no longer applied either, I rather simply changed it to I'm currently between menopause and senility.
You know, that is that rather interesting time in your life, you know, when a dripping faucet causes an uncontrollable bladder urge. Now, I'm sure that there is some some of you out there that might be able to identify with that. It's also that time in your life, you know, when you feel, you know, all of the answers. But unfortunately, nobody asks you the questions. You know, I can remember some very sound advice that I got when I first came to this program from my first women AA friends.
And she said, Lynn, you can find many things in this program. You can find a job if you're unemployed. You can probably find a friend who will loan you fifty dollars if you broke. You can probably find someone who will give you a place to live if you happen to have lost your home. You can probably find a new husband, a new wife, a new lover, a new mistress. But, you know, you can also find sobriety here.
And I suggest that you decide right now, where are your priorities? You know, when I came to this program, I was a very lonely alcoholic, as most of us were. In fact, you know, the the agony of loneliness, I think for me, was as intense perhaps as the agony of withdrawal. You know, I was starved for a kind word, a pat on the head, anything to make me feel like a human being again.
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You know, throw me a bone of kindness and I probably would have followed you anywhere. So, you know, this very good advice that this sound had gave me was acutely aware, you know, of our emotional susceptibility, of our emotional vulnerability. You know, when I was drinking, one of my favorite songs was Born to Lose. You know, I cried buckets of drinks, cried buckets of drinks. Now that makes a lot of sense. That also proves that I am very nervous.
I cried buckets of tears into buckets of drinks while I listened to that song. You see, I believe that life had dealt me a losing hand and no matter how I played it, there was no way to win. See, I believed if I ever made it up to the top of the ladder, I would find it leaning against the wrong building. You know, one of my favorite descriptions of the alcoholic has always been that individual who seems to be able to snatch defeat out of certain victory.
You know, armed with that kind of an attitude and surrounded by people who never understood me, a set of miserable circumstances and incredibly bad luck, I drank too much for too long and I became a real alcoholic. By the way, do we have any unreal alcoholics here tonight? Mel, happy to see you could make it this evening. I know it's a little bit past your bedtime, but I'm happy you're here. You know, as a child growing up and as an adult who never grew up, I believed I had the moral right to be angry.
I was born an unwanted child of promiscuous sex, and I was soon delivered into the hands of foster parents. Now, looking back, I'm sure these people tried very, very hard to give me a good home, to give me love. But as I grew in misunderstanding, my life seemed to be filled with insecurity. You see, this was a very small town that I was raised in of about a thousand population. And I think everyone in that small town knew that I was adopted except me.
And I didn't find out until I was in about the third grade, and it happened during a recess fight. One of my classmates called me a very bad name. I didn't really know what it meant, but I just knew it was something dirty. And I especially knew this when the teacher came out and asked what had happened. And when she realized, she said, I think you better go home and tell your mother. Now I knew this was something very, very bad, something very dirty.
You know, I don't remember what that woman said to me that day. My mother. I have no recollection of that. But I do remember one thing. From that day forward, I felt different. I was different. You see, 50 years ago, you know, an illegitimate child, an adopted child, especially in a small rural community, was something like a disgraceful scab on the peaches and cream complexion of a very morally uptight, straight-laced rural community.
I was the off topic of conversation. I was certainly the brunt of many unkind and cruel jokes as I grew up. I was, as I said, I was filled with anger and hostility at a very young age. In fact, I tried to commit suicide for the first time at the age of eight. You know, I didn't know what death was about. For heaven's sakes, what does a child of age eight know about death? I simply knew that I didn't like living.
And so that seemed the only answer, even at the age of eight. So as I said, as I grew up in this small town, I was filled with insecurity. For some reason, I knew I was simply not as good as my little friends, my contemporaries. And I had a tremendous amount of anger. I was angry towards this town that for some reason would not let me forget that I was an illegitimate child, that I was adopted. I was angry towards this promiscuous woman who had given me birth and then just literally given me away.
I was angry towards my foster mother and my foster father and my foster mother. Bless her heart. You know, as I approached my early teens and started dating, she took on a very anxious attitude. And I can remember her telling me, don't let boys touch you. Don't let boys kiss you. And for heaven's sakes, don't sit in a parked car and pet. And I didn't always quite understand or at least I didn't understand initially what it was she was driving at.
Then one night I happened to come home rather late from a date and I walked in and she was pacing the floor.
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She was in a rage and she screamed at me. Don't you know where babies like you come from? You see, I think she actually believed like mother, like daughter, you know, bad seed. You know, the sins of the father are visited upon the children. I really think this is what this woman thought. But soon after high school, I found my first bit of magic. And that magic was alcohol. And, you know, I've heard many people this weekend say, in fact, the two people that spoke prior to me said that alcohol did for them the very same things it did for me when I tried it initially.
It filled all those vacancies in my life, these vacancies that people that love should have filled, but didn't. So alcohol filled all of these vacancies in my life. They made me feel as good as in fact, they made me feel better than my contemporaries. They made me feel smart. They made me feel witty. They made me feel sexy, gave me all of these things that I had been looking for. And oh, this beautiful feeling of security that I felt with that first warm glow.
The first time I drank, I got drunk. In fact, you know, I don't recall ever drinking without getting drunk. And the first night I drank, it ended in an automobile accident. And the disease reached its final stages some 23 years later with an automobile accident. You know, I sought identity because I certainly had none of my own. I sought love, the constant assurance of love, the constant assurance that I was needed and wanted in men and marriage.
But it didn't work. There was that the book talks about this. There was that total frustrating inability to form a true and lasting relationship with another human being. You see, I felt that I would get married and that my husband would make me happy, would give me love, would give me security. But you see, there never seemed to be enough of whatever it was I was looking for. And, you know, it wasn't until I came to this program that I realized that what it was I had been looking for, for years in men, in marriage and relationships, could only be found in one place.
And that was within myself. But I had to come to this program to learn that. But, you know, out of one of those marriages, there were two children born, two boys. And I identified with something that Reetha said. I don't know whether it was today I heard her talk or whether it was yesterday. She said she was talking about her marriage. I think she said something to the effect that she would do it perhaps again if she had it to do over again because of the great joy she had had from the child born of this marriage.
And I could certainly identify with that. And I thought about that yesterday when she said that. Because I, too, as I said, in spite of all of this, I was given a great gift in spite of it, these two beautiful children. But, you know, as my drinking increased, my ability to function on a day-to-day basis seemed to decrease. And I soon found the next magic for my life, pills, drugs. Up until a few years ago, very few years ago, I was in the medical profession for 27 years.
And during all of that time, drugs were as easy to obtain for me as liquor was. In fact, in many cases, easier to obtain, plus the fact that it didn't cost anything. You know, up again until about 10, 12 years ago, every drug house, every pharmaceutical house in this country sent out tons of free samples. Everything arrived in the mail except hard narcotics. Either that or the drug salesman, the detail man, would come in and literally pour mounds of free samples on our desks with every visit.
You know, every doctor's office, every clinic that I worked in had a closet literally filled with bushel baskets of drugs. And I tried them all. You know, I was like a kid in a candy store. Red ones, green ones, purple ones, striped ones, polka-dotted ones. It made no difference. You know, I was looking for that perfect pill, you know, that would somehow stop this pain that had started forming in my gut.
I am sure during that time I took a pill for every disease known to mankind. And I'm sure I probably took pills for diseases not yet discovered by mankind. I never will forget one day the mailman came in with a very large supply of gout pills. You know, I went on one hell of a trip with those gout pills. You know, true, I didn't have gout. But my sick thinking at that time when something like this, true, I don't have this disease.
Time when something like this, true, I don't have this disease, but it, if it is strong
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enough for someone who has gout, think what it'll do for me. And besides, someday I might have gout, and I want to be prepared. You know, where most people read their mail, I ate mine. But, you know, I was on a rollercoaster going down at a very fast rate of speed, and I knew this. But, you know, my, my selection, I should say, I became very selective. I soon found the three things that I needed to sustain me. I took amphetamines all day, commonly called speed today. And when I left work, it was scotch until bedtime. And then I would take a handful of phenobarbital so I could grab a few hours of sleep. And as I said, I knew I was going insane. I was on this rollercoaster going down at a very fast rate of speed. Before very long, I weighed less than a hundred pounds, and I didn't know what to do. You know, as crazy as this sounds, this is the truth. Even though I was in the medical profession, I could not seem to understand what was wrong with me. I mean, drugs were, you know, we talk about our drug problems today. You know, I'm not surprised. You know, I look back and I think how indiscriminately drugs were dispensed at that time. And it just gives me shudders.
You know, it just, it just sends chills up and down my spine. But I didn't know what to do because everyone drank that I knew. In fact, I didn't associate with them unless they did. Everyone drank that I knew. Everyone took pills. I just couldn't understand what was going wrong with me. I knew I was going insane. And one night in the middle of winter, it was a cold, snowy night. I ran out of the house with no coat on, barefooted, and I broke into a doctor's office. And with not one rational brain cell left in my head, I took a hundred sleeping tablets and I laid down to die. And I identified with what Skip said tonight. You know, they, in fact, I went so far as to place myself in a position. You see, I had locked, I had broken into this doctor's office and I knew there was no way they could find me till morning. This was, this was six or seven hours, possibly eight hours. I was pronounced dead when I, when they got me to the hospital that next morning, they came to open the office, found me, took me to the hospital. And that was the first time that I had been pronounced dead in my life. And when I could regain consciousness several weeks later, I couldn't believe that anyone could take this many drugs and still live. It seemed impossible. And for a long time, the nurses, you know, had a difficult time trying to convince me that I was indeed still alive. So I stayed in the medical hospital until I, I had recovered sufficiently. And then I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several months. Now it was during this point in time that the courts decided that I was no longer a fit mother and they took my children away from me. They gave them, they put them in the custody of their father who lived many, many miles from me. You know, I have met many women in this program who have lost their children because of alcohol, because of drugs. In fact, I've heard a couple this weekend talk about the same thing, having lost their children. You know, I don't know of any more devastating blow to a woman than to have her children taken from her because she is unfit. See, now my unworthiness was a matter of public record. We were to be separated five years. Now I drank for oblivion and I drank to drown this guilt. But before long, I divorced that husband and I soon found another one. Now I want to say to all of you ladies here tonight that if you try hard enough and long enough, Mr. Wright will eventually come along. And this was Mr. Wright. This was my knight in shining armor. He had a good job. In fact, he was an aerospace physicist.
He made an incredible salary. He bought me a new home. He bought me a new car. And the best part of all, he was a live and breathe and walkin' alcoholic. You see, I just chose to overlook the fact that my knight in silver armor had rusty armpits. But you know, we
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shared many beautiful moments together. You know, $125 a week liquor bill. Night sweats. You know, if I could have found a way to have recycled our 90 proof perspiration, I probably could have retired at the age of 40. And then there was that rather strange neurological disorder that caused rather violent shaking in the morning, you know, that could only be stopped with a few drinks. And then we shared the flu. You know, at least a couple days a week we would have to call in because we had the flu. Have any of you alcoholics ever wondered what we would do without the flu? But then there were our most intimate moments. And that was clinging to the toilet stool and vomiting in unison. Now, I want you to know that the couple who vomits together doesn't necessarily stay together. But you know, time was running out. It was February of 1969. And as I said, I had a new car and it was a convertible. And my oldest son, Michael, was once again living with me. He had repeatedly run away from his father and returned to me. His father would usually come after him. We would have to go back to court and he would go back to Kansas. But this time after having run away repeatedly, he let him stay. If you want to stay there and live with that crazy woman, you go right ahead. So it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we put the top down on the car and we went for a ride. In fact, we were going to stop and do a little visiting and we did. We stopped and visited one of my ex-husbands. Now you have to realize that about this point in time, about the only friends I had left were my ex-husbands.
So we stopped and we did a little visiting. We had a few drinks for old time's sake. We talked for a little more. We had a few more drinks for old time's sake. And then we headed home on the freeway. But we didn't make it. You know, going much too fast and certainly my senses and my reflexes had been numbed by the alcohol that I had to drink, a car pulled out directly in front of me. And in that split second that I had to make a decision, I chose to make a sharp cut into the left lane rather than to rear-ending him, rear-ending this car going the rate of speed that I was going. I immediately lost control of my car and we went over three times. Now keep in mind this was an open convertible. But you know, even in those split seconds, God was with us. Because somehow my body was thrown over my son, my hips wedged under the steering wheel, and that young man walked away from that accident. The third time over I was thrown from the car, but the car lit on top of me.
When they called my husband, he thought he was going to Denver General Hospital to identify this disfigured, broken, mangled piece of humanity. And when he got there, he found out that I was still alive. Many, many days and many, many hours of surgery later, I came to a very grim reality. The entire right side of my face was gone. My skull was fractured. I had a brain concussion. My hand was mangled to the point where they thought they would probably have to amputate it. And I had a spinal cord injury. I might never walk again.
My husband immediately hid in a bottle, and I think the only time he sobered up was to tell me that he wanted a divorce. You know, I had to, I was in this program for a long time before I could, I could accept what had happened and try to understand it. But you see, I realize now in looking back, this was a very sick, alcoholic man, and this was more than he could emotionally handle. You see, the doctors did not know whether I would ever be a productive human being again or not. And David simply could not handle this.
So he had to ask for a divorce. He had to leave. Now the devastation was complete. You know, if I had been angry before, if I had been angry as a child growing up, it was nothing
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compared to the anger that I felt now. Anger towards this sadistic God that allowed, had allowed me to live from that accident. Live for what? To be disfigured, grossly disfigured the rest of my life to be handicapped. What kind of a sadistic God was this? For the next two years, I spent most of that time in the hospital and I made 16 trips to surgery while they tried to put me back together again. Now I drank in and out of the hospital for oblivion and to die. You see, I knew I was a sick alcoholic. I knew this. I had never admitted it, but I knew it. And I knew that all I had to do was drink enough and surely I would die. The accident hadn't killed me, but I knew the booze would. Well, some nine months later, or I should say nine months after the accident, I entered the hospital for what was to be the beginning of the major reconstruction of my face. And I got to the hospital quite drunk, incidentally. And the doctor came in and sat down to talk to me.
You know, this was a very wise doctor that took care of me those two years. He only told me enough, just told me what I needed to know at that particular time. But now he came in and he sat down and he kind of laid it all out for me. He said, Lynn, we're going to try and transplant the right, your right arm or part of the inside of your right arm, the inside of your right arm to your face. We're going to literally surgically attach your arm to your face and try to transplant, do a transplant. Now, if this works and keep in mind, this is a one-shot deal, but if it works, you see, now we'll have something to use, something in which we can use to rebuild your face. And I sat there and I listened to all of this. And as I said, I was obviously quite inebriated. And he said, but Lynn, he said, I'm concerned. He said, I'm concerned about your alcoholic problem. And I said, doc, don't worry about it. He said, this is going to be a long ordeal. And he said, you simply, he said, you cannot, we cannot handle the alcohol too. Keep in mind, this is only going to be a one-shot deal. I said, don't worry, doc. Don't worry. Cool. I can manage.
Well, he said, uh, now I, uh, I hope so. And he said, I don't want you to worry. He said, everything will be all right. But he said, uh, I've never performed this surgery before. He said, in fact, it's never been performed in St. Joe's hospital before. In fact, it's never been performed in Denver, Colorado before, but he said, it'll be all right, Lynn. Well, you see, I think I assured him as about as much as he assured me. Well, the surgery began and they surgically attached my right arm to the right side of my face. Then they operated on my left hand again. And then they put this whole production in a body cast, propped me up on pillows. And there I sat for six weeks while the transplant took. Now we talk about alcoholics having no willpower. Well, I want you to dismiss that thought from your mind immediately, because I want you to know that during that entire six weeks, now I didn't have the use of either arm and I am in a full body cast, but I managed to drink and I managed to smoke. You know, we talk about alcohol being cunning and baffling. Believe me, alcoholics are cunning and baffling too. I was in a ward and the, I didn't always have visitors. If I had visitors, I was there a long time. So I didn't always have visitors every day, but my visitors would bring me alcohol and then the people would come into the ward visiting, you know, the other patients and I would con them into going out and getting me a bottle.
It's usually all they would have to do is take one look at me and they would gladly go to the liquor store. A lot of times they simply left and didn't come back. But you know, I was a pretty grim sight because none of these surgical areas were covered. They were all exposed because it was a transplant and they had to continuously watch it for rejection. But I managed to keep a constant supply of liquor coming in and my bottles were always taken out for me. But one day there was a very lovely lady came into the ward and her name was Whibby. Now we became instant friends. Now I knew that Whibby liked me and I certainly liked Whibby and I met her husband, Gordon, and I liked him too.
But the thing I couldn't understand was why I could never convince Whibby to convince Gordon to go out and get me any alcohol. I just couldn't understand this. Couldn't they see the agony that… Just couldn't understand this. Couldn't they see the agony that I was in? But I couldn't convince them of this. You see, the thing I didn't understand was, these two people
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were alcoholics. And they had been in AA at that time for over 20 years. But you see, I didn't know that. Well, Wibby left the hospital and she went back to her group in Denver. And she told them about this very sick alcoholic woman at St. Joe's and all this insane surgery that she was going through. And she asked this group to pray for this woman at St. Joe's Hospital. Well, the transplant took, they cut my arm down, and then they sent me home to recuperate for a few weeks before they were going to start the actual reconstruction.
I was drunk by the time I got home. And three days later, I was back in that same hospital, only this time strapped down in an alcoholic coma. I passed that crisis and they sent me home again. Now it's right before Thanksgiving. Now, we didn't have anything in that house to eat, and here's Thanksgiving. But I took the last money we had and I went to the liquor store and I bought one more bottle. Now, the next thing I remember, it was the middle of the night, Thanksgiving Eve, and I woke up on my bedroom floor in my own blood, in my own vomit, in my own urine. And I knew there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was going to die. But, you know, this was death on the installment plan. There had to be an easier, softer way to die than this. True, I wanted to die. There was no doubt in my mind about this, but not this way. This was too slow. This was too agonizing. We talk about hitting our bottoms. That's what I did that night. I think Skip also mentioned this. I had reached that point where I could no longer conceive of another day either with or without alcohol. Sometime toward morning, I managed to get back to my bed and to the phone. And I called a neighbor and I begged for help. She said, Lynn, I don't know what to do for you. But she said, you know, a couple of years ago, I met a lady who was in AA.
She said, I don't even know if I can find her name and her phone number, but I will try. A short time later, the phone rang and it was this lady. You know, I don't remember what she said to me, but I can remember saying to her over and over and over again, you've got to get someone here by 10 o'clock because at 10 o'clock the liquor store is open. And if I had to crawl, if I had to steal, I would be at that liquor store because I was going into withdrawal and I was sick. She said, Lynn, I've got to hang up. I'll call central office. Oh, please don't hang up. This was my only connection with reality, my only link with reality at that time. And I begged her not to hang up. And she said, I've got to in order to get you help. I said, well, then what do I do? She said, you'll pray. I said, you've got to be kidding. And she said, you'll pray even if you have to pretend. And she hung up the phone and I sat there for a few minutes and I thought, pray, pray to what?
Pray to this sadistic God that allowed me to live because this is what this was still my feeling towards God. But then I remember she said, I don't care if you have to pretend you pray. Well, I had to do something. So what the heck? Okay. Okay. God, if you're up there, which I seriously doubt, this is your last chance. If you don't help me now, I'm checking out. Well, you know, what happened next is very, very clear to me today because they still will probably be clear to me until the day I die. And yet it's still something that is very hard for me to put into words, but in those next few seconds, that room filled with an intensity, a strength, a presence that I had never felt before in my life. It seemed to fill the whole room. It seemed to seem to permeate my very being. And I remember holding out my hands and touching something. What it was. I touched the strength. You know, I have learned since I came to this program or I know, and as I think I know that I knew then, but I certainly have no doubt in my mind today that I reached out my hand and I touched a strength. And that strength was the hand of God because I have felt that same presence in these meetings time and time and time again. I can feel it among us tonight.
God is here. There is, there can be no doubt in any of our minds. And so that moment I
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knew, I knew, I didn't know how, but I knew that some way, somehow everything was going to be all right. About 10 o'clock, Bruce and Barbara arrived. Now here was a young couple with a family and this was Thanksgiving day. And yet they gave up their entire day to spend it with this sick alcoholic woman. They nursed me through the DTs. They took me into the kitchen and poured orange juice and honey down my throat until some of it would stay.
They talked to my son, this poor, confused young boy. And some way, somehow they gave me a thread of hope that day. You know, I have often thought about these two people and we were very, very good friends today and the dedication that they had. You know, for me at that time, there were no treatment centers. We were totally dependent upon people like Bruce and Barbara and 12 Step Calls. You know, there is much to be said about our many treatment centers that we have today. But my God, there was a lot to be said for going, you know, for making it with AA and sponsorship alone. In fact, I can remember something that one of our speakers in Scott's Bluffs said a month ago. He said, it seems like today that many alcoholics think if they take someone and drop them off at a treatment center, they have made a 12 Step Call. So here was a couple on Thanksgiving Day that spent their entire day nursing a sick alcoholic. And towards evening, they said, Lynn, do you think, by this time Barbara had gone home, Bruce said, do you think you can make it to a meeting? I would have done anything at this point in time, anything for this man, because as far as I was concerned, he had saved my life, or at least he was in the process of saving my life. Well, his group hadn't planned on meeting that night because it was Thanksgiving.
So he got on the phone and he called up every member in his group and he said, group, we've got to have a meeting tonight because we've got a real sicky here. And he took me to a meeting that night. Now, I want you to stop and think for a minute. Denver is a very large, large city. I don't know what we are now, a million and a half population. We've got thousands of alcoholics in Denver. We've got hundreds of groups. I lived clear out in the foothills, clear out in a west suburb, and there were many groups very near my home at that time. But this man took me to a group clear across the city, clear over into Thornton, a north suburb. And it was to be realized before that evening was over that this was the group that had prayed for that sick alcoholic woman at St. Joe's hospital going through all of this insane surgery three months before. The profound power of prayer, the profound power of this program, the profound power of God in this program. You know, my first impressions of AA like Mary's are still very clear today. I felt an intensity, a dedication to purpose, a love and understanding that I had never felt before in my life. Here was a group of people who actually understood what went on in the dark, deep recesses of my alcoholic mind. For the first time in my life, I felt I could talk without having to, you know, asked, you know, asked to be forgiven because I had simply been born. In fact, someone said, Lynn, you have to have an open mind. You see, I misunderstood and thought they said open mouth and I started talking and I haven't shut up since. But I felt something there that night. You know, I felt something those first few meetings. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I guess what I felt was hope. You see, because I began to realize that I was not a hopelessly ill, hopelessly insane woman. I was a helplessly ill alcoholic woman suffering from a progressive. Incurable and fatal disease. But here, here in this group, there would be an answer. My sponsors, Bruce and George, they brought me back and forth to meetings night after night after night. I mentioned George, I should say that Bruce had another quote pigeon at that time named George. And he kind of, uh, he got George to volunteer, so to speak, to kind of co-sponsor me. They kind of felt they needed two of them for this job. So these two sponsors, night after night after night, they brought me to
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meetings. You see, I was physically incapable of bringing myself. So night after night they would bring me and I came and I listened, but I didn't always hear. You see, I got here and I wanted, I wanted what you people had, but I wanted it like right now. I wanted instant sobriety. Okay, group, here I am now make me sober. You know, does that have a familiar ring to it? You know, like here I am, husband, you know, make me happy. Give me love, give me security. Now the same thing here I am group, make me sober. But I came night after night, had no choice. They brought me and I brought my problems and boy, did I have a bunch of problems. You see, as I said, I wanted everything to happen. Like now I still had another year of surgery to go through. I wanted that surgery over now. I wanted my husband to come back. I had never needed another human being more in my entire life. And I wanted David to come back. How could I get well, you know, if David didn't come back to take care of me, I wanted both of my children back now. And this is what I brought to you people night after night, after night, my problems. In fact, many times before the meeting, I would make a list, you know, so I would not forget my problems because I wanted to lay them all on you and sit there in the meeting and it would become my turn to talk. And when I'd finish, George would always look at me. He'd say, Lynn, he'd smile kind of a sickening smile. He'd say, Lynn, things will get better. But you know, they didn't seem to, at least not for a while. They just did not get better. And I'd come to meetings. I'd talk to him, talk about my problems. George would smile. Things will get better, Lynn. God, I hated that. And one night I stood up at a meeting because I could not stand this or this man any longer. And I said, George, if you ever, ever, ever tell me again that things are going to get better, I'm going to kick you right in the nuts.
Now I want you to know they still talk about that night. In fact, now this is the truth. I saw George about three months ago at Wyatt's cafeteria. I was at the head of the line and he was at the back of the line. He, he waved and then immediately crossed his legs. Well, you see, I, I put all of my dependence in these two sponsors. I put my dependence in the sponsors. I put my dependence in the group. I put my dependence in the big book, the meetings, the phone calls at night. And all of this represented human power. And my God, I should have known that this wouldn't work. I had certainly tried every source of human power before I got here.
And I had gone down to the state hospital. They have an alcohol treatment center there with two other AAs. And, uh, I went to that hospital and I was really afraid they were going to let me out. But, uh, they did. A month later I came back and this time I was teachable. You see, the first time I came, that first month, I think, you know, I realized when I came back that all I had done was take that first step. And I was, I took that first step with gratitude. My heavens, I was grateful to be able to admit that I was an alcoholic because this sounded so much better than what I had thought I was and what my family and friends had thought I was. So I took that step with gratitude. And you also thinking that talking about that first step, you know, for me, that's first step also represented probably the first time in my life I had ever knowingly taken an act of self-love because up to that point in time, I had been concerned only with self-destruction. So here for the first time in my life, I was doing something positive in the form of self-love. Oh, that is so vital to all of us because if we first don't learn to love ourselves, where then will we draw the love for anyone else? But that's all I had done. The rest I had expected you people to do.
I had expected you people to do. So that time I came back and I was teachable, and I realized that I was at step two. Now this is the step.
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Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This is the step right there in the beginning, step two, when we got to get off the fence. You know, either God is or he is not. How could I doubt? Hadn't I felt his presence in my room that Thanksgiving day, how could I doubt? And so I chose, I made that, for me again, was that decision that day on that second step. Yes, I would believe, I would believe in this God of AA.
Now this God of AA was the same God that had always been out there. You know, that was the same God that I had believed in as a child. It was the same God that I didn't believe in. And yet somehow this God of AA was different. This God was to be my friend. This God, this was to be a God that would become my constant companion. So I came to believe in God, my higher power, and I choose to call him God.
You see, the big book is very explicit about that. The big book says either God is or he is not. Either God is everything or he is nothing. So I came to believe in God and it was also at this second step that he could restore me to sanity, that my obsession to drink left me. Because you see, that's where it happens is in step two, because that is the sanity or rather lack of sanity that that step talks about, our obsession to drink.
So it was step two that the obsession to drink left me. Step three made a decision. That was a very simple thing for me to do really after step two, I wrestled a lot more with step two than step three. I made that decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God as I understood him. And there's a very important word as I came to realize in that third step. And that's the word care, the care of God.
God is there. He's our ever source of strength, our instant source of supply, our constant friend. We have to take the action. We have to, we have to do the work. God is there to give us his care. We have to do the action. And the next step involved a little bit of action. That was the fourth step inventory. Now you see one of the greatest things I carried to this program or the greatest burdens I should say I brought to this program was my guilt, my guilt, my sense of guilt.
And I came to believe that if I could work this fourth step, that somehow through some miracle of this fourth step inventory, my guilt would leave me. You know, the only thing that seemed to make sense to me and still makes sense to me today about that fourth step is if, if you go to a well for fresh water, you don't go with a full vessel. I had to get rid of all this garbage. So I went to my sponsors and I said, how do I write this inventory?
They said, you open the book, you read the directions. I opened the book. I read the directions and I did nothing. I went back again. I don't quite understand. What do I do? You open the book, you read the directions. Well, I had tried that and it didn't work. So I gathered all the information that I could find on the fourth step inventory. And there's a lot of it floating around out there, you know, how to write a four step inventory.
I'm, you know, I'm sure there must be a hundred different pamphlets written on the subject. And I gathered all these around me and I sat down at my desk and I looked like I was getting ready to balance the national budget. Well, that didn't work either. So I went back to my sponsors again and I said, please help me. So this time they opened the book and they helped me read these directions and again, they were right.
It was so simple. Again, all I had to deal with was first my resentments, then my fears, and then the areas of sex. You know, in that area of sex, I found it was necessary for me to go back to those early years that I was talking about. Because you see, I had come to, because of those experiences, I had come to, I guess, suppose my attitude towards sex could only have been described as sick and ignorant.
And certainly my, this had caused many, many emotional deformities. And so for me, as I said, it was necessary to go back that far when I got to this area of sex. So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And when I was finished, I shared it with God and another human being. And I walked through those arches of freedom that the book talks about. And I accepted me unconditionally. That was the most beautiful feeling I have ever had in my life.
And that feeling has never left me. But there was still a lot of work to do, as my sponsors reminded me. That was the next step. The steps that talk about, you know, our liabilities, our defects of character. Now, you know, the first time I went through these steps, I had, I kind of slipped over
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those steps. I really didn't get into the depth, the width of these two steps, six and seven. You know, it's strange because today those are two of the most important steps in that book for me. So I had to go to the 12 by 12 and really study that 12 by 12 when it came to step six and seven. And this is where I got into the meat of these two steps, because you see the 12 by 12 tells us that these two steps are steps that must be done repeatedly.
These are the steps that separate the men from the boys. You see, these are the steps that we're going to take these liabilities, these character defects that we have become aware of through this fourth step, and we're going to try to do something about them. Now, you know, if God can remove our alcoholism or our obsession to drink, he is certainly capable of removing any of our character defects. So that isn't the problem.
The problem is we cling to them lovingly. You know, we don't want to give them up. So that 12 by 12 tells me we have to have patient determination. I must become willing to be honest about these character defects. I must have the patient determination to work upon them. For example, justifiable anger. Oh, that's a biggie with me. That's a real biggie with me. Gee, there's a lot of people out there in that jungle that aggravate me.
There's a lot of people out there that make me angry, that annoy me. And I can work up a good case of justifiable anger, just talking about it. So these are the kind of character defects that I have to work on. But you know, I have done kind of a switch around with those two steps. The 12 by 12 again talks about these two steps being character building. Now, hey, I like that idea. Character building.
These are the two steps that if we will work them repeatedly, will build our character. And these are the two steps, again, if we will work them repeatedly, as the 12 by 12 says. Our spiritual growth will take place because these are the steps that are going to bring us out of ourselves towards others and towards God. And that's the ultimate purpose of these 12 steps. And this is where it can be done in steps six and seven.
So for me, I look at them as character building steps, and I have to work on those every day, just like I do 10, 11, and 12. Then I came to the amends. That was a real biggie for me too. You know, the first amend I had to make was to myself, and that's the first amend I think any of us have to make, is to ourselves. We have certainly hurt a lot of people in our drinking, but no one more than we have hurt ourselves.
The next two amends on my list were my son's. You know, we are like tornadoes, not only rowing through our own lives, but the lives of others as well. There was another amend on that list, and that was to my father. But you know, they say there is no particular time frame in which we must take these steps. But you know, I do think that especially with amends, there's a certain amount of urgency. You know, this man and I had been alienated something like 13 years when I came into this program, and I simply could not bring myself around to making that amend, because he had certainly wronged me a lot more than I had ever wronged him.
He had certainly done a lot more things to me than I had ever done to him. But you see, the thing I overlooked was that I must make these amends for my own spiritual growth. I must not be concerned whether I am forgiven, whether my amend is accepted. That doesn't make any difference. It's my spiritual growth that I must be concerned about. Obviously, I was more concerned about his spiritual growth than mine, because for some reason I could not bring myself to make that amend.
And the day it finally came, he died, and that amend was not made. And I have always felt, you know, there's nothing I can do about it now, and I have handled that. But you know, that man hated me so much when he died, that he left word that I was not to be notified. And I did not know of his death for a year and a half after he had died. So that's one amend that I could not make in person. Now we go on, we talk about the last three steps, and we make our amends.
Now we've got our last three steps, again, that daily inventory, that daily inventory. And for me, you know, I again, I have to look at when I take that daily inventory, I try to do this on a daily basis as part of my meditation. And for me, it always seems to involve some resentments. You know, I can't seem to get through a single solitary day without resenting something. Either someone, you know, someplace, something, it seems to me I end up resenting before a day is over.
I have kind of used a trick that I'd like to share with you.
[00:55:01]
As I mentioned, I spent several months in a psychiatric hospital after that incident of suicide. You know, I hated being in that psychiatric hospital. There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to be there, but I resented it. Oh, how I resented it. And I resented all those silly things you have to do when you're in a psychiatric hospital in order to get well. You know, like playing volleyball, you know, learning to make ashtrays, croquet, billiards.
Oh, how I resented those things. So one day, oh, the other thing I resented while I was there with the tours, they used to bring tours through this mental hospital. It was a teaching institution. And so they would bring tours through. Damn, I hated those tours. I really resented that. Well, one day they announced that we were going to have a class in oriental flower arranging. And so they told us all to go downstairs to the dining room.
So we went downstairs to the dining room. Here were all the tables lined up. And in front of each chair was a little green pot. That's all there was on the tables were just these green pots. So we all sat down at these, in these chairs facing these empty green pots. And here comes one of the little pink ladies with a tour group. She brought them in and she said, and this is our dining room. And you know, here we sat like a bunch of pigs waiting to be slopped, you know, in front of these little green pots.
Oh, for some reason, you know, we all broke up laughing hysterically. And in fact, that poor little lady never did get to teach us about oriental flower arranging. In fact, I've often said that was one of the reasons why I had, you know, had such a problem getting well is because I never learned how, never took the class in oriental flower arranging. But anyway, she sent us back up to the ward. But after I came into this program, I, I fought back to that experience and the significant that green pot became quite significant to me for several reasons.
One, I was finally able to laugh about what had happened. And I have found that the best medicine we have in this program is laughter. When you reach a point where you can laugh about yourself and about all these incredible experiences that you've had in your life, baby, you know, you're getting well. So that was the first thing I learned. The other thing was it took on a significance as far as resentments were concerned.
So I went out and I purchased a little green pot and I put it in my kitchen. And I still have a green pot today. And as the day or the week would go by, and I had a resentment, I would write it down on a little slip of paper and I would toss it in that little green pot. Now if it had been a particularly busy day, there would be a lot of slips of paper in that pot, but sometimes two or it would take two or three days to, to, you know, to fill up the pot or at least get a reasonable number in.
Then I would literally take these little slips of paper of my resentments out of that pot, put them in my hand, and I would go through the physical motion because to me, this seemed to help. I'd go through the physical motion of saying here, God, here they are. I cannot handle them. You know, they will kill me, take them from me. And that little mental exercise with that little green pot has worked wonders in my life.
You might want to try it. So resentments are something I have, I have to work at when I do my daily inventory. And that step meditation, oh, how very, very important meditation has become for me or is for me. That, that is the one time, that is our time during the day that we can spend in quiet communion with the God of your understanding. And God and I, as I said, have become friends today. It's taken a while, you know, he had to get to know me and I had to get to know him.
I converse with my God as I do any friend that I have. And for me, my meditation includes a lot of affirmations, affirmations in faith. I'm oftentimes, I oftentimes remind myself of the man who was climbing up a sharp mountain and he got almost to the top and he slipped. And as he started to fall, he caught a branch and there he is dangling over this drop of some 10,000 feet. And he shouts, God, help me, help me.
And this big booming voice comes out of heaven. And he said, the big booming voice says, do you believe, do you have faith? He said, yes, I believe. And I have faith, fine, let go and let God. And this man thought for a minute.
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So you see, many times I feel that I am very much like this man that's hanging by that branch, so I have to reaffirm my faith during my meditation. It's not that I lose it, God, I do not lose it, I just simply have to reaffirm it. So it's a very, and I try to many times do my meditation in the morning before the activity of the day, you know, crowds out God, and also try to take a little bit of time in the evening to meditate, to talk with God, and to thank Him for the day that I have had, whether it's, you know, whether it's been a good day or a bad day, and I find these days that I can spend my quiet time with God.
These are the days that go well, regardless of how bad the things go, they seem to go well. And our twelfth step, that's an important one too, they're all important, twelfth step is one of the reasons I'm standing here tonight, you know, we become willing to help the man who still suffers, we become willing to share our strength experiences and hopes with others, that's part of our program, that's part of the program, my program helps me stay sober.
And the other part of that step, you know, the part that, you know, learning to practice these principles in all our affairs, that's a real kicker, you know, that's a real kicker. And I find for me, again, that sometimes can be a daily, day-to-day struggle, I keep referring to that jungle out there, you know, that jungle of straits out there. But learning to function in that jungle out there, and learning to practice these principles in all my affairs, sometimes can result in a real conflict within me, and I find that many times I must march to a different drummer, it becomes necessary.
Because my sobriety must come first, first and foremost, and if something is going on out there, in my job, my family, whatever, you know, then I have to back off, I have to march to a different drummer. Because today, you see, I have many, many choices today. I have a choice not only whether I will drink today or not, but I have a choice in every act, attitude, and belief I choose to embrace. And today, I do not choose to accept the unacceptable, if there is something I can do about it.
One of the things that I had found unacceptable for a long time was my job, as I said, I was in the medical profession. I hated that job, damn I hated that job, and yet it represented the only security, financial security I had, and even though I had been sober for several years, somehow I couldn't get a handle on this, your fear of economic insecurity will leave you, I just couldn't seem to get a handle on it.
I always worried, month after month I worried, live from paycheck to paycheck, would the bills get paid this month, I somehow couldn't get a handle on that. And yet, I hated my job and I was afraid to let go of it. So I prayed about this, now God took a little bit longer this time to answer my prayer, it took me about five years to decide a different course for my life, and I decided to go to real estate college.
Now I didn't know a damn thing about real estate, I didn't know whether I'd like it, I didn't know whether I could make a living at it, but it just seemed I had to do something else. So I started into real estate college, I finished, I got my license, I'm still holding on to my other job, working full-time. Now I've got to make a decision, do I have enough courage, really have enough courage now to jump in with both feet and try, or should I still hang on to this other job, you know, maybe kind of work it part-time and real estate part-time.
I picked the best brains that I knew and they all told me, Lynn, you're going to have to be prepared to live at least six months without an income. Well damn, I didn't have any money in the bank, I didn't have a savings account, I had an old car. So I decided, well, okay, I've got to try, I at least have to try, have to be willing to try, because I truly had decided I found the unacceptable unacceptable.
So I went down to my friendly loan officer and I borrowed enough money to live on for four months, then I went into a new car dealership and I leased a car, a brand new car. Then I went in and quit my job. Now that's kind of what we'd call that good alcoholic thinking. But you know, the strangest thing happened to me. I walked out of that office. Now here I had, I had quit the only secure, I mean, I had, I had quit the only job I had.
I had quit the only financial security I had. I had literally walked away from it. I walked out of that office and for the first time in seven years, because that was three years ago, the fear of financial insecurity had left me. I had let go and let God. So you see, even the serenity prayer has come to have greater significance for me today
[01:05:02]
because I find that too many times I sit around and pray for serenity to accept the things I cannot change and find that in reality, that's really a cop-out because there are a lot of things that I can change if I find them unacceptable. That's not the problem. It's been, I haven't had the courage to try and change the things that I can change, but I found that it worked and that was three years ago and I have done well.
I've managed to pay my bills every month. I even bought a house. I can't tell you what a privilege it's been here. It's been for me to be here tonight and share with you. I appreciate having been asked to be here. You've been a great, a very great group, very receptive. You know, when I first came to this program, I only had two prayers. That was God, if it be possible, let me know sobriety. And my other prayer was, please, dear God, let me live long enough to see these two young boys whose lives had become as screwed up as mine because of my alcoholism.
These were devastated children, you know, through all of these marriages, through my alcoholism, they were lost souls. Please, dear God, let me live long enough to see these two young boys grow into fine young manhood. And God has answered those prayers a hundred fold for me. I stand here tonight having just had my 10th AA birthday. I have two fine, fine young sons. They're both married and are Flatlanders.
They live in Alliance, Nebraska, and I would like for you to meet one of the answers to my prayers tonight. He and his wife came all the way for this meeting. My son, Michael, and his wife, Lori, would you stand, please? These are the most beautiful children in the world, and I love them so much. You know, in place of a bottle and a hangover, I was indeed given the keys to the kingdom. Thank you.