Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Steps Five Six and Seven 20th Spring Conference
- Speaker
- Polly P
- Date
- 2010-05-06
Transcript
Source: Polly P – Steps Five Six and Seven 20th Spring Conference – 2010-05-06.mp3 File: polly-p-steps-five-six-and-seven-20th-spring-conference-2010-05-06.mp3 Duration: 01:05:44
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Thanks, Ann. You're too sweet to me. Okay. How do I do? Maybe I shouldn't touch that. My name is Polly Pistol, and I'm an alcoholic. By God's grace and a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't had a drink since April the 11th of 1977, and for that I am eternally grateful. And I can tell you, one of my steps is Step Six. Well, I'm up here. If I started writing down all the character defects I've got right now, I'm overwhelmed with inadequacy. I'm envious because I want to be as good as the rest of them.
I'm jealous because I know I won't be as good as the rest of the people are. And I'm terrified that I'm gonna bomb and you're not gonna like me, and, you know, on and on and on and on and on. But I have made some progress in those areas, and it's not as bad as it used to be. So anyway, and I love what Bob said when you were talking, because, and I think Ralph, I think everybody said it, and that is, is that my heroes are here this weekend. It's, that's, that I just am so honored.
And it's the comedian, of those of you who might not know, the comedian is my husband. And I am so honored to be here with my husband. That is a lot of fun because I get to travel a lot without him, and it's so fabulous when we get to travel together. So thank you so much, Lee, for inviting both of us. That's always the best when you both get invited. So, and this morning, now I didn't meet Ralph till Thursday night, but I know about Ralph.
I know a lot about Ralph because I'm really, really good buds with his brother. So I've known about Ralph, and I was so excited that we got to meet. So that's been—and you are so fabulous. I could have listened to you all day. I love it. I just love it. And Bob, I love it. Bob, I've had so much fun with you, and I got a whole bunch of days, and I'm going to have a lot more fun with you. And Bob is just like one of my most fabulous people in the world, and I am so excited for him and Michelle.
I just think both of you are fabulous people, and I'm so glad that God let you find each other. It's just absolutely fabulous. And Dick's going to talk after me, and I absolutely love Dick, and I met him in Atlanta a few years ago, and it's been—we've been kind of bumping into each other all along the way. And I stood him up last year. I didn't mean to, but I stood him up, and so I am forever indebted to Dick. I have forever indebted to Dick, so I'll never get that one paid off.
So anyway, and Sandy is, I, you know, I guess everybody has said that about Sandy. It's just, I mean, to know Sandy is just to, it's, he's just so special. And he, I could just listen. Sandy's a storyteller, and he just, the stories, he's just an endless storyteller. And to listen to, just sit with him at lunch or any, just a few hours, you can just get these enormous stories, and he's just full of them.
And it's, and I'm like, I'm with you, Bob. I know I've heard Sandy, I don't know, I think it's probably more than 30 times, and I never hear the same thing either. So it's, he's just a master storyteller. And Tom, Tom happens to be in charge of the two most precious men in my life, and that's my husband and my son. And so I'm forever grateful for that.
[00:05:02]
So, and I love Tom. And Miss Michael, Miss Michael and I've been hanging around together for about 20 some odd years, and that's a gift. And her and I get to do a lot of workshops together, and we met up in Southern California about 22 years ago, I guess, and come to find out I had gotten sober in Texas and she'd gotten sober in Long Beach, California, and we had gotten, we had, we did the steps exactly the same.
And so we've been doing that together for a lot of years. And today my steps are five, six, and seven. And I'm going to do the best I can to give you my experience of these steps. And I may refer to these books. One of the things that I did is that there is not a lot, if you are familiar with the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, there is not a lot written about six and seven. I think they each get one little paragraph.
So I'm going to be referring to the Twelve and Twelve quite a bit because that's—this is the book I use for six and seven. And I love the Twelve and Twelve, but I really don't need to use it much for the other steps. But I really feel like I need to use it for six and seven because I think they are really important steps, and a paragraph for me is just not enough direction. I need a little more help than just a paragraph.
So, but on the fifth step, which is, is that we admit it to ourselves, to God, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. And I feel like that that's a step that looked like it was so huge to me when I was getting ready to do that. Now I am somebody who—I got sober in Texas, and I did my steps very early in sobriety. And I did them—I kind of come from people who kind of came down from Dr.
Bob, and the deal was get through the steps quickly. Start working with others because this will not be your last run through them. And we're going to be doing this for a lifetime. So that's the kind of sponsorship that I had. So I was sponsoring people by the time I was two months sober. And one of that month was spent in treatment. So I started sponsoring really early. And when I'm working with a woman and we sit there and we do the fifth step, and I also do the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth all in one sitting.
That is, we just do the whole thing at one time. And what happens is that they'll look at me and I said, now you need to be sponsoring. And, you know, they kind of look at, what? And I said, you need to go get a sponsee. You must go give this to somebody else. And until you give it away, you're not going to really digest it. Because, I mean, it's just kind of an exercise. And for me, and I don't know if this is for everybody, but I do a lot of fifth steps.
I do a lot of fifth steps when I'm not the sponsor. And the book says that you can find, you know, find someone that you feel like that you can give this very personal step to, someone you feel like you can trust. Well, I will tell you that my life prior to Alcoholics Anonymous was not a life that I feel like anybody would have considered me very trustworthy. Or certainly someone who was closed mouth, and by my actions, someone that they could confide in.
And the book says that you can confide in. I don't believe I was that person. But today, I get to do a lot of fifth steps, and it, to me, is the greatest honor another person can give me. That is the greatest honor that has been bestowed upon me, is that somebody trusts me
[00:10:01]
with them. Because when we start telling all of our dark secrets, then, you know, unless I feel like I can trust you, unless I feel like you're gonna, you know, that this is gonna be like sacred to a priest or something, I'm not gonna be very confident to tell you. Because, you see, when I take that first fifth step, I don't know that it's gonna be okay on down the line for me to live my life out loud, and that I'm not gonna have any secrets, and that I don't need to have, I don't need to be quiet about something.
I'm not, you know, I don't know that. When I'm telling that for the first time, I need to know that I am safe, because we're talking about security. I need to know that I'm secure there, because if not, knowing me, I'm apt to not tell you everything. I'm apt to not tell it all. And I have many times. And I'd just like to say, if you happen to be, if this happens to be something that's on your sixth step that you tend to gossip or talk about people, I've had people come to me and say, I really love my sponsor, but I have a few things I need to share because I am afraid she's going to talk about it. And I think that's—and I was that person.
I was that person. I easily judged people and I talked about people. Now, the best way that has helped me in some of this stuff is when people talked about me. It's amazing. It's much easier for me to talk about you. But when I am the blunt of somebody's gossip, then it's a whole different story. It feels way different. Talking about you was kind of fun. It really was. But when I was the person they were talking about, it wasn't fun anymore.
So I have worked that character defect. I have offered up to God over and over and over because a lot of times I become aware of my character defects because I get to experience what I did. So anyway, back to the fifth step. Who was talking? They're all over. Me too, Ralph. I even punched Michael and I said, when you said, Well, I have to watch it or I'm going to be out here and all over the place, me too.
I just, I get going. Okay, back to five. What for me, I was six weeks sober when I did a fifth step as it's laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. However, I had been in treatment in a treatment center that said they were a five-step treatment center, and I was in this treatment center. But what we did is we did one of these Hazelden inventories. I don't know if any—I mean, I don't think it's a whole lot different than it was 33 years ago. I think it's pretty much the same.
Anyway, we did one of those Hazelden inventories where you just start kind of, you know, I was born, and you just sort of write, you know, all this stuff out. And my first AA sponsor, his name was Frank Fitzpatrick. He was an absolutely fabulous human being. He was sponsored by the man who would come—Daves and James, his sponsor. For some reason, my husband and son, after, when it came, are kind of hooked up with the same people. Anyway, what happened was he was sponsored by this man who I would—you know, AA is very small—who then I would sit with him for meetings for 20 years, and it was just the best.
Anyway, Frank said, you know, that makes a great novel, but does nothing for inventory. And so he had me start doing an inventory as it's laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in doing that, and I love what Ralph says, you know, we are people who, if we can't do it right, we won't do it at all. You know, well, I, you know, so we just don't do it because it doesn't matter. Just get the top of the ice.
It doesn't matter. Just get the top of the iceberg off, you know, let's just, because
[00:15:02]
it's, you know, we're going to keep doing it. It's a lifetime of inventory, because I keep making more inventory every day I live. And so it's a lifetime. So what happens is, is I did this inventory with him. And what happened was, I did not, I did my resentment inventory, and I had a lot of people on my resentment inventory, and my, you know, my mom, my dad, my husband, you know, friends, people I worked with, because all these people were very concerned with my drinking and it upset me.
And so I was, you know, I had these people on my resentment list. My fear list, I was afraid of everything, absolutely terrified. And my sex inventory was not that great at that time. It got greater as I was sober. But what happened was, is that the sex inventory is also harms done. And what happened was, is I realized that on that inventory was my two sons on the harms done. And I began—what happens, and I do this too, is a lot of times when somebody is reading their inventory to me, I may feel like, and I just—and if I feel like it, I do it—to ask some questions. And I was grateful for his help.
Because, and so I try to give that help. And I got to talk to someone last night who just came not too long ago to the realization that she's a child abuser, and she's been in these rooms a long time. I think God lets us see something that horrific when we need to see it. Well, thanks to Frank, he started, you know, I knew that I had harmed my children, and they were on my harms done list. And I began to tell him, but he started asking some pretty, some questions that were pretty specific. And he wanted to—he didn't just wanted to—he didn't want to know in a general way. He wanted to know.
And what happened was, is I told him, and I am so grateful. I have never known such humiliation. I have never been that ashamed in all my life. I have not been that ashamed as I was that day. And Frank looked at me, and he didn't do watered-down AA. And he didn't say things like, Polly, you have harmed your children. He looked at me and he said, You are a child abuser, and women like you, for the most part, should not even be allowed to keep their children.
And I had at brand new sober. Six weeks sober, I faced that fact. Now, did I know that? Down in where I live, where that innermost self, of course I knew that. I just didn't want you to know that. I want to hide that because, you know, if you've got at least a little bit of personality going for you, you can pretty much hide all that stuff, and you can look a whole lot better than you are. And that's what I could do.
And he began to point those things out to me and tell me, you know, and he had no problems through my inventory, through my parents, through friends, through some of the women I was working with. He had no problem whatsoever as I was reading across when I got to what I call like the fifth column, because that's where I either have them write it, and if they can't see it, I'll write it, their character defect.
I have no problem helping you out. I mean, it's very, I do that. And he started explaining these things to me, and I'm grateful for that. I'm really grateful for that, that I was helped along.
[00:20:00]
Now, I felt very safe with Frank. I always had. I had known him. I met him when I first entered treatment because he was the director of this little detox that I went to the first time, this little social detox that I had been in twice. He had also been the person who took me out of a motel in Euless, Texas, and I was very hurt. I had been beaten up. I was very hurt and brought me back into this treatment center. And I knew he loved me no matter what.
And the other thing is, is that Frank had been a monsignor priest. And he had left the priesthood to marry this woman he had been in love with all his life. And when his mother died and he felt no more obligation to be a priest, he left the priesthood. So I had this safety with Frank. Plus, the greatest gift I had is the thing that Sandy talked about last night, and Ralph talked about, and Bob talked about, and that was the gift of desperation.
Because I absolutely could not be alive sober. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't live with myself sober. Sober I knew. I mean, we know. We know these things. And there's a lot of delusion, but there also is enough truth that the delusion just sort of saves us until we can face the truth. And so when we went through this fifth step, he so clearly helped me through that. And it was, for me, the whole experience when I got through was not one of, Oh God, do I feel better, because I didn't.
I felt so devastated that all of this stuff that I had known about was seeing the light of day. And so it was very hard for me to digest all that. So I feel like God is so precious and so wonderful, and He loves us so much that He gives us the right person. The right person is sent to us to take us through these steps. Today, I can sit down and give inventory just about to anybody. If you're handy and I got some, I'll read it to you.
You know, that's just about how I am today. But I wasn't like that six weeks sober. That's not how I was. And I was brought up in Southern Baptist, and you didn't tell people your dirty laundry, and you always had to look like you weren't a sinner. But they're standing up there telling you you are. But somehow or another, we're supposed to go to church and look like we're not. And so all of this confusion.
I mean, I love Bill's term. He talks about we're twisted. I love that term because I can't think of anything that fits it better than twisted. I mean, that thinking is so twisted. So that was my experience. Now what happens is, is I start sponsoring women, and I start taking them through the steps, and I start listening to Fifth Steps. And what I experience, and what I experience to this day, is every time I take a person through the steps, I get to go.
I get to go through the steps. And I feel so blessed that I get to do this really often, that I get to take people through the steps. And sometimes people come and spend a weekend with me, and I'll take them through the steps, and I just feel like this is a privilege. And sometimes, you know, they walk away, and I may or may not hear from them again or run into them. I ran into a woman a few weekends ago, and I had not heard from her or seen her in four years.
And she had called me up on the phone and asked me if she could read a Fifth Step to me. And she came up to my house, and we did it, and I hadn't seen her in four years, and there she was. And I mean, it's just amazing. And, you know, she's been doing what I did for her for other people. So that's the bottom line, is when I take somebody through the steps, it's now, you
[00:25:00]
got to go do this. It's your turn to go give this to somebody else. And what I do when I'm taking someone through the steps is exactly pretty much what Frank did for me 33 years ago, is what he did for me. And that is, is that, you know, we do the fifth step, and what we do before we start the fifth step, we one more time get on our knees and do the third step prayer. And we offer God, we offer ourselves up to God for Him to reveal Himself and to show us what we need to see as we read this fifth step.
And then we sit down and we begin to write. Now, when I'm giving instructions, now I learned something today, Ralph, from you, and it really makes a huge amount of sense. But you say start with the easy ones. You know, start with the easy ones. And I love that, because what happens is a lot of times people are blocked. You know, they don't even know how to get started. So I always say start with Mom.
You're bound to have a lot to say about her. So I do it just the opposite of what you said, and I thought, God, this makes a lot of sense. So I don't know about any of you, but I was just, as we were walking to lunch, I was telling Fran, you know. I sat this morning and last night, and I listened, and I can't even believe how much I don't know. I'm, you know, it's still just, I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't wait till I can listen to these tapes again, you know, and I can hear all this stuff, because I'm not doing that.
I need to do that. I need to do that, you know. And that's how we keep learning, and how it keeps, you know, the dirt keeps being tossed up and turned over, and we get new soil, and we get to hear new stuff. But anyway, I set them down at my dining room table, and I help them just get started. If, you know, if you're blocked and you can't get started, well, in this, just get started and just start writing.
And a lot of times, somebody may just stay, spend the night with me and just keep writing until they're done. And now that's not an uncommon occurrence with me, and for them to just continue until they finish, and then we'll do the fifth step. And I know Lynn's over there shaking her head because Michael does that too. We bring people in and they kind of stay for a few days, and then we, you know, toss them out, back up on the airplane.
So anyway, and they start writing. And one of the things that I have learned is that most of the women that I sponsor, I don't have some of their experiences. And most of the women I sponsor or have listened to a fifth step, those women have had some kind of sexual trauma. That has happened to them either as a child or a very young person. The beauty of that is, is if I—and, you know, the book is really clear about what is my experience, and that's a lot of times is not my experience.
So what I have is, is I have a list of the women who have that experience who I can turn these women on to. And one time I was told, Polly, you're absolutely the queen of triage, because I just, you know, I know somebody who has that experience somewhere. And it's just, it's amazing. It's how we get to have that come into our life and somebody has that experience. But there are things I do know about, even though I personally am not an abused child, I am a child abuser.
So what happens is—and I'm not sure that's really, that's—it's not true in the sense that I was. I was emotionally abused because of my dad's rage. And I loved listening to Tom about his rage because, oh my God, I forgot about Tom. Oh my God, I love Tom, Father Tom. And anyway, I loved listening to that because that's my kind of rage. And I was listening, I don't know if it was Sandy or Ralph. And I was listening, I don't know if it was Sandy or Ralph or Bob, maybe it was Bob, who just goes from knee-jerk, from it to rage.
[00:30:03]
I know about that because that was my father and that was me. And that's what I did. And what happened was is that I was so full of rage. I was an angry child. I was angry. I was one of these babies, my mother and dad love to tell me, I was one of these babies, and my youngest son was one as well, who would just stand, who would just sit, who couldn't even walk, was crawling, and would pound their head on the floor. Now that's, I mean, and you're not even big enough to know how to do that stuff yet, but do it because the child is just born enraged.
And I understand that because also my youngest son was like that. And these are just, you know, and so I had some uneasiness. I became this caretaker in my family, trying to tell, Oh, Mom, don't be mad at Dad. You know, he didn't mean it, da da da da da da da. You know, you learn from an early age. So, you know, I know this is AA, but I'm also a 27-year member of Al-Anon, and if you had seen, if you were with Tom the other day when I was taking care of Tom, you would have thought I didn't have a day in Al-Anon.
So, as I found it necessary to take care of him. But this is because that was like my little job, even though I was an only child, was just to keep the peace. Well, what happens is, is that what I learned throughout my inventory and what showed up on my sixth step is I am a peacemaker at all cost. Now, I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous thinking that was very noble. What I have learned as I stay here is what I do is I'm dishonest.
I don't tell the truth. I will tell you whatever you want to hear so you won't get mad, and I won't hurt your feelings, because if I hurt your feelings, then you'll be mad at me. And so I had to face myself. My grand sponsor one time told me, in California, I was about five or six years sober, and Ellen said to me, Polly, I love to do things with you. You're so much fun. I love to go do things with you, but you always say yes, and I'm not always sure you mean it.
And she hit me right between the eyes, because she let me know that she didn't think I was always being honest. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for people who love me enough to tell me the truth, because I believe what Chuck Chamberlain said: If we knew better, we'd do better. If I knew I was doing this, I wouldn't do it, because it is not my objection every day when I wake up is not to say, Gosh, I wonder how I can hurt Polly today.
That's not what I wake up doing. But because of my human condition and character defects, I do do that. I do hurt myself. So what happens is that I believe that our deep, dark past is our greatest asset. And one of the things that I think is absolutely necessary when we get to these action steps is that we begin the process of forgiveness. Because that's what we're—the main—I'm not going to get rid of these resentments unless I can come to a way of finding out what my mistakes are and forgive the person who did that. And what has happened for me is that I will be doing a fifth step with somebody, and they know me today.
They don't know me from before. They know me today. Now, I was with a person not long ago, and I heard them share, and I'm not disputing their share, but I know that it's not me. And they said, I really haven't changed that much, and yada yada yada years. Well, I'm here to tell you, I'm not even the same
[00:35:02]
person that came in here. I'm not even the same person that I was three years sober. I'm not that person today. Now, that person's there. But that's not who I am today, as long as I do these steps. So I believe that God has performed a lot of surgery in me. A lot of surgery has been performed on me. But what happens is, is when this woman is sitting there, and with the Kleenex and all the stuff that's going on, and she's talking about her mom.
And see, she knows me today. I can reach over and I can put my arm around her, and I can say, Honey, I'm your mom. That's who I am. But because of Alcoholics Anonymous, and because of this program, and strong sponsorship, and all the things that have been given to me, I'm not that person today. I'm not that person today. Your mom does not have that. Your mom is the benefit of her childhood, like you are the product of her childhood, the same as you're the product of your childhood.
And then we might stop right there, and I might say, Why don't you tell me a little bit about your mom's childhood? Why don't we talk a little bit about that? And then she may give me some things that happened to her mom, and then she will begin to feel some compassion, which is the highest form of spirituality for her mom. Now, I would give anything if that were not my experience. I really would. And I'm sure my sons would too.
But I think they've benefited from it as well. They've grown a lot. It's their experience, and they've had to do the things they've had to do to be okay with themselves. But that's our experience. And what has happened is I've began, I have been able to use that because there's a man, he's in the big meeting in the sky now, but that I was really good friends with and was a huge mentor of mine. And his name was Ed Moodham.
And I don't know if any of you had the privilege of knowing Ed. But Ed had such forgiveness. And I believe that's what I have to come to. I have to come to a place of forgiveness. And all I can tell you is every night and every morning when I say my prayers, part of my prayers is, Thank you, God, that my sons have forgiven me. They have forgiven me. Because it's a huge… The other big book says, To forgive is divine.
So the freedom for me when it comes to these resentments and character defects and all of this stuff is to come to a place of forgiveness. And it's, you know, it would be wonderful if we could just go, Okay, there it is. Admit it, I forgive. Oh, would that be fun. But what happens is, is that it's a process, and we have to go through the process. And most of the time, a lot of different stuff has to happen in the meantime.
And I am so with the people who have preceded me with the feeling stuff, because feelings are just feelings. They will change in five seconds. It will change. I'll go from one feeling to the next feeling to the next feeling. But watch what my feet are doing. I loved whoever said that. That's mine now. Watch what the feet are doing. Watch my actions and watch what I'm doing. It's that old saying, Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear a word you say. It is not about what I say.
It's about what I'm doing, so that I can take these actions so that I can reach that place of forgiveness. What I do then is I have someone go sit in—I have a spare bedroom. I have them go sit in there for about an hour.
[00:40:00]
We read all about, to make sure that we haven't, you know, made—that we've put all the stones in place and that we're building an arch in which to walk through. And we read all that stuff that's in the Big Book. And then it says, Go take this book down from the shelf and, you know, review the five proposals for an hour. So we sit in there and I say, Just go in here and you think about what we've just done.
And if there's anything that we missed or that we didn't cover, then let's do that. And here's a pencil and paper should you need this. To write that down. And that's what they do. And then we come back and we take the inventory that we've been working on, and then we start with the character defects. Because I want to be entirely ready to have all these character defects removed. So we start writing them down. And what we do, or what I do, what was done for me, is that we make a list of all these character defects, and then we draw a line down the page, and then on the other side of the character defect, we put what we want to be, what it is that I want to do. If I'm dishonest, I want to be honest.
If I'm arrogant, I want to be humble, and so on and so on, so that we can see what we're striving for, and take a look at these character defects and see if we can't, as the book says—see if I can find my little thing on—that we can make some progress. And that's usually about all we're going to be able to do with content. We're going to, I like to use the words that Bill uses, be content with patient improvement, because that's what I'm going to have to do, is be content with patient improvement.
And what I want to read is, is I want to read the first paragraph. I'm going to do this on Step Seven too. I want to read the first paragraph out of the Twelve and Twelve, because on—well, on Step Five too, it's fabulous. I love it in the Twelve and Twelve. And the step is, We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Because none of them are serving me well. I may think they are, but I want them removed.
And then it says, This is the step that separates the men from the boys. It is only one paragraph in the Big Book, but I believe that. I believe that this, I believe Step Six and Seven is where we get emotional sobriety. I believe emotional sobriety is Steps Six and Seven. And the reason I came to that, and I'm going to share a little bit about that, I was a person for 12 years of sobriety who I did not want to drink, but I still had suicide ideation.
I still wanted to kill myself. And I picked up a book when I was 12 years sober, a book that was given to me called The Language of the Heart, and where Bill has in there our next frontier, emotional sobriety. And it's a letter that he was writing to a friend that had troublesome depressions. And I read that article, and that changed my life. It absolutely changed my life. And I hadn't read that article yet, but I was this person who had depression.
When I was a military wife, I had been diagnosed chronic depressive, manic depressive, whatever. I mean, I was taken enough tranquilizers and barbiturates when I came into this program that I'm not sure I'm over it yet. So, because I still have a heck of a time sleeping. So I don't know if I'm over them yet, but I know that I took a ton of those kind of things because of all these diagnoses I got. So what happened is, is I had that depression and that suicide ideation, and I began to get a glimmer of what was wrong with me when I was nine years sober, and Dave and I were married, and I was in one of my depressions, and I know that that was My depressions. And I know that that was really, really hard on Dave to live with.
And what he did is he sat down next to me.
[00:45:00]
I was sitting outside, you know, how we are when we're depressed. We're so much fun. And it's just such a payback. You would never believe how many people I sponsor that are depressed. You know, payback's a bitch. And so what happened was is Dave knelt down beside me, and he says, Polly, I love you with all my heart, but I just don't know what to do with your victim. And for the first time, I was in it, and I could see it. That's love.
That is love. I don't think that was easy for him to do, but that's love. Love me enough to tell me the truth. Love me enough to tell me the truth. And that's what I try to do with the women I sponsor, is love me enough to tell me the truth. And so what happened was is I read this article, and I had my Al-Anon sponsor. This lady had called me to do a workshop in Eugene, Oregon. I thought they only called me to talk, and I was like 12 years sober, 12 or 13 years sober. I'd never done a workshop.
And she said that I was going to be a retreat leader, and it just like, what? You know, I don't know how to do that. I've never done that. She said, Well, just do it on anything you want to. So I talked to Sally, and Sally said, Oh, listen, there was a lady down at Brownwood who did… A workshop on that. And so she gave me the material. She said, I've even got the stuff. So see, it's amazing. If we just start asking for help, all of this stuff comes.
And what this lady had used was a book called Stools and Bottles. I don't know if this is anything anybody's familiar with. It's an old book. I don't even know if it's—Ray, is it still in print? Okay. Anyway, Stools and Bottles. If you read that book, it says we take a drink of anger. It's like when we practice these character defects, it's like taking a drink. We take a drink of anger. We take a drink of envy.
We take a drink of jealousy, the most awful character defect. Jealousy. You can kill. Taken all the way. These character defects take them all the way. And we can, I mean, take them to the bitter, to the really far end of them, and they're huge. And I think we get them, you know, I don't steal today, but I'm still not always honest. I still tell little white lies. But I don't, you know, I don't steal today.
So I'm grateful for the progress. So anyway, that says this step that separates the men from the boys or the women from the girls. So declares a well-loved clergyman who happens to be one of AA's greatest friends. He goes on to explain that any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults without any reservation whatever has indeed come a long way spiritually and is therefore entitled to be called a man who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness.
of his own creator. And I want to be that way. I want to be that person. Now, I'm in the human condition, but that's what I strive for, to be as good a person as I can be. I want to do that. I want to look at my character defects. I want to be ever reminded of them. That's why we continue to take personal inventory. That's why we continue to do that, because I need to constantly look at this. Because, I mean, I thought, this is something that I thought.
Now, I dealt with a character defect a long time ago called jealousy, that horrible character defect, jealousy. And what happened was is that Dave and I got married, and I just was so crazy about my husband and so in love with my husband. Well, anybody in here who knows Dave knows that Dave
[00:50:01]
loves women. And he loved the women I sponsor. And he was, and he always had, I see now, and my son James at the time told me, and he wasn't even sober. And he looked at me one day when I was having a major fit about one of the women I sponsor, and Dave was out helping her. I mean, he was being super dad, which he does a lot to the women I sponsor. He's super dad. And he was buying her a car and helping her find a place to live and doing all this kind of stuff. And I was seething.
And because she's really, really pretty, and she's really, really thin. And I just had all this stuff going on. And my son looked at me, and he gave me a truth. He wasn't even sober, that kid. And he said to me, Mom, you see whoever as a woman, Dave sees them as a girl. That perception. It's been mentioned, that perception. Well, I ended up, very short time ago, with that same character defect came to get me again in the same way.
So, fortunately, I didn't have to go months on end and be torn up inside and have it just eat me alive because I was just so jealous and writing about—and this is a sponsee, writing about all this stuff. This latest one's not a sponsee, but it was just the same thing that came up one more time. And the perception is, is that Dave sees it as a child, and I see it as a woman. Same thing. So, I have been able to have, for a lot of years, some patient improvement. But that's not to say that somewhere that little thing is not lurking.
You know, just as soon as I rest on my laurels and think that guy's gone. There it comes up again. So I got to experience that. And so what happens is, is that there's two other paragraphs I want to read here because I think they are so important. And it's in the Twelve and Twelve. It says, If we ask God, if we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions, our derelictions, but in no case does He render us white as snow.
Well, that one's gone, you know, cleaned up, done. No. And keep us that way without our cooperation. Won't happen. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work towards ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character. And one of the things that a lot of times somebody says, Well, I can't do anything about my character defects. God has to remove them.
Well, you know, I just, I know God can do that. I just don't think that's how He works. I think God requires some effort on my part. And I like to tell a little story about that. And the little story is, is that the farmer is standing by his farm, and the priest walks down the road and he stops with the farmer and he says, Oh my goodness, brother, look what a beautiful farm God's given you. And the farmer says, Yeah, you should have seen it when only God had it.
It requires some effort on my part. I need to know I have this problem. And I need to be willing to look at this problem. And a lot of times, I'll take a character defect and write about it, because I need to know more about what's got so much hold on me. So step six: We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
[00:55:03]
is AA's way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job. So it's not, you know, it's going to be there. We're going to get the, as Dottie says, and I used to just want to throw up when I heard these words, but she refers to challenges, Ralph, that we have as opportunities to grow. And, you know, sometimes I could just almost, you know, say, I don't want any more growth. But the truth is, is I do, because I really do want to be the best I can be.
I really do want that, because I know the more God that comes into me, the more I do this work, and the closer I get to the God of my understanding, the better it is. And I feel like we're the feel-good people. Well, I was always looking for stuff outside of me to make me feel good. That was, I thought, you know, if you have enough money, if you have enough men, if you have a big enough house, if you have, you know, the adoration of people, if you have all these things, then you'll feel good.
Well, Bob said he had all those things and still didn't feel good. So what happens is I know today that that's not it. But the more God I get, the more God I let through, because I get these character defects out of the way by doing what needs to be done: pray, write. Talk, whatever it takes to keep my awareness of these character defects, if I keep them away, because I'm not drinking today. Alcohol is not the problem today, but these character defects can make it alcohol a problem again.
Because if I take a drink, it's going to be because of the character defects that I have not, or resentments or whatever, that I have allowed to build up inside of me, the disease of alcoholism. That's what's going to, I got to get that stuff out of the way. This does not mean that we expect all our character defects to be lifted out of us as the drive to drink was. A few of them may be, but with most of them, we shall have to be content with patient improvement.
The key words, entirely ready, underline the fact that we want to aim at the very best we know and can learn. What we must recognize now is that we exult in some of our defects. We really love them. Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superior? Isn't it true that we like to let greed masquerade as ambition, to think of liking lust seems impossible.
So all of these, and then he goes through the whole thing: self-righteousness, gluttony, sloth, all of the stuff that he manages to go through that he names out some character defects. One of the ones that I want to put up is one that's mine, and the one that I try the hardest and ask God the most, because I feel like this character defect is one of the ones that keeps me so far from the sunshine of the spirit.
I just shared the jealousy. The other is judgment. If I find myself judging something, what happens is, is that I can judge it and then my mind shuts, and then I can't see the truth anymore. And one of the things that I like to remember is that God's the judge. That's not my business. Judging is not my business. That's God's business. I believe everybody on the planet has something to teach me, and it may be they need to teach me what not to do.
But everybody on— What not to do. But everybody on this planet has something to teach me, and what I need to do is to be willing to see that. Okay, step seven.
[01:00:00]
Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings. Since this step so specifically concerns itself with humility, we should pause here to consider what humility is and what the practice of it can mean to us. Indeed, the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of AA's twelve steps, for without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. Nearly all AAs have found, too, that unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required just for sobriety, they still haven't made much chance of becoming truly happy.
There's a beautiful man that was Dave's sponsor as well, and his name was Keith Lewis. And Keith was one of the finest men I've ever known. And Keith used to say, It is a spiritual experience to admit I'm wrong. That when I can admit I'm wrong, it is a spiritual experience. And when I can humble myself to ask God to remove these shortcomings because I'm wrong, I am absolutely wrong. And when I take these steps, and I ask God to give me some humility. Now, most of the time, the humility that I have acquired, I don't know about any of you, has been through humiliation.
Because I seem to have to humiliate myself in order to feel that such remorse that gives me that humility. And what happens is, is these steps, every time I smash that ego just a little bit more. And Dave, I love what Dave says. He says, My ego is not my amigo, and it's not my friend. My ego is not my friend, because my ego is going to tell me a lie. That is not my friend. So every time I take a step, or I have the opportunity to grow, and it's, I still think about when we lost our home and had to file bankruptcy and do all this stuff. I did not want, you know, anybody to know that. But I didn't have that kind of sponsorship, and neither did Dave.
That's not what our sponsors told us we had to do. I didn't like a lot of stuff that went down in our lives. So what happens is, is through those opportunities to grow, I get to shave off a little more ego, and a little more ego, and I get to humble myself a little bit more. And by doing so, I get to feel the nearness of my Creator. And it's just, it's just, there's, it just is, for me, it's just the way it is. I don't, you know, why do I have to do that?
Because I believe that my ego, my character defects, all of these things that are here stand in the way of my nearness to God. And I keep trying. And, you know, a lot of times I'll ask people, Did I say that right? Did I do, you know, did that sound all right? Because sometimes I'm pretty to the point. And I really like people that are direct and to the point, because that certainly wasn't how I was. I was just this little codependent thing that made sure I had to say everything just so. But today I love directness.
And I like for people to be direct with me. And sometimes I'll say something, and it might not sound like it should. And I try to always remember the Al-Anon statement: Is it honest? Is it necessary? And is it kind? And sometimes I can be honest, and I feel like it's necessary, but I'm not always kind. So I always want to make sure that I do those three things. Oh, I am so honored to be in the presence of the people I'm
[01:05:04]
in, the people I'm speaking with, because I just, they're people I have so much respect for, have so much respect for. I'm excited to be in the presence of friends and people that I know, and I just feel so blessed to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and to be part of this conference. Thank you.