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Source: Rebecca L – Steel City Woodstock (2024) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: rebecca-l-steel-city-woodstock-2024-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:54:28
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Stay in front of it. Hi everyone, my name's Rebecca, I'm an alcoholic. Hi everyone, it's so great to be here tonight. Nancy, thank you so much for this opportunity. Nancy took me out to coffee when I, I had about a week in the program, I was still, I wasn't sober, and she doesn't remember, and this was about nine years ago, she doesn't remember it, but I do, and you never know who you're going to help in this program, and she was the hand of AA for me, so I'm just really grateful to be here. Also thank you Roberta for showing me the way, and letting me follow in your footsteps, and I'm grateful for everyone in this audience. It takes so many people to keep me sober, so thank you all for being here. A lot of people. So let's think about what I want to say. So I am so grateful that I have a sobriety date. I got sober on August 18th, 2014. I have a home group, it's Start Your Week Sober, which is here in Pittsburgh, in Shadyside, Oakland. It's at Monday at 5 p.m. We would love to have you. I have a sponsor who I love dearly, and who helps me so, so much. I have a we in this program that is here tonight, and with me always, and for all of these things I'm so grateful. So very grateful. If I don't say anything else tonight that makes sense, all I really need to say is that this program is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and that the more I abandon myself to this program, the more I give anything I can come up with to this program, and to the steps, the better my life gets. It's just a beautiful life today because of this program. So I am going to talk about what I was like, what happened, and what I get to be like today thanks to this program. I grew up here in Pittsburgh. I honestly think that I came out of the womb lying. I just was born lying. I remember when I was probably before I even went to school, I'm sitting at my grandmother's table. She has a black table. I have a Sharpie I'm drawing, and I write my name on her black table. The next day my dad's like, why would you write your name on your grandma's table? I'm like, I didn't do that. I probably believed that lie is what's really ridiculous about that. I'm capable of believing all sorts of lies, I tell myself. I really loved going through other people's stuff. I liked going through their drawers. I like taking other people's stuff. I really thought that other people had things that I should have, and I can still be like that today, so that's unfortunate. I also wasn't against cheating. I don't mean any judgment on myself as a young child. I think I was just that person who never thought they would get enough, or have enough, or needed something to feel secure. But I am just stating facts. I got arrested. When I was in second grade, I emptied out my stepmother's jewelry box, and wore all of her jewelry to school, and managed to lose, I think, most of it. I'll never forget, my dad somehow knew it was me. He came and picked me up. He got me out of class. We were supposed to go to see a car show, and we didn't go to the car show like we were supposed to go that day. Honestly, it has taken years in this program for that look of disapproval to come off his face from then until probably about four or five years ago. That's just how I was as a kid.
I got arrested for shoplifting at one point. I really just didn't know how to tell the truth. I thought that I should get to decide what reality was going to be like. This was all before I picked up a drink or a drug. I did have some things going for me. I was always good at school, and I made
[00:05:03]
friends easily. I loved reading. That was probably my first escape. I was one of those kids, those little girls who was obsessed with horses. I was always at the barn, working at the barn to get to ride horses. If you had caught me a few years ago, I would have stood up here and talked about how messed up my family was, and how dysfunctional it was, and all the reasons why they made me an alcoholic. Today I don't have to. Today I know it's me. I know it's me today. If you do catch me after a family vacation, I might not have the energy to pretend that it's not them. That's not today, so we're good. It was just how I was. When I was 13, we went on family vacation. My older sister and my stepsister said, we're going to get drunk. We got drunk. I did things that I would have never done. I blacked out, browned out, remembered some parts, didn't remember others. I did things I would have never done sober. The next morning, we laughed and laughed about them, pieced together what happened. I thought that was the best thing. That was a good night. That's how it should be. I didn't think it was problematic. I did all sorts of things a 13-year-old shouldn't do that I had never even considered. It was just, I had found something. I had really found something. A couple weeks later, we were back in Pittsburgh, and they said, we're going to do it again. We got drunk, and they brought out some marijuana. I'll warn you that drugs are not an outside issue for me. They just aren't. We smoked marijuana. Honestly, from that day until I got sober at the age of 34, there were probably a few days I didn't take anything, but there weren't very many. It was on. In the beginning, for a while, there was fun times. There was fun times. There was partying. There were years where it was smoking pot, and drinking hard, and hallucinogenics, and opening your mind, and all this stuff. Really growing. Then there was a period where I discovered pills. I just loved pills. I felt like that's how, you know, painkillers and amphetamines. I just felt like I should. There was nothing that felt better to me than a pocket full of pills. Knowing that I would get to know I was going to feel at any moment, and that idea that I should get to control how I feel, that was everything to me. I loved that it was like one pill makes me bigger, one pill makes me smaller. I just liked that control. There was a period where I was hanging out with some really hard partying people, and we'd stay up till the next day drinking and doing cocaine. I was the person who was also taking painkillers, and not sharing them with anyone, and not telling them.
I had to take them every day, or I'd get sick. That was just how I wanted to live. I felt like I should get to feel like that all the time. Warm and fuzzy, and that sense of insurance that I knew I'd be okay. In this condition, I decided to go back to school. I was taking amphetamines all day, painkillers at night, and drinking. At this point, I was going up. I lived in New York, and I'd go up to Massachusetts. I had this aunt who was sick, and she had a lot of painkillers.
I'd drive up there to visit her, and I'd steal her painkillers. Eventually, I'd find out when she wasn't going to be home, when she had doctor's appointments. I'd drive up there and break in, and I'd take her pills. In this kind of condition, I decided I had something to offer the medical
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profession. I was a catch. I was a real catch. I got into medical school. I moved back here to Pittsburgh. I felt like I had cracked the formula. I felt bad for people who didn't get to take speed all day and painkillers at night. That's such a terrible way to live. I got back here to Pittsburgh. Basically, the wheels came off. It was that horrible betrayal that I've heard a lot of you talk about, where it just didn't work anymore. It was like I had one coping mechanism. I had one coping mechanism, and it was gone. It was baffling. I'm a good alcoholic, and I intuitively knew what the issue was. It was that I wasn't taking enough. There also was a minor miracle in this period, where I knew painkillers were a problem, because I'd get sick if I didn't take them. I knew that I just liked them too much. In this period, I basically stopped taking painkillers and just went really hard on the amphetamines. I was so pleased. I was like, this is great. I'm not a drug addict. That was a win. That was a win. In reality, I was just beating a dead horse. No drugs, no alcohol were going to work for me. We were working to make it so I could control my feelings, so I could function as a human being. Nothing was working. I wish I could say that that day, I looked up on the internet, what do you do? I came into AA, but honestly, it was another six years before I ended up in here. It felt like beating a dead horse until I was covered in dead horse. It was just really miserable and really ugly. Where there had been some fun times, there had been fun times, partying with other people, things like this, there weren't really fun times anymore. It was me by myself in my house. Before it was always an everyday thing, but this became an all day, every day, eight days a week type of thing. No time for sleep.
No time for sleep. Things got really bizarre really quick. Cleaning my keyboard was like a 24 hour long activity. It was a bizarre existence, a very bizarre existence. I had alarm clocks for hard of hearing people because when I would fall asleep, I had no control over when I'd wake up again. Nothing could wake me up. My neighbors would respond to the alarm, but I would still be out. It got really bizarre. What was the hardest part was, I already told you about my innate integrity issues, but what little might have been there was gone. All I had left was excuses. The more far-fetched, the better, and self-loathing. That was all that there was really.
Meanwhile, I'm in medical school and they like it if you can show up to things, which was not remotely a strong suit of mine. For example, I was supposed to go to this surgery rotation. Surgeons get up very, very early in the morning, very early. I was probably supposed to be there at 5 in the morning, and I showed up at noon, which it was kind of miraculous that I even was up at noon for me at that time. They're like, Rebecca, why are you late? I had this, I knew this was like, this was the excuse I had been holding in my back pocket as an ace card. I said, I told them that I had had a miscarriage. I'm glad you guys can laugh because I honestly thought this was something I would take to the grave. I had the good sense to be very ashamed of it.
good sense to be very ashamed of it but yeah I thought that was genius I was
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like I'm gonna get out of work today tomorrow like I might get a whole week out of this and they were just like shook their heads and they did not let me go home that day and barely got any time out but those were my best ideas you know those were my those were my good ideas so despite all I managed to graduate from medical school and I went to a residency program in North Carolina this poor unsuspecting residency program residency is like an apprenticeship you're in training you have supervisors but you do get paid and you have some responsibility which was another not a strong suit of mine was responsibility and in medical school you switch rotations every month you're on a new in a new setting with new supervisors every month so it's really easy to be like I'm just having a bad month like I'm really an on-point person but this month is bad in residency they were just stuck with me I felt bad for them and the first week there was this course I was supposed to the first week orientation week there was a course I was supposed to go to at you know maybe eight in the morning and I'm writing them excuses at seven at night when I woke up of why I didn't show up all day and didn't get in touch with them and it it just went south from there a few months later I slept through another shift and they couldn't get in touch with me and I wasn't answering my phone and they sent the police to my house to to check and see if I was alive and I woke up with the police in my house about to tease my dog and you know that did wake me up at that point but it was just a very I was very sick you know I was very sick and I I couldn't really do anything at that point and you know I used to say I used to say that what happened was that I got caught and I did get caught I had I had this hustle going where I would go to multiple doctors to get prescriptions for this for amphetamines and I had I was in this small town in North Carolina and I it was very small town and I managed to collect probably five different doctors I was getting amphetamines from and one of them the pharmacies had started tracking things like this and they told my primary care doctor who was one of those doctors and he I remember him calling me in and he said you know you you have a problem this is a problem and I'm gonna call the medical board you need to get help and I I sat in his office crying bawling telling it because I was telling him how he was about to ruin my life you know that this was gonna ruin my life and I love that part of the big book that talks about how we can't tell the true from the false and you know I had no idea how ruined my life was already and I mean it can't always get worse but this was this was a great break for me in hindsight and I've actually had the honor since then of I've contacted him a few times to make amends for manipulating him and lying to him and forcing him into basically an illegal activity and also to thank him for you know being the start of changing the trajectory in my life so I immediately got kicked out of residency I think they were really relieved I think this is a good day for them to finally figure out what was wrong with me and I was told that if I ever wanted to try to get back into medicine I'd have to go to rehab and I was willing to try to do that so I went to rehab I got kicked out of my first rehab I went to my second rehab and I thought you know I learned about this program and you know they took us to meetings and I thought it was a really cute thing a really nice nice idea for people who needed this and I knew that I did not
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need this and so I left rehab and that night I was snorting painkillers with the gentleman friend I had met at the first rehab and you know knowing now that you know I had a nice break I could keep things under control now and within a month I was exactly in where I had been before where I just I just hated myself and you know when I was in medical school there was a point they had this seminar seminar on suicide in our psychiatry rotation and I remember going up to the gentleman who was giving the seminar and saying don't you think sometimes suicide is actually a healthy response to a situation that's it that's where I was at you know it was such a miserable existence it really was it was it was a painful life and I didn't see a way out of it and so I got to that place pretty quickly and you know that's really what happened that that changed my life as I got to that place the book talks about where you know you can't live without it I had known for a long time that I couldn't live without it and then all of a sudden I knew that I couldn't live with it either and the book talks about the jumping-off place and how we'll know loneliness such as few do and I knew that loneliness and you know I'm so grateful I got there I'm so grateful I got there not everyone gets to get there and I called this woman that I had met at rehab and I said you know I think they might be right you know I could have I could have a problem here and I said what do I do and she said duh go to an AA meeting and I remember just being like I'm asking for help like like I need actual help like those meetings were cute and all but like I need something that's gonna help and you know I love what the book talks about I love our book it says what seems like a flimsy read is actually the sturdy hand of God and that's what this program has been for me it took me a few more days to pull it together to come into one of these rooms it's actually the the meeting that's my home group now and I met as soon as I went in a woman reached out her hand to me and introduced herself and asked if I was new I don't know how she knew it might have been because I was bawling just walking in and she became my first sponsor and I'm so grateful to her it took me about a week I met Nancy in that week to get off get off drugs entirely and the last day I used drugs was August 17th or took a drink 2014 and I'm so grateful I haven't had to drink or drug since then what a gift when I got so I came in and you know I'd lost this job and I really wanted this job back to be an emergency medicine doctor and I had to go to residency in order to do it I wanted this job back and I also wanted a husband I was like I've wasted all of this time you know my other friends have been out there hustling I've been busy wanting to die like I'm ready and you know my life got better but I would and I did do the steps with my sponsor but I was really just looking for a higher power on tinder or bumble or match and you know I had the kind of sobriety you have when that's where you're looking for a higher power and it was better but it wasn't that fourth dimension I'll tell you that it wasn't that fourth dimension and I feel incredibly lucky because I really I had to bottom out on that and I did bottom out on that it was amazing I was finding you know I thought I wanted a husband but I was really just finding gentlemen that were even crazier than me which was very impressive to do and yeah and you know I had to realize that this this was the same thing as a drink or a drug for me and and luckily it's amazing because I ended up doing this without realizing that the book tells us to do this it talks about this
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when it's talking about the sex or romantic relationship inventory it says for some of us this will be troublesome and they should throw themselves into working throw themselves into working with others and and that's what I did I stopped dating I had to put it down and I had to give it to God really and I started sponsoring women and going through the book with them and you know there's nothing like going through the book and going through the steps with someone else to really have them bear fruit in your life in my life that's what happened you know I'd gone through the steps with my first sponsor actually it was my second sponsor and you know I I felt like it was sort of like jumping through hoops the book I could not understand the book I I was like this is a cross between a Civil War diary and the Great Gatsby and I didn't under don't understand either of those either so it just it made no sense to me I couldn't couldn't wrap my head around it even in rehab I remember being like okay you're telling me I have a disease and the cure is God like this is not adding up like this is I went to medical school I this doesn't make sense and so none of it really it was you know I I did the steps but they weren't a part of my life you know they were I wasn't applying them to my life and luckily you know I remember one of the first leads I I gave years ago I remember standing up at the podium and talking about I said some people are into the book some people are into the steps I'm into the fellowship and there was a period since then where I've been mortified that I said but now I look but you know that was a grace period and I need every side of this triangle to stay sober and that was a grace period that my higher power gave me where I didn't have to drink or drug and I'm so grateful that I made it to the steps because that's when things really started to get different I have this friend from from residency who is one of my best friends she's not one of us and she was curious about this AA that I'm always talking about and she came to a meeting with me she came to a big book study with me and we read the chapter there is a solution and after the meeting you know I think I was a little a little sheepish I was like yeah it's kind of funny huh like you know God and she was like no I get it you need a miracle to recover from this disease and and I really like to talk about the steps because the steps are basically a recipe for a miracle and so a good friend of mine printed out the steps for me because it's very hard to think up here let alone remember the steps so I like to talk about the steps because that's how I get to be different today is that the more I applied these steps to my life the first step we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable you know I just told you what my life was like it was it was miserable the word unmanageable when I first came in it confused me my life was a living hell my hair is unmanageable sometimes you know it's it didn't it wasn't proportionate to what was going on what's beautiful about these steps though I heard this wonderful gentleman Amin give a lead and he talked about how the steps they're like seeds you plant and they grow and and blossom and bear fruit and when I first came in the first step to me just meant that I don't have to drink or drug or that I don't pick up the first one and the action was that I would pray for that every day God keep me from a drink and a drug and thank my higher power every night for keeping me from a drink and a drug today today I think of an it is unmanageability when I'm powerless over something and I think of it as whatever keeps me from being present for someone else present and available for someone else is unmanageable ability in my life today and there's this beautiful thing with the program where the road narrows and
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good views and that's where you get the fourth dimension is by really being present and, yeah, just getting to be here. So the other thing I think about with the first step is that when I was out there, it didn't make any sense to me to admit that I was powerless over alcohol or that I was an alcoholic. I would hear about people overdosing and I would think at least they got free now. I thought that was the only way you could get free of that obsession and compulsion to drink and drug.
I didn't know there was another way to get free of it. I thought I'd, you know, once this cucumber became a pickle, I would always need that vinegar and I didn't know that you could get free of it. And that's why I'm so grateful for all the steps that come after this. And the second step is my favorite step. It's came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Thank God there's a solution to this disease, right?
And when I was pretty new, I had a couple years, I remember telling my sponsor that I didn't feel close to my higher power. I think I thought that praying should feel like a couple of Vicodin or a couple shots of beer, warm, fuzzy, a little connected, and it just didn't feel like that. And she said, why don't you pray for the willingness to get closer to your higher power? And a couple weeks later I was in a meeting and I heard this woman, Robin, say this thing that I love so much.
She said, it's vulgar to continue doubting after the first miracle. And I knew that it was a miracle that I didn't have to drink or drug, that I didn't have that obsession and compulsion, that I didn't have that itch that I had to scratch. And here I was getting this miracle every day and then I was still doubting. And I just love that because it really opened up, you know, that my higher power has such a bigger imagination than I do.
I don't think there's solutions to this. There are so many areas in my life that I've thought I'm too damaged or will never get free of that my higher power has freed me from. And in sobriety it's like mountains beyond mountains. There's always a new way I can get free. And it's been so many things. Vaping. I'm a cookie monster. I'm off the sugar just for today. We'll see how that goes. The relationship and sanity. There's just so many ways that I can get free in this program.
And if this program only promised me that I would be free of the obsession and compulsion to drink and drug, that would be more than enough, right? That would be as big a miracle as I need. But it says that I can be restored to sanity, period. It doesn't limit it in the drink and the drug. And really, whatever more I can give to this program, wherever more I can make space for my higher power, I have a shot at getting free there, too.
In that cute little book, As Bill Sees It, he has this part where he's talking about, I'm going to mangle this, but Even when for the moment you cannot see, turn your face to the light. Believe more deeply. And that's what I think this step is about for me today. Where else can I come to believe more deeply that my higher power can restore me to sanity? Because there is still, whatever I'm worked up about is whatever I'm not giving to my higher power.
And whatever is causing me angst. This year, I'm grateful to report, I feel like for possibly the first time in my life, I feel like I'm finally starting to love myself. And what a special brand of insanity is hating yourself, you know? And that was something I don't even think I was aware of. And it's just beautiful. I'll think I'm free, and I'm done, and I'm recovered, and there's always more that this program can give me.
So I'm really grateful for that. Step three is to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
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So I wanted to get that job back. The job was emergency medicine. I wanted to be an emergency medicine doctor. And I tried so hard to get back in. If you had met me the first year I was sober, it was all I would talk about. All I would talk about. I gotta get back into this, you know? And I could have written a country western song about how I had lost the great love of my life. My disease took this thing from me, and blah, blah, blah.
And I literally applied to every program in the country. I was wheeling and dealing, trying to meet with people to get a shot. And I didn't get in the first year. I didn't get in the second year. Through the grace of a beautiful member of Al-Anon, I ended up getting a position in a residency program here at UPMC in internal medicine, which I knew I did not like. I knew it. But it was like a foot in the door, and then maybe I could work my way over to emergency medicine.
That year-long probationary position that I got, I had to do rotations in the emergency department. And I was excited to get this opportunity to make connections. And I did them, and I hated it. I hated it. It might have made sense when I was on amphetamines. My God has such better things planned for me than what I can come up with. And I ended up, by the grace of God, I graduated residency. I get to be a doctor at the VA hospital here.
It is my dream job. I'm in internal medicine, which is what I knew I hated. But it turns out I don't. I get to do palliative care and take care of veterans who are admitted to the hospital. And it is just such a gift from God. And I'm so grateful I get to be useful. And it's just a gift. And it just is such a reminder that I have no idea what's good for me. And luckily my higher power does. And I try to get my sponsees to write lists of everything they've freaked out about and whether it's worked out or not.
And it turns out 100% have worked out. And I think it's such a, you know, recognizing all the ways that my higher power has taken care of me just builds my faith. And the more faith I have, it really can snowball and spiral. Step four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And step five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. The last Christmas before I got sober, I was having dinner with my entire family.
My parents are divorced. They were all there, like both sides. My whole, all of my, you know, my brother, his family's in town from California. My sister, her new boyfriend, she went on to marry. It was the first time I met him. And I managed to get in a fight with all of them. At the Christmas dinner table. And I stormed out and I said to them, it is not me, it's all of you. And I knew that to be true.
I knew it was all of them. And I would have, you know, I thought the key to freedom was blaming everyone else for my problems. And it turns out that, you know, the more I can be responsible for, the more freedom I can get. Like who knew that seeing my part in things could actually, you know, be the key to freedom. And I'm so grateful for this step to get to see my part in things. The other thing I like to think about with this step is, there's this reading in Al-Anon.
They talk about that maybe our wrongs just aren't the terrible things we've done in the way we've treated people or harmed people. But maybe the wrongs are the maladaptive, counterproductive, self-sabotaging old ideas we have. The things we have wronged. And all of those things are what tend to be underlying, you know, the terrible things that I've done to people. And, you know, they can be really, the big one for me is that, you know, if my feelings get hurt, I should hate that person for a long period of time.
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Possibly forever. And, you know, probably try to hurt them too. And that's an old idea that I don't have to live by today, you know. Or if I'm angry, someone should feel that. Someone should really feel that. But there are parts of me that are too damaged to recover. You know, there's so many old ideas that underpin these things. Some of them are more specific, like, unless my dad gives me all of his money, I will never be secure.
You know, and they were all in there, you know, just in my inventory. They were all in there. And, you know, I'm really grateful today. The fourth step prayer talks about save me from anger. Asking your God to save you from anger. And I like the idea that I can feel the feelings now. I can feel hurt, but I don't have to let it harden into resentment against someone. Everyone's doing their level best out here.
And what freedom that is, is to have these interactions and interpersonal conflict and not have to, you know, villainize or make someone the enemy and just be one among. You know, we're all out here trying our best. And that's been a really beautiful gift. Seven and eight. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Or, excuse me, that was not seven and eight. Six and seven. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. These steps are kind of mysterious to me. If anyone has cracked how to make this happen quickly, please let me know after the meeting. All I know is that, you know, today, I'm not going to say I never lie, but it is very uncomfortable when I do lie.
And I feel it. And I don't lie very much. That's such a beautiful thing. One of my favorite moves in active alcoholism was self-righteous anger. You know, like everyone else is wrong except for me. And today that's very uncomfortable for me, too. It doesn't feel good anymore. I used to love a very powerful feeling. Now it just feels kind of fake and not that good. And, you know, these steps are happening as long as I become ready and humbly ask him.
And, you know, I'm so grateful that these steps, like, that's how it happens. It doesn't happen for me. It doesn't say because of my self-will, my self-control, didn't really have much self-control ever, or my good discipline or self-knowledge. Like none of those things ever are going to fix me. But my higher power can. And I take so much comfort in knowing that my higher power is not done with me yet.
You know, this is a lifelong process. And I'm also glad it doesn't say we beat ourselves up enough that things finally change because my loving God works a lot better through love than me beating myself up. 9 and 10 made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would it injure them or others. 10 continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
When I came into this program, I think I'm going to say that it was mutual. Me and my dad kind of hated each other. I thought I would go to my grave hating my dad. And I did an amends to him. I think I had about, maybe about a year, and he said, you know what, I don't have any soft love left for you. I think he meant like he only had tough love left. And he didn't talk to me for a year after that. And it has been, finally he did talk to me again.
And a few years after that, he was doing me this huge favor where he was driving me to New York to my friend's wedding. I was in residency and I only had like the weekend and it was really far away. And he was driving with me and we're in the car and I'm driving. And he's like, you're tailgating. And there was only one thing that I could possibly say to him in that moment. And it was, you have never approved of me.
Anything I've done. Anything I've Done, My Entire Effing Life, like that was the only possible response to that,
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that came into my head, you know, like that, it was the only thing that could be said, and the reality was I was tailgating, and instead of saying that, I just said, you're right, and I slowed down, and I didn't lose it on him, and you know, what a gift to get to be a little different, you know, like what a gift to get to react a little different, and now we're at, you know, nine years of me being sober, and my dad and I have a beautiful relationship today, it's a beautiful relationship, and he gets off the phone with me, I talked to him today, and he gets off the phone, and before he gets off, he says, you bring me great joy, and it's just, you know, like the only thing I wanted was for my dad to approve of me, and today he does, and that's all because this program lets me be a little different today, and the men's process is beautiful, the living a men's process, getting to show up differently in people's lives is such a gift, such a gift.
Ten is continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. I love this step in the book where it talks about, you know, I've heard people say, we come in for the drinking, we stay for the thinking, and this part in the book talks about how we watch for fear, dishonesty, selfishness, and resentment to crop up in our heads, and it has like a whole little formula for how to deal with it, which is you ask God to remove it, you talk to someone, someone distracted me in the audience.
Ask God to remove it, talk to someone, see how you can be of use to someone else, and make an amends if it's appropriate. And I just love this, because the last frontier of obsessive-compulsive behaviors for me is this brain of mine. My brain just wants a bone to chew on at all times, and they are usually centered around one of these things, you know, fear, dishonesty, selfishness, resentments. I love, you know, I could spend a whole day building a resentment and just really putting the finishing touches on it.
And the thing is that I don't want to spend my day like that anymore. You know, I'm aware of it today, like awareness, acceptance, then change. So I'm aware of it today. And here this program has this whole little plan that works, you know, a program, a design for living that works, and works for this brain of mine. What a beautiful thing. And also I would add that some of the most beautiful, really special interactions with humans I've had are when I've been a jerk to them, and then come back to them later and apologize for it.
It's incredible. It almost makes me want to do it more. It can be really special. So if you're not doing this, try it out. You think it's going to be humbling, and like you're going to eat dirt, but then you're just like hugging it out at the end. It's very cute. Okay, so 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Prayer is everything. We talk about this being a program of action, and so often the action in this program is prayer. When I first came in, I was like, that's not really doing much. It's not much of an action. Prayer changes me. It changes me. It makes me the fertile soil that's teachable, treatable. It makes space in me for my higher power to work. I can't say enough about prayer. I pray for a lot of things every morning.
I pray for love, tolerance in a servant's heart. I pray that I may be still and know that God is God and just try to get out of the way. There's a lot of things I pray for because this program has shown me who I want to be and it often is still quite different from the way I wake up. The other thing about prayer is I am very good at doing this whole readings, prayer, meditation thing in the morning in bed.
I don't get into a lot of trouble in bed in the morning. Throughout the day is when things get messy. It says to pause when agitated and doubtful
[00:50:00]
and turn to my higher power. I feel like that's the next frontier that I'm working on is making it an all day, every day thing. My higher power wants me to depend on him all day, every day and not just in the morning at night when I think of it. That's when things get really special and good is when I do do that. As far as meditation, sometimes I feel like this program is these steps that lead me to God and lead me to meditation.
I know some people think of meditation as just contemplating the day ahead and I do that in the morning. I also like to do mindfulness meditation. I don't know how I watch for fear, dishonesty, selfishness and resentment to crop up unless I'm paying attention to what's happening in my brain and that's what meditation has really helped me with. Before I was a fish swimming in water and I was like, what water are you talking about?
But now I'm aware of it. Sometimes in meditation I feel like there was a time when I felt like meditation just made me very aware of what a cesspool my thinking is. Today it can get messy up there but it's more like a lightly polluted river today. It keeps it moving. It's moving. It's not stagnant. That's such a gift. That's a gift. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.
We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. I have so many spiritual awakenings as the result of these steps. Knowing that being useful today and not a job or a husband or any material thing is what makes me happy is a spiritual experience. Being comfortable in my own skin today is a spiritual experience. Getting that sense of ease and comfort that I got from the drink and the drug from this community, my relationship with my higher power and applying these steps to my life is a spiritual experience.
There's really so many. Getting to be a part of this community is a spiritual experience. I'm just so incredibly grateful. For someone like me where I never felt like there was enough. Nothing was ever enough for me. Good enough. Enough of enough. Knowing today that I have everything I could possibly want and more. That I have it so much better than I deserve is a spiritual experience. I consider all of these things to be miracles.
We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. I try to be a little calculating with this part of it. I can't wait to go talk to my friends but I try to pay attention to who's the newcomer. People reached out to me that way and I don't know if I'd be here if they hadn't. I try to be really noticing who's new, who's standing by themselves, who's coming back, who's just moved here, who's struggling.
I try to be that hand that's there. I don't like to see someone standing by themselves and people did that for me and it made such a huge difference in my life. There's this song I heard recently and it goes something like I know a place where they perform miracles and for me that is AA. I'm really grateful for you all for listening to me. Thank you so much. Thank you.