She says, “Boy, on Sunday morning, I really like to get spiritual.” She says, “Topic of that meeting’s gonna be we s- we walk a spiritual path.” So I’ve been, uh, really looking forward to all her talks, but this one especially. Dottie? Thank you. Thank you. I’m an alcoholic, and my name is Dottie Shore. Hi. Hi. Hey, isn’t that a gas that I’m gonna come back next year? Yeah. You all better be here too, okay? Oh, I’m just delighted. That really thrilled me to my toes to think that, that I have done the job, that I have been what I wanted to be, was your trusted servant, and I hope I’ve served you in the way that I’ve been praying to serve you. And if I’ve done anything at all to help any of you, and you go down from this mountain, please give the glory to God, because without him, I wouldn’t even be up here talking. And I’m not being overly modest, I mean that. If I had come up here this weekend and given you my ideas, you’d all gone down there and gotten drunk.

But when I give you the ideas that were given to me so freely and so lovingly by everybody I’ve ever talked to and by this God-given book and my higher power, I truly mean it. If I’ve helped you, you thank God for it. This morning, I’d like to share with you, um, some prayers that we say in AA, and I think that we say them, you know, like a parrot, if you’re like I am. I was taught when I was a child to say the Lord’s Prayer, and I used to say, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, give us–” Did you ever do it that way? Just like a parrot, had no idea what I was saying. I remember the night I first attended my first meeting at North Hollywood. Up above the podium, they have a huge, big Serenity Prayer.

It’s all in scroll, and it’s very beautiful, and I used to sit there in my days of shaking out and trying to get my head straightened around and read those words of the Serenity Prayer, and it didn’t mean a thing. They were very comforting, and I liked them, but it didn’t mean a thing to me. I think I shared with you the first night that when I went home to my sister’s funeral, that this old man came and, uh, or to me, his name was Ken Coffee. He since has died sober, and he said, “Oh, I want you to take the Serenity Prayer home.” And I said, “Oh, Ken, I know the Serenity Prayer.” He said, “Not the way I’m gonna give it to you.” He said, “When you’re home at that funeral and you’re with all those people who drink, you simply say, ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change today. God, grant me the courage to change the things I can today.