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Source: Olis S – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-10-02.m4a File: olis-s-box-of-chocolates-2025-10-02.mp3 Duration: 00:46:06
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I'm a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is so beautiful to be here because I know so many of you, and for the people that I don't know, welcome. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're new here, man, what an incredible opportunity we have to live in a way where we can be happy no matter what. Just, it's extraordinary. And I want to talk about how I got into the position of being able to choose joy.
My sobriety date's May 21st, 1987. Nobody is more stunned by that than me. Here's why it's stunning. I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous to stay. I did not come here to stay. I was 26 years old, and I got sober. I'm born and raised in New York. I'm the third of four girls, and each of us are five years apart. For the guys, ask any woman in your life. No female has babies over two decades on purpose.
Like what? Shit kids over a 20-year period. And I've come to believe that each of us was the last kid, right? And it was like, whoops, another one. And my mom was not in a position to really care for me. And when I got here, maybe until 10 years ago, maybe less, I used to tell this really tragic story about how my mother had abandoned me, how sad my life was, right? And the truth is that she couldn't care for me, right?
The truth is that I was left unprotected, and bad things happened, right? But I'm not a victim in my own story. I'm not. Have I been victimized? Absolutely. Absolutely. But that does not define who I am. And you know, I'm a little bit jumping ahead, but I want to say this particularly for anybody new, or if you've been here for a while and you still have a sad story, victims don't recover. Victims don't recover.
As long as what's wrong with me is somebody else's fault, what am I going to do about that? Nothing. Nothing. I can't. And so my job in Alcoholics Anonymous is to really come to understand what the spiritual tools are, and how to use them. Because they lead me to joy and freedom, no matter what's going on in my life. My mother couldn't care for me, as I said, and she left me with a nanny. And when she couldn't send money, I think that she had been detained by law enforcement.
The nanny dropped me off to my mother's family. And I'm in possession of, I am the owner of the letter that the nanny wrote. And the letter is dated February 21st, 1961. I was born November 30th, 1960. So I'm a few months old, and my mother hasn't sent money, and the woman says, I'm really, really sorry to drop these kids off. But it was me and my sister five years older than me. But we've called and asked the family for help, and no one's helped.
My husband says that I can't keep these two kids because he's the breadwinner. I'm going to stay at home. And so I end up in the care of my maternal family. And I counted once. By the time I was 10 years old, I had lived nine places. And you'll see that in my life today, because the people who know me, the chat's closed, so they can't put it in the chat. But man, I move. I will put my stuff in a box and move.
It's like, where's Waldo in Alcoholics Anonymous? And it comes from that early experience of moving a lot. You know, I don't know what to say about that. I've been struck sober, but not all the way sane. I still do things that don't even make sense to me. And I don't feel a way about it. You know what I mean? I'm just joyful and happy to be here. My mother comes to get me when I'm four years old. I want to get through this part quickly.
And you know, next month I'll be 65, right? So I've had lots of time to think about it. And as you'll hear us say in Alcoholics Anonymous, life is lived forward and is understood backwards, right? And so this process that you learn in Alcoholics Anonymous about self-examination, about looking back, about putting it into perspective.
[00:05:02]
You know, one of the other things that I… Most of the things I say in Alcoholics Anonymous, I say because I heard you say it, right? There are a couple of things that have like occurred to me, right? Here's one of the things that occurred to me. It doesn't matter why I'm disturbed. It only matters why I'm disturbable. See, because I'm disturbed because of something outside of me, something you did.
But I'm disturbable because of something inside of me. And my job, when a disturbance comes up in my 10-step practice, all over the place, guys, is for me to look at why that bothers me. Because under it, I can usually find there's a fear that I have. There's an unresolved resentment that I have. There's something underneath the thing that you've done. Usually I'm not bothered by what you did. It feels like I'm bothered by what you did, but I'm usually bothered by something unresolved inside of me.
And the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it teaches me these spiritual tools that allow me to unpack the things that are weighing me down. In the words of the great philosopher, Erykah Badu, bad lady, you got too much stuff. You're going to miss your bus. And all of this stuff that I'm carrying with me is in the way of me being on the joy bus, on the freedom bus. So I'm alone with my mother. She comes to get me when I'm four years old.
And looking back and understanding who I am, I am pretty sure that what I was doing at four years old was I was trying to figure out how do I position myself to fit in here? How do I get accepted? How do I find love? Why? Because that's the same thing I'm looking for. Stick around. You'll find out that's what you're looking for, too. And so my mother's popping a can of Schaefer beer like I remember it so clearly.
My sister's gone off to school. My mom and I are alone in the kitchen. And we have two apartments in this building. One she transacts business out of. She runs a house of bill repute. And in the other one we live, right, before we move to the big fancy neighborhood with the doorman building, right? And she goes into the refrigerator and she gets this can of beer, Schaefer beer. I don't know why I remember it, Schaefer beer.
And she pops that can of beer. And I ask if I can have some. And she thinks it's cute. And all I'm trying to do is to fit in. All I'm trying to do is be accepted. And the doorbell rings because there's a business next door. And she leaves me alone with the can of beer and I finish that beer. She didn't think that was quite as cute. But took my first drink at four. And I wasn't drinking at four for the effect.
I was drinking to fit in. I was drinking. The effect that I was looking for wasn't from alcohol. It was for love. For a sense of safety and belonging. At eight years old, you know, I'm the kid that was, if you're an Alcoholics Anonymous, you might want to check out the Al-Anon family group because, you know, most of us belong there too. But I'm sorry. I've skipped ahead. I was the kid that would stay home with my mom because she was always sick.
And I would stay home to try to take care of her. I mean, I'm like a little kid. I'm like opening a can of Campbell's tomato soup. You know what I mean? Like, if I could help her feel better, that when she's not sick anymore, she'll realize I'm the one that loves her. And then maybe she'll love me back. And that pursuit has brought my life to the ground. At eight years old, my job was to, when the alcohol, she was a scotch drinker, was done, was to take a water glass, like, you know, a big water glass up the stairs to the neighbors and fill the glass up with scotch and come back down.
And on the way down at about eight, maybe I was nine, might have been seven, I decide it must be magic. And I needed magic in my life. And I start sipping on scotch at eight. By 11, I'm a regular drinker. By 13, I have my first major drink in a bar. So I, I, I qualify for Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm the real deal in Alcoholics Anonymous. I once said to a guy at my home group in Jersey, because I told you I move a lot, that I was a high bottom alcoholic and he laughed at me, he was like, Alice, you started drinking at four, right?
Because we can't see ourselves.
[00:10:00]
That's why we need each other. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous at 26, I still had on my teeth. Now why that matters? I don't know. You've got something crazy in your head too. But in my mind, having all my teeth somehow disqualified me from being here. Why? I don't know. I don't even know. But in my mind, I got here, I'm 26, I'm a young black woman. And I think this cannot be my destiny. Because if you know Alcoholics Anonymous, you've been around for a while, man, the demographics of Alcoholics Anonymous is not young black women, right?
It's older white men. And so I got here and I was like, what do I want? A sense of belonging. I looked around, I was like, I don't belong here. And here's what you guys have given me. Belonging isn't about the shell. And I mean, this is more important than maybe ever, to hear in Alcoholics Anonymous. The thing that we're encased in, that the soul is encased in, is just the shell. The thing that matters, the thing that gives me a sense of belonging and attachment, the thing that makes me feel not invited, but welcomed, is not the shell.
It's the soul encased in the shell. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys have taught me how to focus on the internal parts. How to set aside the differences and focus on the similarities. That's what that means to me. To not focus on the shell, but to focus on the inside. And learning how to do that puts me into deep, intimate relationships with people that otherwise I wouldn't mix with. That's what they mean.
Otherwise I wouldn't mix with you. Because on the outside, it doesn't look like I have anything in common with you. But on the inside, right? I want to talk about the steps. So you can't stop me now. I guess you can put me out, but unless you do that, I'm going to just talk about the steps. Because the steps are how I got to joy and freedom. This practice of the steps, which are not what I thought they were when I got here.
When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I got sober in Oakland, California, and you go to the meeting and the shade is on the wall, and you look at the 12 steps. When I got here, I didn't look at the traditions. I don't know who those were for, right? And so I'm looking at the steps, and I'm looking around at the room, and these people have been here like 15 years, 20 years, and I'm thinking like, what is wrong with you?
If you did a step a year, you would have done it by why are you still here? Why are you still here? What is wrong with you? Because I thought that the steps were a to-do list. I thought the steps were a set of instructions that when I finished them, I was done. So if you're new or if you're not so new and you're not living in joy and freedom and unfettered peace, no matter what's going on, let me tell you what I understand the steps to be now.
I understand the steps to now be instructions about how to have a spiritual practice, a design for living, that when I practice it, I don't go further. I go deeper into the practice, and the deeper into the practice I go, the more I understand me, the more I understand my purpose. What's my purpose? I'm going to do a Steve Lamb on you, right? My real purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people around me.
Four lines down on page 77, right? Steve is the, I know, the page number guy, right? That's my purpose. That's my purpose. I do the FOTS 11-step meeting on Tuesday nights where we invite someone to pick one line out of the 12 and 12 or out of the big book and to speak on it for 35 minutes. It's not hard to book the people. You know, it's hard getting that sentence, getting that sentence from y'all.
We had Irene last night on Tuesday, and Irene said, and oh, this really touched me. She said, and this was me when I got here, I thought that I was going to do the steps and I was going to do prayer and I was going to do meditation and then I was going to feel good that I was going to get a reward like I'm a good kid. And she said, the purpose of prayer and meditation isn't for me to feel good, it's to fit me to be of service because being of service is what leads me to feel good, right?
Leads Me to Feel Good, right.
[00:15:00]
Here's the irony, I'm an introvert. All I wanna do is listen to some music, go to some live music, read a book, watch a movie, go to a film festival. I don't wanna be bothered with y'all. Ha, come on folks, the people that know me, what is my favorite number of sponsees? Zero, zero, zero, right? Not the assignment God gives me. So I'm obedient, y'all have taught me to be obedient. And so the steps are this way for me to get the things that block me out of the way.
What blocks me? My shoes and pocketbook collection. What I think you think of me, right? Because as Ralph says, I don't really know what you think of me, what I think you think of me. The car, the job, all of those, that they begin to take a less important role in what begins to take a more important role is my connection to the power and my connection to you. Because sometimes I can get to the power on my own, but sometimes more than I'd like, I can only get to the power through you.
I'm mad about that, I'm just salty. When I get to the gates, that's my number, what? But sometimes I can only get to the power through you. So it's a design for living. This is not a stop drinking program. And God knows if you got a drinking problem and you can't drink well, you shouldn't drink. If you got a problem with other substances, you should probably stop that because it's not ending well for you.
But that's not ultimately what I have found this to be. I found this to be a way inside because that's where God is, inside. God's inside. It's inside me, God's inside you, God's inside. And so I got here and I thought that this first step was like, you can't drink. No, that's not what it is. You can't not drink. That's what step one says, you can't not drink. And it's got three parts for me, for me, for me.
First part is I'm bodily different than my fellows. I put one in and I mean, it might go okay, it's unlikely, but it might be okay, unlikely. It's more likely to be, you know what I mean? I'm going around the curve on 101 with one eye closed and I swear to God, I'm the best driver. I should be a NASCAR in my mind, right? Because I put one in and I don't know what's gonna happen. Second part, and it's not even me, right?
It's a chemical reaction. Two, the voice in my head. You know, a lot of people love we agnostics. I like we agnostics, I really do. My favorite chapter remains more about alcoholism because it's the voice in my head that drives my life. It's the voice, it's gonna be different this time. No, it's not. I got this. No, I don't. I haven't had a drink in a long time. I could safely drink. No, I can't. My favorite, Jim.
It took me a while to figure out what I think Jim is saying. Jim is the guy who spoils the whiskey. I'm mad about Jim, but putting it in milk. Jim, Jim. Okay, so I believe that Jim is telling me that I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I think I can do some of the work and get all the benefits. I'm gonna come to meetings, I'm not gonna sponsor nobody. I'm gonna sponsor people, but I'm not gonna have a service commitment.
You know what I mean? I'm gonna work unity and I'm gonna work service, but I ain't doing recovery. I'm not doing the bottom of the triangle. Well, how are you gonna have a foundation that's solid if you are not doing that? That's the foundation, is the bottom, is recovery. And so the voice in my head will tell me I don't have to do all that work. I actually would like a ticker tape parade because I'm not drinking, right?
Isn't that? I get the gift of being pulled back from the gates of hell and then I want a prize for that. It's crazy, crazy, crazy. I don't, cause I'm lazy and selfish to the core, to the core but the third part of my first step problem is what I have come to believe. It doesn't say this in the book. You can put me out of Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor's name is Nancy Caller, but there's Colin Boyd.
I've come to believe that my spiritual malady, the third part of my first step problem is the delusion that I'm not connected to God. See that delusion that I'm not connected to God is what makes me think I have to figure it out, right? I'm an Excel spreadsheet, pivot table, to-do list. Oh my God, if I ain't got 50 things done by noon is something wrong, right? I really think that because where's God in that?
[00:20:04]
And I'm constantly coming back 38 years in, where's God in that Alice? Where's God in that? Where's God in that Alice? Where's God? That this delusion that I'm in the world on my own and I gotta figure it out. No, I don't. I just gotta be useful and serve God. Serve God through serving you, things I don't wanna do but that's my assignment. That's the price I have to pay for joy. And once I fully understood my first step issue, bodily different, mentally ill, spiritually in a malady, then I was willing.
Only then was I really willing to do the work. What is the work? Well, I gotta admit I'm not God and I do that in step two because if I come to believe that there's a power greater than me, then I'm not the greatest power, right? Because there's a power greater than me. If there's a power greater than me, then I'm not the greatest power. If I'm not the greatest power, I'm not God. I'm not God. That's what restores me to sanity.
That's what restores me to sanity. And then in three, people have heard me, sorry, say this so many times. Three is simply a decision to do the work. If I could surrender fully in three, it would be a three-step program. If I could really surrender in three, but I can't. I've come to believe that's why there's no amen at the end of the third step prayer, right? Because I'm only opening this body of work that I'm in.
What is four? It's a meditation. It's a prayer. It's a moving prayer. You know, we only talk about resentment, there really are three inventories, right? In the 11-step portion of the 12 and 12 on page 98, it says that prayer, self-examination, prayer and meditation are all lovely. And if you do them, yay for you, yay, let's do that, right? But when I intentionally weave them together, it creates an unshakable foundation for my life.
I don't know about you, but when I got here, a hangnail was a crisis, right? Open in my mail, all of it was a crisis. It took me two years to get a driver's license, car insurance and car registration at the same address. I got a college degree. Like I just couldn't manage daily life. Forget laundry, forget paying, but forget, I'd make a commitment and just, I couldn't, right? I couldn't. But what happens for me as I go through the process is I surrender my life through this process of examining myself.
I'd argue that many of the steps in all, in the 12 steps are self-examination. One requires some self-examination, two requires some self-examination, three requires, four is all about, so five is self-examination, examining myself. Here's a tragedy, and I'm so sorry for the new people to tell you this. I'm so sorry. It's sad for me too. Examining other people and taking other people's inventory does not make me better.
Oh my God, I'm so good at it. It doesn't make me healthy. It doesn't bring me joy. It doesn't make me free. Why? I'm at mastery on that. Doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so I go in the four, and in four, I'm looking at these three things. Why I'm mad, which is a spiritual trick, right? It's not invented by Alcoholics Anonymous. Who I'm mad at, and if I follow that all the way through, I'll see what I did to harm someone else.
Usually me, but you know, if I'm gonna be harmed, we're gonna be harmed together. Let me just say that. 38 years in, if you do something to me, oh, it's heaven and earth for me not to do something back. Heaven and earth. 38. I just don't even know how to keep my mouth shut. I should get them wired, but okay. This not injuring people because I feel justified, because I feel self-righteous, right? That's my pattern of behavior.
And how do I see it? I start with who I'm mad at, and then I follow it all the way through, and I see the truth, which is I've done something. Some of the best writing I think that Bill did in the language of the heart, yeah, all the essays, but in the big book, man, that writing on step three,
[00:25:06]
that writing on three, that writing on three. It's a comedy show when you've been around a long time. I can't control what I put in my own mouth, but what do I wanna control? Whole other people. And I think that I can control the people by what I do. I have somebody who no matter, they go to all the workshops. This might be some of y'all, so don't be mad at me. You go to all the big book workshops, you do all the stuff, you do everything, but then you won't do the work, right?
And then you're like, oh, I want a new experience. What experience do you want? Do the work. So I just, I'm not even reading a book with y'all no more. You know what, just do 10 and 11. Just do 10, let's just get with that. Because I think that seeing yourself will help you get free. And you see your 10 or 11 are beautiful for seeing yourself. Somebody called me and said, you know, I'm always doing a bunch of stuff for other people and people don't reciprocate and I'm the victim in the story.
I mean, they didn't say that last part, but all of that infers I'm the victim. And I was like, so that's the old story. The truth is that you're doing those things for people in order for you to get to people who do what you want and it's not working. That's why you mad. Because you do stuff and you don't get the thing you want. Stop pretending like you're doing it for them. You're doing it for you.
Oh, that's hard to see. Stick around. We get to see ourselves. The freedom comes from seeing myself. I look at my fears. I didn't think I was afraid of anything. You know what? When I got here, I made grown men cry as a sport. Just as a, just, yeah, yeah. Even being nice, I open my mouth and say stuff and I'm like, oh my God. I can't even believe you did that. Yeah. And this is all the way in doing the work is still a dangerous thing for me to open up.
And now I actually, you know, let me talk about the growth that I understand. I used to injure people and feel good about it. Then after I grew, I'd injure people and not feel good about it. Then I learned how to keep my mouth shut better and not injure people. But then I would feel bad because then I would be mad that I didn't injure them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all that injure people know what I'm talking about.
Then I got to the place where I didn't injure people and I felt good that I was able to not injure them. Right? And now I don't even want to injure anybody. I don't even want to hurt anybody else. I got, I felt excluded from something in my family. And I said some unkind things about my brother-in-law. I said, tell him his hairline's receding and his stomach is fat. Why, why, why, why? Because I did.
I was nauseous for two days because it doesn't work anymore. We outgrow the behavior. So wherever you are on that journey, if you keep working, I promise you, you'll outgrow the behavior that doesn't serve you. You know, my friend Sydney R out of LA, I met Sydney because of Ralph. Thank you, Ralph. And Sydney says step five is where somebody else helps you see the pattern of pain that you create in your own life.
What? I thought you did it. I thought you did it. I was molested. I was abandoned. I was betrayed. I was discriminated against. I was, no. I create the pattern of pain. Here's a hint. I'm not watching the clock. I need to. If you keep thinking I'm dating the same person, it's not they're the same as you. You keep thinking I keep going to the job and it's the same people. I keep having the same neighbor.
It's you. That when I act the same, that people respond to me the same. That it's my behavior that I have to change. Because I can't even, I struggle with changing that. I'm 38 years in. It was two weeks ago I told Amanda's hairline. I struggle with changing me. How can I possibly change someone else? There's no hope in that for me. And so focusing on clearing away the things that keep me from the power.
I just want to say that six and seven is for grown-ups.
[00:30:00]
You can skip them in the book because they're only a paragraph each and you can be like da-da-da. Those is grown-up steps. Them is grown-up steps. Them is for the adults here. Yeah, come on. Be grown-up. Put on your big girl panty. Come on. Come on. Seven is so hard, it closes three. I open the prayer in three and it's about me. God, I offer myself to thee. I offer me. For what? For you to build with me and do with me, me.
Take away my difficulties. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That's what three is. And then I do the work in four and five and then six. Seven is so hard. I need six to get ready for seven. It's so hard. And then in seven, it's not even about me no more. Now I'm saying to God, take away the things that stand in the way of my usefulness to you and the people around me. It's a leap. I didn't get all of that going through the steps once.
I'm talking over and over, like slow bus, short bus, the lift bus, slow, slow. But better to do it slow than not do it at all. I mentioned this little dude, just my little baby in AA, I love him. And he's gotten sober. He's got, I don't know, four years. He's gotten a job and a chick and all this stuff. You know what I mean? I talked to him the other day, baby, when you was at the meeting last. And I just kept saying, because I don't sponsor him, so I just kept saying, I pray for you, the design for living that brings you joy.
I pray for you, the design for living. I just pray that for you, right? Because my experience is, whenever y'all get on my nerve and I drift away, because y'all get on my nerves and I just drift away, drift, drift, drift away, it's not good. Because I start getting self-righteous, I start getting delusional. I mean, I'm not anyhow, but it's real bad when I'm not around y'all. Here's what I want to, I don't know where I'm at, so let me, let me try to bring this pony into the little corral.
Eight and nine are written together in the book, because eight, where I make a list of the people that are harmed, which, you know, fight me, I don't think comes all out of four. Let me just say that. I don't think it all comes out of four. Why? Because there's some people who I didn't resent, that I'm not afraid of, that I didn't have any sexual misconduct with, that are on the list. There's some people.
I tripped them when they went by, I just, there's some people. And then nine, I thought was for other people. I thought nine was for the other people. That I'm coming to you and I'm amending something with you to make you whole. That's not how I understand it today. Here's what I understand today. That's my understanding. I'm just another bozo on the bus. Today I understand that there's a power in the universe, that the sun that we rely on for life is simply a star.
And that there are billions of stars. So any delusion that we have that we're it, we're the only creative intelligence and the delusional, delusional, that's what I think. And that that power that created the universe, that there's a little speck of that power inside of me. It keeps me tethered to the power. And I think there's a little speck of that power in all of you. And in that way, there's no other.
In that way, there's one consciousness that I'm struggling to connect fully to. And that my job is to through letting go, getting rid of, amending the mistakes I've made, tears in the universe. See because if there's a speck in you and there's a speck in me and we're all connected. When I injured you, I injured me. When I injured you, I injured me. I didn't feel it. But when I injured you, I injured me.
That when I go and amend the tear, the injury that I've done you, the insult that I've done
[00:35:04]
you, right? Oh, it's hard. I had to call and apologize to the man about talking about his hairline, I sure did, right? When I'm mending that tear in the universe, that injury that I've done someone, and this is for anybody that's new. If you owe financial amends, what does that mean? You got somebody money. You got somebody money. It's not your money. It's their money. Give the people their money back.
And you know what my people do? We pay interest. Don't mess with me. You take my number if you want. Don't mess with me. We pay interest. You done had the people money for 20 years. You gonna give them something. Yeah. That what I'm doing is the harm I've done other people is part of the wreckage, the blockage that keeps me out of the sunlight. Here's an easy way to say it. If you go into the supermarket and you see somebody in produce and you feel like you need to hot foot it over to the frozen section, yeah, you owe an amends, right?
If you see them and they make you feel the way you own it, clean it up and the clean up is not even for the other person is so that I can stand fully in the sunlight. I can be in the sunlight. This is where my selfishness comes in usefully because I'm motivated to do the work for that reason so that I can be in the sunlight. There's some debate about this in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know where I'm in the debate.
I don't even care. Some people believe that every couple of years just do the steps all over again. Just start and begin and go all the way through. Some people believe you did them just day done due to live in 10, 11 and 12. I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. Right? What I will say about 10, 11 and 12 is that 10, 11 and 12 keep me growing along spiritual lines because 10 is how I'm walking out in the world.
When you get on my nerves, not if, when I'm, one of the things I don't have, Oh, I want to say this. Somebody was talking about how they have envy. They're jealous of their friends. And I was like, I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. And this morning I was thinking, I don't have enough self esteem to have envy because I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that.
I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. I'm not jealous of nobody else. I'd be so happy for you when you get something. Maybe I could get it too, right? But some of us have envy. We have resentment. My thing is self-righteousness. Oh, I love that. Oh, if only it worked, if only it worked. People know this. You know, the little, you know, the little, the old people notice, you know, the little horse outside the supermarket you would beg your brother for a quarter for, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm on.
But I think I'm on a high horse. I think I'm on some horse looking at, I'm on the little kitty horse. Yes. It's not even going nowhere. Right. That's, that's my thing. Some of us are pity. That's not really my, right. But, but when these things come up, I need to see them because what are they? For me, they're invitations. They're invitations to look at myself, to figure out what's blocking me from God.
What's blocking me from you? They're invitations to grow. And so when I'm out in the world doing 10, right, the five thing watching because I bear watching apparently my mouth bear watching, but I bear watching. You know, it was hilarious. I'm going to just say this because we recorded, I want to be a little flower. I do. I just want to be a little flower, a little day tea flower. And what am I? I thought a little flower, but I want to be a little flower.
I aspire to be a little flower. Okay. So when I'm out in the world, I'm watching. Yeah. Y'all all think that's funny. And when something comes up, when it comes up, I have to immediately train myself to turn to God because on my own, I can't do better on my own. I can't. Then I got to tell somebody why I got to tell somebody why people got to be in my business. Because if I don't tell anybody and it happened in the morning, by the time nighttime came, it wasn't that bad.
They probably didn't even hear me. I said it. No, I got to tell somebody because I'm a liar. I'll lie to me. And then I have to make amends. And if I only did that, I said things right, but I want to grow. So what do I do? I turn my attention to somebody I can help. I sure hope she's not here. She don't hear this. But there's a lady that calls me that thinks the Illuminati has installed something in
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her body. She calls me. I answer for her too. I engage her in conversation about it because how do I know? She's like, I'm picking it in the church girl. Do you have a pick a side? What do you say? Do you have some shades? You know, you need some sunscreen hydrate. It's not my job to judge nothing from nobody. Because sometimes I say stuff that doesn't sound right and y'all entertain me with it. Thank you.
And so I turn my attention to somebody like that. Let me call and check on her. Let me answer for somebody. Let me leave early for the meeting and stop and get good cookies because y'all know y'all be bringing them Dollar Tree cookies, right? Like, what can I do to be helpful? What can I do to be helpful? And then 11 is this, if I'm paying attention during the day in 10, I got some stuff to write down in 11.
Oh, I got some stuff to write down. Here's the one that gets me. There's, this is a two to get me. There's two to get me. All of them get me. But here's the two to really get me. Was I dishonest? Yes, I'm lying to myself all the time. All the time. All the time. I was intermittent fasted and lost a bunch of weight and then I went on vacation with my family. That was in July. It is October. Alice. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. We still walking back and forth to the refrigerator. We'd like the stuff in there, but you can't, you can't lose weight, eat more calories than you burn. It's just, it's a lie. You can't. I lie to myself in all kinds of ways. I lie to myself in all kinds of ways. So that one gets me. Here's the other one that gets me the, the, I mean, I want to pretend I'm not afraid of anything. That one's not true.
But here's the one that gets me. He says, was I kind and loving towards all in word and indeed in thought and in feeling was I kind and loving? No, I was not. Then people, the way they was driving, the people on the line in front of me, the P no, I was not. Was I? And my goal is, cause I'm not there to be kind and loving to all, to be kind and loving in my spirit to all people. I hope that I've carried the message in, in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I hope that this was useful to somebody. I had a good time. I want to say that if you're here and you haven't had a drink today, you can help somebody that maybe is still thinking about, should they be here? If you've been here five months, the person would one day thinks that's incredible. The person that just got here thinks I'm lying. When I say I have 38 years, they don't believe me because that's crazy.
38 years, that's crazy talk. All of us are enriched by the self-sacrifice that we do to serve other people. All of us. And if you're in one of these Hollywood squares, I promise there's something that you have that you can give to somebody else and they need it. All right, Ramona, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm out. Thank you, Alice. That was great. And I scribbled so many notes, I'm going to have to call you and ask you what I wrote down.
Thank you for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get. You'll have to keep coming back and we surely hope to see you here next week. Our special guest is Chris S. from Blairstown, New Jersey. And that's Alice's. You see her going like, yeah, that's from my neck of the woods. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always says, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about this special meeting.
Everyone is invited to hang out on the porch afterwards and talk to Alice if you have the energy. Now I have energy. I didn't. I told y'all she was going to pour in some energy into us. Alice, do you have any closing comments and will you please close us out with a prayer of your choice? No, I've said everything that I need to say. I want to close us out with the Not Prayer, K-N-O-T. It's a prayer that I heard at a meeting in Jersey.
You can look it up. It's online. It's free. It's free. it'll touch somebody. After a moment of silence for people inside and outside the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous
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who still suffer, a special moment of consideration for children that are caught in our crossfire acknowledging that sometimes we have been those children. Dear God, please untie the knots that are in my mind, my heart, and my life. Remove the have-nots, the can-nots, and the do-nots. Erase the will-nots, the may-nots, and the might-nots that find a home in my heart. Release me from the could-nots, the would-nots, and the should-nots that obstruct my life.
And most of all, dear God, I ask that you remove from my mind, my heart, and my life all of the am-nots that I've allowed to hold me back, especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right, everybody. Now, I'm going to hold my ears. Y'all unmute. Go. Once again, Ms. Alice, you rock. Thank you, Alice. Thank you, Alice. Thank you so much, Alice. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Alice.
Love you. Love you. Love you.