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Source: Vera F – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-05-29.m4a File: vera-f-box-of-chocolates-2025-05-29.mp3 Duration: 00:43:22
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Thanks, Ramona. My name is Vera, and I am an alcoholic. I'm going to look around. Who were you talking about? You talking about me? Wow. Thank you for that, for those kind words. You know, that this, what you said is a result of the love and the, of the unconditional love and the energy and the time and everything that has been poured into me since I arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous. I do have to clarify that I do not work at the General Service Office, that I, my, my service position that I just rotated out of, what, three weeks ago, I think, conference was over three weeks ago, that I had for four years, a volunteer position just like a GSR or DCM or a delegate or a coffee maker. It's just that the further down the triangle you go in your volunteer position, the more people you are accountable to. And as my, one of my AA friends like to say that, that point feels like it's right here in your forehead with the weight of responsibility and the gratitude, the gratitude of being a trusted servant, the gratitude of servant leadership, the gratitude of, of being able to be one of many and to be on this journey is extraordinary. I, I pinch myself because I just cannot believe that this is my life sometimes. It's my life and it wasn't like that when I got here. I don't know if there's any newcomers in the room, but I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to welcome anybody coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous and I want to ask you to please stay. I sometimes get, you know, one of my pet peeves is about this, keep coming back, keep coming back. I like to say, stay, stay, stay, just stay.
Don't go. Don't leave us. We need you. I need you more than you may need me. But I certainly need you. And I would just say that in Alcoholics Anonymous, you are needed, valued and wanted here. That has been my experience, which was much different than when I got here. I wasn't, I wasn't valued or needed in a whole lot of places. And some of that for good reason and some of that not. I also want to welcome, I see people from all over the country and all over the world here. We have someone from Japan. Just celebrated your 50th anniversary in Japan. I know you had a big party over there and I see someone from Alabama and I don't know, I'm just full of deep gratitude today. I spent some time with my mom today and that is a direct result of being sober, having some guiding principles that I cannot practice in my life. We practice these principles in all our affairs. Some of those principles I will just name because sometimes I need that concrete, like what the heck are we talking about here? I'm talking about patience.
I'm talking about responsibility. I'm talking about compassion. I'm talking about forgiveness. I'm talking about healing. Oh, and I'm talking about being present for a person who I didn't know I could do this for. And because I'm sober today and I have worked some steps and done a bunch of stuff and continue to do a bunch of stuff and continue to do stuff, continue to stay active, I showed up today.
I showed up today. And I wasn't looking for the pat on the back and I wasn't looking for you're a good daughter. I love you, which I didn't get any of, but I wasn't looking for it. I wasn't looking for it and I still showed up. And I showed up in a way that I have to say wasn't me when I got here. And sometimes that wasn't even me last week. I have to go back that far. Even last week, some days I just, that wasn't me. But today I showed up.
My sobriety day is September 19th, 1989. And my home group is the Sober on Saturday group in Lee, Massachusetts. We meet at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. And if you're ever in the Berkshires, Western Massachusetts, please come and see us. We'd love to have you.
[00:05:01]
What it was like, what happened and what it's like now. Well, what it was like is I started drinking very early. I was 14 years old. And when I started drinking alcohol, it changed my entire life, which was kind of what I wanted, but not in the way that I wanted. I started drinking because I like how alcohol made me feel flat out. It wasn't about the taste. It was about how it made me feel. And I drank for that sense of ease and comfort. Some of you who may have heard me share my story before you know that I talk about that. I just love that phrase. There's something still today kind of comforting about that phrase. I drank for the sense of ease and comfort that came from taking that first drink. I'm happy to say today that sense of ease and comfort that I sought for so long, I get that today, but not through drinking.
I got that on the way home today. As I look back over the day, I spent with my mom and I had a sense of ease and comfort. And I didn't get that by drinking. I got that by showing up as the way I described earlier. But when I took that first drink, that's what I was seeking. Drinking to change the way that I felt, change my environment, to change everything, change my family, change the skin I was in, change the world. I drank when I didn't feel good so I could feel good or feel better. And then I drank when I felt good so I could feel better. It really just didn't matter.
When I took that, once I started drinking, I managed that. When I first got drunk, when I first drank, it was pink champagne or something for Christmas time. A family tradition was to have a glass of champagne and the kids got some. And I didn't like the taste at all, but I drank it. But at 14, I drank with intention. I drank to get somewhere. And what happened was I chased that and so I chased it into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was so focused on getting there, I was so focused on what alcohol did for me, I ignored what it did to me.
And what alcohol did for me was it gave me that sense of ease and comfort, helped change the way I felt, helped me to fit in, helped me to loosen up, helped me to, you know, just be in my skin, be okay in my skin. Then the fifth step, it talks about that anxious apartness. It helped me with that anxious apartness. And what it did to me was I lost a finger, lost jobs, went to jail, relationships, you know, the bedevilments, prayed to depression, can't have relationships, can't keep jobs and whatever else it says in there, all of that. That's what it did to me.
But I enjoyed that feeling of that sense of ease and comfort so much that I would ignore all that other stuff. At some point, when I did understand that my drinking was harmful, that stuff was happening, I began, I ignored that too. Because when I would come home and I would see my mother, that look in my mother's eyes, and she would ask me, what's wrong with you? Why, why can't you act right? Questions I had no answers for. But I would see the pain in her eyes.
And I had no answer for it. And I can't deal with that. So I would drink. I can't deal with the guilt, shame and remorse of hurting my mother and causing harm to my family and not showing up and on and on and on. And so, you know, the doctor's opinion talks about the alcoholic life seems like it's the only normal one. That was, that's my story. I did that for so long. It felt like, you know, that was completely normal. Being drunk became more important to me than anything else. More important to me than my relationships, more important than my job, more important than my body, more important than you. I mean, on and on and on. Just keep, just fill in the blanks, just more important. And over time, I crossed that line from social drinking of where I could, you know, have a few drinks and, you know, keep my job, keep my clothes, keep some friends to obsessive compulsive drink, that need to drink, that gotta have it, that monster in my gut and in my mind, that obsession, thinking about even when I had a half pint in my back pocket, making sure I don't run out, making sure I can get more, setting up scenarios in my mind, how to, you know, how to keep it on and on and on and on. I didn't know that that was a obsession. You know, I didn't have the verbiage for that until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.
You guys taught me about the obsession of the mind, the compulsion, denial, all that stuff,
[00:10:05]
allergy. I didn't know anything about that until I came here. What I knew is that no matter how badly I wanted to stop, I couldn't stop. And I thought about it all the time. I always thought it was the 10th drink or the, you know, the 8th drink or put a number on it was never the first one. It was never the first one. I never understood that. And you guys came, you know, talking about if you don't take the first drink, you won't get drunk. What are you talking about? It makes no sense to me. What kind of math are you talking? I don't understand that math. The first one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. First one, I'm just getting started.
Yes, that was true. More true than I ever knew. I had lost the power of choice. I had no choice. I had a mind. I wouldn't stop thinking about it. I was preoccupied. My body would be there at the kitchen table with the family, but my mind was like, how do I get out of here? When are they going to be done? Can they please shut up? When can I leave? What's the appropriate time to leave? And then I would justify it, rationalize it. The broken promises, the lies, all of that.
I had little control over the amount that I drank and what happened to me after I drank. That's what my alcoholism looked like. And then I would just continue to keep doing it. So I chased that into the rooms of AA. So that's what it was like, right? I do things that I don't want to do, and I can't do the things that I want to do. I can't show up for what I want to show up. And then there's stuff that I'm just not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, because I am preoccupied with drinking. Obsession of the mind, compulsion of the body, allergy. My non-alcoholic friends, they can have a drink. They might finish it. They may not.
They're able to stop. I can't. Little control over what I drink, what happens after I drink, and I can't stop thinking about it. So that's my alcoholism. That's what it was like. And there's all the stuff with that, the car wrecks and the jail and the broken relationships and all this and that. All that is part of it. But the essence of it is I couldn't stop drinking. I couldn't control it. I tried. I didn't know I had a problem. It was always you. It was always them. If I could just fix this, if I could just change that, if you could just shut up, if you would just leave, I'd be okay.
Well, guess what? People left, and I still wasn't okay. Check that out. People left, and I still wasn't okay. I was left with me. So I basically ran out of answers. 1986, I had a car accident. I lost a finger. I lost a couple other things. I would love to say that that's when I stopped drinking, but that's not when I stopped drinking. I just drank more and just did more stuff. But three years later, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and what happened was I basically ran out of answers. I was what you described as sick and tired of being sick and tired. Again, I didn't have that language. I just came in here to get a rest, to get a break, to figure out my next best move, which wasn't going to be stop drinking, by the way. I was just going to rest, take a break, so I could figure out what to do next. I had no idea, but I was led to you through a recovery home. I spent five months there. I got out the same day Nelson Mandela was released from prison, February the 11th, 1990. That's a big deal for me. That's a big day for me.
I like to say that the similarities, he got released from his prison, and I got released from mine. He got to start his new life, and I got to start mine. I started on this journey with you, and you guys were talking about a whole bunch of stuff that was foreign to me, and you were doing things that didn't make any sense to me, and felt like emotional vampires. You wanted to come and hug me, and I didn't want no parts of that. You were drinking black coffee, and eating these stale cookies, and oh my God, going to bingo at the Atlanta Club on a Friday night.
How boring. God, can you get a life? Is this it? Is this what my life is going to be reduced to? Bingo on Friday night at the Atlanta Club? That took some getting used to. But what I heard was people talking in the meetings about What I heard was people talking in the meetings about this process, talking about their life,
[00:15:02]
talking about not drinking a day at a time, saying things like bring your body and your mind will follow, talking about first things first, just do what's in front of you and do the right thing, talking about easy does it, don't take on too much too fast, just stay in the day, just don't drink today, call someone today, go to a meeting today, get a sponsor. I heard that stuff over and over, I heard this one guy in Atlanta club was old timer and he would say if you don't do the fourth step you're going to get drunk, you don't do the fourth step you're going to get drunk, I mean I heard that so often I thought I started to believe it, I better start, I better do the fourth step, I don't want to get drunk.
So I did my first three steps within 30 days of being sober, I did my fourth and fifth step within three months of being sober, I didn't know that there was another way, I'm really grateful for that, I didn't procrastinate on that not because you know any great virtual mind, it was just like I was led and we did this thing and I said okay I had nothing better to do and nothing else to do and little by little bit by bit something began to happen. I began to believe in the possibility that maybe just maybe I could stay sober too.
I began to see the impact that my drinking had on my behavior. I began to understand that I had this relationship with this thing, check that out, I had a relationship with alcohol, a relationship with alcohol that was more important than any relationship in my life. That was kind of painful to look at and to admit, there's that honesty, right? So I'm working some steps, I got a sponsor, I'm going to meetings, I'm in this place on this hill, I got sober in San Jose, California, I'm 15 miles outside of town, 16 whatever miles, you know, I got no car, I got no money, this little white van is going to meetings, nobody's coming to visit me or pick me up, so I'm getting in the van, I'm going to the meeting.
I get a sponsor, we go to her house, we start working steps and something is happening along the way. I'm not drinking and as the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, I began to experience some kind of relief from my never-ending thoughts of drinking. Something was happening to me and it wasn't because of me, it was because I was doing it, it was because I was doing this stuff that you were doing, I was kind of following along and as I began to realize, wait a minute, I didn't think about drinking today, I became more open-minded, I began to see the evidence of this process working in my life and it gave me strength to continue on, it gave me proof that maybe I could stay sober a day at a time and I would hear you share these stories, you know, and the stories that I was really drawn to, it wasn't the stories of people, you know, getting a car and getting a job and getting a girl and getting a house and getting stuff, it was a story of people like, you know, dude talked about he owed IRS some ridiculous amount of money, I'm talking, you know, 50, 60, I don't know, thousands of dollars and he's paying it back ten dollars a month. Who does that kind of crap? What? What's the point? Ten dollars a month?
And then I go to court one day and I show up and I'm ready to pay this fine and the judge tells me to keep my money, just keep doing what I'm doing, he lets me go. What? Oh my God, more proof that something is working here. AA gave me the answer to two questions that I had when I got here. The first question was, why can't I drink like I used to without getting drunk? I didn't understand that. That's where all that obsession, compulsion, the allergy stuff came in and why can't I quit now when I want to quit? Again, the doctor's opinion and Bill's story, as I went through that book with my sponsor, line by line, I began to understand what was going on with me. I understood, began to understand that my allergy wasn't that I broke out in a rash, my allergy was that I broke out in another drink.
I was compelled to take the next drink. That's the physical reaction that I had. So we're going through the steps and I begin to realize and accept my relationship with alcohol and something's happening with me and I'm beginning to, you know, I'm beginning to smile.
[00:20:03]
I'm beginning to smile because when I came in here, I was not smiling and took a while for this face to thaw out. My eyebrows were permanently knitted into my forehead and I was mad mugging you and my arms were crossed and don't with me, leave me alone. I'm a loner. I came in here presenting as needless and wantless. I don't need you. I'm an only child. I got this. All that stuff, all that stuff that in the third step we talked about letting go of old ideas, I had to let go of some of those old ideas.
The old idea of self-sufficient and self-reliant, I had to let that go. Self-sufficient and self-reliant got me in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with my tail between my legs with nothing else, nothing, nowhere to go and nothing else to do and no way out and no answers. I had to let go of that old idea of, you know, that tit for tat, like if I, like if you do something, if I do something for you, you do something for me, we owe each other, right? This altruistic stuff that we do in AA was not my life when I got here.
Nobody, including myself, did anything for nothing. Are you kidding me? There's a price tag on everything and some days the price is double. But I come in here and people are giving me rides and, you know, they want to take me out to lunch and I don't have any money and they're like, don't worry about it. You just pass it on. We know that when you get some money, you do the same thing for somebody else. What? How do you know that? Who said that? I never said that.
You said that you did that. You modeled that for me. So I'm doing these steps, you know, and I'm getting this information about myself. And there's a guy that I like to listen to and he talks about he says, let me see if I can remember. He says that, you know, it was he says that the steps gave him a bunch of information and it was the application of the information that produced a transformation. Oh, man, I love that.
I love that. It was an application of the information from the steps that produced a transformation in his life. That's me. That's what happened to me. That is what's happening to me still. It's not done. The woman who showed up at my mother's house and not showed up there on a consistent basis before. So I'm part of this transformation. My sponsor said that, you know, when we went through the book, she told me that that book was not a she said, the big book is not a picture book. It's a mirror. Like what? Yeah, it's not a picture book. It's a mirror. I have to tell you, my first couple of paragraphs when I was reading that book, I was pointing out everybody else in that book. OK, that's her. That's my stepfather. You know, I'm pointing out that I'm pointing fingers. And then I got to the place where I began to see myself. My sponsor said that the program is synonymous within the steps and that that book is that big book is full of instructions for me to learn how to stay sober and how to live life one day at a time. Actionable items, she calls it, she said, there's a lot of actionable items in there, Vera, stuff for you to do. OK. So this sponsorship and through writing, I became aware of some of my patterns that were rooted in fear. I came in here with so much fear. It was disguised as anger. And I was afraid. I didn't want you to hug me because I was afraid. I felt prickly. I felt like I was like I had no skin, just raw and naked. And I just didn't want you to touch me. I didn't want you to see me. But I was the contrary. Part of that is I was dying for love. I was dying inside.
So I don't want you to touch me. I got this mask, this armor, but I'm dying inside. Dying inside. I want to be loved. I want to be needed. I want to be told it's going to be OK. And I use self-pity and anger as tools to manipulate. I remember a discussion I had with my sponsor one time around anger and resentment. And we were working on a particular resentment with my mom and a few other family members. And,
[00:25:05]
you know, she told me, she says, you know, Vera, you've been telling this story so long, the more you tell this story, their part gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And your part gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And you've gotten to the point where you don't even have a part in that story anymore. I'm like, what? You mean I got a part in this? No, I don't. It's them. And what I found out through that process is that, you know, if I'm the implication is when I'm blaming you and it's their fault, then I'm putting the responsibility on them to take care of it for them to fix it. And it wasn't always their responsibility.
For example, I would give someone my self-esteem because I have none, but I'm dependent. You know, we called it other esteem. My self-esteem is based on what other people think about me. It's so important what other people think about me. My self-esteem is other esteem, what you think about me. So I'm giving you my self-esteem and expecting you to take care of it. And when you don't take care of it appropriately, then I get pissed off and then I start acting out because you're not taking care of it properly.
And I did the same thing with my ambition and I did the same thing with my security. And folks weren't taking care of my, I'm trying not to swear, folks weren't taking care of my stuff appropriately. And then I get mad and act out. And what I found out through this process of steps and sponsorship and writing is that that wasn't their responsibility to begin with. I'm giving folks responsibility for stuff they ain't theirs to be responsible for. It's my responsibility.
Some of that came out in tradition seven, self-support, self-support, right? I'm responsible for my wellbeing. I'm responsible for my mental health. I'm responsible for my happiness. Not you, not them, not my mother. So when I was with my mom today, and I'm hanging out, we're doing stuff and I'm doing this stuff. My mom will be 94. So there's a lot of stuff that she can't do. So I'm like doing laundry and just stuff, helping her maintain her house because she's living in her house.
And I'm not looking for the pats on the back. I'm not looking for her to take care of my self-esteem. That's the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and the steps and sponsorship and meetings and not drinking in this process that I'm involved in. That's a testament to that. That's not because of me. That's because I have a power, I have a relationship with a power greater than myself that I check in with on a daily basis before I even leave my bedroom.
And sometimes it's just as, you know, the conversation is very short. Coach put me in, lead me where you need me, you know, short. Because I have the attention span of a gnat sometimes. And I just can't be getting into the long, you know, 20 prayers of our fathers and, you know, counting all the beads and nothing against that. And I got nothing against that at all. This time off for me that I need to do something that's that's designed for me. I get to do that. Like, let me tell you something. My God box is a shredder. That's my God box.
My God box is a shredder. See, well, my sponsor took me through this process and she told me that you can design a power greater than yourself. You get to figure it out. Whatever you want to do, you get to do that. I get to do, I get to, I get to create a God box, a shredder. I can put my stuff in there and I'm very tactile, very physical. I can write some stuff on there. You know, I write, you know, whatever I'm writing on there. I might, I might draw a picture of the person. I might, you know, and I put it in there and I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go.
We're not hanging on to it. You know, it takes a lot of work to stay here. Y'all know that. It takes a lot of work to stay here. And that's why some people don't because it takes, it takes some stuff to stay here. I'm a firm believer in sponsorship. Oh my God, sponsorship. It's like putting Miracle-Gro on your program. I have a sponsor. I've had a sponsor most of my sobriety. I do sponsor people and I have conversations with my sponsor, you know, conversations with my sponsor, you know, and we talk about, you know, we talk about a lot of stuff and, you know, my sponsor is the one that can objectively point out my blind
[00:30:06]
spots. She helps me see my blind spots. So I was having a conversation with her the other day about, you know, some people call it whining. I was having a conversation with her about, you know, there's words. We talk about words, words, work, the word work. I'm like, we always talk about work, putting work in, doing work, work, work, work. What does that mean? I'm going to look this up. So I looked it up and it said, can sustain consistent effort? Or was it consistent, sustained effort? Something like that. Sustain consistent effort or either consistent, sustained effort. And I really like that. That kind of that kind of puts another perspective on it for me. Consistent, sustained effort. You know, the consistent sustained effort that I have that I have put in since I got sober has led to this. This is from the Forward in the 12 and 12. AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole. Yeah. That's my experience.
Those spiritual principles, putting them into action, you guys called it. You told me it was practicing these principles in all my affairs. You said principle principles before personalities. I used to think you were talking about your personality. Oh, principally for your personality. I was 15 years sober before I realized, oh, you're talking about my personality, my personality. My personality. How about I use some principles before my personality? I feel like that's what I did today. You know, I'm going to keep going back to my mom because this is fresh in my mind.
I've been kind of marinating that on the way home. Like, you know, I was really I. It's a miracle. It's just a miracle. This is a woman who when my first five years sober, I couldn't send her any birthday cards or Christmas cards or any of that stuff because those cards talked about, oh, you were always there and the best thing in my life. It was all that Hallmark crap. And that's not the kind of relationship we had. And I couldn't do it.
Because Josh said to that own self, be true. I mean, I just love to throw that stuff back at my spine. You said to that, oh, so be true. That ain't being true to myself. I cannot send that kind of card. That's not the kind of relationship I don't have that kind of look. I'm not feeling it. So she said, OK, I understand, you know, because I talk with my sponsor on a consistent basis and we have conversations on a regular basis, she knows me. She knows me. So I tell her things.
And every now and then she brings these things back up. Right. So I told her about my mom and my mom. We went to church and all this stuff. And she said, your mom has to go to church and she has this thing. I said, yeah. She said, do you believe that your mom has a higher power takes care of her? I said, yeah. She said, OK, can you get those religious cards for her to say God loves you and God's going to take care of her? And can you get those kind of cards for her?
I said, yes, I can do that. And that's where I had to begin with that relationship with my mom. I had to get those kinds of cards for her. Because I wasn't there. Now, today, I can get different kind of cards. They're still not the cards that say you are the best thing since sliced bread and we had the best. No, but there's a I found a middle ground. I found a middle ground. And it's all because of Alcoholics Anonymous. Staying sober, being part of a home group, doing service in Alcoholics Anonymous, practicing being selfless, service has been the antidote to my selfless, self-centered, self-seeking behavior.
And service below the group level has given me many opportunities to practice trust, trusting the process, being present, meeting the needs of the group, meeting the needs of newcomers, meeting the needs of anybody else but Vera, meeting the needs of somebody else. That's a sharp contrast to the selfishness and self-centeredness
[00:35:02]
that's at the core of my alcoholism of what I came here with. I've learned how to practice direct communication without manipulating, without dropping hints, without being passive aggressive and kind of come out the conversation sideways. I've learned all this from you in home group business meeting, potluck committee meeting, correction committee. I mean, you name it, because in Alcoholics Anonymous, we do our best work together. We do our work through committees, you know, the we thing, the we thing of the program.
And because I've been a part of that since I got here, I call them transferable skills. Transferable skills. I can take these skills. I have taken these skills in my life and practice them and apply them in my life. I apply them at work. I apply them at home. I apply them in the grocery store. I apply them with my wife. I apply them with the dog. It's easier with the dog. Not so much with mom. But I'm getting better. I'm getting better.
The time and investment that I've had here in Alcoholics Anonymous has been nothing short of miraculous. I'm a big proponent of home group. If you haven't noticed, I believe in and I believe in. Is that what I want to say? I want to say the home, my participation in a home group, my participation in service, my participation with a sponsor, with sponsors, you know, doing doing the deal, getting in the car, going to stuff, going to conferences, going to conventions, going to other meetings in other areas has expanded my worldview and has taken me out of self. I see the world through a different lens now.
I think I want to end with a paragraph from one of my favorite stories in the big book. It's called He Lived Only to Drink. I don't know how much time I have, but I'm going to read this paragraph in this. I don't know if I have this. Oh, the fourth edition. I got sober on the third edition. So sometimes I get confused with what page stuff is on between the fourth. And, you know, we're going to have the fifth edition coming out. That's going to really screw me up, but that's OK. Change is good. I can deal with it. No thing.
So if you have a fourth edition, page 451, he lived only to drink the last paragraph. I really love this because it kind of just sums up. Summarizes the gifts and, you know, the benefit. I had a problem with the word grateful, just like I had the problem with the word work. I have a problem with words. Sometimes I go on these tangents. Grateful. I got tired of hearing that word and being grateful, grateful, grateful. So I looked it up. When I look at words, it changes my perception of what I think I know about the words, being appreciative of the benefits thereof. I appreciate the benefits of being sober. The rewards of sobriety are bountiful and as progressive as the disease they counteract.
I read that one again because that's a big one. The rewards of sobriety are bountiful and as progressive as the disease they counteract. Certainly among these rewards for me are release from the prison of uniqueness and the realization that participation in the AA way of life is a blessing and a privilege beyond estimate. A blessing to live a life free from the pain and degradation of drinking and filled with the joy of useful sober living and a privilege to grow in sobriety one day at a time and bring the message of hope as it was brought to me. I think that's a beautiful paragraph.
Someone brought the message of hope and recovery from the disease of alcoholism using the tools and teaching and practices of the 12 steps and a whole bunch of other stuff. Someone brought that to me and today I get to bring that to other people and I get to live that today. That's the kicker. I get to live that today. Pain. I had a conversation about pain. Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. I don't
[00:40:03]
have to suffer with that pain today. I can do some stuff with that. I'm so grateful to be sober today. I'm on fire for my sober life. I'm on fire for Alcoholics Anonymous and just thank you for letting me be of service. Thank you. I couldn't find my unmute button. I just wanted Vera to keep going. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get.
You'll have to just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you next Thursday. Same time, same station, same numbers, everything and that dog will decide that that is not anything to bark at pretty soon. Our special guest next week is our very own Area One Chair of our Assembly, Les P. So we're really excited about that. I am. I've never heard his story. I got to hang out with him at the Appalachian Roundup and he's pretty cool. I think he's going to really have something to surprise us. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always says to pass it on.
You can help write from your phone or computer and tell your friends all about this meeting. Everyone's invited to hang out with us on the back porch after the meeting. We have a front porch before and a back porch after. That's how we do it in the South, Vera. And so, Vera, do you have any closing comments and would you please take us out with a prayer of your choice? My closing comment is thank you. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you for being here to help. I needed a place to land after an interesting day. And so I'm just really glad to be here. A closing prayer. Would it be okay to close with the responsibility statement? Yes, it would. We like that one. Right, right. We would do. I would love a moment of silence for the alcoholic who's suffering, maybe even suffering here tonight with us. Somebody we know, may know, and for those that we don't know and yet to come.
Who's responsible? I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible. Oh, okay, everybody. Thank you, Vera. Thank you. Beautiful. Good night.