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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – 1955 St. Louis Al-Anon Family-Grps Application 12 Steps co-founder Ann B.,CHR Helen.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-1955-st-louis-al-anon-family-grps-application-12-steps-co-founder-ann-bchr-helen.mp3 Duration: 01:34:59
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Good morning everyone, I'm Dot Langdon, a wife of an alcoholic, good morning Art, can you hear? Well I'm going to sit down to talk, but I wanted to stand up to open the meeting, how can you hear? Well my name is Dot Langdon and I'm the wife of an alcoholic, this morning our meeting is on the twelve steps, first I think it would be nice if we had a moment of silence followed by the AA serenity prayer.
May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can, for those things I can. Now I'll sit down, I'm glad to see these microphones here because two of my most severe critics are in the audience, I'm Margaret Doherty and my husband, and they've always told me to look at the audience and to talk loud, so I don't have to worry too much this morning about that. Yesterday afternoon I was talking to Father Ford, I happened to meet him in the hall, and he was giving a serenity speech at a leader panel at the National Committee on Alcoholism this spring, and he really made quite an impression on me, and I thought if I could just do as well as that I'd be alright.
So I went over and introduced myself to him and I told him how I felt, and we talked a few minutes, and he said, well you're not nervous, and I said, oh no, I'm not nervous, I said, I'm an old ham from way back, I've always liked to speak, never bothered me, and he said, well that's fine, and slice that ham thick tomorrow morning. Since this is a 12-step meeting, I'm not going to say much about myself as far as my story is concerned, because it's a run-of-the-mill story that isn't too interesting anyhow.
However, I was quite naive about this situation, and I often thought sympathy was funny when probably other people would have thought it was horrible, but I don't think I had enough sense to think it was a terrible time. And I did, I never did lose my sense of humor, and I really feel that that was a great help to me. However, I did break things a few times, some dishes once. And as you know, in family groups, we suggest that we don't tell an alcoholic story, and it's a must with me.
But I must tell you that Tennessee was drunk when I burned him with a cigarette to try to bring him to get down to dinner in a big dining room in a hotel down at the beach. Why I wanted him to go to dinner and the condition he was in, I will never know. Three days later, he said to me, God, this is funny, I have a burn on my arm, and I don't know how I did it. So I had confessed. So I think I did have this honesty program even before I came to family groups.
I did, we never had an argument unless I started it, because Tennessee has and always had a very good disposition. The main thing I felt was that I bored Tennessee, I really did. And when I look back now, it was a silly thing to think, because I don't think he would have married me if I had bored him, because we knew each other several years before we got married. But I did think I bored him, so I would say, do I bore you?
Because he wouldn't talk, he'd sit in a chair, and I'd say, do I bore you? And he'd say no, and that would be the end of that conversation. Then if I didn't take that attack, I would say, well, I never saw anything like this in my family. So then he would start to defend his family, and we would be sitting defending our family.
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And he liked my family, and I liked his.
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But we would argue more over our families than over the drinking. So then we came to AA, and I thought it was wonderful, and naturally I still do. And I gave the talk that's a great deal of web service. I said, take the first step away, and it's a way of life for anyone. And I said it to everybody that would listen to me, but that's as far as it went. I didn't do a thing about it. However, I had a feeling that I needed something, and I had a feeling of being left out, which of course was right.
I didn't have any, I couldn't have any part in AA. And finally I heard that they were starting or had shortly before started a family group in New York City proper. And I was asked to go. They said that they were having a big meeting, and they were having speakers, and that they would like, wondered if I'd be interested in going. And I said, well, yes, I would. And they said, do you know anyone else?
And I said, yes, I do. So I called someone, and then I asked her if she knew someone, and we got quite a big meeting that night. And I frankly went with my tongue in my teeth, because I had heard some alcoholics talking before that there were these family groups, and they had talked down their noses about it, or looked down their noses about it, I should say. And they said, I was out with spouses, and they probably couldn't tell how horrible their husbands were.
Well, I wasn't going to say that about my husband. So I went, and I soon learned that that wasn't the idea at all. Because Lois and Ann, I don't remember who else, but Lois and Ann spoke, and they didn't leave any doubt in my mind, and I was quickly back at the next meeting. And I think they must have noticed that my tongue was in my teeth when I walked in, because they had elections that night, and they elected me treasurer.
So I had to go. But shortly after that, another group started in Brooklyn, and I was asked to speak, or I'm sure that I wasn't too good a speaker, and I'm still not, but then I was worse than them. And I accepted, because I understood that that was part of the problem. You were supposed to do what you were asked to do. And I didn't know what I was going to say. I really didn't. I had no idea. Not until I was getting dinner, and I thought, my goodness, I have to think of something to talk about tonight.
What am I going to talk about? I have to say, I still had shied away from the 12 steps, and suddenly something said to me, you have to take the first step. If Chuncey was walking here drunk right this minute, you would be powerless over alcohol. Not over Chuncey. Why should I have power over another human being? And I would be powerless because you would be. Alcohol would have taken over. And then I realized that my life isn't unmanageable.
I mean, you're not under good management when you burn somebody with a cigarette, after all. Well, after that, the second and third steps came very easily to me because I had naturally been brought up to believe in a higher power. So that wasn't too hard, and I thought that in the third step, we make a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understand Him, and that really came very easily, unlike the fourth step.
So I shied away from that. By this time, we were working at the clearinghouse, and one day a letter came in from a woman who wanted to give a talk on the 11th step. And Margaret had all the mail piled up next to her. And as usual, I was talking too much. And I think she wanted to be inspired, so she said, She said, stop, here's a letter. This woman wants someone to write a talk for her on the 11th step.
And she said, why don't you do it?
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Well, they kept me quiet for an hour then. I sat down, and I really had to think. So I still feel that I jumped from the third to the 11th step. And when I finished, then of course I did ask for suggestions. And I'm sure that Lois and Anne and Margaret all gave very good ones. And we mailed it off, and I've often wondered if the woman gave that talk and what she thought of what we had said. And I always felt that Lois said the right thing.
She said, tell her to tell what the 11th step has done for her. And after all, that's the only talk any of us can give, I think. When I did get back to the fourth step, though, I had avoided it, as I said. And I was so used to taking Sophie's inventory that I just hated to take mine. And it's much more fun to take somebody else's instead of your own. But I got down to it, and I'm still working on it down on the 10th step when we get to that.
And I didn't see a very pretty picture when I started to take my moral inventory. I really didn't, and I was quite surprised. But I did at least take it, and that was something. And I did do something that I think we should all think of. When we take that moral inventory, we all have good in it. And I think we receive a good side, too, and put something on the credit side as well as the debit. When I came to the 5th step, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, I got to thinking about that, and it seems to me, this is only my opinion, and then I went to church the next morning.
Yeah, the next morning. And I heard Dr. Peel say the same thing. He didn't happen to mention it was the 5th step and how God came on him. But he said, we hurt ourselves first. And when we hurt ourselves, then we're more apt to hurt others. And I think that's so true. I don't know who any of you feel you've hurt, but I'm sure that the person I have hurt most is me and maybe Chauncey second. But I do feel that way about that.
And I think that when we do admit to God that we have hurt ourselves and other human beings because we hurt ourselves, it helps us a great deal because we try to do something for ourselves then. Well, then the 6th step, again, to me is a repetition and a good repetition of the 3rd step. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Well, of course, I think we have to help God a great deal.
And I think that in these steps, it helps us to help ourselves and help God. And then he'll step in and maybe put the finishing touches on. I hope he does for me someday, really. The 7th step, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Well, I've tried that in silence, in my own little way, in my quiet times. Made a list of all persons we have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Well, I guess Chauncey's the one I hurt the most, really.
And I think I've made amends. I haven't told him, well, I'm sorry I did this. Maybe I have, but I don't think I have. But I've tried to show it in my attitude. And I think that actions speak louder than words often. Then we say, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Well, I suppose inadvertently I've hurt people and haven't realized it.
But I want illustration. My cousin came to visit us a long time ago. She still comes, but this was before AA. And she wanted to go into New York from Seacliffe, and I didn't want to, but we did. And the only reason I didn't want to was because it was a holiday, and I knew if I went in, Chauncey would get drunk. So I wanted to stay home to keep Chauncey from getting drunk, you see. But we went, and of course when we got home, Chauncey was…
My mom, Cassie, was drunk, and I turned to her and said,
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You know, he never gets drunk unless you're here. And then she said to me, Well, he must like me. Well, see, it introduced him to me. So, I kind of made direct amends to her. I haven't gone to her and said, I'm sorry. I think she's probably forgotten, and I haven't. And I think that she realizes because she knows that Cynthia's in AA and she knows I'm in the family group. And I think that explains it to her.
And why bring up an old sore? And anyhow, I don't think she took it as seriously as I did, probably. And then, as I say, in the 10 steps, we continued to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, promptly admitted that I try very hard to do that. I don't always do it. I really don't, but I try very hard. And 11, as I said, I took that after the third step. And 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Well, I'm sure that I'll never really live these 12 steps because I am a human being. But I'm trying. And I think if we try, that's all God wants. He wants us to try to be decent people and to be happy people. I don't think he wants us to be sad. And if we live a spiritual life, which I think every part of AA is spiritual, I think he wants us to be happy. I said that one night at one of our own meetings, that I knew I would never really live the 12 steps perfectly.
And I said, I didn't think I would, really, because then I wouldn't have anything to work for, and it wouldn't be much fun. And Margaret looked over at me, and she said, Dot, you'll always have fun. Well, I had to come to St. Louis to talk with a lot of my friends that I've never had a chance to talk to because we're in different family groups, so we don't usually talk together. We talk to each other.
And so it seemed to me it was worth that long trip out on the plane, which I don't like. I don't like airplanes. I'm not saying I just don't like them. And the last time we took a trip, I said to Chelsea, when you get me in an airplane again, you'll know it. But when Margaret said, you're going to St. Louis, Dot, and you're taking the plane at such and such a time, I said, yes, ma'am. I don't know why this is bad.
It just tells me something, and I do it. And I think most of us do, too. Well, it turned out to be my story because we have good speakers today, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy all of them. The first speaker is a very, very dear friend of mine. And I miss her terribly because she's moved away from New York. And this is not only at headquarters, but I miss her in my home and in her home. And I miss her husband.
He's a Giant fan, and I'm a Dodger fan. We argue about it, a family argument. But I think she really has a problem because she doesn't take his side, and she doesn't take my side. She likes to sit up and sit back. But I'm going to tell you this. She's a good-looking sister. Helen. My name is Helen Riker, and I'm the wife of an alcoholic. Several years ago, Dottie here asked me to speak at her meeting, and I was simply terrified, still terrified, at talking at a meeting.
So I said, well, Dottie, what in the world will I talk about? And Dottie said, oh, talk about the 12 steps. And I said, okay, 12 steps, that'll be easy. Easy. I got down there, and the Manhattan group was very gracious and wonderful. They sat there and they listened to me stumble through those 12 steps, and believe me, I stumbled up every one of them.
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It was awfully tough on them, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I realized how little I really knew about the 12 steps and how little I was really living the 12 steps. You have to live the 12 steps, I think, to be able to get up and try to talk and impart some of it as to what it is. When we arrived in St. Louis the other day, we drove a cab down here to Register, and the first people we ran into were girls from the Clearinghouse.
And Erna came up to me and said, oh, you're speaking on this panel. And I gulped and said, oh. And Dottie just said, yes, we're talking on the 12 steps. Don't you have any hand on the 12 steps, Dottie? But relax, I'm not going to stumble through all of them. I don't know what to say. I'm going to go into my own story very briefly because I want to bring out one point, and that is that I cannot blame my husband, drinking, or my husband, you know, for the unhappy, miserable mess that my life has become.
My life became unmanageable because I mismanaged it, and I did a very good job on it. Ralph had been sober in AA several years when we met. I spent years running away from myself and running away from life. And with each move, I thought I'd be happier. Of course, I wasn't, because everywhere I ran, this fear that I was consumed with ran along with me. I can't explain about the fear that I had. It consumed me.
I was paralyzed with it. If anyone has known that fear, they will understand it. And if anyone hasn't known it, they can't understand it. They just think, well, he's crazy to be that afraid. I didn't think anybody would understand it until I got to know AAs and their families, and now I know differently. All the time during my running, I'd like to say towards the end of it anyway, finally my brother and sister got a hold of me.
And I'm saying like sister. I should say sister-in-law, but Lois has been such a wonderful, wonderful sister to me. I forget all about being a little part of it. They gave me understanding, and I need it very much. I didn't understand myself, and I didn't think anybody else understood me. They didn't say, oh, get a hold of yourself. This is silly. They talked to me, and they let me talk about myself and about my fears, and this was something I had never done before.
I never dared talk about it. I just sort of pushed it to the back of me and went on being afraid. They gave me the AA book, and they told me to substitute fear, which is my greatest problem, for alcoholism when I read it, and this helped me a great deal. They took me to AA meetings, and there I got more understanding and help. And they married me off to an alcoholic, and I got even more understanding.
Then came these family groups, and here I found I not only could get help for myself, but I could give of myself, and that was a very wonderful thing. I really didn't know what my problem was until I got to the 12th step, or not the 12th, excuse me, the 4th step, and I started taking my inventory. You know, I always thought I was such a good girl. I was perfectly miserable, and how such a good girl could be so miserable, I never could understand, but I always thought I was good.
Then I started on this inventory, and I found things like selfishness, resentment, self-pity, and a whole long list of things, and I was shocked. I didn't think that I could ever have any of these, but I found out that I did. I was four when I started pulling out of resentment here,
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and I started trying not to be so sorry for myself, and I found that they kept popping back in again, and then I discovered that while I was weeding out all these ugly things, I had to put something constructive back in their place. Otherwise, they're just going to pop back in like a vacuum, just pull it back, and I found that the best thing I could substitute for my resentment and for my selfishness, self-pity, was love.
If I had love there, those things couldn't come back, and I found as I began trying to work that, that the first step really got to be fun. It got to be more than fun. It got to be a spiritual experience every time I took it, and that's a catch right there every time I took it because you have to keep at these steps daily. At our last meeting in Buffalo, we were given the 12th step to discuss, and just as in that first meeting on the 12th step, I discovered that I really didn't know too much about the 12th step.
I found that it had more, much more to it than I had realized. I was going along with the thought of how wonderful it was to have some of this knowledge along to other people, and it is wonderful, but there's much more to it than that. This 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.
Practice these principles in all our affairs. That's the part I was skipping. Not until I practice the 12th step in my daily life can I hope to have the spiritual help to pass this message along. It's easy to talk about the 12th step. It's wonderful. It sounds great, but am I honestly doing it? I found that I skipped by the wayside many times. A few months ago, Ralph and I moved. We left all our very dear friends and our wonderful family.
Ralph had been very ill. I just lost my mother. I went to Buffalo with all kinds of excuses to feel sorry for myself, and I wallowed in that self-pity. I wallowed in that self-pity until Ralph finally looked at me and said, Can't you ever smile? Then I called the family group. I very conveniently misplaced the address while I was enjoying my self-pity. I don't even try to be folks about what happens after I call the family group and go to a meeting.
There it comes. A wonderful, friendly welcome. I found wonderful friends, and my self-pity went out the window. Buffalo was a very cold, gray city when Ralph and I arrived there in January. I was sure it was just about the ugliest city in the world. I was feeling so sorry and blue and crying. But now the leaves have come out on their very beautiful, beautiful trees, and I began to see the warmth of the people as my heart began to open up.
You know, and Buffalo is just a wonderful city. It's the most beautiful city, and the people are so wonderful, and we just love it. I opened my talk, as we all do, saying I am the life of an alcoholic. I always say that joyfully. I'm so glad I'm the life of an alcoholic. I'm more than glad and grateful that I'm the life of an alcoholic because now I have someone very dear to me that I can work these wonderful 12 steps with.
Thank you for this. Thank you, Helen. You know, when she was speaking, while Helen was speaking, I was thinking that we often, I'm a person who accosts people and tells them about the family group and AA meetings. And I often get the answer, well, I didn't marry my husband until after he joined AA. I couldn't marry my husband until after he joined AA, so I couldn't get anything out of the family group.
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Well, I wish Helen could talk to some of them. I can't. Very well. But, um, our next speaker is called Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. She's a very good friend of mine. And I was thinking last night at dinner, I said, Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair to her, and I thought, what an interesting thing, because after all, Stephen Foster did write Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, and Jeannie did marry an alcoholic.
And Stephen Foster must have been a very sweet man, a very dear, dear person, and it was written in the music he wrote, and nobody knew he was sick, and he was allowed to die with three cents in his pocket in New York City. And it often occurred to me that if people had only known how sick he was, maybe he would have been a well person when he died. Something might have been done for him. Well, Jeannie is a regular volunteer and a devoted volunteer at headquarters.
We have a lot of fun together there. We work awfully hard at headquarters, but we all love it, and we all work hard when we're there. And now I want you to listen to Jeannie Beeson. Jeannie, how do you do? Good morning. Six and a half years ago, when my husband came into AA, we learned that he was suffering from a physical and an emotional disease called alcoholism. Well, I thought I was fine physically, but I was pretty well convinced that I was off my rocker.
And then for the next year, things seemed to go along beautifully. And I thought everything was regaining normalcy. George was growing spiritually, emotionally. Physically, he was fine. And I was trailing right behind him, basking in the glow. And suddenly the lights went out, and once again I became irritable, depressed, full of self-pity. I nagged him. I was spilling out resentment. And I couldn't understand it until I joined the family group, which was some time later.
Too much later, unfortunately. And I found that those wonderful 12 steps were for me, too. I just couldn't continue holding onto George's coattails for the rest of my life. It just wasn't working out that way. The 12 steps are suggested steps to recovery, and their use can be likened to medical treatment for physical disease. It helps me a little bit to think of them in that way, and it might help some of you here.
In step one and two, we find our diagnosis. In making my own diagnosis, I found that I was suffering from a major disease called an unbalanced life. The resentment and the irritation, depression, and nagging were symptoms of this disease. Before AA, I had been powerless over alcohol, and I couldn't do a thing to remedy it. Now my husband had been sober a year, and my life was still unmanageable, my own life.
George's was fine. It was unmanageable because I had not thought of these steps as a recovery program for myself. I thought that this was a matter for George to tend to. Let George take care of it. And somehow what he gained would strengthen me, too. The second step, the surgeon came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore sanity. That was a great relief for me because I suddenly realized that I was utterly incapable of pulling myself up out of this mess I was in, this state of chaos.
It meant there was help for me, and I could be cured if I wanted to be. In steps three to nine, we find our treatment. Now all of us have probably at one time or another found a doctor who we loved, and we went to him, we trusted him, and we accepted his help, and we followed his advice. My troubles seemed to be spiritual, basically. So I went to God for help, God as I understood him. No medical man could help me because my aches and my pains and my fevers seemed to come from my soul.
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And I went to the wisest and most experienced doctor of them all. These seven steps deal with our defects of character and with the harm that they have caused ourselves and others. They tell us that by being completely honest with ourselves, we can discover what these are. Once I recognized my faults, they became very distasteful to me, and I wanted to do something about them. I wanted to remove them.
After asking him to do this and asking him for his help, I set about trying to make amends to those I had harmed, including myself. It seems to me that we all do a great deal of harm to ourselves. During our husbands' or our wives' drinking days, we spend so much of our time wrapped in fear and self-pity and loneliness that we often lose all belief in ourselves, and I had lost all confidence in myself.
I don't think I ever had very much. I used to put on a big show, but I don't think I had any. In making amends, I went first to George and then to our family. We knew all about the situation. For them, because they loved us, forgiveness came easy, and they only wanted us to live a normal and happy life and to climb back out of that abyss into which we had fallen. With others, it was a matter of making amends for the sharp tongue and a lack of interest in them while I was building a wall around myself.
I'd finally reached the point where I seemed to be frozen inside. I don't know, I don't think I had any emotions except possibly fear and anger, and it's been a little difficult breaking through that. For the man in the street or the subway who I might have shoved in unjustified anger or the clerk to whom I had shown great impatience, those people, I couldn't make amends too directly. What I could do was to remember the unhappiness it had caused and to avoid it in the future.
By sharing my happiness with others, maybe I could counteract the sorrow caused by someone who is now going through what I did. I feel that all of these steps are important. This is a process of cleansing ourselves of impurities, and nothing is clean if any part of it is unclean. If a doctor gives us three kinds of medicine, we don't take two of them and throw the third away. It is important to note that step six, which says that we are entirely ready to ask God to remove all these defects of character, is preparation for step seven, in which we humbly ask him to do this.
Just as the alcoholic must be willing before he can be helped, so must we be willing, or there is very little that God can do to aid us in rebuilding our character. He will furnish us with all the courage and the wisdom, but we must do the work. Step eight says we made a list of all those in harm and became willing to make amends to them all. And then in step nine, we made amends. Our list is our plan of action.
When we make out a menu or a schedule, we do this in order not to omit anything. If we are not willing, then in spite of making amends and righting our wrongs, it is of no benefit to ourselves. We are resentful of having to do it, and the whole idea rankles. We must remember these steps are being performed for our own benefit and health. In steps 10 and 11 and 12, we find means to preserve our normalcy.
When our doctor sets us back on the road to recovery, he usually leaves us with a diet or a series of exercises to follow in order to avoid a relapse. So if I fail to follow the prescribed course of the 12 steps, I'm bound to suffer. The alcoholic is apt to go on an alcoholic binge, and when I fall off, I go on an emotional binge, and I have done it plenty of times. Then I have to climb back on again, and I have to reset my sight.
With God's help, I keep trying, and I know that as long as I'm trying, I'm growing. Sometimes I think I've gone way back, and I think, well, just keep trying, Gene,
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and that I do, and it's a slow process. So I must take a continuous moral inventory, seeking for a reappearance of those old symptoms, and I keep in touch with the greatest doctors of them all for instruction and encouragement. I must remember that when I try to do a halfway job or I try to do too much of it myself, that all these old things keep popping back up. The full pattern is set up again. As for carrying the message, well, I used to envy the AA when they spoke of that inner glow that they get when they have helped to restore one of their own to his rightful place in society.
Now I've experienced that glow. When I've had a hand in helping a wife whose husband is still drinking gradually gain a measure of serenity, and she feels able to hold her head up again. She learns that we've all been through this, and she knows that if our husbands have done it, then eventually hers can too. I felt that glow when I see a woman whose husband is new in AA, changed from a tired and hopeless wife into a self-confident and eternally grateful maid.
These things have all happened to me, and they've been given to me, and to carry the message is the very least that I can do in my gratitude. Thank you. Now I think you see why I call her Jeannie with light brown hair, because I know Stephen Foster really loved his wife. I said at the beginning that I had come to St. Louis to speak with all my good friends, and we say it's a small world, and we say it more and more because we've jumped so quickly from one place to another.
And now we're going to jump from New York and headquarters to Texas. And I feel that I know the next speaker because she's a friend of a friend of mine, one of the men in New York makes tape recordings of all the meetings that they have at Tudor study groups, and he sends quite a lot of them out to Myrtle, and she plays them, I suppose, for other groups in AA out there so that they get a pretty good cross-country reaction, and it's pretty good to us because people come, Tudor has their meeting on Sunday night, their AA meeting, and let somebody from afar come in, and he's on the platform.
So it's a pretty well-oriented meeting on Sunday nights as a rule. So I really do feel I know Myrtle, and Gil kept saying to me when he knew I was coming out here, now you must look up Myrtle Lipps. So a couple weeks ago he said, now you must look up Myrtle Lipps, and I said, well, Myrtle and I are going to speak together, and he said, well, isn't that wonderful. So I do think it's a small world, and I'm sure that we'll all enjoy hearing Myrtle.
Thank you. I am Myrtle Lipps from Colorado City, Texas, and I am the wife of an alcoholic. I've been the wife of two alcoholics. I'm eligible. This has lasted 23 years, the first few days. I go to the Abilene, Texas, family groups, which meets every Thursday, every two-second Thursday, and they send you all their warmest greetings and wish they could all have been here. Now, alcoholism is a disease.
I'm not afflicted with it, but I have been and I still am dis-eased with the ism. When Joe told us in Fort Worth last June, alcoholic sobriety is my husband's problem. Emotional sobriety is mine. Actually, I came very distorted in my thinking. I was a very confused woman. I think I was about as confused as the drunk that Joe told us about in Fort Worth. It seems that he went to a bullfight, and right in the middle of the fight, he got up and sprang it out.
In the middle of the fight, he got up and sprang it out. The man at the gate said, what in the world are you living there for? The show isn't over. He goes, how in the blink of his light can he bite that bulge up in that back if he doesn't hold it still?
[00:45:04]
Laughter As Bill told us, emotional sobriety is my problem. You know, the ability to cope with all of life's problems. I know what he meant. And I know now, after six years, that the answers are in our alimony family group. In twelve steps, of course. Since I'm the only person I know that I'm going to have to live with until I die, I'd like to do something about it. Now, I don't mean that I have achieved all these things that I have learned and believed.
But I now know how to keep trying. So, with our family groups, we start on those five steps, as Dennis says, that lead up and in. I say we because my problems are personal. The family groups have shown me that my personal cure is people. People who have had the same fears and griefs that I have. We come together on the basis of a common need and from their ground to find out what life really means.
For emotional sobriety is life. The only real education, the only worthwhile adventures, are found in fellowship. And we have those in abundance in AA and in our family groups. As I said, we have no need for rules and regulations. We are not a club. The only business we have is the business of living. You can't have an idea. You have to have a person in the flesh. We get to know each other. We learn how to be friendly.
It's a simple as that. We become friendly to help ourselves. And you need us for the same reason. Reason is spiritual, for God is our source. We do this anonymously. Now that means, as I see it, that friends can only be themselves when they're not trying to hide their defects or when they're not putting on a show to impress people. He who treasures his good name will lose it. He who works for the sake of a crown is lost.
The therapy is very simple. We get together in a casual, honest-to-God effort to be ourselves among one another, admitting our common problems, gaining hope from one another, sensing power in our groping efforts, humble in our errors, and forgetting the past as each new day offers us a chance to heal our old wounds and fresh efforts. We try to be honest enough to admit our mistakes, to seek help from our friends and from God.
Well, we aren't growing until we die, so better we keep searching for the new clues to this mysterious power that each of us can only understand in his own way. We take this message to the makes of other alcoholics, if he or she is willing to listen. It is anonymity. Anonymity is friendship. Friendship is living, and living is loving, and loving is God among men and women. This talk is supposed to be on the 12 steps.
These from Texas are going to do it a little different, and I hope that the rest of you won't throw me out. I heard the name H. Hopkins Love of Texas about a year ago, and this part I'd like to pass on to you. He told of attending the Yale studies on alcohol, and there one psychologist answered the $64 question, why they were alcoholics. He said they had that poorly integrated personality, but he went on to say that other people had poorly integrated personalities too.
Of course, I was sitting out in front listening to this. So he stepped out of his role as a member of AA, and as a social psychologist said, and I quote, we invite all of our friends and our families, even the city officials out to our meetings, and what do we do? Just like alcoholics, we talk about ourselves and we tell you how happy we are. And what about you other people?
[00:50:01]
Well, you're ladylike and you're gentlemanly like Neurosis. So let's see what we can do to help you other people who have only one head. This, my friends, is science. Cold, analytical, abstract, undebatable scientific facts. Duke University has approached, addressed the techniques of science on this problem of happiness and unhappiness. It says, mind you, we use two heads to find our way out. This has nothing to do with alcoholic phenomena.
Alcohol or alcoholism. This is just for people. They took a staff of psychiatric social workers and interviewed thousands of people who you and I in science would describe as happy people. Well-integrated, well-balanced, psychologically mature, emotionally stable. And they asked them, why do you think you are happy and what do you do that makes you happy? And they found all these things out. Then they picked out all those that recurred in the lives of all of them and said, now some of these things make this one happy and some make that one happy, but certainly the things that make everybody happy, these must be the true key to happiness.
Now that's reasonable, isn't it? And they set those things down. Then when the psychiatric social workers, they interviewed thousands of people who could be described as unhappy, emotionally amateur, psychologically unstable, poorly integrated personalities. They had a lot easier time finding those. So they asked, what do you do and why are you unhappy? And they set all these things down. Then they picked out those that recurred in the lives of all of them and set those down and said, now these must be the keys to unhappiness.
When they summarized all the things to do to be happy, to avoid unhappiness, to seek pleasure, to avoid pain, just as alcoholics try to do, after all of these thousands of interviews, how many do you suppose they found? Nine, only nine. And then he says, we found 12. That's not bad having two heads. Now, for the benefit of you people, I'd like to read nine steps which you can use to integrate your personality to telescope your immaturity to be more happy and less unhappy.
Mind you, this has nothing to do with alcoholism. This is a scientific answer for anybody who wants to be happy. Now, here's the first one. Shun suspicion and resentment. This has nothing to do with AA. This is fact. And this is what they say. Nursing a grudge has been found to pull down happiness levels an average of 50%. So jot it down, step number one. Shun suspicion and resentment. Number two. Live in the present and the future 24 hours at a time.
Says that right here in the big print too. Most unhappiness stems from the unwholesome preoccupation with the mistakes and failures of the past. They are important only as a passport to a better and wiser today. Yesterday is gone. Learn from it and forget it. Then it says, forgive yourself freely for past mistakes. It is as vital to your happiness as forgiving others. Now, mind you, I cannot repeat too often that this has nothing to do with alcoholism.
This has nothing to do with 12 steps. This is science. This is what they found out. And the first thing they said was, quit poisoning your day remembering resentment and suspicions of other people, even an alcoholic you may be married to. The second they said was, it is even more important to forgive yourself than to forgive the other fellow. An awful lot of us human beings are sick of that. We're still entering rooms and being embarrassed, or because the last time we were here we did this or we said that.
Sometimes we don't forgive ourselves for some sin we have committed.
[00:55:01]
Oh, a sick pride. That's what that is. Sick pride. Others forgive us. Christ on the cross forgives us. And we are too proud to forgive ourselves. Isn't that sick and isn't it true? Let us be a little humble. If God can forgive us, if those we have harmed can forgive us, then let us be humble enough to forgive ourselves. Quit nursing these sick shames. They're gone. Let us live in a healthy today and a hopeful tomorrow.
Step number three. Now this one will throw you in the aisles. Don't waste time and energy fighting conditions you cannot change. Have you ever heard that one before? There is little you or I can personally do about stopping a war, healing the incurable disease of a loved one, or changing the nature of those with whom you live. So stop hurling yourself against stone walls. Accept the things you cannot change and learn to live with them.
Fourth. Celebrate this life instead of either trying to demolish it or run away from it. I repeat, this has nothing to do with alcoholics. This is people. And it seems that they, too, try to run away from things. You know, some of us were like those little boats in the bottle. We weren't going anyplace. We weren't coming anyplace until we found our way out. And it seems that most of the things that make people most unhappy is their tendency to run away from life instead of rolling with the punch and trying to cooperate with it.
Number five. When you find yourself in the grip of emotional stress, force yourself to be outgoing to other people instead of retreating within yourself and building a prison of loneliness. Well, I know how some of us did that. When we're hurt and we can't be the head of the committee, we fuck. We won't pay. We'll go home and fly down our own cellar door. Now, we're all guilty of those immature things, alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
We sit there nursing our unhappiness. We have learned, as our 12 steps tells us, that when our unhappiness, this emotional stress comes over us, quit thinking of ourselves. Go out and help somebody else. There's always somebody worth helping. If you're weeping because you have no shoes, remember the guy who has no feet. Number six. Refuse to pity yourself or seek self-justification in easy alibis that makes you appear noble to yourself and to others.
I repeat, this has nothing to do with alcoholism. This is for people with non-heads. It seems that they, too, mess up their lives, get unhappy, seek escape because they pity themselves. Or they produce these glorious alibis that makes them appear noble in their own eyes. Number seven. Cultivate the old-fashioned virtues of love, honor, loyalty, thrift, and church attendance. This is science, cold, analytical science, talking about love, honor, loyalty, thrift, and church attendance.
Now, we used to think that stuff was passe. There's old hat. That was old-fashioned. How does a thing get old-fashioned? First, because it gets old. And how does it get old? Because it's been around a long time. And why is it around a long time? Why? Because it works. And why does it work? Probably because it is part of God's sacred nature of things. I think a thing lasts long enough to get old because it has a spark of sacredness in the first place.
Love, honor, loyalty, thrift, and church attendance. Thrift and Church Attendance, Number Eight, Stop Expecting Too Much of Yourself, When There Is Too Wide A Gap Between The Standards You Set For Yourself And Your Actual Achievement, Unhappiness Is Inevitable, If You Can't Improve Your Standards, Your Performance, Try Lying With A Man Upon Yourself Instead,
[01:00:17]
You Can't Be President, Be Vice President, You Don't Have to Go Home and Talk, There Is Not A Top Or A Bottom, There Is A Perspective, And Each Of Us Has A Job To Do Somewhere In Between, If We Set Our Each Day To Do The Best We Can, Then It Is A Good Day If We Do It, Whether We Make Fifteen Cents Or A Thousand, We Have Met The Quota The Best We Could, If We Set Our Standard At A Thousand And Make Nine Hundred And Ninety-Nine, We Have Failed, Because We Didn't Live Up To The Standard We Set For Ourselves, Let's Just Live The Fullest And The Best We Can, And Each Day Can Be A Success, Now I Guess You Notice In These Nine Steps, Eight Of Them So Far, I Haven't Mentioned Something That Keeps Recurring In AA, And Which Is So Very Important, But Look, People With One Head, I Have One Step Left For You, One More Recommendation From Cold, Undebatable Time, And It's Answer On How To Be Happy, And Here It Is, Find Something Bigger Than Yourself, And Which To Believe, Self-Centered, Worldly, Materialistic People Scored Lowest On The Duke University Test For Measuring Happiness, While Those Who Measure True And Altruism, And Thinking Of The Other Person, And Religious Attitude, And Spiritualist Feelings, Generally Came Out With A Tough Happiness Rating, Don't You Think It's A Little Miracle That These Miserable Rejected Drunks Crawled First To Their Knees And Then To Their Feet, And In Twelve Steps Found The Same Thing That Took Thousands Of Interviews By Trained Psychiatrists For Science Defined In Nine?
Aren't They Awfully Similar, And Aren't We The Lucky Ones? To Me It Is A Miracle, It's The Same Miracle Of The Laughter We Hear In This Promenade, In The Cafeteria. I'm Not Going To, But From The Time I Met Eleanor, Which Was Very Early In Family Group Days, She And I Clicked Just Like That, I Liked Her Immediately, And I Think She Liked Me, And Our Husbands Did The Same Thing, And My Husband Always Has A Great Deal Of Respect For You Eleanor, He Says Ed Has Such Happy Sobriety, And He Does, I Assure You, Eleanor Is Also A Regular Volunteer At Headquarters, And I Just Can't Say How Nice She Is And How Much I Think Of Her, And I'm Just Going To Let Her Talk Instead Of Me Talking, Eleanor?
Good Morning Everyone, As Daphne Told You, My Name Is Eleanor Anderson, And I Am The Wife Of An Alcoholic, After That Kind Of An Introduction And A Build Up, I Really Don't Know What To Say, I'm One Of These Peculiar People That Cannot Write Talks, Because When I Do, I Lose My Place, And Get Completely Confused, It Probably Is My Bifocals, I Don't Know, I Like To Look At The Audience, And I Try To Do That And Keep One Eye On Notes, But Daphne Told Me I Had Ten Minutes Up Here, I Thought Ten Minutes, But Anyone Likes To Talk Like You Do, That Isn't Very Long, But Then I Thought Of The Audience, And I Thought Maybe That's Too Long, My Approach To The 12 Steps Has Been Just A Little Different From Some Of The Girls You've Had, I'm Going To Review My Own Life Just A Little Bit, I Was What You Would Term A Smart Girl In School, I Had Good Marks, I Had A Doting Father, Doting Grandfather And Grandmother, My Mother Thought I Was A Little Bit Of All Right Too,
[01:05:06]
So I Grew Up With The Feeling That I Was Something Just A Little Special, And That I Knew All The Answers, And Most Everybody I Knew Didn't Even Know Half The Questions, I Liked People, I Still Do, I Love Them, And I Went Along A Gay, Happy, Merry Way, Having A Lot Of Fun, Drinking A Lot With The Roaring Twenties, That Takes Me Doesn't It, And Then I Met Ed, And When I Met Ed, And We Were Planning To Be Married, His Mother Told Me That Ed Drank Too Much, And Of Course I Was One Of The Bright Young People, And I Said We All Do, But I'll Take Care Of That, Do Those Words Sound Familiar, I Was A Young Lady That Could Hold It Pretty Well Myself, And Could Always Feed Somebody Coffee Or Tomato Juice, Get Them On Their Feet To Go To Shower For The Early Morning Buckwheat Cakes Or Pancakes In Baltimore, But I Wasn't Married Very Long When I Found Out That A Saturday Night's Drink Was Entirely Different From An Alcoholic Husband, And As The Years Passed, I Lost The Gale And My Sense Of Humor, I Started To Grow Inwards, That Was Caused By Probably Two Things, First Because My Husband Is A Traveling Man And I Traveled With Him, And The Second Was Because I Was Afraid Then To Meet People And Go To Many Places Because I Never Knew What Was Going To Happen, And Things Kept Getting Progressively Worse, Just About Six Months Before Ed Joined A.A., A Friend Of Mine Brought Me Norman Vincent's Heel To Dive The Continent Living, And I Read It, And I Realized Then That I Would Have To Make A Life For Myself, Not An Outward Life Because Ed And I Were Very Compatible Even When He Was Drinking, We Went Everywhere Together, But An Inward Life, An Inner Life Of My Own, And I Just Realized Then Too That I Could No Longer Rule Edwin's Life Or Force Him To Stop Drinking, So You See Without Knowing It I Took The First Step, I Completely Gave Up Ed As An Alcoholic Problem, I Just Said I Can't Do Anything About It, He'll Have To Manage It Himself, Well I Went On For About Six Months With That Attitude, But All The Time I Was Getting More Fearful And More Nervous Because His Drinking Was Rapidly Progressing, And I Just Then Really Withdrew Into Myself, And I Was Full Of Fears Of The Future, And I Didn't Know Where To Turn, And Finally One Night Ed Had An Alcoholic Convulsion, And That Night I Remember After He Went To Sleep I Washed The Floor, I Got In Bed And I Started To Pray, I Hadn't Done Very Much Praying For A Great Many Years, We Were The Roaring Twenties, God Thought We Were A Little Superior To Church And Things Like That, But I Started To Pray And Then, Now This Is Going To Be A Little Dramatic But I Don't Mean It To Be, Somehow I Just Start Lying There And Praying With A Little Lazy Way To Address God, And I Got Out Of My Bed And I Said God Help Me, I Can't Do Anything, You'll Have To Do Something For Me, You'll Have To Help Me, So You See In That Way Unknowingly I Took The Second And The Third Step, Because I Admitted Or Rather Came To Believe That There Was A Power That Could Help Me, And I Turned My Life Over To Him, And If There Are Any Where Else And I Believe There Are, That Was Ed's Last Prayers That Night, The Next Day He Told Me He Withdrew,
[01:10:14]
So We Went To AA Together And We Had Done Everything Together, And I Heard All About The Steps And They Were A Wonderful Way For An Alcoholic, But Somehow It Did Die On Me That Maybe In The Past I Had Done Some Things That I Used To Be A Little Bit Ashamed Of, One Of The Things I Did To Him And To My Friends And To My Family, And I Took A Lot Of Briefs And Careless Smiles, It Wasn't Until I Attended Lois's Meeting In Cleveland That I Realized This Program Really Was For Us To Stop That Program, And After That Meeting, We Had No Family Group Injury At That Time That I Knew Of, I Really Settled Down To Taking This Inventory Seriously, And As Some Of The Girls Have Said, I Didn't Care For The Picture, Although There Were Some Ashes, But I Realized That One Thing I Could Never Do Was Resent The Fact That My Husband Was An Alcoholic, Because He Was, And There Wasn't Anything I Could Have Done About It, Or Could Do About It, And I Had To Resent It, And That's Where The Tremendous Empiric Came In To Me So Well, And I Do Feel Sorry For People Who Resent The Fact That Their Husband Is An Alcoholic, I Always Like To Say The Only Thing I Resent About Ed's Drinking Was The Money He Spent For The Liquor I Poured Down The Sink, That Was Certainly Wasted, Well, The Next, The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, And Ninth Step, If You Take Your Fourth Step, And You Take It Sincerely And Conscientiously, They Just Must, They Just Follow Right Through, And Some Of The Other Girls Have Done Them So Well, I'm Not Going Into Them, But I Feel That They're An Outgrowth Of The Fourth Step, And Until We Have Taken The First Nine Steps, We Really Can't Say That We're Doing The Whole Lot To Work This Program, About Three Years Ago, I Heard A Very Fine Speaker Say That The Tenth, Eleventh, And Twelfth Steps Are The Way Of Life, And My Husband, Who Is Much More Forward Thinking On The Spiritual Angle Than I Am, And, Well, He Used To Defer To Me When He Was Drinking, And He Better Have Had Deferred To Me, But I Now Defer To Him, Because I Know That He Has Much More Than I Have, He Right Away Said, I Think He's Right, And We Started Discussing, And We Both Believe That Taking The Daily Moral Inventory Is In The Tenth Step, We Both Do That At Night, Before We Go To Sleep, Now I Don't Say There Was None Of You Taking Your Moral Inventory When He Was Drinking, But I Know He Wasn't, I Know I Wasn't, If I Have Said Anything That I Think Might Hurt Him, I Try To Apologize The Next Morning Or Explain The Situation, The Other Night I Went Into A Security Situation, I Am Smoking Too Much, It's Worse Than Alcohol, I Think, For Me It Is, I Have Not Drunk Alcohol, And I Had A Very Barret Barret Throat, And He Said Something, And I Answered Him Back, My Throat was Compressed, And he said something, and I answered him back, my throat's constricted, and it came out just like it shouldn't have sounded at all.
And then I couldn't explain, because I started coughing, and I saw him look so hurt, and so puzzled, that I should answer him that way.
[01:15:03]
Well, I thought, the next day, although it really wasn't anything I had done, it did require explanation when the throat cleared up. It must have required children to take cigarettes. I'm not advertising cigarette season. So I feel that the Daily Mile Inventory is a must for me. It's so very, very helpful. The Eleventh Step is really a poser for a very busy person, and I do manage to keep myself very busy, although I have no children, and I wonder where the hours and the minutes and the seconds go. They just seem to fly.
And to have a little time for meditation each day is something that's just, to set it aside, it's a little difficult to say, I'm going to meditate at four o'clock. Four o'clock, my phone rings. Do I try to think things over when I'm washing the dishes or running the bathroom cleaner, or just when I'm sitting in the car waiting for air? I read Ann Marlenberg's new book, and in that she said that every woman, and of course this applies to every man too, has a certain quiet time to face themselves, and I think, and to face God, and I think that is a very, very good exposition of our Eleventh Step.
A certain quiet time to shut ourselves off from everything. The 12th Step, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we carry the message to others, we practice these principles in all our daily affairs. I don't know whether I've had a spiritual awakening. I don't know. I know I've had no bright flash, or anything like so many people have had. But I believe what I have had is a gradual growth, and for that I'm very thankful, because that means that I can continue to grow and keep on growing.
And as Dorothy said, I was instrumental in helping to start the Ethics Family Group, which meets in Montclair. It is in connection with a panel group, by the way, for anybody who, a panel closed group for alcoholics. And that has been the greatest uplift to me, and then working in a headquarters. And when I'm, someone hands me a message, a letter, Henrietta hands me a letter, and she says, and I wonder, will you answer this, from some distraught, nervous wife, I just feel that that's a gift being given to me, that I can just tell somebody else how I feel, or what this program can do for them.
I was asked last night, over a coffee session, around 1.30 this morning, I should add, why, if my husband was sober for over two years, before I started the tough stuff in Montclair group, that I felt it necessary to continue to go to meetings, and what problems could I bring to meetings? That was quite a poser. But I answered with the thing, well, the alcoholics need their meetings, and they said, yes, but if they don't go to meetings, they'll get drunk.
You won't get drunk if you don't go to meetings. So I got home last night, instead of going to sleep, so I must sleep longer this morning, I lay awake and wrestle with that problem, and I thought, I go to meetings for the companionship, because I love people. I go to meetings because I can do part of my truck safe there. I can help carry the message. I go to out-and-on family group meetings. I am speaking of out-and-on family group meetings, because it keeps me reminded that if I don't live the 12 steps, Ed's going to get so far ahead of me that he isn't even going to be a speaking distance of me.
[01:20:09]
I told you I like to talk. But I do feel that as long as Ed stays close to A.A., and I stay close to Al-Aman, and we both stay close to God, we'll have no trouble. Thank you. Thank you, Eleanor. As Ed said, you might get a resentment if you didn't go to family group. Well, Christ says in the parable in the vineyard, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Well, our last speaker started the Northern Westchester family group quite a while ago.
She was the first volunteer who worked with Lois. Of course, I think we all must remember that Lois was a volunteer, too. But she was the first volunteer to work and help Lois. She's vice president, and she's Anne Bingham of Chapel Claw. I've worked with her almost since the inception of Headquarters, and I just can't say how wonderful it's been to work at Headquarters and to have that privilege to be living in New York and be able to do it because it's done so much for me.
And now let's hear Anne. I almost feel that it's unnecessary to try to expand on the 12 steps that have been explained and have so many viewpoints about them, and I just feel that there isn't much more that could be said about them. But I'm going to briefly tell a little bit about what they have done for me. When we were married, my husband and I were married 10 years before he started drinking, and that was very mild social drinking, which rapidly turned into alcoholic patterns.
And of course, no need to tell what followed from then on until AA was introduced to me through our dear friend, the late Dr. Robinson. And of course, he didn't know it was called AA. He said, you just better go to see this person, and he'll tell you about, there's a meeting where a bunch of drunks meet, and I don't know what they do, but he didn't even say it was AA, he just said it was an old drunk meeting.
And I didn't know the man that he told me to go to. I knew of him, I knew that he drank a lot, and I had the courage to immediately go, and it worked out very well because my husband, of his own accord, the next day came to me carefully, he had been on a binge, and the first time that he mentioned it, he said, I don't know what I am going to do about this drinking. And I feel that faith it was to be that I was told just the day before what to do.
We were at AA several years, perhaps, and all that while, I, of course, thought it was just for my husband. I didn't pay any attention about the 12 steps for myself. I thought they were just wonderful, and I could see every pattern. When I read the book, I could see every pattern of his drinking. I could understand why he drank so much better than I did before, and I could see that his pattern was exactly like the book told.
But I just couldn't see that it was for me, too. And things just, they just weren't right, it seemed.
[01:25:01]
So the time came when I felt that perhaps I better do something about it. So I did take the first step, and I did accept the fact that I was powerless over alcohol. Then time went on, and I think that I didn't pay too much more attention about the steps. I just went that far. And I decided that I went to the fourth step, and I think that was several years later, too. So the first step, I accepted. I made the acceptance, and the fourth step was the step of conversion, I would call it conversion.
And I took moral inventory of myself, I think for, well, every day I sat. I had my quiet time. I decided to do that in the morning. And I sat with pencil and paper for two years every morning, and I just thought that there was never, never an end to my moral inventory, because that was when I found out that it wasn't alcohol that made me the person that I was. It intensified it. The problems of the alcoholic problem in my home intensified all the defects that I had.
And I went way back to the time when I was a little child, as far as I could remember, and I realized then what was the matter with me. I was the most fearful person, like Helen said she was. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of animals, and I was afraid of the dark and thunderstorms, and I was afraid of people. As I grew older, people were my greatest fear. And even at the time of the program, I still was fearful.
I would go to AU meetings, and I really was afraid of meeting people. I was very shy. I always feel that I was the greatest introvert there ever was. And then the time came when I went to an AA meeting in New York, and an AA girl got up and spoke, and it was her first time. After the meeting, she came to me and she said, I was afraid that there were groups for the non-alcoholics because my husband doesn't understand why I have to go to meetings, and why I have this problem, but he won't go to AA meetings himself.
Well, I went home and I stayed awake all night about that, wondering why there couldn't be that type of meeting. I didn't know at the time even that they had formed family group meetings. They didn't call them family group meetings at that time, but I didn't know that they had those groups throughout the country. So with the help of Lois, of course, I formed the Westchester Family Group, and it was just shortly after that that Lois was decided to be chairman of the family group throughout the country and start the center, the central office.
And, of course, it was one of the most wonderful things, I think, that ever happened to me because working so close with Lois, although I had been a neighbor of hers and we had been very close friends for quite a few years before this time, it seemed that working in this way made us much closer, and I certainly was given such a great understanding.
[01:30:11]
and yet, of course, I will always feel that I am happy that my husband was an alcoholic, because if such was the case, I perhaps never would know Lois and Bill and all the wonderful people that I have met throughout, from all different parts of the country. This is the first time that I have ventured too far from New York at a meeting, family group meeting, and it certainly is wonderful to be here and to meet so many people.
As I just keep saying, I feel like I'm in a dream. I don't feel that it's really me walking around on this earth. I feel as though when I get back to New York, I'll feel it's just been a plain wonderful dream to have had this privilege of being here and working with all the girls in the office, because I came here at the very last moment. I wasn't coming at all, and the decision was made at the very last moment, so it certainly was sudden, and that's why I just feel I didn't have much time to think about it.
When I started the family group up there, that was the third step in my program, which was the so-called dedication. I felt that that was where I could really start to progress, because then I was helping someone else. I was trying to give them something that perhaps I had experienced, and if there was nothing more than perhaps just give them some literature or a book to read, I felt that that was a part of 12-step work and trying to give them a word of encouragement.
Perhaps my experience wasn't enough to help some, but any way that I was able to help, I feel that was a step to progression, and I feel that I'll never stop progressing. I still have to take inventory every day, and just as Eleanor said, my last thought the night before I go to sleep is what I did and said during the day that I might recapture and try to do better the next day. I always pray that I will be worthy of having the privilege of having gotten back my faith and also of having the privilege of working with Lois, and it certainly was and is the most wonderful thing that ever came to me. Thank you.
Thank you, Ann. I think Ann gives a lot more than she pretends she does. She has humility that doesn't show, I think. We did start late because people came in a little late, and it is 20 minutes of 12, and we did hope to have time for questions or remarks from the floor, and Ann and I were just talking about it and writing notes to each other about it, and we wondered if you would want to stay over a little bit if there were enough time.
Any questions? How do you feel about it? It's 20 minutes of 12, but Ann and I thought we might continue it just a little bit. If you do have any questions, I'll just wait until those who are leaving go, and then it will be quieter.