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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – THE WISDOM TO KNOW The Wisdom To Know – RS 06381.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-the-wisdom-to-know-the-wisdom-to-know-rs-06381.mp3 Duration: 01:06:54
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that I was asked to share and be a part of this beautiful, beautiful international convention. I have again my set of instructions and it tells me now that I should tell you that we are taping this workshop and that the tapes will be available at the sales booth in the convention center and for those of you who might wish to pick up the tape of this particular sharing session. I'm going to very briefly qualify through the topic, this afternoon's topic, which is the wisdom to know.
I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in a helpless and hopeless condition some years ago and the serenity prayer became a very large part of my recovery and I didn't know how to pray. I didn't know at all how to pray. I learned a little bit about acceptance. I saw courage. I sometimes knew the right thing to do at the right time and I sometimes knew how to approach things a little bit differently than I had been prior to coming into Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was a slow process, a beautiful process and it continues. I wondered for a very, very long time where the wisdom came to know the difference between trying to change myself and some of my actions and some of the things about me that I could change and when to stay silent. I only know that the wisdom for me came from Almighty God. The journey that I've been on and I hope that I continue to be on has given me riches that are incredible and it has given me an ability to deal with the sorrows in my life as well as the joys.
I want to ask you to please welcome our very first speaker, Roger P. from Arizona. Thank you. Arizona is close to Arkansas. I'm an alcoholic and Roger is my problem. Hi y'all. The town I come from, Eureka Springs, there's more people in this room than there is in the town of Eureka Springs. When I'm around one alcoholic, I start to feel high and when I'm around two, that feeling doubles. So you can imagine how I feel right now standing up here.
I hear a loud thump. That's my heart beating. I arrived here last night and they had booked me to Ontario. Now you have to remember I'm from Arkansas. My luggage was sent to Ontario. I got to the airport rather late and the only person that was there that was available to talk to spoke only French. We don't speak French in Eureka Springs. So I said, A-A. I thought that would be pretty universal. And he said, Ha-ha.
I said, Man, this is no laughing matter. I'm up here in the city and I don't know where I'm supposed to be. So he directed me to a bus full of ha-ha. The bus was about 75 people from Mexico City that I had to ride about an hour with.
[00:05:09]
We don't speak Spanish in Eureka Springs either. I thought if I kept my mouth shut that they wouldn't know that I didn't know. But halfway there, somebody started talking to me in Spanish. It was all over. They wanted to throw me off the bus halfway to wherever I was going. But I was thinking at that point there should be a secret handshake or something we have. But again, I mumbled A-A and they let me stay on the bus.
And that is a universal language. I know the topic is the wisdom to know. I don't like drunk vlogs very well. But I thought I might qualify myself a little. What it was was a nightmare. And what happened was an awakening. How it is today is a miracle. Through the love of you people and this program. And sometimes that sounds like just words. But when I can walk in here and feel this love and the vibrations that come off you people, it makes all the difference in the world.
And that's why I'm sober today. How it was was insane. There were people that drank more and there were people that drank less. But the result was the same. Like most alcoholics, I seem to follow the bowels of the city or wherever I was. I've been shot and stabbed and poisoned. I've had friends that had their brains blown out in front of me. And I am a real alcoholic. Before I come up here, I have a little hair styling shop in Eureka Springs.
And since it's the only one in the town, I do most of the business. And I'm very fortunate because there's a lot of people from the program that are there daily. And that's another thing that keeps me sober. Because I get to talk program. And I get to see your loving people on a daily basis. Besides the meetings. And this one fellow came in, an earth person there that owns a large motel where they hold springtime in the Ozarks.
And it attracts quite a few people. There were in excess of 1,500 people last April down there. And he was commenting to me that it was remarkable how beautiful these people were. How congenial. How honest. How patient. And that there wasn't so much as an ashtray missing. There wasn't a towel missing. The rooms had been picked up. And he said he was really impressed. It was remarkable. I said, Dave, if you just add one ingredient, ethyl alcohol, to that group, you wouldn't have a brick standing in one of your buildings.
We'd kill each other. That's another beautiful thing. That we can have this many people, this many drunks in one room, and feel love. And no animosities. Before I came in here to the building, or I was right outside, and I had those jittery, chunky feelings.
[00:10:00]
What was I going to talk about? What was I going to say? What did you all want to hear from a country boy from Arkansas? And a lady walked up to me and introduced herself. And she said, I need to talk to somebody. And I immediately sat down and got out of myself. And for an hour and a half, talked to this lady, who'd had 80 days in the program, was confused. Confused, she said she was lonely in a full room.
She'd been to a meeting with 2,000 or 3,000 people, and she was lonely. She said she felt depressed. And we talked. The beautiful thing is, that after that hour and a half, I was the one that felt better. She thanked me for listening, and that she'd felt better. But I was the one that got the results. I'd totally forgotten about myself. I'd totally forgotten about speaking in here, all these anxieties, all these fears.
And I knew once I got up here and looked into your eyes, and looked over this group, that there was nothing but love in here. But that's how it works for me. And if there's a correlation there to the wisdom to know, that's the only wisdom I have to know. That when I'm eyeball to eyeball with another drunk, with another person in the program, or a person that wants to know about the program, I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling real good. Feelings that I've never known. I had so much hate and self-disgust. I hated every minute of living with me. And I couldn't get away from me, until I met you people. Now, I know we all feel that our home group is the best group in the world. But mine is. I was at a men's meeting. A STAG AA meeting. And it was kind of unusual. There were some pretty macho dudes there. There were some ex-bikers, and there were some pretty tough boys there.
And what might happen in a men's meeting, they were talking about women. And so, there's probably 40 people there. This friend I have in the program, in Eureka, his name's Bill. Then came Bill's turn, and Bill looked at these people, at these macho men, and he said, I love you all. He said, you're just acquaintances. He said, but Roger is the only friend I've ever had. And I had to leave the meeting on the pretense of going to the bathroom, because I didn't want these macho people to see that the water was really coming from the other end.
And I've never known love like that. I've never known a friendship like that. And a man that would declare himself like that. Those are one of the people, just one, that come in my shop, and that I see on a daily basis. I'll tell you, even my ex-wife's in the program. I learned something there, too. Whoa. There's a little town called Beaver, Arkansas, about five miles from Eureka Springs. The mayor's in the program.
He's got 36 years in the program. The population of Beavertown is 80 or 81. It depends upon which site.
[00:15:07]
This is a beautiful man. After 36 years in the program, he still attends meetings regularly and he still lends an AA hand to anybody who wants it. That's another privilege I have daily. A little while back there was a lady that came into the program. She was, had just turned 17. Eureka doesn't have a lot of things to do for young people. If they hang out, they use or drink. So she spent a lot of time at the shop.
Now, having just a tinge of chauvinism in me, I thought that I could really save this poor soul. That with this awesome wisdom that I had, the longevity in the program, being a male, that I could bestow some wisdom on this lady. What a joke. Four months in the program, 17 years old, she said some of the most profound things I've ever heard in this program. That's another loving experience that I see daily.
It gives me the wisdom to know. It keeps me sober. My sponsor, God bless him, told me that when I asked him to be my sponsor, he said, I'll be your sponsor under one condition. Boy, this is a hooker. Don't ever fall for this one. I said, what's that? And he said that you don't ever turn down anything that's asked of you in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. I said, that's pretty simple. I'll accept that.
Boy, catch 22 there. This guy's kept me hopping and jumping ever since. But that's all right. That's what I needed. And when somebody walks in that shop, or when somebody calls, or when I'm asked to do anything with the AA program, no matter how tired, no matter how miserable I feel, no matter how much in self I am, I remember that. And each and every time that I've acted upon that, I felt beautiful.
And it's kept me sober. It's another experience of love in this program. You people have given me so much. You've given me my life. Not just a sober life or a dry life, but you've given me a quality of life that today, I like myself. I'm all right. I never felt that way before. I felt a terrible, terrible buzz inside of me all the time that I had to be someplace else rather than where I was. If I was going someplace, I was in a hurry to get there.
And when I got there, I was in a hurry to leave. I could never lay back or kick back because I knew that this buzz was going on inside of me and that I had to be someplace doing something. And it was never fulfilled. After coming in this program and experiencing the love that you people have given me and the guidance and the direction,
[00:20:04]
I like myself today. It's all right. I'm okay. And man, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. And turn around and look at each other. We're all miracles. That this many drunks can come to one city. I believe I heard 45, 50,000 of us are here. That's totally awesome. That's almost more people than are in the whole state of Arkansas. All smiling and all loving. I've never been much for writing or reading.
I think before I come into the program, the last literary thing that I had read was Bambi. And because of my various occupations, bookmaker and drug dealer, I didn't put a lot of things down on paper. And if I did, it was flash paper that burnt real quick. I wrote something about three or four weeks ago. And I'd like to share it with you. Now remember, this is a first. Special people in a special place gave me life and love without disgrace.
A hug, a hand, a smile on their face helped me to rejoin the human race. Tough love, soft love, writing on the wall made it a magic AA hall. A place to laugh and a place to cry. A choice to live instead of die. You're beautiful people with a lot of love. It made it possible to rise above. To rise above fear and self-hate. And by one day at a time, it's not too late. With an honest heart and an open mind, I know I'm not just one of a kind.
Thank you and I love each and every one of you. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you, Roger. What you're experiencing right now, those of you who are sitting here and feeling the ebb and flow, is that beautiful power that I experienced when I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I called it magic because I didn't know what it was at that time. I sure know what it is today. The current of love that Roger talked about.
It made me cry and what a beautiful, beautiful gift. What a beautiful gift. Please help me welcome our second speaker for this afternoon, Dick. Hi, I'm Dick and I'm a very grateful recovering alcoholic. Hi, everybody. Isn't this beautiful? 50 wonderful years of Alcoholics Anonymous and almost 50,000 people here. Isn't that terrific? My God. I'd kind of like to thank Vicki Ann. I know she's not here, but for sending me this loving invitation to share with you people.
And I'd like to thank Sue and Roger and Ida Mae for sharing with me. When I saw the topic of discussion, like I was talking to Ida Mae before the meeting, and I kind of thought, well, now one of us, there's three of us, and one of us will talk on the serenity part and the other will talk on the courage part and the other will talk on the wisdom part. And we get up here and we find out we're all talking on wisdom, no.
But when you think about the wisdom to know and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous,
[00:25:01]
do we ever capture enough wisdom? Do we ever capture enough wisdom? We open our meeting, every meeting, with the serenity prayer. And I just can't say enough for it. You know, my wife told me not to do this, but I'm going to do it anyhow. I tell each of my pigeons that this is the way that I stayed sober in my early days of sobriety. I literally used the serenity prayer. And I tell each of my pigeons that if they don't want to drink, all they have to do is learn that serenity prayer.
And if you recite that serenity prayer, I'll defy you to take a drink with your mouth running. You just can't do it. I used to use this, literally. I was a mailman, and I used to use this. I had a lot of taverns on my mail route, and I used to use this when I'd walk in there, because usually when I walked in there and I was drinking, I walked in and I had a drink. But if I said that serenity prayer, I didn't have that drink.
I'd like to just share a little of my experience drinking hope with you. My drinking pattern is probably like a lot of you. I drank too long and drank too much until I drank myself right into the disease of alcoholism. When I came into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous on the 27th day of January, 1976, little did I realize what an experience that I would have in the fellowship. It was beyond my comprehension the opportunities that would be afforded me.
You offered me a life in which I might be able to find happiness, serenity, peace of mind. You give me the serenity prayer, the wisdom to know. That's our topic for today. I knew where you were from a past experience when I came into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, because once before I had tried it. I came in here, I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in order to keep my wife and my job. I listened to what your silly suggestions were at that time, what I thought they were, one day at a time.
What the hell is that? Let go, let God. Easy does it. Those things didn't mean anything to me. All I could think about was having to spend the rest of my life without the use of alcohol. I didn't realize that it would ever be possible for me to do this. And I knew that I was a very, very unhappy individual when I came into your fellowship the first time, because I didn't understand what you were trying to tell me.
But I knew a temporary solution to this problem, and that was called alcohol. It relieved all my fears and anxieties. It was called oblivion. I heard in the fellowship that we need every drink we take to get us here. I guess this must have been a case with me. I can remember a meeting one time I was going to, the first time I came into fellowship, and we had this guest come in from out of town, and our meeting was larger than usual.
And they made the big mistake of calling on me about the third person's chair in this roundtable discussion. And I ran it, and I raved, and I didn't say anything of significance or importance, but I sure let her come out. And I talked for quite a while, and they just couldn't shut me up. And this next speaker got up, and he was our guest, and he got up and he says, You know, we've got a solution for that where I come from.
We don't let them talk until they've got a year's sobriety. Boy, there was my out. There was my out. If they didn't want to hear my words of wisdom anymore or anything that I had to offer the fellowship, then I would get out. And besides, I'd been around long enough to keep my job and my wife, and so I stepped back down in the depths of hell. But when I came back to you, you wonderful, loving, caring people of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't come back for my wife or my job.
I came back for Dick. I came back because my life was at stake. And you know, this seemed pretty humiliating to me. How far down did I let myself fall to have to turn my life over to care of a bunch of drunks? You know, I just couldn't stand that. I couldn't visualize my doing that. But the first thing you gave me when I came back was a friendly hand of the fellowship. You welcomed me back with no questions asked.
You gave me the first of my many tools in my recovery program, the serenity prayer.
[00:30:04]
Serenity to accept, courage to change, and wisdom to know. When I look at the wisdom to know, I think about the ability to make sound judgments in any matter, and to understand clearly a truth of fact. I don't remember too much about my early period in Alcoholics Anonymous. I just know that I kept coming to meetings, day in and day out. I heard your voices, but I didn't understand what you were trying to relate to me.
I used to come at five minutes to late and leave at five minutes after nine. Didn't share in any of your fellowship. But I don't know what it was that kept coming back. I don't know what made me keep coming back. I really and truly don't. It was in the fact that I wasn't having to take that first drink, and I didn't understand. I didn't understand, but I kept coming back and I kept listening. I thought about it continuously, thought about drink continuously.
But the desire not to drink must have outweighed the desire to drink. Some of what you were telling me was penetrating this mind that was very, very foggy at this time. I came to you full of hate, resentment, anxiety, fear, selfishness, self-pity, and all the other defects of character that could be wrapped up into one individual. I had an inferiority complex that no other could equal. But above all, I had the frustration of not knowing how to deal with any of these, except for the use of alcohol, my one-time friend, now-turned-enemy.
Just to tell you how sick I really was, we had a meeting on fear one night, and my sponsor was relating his experiences about how fear affected his life. I stated, as I stated before as a mingle man, I said, ìThe only fear that I have is fear of dogs. Iím just scared to death of dogs.î And this was true. This was something that was actual and factual to me. I didnít really understand. Sometimes after attending some meetings, I was able to make a little bit of sense of what you were trying to tell me, that if I came to meetings, read the big book, and didnít take the first drink, I could stay dry.
But you told me there was more to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous than just being dry. You told me that I could know a new freedom and a new happiness. You told me that I could learn to live without regretting the past or wish to shut the door on it, that I might be able to find serenity and know a peace I had never felt before, that although my life was a shambles, I might see how my experiences might benefit others, that feeling of unselfishness and self-failure would disappear, that I could lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in my fellow man, that self-seeking would slip away, that my whole attitude and outlook upon life could change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity would leave me, that situations that baffled me would become more easier to deal with, that I could realize that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. You suggested the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous to me. This came as quite a surprise, believe it or not. Once again, I donít know how many meetings that Iíd heard this read, because we read chapter 5 out of the big book, how it works, at most of our meetings in the 8th District of Iowa.
And Iíd heard this over and over again, but the word just didnít penetrate. They didnít really mean anything to me, and I donít know whether it was that or whether I was just trying to shut the words out, because, you see, I had a problem at this time in my sobriety, if you want to call it sobriety. I had a problem with your higher power, which most of you chose to call God. You see, I couldnít accept your God.
I used the group as my higher power for quite some time, and believe it or not, after not drinking for a while, I was beginning to feel a little better. I donít know what it was, but I just seemed to try to keep God out of my life. My sponsor told me that this was okay, that it was okay for me to accept the group as my higher power. He said that when we become alcoholic, that some of us lose our association with God.
And then the next step is our ability to think clearly, rationally.
[00:35:00]
And next, if we drink enough, then our bodies have problems. And that we heal, or coming at Alcoholics Anonymous, we find a program in the exact opposite way, that our bodies miraculously heal fast, and that pretty soon we start thinking more clearly. And then we can learn to accept God into our life. And this fit me right to a T, right to a T. This is where I was at in my sobriety. I can remember going to one meeting, in particular on Friday night, my good friend Bill S. attended, and I used to sit right across from him.
And heíd talk about his higher power, which he chose to call God. And I would defiantly sit across from him and say that the group was my higher power. The group was my higher power. I still believe this today, that although I now choose to call God my higher power, but when you look at your program, at least when I look at my program, and we say the R father and we hold hands, I feel that vibration going through me that Roger spoke of.
Or get the glow when I see a fellow alcoholic on the street. Or that rise of excitement that comes through me when I see a bumper sticker on a car. I still get those feelings today, and I hope I never ever lose them. Because thatís your power working through to me. I believe that there is some God in all of us, and itís through you people that have allowed me, by passing that power on, to accept God back into my life.
I owe everything I have today to you people. It was about this time in my life that I came to the realization that I needed to make a few changes. Having admitted I was an alcoholic and that my life was unmanageable, and came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, and decided to turn my will on my life over to the care of God as I understood him. It was a rude awakening one morning when I woke up and got up and went in and looked into that mirror and saw that 50-year-old man looking back into the mind of a 15-year-old full of hate, anxiety, fear, selfishness, and all the other defects of character that one could possibly have in not knowing how to deal with them.
When I was a practicing alcoholic, alcohol solved all these problems, along with any other happening in my life. I had previously tried to take an inventory many times, but every time I tried, I wadded it up and threw it in the waste paper basket. I was at a step meeting one night, and my good friend Ron, after the step study, we were discussing our sleep habits. Not the goodest thing to talk about, I donít suppose, but thatís what we were talking about.
We drank a lot of coffee, and some of us were not used to that coffee, and this kept old Ron up. This kept old Ron up, and he was discussing it with me, and he said, ìYou know, I even wake up in the middle of the night.î I told him, ìRon, I donít have that problem.î I said, ìThe last couple of months, Iíve been drinking coffee, it doesnít bother me. I can go to sleep, and I sleep the night through.î That particular night, I awoke at 2 a.m., but I awoke with a realization that I couldnít take a fearless and moral inventory of myself because I hadnít turned my will and my life over to the care of God satisfactorily.
That morning at 2 oíclock, I went in, and I turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him, and I made a decision right then to sit down and write a fourth step. And I sat down, and I took a fearless and moral inventory of myself, and I wrote for five solid hours. I dug into my inner self. I took my guts out and laid them on the table and sorted through that mess of garbage.
I took the good that I could find, and I placed it back in myself. A warm sense of accomplishment came over me. I was beginning to know. I was beginning to clearly understand the truth of fact. I was beginning to see Dick for the first time, beginning to see that it would be a great deal of changes necessary for me to have the wisdom to make sound judgments in these matters affecting my life. I could also see the prospects of reward, a clear understanding of my higher power, which today I choose to call God, a way back to sanity, serenity, and peace of mind, and all the other things I search for when a practicing alcoholic.
[00:40:02]
I was beginning to have a portion of the wisdom to know. Having made this list, I had to share it with someone. I had my higher power, which I now chose to call God, but I needed another person, and I couldn't do it with my minister. For at this time, I thought that he couldn't be trusted, and I just knew he'd go running off and tell my wife what a no-good bum she'd married. I really didn't want this, because we were just beginning to have some semblance of reconciliation.
I might add, though, that since that time I've learned he's a pretty nice guy. Who, then, would I take it with? I knew what I'd do. I'd go to Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'd go down there. I had two granddaughters down there and my daughter, and I thought I'd go down there and call up a minister down there and take it down there. I got to Chattanooga, and I called the intergroup, and they gave me the number of a minister or called him, and he was going on vacation.
He was going to be gone longer than we were going to stay, but he gave me the name of a tailor. And I said to myself, a tailor, oh, I'll take it with him anyhow. What difference does it make? I'll never see him again. So I called him up, and he agreed to meet with me. We went down to the club room, went upstairs, and for the next three and a half hours I shared my wrongdoings and fears, shared my faults and resentments, literally bared myself to God and to this stranger that I just met.
Let me tell you something about that guy. He is no longer a stranger. He is no longer a stranger. He's one of my sponsors. I go to Chattanooga every so often. When I go there, I look old Charlie up. We always manage to get to a meeting, and it's usually out of town where we can take a drive for about two or three hours, and that's wonderful, sharing our experiences, strengths and hopes, etc., since the last time we met, kind of taking another fourth and fifth step with each other, a beautiful, beautiful relationship that we have now.
And I owe that to this minister who was going on vacation. Having done this, I was ready to take a good look at my defects of character and become willing to have God remove my self-pity, hate, resentment, anxiety, fear, selfishness, inferiority complex, and all these other defects of character that were bound up within me. It's true that I still suffer with these to some degree today. I probably will until the day I die.
But I'm aware of my shortcomings more today, and I try to the best of my ability with what I've got to work with, and that isn't all that great, to deal with them as they arise. Here again the wisdom to know prevails. I sat down and made a list of people at harm and became willing to make amends to them. Some of them it would be impossible, and others I couldn't find. But those that I could, I have, as far as I know.
It's through the right of decision and better still the wisdom to know that what makes me feel better, that I have been blessed with through the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, that you gave me back my higher power, gave me back my serenity and peace of mind that I sometimes enjoy today, all of these things you people have given me, and just because I'm an alcoholic. Just because I'm an alcoholic.
Is it any wonder that I say I'm a grateful alcoholic? I never would have found this way of life had I not suffered from the disease of alcoholism and some way found my way through your doors. And if I continue to take a personal inventory and admit my wrongs, remember to look to God through prayer and meditation, to become more aware of what it is he wants me to do, and stay out of the driver's seat and let his will be done, I'm sure he will guide me in the right direction.
If I practice all the principles of the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous to the best of my ability and carry the message to the still-suffering alcoholic, whenever and wherever possible I have a good chance of getting through this day without the use of alcohol. And having the choice of decision on how my day will be, you have given me through the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous the wisdom to know that how I feel is entirely up to me.
Help me, O Lord, when I want to do the right things, but not know what it is, but help me. What I Ought to Do, But Can't Find Will to Do It.
[00:45:00]
Thank you very much. I've been sitting and kind of taking in all of this afternoon's message, and I realized when I listen to someone share as Dick about what it was like, what happened and what it's like now, and he talks about the miracles, that I'm part of that, you know, each of us in this room is part of that beautiful, beautiful process of a miracle in each of our lives individually and collectively in this room.
Please help me now, I've saved a very, very lovely lady for last, actually, it's the way the program went, and I think there's a reason for it. Please help me to welcome Ida May. My name's Ida May, and I'm an alcoholic. My date of sobriety is January the 2nd, 1978, and I thank you for another day. I'm overwhelmed. I could sit back down, I am just completely overwhelmed by everything. I share my date of sobriety because it tells you what you've done for me.
You've given me my life, one day at a time, up till today, and I'm most appreciative. When I say I'm an alcoholic, if you're an alcoholic, or if you're an al-anon, you know the pain I've been through, the fear and all those other things, so I don't like to give a drunk-a-log. I don't find my drunk-a-log very exciting or humorous or anything. It was very sad, so by telling you I'm an alcoholic and telling you my date of sobriety, that's enough, in essence.
When I got the letter from this GSO, I was so overwhelmed it took me a week before I could respond to it, and I still feel that way. The beauty of the program just is something I just can't get. I can't seem to get a handle on. It just constantly turns over in my mind and my heart how beautiful it is and all the changes that go on with it. It just constantly changes, as I say. One of the things last Sunday night at one of the regular groups I go to, I ask to speak on this subject, the wisdom to know.
On Tuesday night, being sometimes a little bit shy, I ask another friend to ask for me, in my home group, no less, to speak on the same subject because there were some people there, and I didn't want them to think I was trying to hog the meetings. But nevertheless, they did share, and because they've given me so much since I came into your rooms, I feel I should share what they shared with me, because I am you, and you are me.
One of the things that they shared very deeply, that wisdom to know is from the gut, that we know when we're feeling it in the gut that we're right, and when we're right, we are right, and we know the difference between right and wrong. They also shared that wisdom was AA, the positive parts of this program, and almost every bit of the program is positive, that's wisdom. They shared that wisdom is asking for a gift the way that we ask for it in the serenity prayers, and this was shared by a man with 30-some years, that when we start the serenity prayer, we're asking for one big gift, and that asking for wisdom is really asking our higher power for this gift we want.
I wrote them down because I'm not very good, I'm not very good at writing things down either. Wisdom is our faith, and the faith that, like when I came in the program, to divert on me just for a moment, I knew you had something, I knew there was something. I didn't know much about AA, some friends that I had met in AA six months before just said, you need it, so to speak, come join us, and you know, you can't lower yourself
[00:50:03]
to that level at that point, you're not ready, but six months later I was ready. You gave me all the faith and the hope, and that goes back to those six months when I saw these people and what they had become because they were in AA. It was just, you know, again, overwhelming, and so when we are in the rooms, we have this faith that comes from the wisdom to be in this room. Wisdom is plugging in to a higher power, that's how one person put it, and for me it's plugging in to a higher power as often as I can remember, which is quite a bit.
I like to say the serenity prayer. When I'm very tired, I just sometimes have to say, thy will be done. In the Washington area that I come from, on the program it says Maryland, but my home group is in Maryland and I live in Maryland, but we have two counties of Maryland next to D.C. and we belong to D.C., the District of D.C. when our delegate is here, so I have to, you know, let you know that, but we do belong to D.C., and I'm sorry, I missed something there.
Oh, not all our meetings in the D.C. area do we start off with the serenity prayer, nor do we end them, so some nights we don't say the serenity prayer. We do use the Lord's Prayer closing every meeting, though. So you have to, in our area, use the serenity prayer a lot on your own. You have to have that kind of wisdom to plug in to that. Also, one of the things, well, it was two things, two different people said, that wisdom was the second step and wisdom is the eleventh step, and as we go through our steps, we're gaining the wisdom by using those steps, and using them on a daily basis, as well as when we start using the second step, we're really gaining wisdom.
One of the things I connected wisdom with the other day was, when I'm getting rid of my character defects, and I like to say lately, by the width of a hair, then I'm getting something positive by that same width in my system. I'm replacing it with that character defect, and that is wisdom that you're giving me. I absorb your wisdom as I get rid of my perspiration. I absorb it through the pores in meetings.
I absorb your strength and your serenity from any room that we're in. When we come into a room, when the first person in the room comes in, they bring the power with them, and when we close the door after making coffee, the power is no longer in that room, because we have a special power. Knowing that gives us the faith and the hope and the wisdom to set in meetings and to share, and so forth, because sometimes it isn't all that easy for some of us to be doing that.
Somewhere along the line, I read that the price of wisdom is above rubies, and I think rubies cost more than diamonds today. It was really saying wisdom is limitless. It has no material monetary value. It is nothing we can buy. It is just something we absorb, as I say, through my pores from you. I absorb your wisdom, your love, your strength, and it works for me that way. Wisdom, as I just said, outweighs wealth.
There's just nothing we can buy with our wisdom, and knowing right from wrong, the power, again, the gut level stuff that we get involved in, and Ron, I guess it was, was saying how he spent the time with the young lady, the gut level, that's wisdom. He knew that he was needed, and so forth. It's not always easy. It wasn't easy when I came in the program. Today, it isn't always easy. I want to share something with you, because my husband and I, as a lot of you know, the rooms are hard to get, so when we got our room here in the mail, I said it was either a real nice little tourist trap type place way out in the boonies, or it was the best whorehouse in town.
Well, it turned out to be more like the latter.
[00:55:03]
And today, when we got back before I took a shower to get ready and rest to come over here, I was very perspiry, so I took my shirt off, and I had some bright red slacks on and a bra, and he walked up and asked me to lift one of his shirts off, he had two, you know, and lift it off, because they were wet and hard to get off, so I'm standing in front of the window lifting them off, and two guys are across the street, look at that, look at that, you know, so I don't know what kind of house we're in.
It's very amusing. The view from outside took a lot of wisdom to stay there type thing, because it's burned out building across the street, and it's near the jazz, the center of jazz, so all night long the jazz has been going on, and we're not jazz people, so we're not getting very much sleep. But I know, I had the wisdom to know that I had to stay there, because there's no other bed in town, so be lucky and hope you don't get scabies or something from the sheets, and that kind of thing.
A lot of this really, believe it or not, it's that little kind of stuff like that on a daily basis that takes a lot of wisdom, and my husband and I were teasing about a friend of ours who had, had he been put in that situation of this room, he would not have stayed, and he would have gotten in a car and taken off. Well, when we saw the room, knowing there were no other rooms in town, the wisdom came in handy and we accepted the room and calmed down, live with it, do the best you can, and so forth.
So those are the kinds of things you give me. It's, as I said, it just overwhelms me, just seeing you. There's a few people from my area in the room, and it just, it gives me a great comfort to know that someone might be in this room because my name was down or because they know me or something. It gives me a great comfort. Where can you get that comfort? You might go to any other place to speak at the podium, and you know they're there for some other reason.
They're not just there because they love you. That's the unconditional love, which is another form of wisdom. You've given me my sobriety, and my sobriety comes first, as January 2nd 24-hour book says. It must come first, and you've given me that, and you've given me unconditional love. I did not understand that, I did not know what it was, and I had never had it before I came in the program, but you've given it to me.
And it's just been an overwhelming experience. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel comfortable all the time. It just makes you feel comfortable to be in an AA room and knowing you have this sobriety and all this to fall back on. Any of us in the room can go out the doors now, look for help for any reason whatsoever, and our wishes might not be met, but we will get help in some form or the other.
It's just fantastic. I know I'm going to cut the time short, but you might want to get up and go to the ladies' room before the next meeting or something. So I appreciate you being here. I love you dearly. Thank you very, very much. I want to thank Ida Mae for sharing her experiences, and I felt her emotions as she came up and started to share. I was flooded by her humor. Humor is a wonderful condition to be in.
I wasn't in humor for a good number of years, and I love to laugh, and I love to hear other people laugh. Roger's been kind of looking out of the corner of his eye, because as each person got up to share, I'm jotting down little words that are big words, and they mean a great deal to me in terms of the wisdom to know, the serenity prayer, the 12 steps, the feelings that are here. I have a picture album, as I'm sure many of you do.
It's not at home. It's one that I carry. It's not at home. It's one that I carry with me, and I carry it in my modeled brain, in my mind, in my being. And I began this album of memories when I had been an alcoholic synonymous
[01:00:10]
for only a very short time. The pictures are unique. They're filled with love, with tears, with laughter, with joy, with sorrow, and they're filled with people. There are no cathedrals and no parks and, you know, things. They're filled with people and events in my life that have given me strength and courage and love and the emotions and the humor that we heard today. And this afternoon, I took another couple of pictures.
All of you are in the pictures. You came out beautifully, by the way, in 8×10 glossy. You look lovely. And what I saw as I looked around, and the view from here is absolutely delicious, I can assure you. Because there's nothing more beautiful to me than to be able to look and see a group of people who are sharing in an experience, and that's what I believe this afternoon was, at least for me, and what I saw in your eyes.
And it was a quality of love and a quality of tenderness, and remarkable that every one of the pictures in my album have those qualities in it. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is indeed God-given, and I saw it and I experienced it today, and in my own fumbling way, I'm trying to tell you that that's what I saw when I started snapping pictures of you this afternoon, about an hour ago. I felt today, as we were sitting here and listening, the dignity, that's another word on this paper, the dignity that I have been allowed since I came into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I could feel with your presence your dignity. The Serenity Prayer has come to mean so much to me as it has to Roger and Dick and Ida Mae, and I suspect to maybe a few of you.
It has been more than a tool. It has been a part of me from all of the time that I have come into Alcoholics Anonymous, from the very first time that I heard the prayer and began lip service on it. I learned the words because I thought it was appropriate to do that. It took me a very, very long time, and still does, to learn what the meaning is behind all of it. The mistake of the wisdom was something that captivated me, if you will, when I was very new in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know what it took to have wisdom to know how to deal with situations, how to act, how to walk, how to talk, how to make decisions. I didn't know any of those things, and I asked my sponsors, and each of them I have.
I have been very grateful because I have three sponsors, and they are the loves of my life. One of them passed away this past January, and he had nearly 40 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, and each of them told me essentially the same thing, that wisdom was kind of sharing the experiences, feeling the experiences, and using our experiences to deal with the next situation that came up. In 1978, I was privileged to be on a panel such as we had today at a convention, and it was a New York State Convention, and it was in Buffalo. I remember it vividly because it came back to me earlier today as I was thinking of this panel, because the topic was the serenity prayer.
I remember as I spoke, I was one of the speakers, I burst into tears talking about how and what the serenity prayer has come to mean to me throughout the years.
[01:05:21]
And that I believe that the wisdom to know the difference came from Almighty God, as I said in the very beginning. I still believe that, and I still believe that he shows me through each and every one of you. This has been a marvelous, marvelous afternoon for me. Ida Mae said that you could go to the ladies' room now, but if you're of the male variety, please don't. Try the men's room. It's a little easier, a lot less complicated. We're not going to do relationships this afternoon.
Again, I want to thank Roger and Dick and Ida Mae for sharing. I thank, too, our silent partner, Vinnie, for her beautiful, loving invitation to me to be part of this. I thank all of you for allowing me to take pictures of you, for your beauty and your dignity. As far as I'm concerned, this weekend, what has passed and what will come in this period of time that we have spent together is a message of love.
And I like to use that expression because it's very simple and very direct for me. And now, for those of you who would care to, we have an absolutely beautiful, beautiful way to close a meeting, a panel, a workshop, a convention, whatever, with the Lord's Prayer.