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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – RESPONSIBILITY TO RESPOND – RS 06384.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-responsibility-to-respond-rs-06384.mp3 Duration: 01:25:49
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And for the ones that maybe couldn't be here, the ones that wanted to, but couldn't be, and the ones that would like to be here, or are here in spirit. And then let's repeat the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, Amen. They've got me a little sheet of instructions up here on what I'm supposed to do, but I'm a good alcoholic and I ain't going to do it like that.
I'm going to read the preamble. I hadn't heard the preamble read at one of these meetings, and I'm going to read it. Alcoholics Anonymous, because I think there may be some people here that may be here for the first time, Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name or photograph and publish the broadcast reports of our meetings.
The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. Our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principals come before personalities. Okay, I'm going to be vague again from what they've told me to do. I go to meetings where they open with a serenity prayer, they read the preamble, and they read the steps. And if that don't get done, I don't feel like I'm in a meeting.
So I've asked somebody very special to me to come up and read the steps, and if anybody got a problem with that, then that's your problem. And this special person happens to be my brother, and I'm glad he's here. And Jimmy, will you come up and read the steps for us? I'm Jimmy Mooney, and I'm an alcoholic and an addict. Here are 12 steps. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact maker of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Seven, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Twelve, 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. Thank you, Jimmy. Again, I'd like to mention, if anybody's interested in a little non-smoking section, the first few rows over here on my far left have been requested to be non-smoking. Are there any announcements that anybody has that I need to make before we get started?
On the program it says that Anne S. from Connecticut was going to talk, and evidently Anne got caught in the metro or in a taxi. We had a, whatever y'all do, don't get a cab that's a Renault, because we had one of those
[00:05:06]
guys last night, and I asked him what the French word for crazy was, and he said fou, and I said, man, you lost fou, and that's probably where Anne is, is she's out with her taxi driver in a Renault somewhere lost. But anyway, I ran into somebody outside that is very, very special to me that I met at the Vancouver International Conference of Young People and Alcoholics Anonymous a number of years ago, and it's one of those relationships that as soon as you see each other, you just know that that's the way it's going to be.
And we've kept up with each other, and we've run into each other from time to time, and I couldn't think of anybody I'd rather hear speak on responsibilities this morning, the ability to respond, than Steve. And if y'all will, please help me welcome Steve S. from California. My name's Steve, and I'm an alcoholic. And this is really an honor to be here and to get to do this. I'd like to thank Anne for whatever she did.
I don't know. One of my favorite descriptions, because sometimes I don't realize, I know that it was bad when I first came in, but I don't realize how bad it was, and I kind of think, well, maybe I was just exaggerating. Maybe I wasn't quite as bad as I thought. But Bobby came out to California one time, and he was saying in a meeting, he said, yeah, we saw Steve at his first convention, and we didn't think he was going to make it.
Not that he wasn't going to make the program, but he just wasn't going to make it through the convention. You know, he's going to fly out somewhere. And it really is incredible to me sometimes when I think about what it used to be like and what it's like now. I definitely had grave emotional and mental disorders. I was in great physical shape. I went through a hospital, and they checked me out, and they said, you're perfect.
You know, your liver's okay and everything. But I think what I had in my body I made up in losing in my mind. I heard someone say that crazy people don't have any minds left, and I heard another speaker say that they thought that was wrong, that they only have their minds left. And that's how I was. I went to this convention. I had trouble doing everyday things, like shaking hands. I used to think about it, and I'd try to figure out how people knew when to stick out their hand.
But I'd start to stick out my hand, and they'd see that I was sticking out mine, so they'd stick out theirs, and then I'd pull it back, and I'd get afraid, and it was a mess. I'd start to talk, and I would say something, and everybody would look at me, which was normal. But that would scare me, and then I'd think, why are they looking at me? And I'd forget that I had said something, and then I'd think, well, maybe if I just don't say anything, they'll go away.
And pretty soon they would. They'd get tired, and then they would just go, okay. Then I felt like I was safe. They went away. I was raised to be responsible, and to be a good performer, so I did perform okay, which I think really helped a lot in AA, because they say you have to follow directions. It wasn't that way at first, I did have to hit a bottom in AA, but I kind of had that when I was told to do something, I could do it, or when they said, would you make the coffee?
I said, sure. When I finally had to leave and not make coffee, I wondered how the meeting was ever going to survive. I thought I was the only coffee maker in AA, but I think what has made the difference in
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AA is that it's kind of given meaning to responsibility, because before I could do the actions, but without the program, without the steps and everything else, it's like I still can't stay sane, and I still can't do it with the right attitude, or it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't really help me. My story is that when I got sober, I had decided that because I was drinking, because of the alcohol, I had lived my life bad, and now that I wasn't drinking, that I was going to be able to get it all together.
I guess there's maybe a few other people that had that idea, and I decided I was going to go back to school and exercise, and just do what society says a good, solid person would do. I got real involved in that, and I forgot about staying sober. I was still going to meetings, but not quite as many, and I believed halfway in meetings. Pretty soon, staying sober wasn't really that important. My last drink, I don't even remember what month it is, my parents kind of helped me narrow it down, but I just had a slip one night, and I thought, well, you just have a slip and you come back to AA tomorrow, what's the big deal?
After that, I stayed sober, and I ended up in a hospital again. I started hallucinating, and was hearing things that weren't there, and seeing things that weren't there, and I ended up in this same psychiatric ward, and for some reason that made the difference. I saw the same four walls again, and I had believed that I was really superior to everybody, and was kind of on this different path. When I got back to the same four walls, it kind of hit me.
I thought, I'm in the psychiatric ward, and this is where they put crazy people, and maybe I'm not doing as well as I thought I was. I thought, well, I would like to try AA now. I had heard the stories, and I didn't believe that you people really were as happy as you said you were, but I thought I wanted to try and give it my all. I think I fulfilled, in the first part, pretty much I did what people asked directly of me.
They said to call people, and I couldn't do that. What was I going to say? Call them up. What was I going to say? I found out. The second time around, I felt it necessary to do everything that they said and suggested. When I would call my sponsor, I would just say, well, you told me to call, I called. That's it. Sometimes we would talk for a while, and sometimes we wouldn't. We'd say, okay, that's fine, see you later.
I think that's the most important thing. It seems like that part in the big book where it says, if we get our spiritual life straight, then the mental and physical will follow. It seems like as long as I keep my AA program right, then the responsibility will follow. I don't really have to worry about it too much. I just got to show up. I'm in the process of changing careers, and it's like a completely different change.
When I listen to the AA people and things that I learn in meetings, I just go along and I do it. I'm confident, and I think, great, it's just going to work out. When I stop and think, I think, there's no way, this is impossible. It's never going to work out. Why did you ever think you could do this? I notice in this school that it's mostly just showing up. It's a school where you have to just sign up for classes on your own, and you have to come.
I notice a lot of people like we used to be. There's a lot of people like we used to be, you know, they're there every day, you know, they come in and they say,
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man, I've been coming to class every day for the last two weeks, and they come every day for about three months, and then you don't see them anymore. They take like a long vacation. And through meetings, you know, I know that I'm just supposed to show up there regular, and I just kind of know that I'm going to make it, you know, if I just keep going to meetings and keep showing up. I saw some people here that, you know, saw me when I first got sober.
I was in the same home group as Mike. I saw the program, and I thought it was Mike and Bobby that were the two people, but I wasn't really sure, and I got to come up here and find out that it really was them. I don't know. I just really believe I've been sober a little over six years, and since that time in the hospital, I really have tried to keep AA first, and, you know, try and do everything that I feel I both need to do and that is asked of me.
I go to regular meetings. I don't think I've ever not gone to meetings. I have some friends, and I've heard of some people that have not gone or, you know, not gone for a while, and it really scares me to not go to meetings. I've always heard that the people that slip or that fall away from the program are the people that stop going, and I really hope that I can give something back that has been given me.
I kind of feel bad. I know in Chicago, I used to go to this one meeting where there was this lady that had been around a long time, and she said that there were a lot of people out there in the community that were sober 30 and 35 years that didn't go to meetings anymore, and I always used to think that that was such a shame. You know, they had been given so much, and now they were just sitting at home, you know, letting it waste away, and I really feel a responsibility to, you know, to give something back now that I do have something.
AA has taught me to live with myself comfortably, which is something that I never believed would be possible. I mean, I used to come to these AA conventions, and I would be so, you know, like I told you, I was crazy, and I would be just completely nervous, and it really wasn't comfortable all of the time. It just got a little less anxiety-filled for moments, but it was really pretty uncomfortable all the time, and I used to run to my room, and I'd read my big book and, you know, try and just get it together so I could come out and face you people again, and, you know, today, it's not really like that.
It's like the fear is there, but I just am more used to it, and I don't expect so much. You know, sometimes I call my sponsor, and I say, you know, it's six years, you know. Is this what it's supposed to be like? And he says, well, what did you expect? Just, you know, what did you think was really going to happen? And that has been the truth for me, that, you know, there's still all the craziness that goes on in my head, and there's still all the fears and everything, but there's that something that's always been there since I've really tried AA. Like, in the beginning, it was hope.
When I was completely anxiety-ridden, it was like there was that little bit of hope that I just knew it was going to be okay if I went to that next meeting, or I knew it was going to be okay if I, you know, got involved with the Young People's Convention, and I just knew, and now it's like expanding, you know. There's times when I just know that I'm okay just as I am, and, you know,
[00:20:04]
that I feel comfortable just the way I am with the good and the bad, and, you know, that's an incredible gift. My sponsor, that was kind of his message, you know, just that the message that was carried to him was someone that was honest with him and was going to be able to teach him to live with himself, and that has been, you know, is being passed on to me, and I really feel a responsibility to give, you know, whatever I can back.
I was real involved in service, the service end. My sponsor in Chicago was real involved in service, and he took me to a lot of GSR meetings and area meetings and conventions, got me started on the conventions, and lately with school and working, and I haven't had as much time for that type of thing, but for me it's been good. I've been getting more involved with people. You know, before I did service a lot because I knew it was a good idea and because I met a lot of great people, in part because, you know, I had trouble talking to people, and it was great. You know, they say there's always a job for somebody somewhere, you know, if you want it, and so lately with my schedule and everything, when I hear people in meetings that are having a hard time, I call them, you know, ask them for their number and call them until they feel better and trying to get to know people better, and that has been great.
You know, it renews my faith in AA because I feel like it doesn't have to all stay the same. You know, you don't have to do the same thing, that there's plenty, you know, there's always something else that you can learn about and, you know, have some new experiences, and it won't get boring. My sponsor says, you know, we would hate it if it ever got normal. Wouldn't that be terrible, you know, if one day you woke up and you were normal?
You just, you know, you just wanted to go to work, you know, you just went to work and came home and were comfortable just sitting around the house and having, you know, a little bit of fruit before bed and you just did that day. I mean, we do those things, but we have our minds to keep us company, and it's more exciting than just that, you know. I think my time is finally up. I was worried there. I got a chance to talk in San Diego just recently, and I, with about ten minutes left, I went blank, and I stood up here for about three minutes, and I couldn't think of anything to say, and I went blank at about ten minutes ago, and I thought, oh, no, not at this one.
But I'm glad I was able to continue talking through the whole thing, and I am really honored and grateful to get a chance to share this. This is a tremendous honor, I guess, you know, just to be here, just to be at the convention, to be sober to begin with, and to be at the convention, and thanks. Steve was originally from the Chicago area, and he's moved to California. Has anybody ever wondered why all crazy people move to California?
That says something about our next person, our next speaker. She's from Hawaii. You know, you just go further west. I just met Alita. I just met Alita, and I spent a few minutes talking with her, and I can tell that she's got the kind of sobriety that I was looking for when I came into this program, and I'm looking forward to hear what she has to say about responsibility.
[00:25:01]
Y'all please help me welcome Alita M. from Honolulu. Hi. I'm not Patty. My name's Alita, and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. Aloha. But I do feel really special standing up here with the Lays. I don't know what I did to deserve them, but I'm taking them and not asking questions. Okay. I must say that up to this point, I've kind of been on a little bit of a downside. I don't know. I think not practicing halt this weekend, and I know if I express these feelings out here that by the time this meeting's over, I'll feel better.
I'm not hungry. God, I'm not hungry. If I ate another thing, I think I would scream, but my belly's telling me no more coffee. I'm not angry, frustrated, because I'm not getting my way everywhere. I think that's mostly it. Lonely? A little bit. I think the bigger the crowd gets, the more lonely I get. That's still a little hanging on from the past. Tired? Very. Anyway, I feel better just telling you all that.
Now we can get down to the meeting and kind of liven this show up a little bit, right? Okay. I heard a speaker talk one time how she had to travel all over the world to hear the AA message, and I finally understood that here today, because I get caught up in personalities, and here I don't know anybody. I don't know Pa, but I just like his draw, his little southern draw. I don't know that he might be a pansy over here or this over there, but I'm enjoying his message, and that has really been good for me.
And I've met some people here that just look at me, and I feel that love that generates through them, and I'm not caught up in what they do for a living or what they do at home or anything like that. So that's been very good for me. And I think today I'd like to start off just a little bit different. I always tend to get caught up in what it was like. I'm so sick of my past that it's just driving me crazy.
If I did one more fifth step on it, I think I'd scream too, and my sponsor doesn't want to hear it anymore. So let's start in the middle. I think my transformation, I think, is far more fascinating to me because it just seems like a miracle, and I really am a miracle. I am one of those responsible people in AA, and I was not always that way. I came in here very angry. I'm an extremely angry person, and it took a while.
That first year I spent just not saying everything that I felt. I felt very upset most of the time and very hostile, but I didn't express my feelings too much. I think I just simply did not drink that first year. And then I think I bottomed out emotionally about the fifth or sixth month. I think my friend here, Steve, talked about an emotional bottom. I think these feelings just, I was pushing them back, pushing them back, pushing them back, no alcohol to cover them, and all of a sudden they just overwhelmed me.
And I felt the pressure building, but by the fifth or sixth month, I think I went insane. I got sicker before I got well or in sobriety. And through the help of a psychologist, I didn't go through treatment. I just went to him towards that middle of this crazy period because I'd been in AA for several years, in and out at that point, and I wanted to make it. I wanted to walk through that barrier. For me, that third, fourth, fifth month had been a barrier.
And he talked to me about using exercise to kind of relieve the pressure and stress because that was what it was. My jaw was hurting. I was clenching my fists, and I wasn't going to meetings and listening, nor was I participating. And thank God I had a psychiatrist who knew about AA, enough to push me back into the fellowship. So that was really helpful for me. And amazingly enough, for me, exercise, jogging on the beautiful sunlit beaches of Maui, not too bad, ten miles of white sand beach, I could go out there before work in the morning, go to work, and then if I still couldn't leave work at work, I would jog some more.
And I got a good figure as a result of that, and I didn't go off too deep into the sugar world until lately. And so it worked for me. I think my first year, though, was just tough. Just hanging in there, basically biting the bullet, I guess would be the good expression for the Bobby M. back here. The southern, like that southern drawl. Anyway, my husband's over here, and his wife's here. So nothing going.
here and his wife's here, so nothing going, and so, anyway, I think what really began to
[00:30:04]
change in me was not just the going to meetings, that didn't cut it, but I didn't change with just meetings, I needed to start working the Twelve Steps, and the beginning of the Twelve Steps began for me on my first Twelve Step call, I'll never forget it as long as I live, I went and Twelve Stepped a girl, see, and I got sober on Maui, which is an outer island, there was six or seven meetings a week at that time, and the answering service, we had one, and they would pass the calls through directly to your home, and here I am in the kitchen talking to this girl who's talking about suicide, and I'm, and they're frying up pork chops, yeah, yeah, yeah, just a minute, and I go turn them off and come back and talk, and I went, I surely didn't want to do this, and that was where I am responsible, that was the first time in my life that I went and did something I didn't want to do for someone else, I'd been so bound in self, the selfish, self-centered person that I had become, and that I am today when I get so locked into being negative and feeling bad, and so I went to Twelve Step this girl, and I thought she looked like she was someone like my mother's age or something, it turned out she was two years younger than me, shocked me, her daughter had been assaulted by the landlord a few months prior while she was down in the bar below drinking, and there was nothing in the refrigerator but a thing of water and some bread, and she's telling me she really doesn't have a big problem, just a little one, and if I could just help her out, move to a new location and get started again, and I'll never forget that, and I wouldn't do anything unless she was willing to go to a meeting with me that night, I didn't know what else to do, and of course I didn't bring another alcoholic with me, and this is my first Twelve Step call, and I felt responsible, and in the car she asked me, what do you do, and I never thought about that before, what do you do to stop drinking, I said, well, you go to this meeting tonight and I'll introduce you to my sponsor, and then we'll ask her, and I don't know what to say, we'll just go here, we'll just take it a day at a time, kind of like Sybil, what was it, Sybil last night, what was it, anyway, we went there and no one would take her, and she kind of looked pretty bad, she was like a speed freak, actually I don't know if she was an alcoholic as much as a speed freak, and so nobody would take her, and I ended up with her, and that night I went home after I dropped her off, and I read that big book for the first time, and I looked at those steps to find the answers, and I wouldn't do it for me, my life was not worth saving, but I would do it for her and that little girl, and this girl didn't make it, not at that time, I don't know, I lost track of her, I did everything for her, let me tell you, I found her a job, I moved her, I got babysitting, everything, but she didn't stay sober, so I learned to let go of her early, but that was the beginning of my salvation, I guess, and the healing started in me, this ugly, angry, bitter person that I had become just kind of melted away, it took a long time, it took years, but it melted away, and I know now that that loving spirit of God that flows through me only when I reach out to touch someone else, and in that process I was beginning to be healed, and when I reached back, not to help anyone, you know, into myself once more, that spirit shut off, and I believe that's how the process works for me, and God could be, God is love, could be a man, woman, I don't have any, I don't get that involved, I just know that it works, and that's something I've learned this weekend, it does work, whatever your beliefs are, God came to me through my beliefs, through my understanding, so anyway, I worked, started working the 12 steps, and boy, did I have a surprise, I always thought I was such a nice person, I didn't know underneath all that nice person there was a very hostile, bitchy, irritable person who ruled the world, I thought, and so things had to change, and things did change, I met my now husband, I left my then husband, and I got the newcomer and took him on the way, and gosh, everything happened, before that point I'd never been to school, and I went to college, I got a degree, I had a child, I managed to hold down some really good jobs, and my self-esteem was coming back slowly but surely, but again, it was not all that way, my early beginnings, I guess, oh boy, I started drinking I think at 16, and it was an attempt to get out of the drug scene, I was born and raised in Haight-Ashbury, and then I was moved to Venice, California to get away from the drugs, and then of course Venice, California, back to Haight, and by then there was a long hair and all that, and I got into it good, real good, so by the time I was 16, I'd been locked up for a long period
[00:35:00]
of time, I'd been through the psych ward at the juvenile hall centers, and hundreds of hits, LSD, everything, and I just was kind of old before my time, then I thought, well I'm going to just get away from the drugs, no more out, no more this, no more illegal things, I'm going to become a nice, acceptable member of society, get a straight job, and drink alcohol, and I'll never forget that first night, I drank alcohol with my sweet 16 birthday, and it was 7-7, and also when that ran out, I fell to red mountain wine, and I'll just never forget it, that first night I drank, I got drunk, I blacked out, and of course that's normal, right, I didn't know other people don't black out and drink to the end, and I drank just like I use drugs, if one is good, two's got to be better, three must be great, and that's how I did it, if I was only one beer in the refrigerator, you know damn well I never would have touched it, unless I knew I was going to go out immediately and buy 20-30 more, or whatever I drank, and same way with the pills, I collected them, took them, just kept them until I could take, had enough to get a good high on, who would waste one red, or one value on, so that was kind of the story for me, and when I went to Maui, I was running, I was running, I was trying to get away from the alcohol, the hallucinations started for me, I don't know where they came from, but they started, extremely paranoid, extremely so, and as I got sober, that's why I got sicker as I got sober, because the paranoia just consumed me, and so, and I did my first year, and my second year, met this man, got married, everything kind of turned good, and then I started going to school, and wanting to be somebody, and that became too important to me, and having come from zero, my family has got a long history of alcoholism, my father died of an overdose of heroin when I was young, I never met him, my grandmother is a shopping bag lady in Las Vegas, 14 husbands later, I haven't seen her for years, my mother, you know, we have this long, long, long, their stories are far more interesting than mine, let me tell you, how they got there, I don't know, but anyway, I could go on about them, and see later, my mother's life story is far more interesting, but anyway, I won't go into her story, but she's still out there too, and I was raised in a foster home, a black foster home, interesting enough, from two years, two weeks old, until I was eight, and so I have a kind of a Louisiana blend in here, somewhere, locked up with my strong desire for gumbo, and collard greens, and black eyed peas, about once a week, I'm still a little confused, but I know who I am, most of the time, anyway, my, like I said, I only mention that, is to say that I did have some problems long before they took that first pill, fix, drink, snort, rag, I loved glue when I was young, anything, I took anything, just to get escape from the feelings that I had, when I was eleven, I tried to commit suicide, I wasn't too successful, but I got my attention, and I got scared, and I knew I had to kind of put on a better front than the one that I was showing everybody, because no one was listening, and that's why I was a perfect candidate for drug addiction and alcoholism, and when I got sober, my sobriety was tough, because I had a lot of the wreckage to clean up, that's why I think we all grow at different paces, because some of us need healing a little bit deeper than others, and actually, I really wasn't hurt, most of my pain was self-inflicted, just for my, I didn't care, I didn't love myself, so anyway, I think I love myself most of the time now, and, so what happened was, I got so bound up into school, I wasn't doing as well as I thought I should, I wasn't the straight A student, of course, coming from no high school, you know, I still expected to walk into a university and do straight A's, I don't know why, but I did, and I got a few A's, but I also got an F, and I just could not take it, and then it started grinding away at me, you know, oh, I can't, I'm not, I'm not anything, I'm nobody, what am I doing here, in my, that committee that someone talks about what's going on in my head, and I was just beating myself up, and at five years sober, I came very close to committing suicide, and I thought, is that all there is, and of course, I had kind of broken away from God, God had never left me, I had removed myself, and I was still going to meetings, and I was married to a member of A, and he had no idea that I was that desperate, and I was that sick inside, because I wasn't talking about it, but I remember I walked, I got an F, C, or a D on a paper at school, and I just started crying and couldn't stop, and I'm not that emotional person, but I just started crying, right on the steps
[00:40:01]
of the university, I was taken to the psychiatrist's office, and she knew who I was, because I'd introduced myself as an alcoholic when I first got there, as a country mouse from Maui, and a big 20,000 people at the university, I wanted somebody to know who I was, and she took one look at me and said, just keep walking, don't worry about school, don't come back until you get your head on, I just lost all ability to concentrate, I was burned out, so what I did, I started going to meetings every day, and that's all I knew how to do, and I started talking about what I was feeling inside, and I started doing one step at a time, starting from step one, because they said the answer's in the steps, alright, if the answer's in the steps, then what the hell is wrong with me, I'm going to try it, with one test of faith, and if that doesn't work, I'll go ahead and commit suicide, I had gotten so far as to plan it, and knew how I was going to do it, and had set a time and a date, so I knew I was pretty serious, what has always affected me in AAO, and kept me here, was not fear that I was going to die of alcoholism, by the way, it's fear that I might live in that nightmare world that I experienced, day after day after day, from my 16th birthday, that horrible, horrible, incomprehensible demoralization that goes along with being a female alcoholic, you know, falling off of bar stools is fun and sunny when a man does it, but when a woman does it, it's pitiful, and I did much more, I humiliated myself at every turn, and there's a lot of people out there that would help me humiliate myself at every turn, so anyway, but this fear of dying was always, you know, I never had a fear of dying, I had a fear of blowing it, using pills and not making it, and blowing my sobriety date, there's the ego coming out, so I had to have a sure-proof method, and I thought I'd found it, and that's what scared me, I knew I was serious this time, and so I said, well, I'm going to give this AA one more shot, and I did, I started working through the 12 steps as if my life depended on it, and lo and behold, I did one, two, three, I started it as if I'd never read it before, started a step study, went to four, not too much would come up from four, and got rid of the little bit I had, and then I got to six, and identified a few more character defects that I didn't know about, and there wasn't too many I hadn't known about by five years sober, but there was a few, went and did seven, then I did eight, looked at my eight-step list, I hadn't looked at that for a long time, and I made almost most, and I went to nine, I had made most of those amends on that list, the only problem was I had withheld forgiveness on two people, and half measures availed us nothing, I slipped and slided for five years on withholding forgiveness, but it almost costed me my life, what I did was I withheld forgiveness from my mother, I had asked her to forgive me for my part in our relationship, and I had identified what I had done wrong, but I never forgave her, and I knew she knew that I knew that I had never forgiven her, she called me several times drunk and said to me how sorry she was, and if I would forgive her, and I said look, we've said our thing, I've said my thing, why can't we just leave things be, and of course that doesn't sound like a forgiving person, I hadn't sent her a Mother's Day card or anything five years, in the five years that I had so-called made my amends, and so finally I realized that that's what I had done, but withheld forgiveness, how dare I withhold forgiveness to someone who had never set out to harm me, I had just gotten away, coincidental, and how many times in my four steps did I see that I actually maliciously went out and did greater harm sometimes, or at least the same harm to other people, and I expected them to forgive me, or I prayed that they would, so what I did, I learned at a metaphysical unity church, I just happened to get a tape from that church one, that week, during this process, and it said how to forgive people, a process that, see every night I started praying for, like my sponsor said, for two weeks to do that, but I needed something more, and I would start to visualize my forgiveness, so in my prayers that night I sat in this chair and I spent twenty minutes, and I would walk in my mind, I would picture myself walking up to her trailer door, knocking on the door, and she would open the door, I'd never seen her trailer, but she told me to look, and I would say, Mom, I'm terribly sorry for withholding forgiveness all these years, and I want to, you know, and this is how I did it every night for two weeks, and I think maybe before the two weeks, about three weeks, I was able to say it and mean it and called her and told her.
It and Mean It and Called or Told, and ever since then, that weight has been lifted, and on occasion I get weighted down like I was this weekend, it's because I wasn't practicing
[00:45:02]
halt, and when I don't do that, I get selfish and bound into self, and I get sick, so I'm not well yet, but that's how the process of the Twelve Steps have worked for me, and the only reason I stayed sober all those years, I know it's because my hand was out there, because I was trying to be responsible, and sometimes things happen and we just unfold as God puts it in front of us to do, and I couldn't have taken that any sooner or any faster than I did, and my sobriety, I'm 8 years sober now, and I plan on having 9 years, and I didn't have those plans before, suicide had always been an option, and it's gone, and I think I could never truly be sober or stay sober or feel a part of AA until I let that go too, because God's will for me is good, for me to be happy, joyous, and free, and if I'm playing games with the sugar, or because I love to play games with peppermint candy, and if I'm playing games with my health, or staying, living on the edge, staying up until midnight and getting up at 5, and doing that day after day after day, and I'm playing games with suicide, or taking a little dentist, the stuff the dentist gives me, that laughing gas, whatever, I start playing these games and I unleash that beast that's inside of me, just for a moment, I might go back out again.
I am not here, I mean I feel I have to pay my dues every day. I can't eat tomorrow for today, or eat today for tomorrow, I have to give each day for today, and I don't save it up and have it for tomorrow, tomorrow is another day, and I must give tomorrow for tomorrow, and that's how I view my life in AA today. I sponsor a number of people, women, I have a home group, it's the Kailua Women's Group, and near Kaneohe, by the Castle Hospital, I'm in service, I spent several years as the CPC Chairperson for our state, and I'm now the PI, and also GSR, my home group, PI for my district, and I've been in service now for a number of years, and it has been my salvation.
I have learned more in service of AA, not getting paid for any of it, of course, but I have had an opportunity to grow and to get some self-esteem. Talking in front of the podium was absolutely a nightmare for me when I got into CPC, but no one else wanted the job. I wasn't the best candidate, I'm not a professional person, I'm a housewife at this point, and I didn't know how to talk to doctors, I could not intimidate doctors, but I didn't know how to be nice to people, and I didn't know how to talk in front of groups, and I've learned, and it's been a real blessing.
As long as I can kind of put me aside and let God operate through me, it's always worked. So, I guess if I had anything to end with, what would be a good ending here? Boy, I know it works, that we know, none of you would be here, you all know that. What would be a good ending for me? Well, I guess I'm just kind of trying my wings out here, and the next five, six, five years from now, maybe I'll be able to come back and tell you even more interesting stories.
But if you think that, you know, you might be an alcoholic, and you have a drinking problem at age, it might be for you. I know that, just this last night, I was wondering, what the hell am I doing in a rally, you know? The convention center kind of overpowered me at the stadium, I thought, is this really AA? I'm talking, you don't belong here, Alita, and yet this is where I belong, because it's worked for me.
I've tried so many other ways, and nothing's worked for me, and I am now a person that I feel a strength in me, and a confidence in the world, and I don't know, it's so great, and yet when I came in, new, I was 23 when I first started coming around AA, 25 when I stayed, and eight years to that makes what, 33? And here I am, I've just started my whole life now, I still have an opportunity to live and have second careers, and be somebody, and do something, and yet it doesn't matter, it really does not matter what I do, it's how I do it, and I'm learning that, I'm learning that in my heart, the heart, it doesn't matter if I'm the star, or the person who shines the star, it's the most important thing is, it's how I do it, and reading Emmett Fox has taught me so much about love, and being that star for the newcomer, so if you want to know what I know, read the big book, work the 12 steps, get a good sponsor who knows these 12 steps, not the Hazleton way, not this way, not that way, not that, but the big book way, that's how it worked for me, and maybe read a little bit of Emmett Fox, that would help me a lot, thank you.
Thank you, Alita.
[00:50:20]
The next speaker is a man that I met right before the meeting too, and Steve told me he knew him, so I knew he must be okay, I wasn't going to worry about him, and he's from Chicago, and we stood outside and talked a little bit about the mustard seed group in Chicago, and I was visiting Chicago one time, and I went to that group, and ever since that meeting, I've had a very special feeling about Chicago, and it's amazing how one meeting can change your attitude about a whole city, because every time I think about Chicago, I think about that little mustard seed group in downtown Chicago, and the love I felt, and the open arms as they welcomed me into that group, and they didn't know me from a sack of salt, and ever since then, I've had a special feeling about Chicago, and I hope that in this meeting, we're talking about the ability to respond, responsibility, and I know from experience that one meeting can change a person's attitude about a whole city, and let's remember that when we go back to our home groups, and we see that unfamiliar face, and let's think about changing their attitude about maybe this whole town, and maybe about themselves. I'm anxious to hear what Mike has to say, so y'all please help me welcome Mike S. from Chicago.
My name is Mike Shelley, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. I go to the mustard seed more often. I might like Chicago better. I have to tell you that all those things that Steve said about his early days in AA are true. I was at his first meeting. Steve would come to meetings, and get his turn to comment, and he'd say, you know, I'm Steve, and I'm an alcoholic, and there would be two, three, four, five minutes of silence. We all did stop looking at him, and then he'd start talking, and it was really nifty to see Steve when I came in the room. He comes back to Chicago every once in a while, and he comes to my home group. My home group is Frank's Place in Wilmette, Illinois, which is 16 miles north of the city, and I do think it's the best home group in the world. I had the opportunity to be the Chicago-area delegate to the General Service Conference a couple years ago, and we were sitting at a meeting, and one of the delegates very proudly indicated that he was the second delegate from his home group, and I stopped and thought about it, and realized that I was the fourth delegate from his home group, and I thought about it, and realized that I was the fourth delegate from his home group, and that's a pretty active group, and that group is really dedicated to service, and it is that service, I think, that allows me to stand here today. I could tell you that the ability to represent the Chicago-area respond is a direct result of working the 12 steps and sit down, but I won't. I am Catholic, Irish, alcoholic, and attorney, and I will never relinquish the microphone once I am given the opportunity. I'm more honest than I used to be, too. When I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not really know what responsibility was, and I had absolutely no discipline in my life, and I think that one certainly follows the other. I'm not much on talking about my drinking, because most everybody here knows about drinking,
[00:55:00]
and I attempt to talk much more about my recovery, because that's why I come to AA meetings, to find out how to stay sober, not what my drinking was like, because I have vivid memories of that. I will say that I am blessed in that I don't remember much good that came from my drinking or much fun that came from it. By the way, I was told six months after I came in the program, I was asked to talk one night. My sponsor told me that I should dress up in a coat and tie, and I should do that because I may be the only big book that somebody in that meeting would see. Bobby has his coat and tie on, so I don't have to. I feel a whole hell of a lot more comfortable now, because I look like most of you. I really do believe that the ability to respond to opportunity is something that comes upon us just like the second step does. We realize at some point along the line that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and I think that that is really true about responsibility. Somehow we come to be able to stand up and be counted upon when it is necessary. That process began for me when I was asked after about two months in the program to make coffee for my home group, and I did, and I was allowed to do that for about four or five months, and when they suggested that somebody else should make the coffee, I was hurt. I wonder what I had done wrong. Why didn't they like me anymore? And I resented that newcomer who was going to get to make the coffee. It was the first time that anybody had really given me a responsible job, although my employer didn't realize that. My wife and children didn't realize that, but I thought it was the first time anybody had ever given me any amount of responsibility. I've heard a lot of people talk about when they were drinking they contemplated suicide. I did too, and I rejected suicide, however, because I thought that suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I came to AA and found out I was right, but I also found out that the AA program of recovery was a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and that's been true as long as I follow the program. I have a solution to my problems. I was struck very early on in the program about the line in the big book that says that selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the core of the problem, and it certainly was a major bar to my discharging any responsibility, because most frequently discharging responsibility interfered with whatever it was that I thought that I wanted to do to be happy at that moment, and so I was not really very responsible. Oddly enough, most of my working career up to that time I had worked for a bank, and at the age of 32 I was a vice president. I had already run three or four different divisions in the bank, and in fact in December of 1973 I got the biggest raise I had ever gotten at that bank, and I quit in January of 1974 because I needed the money that was in my pension and profit sharing account to pay some creditors who thought that they should be repaid for debts that my wife didn't even know about, and I had managed to run up something like four times my annual salary in debt, and I wasn't including my mortgage in that figure, and I went out to practice law. I I had gone to law school not because it was such a smart thing for me to do. In fact, I was enrolled at the University of Chicago to get an MBA, and I met a friend of mine on the train, and it was a train that left downtown Chicago about 8.30 at night, and I immediately asked him what he was doing on a late train, because the best defense is a good offense, and I thought I'd put him on the defensive.
[01:00:17]
And find out what he was doing on the train, and he indicated to me that he was going to night law school, and that his father was a lawyer and his brother was a lawyer, and he thought he'd be a lawyer, and he suggested to me that I ought to be a lawyer, because my father was a lawyer and my brother was a lawyer. And I said, okay, and the next day I went out and enrolled in law school. I gave career changes a lot of planning and forethought. And when I left the bank to go out and practice law, nobody in their right minds gave me, you know, one chance out of a million to be successful.
Some of those people didn't give me much of a chance because of my drinking. And six months, nine months later, I joined the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, not because I wanted to and not because I wanted to stop drinking, and not because of any reason for me, but because I was getting so much pressure from wife, and creditors, and parents, and my boss. My parents told my wife that they were willing to pay for the divorce from me. That resentment took a long time to get over. How they could do this to their baby is beyond me.
So that's why I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I had absolutely no intentions of stopping drinking. I didn't know about hospitals, so I didn't go to a hospital. Hell, I went to a meeting on a Thursday night and got up on Friday and went to work. And I started telling people that I was in AA. I'm not quite sure why, but I did. And the strange thing is that for somebody who didn't think he had a drinking problem, who thought he had a wife problem, and a children problem, and a parental problem, and a boss problem, and a creditor problem, but there was nothing wrong with him, since September 26th of 1974 to this moment, I haven't had to take a drink. And as the speaker said last night, that may not impress you, but it sure does me. I look back on it and I don't know why.
The guy that I met on the train who talked me into going to law school died at the age of 32 of cirrhosis of the liver and he didn't drink anywhere near as much as I did. And why he and not me, I don't know. It turned out to be one of the three or four great decisions of my life, however. And when I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was out on my all-time great con. And fortunately, I conned me. And for that, I'm grateful.
But I am absolutely convinced that my ability to respond to responsibility is a direct result of how well I am working the 12-step program of recovery. I could not respond to responsibilities in any reasonable fashion if I had not taken each and every one of those steps and continue to take each and every one of those steps. If I had not taken an inventory and found out who I was and what I was, I would not have known what things in me I had to change.
If I had not taken a ninth step and accepted the responsibility for the things that I had done, not the things that I felt that others had done to me, I could not take on and perform other responsible actions.
[01:05:02]
If I do not do a tenth step and continue to take an inventory of me, I cannot, in any reasonable fashion, discharge responsibilities. And the twelfth step tells me, in effect, that I must not only do those things, but I must do all the things that are necessary in carrying out responsibility, because it tells me that I have to practice the principles in all my affairs. When I was asked to be on this panel, I didn't want to be, because it was not a subject that I particularly wanted to discuss.
I will tell you that I have, at least 20 times since I got that loving invitation, sat down and tried to write down what it was that I wanted to say this morning. Procrastination being one of my character defects, I really didn't get much written. But I do know that fundamentally, it is through service that my entire program has blossomed and grown. And it is through accepting and performing my responsibilities to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I have been able to incorporate the performance of my responsibilities in the rest of my life.
Everything that has happened in my life has happened, first, in dealing with the program, and secondly, in the rest of my life. I have, yes, performed certain responsibilities outside the program before I worked all of the 12 steps, but essentially and fundamentally, it is one of the results of working the 12-step program. I have had the opportunity to be a GSR from my home group and to be a district chairman.
Chicago Area Service is set up a little differently from the rest of the world. I don't blame Bill Wilson for that, but he did set up the Chicago Area Service structure and stopped. I have been a representative to our area meetings. As I indicated, I was given the privilege of being a delegate to the General Service Conference from Chicago Area, and I am presently the chairman of the Chicago Area Service Committee, which is the area assembly.
A funny thing happened to me every time that I have been given an opportunity to serve in AA. My initial reaction is one of pride, and I guess to some extent that's okay. But the second reaction is one almost of fear, because I don't know if I can discharge the responsibilities in the manner that I think they should be discharged. Dr. Bob said that the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous can be resolved down to two words, love and service.
If I allow you to love me, I can then perform the service task that I must perform. Because by allowing you to love me, I also know that I don't have to be perfect, that I don't have to do a job perfectly, but that all I have to do is try, and that's okay. I think one of the biggest problems that I have as far as responsibility is concerned is to determine what is my responsibility, do I have a responsibility, and if so, what can I do about it?
There are things that are not my responsibility, and I don't have to perform those tasks which are not my responsibility any more than I have to be concerned about things which are totally beyond my control.
[01:10:18]
The basic and fundamental responsibility that I have is first to stay sober, go to meetings, read the big book, talk to my sponsor, ask for help in the morning, and give thanks at night. The second fundamental responsibility I have is to my home group, and from there to my area, and to my region, and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. And those are all responsibilities that I must take and undertake to the best of my ability.
But I go back to what I said earlier, that is that selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the core of the problem, and I must view my obligation of responsibility from the standpoint of do I think this is my responsibility out of pride, out of ego, or do I view this as my responsibility because this is a job that has to be done in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I must undertake it. Always simple and clear when we talk about going out with a newcomer on a 12-step call.
But what about group problems? When I first started going to district meetings, believe it or not, I was taken to a district meeting and the subject was being discussed and I punched the person next to me in the ribs and said, tell him this, this, this, and this. The person looked at me and said, you tell him. And I shut up. And something else came up. I punched him again. I said, tell him this, this, this.
Slowly I began to realize that I have an obligation to speak up and say what I think. It doesn't make any difference if it's right or wrong. I have to share my thoughts. And as long as I am sharing thoughts and beliefs not out of any self-centered purpose, but for what I think is best for my group, my district, my area, my region, or for Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole, I must share those. And it requires, therefore, that I look to my own motives and see what is there.
But that same thing happened the first time I went to an area meeting. I punched the person next to me and said, tell him such and such. I think one reason I got elected area chairman was they figured it was the only way to shut me up. Tell me, as chairman, you can't participate in all that discussion. You've got to moderate it. And I am a firm believer in the concept that says that the minority has a right to speak.
And as the minority, I have the obligation and the responsibility to speak. And as I become more comfortable within me, I can more easily discharge those responsibilities to Alcoholics Anonymous because I come to know and understand that you love me and that you will listen. You will not necessarily agree, but you will listen and we can discuss and come to an agreement. And therefore, I don't have to worry about whether you're going to laugh at me or ridicule me, but you will let me speak and you will let me say the things that I think.
And we find out frequently that what began as a minority. Frequently, that what began as a minority opinion becomes the majority opinion, and therefore you have the obligation to speak. And it takes time to become comfortable enough
[01:15:01]
to be able to do those things. But if you are not comfortable enough, believe me, nobody will laugh at you, nobody will ridicule you, nobody will look down upon you, people will only respect you for standing up and giving your opinion, because that's what we're all looking for. And like everything else in this program, it doesn't come easy and it doesn't come quickly, but it will come. And as I put more discipline in my life and I exercise certain responsibilities in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I find it easier to put those things into my own life and to carry those beyond the program. And eventually we find that we can put those responsibilities and put those things into focus in our living, in our family, in our living, in our community, because after all, we are more than members of Alcoholics Anonymous, we are members of the world and our communities and our families.
And that's what practice these principles and all these affairs means. It means taking the disciplines and the ability to exercise certain responsibility and focusing it in all of our lives. Nothing that is worthwhile comes easy and that is also true in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. One of my major character defects, where I do not exercise the responsibility that I should, is that I am always late, always late. Got here early today, though, I didn't know about it, right? But I am always late, except for AA meetings.
And I have not practiced that principle in all my affairs. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to talk about this, because I had to look and see that where I exercise discipline and responsibility in my AA program, I don't do it in the rest of my life. And I don't like to look at those things. But it is because of things like this that make me think about and realize that I am not accepting the responsibility that I have one-on-one or one-on-two or three or a group that make me benefit from having to think about this.
And I will tell you that the joy of good living that's talked about in the 12th step comes about from knowing that I have done the things for which I am responsible, comes about from knowing that I have exercised the discipline that is required. And I came to AA on a con, and I found out that all the things that I wanted, the joy of good living, were here for the asking and taking if I would do your bidding and what you told me to do. And part of that is sharing. And as I said when I started, the simple answer is that the ability to respond to responsibility is simply an extension of our 12-step program of recovery. And I firmly believe that. And the better and the more that I work this program and incorporate this program into my daily living, I have no problem by figuring out what is my responsibility and what I must do about it. And I have to throw in the 11th step because the 11th step tells me that I have to pray for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry it out. And it is that power that is most necessary for me because frequently it is to do what I don't want to do. And I pray for that power. And when I do that, I am then capable of being able to respond to whatever my responsibility is to the newcomer, to the
[01:20:03]
old timer, to whomever. Because remember, neither the responsibility theme nor the 12-step says the new alcoholic. It says whenever, anyone, anywhere. It doesn't say new member, newcomer, anyone, anywhere. And the 12-step doesn't talk about new alcoholic. It says help alcoholics. And that's you and me, whether we're here one day or 50 years. We are here to help each other recover. And that responsibility, every one of us has, and we all have the ability to respond if we are willing to grow in the program and willing to take on the responsibility.
I'd like to thank particularly the people from the Chicago area who have given me the opportunity to exercise some of that responsibility. And I would like to thank all of you for listening. I have really enjoyed being here. Thank you. I want to thank you, Mike, for sharing your knowledge and wisdom on responsibility with us. I grew up in AA. I'm a second-generation AA. I went to my first AA meeting when I was six years old.
Is there any other second-generation AAs in here? God, that's awful. It's terrible to grow up in AA, because it messed up my drinking before I ever even started. I mean, it was pitiful. But I feel like that because I am a second-generation AA, that I do have a deeper responsibility, because I've seen it work in the lives of my parents. Both my parents were members of Alcoholics Anonymous. My father passed away a couple years ago, and Thursday would have been his 26th AA birthday.
And I would give anything if he were able to be here in body, but I know he is here in spirit, because he loved Alcoholics Anonymous. And he gave me the greatest gift that I think a father can ever give a son, and that was the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, because he showed responsibility of AA by being sober and by going to meetings and by carrying the message. And I saw what it had done for him, and I wanted what he and the others like him had. And that's why I'm here.
And one thing I know about responsibility is a lot of times it goes against what some people may think. And every now and then, if you try to be responsible, you're going to make somebody mad. And Daddy used to have a little story he used to tell, and I'll quit. But he said that there was this old man and this little boy and this donkey. And they were walking down this road, and these people passed them.
And they said, look, y'all are walking. You've got this little boy walking, and you've got this healthy donkey to ride. Why don't you let the boy ride the donkey? So they thought about it, and they said, sure. So they put the little boy up on the donkey, and they went on down the road, and they met some more people. And these people said, well, you know, that young healthy boy is riding this donkey, and this old man has to walk.
Why doesn't the old man ride the donkey? So they thought about it, and they said, well, that makes sense. So the little boy got off, and the old man got on. And they walked on down the road a little while, and they met some more people. And these people said, God, it's so awful that one of you has to walk when you have this nice strong animal to ride. So they thought about it, and they agreed with them.
So the little boy got up on the donkey with the old man, and they walked on down the road, and they came to some more people. And these people shook their heads, and they said, it is terrible to put such a heavy load on such a small animal, a helpless animal. And y'all are really mistreating this animal. It's terrible the way you're treating this animal. And they thought about it, and they said, you know, it really is. It's pitiful the way we've treated this animal.
So they got off, and they picked up the donkey, and they were carrying the donkey. And they crossed this bridge over this water, and they lost their footing. And the donkey fell in the water and was drowned. And the moral of this story is if you try to please everyone, you will lose your ass. I love conventions. They're a big part of my sobriety, and I love meeting folks and seeing how AA works all over the country and all.
[01:25:04]
But this is not where I got sober. I got sober in a little group with normal people and people I had to listen to to say the same damn thing over and over and over again. And I have to remember that that's where it's at for me. And that's where my responsibility lies, to carry this message the way it was carried to me. And I hope we all remember that. And I hope if we all stay sober, we'll meet again somewhere, maybe in 1990, wherever God sees fit to put us.
But I hope y'all are having as good a time as I am. And I hope to meet more of you while I'm here. And if anybody doesn't have anything else, let's close this meeting the way I've always closed them, joining hands and praying together in the Lord's Prayer.