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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – 3rd Annual Woodstock Session 10005 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: stephanie-b-bob-d-polly-p-sharon-c-howard-p-3rd-annual-woodstock-speaker-panel-on-acceptance-and-surrender-other-date-unknown-archive-10005.mp3 Duration: 00:51:56
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I'm sure this is a great opportunity. You know what the opportunity is, is that I'm going to get to listen to these other folks that are up here with me, because that's where I learn. You know, my name is Stephanie B and I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi everybody. And I do feel blessed and privileged to be up here. And when we were thinking about a topic, you know the thing, am I too loud maybe? Nope. Okay. I teach first grade and I am loud without a mic. So I was, when we think, when I was thinking of acceptance and surrender, in my experience, those are the two things that are the key to everything. I was listening to Ralph and he talked about there is relief and then there's freedom. And I believe by working the steps, that's what he said, and I believe that, you know, I think when we, I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable. And for Al-Anon, sometimes we say we are powerless over people, places, and things. And a lot of people had to put that in there because they said, I didn't do the drinking. I'm not powerless over alcohol. Yeah, but it's the alcoholism that we seem to need to control and we can't. But my peace and my freedom began when I could accept that it was a family disease. Just the fact that it's a disease blew me, I had no idea. So I am grateful today to know that. What I also found out is that I remember sitting in big book meetings and hearing people say, we cease fighting everything and everybody. And my idea of trying to get things to change was, I'm just going to push harder. I'm just going to try harder. You know, so just a silly little example, I would like to be tall, thin, and blonde. You know, because I heard in the meetings when I came in that when you come in, you will physically, there will be a physical change in your appearance. And so my mind immediately went to the tall, thin, and blonde. And when I questioned that, they said, no, there'll be a, you'll hold your head up and there'll be a little gleam in your eye. But, so one of the things I have been trying to do for 68 years is to be thin and I can't. And I keep trying harder and harder. And it came to me that when I would accept the fact that this is just the body, you know, this is, I'm a short little squatty Italian and that's the way it's going to be.
But you know what, really when I accept that this is what it is, that to me is a freedom. I stop fighting. I stop trying to make it happen. You know, and so when I can accept, no matter what it is, when I could accept the fact that my daughter was pregnant and not married, when I could accept the fact that this was a family disease, when I could accept the fact that this is, that I had money that was taken from me illegally and this is where I am today, then I can proceed. You know, it is just the beginning. In Al-Anon, we talk about the three A's, awareness, acceptance, and action. And what I believe to be true for me today is that when I have an awareness, it's a gift. Oh, I didn't know that. You know, I didn't know that there can be such peace by just reading my books every morning or by getting on my, I didn't know that. But then what I do or what my experience has been is that I go from the awareness to, okay, now that I know that, let's get with it. And the important and the most important part of the three A's for me would be the acceptance.
I need to sit with it. This is just the way it is and it is the way it is for me. The other thing that I have to be aware of is that I don't think I can change anything until I surrender. And I remember thinking, you know, the other thing I need to tell you about acceptance first is that in Al-Anon, a lot of people believed that acceptance meant approval. It does not mean approval. Acceptance just means that you're going to accept it the way it is. I have been in so many meetings where the Al-Anon gals have said, but if I accept it, doesn't that mean that I approve of it? No, if you accept it, you're just going to stop trying to make it be different. You're going to stop fighting it. There's going to be a peace that comes within you. You don't approve of it. I didn't approve that my daughter was so, you know, belligerent and self, but I needed to accept that because I kept trying to get her to shove all those words back in her mouth that she was calling her mama and it wasn't right, you know, but you know what? I needed to accept that that's the way she is. I don't have to like it, and if I don't want to be there, I can walk out of the room.
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But as long as I'm trying to fight it, I am the one that is not at peace. The surrender for me was letting go of my self-will and accepting that God has one that's a whole lot better than anything I ever thought of. What I thought when I asked my husband to leave or to get sober was that it was the worst day of my life. I thought these teenagers and I were going to be living in a tent because I was teaching school at a little private school and there was no way that we were going to be able to sustain ourselves. We were going to have to live in a tent. And what God said was, if you will just let go, guess what?
I think we'll get Bill sober and I think we'll get you an Al-Aman. You know, but my thing was my little small brain, the surrender was I have to quit fighting it. I have to let go and I get to have the freedom. It's really good for me to say, I have no idea. I have not a clue. And it's turned out that way for me time and time again. So I'm going to be quiet. I'm very grateful that I am here this weekend and I'm grateful that I am sharing this. I think the big word is diocese. I think I hear movie stars say that all the time.
I want to be one of those people. And so I'm going to sit down and ask Bob to please come share with us. Bob? My name is Bob D and I am alcoholic. I'd like to welcome the new people. Glad you're here, especially the ones that got the book. Not many places you can go and get a prize for recently burning your life to the ground. And it occurs to me with the increased amount of AA conferences in the country and the expensiveness of the hard back, there could be a career in there somewhere. I don't know. I'm not wired for surrender. I'm not wired for acceptance.
And yet I think acceptance comes from surrender, just like physical abstinence comes from quitting drinking. The one is contained in the other. I'll tell you how unwired I am for this. I remember in junior high school, there was a group of kids in my class. And they were I'll tell you how unwired I am for this. I remember in junior high school, there was a kid who was a year and a half older than I was and about six inches taller and probably got 30 pounds on me. And we I said something to him that he didn't like and he wanted me to take it back. And I dug my feet in and I'm not going to take it back. And he started beating on me. And he eventually gave up because I was not going to give in. I would rather take the beating almost. And this was true many times in life. I'd almost rather have you beat me half to death than to give up and realize that you won and for you to see how afraid I am. I went to I had a Catholic upbringing with this thing about this time of year where we were supposed to surrender to God something of value in our life. It was lent and we had to give something up and go to class and all the kids would announce what they were giving up. And I'd give up like Brussels sprouts. And, you know, I mean, there were kids giving up TV and candy. I mean, see, I'm the kind of guy I'll I'll surrender anything that's my idea that I don't really want anyway. And yet and I'm wired that way.
And most of my life, if you would have asked me, I would have said, oh, I let go easily. I just I'm I read Alan Watts. I go with the flow if it's my idea. But if it's not, man, I could dig my heels in and dig them in. When I got when I got I got sober coming off of six, almost seven years of relapse, the last one cumulated in an attempt to serious attempt to end my own life because I couldn't do this anymore. And I was at a place unbeknownst to me where I'd been surrendered by the bottle. And I didn't know that. And I had enough of me kicked out of me that for the first time I was I was somewhat teachable. I was somewhat that that thing in me that makes me all of that was sort of diminished or that it comes back, you know, like a bad tumor. You know, it just grows back. It grows back quick and
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man. And I didn't know it. And I had about a little over four years of sobriety. I was facing a major surrender and which involved going back through the steps and some new amends and a bunch of stuff. And and it's funny that the other inventories now all my resentments because I'm over four years sober are people in a well, I I notice things. I'm it's a gift. I just notice, you know, and the ego would come back and I was judgmental again and I was right about everything. I was serious. I was I was in charge and I was dying and I was miserable. And I went back through the steps again and had this not not as deep of surrender as I did in the hospital, the detox, but a surrender of enough to to diminish the conflict within me. And over the years, I've discovered that this is a reoccurring. I think it is for me. I don't know some people I've heard I've gone to meetings where people talk about they just surrendered and they've been happy ever since. And I always look want to look for the lobotomy scars, you know, how do you do that? I mean, I cuz that's not my that's not my experience at all. I surrender and I just I start slipping back into me. It's like I'm the DM my own default position. My ego is my own default position. I don't mean it to be that way, but it just seems to be the nature of the beast. I I'm I can I can surrender work the steps and empty myself out of me. I'm like the back of a toilet. You flush it just empties right out. And then I just start filling up with me again. You know what I mean? It's just it's it's just a hideous thing and I can't stop it. But I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous a couple things. One is that I can't trust my own perception at times of whether I am egocentric or not. The book says something that is really true. It's just as true at thirty four and a half years sober as it was at thirty four days sober when it says we are extreme examples of self-will run riot though. We usually don't think so. I've never been self-will run right in the middle of it trying to get my way. I'm not really trying to get my way. I'm trying to make things the way they should be. I've never been in the middle of that where I think to myself. Oh my God, I'm self-will run riot. I've never thought that I'm right. I'm right is what I am. So I learned to be suspect of that. And how do you know when you're out of line?
How do you know when you're back in the center of the universe or as the book implies we have to first of all we have to quit playing God. How do I know when I'm playing God again? Well there's a litmus test and it's in the I think and it's in step ten in the twelve steps in twelve traditions. And it says it's a spiritual axiom that when I'm disturbed at all even if it's your fault at all no matter what the cause no matter what the reason there's something wrong with me. If there's a disturbance in here I am the guy that's out of line. That's the litmus test. I have an alcoholic mind. It makes it look like it's your fault. It does all kinds of little tricks of perception. But the truth is when I'm disturbed I must surrender something. Something I got a death grip on something and I have to realign myself with this decision of self-abandonment and service that I made in step three. And my nature you know the first thing we're asked to surrender is our will which is my it's what I want. It's my judgment. It's my perception. It's what I want. And the problem with that is that all my life I've had this thing this hideous thing inside me that just wants. I just want. Half the time I don't know what I want but I want. It's usually more better.
I just want. And I heard a story years ago about some rich couple had this little kid and they were spoiling this little kid. They got him 28 of the most amazing toys for Christmas. Kid got up Christmas morning was tearing through these presents one amazing gift after another got to the last one and Opened it and just stood there for sat there for a minute when I started crying And I didn't get what I wanted to get what I wanted and the parents called my god
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What do you want? We'll get you whatever you want. The kid says, I don't know. I didn't get what I wanted. Oh my god That's the story of my life. I Got this wanter I mean, I can't find the off switch for it. I could drink it away. I could numb it out sometimes, but I could never shut it off. Or I could shift it into alcohol, so I just wanted another drink, another drink, another drink. I could never shut it off. What do you do if you're wired that way? You got to want what somebody else wants. It's really the essence of principles before personalities. It's the essence of the action of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't stop wanting, so I have to try to want what God wants. I have to try to bring a vision of his will into all my activities. The books in both pieces of our major literature, it says it's the proper use of the will is to try to align my will with God's, to want what he wants. And I found some peace in that at times, intermittently amongst the clamoring within me. And I have. And that's a pretty good thing. Did you ever notice how when you're trying to help one of God's kids, your life doesn't seem as empty as it did when you were sitting thinking about you? So I got to want what God wants. And I read that book, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to get it, that what he wants primarily is for me to help his kids. And so I try to do that. And it quiets the disturbance inside me a lot. And when I get upset about something, I'm the guy who's got to change. I have to do whatever's necessary to align myself with the flow in the universe and God's, what I perceive to be God's will. It's flow of love. And I think that's what it is, really, a flow of love. And if I could stay in that, and I wish I could do that 24 7, I can't. But you know what happens is you taste it. And once you taste that, I'll strive the rest of my life trying to reconnect and reaffirm and just get back to that. It's like, it's very similar to the first time I ever drank. First time I ever got lit up on alcohol, it was so amazing. I thought, oh, I'm going to do this a lot. This is really very cool.
And once you taste that peace, and once you connect with God and you feel that love and that presence, guys like me, we may never get there 24 7, but I'll strive to return to that place, to go back to that place where I'm one with, rather than my natural chronic condition of one apart from. And so I try to do, Alcoholics Anonymous is wonderful like that. I think you can do it like that or you can do it drinking. Because I think I did some of the drinking. Drinking sort of surrendered me to a point. And I'm glad to be sober and reasonably surrendered. I don't know how surrendered I am. I tell you what, I think I'm in the zip code. Thanks.
Hi, everybody. My name is Polly P and I'm an alcoholic. I told Bob, I said, say something good because he and I do book studies together now and then and I say, you know how I like to feed off of you. You go first and I'll feed off of you. So, thanks, Bob. One of the things, if you all don't know this, Ann came up to Stephanie and I and asked us about this. And Stephanie went to the ladies room, said a prayer, and our Al-Anon came up with our subject. So, that's, I think that's outstanding, Stephanie. So, thank you.
Figures. Figures. Figures. What kept coming to my mind when we were talking about the surrender and acceptance was two people that have been superheroes in my life. And one of them was Chuck Chamberlain. And Chuck used to say that life is just a sequence of surrenders, but you have to have the first one before you can have the others. And that has certainly been my experience. And I think Bob drove home to us last night that step one, it is absolutely imperative that we surrender to the first half of step one. And I have to have that surrender. And then I'm just going to have a sequence of surrenders as my life goes on. And the other hero in my
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life was a man named Dr. Paul. And Dr. Paul wrote Dr. Addict Alcoholic in the third edition. And I think it's called something else in the fourth edition. I forget what it is. But at any rate, he used to say that, you know, acceptance is the answer to all my problems and there are no negatives in God's world. And so, this has been my experience that that is true. There's no negatives in God's world. But it never looks like that to me at the time I'm in it. It never, ever looks like that. And when I had to accept that I was absolutely and completely powerless over alcohol. And I even, I went to treatment three times. And the first time I went to treatment, I loved treatment. I had a great time. I loved telling war stories and all that stuff. And I thought AA was fabulous. I loved the fellowship.
I loved it. But there was something down inside of me that just said, Polly, people like you don't become alcoholic. I didn't even know an alcoholic before I came to AA. I didn't know any in the Air Force when we were, when I was, my husband and I were in the Air Force. Not my first husband and I were in the Air Force. And none of those people are here and none of them need to be. There's no alcoholics in my family. I am, I identify with Sharon and Bob and there's no alcoholics in my family. I'm it. And I just didn't know any alcoholics.
And I just, I wasn't what I thought an alcoholic was. And I don't know what I thought an alcoholic was. I thought an alcoholic laid in the gutter. But I think alcoholic moms end up doing what I do, which is abuse their children, neglect their children, heart, you know, don't take care of, don't be moms, don't be responsible. And that's what happened for me. And I had, when I had sober, I had to accept that that's who and what I was. And I had, I couldn't, I just, I didn't think I could stay sober and know that about myself. And so that was a huge, that was a huge surrender and acceptance. My children, one being an alcoholic and a drug addict and another one being so emotionally disturbed that he was trying to take his life all the time. And that was a huge surrender. I didn't think I could take the pain of that.
people letting me know, Polly, your children have a God. They have a higher power. And, you know, they're not, you know, they're God's kids. They're not your kids. You know, they are just, they're not of you, they just come through you. They are God's kids. And it was hard for me to have to accept that there was nothing I could do, powerless, to take care of my children. When my husband and I lost everything and when he lost his job in 93 and then we lost everything financially in 95, I had to accept that. And I was so embarrassed that I was so worried about what you guys were going to think of me. You know, what, if you're, if you're having to foreclosure and bankruptcy and all this stuff is happening to you, people are going to wonder what step you're working. You know, this is stuff that happens to newcomers, not people who are 16 and 17 years sober. And I didn't, you know, I had to accept that and that this was our situation, that this was what, and I had, with that acceptance came a trust that God was going to take care of us, that he was going to take care of us. And my husband looked at, looked at me and he said, Polly, we have God, we have AA and we have each other. We don't need anything else. We don't need anything else. And he says, if money's your problem, you don't have a problem. You know, we got good health, our lives, we've got things that money can't buy. And, and that was a huge acceptance and I know I didn't want to talk in AA anymore. And I had this beautiful man in our life in Long Beach called Frank Honeycutt. And Frank, you know, I said, well, I can't talk anymore, Frank. And he said, I said, what will people think of, what will they think of me? And Frank told me, it's none of your business what anybody thinks of you.
He says, but your very life depends on what you think of them. And my AA sponsor would
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say, every situation is an opportunity to grow. And, and I said, but I don't, this is too embarrassing. I mean, we should be doing better than this. And, and I've watched my AA sponsor walk through a lot of adversity. And, and Dottie said, you're, you're there to share to help somebody else. Because you're doing this and you're staying sober. And they need to know that, that that can happen and that there's life after all this and that you can stay sober while you're going through it. And now, of course, today I look back on that and it's, and I think, oh my God, that was one of the, that was one of the pivotal times in my life of when my trust and reliance on God became greater and greater. Because that's, I didn't, you know, you get to these places of these surrenders where you got nothing else to do but rely on God and accept the situation because I'm powerless over it. And then, in 1993, our first grandson was born and our grandson was born deaf. And, and I was so angry at God. And I just, I just couldn't accept that this would happen. That, you know, people have babies all the time and they don't even want them. And we wanted our baby so much. And, and he was born deaf. And I just, and I just felt like his life is going to be so hard. And, you know, this, our, you know, our little baby's not perfect. And all of this. Well, my grandson today is 20 years old. And he's a sophomore at Rochester Institute of Technology. And he's a B student in a high-tech college. And, and because of his parents being in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they have been relieved of the bondage of self and it never cost too much. They didn't, they didn't, whatever it was, they did it.
It never took too much. They just did it. This kid is handicapped in no way. He just last summer went with two other deaf kids three weeks to Europe. He just got back from Puerto Rico and he spent the, his spring break with three deaf kids. And, I mean, he's traveling all over the world and it hadn't stopped him one iota. And the other thing is, is by God's grace, I ended up, so I could communicate with my grandson, I ended up being, learning sign language. And so, in that situation, I've had the opportunity to be able to carry the message to some deaf women. I never knew that was going to happen. So, we never know what God has in store. We never know. And kind of the latest situation is about three years ago, I would share from the podium and, and, oh, I had, you know, my, my kids were doing great and everything was looking good and I have five grandkids and I, and I see these kids all the time and I have these fabulous relationship. And, I mean, it was just one of those things that it was a dream and family recovery, just an absolute dream.
Well, three years ago, my oldest son and his wife divorced and my youngest son and his wife aren't divorced yet, but they're almost there. And I was saying something about it and my buddy Bob said, I said, oh, you know, now, a few years ago, my life looked just perfect. And Bob says, well, now it's normal. And it's true. And, and it's like I didn't want to accept those things. I didn't want to accept my children divorcing and it has, I don't care what anybody says, it has had a huge impact. It doesn't, nobody has said anything, but what the reality is and the truth is and what I have to accept is that has had a huge effect on my relationship with my five grandchildren. And, and it's just, you know, it's just one of those things that I just, you know, I, I loved it when it was everybody was loving each other and everybody was nice. And, and that's not the way it is anymore. And, and I know that I'm powerless over these situations. And now my job has, it just takes a little more effort, but I have to have all these kind of separate relationships with everybody now and make sure that I stay up to, you know, that I stay in touch and I stay communicating and I stay nurturing these relationships. And one of the things I'm finding out is that it's even better. My
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husband and I went to visit my grandson in Rochester, New York, and what an amazing thing that was, and I don't know if I'd have done that had that not, you know, had all this not happened. So what I find out is, is that even though I don't feel it when I'm in the middle of it, the hindsight of it is, and what happens when these challenges come in our lives, we begin to accept them more and more on blind faith.
That I know today that no matter what, that there are no negatives in God's world, and that he's going to take care of me no matter what. I don't know if I'll like the results that it's going to happen. All I know is, is that if I surrender to it and accept it, it'll be a lot better for me whether I, whether I know it today or not. It has been my, it has been my experience that this is how it's always have to happen.
Whatever's going on, as horrible as it looks at the time, it always turns out to be no negatives in God's world, and the results are positive and good. Thanks. Thank you Polly. Sharon C, alcoholic, and thank you Ann for asking and Polly for a little manipulation, not a lot. She won another girl on the panel, I think, so. Anyway, acceptance and surrender. Boy, I was just listening to everybody and really happy to hear, you know, just hear things.
Just, I'm so glad that, you know, you can't see till you see, you can't hear till you hear. Chuck C. used to say that, and it was like, you know, like his laugh, hee hee, was just right over my head. Everybody said Chuck C.'s talking, Chuck C.'s talking, and I'd sit there and go, this kind of sweet looking old man laughing at himself, hee hee hee, it was just like, you can't see till you see, you don't hear till you hear, and you're not, you know, it's just like all these, okay, and so when my sponsor said, Howard, we're stealing his thunder here because he's all ready with Dr. Paul's stuff, Polly did it.
When my sponsor said to me, I was having a hard time with something, he said, you need to read acceptance in the big book, go read page 449. So I go and go home, and I do what my sponsor said, and I'm reading page 449, and I got sober with the second edition big book, so it's a story called Joe's Woes, so I'm reading about this dollar Joe took from his wife, this last dollar, and I'm going, page 4, that is page 449 here, acceptance, and I read it again, and then I put it away, and then for like the next week I read it, looking for acceptance in Joe's Woes here, and I just finally, she said, are you reading it, I said, yeah, I'm reading page 449, I'm not telling her, I'm not getting anything about it, and I am thinking I am too stupid for AA, it is not coming in here, and then I was about two years sober when I got a third edition big book, and I opened it to page 449, and there it was, and I thought, ask questions, do not, don't assume anything, it's like that dollar he took from his wife, I was just, oh my God, I'm too stupid for AA, but acceptance and surrender, I, you know, when I was, July 27, 75, when I talked about it today, when I was getting, you know, beaten up by my running buddies, and there was a moment in there, because I went to court, and I was a victim of violent crime, and the first in California, the first had just been kind of put in place, so I had to go to court, and they caught these guys, I had this wired jaw, the first three months in AA, I can't talk, I'm wired up, I have to learn to listen, so, you know, I got this wired jaw, I'm sitting on this stand, and they have to ask me all these questions, and then they brought the neighbor in, who had heard all this going on, and I don't remember a lot of it, which is a blessing, I was surrendered by alcohol, I was beaten to a pulp to get here, literally, physically, mentally, spiritually, for me to get to a point where I got some grace and ended up at an alcoholic synonymous meeting from some girl I had met at Barney's Beanery, which is a West Hollywood bar, but I'm sitting there, and this man is talking about, I heard the screaming when this hall was going on next door to him, in the apartment, I heard the screaming, I heard the noise, and then it just stopped, and I almost threw
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up, which I would have had to cut the wires, because, you know, they give you scissors when you leave, here's these scissors, so you don't choke on your own vomit, well, thanks, you know, that's acceptance, I can't eat for three months, and I almost had this visceral vomiting effect that I remembered that moment, I remembered the moment, because I'm a fighter, I don't give up, I hitchhike coast to coast, I'm alive, I've been in a lot of situations, cried my way out, begged my way out, the dog bit our way out, whatever, I got out of a lot of situations, and I'm a fighter, and I don't surrender, and I remembered when he said that, the screaming just stopped, I remembered I had made a decision somewhere deep inside of me, I said, who the hell cares anymore, and I stopped fighting, and that was three weeks before I had the opportunity to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was surrendered, in my spirit, in my soul, in my being, and I was an ember of life walking in here, an ember, that was all that was left, you could have put me out by putting your hand right on top of it, but you gave me kindling, you gave me sponsorship, you gave me, you know, she said, you're powerless over alcohol, aren't you, and I went, I couldn't talk, so, yeah, she said, you know, she said, well, write to me how your life is unmanageable, she said, you raised your hand for 30 days, you admitted you're powerless over alcohol, that's good enough, and all I could write down for her, and that's how jiggled my brain was, I didn't have matching luggage when I came to AA, I had nothing when I came here, I had a, nothing, nothing, and that's why I could figure out my life was unmanageable, I had no idea, and the beauty of it is, is that the, I got woken up here, I got, I got some kindling, and some wood, and some love put on that fire, so that I burned bright today, and as Bob talked about it, once you get there, once you're burning, you get spoiled, it's young that said, spiritus comes spiritum, right, but I think the spirits of alcohol did for me, it was the spiritual experience drinking, we all got down to one voice, let's party, I got in my body, let's have fun, I could breathe, I could be, I could be here now, and then the spiritual program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the spiritual program, by being surrendered, by learning what I had to learn here, so that I was able to give it away, so I was able to become a giver instead of a taker, I've had that spiritual awakening, I've, I've made peace with my past, I've made peace with my God, I've, you know, I've been in a lot of hallways, and, you know, one door closes, the other opens, it's the hallways that get you, you know, it's, but my sponsor has taught me how to, each sponsor I've had along the way has taught me different things, I've only had one sponsor at a time, but, you know, I learned to enjoy the hallway, to, you know, throw up some art, open a window, you know, sing some songs, you're in the hallway, you'll get through it, the word is, somebody else has gotten through it, there's another door, just hang in there, you know, that's the hope in AA, is that the people share their experience with us, so you know somebody else, oh yeah, they got through the door, hooray, maybe my turn's coming, you know, my second sponsor said, when you see that crack in the door, you run like hell and put your shoe in it and creak it open so you can see that new view, why have I been in the hallway, but every new view I've ever been to, every hallway with a new view has never disappointed me, each view is a little bit more beautiful than the one I left, my little designs and plans, key word being little, God has the bigger picture, God wants so much more for me than I can ever even imagine, I was reading this book the other day and it talked about trapping monkeys, little, these little monkeys that they can get money for down somewhere in South America and they take this coconut and they carve out a little slot and they put rice in it, they put some rice in the coconut and these monkeys, then they know where they go between their little trees on their monkey path and they put down these coconuts with rice in it and these little monkeys put their hands in and grab the rice and they sit there with this grab and they can't get their hands out, they want their rice and all they had to do was let go of the rice and pull their hands out, but they hang on to the rice and these guys just come along and pick up the coconut and the monkeys, we're going to a zoo, you know, and it's like let go of the rice, you know, so I have, I've had a lot of things in my life that were very
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important to me that kept me stuck on the path that I've had to let go of and a lot of it is a lot of my old ideas, a lot of it is the critical self, I'm just going to end with the, Tracy and Zanetta and Mary Ellen, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, glad you're here and I felt your pain, I felt your pain, but I have been loved and surrendered and loved again and accepted whatever life has gotten given to me and because of the spiritual awakening I've been able to wrap joy around the pain, I'll always have the gratitude around the pain and it makes it bearable and knowing that someday this experience will help somebody else, you know, it makes it worth it, my life is worth it today, I love my life, I was in a van with my family and I'm going to end with this because this is acceptance for me, we were going, my sister's getting married that weekend, we're all in the van, it's my immense older sister talking to my father about finance and he loved her more than anything, she was smart, smart, smart, I had been paying my dad back money making amends and he's not asking me about money, you know, I'm sitting in the middle, he's talking to her, then I have my sister getting married talking to my mom about fashion and the dresses and the gifts and they just picked me up at the airport, come on, I came from LA, look what I'm wearing, you know, I'm the middle daughter and it just never seemed to be enough, that critical self inside of me and so I don't say anything but I'm listening and then my brother's talking to his new brother-in-law to be about fishing and my brother and I fished together from a little girl, little boy, we put worms on hooks, nobody's asking me my opinion on anything, we're all in there and my dad hears me sobbing, I realized I'm sobbing, I'm sitting in the middle of my family, having this cathartic whole thing going on and he stops the van, turns and says, are you okay? He could have just laid that soapbox out for me so I could tell him why I'm not okay and why it's their fault and I heard a voice because I had done a little 11 step that morning on the airport and my head said, get out of the van, get out of the van, don't open your mouth and I did and all of my work in Alcoholics Anonymous with making my amends to my family would have been over, it would have been done, I would have been the worst example, they would have said that AA is horrible, I mean, I don't know what they would have said but I would have blown it, that's for sure and I stood there and looked at a corny cornfield from the corny state of Iowa where I was from, where I knew I didn't want to be from, why was I born here, it started with that, my first resentment, right? So I'm looking at this corny cornfield and they're all back to their conversations like I'm fine now, no I'm not but I'm not telling them, I'm looking at this corny cornfield and it's beautiful and it's a beautiful summer day and there's life here and somebody had to plant this cornfield and somebody had to take the time to fertilize the soil and pick out the seeds and till it and fix it and maybe not grow anything on it for a couple of years so it was fertile enough to grow this beautiful, rich corn and as I turned away I thought, well, it's not so bad being from Iowa for a moment, I had that acceptance and as I turned to get back in the van I noticed that it was all laid out in rows, I hadn't seen it from all the green but when I turned and looked away it was all these rows laid out like it really was planned and there was love and my little designs and God's got a bigger plan, Sharon, he'll take care of you, let go, let go of those old ideas and see what can happen and I've been able to do that over and over again and in the pain of everything that has come down in my sobriety I've been able to have had that fire burning enough to give it away so it comes back to me and we don't forget the joy of the gratitude that we are sober and Alcoholics Anonymous and we should be framed in black on our parents' walls.
I don't know what happened to him, he was so fun and so great. What happened to her? She had so much talent and potential. We don't know but instead of breaking hearts we're saving lives. Thank you. Howard, Howard. My name is Howard, I'm an alcoholic. Thank you guys. If I had another 40 years, I wouldn't have said that I don't know as much about acceptance as these guys do. And I was going to say, though, all the things you said, so you haven't left me anything.
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In the back of the second edition of the Big Book, there's a story called The Professor and the Paradoxes. And just get it and read it. He has four paradoxes. The first one is we surrender to win. You're a loser as long as you're fighting to have your way. You surrender to win. You suffer to get well. You give it away to keep it. And the old Howard P that comes into AA in 1972 dies someplace along the way.
The one you have tonight's living. But we start with we surrender to win. We've got to give up. That goes completely against our culture, who tells us we have to win. We have to win the competition. That's built-in baby elephant beliefs. And you have to learn something to disprove that to yourself, or you're stuck there. And surrender is not the easy thing to do. But I don't think I can have acceptance unless I surrender first.
Dr. Paul, and we had a really good, I thought, Alka-San meeting last night at 10 o'clock. And acceptance was the topic. And we had a discussion whether or not there's a conflict between the serenity prayer and what Dr. Paul describes in the back of the big book. Does the serenity prayer say we have to accept everything? Or does it say we change the things we can? Dr. Paul says, and acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.
He italicized all. Now, he said elsewhere, why, in the big book, when you run into anything that's italicized, it's almost like they're trying to emphasize something. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation, some fact, I find some fact of life unacceptable to me. And I can find no serenity until I accept that just the way it is. There is not, there's no, absolutely no mistake made in God's world.
Now, that puts it in a different arena, I think, than maybe the serenity prayer is in. Because in this arena, there's my way and there's God's way. Now, which way would I probably need to accept? And in order to do that, if I'm disagreeing, then I need to be willing to change my belief system. And the simple answer to that is we work the steps. We just, that's the way. We go to meetings. We get new ideas.
I tell you, I came to AA and I would hear great new ideas. If you make a mistake and brood about it, you've made two mistakes. How wise is that? How truthful is that? I was 36 years and learning all the people that I hated didn't feel it, but it was killing me. My God, that's the answer. Except you take it home and you can do nothing with it. And somebody says, if you're new in AA or if you're old and you're not working the steps, AA will stop being fun.
And you'll decide AA doesn't work. And you're not going to meetings. You don't go to meetings for a while. You go to the bar and order a drink. And the bartender says, what's the matter? I thought you was going to AA. Don't AA work? If you're not working the steps, be honest with the bartender and tell him you don't know if AA would have worked or not because you didn't try. That seems to be the hub of the answer to my problem.
If I can work the steps, then I see things differently.
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That changes me. And you know what happens in a very short time while you're working the steps? You start diminishing your brooding. Your hate diminishes. There's just a marvelous change that takes place, very slow. Listen, whiskey will get you from a feeling good place of two. Zero's the worst, 10's the best. You can go from a two to an eight. In two drinks of whiskey. If you're going to go from two to a seven working the steps, it's going to take you a long damn time.
But if you drink whiskey and go from a 10 to a two, in two hours, you're going to drop to a one and a half. And then you'll come to AA. And we'll tell you, we got a program of recovery which will surrender you so that you can accept your life as it is right now. Accept it. That doesn't mean things don't change. But I'll tell you, ever how it is right now, love that because that's the way it's going to be anyway.
In the moment, love it because that's it. Thank you. That was great. We have a nice way of closing.