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About this recording
- Topic
- 4 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma City, OK The Traditions & Relationships Di
- Speaker
- Clif G. and Lori G
- Date
- 2021-04-03
Transcript
Source: Clif G. and Lori G – 4 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma City, OK The Traditions & Relationships Di – 2021-04-03.mp3 File: clif-g-and-lori-g-4-clif-g-aa-lori-g-afg-oklahoma-city-ok-the-traditions-and-relationships-di-2021-04-03.mp3 Duration: 00:46:34
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Okay, so we're on the homestretch here. We're going to do all about 35-40 minutes and then we'll just open it up for questions and at 2 o'clock our time, which will be 3 o'clock for most everybody on this screen, we'll unleash you and you can go about your day to fill in the rest of your day. So, we're going to start here with Tradition 10 to kind of start winding this up. The real piece of this puzzle is survival, the spiritual kind of principle behind all this. The way we look at traditions and relationships is I express no opinion on outside issues, especially other people. Hence, my own name I'll never be drawn into public controversy. So, I'm a disunifier by nature. I just, my, I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm judging everything and then I get here and get so heavenly bound that I'm no earthly good. I'm just so spiritual that I'm, you know, I'm looking down at everybody and I'm telling everybody what to do. They're not sharing my experience and I've got opinions about everything and I'm declaring what's good and what's bad. These are decrees. These are, you know, just epistles of how it's supposed to be and I'm very disunifying, very, very disunifying in Alcoholics Anonymous. I, and I own that readily and I had to make amends to a whole fellowship, to the whole dang Oklahoma City AA at one time and, but I was able to get that done and it's embarrassing to be that way. It's embarrassing to be such a disunifier, so opinionated, so didactic in the approach that you alienate, but what the good thought about people in Alcoholics Anonymous, they never once said, you got, you can't come here. They just love and tolerated me because that's what we do. We don't shoot our wounded here. We just love and tolerate them and try to help them. We try to, and people would try to help me, but what ultimately helped me was when Lori threw me out of the house, I got my attention. That's an attention getter, by the way. If you get thrown out of your house, you kind of figure out, oh, I didn't, I went without rancor though. I didn't argue with her about it. When she said, she sat me down and said, you know, I don't even recognize you. You're sober, but well, you're not emotionally sober or spiritually sober or you're physically sober, and you know, when you're eight, nine, ten, you're sober and that happens to you, that's kind of an attention getter.
You kind of gave me pause anyway, maybe, and so I had to, I didn't argue with her about any of that. I went without rancor. One thing I've learned here, if somebody tells you you have a tail, you ought to turn around and look, at least look at it and see if you really do, because I can't rely on, I can't rely on me. Enough people tell me I have a tail, I can't say, no, I don't, if I don't look, and so I got to be willing to look today, and I was willing to look, and so, and I remember saying to my sponsor that day that I was displaced, and you ever say something to your sponsor, and when the words leave your mouth, you have a couple thoughts. The first one is, I wonder if I could grab that back, and he would not hear that, or maybe if I change subjects real quick, he'll just act like, just act like I didn't even say that, right, and what I said to him that day, and when I said it, when it came out of my mouth, instantly I knew the problem once again. I said, you know, I've just got to get back to basics, as if we have anything else around here, as if there's some spot we ascend to, right, that I'm now at this level of AA, and I hope one day all of you can be elevated to that level yourself, and have this view of AA that I have spiritually, but you're unfortunately not able to have him. Just so egotistical, so full of me. I love what Lori and I's friend says. He says, you know, we all come to Alcoa Xenomys wearing the clown suit, every one of us, and when we get here, we get sober, we get to take the clown suit off, but we don't throw it away. We hang it in the closet, because we're destined to take it out again here, you know, and I've had to take the clown suit on, and put it on, and wear it around, and you people just love and tolerated me. This is the same way here, survival. I could put the clown suit on in this relationship, and I can
[00:05:07]
be that this, I can be disunifying, I could be critical, you know, I could go out and be critical Lori in public, and draw her name into public controversy. I can get, you know, I get mad at Lori, and I go to all my guys, and garner my support, that by God, I'm right. You all know I'm right, and so I come back with votes, right. I come back, now everybody says I'm right, Lori. I mean, you know, the deal is, is that when we have, if we have a disagreement, what I have, there's only one person I need to talk to, that's my sponsor, and I need to get direction from God. I don't need to go out, call Elizabeth and Rob, and say, y'all won't believe what Lori's doing to me down here, you know. I don't call, I don't email Christina, go, Christina, I need help, Lori's just gone off her rocker down here. I don't, you know, I just need to go to God, and go to my sponsor. Christina would be on my side.
I know she would, that's how she rolls. Kidding, sorry. She probably would. Elizabeth would absolutely be on your side. Renee would be on your side. Renee's always on my side. I know that. You know, the truth of that is, I don't need Lori to just be a carbon copy of me, and she doesn't need me to be a carbon copy. We need to be our own people, and I've got to be comfortable with who I am, and she's got to be comfortable who she is, and that's just the way it works. And see, here's the dog doing, they're barking, so we got to go get the dog. So, and that's just the way it is, and, and that's what allows survival to happen. The freedom to be who we are within the terms of responsibility, ultimately, to the relationship, and because of that, we survive. We absolutely survive. Okay.
Lateral. So, you know, basically what this means is that we just agree to disagree. We have our own opinions on outside issue, I just gave you mine, but we don't have to agree on that. You know, he doesn't have to agree with me, I don't have to agree with him, and we have our own opinions, and we're allowed those opinions. We can agree to disagree today, which has not always been the case. Most of the time, it was, you have to see it my way because I'm right, and I'm just going to convince you until you agree or give in. I mean, that's usually how I've been most of my life. And, and then, you know, that hence our name might never be drawn into public controversy. You know, he talked about, you know, he doesn't go to garner his, get votes, and go to other people whenever we have an issue. You know, we either talk about it among ourselves, I go to my sponsor, and he, you know, I have a few friends that if there was something that I was really struggling with, that I would call, I promise you, I've called Rene before. And he's got a friend, Mike, that he calls. But outside of that, and we just don't, we just don't do that. We don't go to other people to get opinions or to have, you know, have somebody else be dragged into this deal. We go to get counsel from people who, you know, have gone through it before that are friends of ours, but it doesn't, we don't go to garner people on other people's sides. Because it's really none of their business. You know, anytime that somebody is going to, you know, I've had sponsors that call their in-laws whenever their spouse is drinking. I'm like, no, we don't do that. We don't do that. It's none of their business. They can't help you. That's not what we do. Not drawn into public controversy. Now, here's another thing. I like to tell this story because it was so pivotal to me. I have a friend who's in the program. Some of you might know her. Her name is Nell L. She's been in Al-Anon for like 57 years. No joke. She's a great lady. And she was telling me about one time she was married. She also was married to an attorney who was later a judge. And one time, and Nell's been around so long that they used to go speak all the time. Her and her husband Cleve used to go speak all the time. And they would travel and they had a good core group that they always hung out with. And, you know, Elsa Chamberlain and Chuck Chamberlain were friends with them. And I mean, so she has a lot of knowledge and a lot of history. And one day they were at a barbecue. And I can't remember who it was that was there, but they were at a barbecue. And she said, you know, I just thought I was being so cute and so funny. And she was poking fun at Cleve. You know, she was just having little, making little jokes about Cleve, her husband. And she said, everybody was laughing and she was laughing. And she said, Cleve never mind. He never said anything. He never said
[00:10:01]
anything to her, never said, you know, why are you, you know, why are you poking fun at me at my expense or whatever, you know. But she was at this barbecue and she was having, she was doing it again. And she was making little jokes and making little remarks at Cleve's expense. And a man that they were friends with put his hand on her arm and he said, when did you lose respect for your husband? And I'm going to tell you that hit me to my core because I can't tell you how many times that I have made fun of Cleve and teased him in front of people, not thinking that I was being humiliating or thinking that I was doing anything to put him down or anything. Just thought I was being cute and funny, but it wasn't cute and funny because it was at his expense. And so that's one of the things that I do. I don't do today because I don't want to draw our name into public controversy. That's not something that's nice. I will tell you, we've been at dinner and I've seen people do that in public. We were at dinner a few years ago with a group of people and, and they were all in program. And, and I, and one of them was just awful to the other person in public. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, I hope I don't, I hope I don't ever say or do anything like that, you know, with my husband in front of somebody else. I hope I never, or in private really, but really not in public controversy. So that's one of those things that I have learned is to, you know, not just to poke fun or make fun at his expense just because I think it's cute or funny. It's just not, it's just not worth it. It's kind of demeaning and it's not, it's not something that I, you know, I am now aware of it and it's something that I used to do. Again, not thinking that I was doing anything wrong or hurting him, but it wasn't right. So anyway. This, this idea of Tradition 11 really speaks to self-restraint, the ability for me to want to just help people. And, and some people don't need or won't help. Sometimes they're just, so I have to be cautious about that because sometimes Lori comes to me and she has a, something she wants to talk about. And my first thought is, I have to go into problem solving mode. That I've got to figure out what the problem is because I'm trained that way. My, my training as a lawyer, when somebody brings a problem to me, I immediately go into problem-solving mode thinking, okay, how do we fix that? How, what can we do about that? And what I've learned in this, in this particular tradition is self-restraint about that. When she comes to me with a problem, she's not necessarily looking for my experience, strength and hope. Sometimes she's coming because I just need, she needs me to listen to her. That I don't have to come up with problem-solving skills. I just need to sit and listen. And if she asks me, what do you think? Then I'm free to give that. Otherwise, I need to just listen and, and see if she wants my input or just, she just needs me to listen. And I think sometimes in the past, I've struggled with that because I want to help her give, I think my job is, because that's my job is to find solutions to problems. Struggle with trying to find that demarcation about where it is that I just need to be a good listener and find them. A part of that is learning, learning each other and learning how, how that needs to work. I need to learn, you know, I've had to learn that if she'll ask me, if she's looking for a solution, she'll ask me, what do you think? Then I can give, then I can express my experience. And sometimes I'll go, I don't know. I don't have experience with that. I don't know. I got lots of opinions. Most of those I shouldn't share because opinions have really no ability, no practical application, because I don't have any experience. I've just got opinions. So I need to be addressing things where I've actually got experience with that. I've learned that through alcoholics and alcoholics. I learned that through sponsorship and sponsoring people that when I don't have experience, I need to say, I don't know. AA has given me the freedom to not have to know everything that I can look at people say, I don't know. I don't have any experience on that. But you know, my buddy Terry has, let's call him. And I'm okay with that today. I get off the hook of having to know the answers to everything. And another part of this is that I got to make sure that when, when in this particular tradition that my representative doesn't show up and maybe you all are familiar with your own representative. So just think back to when you were dating before you were, if you were, if you're married today, think about or been married, think about your dating life. We always sent in our representative, the person that sells us, right? Because we sent in the person, right? We send the person in because you were smiling. So I knew you could identify.
the person in because you were smiling so I knew you could identify we send in
[00:15:01]
the person to sell us right it's my representative it's me but I send in the best version of me my representative to sell me and so what I have to do is I have to be careful I'm not sending my representative in I'm just sending me in to be authentic and to be the person I'm supposed to be particularly here and I can't have I can't have that person show up in this deal the other part about this is is I've got to be sure that I make promises that I can follow through with you know I have to honor my commitments here and to be sure that if I make a commitment to Laurie that I'll be sure that I can follow through with it you know whatever that might look like you know and if I can't if I can't live up to it then I need to say hey I don't know if I can commit to that or not. Honesty is a big piece of the puzzle communication and all this is a big piece in the book and I get that you know this idea of self-restraint in these has an idea that when I'm coming through here and looking to the other side is you know what's the goal we're shooting through here through this whole deal where am I shooting for and that's spiritual anonymity which is a which is the last thing we're going to wrap up here with next but that's where I'm shooting for this idea of spiritual anonymity a piece of that is doing good doing things for Laurie and not expecting anything in return or doing things for her and not have to go tell her about it you know don't have to go and sell me to her just do something good for just what they talk to do get something good for somebody they don't get found out which is hard for a guy like me by the way because I need credit for everything so this is these are good exercises in humility to do good things for people and not be and not be found out and and I I try to do that for Laurie from time to time what I'll do is I keep a stack of cards in my desk drawer from time to time what I'll do is I'll just I just write her a card and I'll leave it for her where she'll find it you know I don't I don't put it by her bedside table or I put it somewhere where she'll stumble onto it and what I've learned about that is is that it's important for me to take the time to sit down and go get a card or go write a card for her because she knows I'm taking a pause to let her know out of whatever was going on in my life how important she is in my life and and those little things like that you know when my guys call me sometime and of course they're in the middle of some crisis with their spouse and they'll go through everything and I'll of course I've always got experience in some kind of jackpot because I've been in about every one of them you have so I've always got experience in that and so but at the end of that I say and so and then so the solution of that is this you need to go get her a card and you need to come home and you need to write and I usually give them some kind of direction because they're like me when I was starting this I had no idea what to write because we know the thing I'm sorry well everybody on earth knows how sorry I am I don't need to advertise that but I need to have a heartfelt something heartfelt in there and then I say don't go give it to her put it somewhere she'll stumble on to it and I can't tell you that every time that happens these guys call me the next day and say I just knew that wasn't going to work but that worked because we take the pause to take the time to make the effort you know people recognize that they say we take the pause that we take the time that we make the effort and that's important to people's lives one of the first things I got taught early on here by my sponsor was that when anybody new came to AA that I need to remember their name hmm I need to commit their name to memory and the reason for that was at the end of the meeting I was to go to that person call them by their name and tell them how grateful that I was that they were there today hmm and what Don said to me was is that the reason we do that is because people come here and they don't think they're seen hmm we've become so marginalized by alcoholism alcoholism has pushed us push me so far out that nobody wants anything to do with me and
[00:20:08]
he said when people come to AA it needs to be a safe haven it needs to be a place where people come and you see them and they know they are seen that they know they have value and by remembering their name and calling them by their name they know they have value that has transcended for me to be reminded in these moments that for me what I have to do is remind I have to write this out so Lori knows that she has value in my life to pause and stop and get a card to do something good and and let her stumble on to it don't make a production say I got you this card right which is what normally I would want to do but to let her find it so that she knows she has value to me okay and I'm gonna talk about the attraction rather than when it comes to our relationship and this kind of goes back to kind of what we again all these kind of start intertwining with each other but you know it's about how we conduct ourselves both publicly and privately and you know I don't have to go out and tell everybody what a great marriage I have and you know how you you know if you wanted a good husband you should have him call my husband because he knows how to do it or you know I don't have to do that today we just show who we are out in public as well as privately we show it's the same it's you know it's no different if if you were to look inside our house you would see the same people when we're off zoom or out of a meeting as we as you do right now I mean it's this isn't some you know we don't act one way and put in public in another way in private we just don't or we're about the same and and so we that that has has been the promotion or the the attraction rather than promotion has been evident throughout that's why we have people call us and say hey can you take us through these traditions and relationships can you tell us your experience with these can you tell me and how you guys got to where you are because again these are the same people that were yelling cussing screaming throwing things at each other treating each other horrible throwing my clothes on the back porch I was you know you know I I'm just gonna tell you whenever I caught and I don't talk about this much either but whenever I this is who you're dealing with here whenever I took caught cliff and drinking and using I had caught him not only with the empty bottle of wine and empty bottle of vodka but there was a little clear package with some white substance on it and in it in a straw and I'm gonna tell you I took that package in that straw and I hit it because when he relapsed I was gonna go plant it in his car and call the cops because that's who I am that's what I do and so we've come a long way from that I'm just telling you I mean we haven't I haven't I haven't I know I'm very evil but that's how I I like to punish I like to I that's how I roll that's my normal deal revenge is great I love any movie about revenge don't even get better if somebody comes in and and they kill somebody's family and then he goes out and goes hence every single one of them down and that's my kind of movie I'm just saying I love revenge and so that's who that's how I've been most of my life and so you know we don't I don't I don't have to plot revenge anymore and and you know and it's evident in the way that we talk to each other the way that we treat each other out in public the way that we you know so just the way that we are and we have people we've we've been in restaurants we've been married now you know 21 years but you know in the last several years when we back when we could go to a restaurant we would go to restaurants and we because we're just we have fun we just do and Pete and you know the waiter waitress will go oh y'all are so cute how long you've all been together and we're like 20 years they're like really I mean because they think that we're like a new couple or something and and so but it's it's the attraction rather than promotion you know I don't have to go out and tell everybody you know what a wonderful husband I have even though I do because people know what a great guy he is by the way that he treats me in the way that he talks to me in the way that he acts around me and and the way that he talks to other people about me and the way that I talk to other people about him so that's the part of the attraction rather promotion that I think is is key in this in this tradition so we get here to the 12th tradition where we talked about spiritual anonymity and
[00:25:03]
and you know a big piece of this puzzle in the spiritual anonymity is figuring out making sure I'm clear about who is the messenger and what is the message that I don't get those two tangled up and determined that I am in fact the message and not just the messenger and I have and and there have been points early in my sobriety when I was the sheriff and I would get that confused about the message and the messenger I have to always remember what the you know the St. Francis prayer talks about that I'm an instrument I'm just I'm a tool I'm a I'm a vessel all the descriptive words that St. Francis used in there that's what am I my role is and I have to remember that here too in this relationship I'm a vessel for God's love and God's expression it's not my none of these none of these things that I've talked to you about today in the last three and a half hours that we've been together that none of these have been my idea those are all contrary the way I think everything that we've talked about about our relationship and where it is today would be contrary indications of my life prior to coming to Alcoholics Anonymous none of that would have been wrote prior to this prior to today these have all been through practicing the principles and understanding what the print how these principles not just the traditions but the steps transcending those spiritual principles into our life and how they how they move through that and so those have all been very very important because you know we talk about principles before personalities what I have to remember is what they're talking about is my personality you know it's my personality that I have to be on the watch for it's my personality that I have to be consciously reminded that I have to put my principles before my own selfish ends before my own selfish well-being and that's what we're looking for here you know when we're when I'm looking for spiritual anonymity the idea of doing something good for somebody and not getting found out you know the idea in this relationship is being able to as she talked about treating her the same privately as we do but you know if we come on here and we're telling you all these great things about how wonderful our relationship is and we get done and all we do is have hallway sex to each other as she's going to her room and I'm going to mine you know screw you I'm out of here that's done now I'm gonna go back it would just be BS you know but when all this is over what will happen is it will be the same people that you see here on this screen we'll go out and we're going to do some stuff in our backyard we're gonna watch some basketball later on and you know probably we're gonna cook dinner together and it's going to be the same people doing that all those activities afterwards you know if you really you know I'm a big believer and if you really want to know about our relationship and then I tell people this as it relates to me if you really want to know how I'm doing don't ask me you get a you get a less than objective view if you ask me because I see it through a prism of me if you want to know how I'm doing go ask the people I work for go ask Lori how's Cliff doing go ask the men that I sponsor right go they're going to be the better barometer of how I'm doing because it's going to be about how am I treating them you know that's going to tell you whether the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is being demonstrated because I'll just tell you oh I'm doing great you know and it's the same here if you really want to know how Lori and I if you really want to know are they the same people that they are when they come do a workshop when I see him on zoom or when they come and do it work are they the same people you need to go talk to the people that we sponsor you need to go talk to you need to go talk to our neighbors right because the neighbors that's a great you know it could be Jerry Springer over here for all you people no I mean we could be you know in the front yard wrestling out there you know go see our neighbors and that's not that exciting so I wish it was right go talk to our neighbors and ask them
[00:30:00]
You want to get a barometer of who we really are, you go talk to our neighbors, you know, go talk to Grandmother Christmas across the street, we call that because she used to have these great Christmas decorations and it's just stuck for 20-something years. You know, how do we do with our neighbors? Go to where we work and say how do they, how do they do, how do they interact? You know, how are those people? And my hope would be, and I believe this is the truth, although I do look at it through a prism of self, but I believe all those people would say what you see is what you get. They're not trying to sell you any kind of snake oil or they're not trying to peddle on you, they're pretty honest about the tough times they've had and the struggles they've had and the things they've had to overcome as a couple and that's the real barometer.
That's the real speech, the real truth of spiritual anonymity is that the gauge is same public, same private. That comes from a substantial amount of personal integrity. A big piece of that is the walk outtalks the talk, you know, because you get all kind of snake oil salesmen in AA that will tell you whatever. I'm always jaundiced to people who come and just tell you, tell me what a wonderful life they have and they just tell all the good stuff that's happened to them since they've been sober. That doesn't reconcile with what my book says.
That in no way reconciles with what Ebby and Bill talked about, because Bill talked about all we have to perfect and enlarge, make better and make bigger our spiritual life for the certain trials and low spots ahead. And so, I'm always reminded and always view with a jaundiced eye when I hear people get behind the podium and just give me an upward trajectory on their whole life. And I'm not just saying that they haven't had those good things happen, but I know the reality and I get it. I'm not trying to say they're lying to us, but it's a shadowed view of reality. I don't believe I would be of any service to new people if I didn't tell them the truth that it's good, but there's bad.
You know, I've talked to you about the front row of life that I'm right in front of the speakers and it blows on me. Modulator for life. Life still happens. People are still dying. People are still getting divorced. People are coming and people are going. Jobs are being had and jobs are being lost. Money's being made and money's being lost. Life is that way. And to sell you people on anything other than the good and the bad, Lori and I would be doing a horrible disservice to you people because, as I think we've expressed several times, everything we're telling you today has been hammered out on the anvil of mistakes, tears, a lot of bad language, and understanding and coming together in human understanding and compassion to find this spot of spiritual anonymity, this comfortable, happy, joyous, and free spot that we found here in Alcoholics Anonymous and Elephant.
You know, I just kind of echo kind of what he's saying is that, you know, the difference between when we got here and where we are now is that the same cruddy stuff still happens to us. I mean, you know, we've lost a lot of people. We've lost a lot of people in our lives. I lost, my dad died right before I got in this program. I mean, literally a month, I think, before I got in this program, my dad died. And my brother died two years ago. I can't count the number of people that we have lost in this program, some drunk, some sober. And I've had sponsees, I have a sponsee, she lost her mom two years ago, and she's young, she's young. She lost her mom two years ago to cancer. She just lost her dad last week to cancer. You know, horrible things happen. I mean, we've lost, you know, my dog died that I had for 14 years. We lost him about five years ago. I mean, there's always something going on. This is not a dead dog meeting, don't get me confused.
There's always something going on. There's always something tragic. I've talked to you about our
[00:35:02]
daughter. She's out there living her life, getting her story together. I hope she makes it in these rooms. I hope she gets sober. I don't know. There's no guarantees. There's still stuff that goes on every day. We have daily stresses just like everybody else. The difference between all that The difference between all that stuff that has happened from the time that we got here until today is that we have these principles, we have this program, and we're able to handle it better.
We're able to receive that news better without making it a disastrous deal and making it the worst day of our lives or blaming everybody around us or being super, super angry and, you know, throwing a fit or getting upset. We've learned how to accept life on life's terms, and we don't always like it. It doesn't mean that it's fun or that, oh, well, it's just another day. It's not like that at all. I brought up my dog, and I'll tell you why I brought that up.
I had a dog. It was the last Christmas present from my dad before he passed away. I got my dog like in January, February. My dad died in May, and he was 14 years old, and he was my dog. I'm just telling you. He was. He did. He was not a fan of glue, but he loved me. Anyway, it was Thanksgiving. We had friends here for Thanksgiving. It was that weekend. It was that Saturday, and there was a group of people here. We were all going to dinner, and we were going to a movie, and my little dog, we think, the vet thinks he had a heart attack, and he fell in the pool, and he was dead before he hit the water, but Cliff found him in the bottom of the pool on a Saturday evening right before we're getting ready to go to dinner. Cold, cold. Poor guy jumped in the cold water and got him out, but anyway, so I call my sponsor because I am devastated. I've lost my dog. It's the last thing from my dad. I am just boohooing, and I said, I'm not going to dinner tonight, and I'm not going to a movie, and she said, oh, yes, you are. Oh, yes, you are.
She said, I know that this is horrible, and I know that you're sad, but you're going to go, and you're going to participate, and you're not going to be Debbie Downer at the dinner and the movie. You don't have to be the life of the party either, but you're going to go, and you're going to participate because you're not going to let this dictate your evening or your day. This is a horrible thing that happened, but it was, you know, but he was old. He was going to go. This is the way it was supposed to be. You need to accept that, and you need to deal with it. This is what you've been dealt. You need to go, and so I did. I went to the dinner that night. I went to the movie. It was actually okay. I didn't have a horrible time, and I wasn't partying off the wall either, but I was okay, and that's the deal. We have to deal with these things as they come, and we have a program, and we have tools today that teach us how to do that because I didn't know how to do that. I would have been the victim. I would have made everybody in the whole place miserable because I wanted everybody to focus on me and how I lost my dog, and this is a horrible day. That's how I would have normally rolled, and she didn't allow me to do that, and I'm so grateful for her for that, and you know, I'm just going to say this about all of this is that, you know, I am so grateful that we've come this far, and we've learned all this, and that we'll be able to pass any of this on to somebody else. Everything that we have today is a direct result of our God and the program that he's given us. I mean, it took my program to get me to God.
It just did, and now that I've got him, I wouldn't change anything else. I would not change anything else. We have a good life today. I love my life today. I love who I am today. I love the person that I've become today. I love being in this marriage and in this relationship, and I love what the changes have made in my husband. I love who he is. I love the person he's become. He's not only a great husband and a great individual. He's a great member of AA, and he does a lot of work, and he's a great example, and I love that, and we got all that here. All that here. We couldn't have gotten it anywhere else. I'm just going to tell you the things that we've learned. You can't learn anywhere else but here because when you're dealing with alcoholism, you can't talk to anybody else outside of somebody who knows about alcoholism about that. I'm going to tell you before I got here, my plan was to kill Cliff. I had planned his death because I thought if he was
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dead, I would be fine, and I say this all the time. I think one of the worst things that can happen for untreated alanons is for us to watch too many episodes of Forensic Files and 48 Hours Mysteries because it teaches us how to kill somebody, and I had planned his death, and I'm just going to tell you I can say that in an alanon meeting, and all the people will shake their head and laugh and get along. You can't say that outside the rooms. They don't get it. They think you need to be locked up.
You're a psychotic lady. I'm not saying that I wasn't, but I'm just saying people outside of these rooms do not understand the disease of alcoholism and its effects, and so I can't get what I got anywhere else but here. I didn't get that anywhere else but here. The only place that I got to learn how to live these principles and learn these tools and these traditions and these steps is here. Now listen, I get that these principles were founded on things that we probably stole from the church, and that's okay. I love church today. I have nothing against church, but I'm telling you I could not hear it anywhere else but here, and I am so grateful today. I have so much gratitude, and I hope that that shows in the way that I live my life and the things that I do on a day-to-day basis because this is the only place that I got that from, and I wouldn't trade my life for anything today, and that's the truth. I would not trade it for anything.
There was an old drunk, and he was on the boardwalk, and he was just in really bad shape, and God appeared to him, and God looked at him and said, how much money do you have? And the drunk stumbled around his pocket, and he pulled out a $20 bill and shows God, and God said, I'll tell you what, give me all your money, and I'll strike you sober, and you'll be sober, but you got to give it to me. So the drunk thinks that's a good deal because he really wants to be sober, so he gives God the $20, and he just like that struck sober, and he's so grateful, and he thanks God profusely, and he turns to walk away, and he stops, and he turns back around, and he says, hey God, listen, I know you said all the money, and I gave it to you, but listen, I need gas for my car, and I was wondering if I could just have a couple three bucks back, and God looks at him and says, you got a car? You didn't tell me about a car. He goes, yeah, well, yeah, I got a car, and God says, well, if you want to be sober, I got to have the car, got to have the money in the car, and so the guy thinks about that and says, all right, give you the money in the car, so God says, okay, sober. Drunk turns to walk against, pauses, turns back around, says, but if I don't have my car, I'm not going to be able to go to my job, and God now is just confident. He goes, you got a job? You didn't mention the job in this whole discussion here.
He goes, well, yeah, I got a job. He said, I got to have, I really need the car, so I need the bucks to get gas in the car to get my job, because if I don't get to my job, I'm going to lose my house and my family, and God goes, what? You've got a house and a family, too? I don't know nothing about this. He goes, yeah, and God looks at him and says, okay, here's the deal. I got to have the money, the car, the job, the house, the family. I got to have it all if you want to be sober, and the drunk thinks about it, and he pauses, and he ponders, and he wants to be sober, and he says, okay, God, that's the deal. You got it. You can have it all. You can have the car, the money, the house, the family, the job. You can have it all, and the drunk turns to walk away, and God says, well, hang on a second.
He said, if you just walk away from here, you're going to be all alone, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you have my family and my job to take care of. And I'm going to let you have my house to live in, and I'm going to give you my car, and I'm going to let you be in charge of my money to use that in order to facilitate all these things that you tell me about, and that's the way it is here.
Everything we get as a result of being sober and alcoholics and non-muslims, these are gifts that we receive. These are things, stewards that we are entrusted with to watch over. I have to always remember the blessings of my life derived from the power that I found here, that in and of myself, I am nothing, but through the God that I found in alcoholics and non-muslims. Through the God that I've found in Alcoholics Anonymous, all these things that I'm able today to be a steward of happens. We're all stewards of the traditions, whether we're practicing them in
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our relationships, in our fellowship, or wherever we might be, we're stewards of the traditions. And because we're stewards of those traditions, it is incumbent upon us to make sure the integrity of those stay intact. So on behalf of Lori, I want to say thank you so much for allowing us to be in your living room today, or wherever you might happen to be, your dining room, or wherever you happen to be, that we're grateful to be of some sort of service. And hopefully it's something we said today might resonate that might help you further down the path. So God bless and we'll see you soon. Okay, so now we'll close the meeting with the Lord's Prayer.
A moment of silence for those sick and suffering in and out of the rooms. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
It was a great, great day. Thank you.