October 1, 2025 • 30 mins
Carin S. Step 12, Step Series at the Tuesday Night Step Group, Twelve Step House, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 9/30/2025
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, So first I want to say thank you, thank
you for.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Allowing me the joy and the privilege of going through
these twelve steps with you. You know, I don't know
what happens to you, but I know what happens to me,
and it has really been an extraordinary experience. So I
want to get right into this because we don't have
as much time as we normally do, so I want
to talk a little bit about the twelfth Step tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Your head's in the way.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thanks having had a spiritual awakening is the result of
these steps.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Who try to carry this message call it practice the principles.
We've been talking about the principles NonStop this, you know,
the last few months.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So I want to start tonight with a story which
is not my norm but it's.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So near and dear to me. There was a woman
who doesn't who's not alive anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Name is Lorna King, and she's was a member and
good standing of alcoholicsnonoymous.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And a good friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And one of the things I want to talk about
tonight is not just how you do the twelfth step,
how you do your service work. I really don't care
how you do it, just like, I haven't really cared
much about how you work your steps.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're going to do it, and you're going to be
changed when you do it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And they're all designed to bring us back to God
and that's the end of it. But what I learned
from Lorna is not why we do the twelfth step.
It's why we do the twelfth step, which is very
different than why we do the twelfth Step. So I
want to say about Lorna Kay. Lorna was British, she
was sober a long time. She was the first female
(01:33):
auctioneer at Suthersby in New York. And I'm not sure
if anybody here knew her. Last time I saw her
before she died was at the Atlanta International Convention. Anyway,
Laurna was great. She was very outlandis.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
She was very nutty.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You know. She used to show up with all kinds
of wigs and costumes on and festooned with jewelry, with
this crazy English accent.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And you know her goal in Aa was twofold. She
wanted to stay. She needed to marry a man who
had a maid. That's what she wanted.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
She thought if she could find a man with a maid,
then her life would be settled.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Anyway, Laura went to meetings at Lenox Hill, which is
if you're not.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
From New York, that is where you find a man
or the man, or a man with the maid.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And so Laura would go.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
To the meetings in lenox Hill, and occasionally I would
go to the meetings, and I never saw a man
with a maid, but she did. And one day she
had this epiphany. You know, we talked about God a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And she didn't get it. She didn't get it. She
didn't get it. And one day, right after the meeting,
she was wearing a chanel suit. Could she come from
southerners by?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
She had long red nail polish, bright red lips, high
heeled shoes.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
She pulled out her.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
American Express card and said, I have to go, and
she went to Kennedy Airport and she flew to Cowcutt
up in search of Mother Teresa. By the way, if
you want to read her story, she wrote a book
called The Camel Noses a Way and it's out there somewhere.
So she flies to Calcutta and Mother Teresa clearly doesn't
(03:04):
know her and doesn't know that she's coming. But she
arrives in Calcutta, and the only way to get to
the mother's house where she treats she she treats these women,
you know, who are lepers and pregnant and sick, is
to get there by camel. And Lorna got on the
camel with a bunch of other people, and everybody had
(03:26):
very exotic names for their camel.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, Sahib and Ammir.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Loura's camel's name was Bob Marley. So she gets on
top of Bob Marley and the guy that owns the camels,
you know, she said, let me see where I'm going,
and he hits the camel on the foot and says,
don't worry about it. The camel knows the way. And
so the camel takes off across the desert with Lorna
on there with her high heels and her red nails
(03:53):
and her red lipstick and her Chanel suits, and she
had no luggage with her whatsoever. And she arrives at
the mother's house, and of course Mother Teresa is not there.
She's out tending to whoever she's tending to, and they.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Said, you're welcome to wait for the mother if you
would like.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She'd be delighted to meet you, but we don't know
when she's coming back, and if you insist on waiting,
then we have to put you to work.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And so she.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Stayed in this place and she helped these women, and
she cleaned up their vomit, and she cleaned up their runs,
and she made the beds, and she did the laundry,
and pretty soon her red nail polish was off her nails,
and she was wearing a pair of slippers because her
Chanel pumps were not making it in there.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And one day someone makes.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
An announcement that Mother Teresa has returned, and so Lorna
sits down and greets the mother and tells her that
she got a message in the room of alcoholics anonymous
in a meeting, and that the message said, get on
the plane and go to meet Mother Teresa. She said,
I can't tell you what else it said, but when
(04:53):
I heard the message, I assumed that was God. And
I have never understood anything about God, but nobody's ever
told me to get on a plane to seem the Teresa.
So I'm assuming that that was God talking to me.
And so Mother Teresa thought it was pretty funny, and
they got to know each other a little bit better,
so I guess about a month later, she was there
quite a time. About a month later, the mother said
that she was gonna take Laura out into.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The prayer garden, you know where they.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Have statues, stone statues, And she's gonna take her out
there and they.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Can talk quietly and maybe meditate a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And Laura's out there, no, no, no like that, and
the mother is very quiet, and she's teeny tiny, and
Laura was my height.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
She was the very tall girl.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And they're sitting there on a stone bench and there
is a statue of Mary Magdalene in front of, you know,
a stone statue, and the mother is saying, you know,
you do understand what you're doing here, don't you?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And Laura says, I'm.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Not quite sure, but could you tell me? And with
that mother Teresa took the statue of Mary and pushed
it back and leaned underneath the feet of the statue
and pulled out a little piece of paper and gave
it to Morna. And on the piece of paper were
the twelve steps of alcoholic synonymous. And Lorna said to her,
(06:10):
why would you have the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Underneath this statue, and Mother Teresa looked at her and said,
because it is a daily reminder to me that.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
As many people as I have helped in the world,
and as many people as I have cured in the world,
I cannot help an alcoholic. You can help an alcoholic,
and only an alcoholic can help another alcoholic. And with that,
Lorna came back to New York and went on this
(06:43):
whole sort of parade about what service actually meant. And
we were all with her, and we really all with
her because we had been consumed, as I know everybody
is consumed. If you have a sponsor, you're consumed with
how you are doing the Twelfth Step?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What are you doing? You know what your services? What
are you doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And Lorna comes back and tells us, guess what, I
just got it from the highest authority that it doesn't
matter what you do in the twelfth Step.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It matters that we are the ones ministering to each other.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We are the ones that are doing it, and that's
why only we can do the twelfth Step.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Nobody else can do that. The kind of service doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I remember when I was getting sober and they said,
if you're going to make a twelve step call. And
I don't know, those twelve step calls are kind of
gone by the wayside, but we used to love to
make them in the eighties because you know, we'd show
up at somebody's house and.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You had to take somebody with you. That was the rule.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You have to take somebody with you on the service call. Anyway,
I put my name on this list of pick up
drunk women.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I don't know what was thinking, what.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I was thinking, but I put my name on this
list to pick up drunk women. And of course the
drunk women, they call it two and three and four
in the morning. And so the person I would take,
you know, on the call with me was my son,
which they also didn't think was a great idea, but
he was the.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Only one who was up.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So I would put him in the car with me
and we would go and pick up these women and
they would sit in the back of the car, and
after a while my son would call her the jittery
runs because they were in the back of the car,
sort of shaken them all over the place, and we
would drop them off, you know, at the doctors or
at the hospitals, and we did this over and over again,
but nobody said it's in the big book.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Where is that? Nobody says, it's what you're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And then I got sober and my sponsor, Albert said
to me, you know, what are you doing Saturday night?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And I said nothing, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He says, well, we aren't doing anything, but you are
going down to the hospital. And I was on the
upper West side and he said, and you are going
to discuss Step one the hospital on Saturday night. I
didn't know what he was talking about, but I could
do Step one pretty good.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I mean I was new, but I knew it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And I would go down to the hospital, and to
this day, I can hear this, the paper sandals, the
paper slippers that they were wearing.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
You know, they shuffled down the hallway. What I didn't
know is that they were brought in on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So by the time I got them on Saturday night,
they couldn't pick their heads up. They all sat there
with their heads on the table in front of them
like they were passed out cold.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And I would do Step one on Saturday night. I
came back and I said, okay, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What's next he goes next Saturday, there's another Saturday where
you're gonna do Step one. I want you to know
that I did Steps one, two, and three in that
same hospital for three years.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Three years. I never had a date on a Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Three years I went to that hospital, and I don't
know what happened to them, but I got it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I understood it.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And in the very old days, and I totally missed
these days when you could smoke in meetings.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You know, we did the ABC's.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I don't know who remembers the abcs ash trays, brooms
and shares, you know, ash trees, brooms and chairs, And
I'm a good alcoholic. I took the ash trays because
I was cheap, and I would teake your butts out
of the ash trees so I could smoke them.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That way, I didn't have to buy quite so many cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that
it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It doesn't matter because.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The power of this step is not in the what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
It's that who is doing this and why are we
doing it?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Because there's the unbelievable feeling of belonging to this thing, and.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
That is what the twelfth step is talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
When when nine to eleven happened in Manhattan and some
of you were, you know, in New York and that happened,
it was horrible time.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And you know, the the national New York is all Caro.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The New Yorkers we were just were beyond overwhelmed, just
beyond overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I mean the fear in the throat and everybody was nuts.
And anyway we were.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I was at my home group in nine or six
Street and Broadway and a chairperson got up and they said,
you know, who has more than five years of sobriety?
And we raised our hand, and they said who.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Is a sponsor?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And the same one of us raised our hand, and
they said, there's a transportation meeting for you outside taking
down to the Perry Street meeting. Perry Street meeting was
all the way downtown, so we didn't know, and we went.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So we got in there and the room was filled
with people. The Perry Street station, so you know, it
was the state was the.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Perry Street meeting was the closest meeting to where the
towers came down.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That was the closest meeting to it.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And we walked into the Perry Street meeting, and the
chairperson said, who in the room.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Needs a sponsor?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And almost every hand went up because these were the
sponsors who.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Had died in the towers.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And he turned around and said, you're with him, and
you're with her, and you're with him and you're with her,
because he knew we were the strangers coming in from
the uptown meeting. And I think I walked out of
there with maybe four or five different sponsores who I
sponsored for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But they were at a loss.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
They were at a loss, and who is going to
console them, Who is going to show them how to
get through this tragedy except somebody who knows how to
get out of the hole themselves. Again, we're the only
ones that can do this. So step twelve, having had
a spiritual awakening because we did all of the other steps,
(11:46):
we did them all and they're all designed to make
us do things that these actions that I actually know
will not work. They're assenine. But I have a sponsor
who I am a free and so I do them anyway
knowing they won't work. And when I do them, I'm
absolutely stunned that they do work. And then a few
(12:08):
months later after that, I take credit for the whole thing.
But the truth is is that I didn't think they'd
work at all. But we did them anyway. I mean,
that's what That's what my sponsors said. We do them anyway.
So here's the thing. All we got out of that
is this understanding that there was a power greater than ourselves.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So now we get to the twelve step. And here's
the problem.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
You know, they rewrote it and they redo it all
the time because many people don't have a spiritual awakening,
and they don't have a spiritual experience, and they don't
have this, and they don't have that.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Here's the bottom line. It doesn't matter. It simply doesn't matter.
Get to the twelfth step. And if you don't believe
in God, and if you don't.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Believe in a higher power, go to a meeting of
alcoholics anonymous and listen to everybody else who does. I
don't have the power, as a sober alcoholic to show
you where God is. I don't have the power to
tell you this is how you find God. The only
thing I have the power to tell you is if
(13:08):
you want to stay sober, you're gonna need it. That's it,
and then the decision is yours, and we make those
decisions all throughout the twelve steps.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But that's the only thing I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That if you want to stay sober for any length
of time and you want some type of peace in
your life, you're gonna need a higher power. You're already
figured out you can't do it yourself, can't do it yourself.
And secondly, even more upsetting, you have figured out that
nobody in AA can help you either.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Nobody can help you get this power, but you doesn't
come right away.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So some of us have that spiritual awareness, some of
us have the spiritual awakening, some of us have the
spiritual experiences. And all I knew listening for all the
years that I'm in there is that whatever it is,
y'all got it, and it looks different from mine because
by this time we've developed, out of necessity, our own interpretation,
(13:58):
our own concept of God, because we're in the rooms
of AA where we first learn what unconditional love is
and our own conception of love. So the thing that
we see also in AA that's a little bit disconcerting
is that everybody who has this concept of God is
very busy giving it away everybody they talk to, I
need to talk to you about God.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Sit down and I'm going to show you what this is.
But they got the power back in.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
The eleventh step, and now they're very busy giving it away.
So there's tremendous power for us because we get it
in the eleventh step in giving this stuff away, tremendous power.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's why the newcomers they.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Cling to us because we appear to have this power
to give something to them that they can't figure out
how to get for themselves.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But here is the weird, strange thing about that kind
of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Is that that kind of spirituality is all based on
very negative things about us. It's like all the very
worst things about me, like the things I couldn't stand
about me, like the things that I know it was
just a craphead that I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Stand about me. These things turn out to be the very.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Gift that you give to another alcoholic because that's what
they're connecting with. That's what the newcomer connects with, and
that by the way they connect with my awful, awful past,
they're also connecting with the fact that I don't have it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Anymore, that I've recovered from this disease.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And that's why we're the only ones who can do this,
and that's why psychiatrists can't do it, and that's why
who paid drug counselors can't do it, and that's why
your families can't do it. And of course that's why
mother Terensa couldn't do it, because she.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Didn't have what we had.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So it turns out that our alcoholism and all that ugly, rotten,
filthy pass things that we did is a wonderful spiritual
gift that we pass on to the next person. Because
if I'm sitting next to you in a room of
alcoholics anonymous, and I'm telling you how wonderful I am,
and I'm telling you about God, and I'm telling you
that I made restitution and I paid.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Money back, You're out the door. You're out the door.
But if I'm sitting next to you saying to.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You, by the way, I was drunk when I was
pregnant too, I gave my baby away too, then that's
something that you can relate to. And then I turn
around and I say, and I don't do those things anymore,
so to give the hope at the same time, and
(16:36):
we are the only ones who can do this, and
so there's a lot of joy in wanting to do this.
So when this happens, when you find yourself in the
midst of doing the twelfth step, one alcoholic to another, you.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Have to take a second to think about what's going on.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
This is really interesting to me because when you're reaching
out to somebody, and you're reaching out to the people,
you think to yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
You know, I don't understand this. How come it's me?
How come it's me?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Aren't I like this selfish, self centered crap head of
a person?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Haven't I always been that way? Isn't everything I'm doing
in AA a fake? Isn't it just a cover for
who I really am?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And so I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest that maybe it's
the opposite. It's the opposite, And this is what brings
me to tears every day.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Maybe that's not who you were at all. Maybe that
was the fake.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Maybe for the first time in your life, you're seeing
the real you. Maybe the real you is a loving
human being, is a giving human being, and the craphead
was the fake persona that alcohol put on all of
these things so that people didn't see that warm and
(17:56):
running piece of us on the inside. And we get
to a a and our and our armor drops long
enough so that we can help another alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And they turn around and they think you're a god.
They don't understand how you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And we turn around in the mirror and say, maybe
maybe I am like.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Every other person in the world, the child of God.
Maybe that's me too, and I've just.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Been blocked by these sort of old ideas and alcohol.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Maybe sitting here tonight without a drink and listening and
feeling the God in the room, maybe that's who we
really are. And this other stuff was a big bed cover,
a big bad cover. So as we, you know, did
this journey, you know, turning inward to find these things,
the real the real us emerges, the real you comes out,
(18:56):
and you're in this recovery. You you create great joy
and hope for another alcoholic. And I would end now,
except the rest of it is no, no, no, it
doesn't last.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's a problem. It's a problem. I can be joyful
and hopeful for, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Clancy used to tell me all the time, you never
met an alcoholic who could stand serending in more than
three days.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I think that's my limit. My limit of joy is
three days.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And then I have to do something to screw it up,
you know, whatever that's going to look like.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And so what do I do? What do I do?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well? We sit around and we think, well, I'm feeling
pretty crappy again, I feel shitty again.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I'm trying to figure out what do I do so
I don't feel like this? And what I know what
I have to do.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I'm gonna call my sponsor and I'm gonna work the
steps again, because clearly, if I'm feeling crappy, I need
to work the steps again.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. For one thing,
Bill w is very clear about it. We worked the
steps once.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You figuret well, once is not going to do me
for the rest of my life. That's completely true. You
have to work the steps hundreds of times with other alcoholics,
with other alcoholics, because how are you supposed to get
better and feel better if you're fully focused on yourself
again for another twelve steps. So you work the steps
(20:22):
once and then you turn around, like my sponsor said
to me and said.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
See that one over there, go work them with her.
You know, I hated the girl he gave me. Hated her.
She had a headache every day and tell me that
she had a brain tumor. And after three months, I
wish she did have a brain tuber I mean, she
was a She bothered me.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
She bothered me, and the only thing that happened to
her is that she stays sober.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And when she finished the twelve steps, I thought, well,
who's the lucky girl who's going to get to this one?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And I said, now you got to go out and
get somebody else and work the twelve steps with them.
And so at any given time in my sobriety, no
matter how many sponsores I have, and most of them
have long term.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Sobriety says, don't gonna bother me anymore. But there are
always a couple who want to work the steps.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And the reason I work the steps and I meet
them every week is because it's going to help me.
I don't have the power to have it help them.
I don't have the power to keep them sober. And
as I said, I don't have the power to show
them God. But the longer they work with me, the
more they understand that I wouldn't be where I am
(21:32):
without God. And so if you have a good sponsor,
then they tell you, no, we're.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Not working the steps again. Go working with somebody else.
Go work. And if you are a sponsor, I'm sorry
I've offended you. I'm not really sorry at all. You know,
if you are a sponsor, that's the first thing you
say to your pension, to your baby. You said, you know, great,
work on the twelve steps. Now go working with somebody else.
If you want to stay sober, if you want to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Be saying, if you want to have some cut serenity
and peace and joy in your life, you don't need
to work them again.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
We don't need to do anything again in AA.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Once we do them, work once, because the second time
around we're doing them for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And that's all this twelve step is about. So you know,
I told you that.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Clancy was my mentor, and I, you know, scare the
crap out of me.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I need to tell you.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know, I quote him all the time, but he
really did scare me to death because he was gruff
and he was rough, and I didn't realize that at
the time, but he was somebody that I needed I
needed gruff and rough, because apparently I was gruff and.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Rough and didn't know, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I sat him down one day and I said,
I need some answers from you.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I had done my steps, I was working with others.
We were in we were together in.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
A place called Salem, not Massachusetts, some other state in
that area. And the only thing I remembered is when
we drove in, there was a big sign that said
no smoking, Like the whole town was no smoking. But
I don't understand that, like even if you're outside in
the bushes, there's no smoking in the whole clown and
Clancy turned around, he goes, I don't smoke, but I'm
(23:07):
getting the hell out of here, right.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So we but we did, you know. We went down.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
We stayed in a crappy hotel and there were a
bunch of people there. We were there for a sponsorship
kind of symposium workshop type of deal. And I think
it was fascinating because Clancy didn't have a sponsor, so and.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
He was up there.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
He's gonna teach us about sponsorship because everybody had died.
He was sober so long at that point, everybody had
ever sponsored him, you know, was dead and so we,
you know, talked about that.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But that night I said, I need.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I need your ear, and I need your ear for
five ten minutes because I'm troubled.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I think I've done everything right.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I'm in no danger of drinking, I'm in no danger
of using. But you know, as you know, I've been
married five times.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And this troubles me. This troubles me.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I feel like I'm a successful sober alcoholic and.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
A really bad wife. And I don't know how to
come to terms with this. You know, what do I do?
Why do I keep doing the same thing over and
over again expecting a different result.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And you know, when he sat me down, very simply
and he said, Karen, nothing is wonderful once you get
used to it, you know. And I foolishly thought he
was talking about my marriages. He was talking about alcoholics anonymous.
He was talking about long term sobriety and alcoholics Anonymous
(24:33):
that after a while, it ceases to be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It gets a little gray.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You see the same people, the same meetings, They say
the same things.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Over and over again. I'm not learning anything.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
You know. They haven't washed their clothes, they wore their shirt,
that shirt yesterday. You know, you start looking at these
people differently, and he would say, nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Is wonderful once you get used to it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And he said, you got to figure out what to
do to keep alcoholics Synonymous wonderful once again. Well, it
turns out that what I have to do to keep
AA wonderful is more.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
More. And for a long time I didn't understand what
more was. And he said, you will understand what more
is when the joy returns to AA. When the joy
returns to AA.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So it turns out that more is surface, that more
is always surface. When when COVID hits and we all
had to, you know, scurry on to Zoom.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
People didn't really know how to work it, you know,
and they did the best that they could. And I
was in a.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Zoom meeting in Manhattan and the chairperson, who I knew
pretty well. She was a newcomer, but I knew it
pretty well, you know, wrote me a note in the
chat and said to me, there's a girl in here
that wants your number.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Can I give her your number? So I said sure.
You know, what did I know? She didn't know the
controls very well.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So there were two hundred people in there, and she
gave my number outs to the entire group, So my
cell phone number is now printed up there for two
hundred people who I'm watching everybody write down.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Like crazy because I'm the speaker at the meeting. And
when the meeting was over, my phone starts blowing up,
blowing up.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
All these people are calling, and you know, all they
want to do is talk about themselves, you know, and
I don't have enough hours in the day for that,
and they are calling and calling, but I need to
tell you, for the next three days, three days, I
got an infusion of AA that.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I had not gotten in years, in years, with all.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
These kakamami, crazy newcomers calling me, just wanting me to
know what problems they had in their lives.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Three days of this, and of course stop cal asnambicus.
After three days they stop calling.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
They needed to call somebody else who was interested in
their problems, because clearly that wasn't me. So what I'm
saying is, and what I'm trying to make clear, is
that it doesn't matter what we do in AA.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
It doesn't matter what we do in this set. You know,
you do the traillal step. You're sitting next to somebody
right now, you're sitting next to me and you're not drinking,
and that's service. But you have to draw these lines yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
If to draw the lines and the boundaries of what
service means to you with the understanding that we're the
only ones who can do it, we are the only ones.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Who can help each other.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And so if that means, you know, if you take
the low bar, the low bar and say service is
showing up at a meeting, you're gonna have some low bar sobriety.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's what I want to tell you.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
If you raise the bar a little bit and say
my services, I go to AA meetings and I share, well,
that's the kind of spride you're gonna have.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
You know, If you turn around and say, well, I
go to a.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Meeting every day and at the end of the meeting,
I raise my hand and I say I'm Karen, and
I'm an alcoholic and I'm willing to work the steps
with somebody, then you're gonna raise.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
The bar a little bit more, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
More, I did and continue to do whatever I need
to do to keep a wonderful so that I am
a joyous alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Because if I'm going to be.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Angry and sad and vengeful and maniacal and plotting. I
might as well be drinking by Jack Daniels, because it'll
go down a lot better with that. But I want
some joy and i want peace, and I'm want to
be able to live my life a day at a
time as an alcoholic and be a happy Camper tells
(28:25):
us right there in the book, happy, joyous and free.
So in order to do that, I'm willing to do more.
So we were at a meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I don't know the name of the meeting.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Look Melrose Park right there. And I was the speaker
at Melrose Park. And when I was speaking, there was
a girl sitting in the audience that sort of had
her head hanging. And as I'm talking, I'm watching her
head raise like an inch at a time, an inch
(29:01):
at a time. And at the end of the meeting,
she held her head high, she clapped, she laughed, she
had a good time.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And then she never spoke to me, never say anything,
and just walked out. And I thought that just made
a wonderful for me. That makes a wonderful for me.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So I want to again, I want to thank you
for the prayble, for doing these steps it's really been.
Really what it made it did for me is it
made a wonderful again. That's a simple Is that just
made a wonderful again? And for the only time, Maddie,
this one's forget the only time since I'm doing this series,
I'm going to read from one of these books that
(29:41):
I typed out here. Yeah, and it's my favorite passage
because I say all the time that the word surrender
is not in the first one hundred and sixty five
pages of big book, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Exist, not there. But they tell you it was to
abandon yourself to God. Don't surrender.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
If you're smart like me, you understand what a conditional
surrender is. But if I'm conditionally surrendering, I'm going to
get some conditional sobriety and I don't have any room
for that. So this little paragraph tells me, abandon yourself
to God. As you understand, God doesn't matter, doesn't matter, good, better, best,
whatever you think it is, it mentri falls to Him
(30:16):
and your fellows, clear away the recorde of your past.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Give freely of what you find and join us. Give
freely of what you find and join us.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit,
and you will surely meet some of us as you
trudge the road of happy destiny.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
May God bless you and keep you until then. I
love you all. It is a great day to be
so
Okay, So first I want to say thank you, thank
you for.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Allowing me the joy and the privilege of going through
these twelve steps with you. You know, I don't know
what happens to you, but I know what happens to me,
and it has really been an extraordinary experience. So I
want to get right into this because we don't have
as much time as we normally do, so I want
to talk a little bit about the twelfth Step tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Your head's in the way.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thanks having had a spiritual awakening is the result of
these steps.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Who try to carry this message call it practice the principles.
We've been talking about the principles NonStop this, you know,
the last few months.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So I want to start tonight with a story which
is not my norm but it's.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So near and dear to me. There was a woman
who doesn't who's not alive anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Name is Lorna King, and she's was a member and
good standing of alcoholicsnonoymous.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And a good friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And one of the things I want to talk about
tonight is not just how you do the twelfth step,
how you do your service work. I really don't care
how you do it, just like, I haven't really cared
much about how you work your steps.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're going to do it, and you're going to be
changed when you do it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And they're all designed to bring us back to God
and that's the end of it. But what I learned
from Lorna is not why we do the twelfth step.
It's why we do the twelfth step, which is very
different than why we do the twelfth Step. So I
want to say about Lorna Kay. Lorna was British, she
was sober a long time. She was the first female
(01:33):
auctioneer at Suthersby in New York. And I'm not sure
if anybody here knew her. Last time I saw her
before she died was at the Atlanta International Convention. Anyway,
Laurna was great. She was very outlandis.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
She was very nutty.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You know. She used to show up with all kinds
of wigs and costumes on and festooned with jewelry, with
this crazy English accent.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And you know her goal in Aa was twofold. She
wanted to stay. She needed to marry a man who
had a maid. That's what she wanted.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
She thought if she could find a man with a maid,
then her life would be settled.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Anyway, Laura went to meetings at Lenox Hill, which is
if you're not.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
From New York, that is where you find a man
or the man, or a man with the maid.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And so Laura would go.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
To the meetings in lenox Hill, and occasionally I would
go to the meetings, and I never saw a man
with a maid, but she did. And one day she
had this epiphany. You know, we talked about God a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And she didn't get it. She didn't get it. She
didn't get it. And one day, right after the meeting,
she was wearing a chanel suit. Could she come from
southerners by?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
She had long red nail polish, bright red lips, high
heeled shoes.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
She pulled out her.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
American Express card and said, I have to go, and
she went to Kennedy Airport and she flew to Cowcutt
up in search of Mother Teresa. By the way, if
you want to read her story, she wrote a book
called The Camel Noses a Way and it's out there somewhere.
So she flies to Calcutta and Mother Teresa clearly doesn't
(03:04):
know her and doesn't know that she's coming. But she
arrives in Calcutta, and the only way to get to
the mother's house where she treats she she treats these women,
you know, who are lepers and pregnant and sick, is
to get there by camel. And Lorna got on the
camel with a bunch of other people, and everybody had
(03:26):
very exotic names for their camel.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, Sahib and Ammir.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Loura's camel's name was Bob Marley. So she gets on
top of Bob Marley and the guy that owns the camels,
you know, she said, let me see where I'm going,
and he hits the camel on the foot and says,
don't worry about it. The camel knows the way. And
so the camel takes off across the desert with Lorna
on there with her high heels and her red nails
(03:53):
and her red lipstick and her Chanel suits, and she
had no luggage with her whatsoever. And she arrives at
the mother's house, and of course Mother Teresa is not there.
She's out tending to whoever she's tending to, and they.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Said, you're welcome to wait for the mother if you
would like.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She'd be delighted to meet you, but we don't know
when she's coming back, and if you insist on waiting,
then we have to put you to work.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And so she.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Stayed in this place and she helped these women, and
she cleaned up their vomit, and she cleaned up their runs,
and she made the beds, and she did the laundry,
and pretty soon her red nail polish was off her nails,
and she was wearing a pair of slippers because her
Chanel pumps were not making it in there.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And one day someone makes.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
An announcement that Mother Teresa has returned, and so Lorna
sits down and greets the mother and tells her that
she got a message in the room of alcoholics anonymous
in a meeting, and that the message said, get on
the plane and go to meet Mother Teresa. She said,
I can't tell you what else it said, but when
(04:53):
I heard the message, I assumed that was God. And
I have never understood anything about God, but nobody's ever
told me to get on a plane to seem the Teresa.
So I'm assuming that that was God talking to me.
And so Mother Teresa thought it was pretty funny, and
they got to know each other a little bit better,
so I guess about a month later, she was there
quite a time. About a month later, the mother said
that she was gonna take Laura out into.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The prayer garden, you know where they.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Have statues, stone statues, And she's gonna take her out
there and they.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Can talk quietly and maybe meditate a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And Laura's out there, no, no, no like that, and
the mother is very quiet, and she's teeny tiny, and
Laura was my height.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
She was the very tall girl.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And they're sitting there on a stone bench and there
is a statue of Mary Magdalene in front of, you know,
a stone statue, and the mother is saying, you know,
you do understand what you're doing here, don't you?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And Laura says, I'm.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Not quite sure, but could you tell me? And with
that mother Teresa took the statue of Mary and pushed
it back and leaned underneath the feet of the statue
and pulled out a little piece of paper and gave
it to Morna. And on the piece of paper were
the twelve steps of alcoholic synonymous. And Lorna said to her,
(06:10):
why would you have the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Underneath this statue, and Mother Teresa looked at her and said,
because it is a daily reminder to me that.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
As many people as I have helped in the world,
and as many people as I have cured in the world,
I cannot help an alcoholic. You can help an alcoholic,
and only an alcoholic can help another alcoholic. And with that,
Lorna came back to New York and went on this
(06:43):
whole sort of parade about what service actually meant. And
we were all with her, and we really all with
her because we had been consumed, as I know everybody
is consumed. If you have a sponsor, you're consumed with
how you are doing the Twelfth Step?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What are you doing? You know what your services? What
are you doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And Lorna comes back and tells us, guess what, I
just got it from the highest authority that it doesn't
matter what you do in the twelfth Step.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It matters that we are the ones ministering to each other.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We are the ones that are doing it, and that's
why only we can do the twelfth Step.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Nobody else can do that. The kind of service doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I remember when I was getting sober and they said,
if you're going to make a twelve step call. And
I don't know, those twelve step calls are kind of
gone by the wayside, but we used to love to
make them in the eighties because you know, we'd show
up at somebody's house and.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You had to take somebody with you. That was the rule.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You have to take somebody with you on the service call. Anyway,
I put my name on this list of pick up
drunk women.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I don't know what was thinking, what.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I was thinking, but I put my name on this
list to pick up drunk women. And of course the
drunk women, they call it two and three and four
in the morning. And so the person I would take,
you know, on the call with me was my son,
which they also didn't think was a great idea, but
he was the.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Only one who was up.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So I would put him in the car with me
and we would go and pick up these women and
they would sit in the back of the car, and
after a while my son would call her the jittery
runs because they were in the back of the car,
sort of shaken them all over the place, and we
would drop them off, you know, at the doctors or
at the hospitals, and we did this over and over again,
but nobody said it's in the big book.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Where is that? Nobody says, it's what you're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And then I got sober and my sponsor, Albert said
to me, you know, what are you doing Saturday night?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And I said nothing, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He says, well, we aren't doing anything, but you are
going down to the hospital. And I was on the
upper West side and he said, and you are going
to discuss Step one the hospital on Saturday night. I
didn't know what he was talking about, but I could
do Step one pretty good.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I mean I was new, but I knew it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And I would go down to the hospital, and to
this day, I can hear this, the paper sandals, the
paper slippers that they were wearing.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
You know, they shuffled down the hallway. What I didn't
know is that they were brought in on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So by the time I got them on Saturday night,
they couldn't pick their heads up. They all sat there
with their heads on the table in front of them
like they were passed out cold.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And I would do Step one on Saturday night. I
came back and I said, okay, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What's next he goes next Saturday, there's another Saturday where
you're gonna do Step one. I want you to know
that I did Steps one, two, and three in that
same hospital for three years.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Three years. I never had a date on a Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Three years I went to that hospital, and I don't
know what happened to them, but I got it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I understood it.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And in the very old days, and I totally missed
these days when you could smoke in meetings.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You know, we did the ABC's.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I don't know who remembers the abcs ash trays, brooms
and shares, you know, ash trees, brooms and chairs, And
I'm a good alcoholic. I took the ash trays because
I was cheap, and I would teake your butts out
of the ash trees so I could smoke them.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That way, I didn't have to buy quite so many cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that
it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It doesn't matter because.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The power of this step is not in the what
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
It's that who is doing this and why are we
doing it?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Because there's the unbelievable feeling of belonging to this thing, and.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
That is what the twelfth step is talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
When when nine to eleven happened in Manhattan and some
of you were, you know, in New York and that happened,
it was horrible time.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And you know, the the national New York is all Caro.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The New Yorkers we were just were beyond overwhelmed, just
beyond overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I mean the fear in the throat and everybody was nuts.
And anyway we were.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I was at my home group in nine or six
Street and Broadway and a chairperson got up and they said,
you know, who has more than five years of sobriety?
And we raised our hand, and they said who.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Is a sponsor?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And the same one of us raised our hand, and
they said, there's a transportation meeting for you outside taking
down to the Perry Street meeting. Perry Street meeting was
all the way downtown, so we didn't know, and we went.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So we got in there and the room was filled
with people. The Perry Street station, so you know, it
was the state was the.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Perry Street meeting was the closest meeting to where the
towers came down.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That was the closest meeting to it.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And we walked into the Perry Street meeting, and the
chairperson said, who in the room.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Needs a sponsor?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And almost every hand went up because these were the
sponsors who.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Had died in the towers.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And he turned around and said, you're with him, and
you're with her, and you're with him and you're with her,
because he knew we were the strangers coming in from
the uptown meeting. And I think I walked out of
there with maybe four or five different sponsores who I
sponsored for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But they were at a loss.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
They were at a loss, and who is going to
console them, Who is going to show them how to
get through this tragedy except somebody who knows how to
get out of the hole themselves. Again, we're the only
ones that can do this. So step twelve, having had
a spiritual awakening because we did all of the other steps,
(11:46):
we did them all and they're all designed to make
us do things that these actions that I actually know
will not work. They're assenine. But I have a sponsor
who I am a free and so I do them anyway
knowing they won't work. And when I do them, I'm
absolutely stunned that they do work. And then a few
(12:08):
months later after that, I take credit for the whole thing.
But the truth is is that I didn't think they'd
work at all. But we did them anyway. I mean,
that's what That's what my sponsors said. We do them anyway.
So here's the thing. All we got out of that
is this understanding that there was a power greater than ourselves.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So now we get to the twelve step. And here's
the problem.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
You know, they rewrote it and they redo it all
the time because many people don't have a spiritual awakening,
and they don't have a spiritual experience, and they don't
have this, and they don't have that.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Here's the bottom line. It doesn't matter. It simply doesn't matter.
Get to the twelfth step. And if you don't believe
in God, and if you don't.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Believe in a higher power, go to a meeting of
alcoholics anonymous and listen to everybody else who does. I
don't have the power, as a sober alcoholic to show
you where God is. I don't have the power to
tell you this is how you find God. The only
thing I have the power to tell you is if
(13:08):
you want to stay sober, you're gonna need it. That's it,
and then the decision is yours, and we make those
decisions all throughout the twelve steps.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But that's the only thing I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That if you want to stay sober for any length
of time and you want some type of peace in
your life, you're gonna need a higher power. You're already
figured out you can't do it yourself, can't do it yourself.
And secondly, even more upsetting, you have figured out that
nobody in AA can help you either.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Nobody can help you get this power, but you doesn't
come right away.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So some of us have that spiritual awareness, some of
us have the spiritual awakening, some of us have the
spiritual experiences. And all I knew listening for all the
years that I'm in there is that whatever it is,
y'all got it, and it looks different from mine because
by this time we've developed, out of necessity, our own interpretation,
(13:58):
our own concept of God, because we're in the rooms
of AA where we first learn what unconditional love is
and our own conception of love. So the thing that
we see also in AA that's a little bit disconcerting
is that everybody who has this concept of God is
very busy giving it away everybody they talk to, I
need to talk to you about God.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Sit down and I'm going to show you what this is.
But they got the power back in.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
The eleventh step, and now they're very busy giving it away.
So there's tremendous power for us because we get it
in the eleventh step in giving this stuff away, tremendous power.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's why the newcomers they.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Cling to us because we appear to have this power
to give something to them that they can't figure out
how to get for themselves.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But here is the weird, strange thing about that kind
of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Is that that kind of spirituality is all based on
very negative things about us. It's like all the very
worst things about me, like the things I couldn't stand
about me, like the things that I know it was
just a craphead that I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Stand about me. These things turn out to be the very.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Gift that you give to another alcoholic because that's what
they're connecting with. That's what the newcomer connects with, and
that by the way they connect with my awful, awful past,
they're also connecting with the fact that I don't have it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Anymore, that I've recovered from this disease.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And that's why we're the only ones who can do this,
and that's why psychiatrists can't do it, and that's why
who paid drug counselors can't do it, and that's why
your families can't do it. And of course that's why
mother Terensa couldn't do it, because she.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Didn't have what we had.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So it turns out that our alcoholism and all that ugly, rotten,
filthy pass things that we did is a wonderful spiritual
gift that we pass on to the next person. Because
if I'm sitting next to you in a room of
alcoholics anonymous, and I'm telling you how wonderful I am,
and I'm telling you about God, and I'm telling you
that I made restitution and I paid.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Money back, You're out the door. You're out the door.
But if I'm sitting next to you saying to.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You, by the way, I was drunk when I was
pregnant too, I gave my baby away too, then that's
something that you can relate to. And then I turn
around and I say, and I don't do those things anymore,
so to give the hope at the same time, and
(16:36):
we are the only ones who can do this, and
so there's a lot of joy in wanting to do this.
So when this happens, when you find yourself in the
midst of doing the twelfth step, one alcoholic to another, you.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Have to take a second to think about what's going on.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
This is really interesting to me because when you're reaching
out to somebody, and you're reaching out to the people,
you think to yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
You know, I don't understand this. How come it's me?
How come it's me?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Aren't I like this selfish, self centered crap head of
a person?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Haven't I always been that way? Isn't everything I'm doing
in AA a fake? Isn't it just a cover for
who I really am?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And so I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest that maybe it's
the opposite. It's the opposite, And this is what brings
me to tears every day.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Maybe that's not who you were at all. Maybe that
was the fake.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Maybe for the first time in your life, you're seeing
the real you. Maybe the real you is a loving
human being, is a giving human being, and the craphead
was the fake persona that alcohol put on all of
these things so that people didn't see that warm and
(17:56):
running piece of us on the inside. And we get
to a a and our and our armor drops long
enough so that we can help another alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And they turn around and they think you're a god.
They don't understand how you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And we turn around in the mirror and say, maybe
maybe I am like.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Every other person in the world, the child of God.
Maybe that's me too, and I've just.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Been blocked by these sort of old ideas and alcohol.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Maybe sitting here tonight without a drink and listening and
feeling the God in the room, maybe that's who we
really are. And this other stuff was a big bed cover,
a big bad cover. So as we, you know, did
this journey, you know, turning inward to find these things,
the real the real us emerges, the real you comes out,
(18:56):
and you're in this recovery. You you create great joy
and hope for another alcoholic. And I would end now,
except the rest of it is no, no, no, it
doesn't last.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's a problem. It's a problem. I can be joyful
and hopeful for, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Clancy used to tell me all the time, you never
met an alcoholic who could stand serending in more than
three days.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I think that's my limit. My limit of joy is
three days.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And then I have to do something to screw it up,
you know, whatever that's going to look like.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And so what do I do? What do I do?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well? We sit around and we think, well, I'm feeling
pretty crappy again, I feel shitty again.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I'm trying to figure out what do I do so
I don't feel like this? And what I know what
I have to do.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I'm gonna call my sponsor and I'm gonna work the
steps again, because clearly, if I'm feeling crappy, I need
to work the steps again.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. For one thing,
Bill w is very clear about it. We worked the
steps once.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You figuret well, once is not going to do me
for the rest of my life. That's completely true. You
have to work the steps hundreds of times with other alcoholics,
with other alcoholics, because how are you supposed to get
better and feel better if you're fully focused on yourself
again for another twelve steps. So you work the steps
(20:22):
once and then you turn around, like my sponsor said
to me and said.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
See that one over there, go work them with her.
You know, I hated the girl he gave me. Hated her.
She had a headache every day and tell me that
she had a brain tumor. And after three months, I
wish she did have a brain tuber I mean, she
was a She bothered me.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
She bothered me, and the only thing that happened to
her is that she stays sober.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And when she finished the twelve steps, I thought, well,
who's the lucky girl who's going to get to this one?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And I said, now you got to go out and
get somebody else and work the twelve steps with them.
And so at any given time in my sobriety, no
matter how many sponsores I have, and most of them
have long term.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Sobriety says, don't gonna bother me anymore. But there are
always a couple who want to work the steps.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And the reason I work the steps and I meet
them every week is because it's going to help me.
I don't have the power to have it help them.
I don't have the power to keep them sober. And
as I said, I don't have the power to show
them God. But the longer they work with me, the
more they understand that I wouldn't be where I am
(21:32):
without God. And so if you have a good sponsor,
then they tell you, no, we're.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Not working the steps again. Go working with somebody else.
Go work. And if you are a sponsor, I'm sorry
I've offended you. I'm not really sorry at all. You know,
if you are a sponsor, that's the first thing you
say to your pension, to your baby. You said, you know, great,
work on the twelve steps. Now go working with somebody else.
If you want to stay sober, if you want to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Be saying, if you want to have some cut serenity
and peace and joy in your life, you don't need
to work them again.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
We don't need to do anything again in AA.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Once we do them, work once, because the second time
around we're doing them for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And that's all this twelve step is about. So you know,
I told you that.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Clancy was my mentor, and I, you know, scare the
crap out of me.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I need to tell you.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know, I quote him all the time, but he
really did scare me to death because he was gruff
and he was rough, and I didn't realize that at
the time, but he was somebody that I needed I
needed gruff and rough, because apparently I was gruff and.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Rough and didn't know, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I sat him down one day and I said,
I need some answers from you.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I had done my steps, I was working with others.
We were in we were together in.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
A place called Salem, not Massachusetts, some other state in
that area. And the only thing I remembered is when
we drove in, there was a big sign that said
no smoking, Like the whole town was no smoking. But
I don't understand that, like even if you're outside in
the bushes, there's no smoking in the whole clown and
Clancy turned around, he goes, I don't smoke, but I'm
(23:07):
getting the hell out of here, right.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So we but we did, you know. We went down.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
We stayed in a crappy hotel and there were a
bunch of people there. We were there for a sponsorship
kind of symposium workshop type of deal. And I think
it was fascinating because Clancy didn't have a sponsor, so and.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
He was up there.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
He's gonna teach us about sponsorship because everybody had died.
He was sober so long at that point, everybody had
ever sponsored him, you know, was dead and so we,
you know, talked about that.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But that night I said, I need.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I need your ear, and I need your ear for
five ten minutes because I'm troubled.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I think I've done everything right.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I'm in no danger of drinking, I'm in no danger
of using. But you know, as you know, I've been
married five times.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And this troubles me. This troubles me.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I feel like I'm a successful sober alcoholic and.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
A really bad wife. And I don't know how to
come to terms with this. You know, what do I do?
Why do I keep doing the same thing over and
over again expecting a different result.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And you know, when he sat me down, very simply
and he said, Karen, nothing is wonderful once you get
used to it, you know. And I foolishly thought he
was talking about my marriages. He was talking about alcoholics anonymous.
He was talking about long term sobriety and alcoholics Anonymous
(24:33):
that after a while, it ceases to be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It gets a little gray.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You see the same people, the same meetings, They say
the same things.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Over and over again. I'm not learning anything.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
You know. They haven't washed their clothes, they wore their shirt,
that shirt yesterday. You know, you start looking at these
people differently, and he would say, nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Is wonderful once you get used to it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And he said, you got to figure out what to
do to keep alcoholics Synonymous wonderful once again. Well, it
turns out that what I have to do to keep
AA wonderful is more.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
More. And for a long time I didn't understand what
more was. And he said, you will understand what more
is when the joy returns to AA. When the joy
returns to AA.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So it turns out that more is surface, that more
is always surface. When when COVID hits and we all
had to, you know, scurry on to Zoom.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
People didn't really know how to work it, you know,
and they did the best that they could. And I
was in a.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Zoom meeting in Manhattan and the chairperson, who I knew
pretty well. She was a newcomer, but I knew it
pretty well, you know, wrote me a note in the
chat and said to me, there's a girl in here
that wants your number.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Can I give her your number? So I said sure.
You know, what did I know? She didn't know the
controls very well.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So there were two hundred people in there, and she
gave my number outs to the entire group, So my
cell phone number is now printed up there for two
hundred people who I'm watching everybody write down.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Like crazy because I'm the speaker at the meeting. And
when the meeting was over, my phone starts blowing up,
blowing up.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
All these people are calling, and you know, all they
want to do is talk about themselves, you know, and
I don't have enough hours in the day for that,
and they are calling and calling, but I need to
tell you, for the next three days, three days, I
got an infusion of AA that.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I had not gotten in years, in years, with all.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
These kakamami, crazy newcomers calling me, just wanting me to
know what problems they had in their lives.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Three days of this, and of course stop cal asnambicus.
After three days they stop calling.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
They needed to call somebody else who was interested in
their problems, because clearly that wasn't me. So what I'm
saying is, and what I'm trying to make clear, is
that it doesn't matter what we do in AA.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
It doesn't matter what we do in this set. You know,
you do the traillal step. You're sitting next to somebody
right now, you're sitting next to me and you're not drinking,
and that's service. But you have to draw these lines yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
If to draw the lines and the boundaries of what
service means to you with the understanding that we're the
only ones who can do it, we are the only ones.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Who can help each other.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And so if that means, you know, if you take
the low bar, the low bar and say service is
showing up at a meeting, you're gonna have some low bar sobriety.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's what I want to tell you.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
If you raise the bar a little bit and say
my services, I go to AA meetings and I share, well,
that's the kind of spride you're gonna have.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
You know, If you turn around and say, well, I
go to a.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Meeting every day and at the end of the meeting,
I raise my hand and I say I'm Karen, and
I'm an alcoholic and I'm willing to work the steps
with somebody, then you're gonna raise.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
The bar a little bit more, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
More, I did and continue to do whatever I need
to do to keep a wonderful so that I am
a joyous alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Because if I'm going to be.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Angry and sad and vengeful and maniacal and plotting. I
might as well be drinking by Jack Daniels, because it'll
go down a lot better with that. But I want
some joy and i want peace, and I'm want to
be able to live my life a day at a
time as an alcoholic and be a happy Camper tells
(28:25):
us right there in the book, happy, joyous and free.
So in order to do that, I'm willing to do more.
So we were at a meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I don't know the name of the meeting.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Look Melrose Park right there. And I was the speaker
at Melrose Park. And when I was speaking, there was
a girl sitting in the audience that sort of had
her head hanging. And as I'm talking, I'm watching her
head raise like an inch at a time, an inch
(29:01):
at a time. And at the end of the meeting,
she held her head high, she clapped, she laughed, she
had a good time.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And then she never spoke to me, never say anything,
and just walked out. And I thought that just made
a wonderful for me. That makes a wonderful for me.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So I want to again, I want to thank you
for the prayble, for doing these steps it's really been.
Really what it made it did for me is it
made a wonderful again. That's a simple Is that just
made a wonderful again? And for the only time, Maddie,
this one's forget the only time since I'm doing this series,
I'm going to read from one of these books that
(29:41):
I typed out here. Yeah, and it's my favorite passage
because I say all the time that the word surrender
is not in the first one hundred and sixty five
pages of big book, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Exist, not there. But they tell you it was to
abandon yourself to God. Don't surrender.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
If you're smart like me, you understand what a conditional
surrender is. But if I'm conditionally surrendering, I'm going to
get some conditional sobriety and I don't have any room
for that. So this little paragraph tells me, abandon yourself
to God. As you understand, God doesn't matter, doesn't matter, good, better, best,
whatever you think it is, it mentri falls to Him
(30:16):
and your fellows, clear away the recorde of your past.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Give freely of what you find and join us. Give
freely of what you find and join us.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit,
and you will surely meet some of us as you
trudge the road of happy destiny.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
May God bless you and keep you until then. I
love you all. It is a great day to be
so
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