August 31, 2025 • 43 mins
Carin S. Step 7, Step Series at the Tuesday Night Step Group, Twelve Step House, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 8/26/2025
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Karen, I'm alcoholic. In how many people were here
last week? I have yet to crack a book. Maddie
just telling you no books are.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Out here, but I will tell you before I begin.
There's two SMAGEGGI.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Sitting over there between Pat and Maddie, and they could
call me out at any given.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Times, and I do, so We're gonna do the best
we can.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm Karen, I'm an alcoholic. You guys look so good
to me. Every Tuesday. It's you know, it's It's where
I need to be and I need to be with you,
and I need.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
To be seeing you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
One reason I come in persons. I need to see
your nodding heads. I need to know that I belong
here anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And now we're gonna I thought they'd take longer with
the chips.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I just to tell you this would be an abbreviated version,
but apparently not. Tonight we're gonna talk about the second step,
which by definition is the shortest step on the list.
So you would think that it's the least important, but
in my sobriety, it was the most important. My sponsor, Albert,
was a little on the strict side, not terribly, but
(01:06):
a little on the strict side. And he said when
I said I'm ready to do the steps, and I
think I was thirty forty five days.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So no, you're not. How about it sixty days, No
you're not, how about it seventy five days? No steps
for you.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
He did not allow me to start my steps until
I was ninety days sober. And there is a reason
for that, because by the time you're ninety days sober,
you are so nuts and so crazy, and you so
can't sit with yourself that you will do anything your
sponsor tells you to do because your level of uncomfortability
is so high at ninety days with no help, I'll
(01:40):
do anything, tell me what to do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'll do anything.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Because the one thing that you figured out at ninety
days is that you're not fabulous.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And not only are you not fabulous, but if you're
like me and you went over your lists, you know,
then you really see it in writing how fabulous you aren't.
So we get to the to this seventh step, and
now I know that I'm not fabulous, And now I
know that it's written down from my fourth step and
given over to my fifth step, and I've made this
decision decision in my sixth step to get rid of
(02:11):
this step.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
By the time I.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Get to my seventh step, i'm fairly nauseous. I got
to get rid of this, and I don't know how
to get rid of it, but I know that I
have to get rid of it because I'm at that
point where if I don't get rid of it, I'm
just gonna vomit, or if I don't vomit, I'm gonna drink.
And that's the point that you want to be at
for your seventh set.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
You don't want to get to your seventh step and
you're calm.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And you're you know, on a good place. You're not
giving anything up, not if you feel like that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So by the time we get there, we've become willing
to take a series of actions. And I love that
he told me this. This was Clancy used to tell
me this all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He says, you know, this is really what we do
in these steps is a series of actions that we're
asked to take that in our infinite wisdom, we know
will not work, but we take them anyway and we're
surprised when they work. And then of course we take
credit for taking them. But the reality is is that
I'm willing to do whatever it is that you're telling
me to do so I can get rid of this
crap that's living inside of me. But the problem is
(03:08):
is that, you know, after we take them and we
believe that this stuff works, then some person, some spirit,
some whatever in AA comes over and tells.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You that you've now begun on your spiritual journey.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
They didn't tell me that in the sixth step. They
didn't tell me that in the fifth step. They just
told me to do what to do, and I did.
Now I get to the seventh step and they tell
me that you're on your spiritual journey. And the thing is,
with the spiritual journey, you get spiritual solutions. And the
thing is, with a spiritual solution, your problems aren't solved.
(03:47):
They're not solved, they are simply lifted away.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's a that's a tough nut to swallow. You know,
what about my bills? And what about my rent?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And what about my crappy marriage? And what about a
job I don't want to begin? You know, this is spiritual.
I'm spiritual. Now, why haven't all these things been solved?
Because we get a spiritual solution. And when we get
a spiritual solution, our problems are simply lifted away. So
the thing is is that you could only take this
(04:20):
action when everything becomes too much for you, and you
get that way. By the time you get to the
seven step, everything is too much for me. And I'm sober.
So in case I didn't believe what I thought I
believed in the first step, I'm sober, and these problems
are overwhelming for me.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Forget about when I was drinking.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Now you're telling me that I've lived all this time, months,
ninety days, one hundred days, whatever it is. I get
to step seven, I'm sober, and I feel worse than
I have felt in a long time. And the thing
is also is that you know I'm in hit a bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
When I was drinking. I want to make that clear.
They talk about it. You know, why all this assistance
that we hit bottom. I did not hit a bottom.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You know, when I got low, and I got really low,
I just lowered it, just lowered the measure, you know,
And so I could say, well, I didn't get there,
you know, I wasn't that bad, you know, And then
I when at the end, you know, after twenty five
years of drinking. When I was walking on the streets
of Broadway, not fully clothed, most of the time in pajamas,
(05:21):
eaten out of garbage cans.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I lowered the measure. I mean, where else how much
lower could it have gone? But I never thought that
I had hit bottom.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And I read that and I said, well, I'm here anyway,
so you got to take me just the way that
I am. And that's pretty much how I worked this
problem program. In case you have a figured this out,
that I worked it with a sponsor who knew how
to handle me because I didn't have a bottom. And
the other thing is is that when I got sober,
I had these ideas, you know that part.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Of the Big Book, you know, suddenly a thought occurred
to him, like this great new idea.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I had many of those, and none of them
ever turned out well, none of them. So I would
have a thought that I said, you know, it's not
really a scirtual solution. I know what it is. I
need to go to the gym. I'm out of shape.
I gotta go to the gym. If I go to
the gym and I work out, everything is gonna be fine.
Everything gonna be fine. I'll get a raise, that guy
will love me again. I'm gonna get in my house.
I'm gonna go to the gym. So what do I do.
(06:12):
I go to the gym, and I'm in the gym
every single day and I'm working out.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And after thirty days.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I wake up one day and I say, this isn't
it either, And so I think, I know. I'll quit
my job. It's a frappy job. They don't appreciate me.
I'm gonna find another job.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I'm going in and I'm gonna start searching for jobs
because I'm gonna get a better job. And when I
walk in, they're gonna say, we have been waiting for
you our entire career. Where have you been? And I
quit my job and I take this new job. And
within two weeks I can't stand this job and what
am I doing here? And by the way, they've hired
me to do something I don't know how to do.
(06:52):
And so I wake up one day and I think
this isn't it either, And I think, well, I know
what I'll do. I'll get married.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That will cure everything.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And so I did it again and again and again
and again and again.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And that wasn't it either.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You know, I'm fairly hard headed in this program, and
that wasn't it either.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So what did I see?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I started to see from the old timers, but more
importantly from the day counters, that if they were doing
the things that they were asked to do, even though
they didn't think that they would work, and they did
them anyway, they seemed to be doing better than me.
That's what I want to say, better than me.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And over time what that looked like doing things better
than me?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Was that where that that was the first seeds of
faith that were planted in me. That's the first time
I was able to look at somebody in alcoholics anonymous
and say.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
He's doing better than me.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
You know, what are you doing? And to be able
to talk to somebody what are you doing? What is
your sponsor doing?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You know? What are the things you're willing to do
that you don't believe in? So because these steps, by
the way, are only designed to offer.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Us a way of life, you know, I don't know
where they ever got this thing, you or beyond your
wildest imagination. That didn't happen for me. I, like ever,
I never lived a life beyond my wildest imagination. All
AA has done for me, all these steps has done
for me, is create a life that I can.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Live live without having to have a drink to stand it.
That's it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Everything else is up to me. That's what I get
from the steps. That's what God gave me. I will
allow you to live your life without having to take
a drink or a drug just to stand your life.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you know that's the attraction. That's the attraction.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And if you say it long enough in the rooms,
newcomers are going to come over to you. Old Thimer's
are going to come over to you, and they're going
to say, if you want what we have, if you
want this life or you don't have to have a drink,
you have to do what we do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, I'm a real alcoholic and I have a
problem with authority.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I know that's hard to imagine, but I have a
problem with authority. When you would tell me what to do,
I would instantly shy away. I would instantly tell you
that you're full of it and I don't need to
listen to you.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
But you know, eventually, all you guys did was wear
me down. That's it. You just wore me down.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know the story I told you a few weeks
ago about when I hit the guy in the room
and he went down.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I got a phone call from another guy. Hmm, I
thought there was only one.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I got a phone call from another guy out of
blue from Evanston, Illinois, who saw me speak in South
Africa last week, and he said to me, I had a.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Feeling that with you. I said, how did you know?
He said, he said, because in your third week of sobriety,
you know you hit me. I said, I have no
memory of that. Do I need to apologize?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And he said, yes, we even apologize for things that
we don't remember doing. I had no recollection with I said,
maybe that's why he moved to Evanston, Illinois and got
out of New York. I have no idea, but he
ran after that. You know, he's sober a long time.
He's seventy nine years. I thought, oh my god, I've
hit the seventy nine year old, you know. But so
I don't even know where that came from. Actually, so,
(10:06):
I want to talk about exactly what Step seven.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Is, because it's spiritual.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
But the problem with step seven is that it's not
only spiritual it's not pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It's not a pretty.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Step It deals with it deals with perfection, it deals
with humility God, and it deals with fear. You know,
in Step seven when I worked it, this is what
I was taught. Step seven basically says that when the
shit hits the fan, step to the left.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That is the entirety of Step seven.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I mean, I could sit down right now, when the
shit hits the fan, step to the left and let
God handle the shit. You know, if I had just
been able to remember that on a daily basis, I
would be great. But what I did was I played,
let's make a deal with God. And I don't know
why I've done this, but I've done this one hundred
times because in my heart of hearts, I knew at
(11:02):
that point, at ninety days sober into these steps, that
my case was different.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I wasn't like you.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
If you had my husband's, if you had my jobs,
if you had my apartments, you know you'd be drinking too.
My case is different. And even though you know I
thought I had the answers, the most bizarre thing is
that I never got it right. I have yet to
meet an alcoholic who said I got this stuff right.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I didn't need the steps. I'm good to go.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I never got it right, and I struggled. I struggled
to remain in charge because I have a problem with authority.
And for the life of me, I can't tell you
what I was in charge of. That's the thing, What
exactly was I in charge of? So I want to
go into this a little bit, because I did say
I would go into a little bit, and it'll get
(11:50):
much more of this than the eleventh step.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
But you know, I think about this. You know I
wanted to be in charge. I wanted to be in control.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I was married for the third time, and I finally
married for love.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It's out there. I finally married for love. And he was,
quite frankly, the love of my life. And we've known
each other a long time and we got married. He
had a kid, I had kid. They were the same age,
it was. And we're going back in.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The eighties, by the way, And when you were an
interracial marriage in the eighties, not so easy. Not so
easy to find housing, not so easy to find neighbors
that would talk to you.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Not so easy to do anything. It was not a
pleasant experience.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But we were so in love and so together that
we didn't care, and we decided, since we had these
two other kids, that we should have a kid of
our own. We thought that would be absolutely beautiful, and
we'll make this big Brady bunch of thing or whatever we.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Want to do.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And we tried for three years, and we tried repeatedly
for three years, and finally, after three years, we went
to the doctors. He went to his and I went
to mine, and I came back that night over dinner
and I said, you know, my doctor says, I'm fine,
you can move ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He said, my doctor says, I'm not so fine. I
have ADS.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And in the eighties it's one hundred percent mortality. One
hundred percent mortality if you're an alcoholic like I am.
Went to meetings in Manhattan. Who wasn't a day to girl?
What went by that someone didn't come in and say, Hi,
I'm Carol. You know I'm an alcoholic. I got the virus,
but I'm going to beat it. Everybody died. Everybody died,
And then, of course that was the first thought, and
(13:21):
then the second.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Thought was what about me? What about me?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We've been trying to have a child for three years,
and the doctors told him at the same time that
not only did he have AIDS, but he'd had it
for more than fifteen years. And so we were catapulted,
you know, they said, you get catapulted into the fourth dimension.
We were catapulted into a brand new world, a completely
(13:46):
different world.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He wasn't sick until they told me had AIDS. Then
he got sick and was sick for years. And we
lived a fairly unimaginable existence for years, and I never
got it. I went for sixteen AIDS tests in four years.
And in those days, you know, it took three took
three months to get your results, and so you had
to reas to get tested up in Harlem and go
(14:10):
up to Harlem. You did it anonymously because in those days,
if you tested positive, they took your kids.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You know, you were in a no win situation. We
would go up there.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
When we would test, I would test anonymously, and my sponsor, Albert,
went with me, you know, every single time, and then
we would have to wait three months.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And you know how good we are waiting for anything.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
We would wait three months, just in time to go
back to get my results, and they'd say go in
the other room, you got to test you again.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And this went on for four years. You know, every
three months I'm there for another test.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So you know, I would like to tell you that
the house imploded and things were horrible, but the reality
is is that, you know, God had entered my house
in the most extraordinary way.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I didn't see it. He saw it. You know, I
just didn't understand a lot. I didn't understand anything. He
was much more spiritual than I was. He had God solely,
you know, living in him. I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Remember this is my first five years of sobriety, where
I've worked with this program without a God in my life.
And so I didn't even have a God, you know,
big enough or there enough for me to say, screw you,
this is what you gave me. You finally give me
this love of my life and spring the little aids
on us and here we go.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I didn't even have that. I had nothing. And so
you know I would talk to Albert about it, and
I talked to everybody about it.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I couldn't shut up about it because every time we
got some go to the hospital, every time he got sick,
and they pushed us into the ambulance to go to
the hospital. When we walked into the hospital, they used
to wrap us in plastic because they didn't know.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How you got the disease.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Even his doctor died of it. It's just an unbelievably frightening,
horrible time that I couldn't figure out how to get at.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I couldn't figure out how to get at.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
And as this is going on, you know, I'm getting
sicker myself up here, and in here, I'm getting sicker.
He's getting sicker physically. I'm getting sicker spiritually, to the
point where I can't function anymore, you know. And I
was desperate for some kind of control, desperate for some
type of control. And I had done this step, and
(16:10):
I understood what this step was about. And I understood
when the ship's hitting the fan and I have to
step to the left.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But I couldn't figure out where the left was.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And I kept going back and forth in front of
the fan, trying to figure out how to get in
control of this.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And so what I want to say is that we
got to be careful in this program. When we think
we hear the word of God, you know, sometimes it's
just you know, you talking to you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And we got to be careful what we pray for,
and we'll talk a lot about that in the eleventh
step on how we actually pray. But I have a
very clear memory of figuring out how to get into
control here. And I used to pray in the shower
and I would talk to a god I didn't believe him,
and I would hit my head against the tile on
the wall. It was a rhythm hitting of my head.
(17:02):
And that is how I prayed to God, a god
I didn't believe him. And so one night I figured
out that I knew the prayer night and I said,
just do me a favor, whoever you are, just do
me a favor, and just give him one day of normal.
Give him one day where he's not sick. Give him
one day where he's not.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Talking to people in the walls. Give him one day
where the kids can talk to him and he knows
who they are. Just one day, can you do that
for me? Please? Because I was a good deal maker
with God, and he heard me, because the next day
he died and he got every single thing that I
asked for, But he didn't die the way I wanted
(17:41):
him to die.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
He went down to the West Fort Street station, jump
in front of the subway and he was killed immediately.
And I'm going to talk about more about what happened
after that in the eleventh Step. But I say this
tonight to tell you that when I'm looking at that
seventh step, what I came up with was it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It doesn't work. And it took many, many people and
alcoholics anonymous to convince.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Me that it worked perfectly, that what happened was exactly
what was supposed to happen, and that whatever kind of
prayers I was looking for, they had ultimately been answered.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So I want to turn the page for.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
A minute and talk a little bit about what the
step is supposed to do for me, what it's supposed
to do for you. And it talks about, you know,
removing our defects of character.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Or shortcomings or whatever you want to call them. What
I called them, They were my tools for survival.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
These are the things I used to get me out
of crisis situations. You know, I lived a life of
drama and crisis, and by the way, I'm not so
much better now.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I need to tell you, thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Years sober, if there's no drama, I'm stirring it up.
I can't possibly live with like serenity and nicety and
be with me a while.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You'll figure it out. I don't know how to do
that to this day, but it is what it is.
It is never going away. And I think that, you know,
God leaves some things behind for amusement. That's what I think.
And that's been left behind. And I love the drama.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know, I'm not gonna say I'm a drama queen
or a drama princess, but I seek it out, you know,
I seek it out.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And then I got to talk to my sponsor and
I go, what's wrong here, what's wrong?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And I am talked down every single time, every single time.
And sometimes I think that's the best pattern to have
when you have these things blow up and you get
to talk to your sponsor and he gets to tell
you exactly what's going on with you. But you know,
finding you know, your defects of character or your shortcomings
or your tools for survival and asking them to be removed.
That's nothing, nothing, go ahead. You can see you're doing
(19:42):
right now. Just take them away, take you away. And
how do you know they're gone? You know, when they're
not there anymore?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's the entire step, except that it's not. You know,
when you make a decision to give them away, and
you give them away.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
How do you know when they're not there? Well, they're
not there. That's it. But here's the other thing, you know,
what's not there?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Lying and cheating and stealing and stealing, by the way,
is a bigger definition than you ever thought possible, because
it's stealing someone's love and stealing their their peace of mind,
and stealing their.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Respect, and stealing all the things that you can't see.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And they used to call it when I was growing
up in AA, the black and blue marks on the inside,
you know that nobody could see. So even when you
still love some of these defects, you think, you know, well,
I think maybe I'll get rid of some of them.
You got the list, you know, some of these, some
of these I really like. You know. One of the
ones I really liked was sleeping with your man, you know,
And I conveniently left that off the list because I
(20:37):
liked it, you know, not that I wanted your man,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I just wanted to do the nasty and move on,
you know, and that was it. I didn't want any
kind of commitment. I didn't want to get me I
really didn't want to get married. I didn't want to
do it anything like that, so I left it off
the list. But Albert was a.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Smart sponsor, and he said, what about this over here?
And I had to take a look over there, and
I said, I don't really want to get.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Rid of that. So he said, so you want to
get rid of just some of the defects. So I said, yes,
I just want to get rid of some of my defects.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And the other is I'll make that decision when they
should go, and I'll let you know what I'll have
to get rid of those, But for the moment, I
just want to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Some of them.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
He said, well, the problem with getting rid of some
of them is that there is no help available to
get rid of some of them. There's only God's help,
and God doesn't make deals. And so you turn around
and say, well, this must be where the humility comes in.
Must be because the only help available is perfect help,
(21:33):
and that perfect help is God's help.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
The problem is is that now you have me thinking
about perfection.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's a real problem for me because I'm not talking
about being perfect. You know, you gave you the Big Book.
There's no perfection in there. It's progress, not perfection.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And now I'm in the twelve and twelve and all
we're talking about is perfection.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And I think it's a bit much because God is perfect,
But what about me?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I'm not perfect? And Albert said, he's not saying they're
not telling you to be perfect.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
They're telling you that you are painfully aware of your imperfections.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And I thought, well, I feel that way. Every time
I look in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I am painfully aware of what's not perfect in me physically,
and then I'm painfully aware of what's not perfect in
me inside, and you know, and sometimes I would get
to the point where I would think you could see
what was on the inside. I was painfully aware of
my imperfections. So that wasn't what they were talking about
at all. They were talking about God's perfection. And then
(22:31):
we led me into having to humbly ask What does
that mean? Why can't I just ask him? Can I
just do the real asking?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Like, come on, just do it. You know, what is
the difference between humbly asking and like regular asking?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So regular asking is you know, so years and years
and years ago on marriage number five. But I rarely
talk about this marriage because I want to stay out
of jail.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's how I feel about it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
But in marriage number five, we were in North Carolina
and we were invited to this house for dinner, so
we must spend some celebration or something.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
At the end of dinner, the.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Wife comes out and brings out a cake that's forty
two layers of like cake and chocolate and jelly and
cake and.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Forty two layers. And it took her two days to make.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And she puts it on the table and everybody's eating it,
and the cake is great. And now you fast forward
into Christmas time of that year, and I'm thinking, I'd
like to have one of those cakes for my guests
when they come for Christmas. Why don't I just call
her up and ask her for the cake like a
regular esque. The difference between asking humbly and a regular
askue is that I knew how much work it took
(23:44):
to make the cake, and that's what we're doing in AA.
We are making the cake, so we can't just regular
ask him to do this. We have to humbly ask
him to do this. And if you're in AA for
any amount of time at all. Exactly how many definitions
of humility you're gonna hear, you know, And that's okay,
(24:04):
whatever suits you. I have had the same definition of
humility my entire sobriety, and that's to be that's to
remain teachable period. That's it, no more or less. I'm
not on the floor. I'm not you know, genuflecting. I'm
not you know, hitting myself over the back of that,
you know, in my back. It is remaining teachable for.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
A long period of time. I'm so for a.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Long period of time, I still remain teachable. Worse than that,
I still listen to what you have to say. That's
a horrible feeling, just horrible.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You would think after all this time, I would know,
but I.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Don't know, and you know, and unfortunately I ask people
that are in my life and then I never want
to see them again. Yeah, because I've humbled myself and
so yeah, so it's it's becomes in.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
My version of humility.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It actually widens the definition and to when they talk
about surrender, surrender, there's no mention of the word surrender
in the first one hundred and sixty four pages of
the Big Book. You know that path never mentions the
word surrender. It does, however, mention the word abandoned several times,
and so that set me on a path of instead
(25:17):
of surrendering to this program, because surrender.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
For me, I'm all about the conditional surrender. I'm the
deal maker. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I'll give up this if you give up this. This
is how I dealt with my defects, with my shortcomings.
I'm making deals all over the place until I understand
that none of that is going to be working. And
the thing about being about being humble is that it's
not over after the second. After the seventh step, you.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Get to use that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
You get to use that for the rest of your life.
You get to have that gift in your life. And
by the way, that's the principle that you get from
the seventh step is humility.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
You know, otherwise if I don't have humility, what happens?
I think I can handle the shit, and I can't
handle this shit.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And the only thing that has improved in my life
on a daily basis is that I know how to
step to the left.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Now I am.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
No longer like this, like this, like this in front
of the fan when the shit hits the fan, I
know how to step to the left and there is
always somebody there waiting for me.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's a gift, I mean, doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I also want to say that when that happens, you know,
I've washed my armor. We've talked about that before, and
I've allowed only God to protect me.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Now that's a risk, that's a big risk. Just God
is going to protect me.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Not my boyfriend, not my daddy, you know, not my kids.
No one will protect me but God, which means that
I have perfect protection.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Perfect protection.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And if you're an alcoholic like me, and we'll talk
about this in a minute, you spent most of my time,
you know, being afraid. Perfect protection is it's godly.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It's just godly.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
You know. Because I remain teachable, I can take those
risks and I can learn from them.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But here's the trick.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You know, we're in your situation when you used to
lie and you don't because you've asked for the lieing
to be removed, So you don't lie, don't tell anybody,
just thank God, thank God for taking the lie.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Or when you're in a situation where you used to
judge that.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Person, don't judge them, but don't tell anybody, Just thank God.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
And when you take something.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
When you want to take something from somebody that's not yours,
is theirs, but you want to take it, and you don't,
don't say anything to anybody, don't brag about it, don't
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Just thank God, because.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That solidifies exactly the chain of events.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
There's no human power in there.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
There's no humans happening to you on the shoulders saying
don't take that, because we do know as alcoholics, all
takers are losers. We're all losers, and most of us,
if I could count the room, probably ninety five percent
in this room grew up as scorekeepers.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So I'm very busy keeping score.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
With these defects and what's good and what's bad, and
what works for me and what doesn't work for me.
But the hardest thing I've had to do is not
lie and not tell anybody about it, and not steal
and not tell.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Anybody about it. And it became a covenant between me
and God, a strong covenant because we're the only ones
that no. That's it. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
The other thing that comes from this, which is a
little bit on the weirdo side, is that one of
the things that happens to us when we start, when
you do the seventh step, when we begin.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
To see these things or remove from us.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know, I'm not lying, and I'm not stealing, and
you know I'm not doing these things that I was
doing before. So I begin to feel a little bit better.
And because I'm me and because I'm smart, I turn
around and say, I think I need less meetings because
I feel much better, So why should I be spending
all my time in these meetings.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So I think I'm gonna go out there and live
life a little bit, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And the other thing is is that while I'm living
life a little bit, because I've cut on my meetings,
you know, I remember that I miss reaching for the pain.
I missed that I would like that back in my
life momentarily because I know how to get rid of it,
or because I'm uncomfortable when I'm not afraid. I'm uncomfortable
without the fear in my life. I'm an alcoholic that
(29:38):
woke up afraid. And I've heard this from people that
wake up afraid. And I couldn't tell you what I
was afraid of, but I had that football of fear
in the pit of my stomach.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And I'm an alcoholic that went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
With a bottle of Jack Daniels on the night stand
and a couple of joints and something that buzzed and
did a bunch of things that I.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Needed needed to get to bed and to wake up
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now you get the joke, you know, But I'm uncomfortable
when I'm not afraid because my default settings are fear
and manipulation and anger and jealousy and all of the
things that are on that list. Those are my default settings.
(30:21):
And all AA has done a little at a time
having me take actions that I don't believe in but
I take them anyway, is lift these things. And the
only thing that I have gotten is that I get
to live my life a day at a time without
having to have a drink to stand it. I don't
become an angel or don't become a do gooder. My
sponses will tell you I am not a do gooder
(30:43):
and I am.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Not an angel. I'm not even nice. But I do know.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I do know that the answer begins like a powerhouse
in step seven.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
It is probably the most important step that we get to.
There's everything else. This is kind of easy.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's like I broke you. Just write this stuff down,
give it away, and just do what people tell you.
Step seven is you and God.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
It's just me and God. And so I want to
talk a little bit about fear. Haha, my old friend fear.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
This is how I had to write this down because
I was laughing so hard. This is how I experience fear.
What do I deserve here?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Are they paying me too much?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Is this what I want? Is this what I deserve?
Is this what I think I deserve? Or is this
what I deserve and what I think I want?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Are they paying me enough?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
And if I get it? Is this what I wanted
in the first place? These are the conversations that go
on in my head over and over.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And over again.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And I can't really tell you what I'm afraid of.
At the end of the day, I have no idea.
I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I forced my solution.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And an alcoholic forcing a solution, You're well on your
way to a drink.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're well on your way to a drink.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And we talk about this all the time, and the
study of these steps week after week after week, where
if we don't do what they tell us to do
the only.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Answer, the only thing that's gonna happen to you. If
you're gonna drink, come, you can be up. You're taking
up another white coin. You'll come back.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You'll come back because this is what feels good at
the end of the day. This is where we belong
at the end of the day. This is where we
know each other without ever being introduced. So if you
don't do these things and you don't understand how it
is to get with God, you'll be back here anyway.
You'll be back here anyway looking for something you couldn't
figure out. So step seven reduces my fear to only
(32:24):
two things. This is probably the best of all the steps.
When they finally told me what was wrong with me,
which was what I was afraid of, which pretty simple
is not getting something that I want. I was afraid
of not getting something I wanted, and I was afraid
of losing something I already had, or in my case,
it was something that I imagined that I had, but
it felt like the same thing something that I had,
(32:45):
or something that I was afraid of losing. And that
was it, you know, And any time that I'm afraid,
I have to tell you I asked myself to this day,
what am I afraid of?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Which is it?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Colinn a or colum B. It's never anything else. And
by the way, the solution.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Is always the same as the problem. It's me. It's me.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I'm the one that's afraid. I'm the one that's taken
the reins back. I'm the one that has said there's
no room for you here.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
God, it is just me.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I am on my own, and that's how fear manifests
itself in me.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
So what happens when I can't figure out what I'm
afraid of?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I have to humble myself and ask someone else. Humility
will take you into every situation you have.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It's not just the seventh step. That's the least of it.
When you finish taking your seventh step, you are loaded
with humility. You are loaded with the.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Ability to ask for help. And thank god, we are
loaded with the ability to say I don't know, I
don't know. And for an alcoholic like me to say
I don't know, I mean, if you're like me, make
it up.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I can't possibly tell you that I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
So I humble myself, and I humble myself on a
continual basis. I mean like every day apparently, because every
day there's some kind of drama going on that I'm
going to need some help with. And you know, I
love my sponsor. We sponsor each other, which is not
so odd. We get a lot of time as.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
A woman in this program.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
We got sober almost of the same day and the
same month in the same year, and we are the
exact same age, and so it's good to go back
and forth. And we have a like a cone of
silence over us, or whatever we say is secret, and
that's it. And we get to bitch and moan about
everything because between me and my stuff, I can't see
what's wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I can't see anything, but between her and my stuff, she.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Can see everything, and I can see everything with her,
and that's how that works. So at the end of
the day, there is a question that I have been
told to ask all the time, very humbling question, which
is simply, where is God in all of this, no
matter what is happening, no matter what has happened. You know,
I think I came in with I'm on tape sings
(35:03):
because who knows what will happen. But I think I
told you last week or the week before that, my
son and his partner are pregnant.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
There's no joy. I need to tell you, there's no
joy in that house.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That is a house that is steeped and mired in fear,
and that they will lose another one.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
This will be the fourth. And so do they have
reason to be afraid? Yes? Do they have God in
their life?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
No, They're very busy trying to figure it out themselves.
And although they talk to me and they ask me,
and I tell them the best that I can.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
By the way, you cannot twelve step.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
The world out there, and you just need to know that,
you know, this is our language, this is our room,
these are our steps.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
You can try the twelfth step them out there, but
you probably will't, you know, like it's looney, been timed, and.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
They don't want to know about these things. So I
try the best that I can. And then I realize,
like boom.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I humbly asked my partner.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know why I was so crazy about this, and
he very nicely said, this is between you.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And God, Karen, this is between you and God. What
are you talking to me for? And I realized that's
exactly what it is. It's between me and God, So
what do I ask for? My prayer to God has
been the same for more than thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
My prayer to God has been I pray for clarity
for a situation. Let me see things as they really are.
Let me see you as you really are, not how
I want you to be, not how I've dreamed for
you to be, but as you really are. Let me
see that job for what it really is. Let me
(36:43):
see my homelok. God, let me see my children as
they really are, not how I want them to be,
not as a reflection of me, but how they really are.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I pray for clarity.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And then I pray for courage, the courage that if
there is something to be done with the clarity I
have achieved, that I have the courage to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
This is an extraordinarily intimate prayer between me and God.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I never pray for anybody, sorry, because when I you know,
someone says, oh, I'm going to pray for you, don't
pray for me, because when you pray for me, you
are tacit me telling God, by the way, I know
you're all big and bad and all of that, but
you seem to have forgotten this woman over here.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So I'm going to take care of this woman and
let you do your job over there.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I don't need your prayers for anything, and I don't
pray for anybody, because everybody's got God, whether you even
admit it or not, everybody's got God.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
And so you know, I want to tell you that,
and I have time for this.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
About a week ago, I went to see my mother
in law, my late husband's mother, who lives in Florida.
She's she's in Brown County, and I go to see
her once a year because my husband, by the way,
was killed. He died on my soul anniversary, and so
I know when the date is coming up. And this
year was special year because she died thirty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
And he was thirty two when he died. This is a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So I go to see her once a year and
I sit on her couch and I listened to her
lie to me for two hours. And she has never
disappointed me, by the way, she has never told the
truth about anything. But this year was a whopper. I
have to say, this year was a real whopper. And
(38:35):
she remakes history and she retells our lives, and she
retells everything, and she started to talk, to tell the
story about how we used to love to go to
the flea market in Brooklyn, you.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Know, as a family.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
We would go and she would come with us, and
we were happy if it was nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
We went once when he was very sick, and when
we got there, he said he didn't feel well and she,
you know, going all bouncing all over the place with
the two kids, and everything's fine, everything's perfect, everything's good.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
And he turned on and looked at me and he
threw up all over himself. And I know that there's
a God, because.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
God gave me the courage to take my shirt off
and wipe him down so that he didn't sit there
and in this miss and a man came out of
nowhere and he put his jacket on me, and he said,
God be with you.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Take the jacket. And that's how we went home. She
remembers it a completely different way. She remembers it that
we were eating and laughing and shopping. Because people lie.
I know this because I am a former liar.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
People lie to transform their lives so they don't have
to have a drink.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Just stand it. That's what happened.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So now I did my mits on my good deed,
and I listened to her lie for two hours. And
I don't do it because I'm a good person. No,
after we're in this series already there, we are not
a good person. I'm just a regular alcoholic, just like you,
work in these steps, doing the best I can. And
so after you know, two hours, I know for a
fact that I can go. I can just stand up
(40:13):
and say I'm going to go now. And she says,
please don't forget about me, and I said, I will
not forget about you. She said, when are you coming back?
When I'm here, that's when you will see me. I
don't do it out of love for her, because I
don't love her. I don't do it out of penance.
I don't do it out of anything but respect to
my husband. That's him that I visit his mother once
a year and let her recreate our lives the way
(40:35):
she wanted it to be. And I think about that,
and I think about the fact that if I had
not done this step thoroughly, I would be filled with
things that I wanted to say to her, even after
thirty two years, I would be filled with vengeance and
anger and everything.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
When I wasn't at all. I wasn't at all.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I went in there with God, and I left with God,
because there's any place I go that God is not
with me.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
So I want to.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Say, finally, I'm unafraid to go out in the world
now without my armor.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I don't have any fear. I don't have any fear
about anything.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
And I say that because there's got to be people
in here that are living in fear. So if I
can promise you nothing else other than not drinking, I
promise you right here, right now, that there is a
way for you to live without drugs and without alcohol
and not be afraid.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
And the beauty of it is it's all written down
a book. It's not like you have to figure it
out by yourself. So I want to finish with just
a couple of things because I'm pretty sure we're out
of time. But my world without my armor is very different.
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I get to walk down the street and I'm not
afraid of crossing the street because I see you, you know,
And and I don't have to avoid anybody I've stolen from,
and I don't have to not answer the phone because
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
It's a fear of some bill collector.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And you know I can open my mail without thinking
there's a sum in there. You know, these are all tiny,
teeny tiny little gifts of living without fear. So I
want to say today that with God, I got rid
of the shit. It's really all it comes down to.
I got rid of the shit. I don't have anything
in my life that I'm afraid of. I don't have
(42:18):
any resentments. I don't have any amends to make. I
don't have anything.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
You know, but if you are.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
An alcoholic like me, I have a lot of really excellent,
wonderful things going on. So I can't wait to screw
them up because that's what I know how to do.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And so before I can do that, I get with God.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It's every morning, it's at the same time, and I say,
I am incapable of handling this myself.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I simply don't know how to do it. You take it,
take it all, take it all.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
And we're gonna talk about the freedom of doing that.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Next week.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
We're gonna gang up eight and nine because because I
did eight in a ball and I want to talk
about that for an hour.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
All right, that's it for tonight, guys. It's a good
knife of the sober and
Everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Karen, I'm alcoholic. In how many people were here
last week? I have yet to crack a book. Maddie
just telling you no books are.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Out here, but I will tell you before I begin.
There's two SMAGEGGI.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Sitting over there between Pat and Maddie, and they could
call me out at any given.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Times, and I do, so We're gonna do the best
we can.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm Karen, I'm an alcoholic. You guys look so good
to me. Every Tuesday. It's you know, it's It's where
I need to be and I need to be with you,
and I need.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
To be seeing you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
One reason I come in persons. I need to see
your nodding heads. I need to know that I belong
here anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And now we're gonna I thought they'd take longer with
the chips.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I just to tell you this would be an abbreviated version,
but apparently not. Tonight we're gonna talk about the second step,
which by definition is the shortest step on the list.
So you would think that it's the least important, but
in my sobriety, it was the most important. My sponsor, Albert,
was a little on the strict side, not terribly, but
(01:06):
a little on the strict side. And he said when
I said I'm ready to do the steps, and I
think I was thirty forty five days.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So no, you're not. How about it sixty days, No
you're not, how about it seventy five days? No steps
for you.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
He did not allow me to start my steps until
I was ninety days sober. And there is a reason
for that, because by the time you're ninety days sober,
you are so nuts and so crazy, and you so
can't sit with yourself that you will do anything your
sponsor tells you to do because your level of uncomfortability
is so high at ninety days with no help, I'll
(01:40):
do anything, tell me what to do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'll do anything.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Because the one thing that you figured out at ninety
days is that you're not fabulous.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And not only are you not fabulous, but if you're
like me and you went over your lists, you know,
then you really see it in writing how fabulous you aren't.
So we get to the to this seventh step, and
now I know that I'm not fabulous, And now I
know that it's written down from my fourth step and
given over to my fifth step, and I've made this
decision decision in my sixth step to get rid of
(02:11):
this step.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
By the time I.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Get to my seventh step, i'm fairly nauseous. I got
to get rid of this, and I don't know how
to get rid of it, but I know that I
have to get rid of it because I'm at that
point where if I don't get rid of it, I'm
just gonna vomit, or if I don't vomit, I'm gonna drink.
And that's the point that you want to be at
for your seventh set.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
You don't want to get to your seventh step and
you're calm.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And you're you know, on a good place. You're not
giving anything up, not if you feel like that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So by the time we get there, we've become willing
to take a series of actions. And I love that
he told me this. This was Clancy used to tell
me this all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He says, you know, this is really what we do
in these steps is a series of actions that we're
asked to take that in our infinite wisdom, we know
will not work, but we take them anyway and we're
surprised when they work. And then of course we take
credit for taking them. But the reality is is that
I'm willing to do whatever it is that you're telling
me to do so I can get rid of this
crap that's living inside of me. But the problem is
(03:08):
is that, you know, after we take them and we
believe that this stuff works, then some person, some spirit,
some whatever in AA comes over and tells.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You that you've now begun on your spiritual journey.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
They didn't tell me that in the sixth step. They
didn't tell me that in the fifth step. They just
told me to do what to do, and I did.
Now I get to the seventh step and they tell
me that you're on your spiritual journey. And the thing is,
with the spiritual journey, you get spiritual solutions. And the
thing is, with a spiritual solution, your problems aren't solved.
(03:47):
They're not solved, they are simply lifted away.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's a that's a tough nut to swallow. You know,
what about my bills? And what about my rent?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And what about my crappy marriage? And what about a
job I don't want to begin? You know, this is spiritual.
I'm spiritual. Now, why haven't all these things been solved?
Because we get a spiritual solution. And when we get
a spiritual solution, our problems are simply lifted away. So
the thing is is that you could only take this
(04:20):
action when everything becomes too much for you, and you
get that way. By the time you get to the
seven step, everything is too much for me. And I'm sober.
So in case I didn't believe what I thought I
believed in the first step, I'm sober, and these problems
are overwhelming for me.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Forget about when I was drinking.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Now you're telling me that I've lived all this time, months,
ninety days, one hundred days, whatever it is. I get
to step seven, I'm sober, and I feel worse than
I have felt in a long time. And the thing
is also is that you know I'm in hit a bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
When I was drinking. I want to make that clear.
They talk about it. You know, why all this assistance
that we hit bottom. I did not hit a bottom.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You know, when I got low, and I got really low,
I just lowered it, just lowered the measure, you know,
And so I could say, well, I didn't get there,
you know, I wasn't that bad, you know, And then
I when at the end, you know, after twenty five
years of drinking. When I was walking on the streets
of Broadway, not fully clothed, most of the time in pajamas,
(05:21):
eaten out of garbage cans.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I lowered the measure. I mean, where else how much
lower could it have gone? But I never thought that
I had hit bottom.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And I read that and I said, well, I'm here anyway,
so you got to take me just the way that
I am. And that's pretty much how I worked this
problem program. In case you have a figured this out,
that I worked it with a sponsor who knew how
to handle me because I didn't have a bottom. And
the other thing is is that when I got sober,
I had these ideas, you know that part.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Of the Big Book, you know, suddenly a thought occurred
to him, like this great new idea.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I had many of those, and none of them
ever turned out well, none of them. So I would
have a thought that I said, you know, it's not
really a scirtual solution. I know what it is. I
need to go to the gym. I'm out of shape.
I gotta go to the gym. If I go to
the gym and I work out, everything is gonna be fine.
Everything gonna be fine. I'll get a raise, that guy
will love me again. I'm gonna get in my house.
I'm gonna go to the gym. So what do I do.
(06:12):
I go to the gym, and I'm in the gym
every single day and I'm working out.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And after thirty days.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I wake up one day and I say, this isn't
it either, And so I think, I know. I'll quit
my job. It's a frappy job. They don't appreciate me.
I'm gonna find another job.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I'm going in and I'm gonna start searching for jobs
because I'm gonna get a better job. And when I
walk in, they're gonna say, we have been waiting for
you our entire career. Where have you been? And I
quit my job and I take this new job. And
within two weeks I can't stand this job and what
am I doing here? And by the way, they've hired
me to do something I don't know how to do.
(06:52):
And so I wake up one day and I think
this isn't it either, And I think, well, I know
what I'll do. I'll get married.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That will cure everything.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And so I did it again and again and again
and again and again.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And that wasn't it either.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You know, I'm fairly hard headed in this program, and
that wasn't it either.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So what did I see?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I started to see from the old timers, but more
importantly from the day counters, that if they were doing
the things that they were asked to do, even though
they didn't think that they would work, and they did
them anyway, they seemed to be doing better than me.
That's what I want to say, better than me.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And over time what that looked like doing things better
than me?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Was that where that that was the first seeds of
faith that were planted in me. That's the first time
I was able to look at somebody in alcoholics anonymous
and say.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
He's doing better than me.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
You know, what are you doing? And to be able
to talk to somebody what are you doing? What is
your sponsor doing?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You know? What are the things you're willing to do
that you don't believe in? So because these steps, by
the way, are only designed to offer.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Us a way of life, you know, I don't know
where they ever got this thing, you or beyond your
wildest imagination. That didn't happen for me. I, like ever,
I never lived a life beyond my wildest imagination. All
AA has done for me, all these steps has done
for me, is create a life that I can.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Live live without having to have a drink to stand it.
That's it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Everything else is up to me. That's what I get
from the steps. That's what God gave me. I will
allow you to live your life without having to take
a drink or a drug just to stand your life.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you know that's the attraction. That's the attraction.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And if you say it long enough in the rooms,
newcomers are going to come over to you. Old Thimer's
are going to come over to you, and they're going
to say, if you want what we have, if you
want this life or you don't have to have a drink,
you have to do what we do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, I'm a real alcoholic and I have a
problem with authority.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I know that's hard to imagine, but I have a
problem with authority. When you would tell me what to do,
I would instantly shy away. I would instantly tell you
that you're full of it and I don't need to
listen to you.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
But you know, eventually, all you guys did was wear
me down. That's it. You just wore me down.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know the story I told you a few weeks
ago about when I hit the guy in the room
and he went down.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I got a phone call from another guy. Hmm, I
thought there was only one.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I got a phone call from another guy out of
blue from Evanston, Illinois, who saw me speak in South
Africa last week, and he said to me, I had a.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Feeling that with you. I said, how did you know?
He said, he said, because in your third week of sobriety,
you know you hit me. I said, I have no
memory of that. Do I need to apologize?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And he said, yes, we even apologize for things that
we don't remember doing. I had no recollection with I said,
maybe that's why he moved to Evanston, Illinois and got
out of New York. I have no idea, but he
ran after that. You know, he's sober a long time.
He's seventy nine years. I thought, oh my god, I've
hit the seventy nine year old, you know. But so
I don't even know where that came from. Actually, so,
(10:06):
I want to talk about exactly what Step seven.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Is, because it's spiritual.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
But the problem with step seven is that it's not
only spiritual it's not pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It's not a pretty.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Step It deals with it deals with perfection, it deals
with humility God, and it deals with fear. You know,
in Step seven when I worked it, this is what
I was taught. Step seven basically says that when the
shit hits the fan, step to the left.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That is the entirety of Step seven.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I mean, I could sit down right now, when the
shit hits the fan, step to the left and let
God handle the shit. You know, if I had just
been able to remember that on a daily basis, I
would be great. But what I did was I played,
let's make a deal with God. And I don't know
why I've done this, but I've done this one hundred
times because in my heart of hearts, I knew at
(11:02):
that point, at ninety days sober into these steps, that
my case was different.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I wasn't like you.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
If you had my husband's, if you had my jobs,
if you had my apartments, you know you'd be drinking too.
My case is different. And even though you know I
thought I had the answers, the most bizarre thing is
that I never got it right. I have yet to
meet an alcoholic who said I got this stuff right.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I didn't need the steps. I'm good to go.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I never got it right, and I struggled. I struggled
to remain in charge because I have a problem with authority.
And for the life of me, I can't tell you
what I was in charge of. That's the thing, What
exactly was I in charge of? So I want to
go into this a little bit, because I did say
I would go into a little bit, and it'll get
(11:50):
much more of this than the eleventh step.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
But you know, I think about this. You know I
wanted to be in charge. I wanted to be in control.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I was married for the third time, and I finally
married for love.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It's out there. I finally married for love. And he was,
quite frankly, the love of my life. And we've known
each other a long time and we got married. He
had a kid, I had kid. They were the same age,
it was. And we're going back in.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The eighties, by the way, And when you were an
interracial marriage in the eighties, not so easy. Not so
easy to find housing, not so easy to find neighbors
that would talk to you.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Not so easy to do anything. It was not a
pleasant experience.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But we were so in love and so together that
we didn't care, and we decided, since we had these
two other kids, that we should have a kid of
our own. We thought that would be absolutely beautiful, and
we'll make this big Brady bunch of thing or whatever we.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Want to do.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And we tried for three years, and we tried repeatedly
for three years, and finally, after three years, we went
to the doctors. He went to his and I went
to mine, and I came back that night over dinner
and I said, you know, my doctor says, I'm fine,
you can move ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He said, my doctor says, I'm not so fine. I
have ADS.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And in the eighties it's one hundred percent mortality. One
hundred percent mortality if you're an alcoholic like I am.
Went to meetings in Manhattan. Who wasn't a day to girl?
What went by that someone didn't come in and say, Hi,
I'm Carol. You know I'm an alcoholic. I got the virus,
but I'm going to beat it. Everybody died. Everybody died,
And then, of course that was the first thought, and
(13:21):
then the second.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Thought was what about me? What about me?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We've been trying to have a child for three years,
and the doctors told him at the same time that
not only did he have AIDS, but he'd had it
for more than fifteen years. And so we were catapulted,
you know, they said, you get catapulted into the fourth dimension.
We were catapulted into a brand new world, a completely
(13:46):
different world.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He wasn't sick until they told me had AIDS. Then
he got sick and was sick for years. And we
lived a fairly unimaginable existence for years, and I never
got it. I went for sixteen AIDS tests in four years.
And in those days, you know, it took three took
three months to get your results, and so you had
to reas to get tested up in Harlem and go
(14:10):
up to Harlem. You did it anonymously because in those days,
if you tested positive, they took your kids.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You know, you were in a no win situation. We
would go up there.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
When we would test, I would test anonymously, and my sponsor, Albert,
went with me, you know, every single time, and then
we would have to wait three months.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And you know how good we are waiting for anything.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
We would wait three months, just in time to go
back to get my results, and they'd say go in
the other room, you got to test you again.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And this went on for four years. You know, every
three months I'm there for another test.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So you know, I would like to tell you that
the house imploded and things were horrible, but the reality
is is that, you know, God had entered my house
in the most extraordinary way.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I didn't see it. He saw it. You know, I
just didn't understand a lot. I didn't understand anything. He
was much more spiritual than I was. He had God solely,
you know, living in him. I had nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Remember this is my first five years of sobriety, where
I've worked with this program without a God in my life.
And so I didn't even have a God, you know,
big enough or there enough for me to say, screw you,
this is what you gave me. You finally give me
this love of my life and spring the little aids
on us and here we go.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I didn't even have that. I had nothing. And so
you know I would talk to Albert about it, and
I talked to everybody about it.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I couldn't shut up about it because every time we
got some go to the hospital, every time he got sick,
and they pushed us into the ambulance to go to
the hospital. When we walked into the hospital, they used
to wrap us in plastic because they didn't know.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How you got the disease.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Even his doctor died of it. It's just an unbelievably frightening,
horrible time that I couldn't figure out how to get at.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I couldn't figure out how to get at.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
And as this is going on, you know, I'm getting
sicker myself up here, and in here, I'm getting sicker.
He's getting sicker physically. I'm getting sicker spiritually, to the
point where I can't function anymore, you know. And I
was desperate for some kind of control, desperate for some
type of control. And I had done this step, and
(16:10):
I understood what this step was about. And I understood
when the ship's hitting the fan and I have to
step to the left.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But I couldn't figure out where the left was.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And I kept going back and forth in front of
the fan, trying to figure out how to get in
control of this.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And so what I want to say is that we
got to be careful in this program. When we think
we hear the word of God, you know, sometimes it's
just you know, you talking to you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And we got to be careful what we pray for,
and we'll talk a lot about that in the eleventh
step on how we actually pray. But I have a
very clear memory of figuring out how to get into
control here. And I used to pray in the shower
and I would talk to a god I didn't believe him,
and I would hit my head against the tile on
the wall. It was a rhythm hitting of my head.
(17:02):
And that is how I prayed to God, a god
I didn't believe him. And so one night I figured
out that I knew the prayer night and I said,
just do me a favor, whoever you are, just do
me a favor, and just give him one day of normal.
Give him one day where he's not sick. Give him
one day where he's not.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Talking to people in the walls. Give him one day
where the kids can talk to him and he knows
who they are. Just one day, can you do that
for me? Please? Because I was a good deal maker
with God, and he heard me, because the next day
he died and he got every single thing that I
asked for, But he didn't die the way I wanted
(17:41):
him to die.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
He went down to the West Fort Street station, jump
in front of the subway and he was killed immediately.
And I'm going to talk about more about what happened
after that in the eleventh Step. But I say this
tonight to tell you that when I'm looking at that
seventh step, what I came up with was it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It doesn't work. And it took many, many people and
alcoholics anonymous to convince.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Me that it worked perfectly, that what happened was exactly
what was supposed to happen, and that whatever kind of
prayers I was looking for, they had ultimately been answered.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So I want to turn the page for.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
A minute and talk a little bit about what the
step is supposed to do for me, what it's supposed
to do for you. And it talks about, you know,
removing our defects of character.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Or shortcomings or whatever you want to call them. What
I called them, They were my tools for survival.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
These are the things I used to get me out
of crisis situations. You know, I lived a life of
drama and crisis, and by the way, I'm not so
much better now.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I need to tell you, thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Years sober, if there's no drama, I'm stirring it up.
I can't possibly live with like serenity and nicety and
be with me a while.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You'll figure it out. I don't know how to do
that to this day, but it is what it is.
It is never going away. And I think that, you know,
God leaves some things behind for amusement. That's what I think.
And that's been left behind. And I love the drama.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know, I'm not gonna say I'm a drama queen
or a drama princess, but I seek it out, you know,
I seek it out.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And then I got to talk to my sponsor and
I go, what's wrong here, what's wrong?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And I am talked down every single time, every single time.
And sometimes I think that's the best pattern to have
when you have these things blow up and you get
to talk to your sponsor and he gets to tell
you exactly what's going on with you. But you know,
finding you know, your defects of character or your shortcomings
or your tools for survival and asking them to be removed.
That's nothing, nothing, go ahead. You can see you're doing
(19:42):
right now. Just take them away, take you away. And
how do you know they're gone? You know, when they're
not there anymore?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's the entire step, except that it's not. You know,
when you make a decision to give them away, and
you give them away.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
How do you know when they're not there? Well, they're
not there. That's it. But here's the other thing, you know,
what's not there?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Lying and cheating and stealing and stealing, by the way,
is a bigger definition than you ever thought possible, because
it's stealing someone's love and stealing their their peace of mind,
and stealing their.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Respect, and stealing all the things that you can't see.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And they used to call it when I was growing
up in AA, the black and blue marks on the inside,
you know that nobody could see. So even when you
still love some of these defects, you think, you know, well,
I think maybe I'll get rid of some of them.
You got the list, you know, some of these, some
of these I really like. You know. One of the
ones I really liked was sleeping with your man, you know,
And I conveniently left that off the list because I
(20:37):
liked it, you know, not that I wanted your man,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I just wanted to do the nasty and move on,
you know, and that was it. I didn't want any
kind of commitment. I didn't want to get me I
really didn't want to get married. I didn't want to
do it anything like that, so I left it off
the list. But Albert was a.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Smart sponsor, and he said, what about this over here?
And I had to take a look over there, and
I said, I don't really want to get.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Rid of that. So he said, so you want to
get rid of just some of the defects. So I said, yes,
I just want to get rid of some of my defects.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And the other is I'll make that decision when they
should go, and I'll let you know what I'll have
to get rid of those, But for the moment, I
just want to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Some of them.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
He said, well, the problem with getting rid of some
of them is that there is no help available to
get rid of some of them. There's only God's help,
and God doesn't make deals. And so you turn around
and say, well, this must be where the humility comes in.
Must be because the only help available is perfect help,
(21:33):
and that perfect help is God's help.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
The problem is is that now you have me thinking
about perfection.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's a real problem for me because I'm not talking
about being perfect. You know, you gave you the Big Book.
There's no perfection in there. It's progress, not perfection.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And now I'm in the twelve and twelve and all
we're talking about is perfection.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And I think it's a bit much because God is perfect,
But what about me?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I'm not perfect? And Albert said, he's not saying they're
not telling you to be perfect.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
They're telling you that you are painfully aware of your imperfections.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And I thought, well, I feel that way. Every time
I look in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I am painfully aware of what's not perfect in me physically,
and then I'm painfully aware of what's not perfect in
me inside, and you know, and sometimes I would get
to the point where I would think you could see
what was on the inside. I was painfully aware of
my imperfections. So that wasn't what they were talking about
at all. They were talking about God's perfection. And then
(22:31):
we led me into having to humbly ask What does
that mean? Why can't I just ask him? Can I
just do the real asking?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Like, come on, just do it. You know, what is
the difference between humbly asking and like regular asking?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So regular asking is you know, so years and years
and years ago on marriage number five. But I rarely
talk about this marriage because I want to stay out
of jail.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's how I feel about it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
But in marriage number five, we were in North Carolina
and we were invited to this house for dinner, so
we must spend some celebration or something.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
At the end of dinner, the.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Wife comes out and brings out a cake that's forty
two layers of like cake and chocolate and jelly and
cake and.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Forty two layers. And it took her two days to make.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And she puts it on the table and everybody's eating it,
and the cake is great. And now you fast forward
into Christmas time of that year, and I'm thinking, I'd
like to have one of those cakes for my guests
when they come for Christmas. Why don't I just call
her up and ask her for the cake like a
regular esque. The difference between asking humbly and a regular
askue is that I knew how much work it took
(23:44):
to make the cake, and that's what we're doing in AA.
We are making the cake, so we can't just regular
ask him to do this. We have to humbly ask
him to do this. And if you're in AA for
any amount of time at all. Exactly how many definitions
of humility you're gonna hear, you know, And that's okay,
(24:04):
whatever suits you. I have had the same definition of
humility my entire sobriety, and that's to be that's to
remain teachable period. That's it, no more or less. I'm
not on the floor. I'm not you know, genuflecting. I'm
not you know, hitting myself over the back of that,
you know, in my back. It is remaining teachable for.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
A long period of time. I'm so for a.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Long period of time, I still remain teachable. Worse than that,
I still listen to what you have to say. That's
a horrible feeling, just horrible.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You would think after all this time, I would know,
but I.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Don't know, and you know, and unfortunately I ask people
that are in my life and then I never want
to see them again. Yeah, because I've humbled myself and
so yeah, so it's it's becomes in.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
My version of humility.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It actually widens the definition and to when they talk
about surrender, surrender, there's no mention of the word surrender
in the first one hundred and sixty four pages of
the Big Book. You know that path never mentions the
word surrender. It does, however, mention the word abandoned several times,
and so that set me on a path of instead
(25:17):
of surrendering to this program, because surrender.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
For me, I'm all about the conditional surrender. I'm the
deal maker. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I'll give up this if you give up this. This
is how I dealt with my defects, with my shortcomings.
I'm making deals all over the place until I understand
that none of that is going to be working. And
the thing about being about being humble is that it's
not over after the second. After the seventh step, you.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Get to use that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
You get to use that for the rest of your life.
You get to have that gift in your life. And
by the way, that's the principle that you get from
the seventh step is humility.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
You know, otherwise if I don't have humility, what happens?
I think I can handle the shit, and I can't
handle this shit.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And the only thing that has improved in my life
on a daily basis is that I know how to
step to the left.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Now I am.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
No longer like this, like this, like this in front
of the fan when the shit hits the fan, I
know how to step to the left and there is
always somebody there waiting for me.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's a gift, I mean, doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I also want to say that when that happens, you know,
I've washed my armor. We've talked about that before, and
I've allowed only God to protect me.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Now that's a risk, that's a big risk. Just God
is going to protect me.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Not my boyfriend, not my daddy, you know, not my kids.
No one will protect me but God, which means that
I have perfect protection.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Perfect protection.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And if you're an alcoholic like me, and we'll talk
about this in a minute, you spent most of my time,
you know, being afraid. Perfect protection is it's godly.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It's just godly.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
You know. Because I remain teachable, I can take those
risks and I can learn from them.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But here's the trick.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You know, we're in your situation when you used to
lie and you don't because you've asked for the lieing
to be removed, So you don't lie, don't tell anybody,
just thank God, thank God for taking the lie.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Or when you're in a situation where you used to
judge that.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Person, don't judge them, but don't tell anybody, Just thank God.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
And when you take something.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
When you want to take something from somebody that's not yours,
is theirs, but you want to take it, and you don't,
don't say anything to anybody, don't brag about it, don't
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Just thank God, because.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That solidifies exactly the chain of events.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
There's no human power in there.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
There's no humans happening to you on the shoulders saying
don't take that, because we do know as alcoholics, all
takers are losers. We're all losers, and most of us,
if I could count the room, probably ninety five percent
in this room grew up as scorekeepers.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So I'm very busy keeping score.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
With these defects and what's good and what's bad, and
what works for me and what doesn't work for me.
But the hardest thing I've had to do is not
lie and not tell anybody about it, and not steal
and not tell.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Anybody about it. And it became a covenant between me
and God, a strong covenant because we're the only ones
that no. That's it. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
The other thing that comes from this, which is a
little bit on the weirdo side, is that one of
the things that happens to us when we start, when
you do the seventh step, when we begin.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
To see these things or remove from us.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know, I'm not lying, and I'm not stealing, and
you know I'm not doing these things that I was
doing before. So I begin to feel a little bit better.
And because I'm me and because I'm smart, I turn
around and say, I think I need less meetings because
I feel much better, So why should I be spending
all my time in these meetings.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So I think I'm gonna go out there and live
life a little bit, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And the other thing is is that while I'm living
life a little bit, because I've cut on my meetings,
you know, I remember that I miss reaching for the pain.
I missed that I would like that back in my
life momentarily because I know how to get rid of it,
or because I'm uncomfortable when I'm not afraid. I'm uncomfortable
without the fear in my life. I'm an alcoholic that
(29:38):
woke up afraid. And I've heard this from people that
wake up afraid. And I couldn't tell you what I
was afraid of, but I had that football of fear
in the pit of my stomach.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And I'm an alcoholic that went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
With a bottle of Jack Daniels on the night stand
and a couple of joints and something that buzzed and
did a bunch of things that I.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Needed needed to get to bed and to wake up
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now you get the joke, you know, But I'm uncomfortable
when I'm not afraid because my default settings are fear
and manipulation and anger and jealousy and all of the
things that are on that list. Those are my default settings.
(30:21):
And all AA has done a little at a time
having me take actions that I don't believe in but
I take them anyway, is lift these things. And the
only thing that I have gotten is that I get
to live my life a day at a time without
having to have a drink to stand it. I don't
become an angel or don't become a do gooder. My
sponses will tell you I am not a do gooder
(30:43):
and I am.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Not an angel. I'm not even nice. But I do know.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I do know that the answer begins like a powerhouse
in step seven.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
It is probably the most important step that we get to.
There's everything else. This is kind of easy.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's like I broke you. Just write this stuff down,
give it away, and just do what people tell you.
Step seven is you and God.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
It's just me and God. And so I want to
talk a little bit about fear. Haha, my old friend fear.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
This is how I had to write this down because
I was laughing so hard. This is how I experience fear.
What do I deserve here?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Are they paying me too much?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Is this what I want? Is this what I deserve?
Is this what I think I deserve? Or is this
what I deserve and what I think I want?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Are they paying me enough?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
And if I get it? Is this what I wanted
in the first place? These are the conversations that go
on in my head over and over.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And over again.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And I can't really tell you what I'm afraid of.
At the end of the day, I have no idea.
I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I forced my solution.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And an alcoholic forcing a solution, You're well on your
way to a drink.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're well on your way to a drink.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And we talk about this all the time, and the
study of these steps week after week after week, where
if we don't do what they tell us to do
the only.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Answer, the only thing that's gonna happen to you. If
you're gonna drink, come, you can be up. You're taking
up another white coin. You'll come back.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You'll come back because this is what feels good at
the end of the day. This is where we belong
at the end of the day. This is where we
know each other without ever being introduced. So if you
don't do these things and you don't understand how it
is to get with God, you'll be back here anyway.
You'll be back here anyway looking for something you couldn't
figure out. So step seven reduces my fear to only
(32:24):
two things. This is probably the best of all the steps.
When they finally told me what was wrong with me,
which was what I was afraid of, which pretty simple
is not getting something that I want. I was afraid
of not getting something I wanted, and I was afraid
of losing something I already had, or in my case,
it was something that I imagined that I had, but
it felt like the same thing something that I had,
(32:45):
or something that I was afraid of losing. And that
was it, you know, And any time that I'm afraid,
I have to tell you I asked myself to this day,
what am I afraid of?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Which is it?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Colinn a or colum B. It's never anything else. And
by the way, the solution.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Is always the same as the problem. It's me. It's me.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I'm the one that's afraid. I'm the one that's taken
the reins back. I'm the one that has said there's
no room for you here.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
God, it is just me.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I am on my own, and that's how fear manifests
itself in me.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
So what happens when I can't figure out what I'm
afraid of?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I have to humble myself and ask someone else. Humility
will take you into every situation you have.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It's not just the seventh step. That's the least of it.
When you finish taking your seventh step, you are loaded
with humility. You are loaded with the.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Ability to ask for help. And thank god, we are
loaded with the ability to say I don't know, I
don't know. And for an alcoholic like me to say
I don't know, I mean, if you're like me, make
it up.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I can't possibly tell you that I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
So I humble myself, and I humble myself on a
continual basis. I mean like every day apparently, because every
day there's some kind of drama going on that I'm
going to need some help with. And you know, I
love my sponsor. We sponsor each other, which is not
so odd. We get a lot of time as.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
A woman in this program.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
We got sober almost of the same day and the
same month in the same year, and we are the
exact same age, and so it's good to go back
and forth. And we have a like a cone of
silence over us, or whatever we say is secret, and
that's it. And we get to bitch and moan about
everything because between me and my stuff, I can't see
what's wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I can't see anything, but between her and my stuff, she.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Can see everything, and I can see everything with her,
and that's how that works. So at the end of
the day, there is a question that I have been
told to ask all the time, very humbling question, which
is simply, where is God in all of this, no
matter what is happening, no matter what has happened. You know,
I think I came in with I'm on tape sings
(35:03):
because who knows what will happen. But I think I
told you last week or the week before that, my
son and his partner are pregnant.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
There's no joy. I need to tell you, there's no
joy in that house.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That is a house that is steeped and mired in fear,
and that they will lose another one.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
This will be the fourth. And so do they have
reason to be afraid? Yes? Do they have God in
their life?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
No, They're very busy trying to figure it out themselves.
And although they talk to me and they ask me,
and I tell them the best that I can.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
By the way, you cannot twelve step.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
The world out there, and you just need to know that,
you know, this is our language, this is our room,
these are our steps.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
You can try the twelfth step them out there, but
you probably will't, you know, like it's looney, been timed, and.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
They don't want to know about these things. So I
try the best that I can. And then I realize,
like boom.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I humbly asked my partner.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know why I was so crazy about this, and
he very nicely said, this is between you.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And God, Karen, this is between you and God. What
are you talking to me for? And I realized that's
exactly what it is. It's between me and God, So
what do I ask for? My prayer to God has
been the same for more than thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
My prayer to God has been I pray for clarity
for a situation. Let me see things as they really are.
Let me see you as you really are, not how
I want you to be, not how I've dreamed for
you to be, but as you really are. Let me
see that job for what it really is. Let me
(36:43):
see my homelok. God, let me see my children as
they really are, not how I want them to be,
not as a reflection of me, but how they really are.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I pray for clarity.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And then I pray for courage, the courage that if
there is something to be done with the clarity I
have achieved, that I have the courage to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
This is an extraordinarily intimate prayer between me and God.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I never pray for anybody, sorry, because when I you know,
someone says, oh, I'm going to pray for you, don't
pray for me, because when you pray for me, you
are tacit me telling God, by the way, I know
you're all big and bad and all of that, but
you seem to have forgotten this woman over here.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So I'm going to take care of this woman and
let you do your job over there.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I don't need your prayers for anything, and I don't
pray for anybody, because everybody's got God, whether you even
admit it or not, everybody's got God.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
And so you know, I want to tell you that,
and I have time for this.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
About a week ago, I went to see my mother
in law, my late husband's mother, who lives in Florida.
She's she's in Brown County, and I go to see
her once a year because my husband, by the way,
was killed. He died on my soul anniversary, and so
I know when the date is coming up. And this
year was special year because she died thirty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
And he was thirty two when he died. This is a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So I go to see her once a year and
I sit on her couch and I listened to her
lie to me for two hours. And she has never
disappointed me, by the way, she has never told the
truth about anything. But this year was a whopper. I
have to say, this year was a real whopper. And
(38:35):
she remakes history and she retells our lives, and she
retells everything, and she started to talk, to tell the
story about how we used to love to go to
the flea market in Brooklyn, you.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Know, as a family.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
We would go and she would come with us, and
we were happy if it was nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
We went once when he was very sick, and when
we got there, he said he didn't feel well and she,
you know, going all bouncing all over the place with
the two kids, and everything's fine, everything's perfect, everything's good.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
And he turned on and looked at me and he
threw up all over himself. And I know that there's
a God, because.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
God gave me the courage to take my shirt off
and wipe him down so that he didn't sit there
and in this miss and a man came out of
nowhere and he put his jacket on me, and he said,
God be with you.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Take the jacket. And that's how we went home. She
remembers it a completely different way. She remembers it that
we were eating and laughing and shopping. Because people lie.
I know this because I am a former liar.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
People lie to transform their lives so they don't have
to have a drink.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Just stand it. That's what happened.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So now I did my mits on my good deed,
and I listened to her lie for two hours. And
I don't do it because I'm a good person. No,
after we're in this series already there, we are not
a good person. I'm just a regular alcoholic, just like you,
work in these steps, doing the best I can. And
so after you know, two hours, I know for a
fact that I can go. I can just stand up
(40:13):
and say I'm going to go now. And she says,
please don't forget about me, and I said, I will
not forget about you. She said, when are you coming back?
When I'm here, that's when you will see me. I
don't do it out of love for her, because I
don't love her. I don't do it out of penance.
I don't do it out of anything but respect to
my husband. That's him that I visit his mother once
a year and let her recreate our lives the way
(40:35):
she wanted it to be. And I think about that,
and I think about the fact that if I had
not done this step thoroughly, I would be filled with
things that I wanted to say to her, even after
thirty two years, I would be filled with vengeance and
anger and everything.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
When I wasn't at all. I wasn't at all.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I went in there with God, and I left with God,
because there's any place I go that God is not
with me.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
So I want to.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Say, finally, I'm unafraid to go out in the world
now without my armor.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I don't have any fear. I don't have any fear
about anything.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
And I say that because there's got to be people
in here that are living in fear. So if I
can promise you nothing else other than not drinking, I
promise you right here, right now, that there is a
way for you to live without drugs and without alcohol
and not be afraid.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
And the beauty of it is it's all written down
a book. It's not like you have to figure it
out by yourself. So I want to finish with just
a couple of things because I'm pretty sure we're out
of time. But my world without my armor is very different.
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I get to walk down the street and I'm not
afraid of crossing the street because I see you, you know,
And and I don't have to avoid anybody I've stolen from,
and I don't have to not answer the phone because
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
It's a fear of some bill collector.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And you know I can open my mail without thinking
there's a sum in there. You know, these are all tiny,
teeny tiny little gifts of living without fear. So I
want to say today that with God, I got rid
of the shit. It's really all it comes down to.
I got rid of the shit. I don't have anything
in my life that I'm afraid of. I don't have
(42:18):
any resentments. I don't have any amends to make. I
don't have anything.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
You know, but if you are.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
An alcoholic like me, I have a lot of really excellent,
wonderful things going on. So I can't wait to screw
them up because that's what I know how to do.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And so before I can do that, I get with God.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It's every morning, it's at the same time, and I say,
I am incapable of handling this myself.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I simply don't know how to do it. You take it,
take it all, take it all.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
And we're gonna talk about the freedom of doing that.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Next week.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
We're gonna gang up eight and nine because because I
did eight in a ball and I want to talk
about that for an hour.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
All right, that's it for tonight, guys. It's a good
knife of the sober and
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