vol 299. A Full and Free Life with Sherry

SPEAKER_00 0:01 We believe that alcoholism is a disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members. Everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest.

SPEAKER_01 0:25 Well, hello everyone. My name is Sherry. I'm an alcoholic, and my sobriety date is April 20th, 1981. I'm going to be 45 years sober this April, which seems mind-boggling, but there it is.

And I was thinking that, you know, when you've been sober a while, you see that there are themes in your sobriety, things that you keep coming back to over and over again, different issues. And all of us have our own issues, the things we struggle with. And I was thinking about the ones that I have struggled with, and I realized that behind all of them is really the story of my spiritual awakening. And you have no idea how ironic that is for a Dyed-in-the-Wool atheist who walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But in fact, that is the thing that has changed me the most and made me able to deal with all the different struggles in my life. Before I came through the doors, um I really was filled with the kind of anxiety and fear that just pervaded absolutely everything. And I think if you knew me, that might be a surprise to you because at least in my imagination, I was able to really conceal how insecure I felt and how much self-loathing. I had a very violent kind of self-loathing.

I used to, I mean, it sounds so dramatic to say, but I had, I used to think about ramming an ice pick through my eye. That um I was destined, doomed to be always frustrated, unloved, um, unhappy. Uh I felt that I was never going to be able to bring out everything I felt was inside me. Um I had no sense that there was any path open to me that was going to lead me where I wanted to go.

Um you can tell, I think, that I struggled with depression and and really despair. And ultimately what happened was one night I got up in the middle of the night and I was, you know, bouncing my way off the walls in the dark to the refrigerator to get some more vodka. And I looked at it and I said, I cannot do this anymore. I simply cannot do this anymore.

And I poured it down the drain, but I got up at about eight o'clock the next morning to go to the liquor store. And I sat there and I had that moment of clarity that so many of us talk about. I really understood. I could not do it anymore.

And I called a friend who was sober on the program and he told me where to go, and I went. And the first thing that happened for me was that I heard the definition of alcoholism. I heard I am a bottomless pit. Nothing is enough.

You know how we say that one is too many and a thousand isn't enough. I so immediately recognized in myself this bottomless pit of need. The way in which I wanted to hide out from the world, which is, you know, what alcohol is so good at letting us do. Um, in other words, I found for the first time a view of myself that seemed to explain all of the fragments I felt inside.

You know, I had never felt like I understood myself as a whole person. And here was this definition of alcoholism that really galvanized me. And it was just the tiniest spark of hope, but I felt it and it was real. And I also, of course, you know, you sit in meetings, and there are so many different kinds of people having so many different problems and struggles.

And invariably at every meeting, I would hear at least one person who seemed to be talking to me, seemed to be describing what I felt. And loneliness is certainly one of the hallmarks of alcoholism. And for me to feel connected to another person after so long feeling isolated and alone, that was a huge thing. And it's it's in large part what kept me coming back was the way in which I was identifying with other people talking about their struggles.

And I remember when I uh probably somewhere in my first six months of sobriety, I was at a meeting, and I suddenly heard one day at a time. Now, of course, you know, I'd heard this a hundred times before, but I suddenly heard it in a way that just cracked me open because I realized that if I was living one day at a time, I had paradoxically all the time in the world. If I was always in the present moment, I was always in the present moment, and there was all the time in the world. And you know, I came to the program feeling that it was always three o'clock in the morning, and I had to figure out everything by dawn, or they were going to take me out and shoot me.

I mean, the anxiety was so great, and the sense that I could make a fatal error, that there was that the abyss was looming ahead. And when I heard one day at a time in this to the bone way, I realized that no, there wasn't an abyss ahead. That if I lived in this moment, it would lead me to the next moment, which would lead me to the next moment. I realized there was no such thing as a fatal error, there was no such thing as a mistake.

I do what I do, and it leads to the next set of circumstances, and I deal with those set of circumstances, and so on, and so on, and so on. That feeling that I couldn't make a fatal error, just the relief I felt sitting in that meeting was so intense, and uh it washed over everything, and in a way it felt to me at the time how is it possible that I have not seen this before? How is it possible that I didn't understand this? And of course, the reason I didn't understand it was that I hadn't been bringing myself to meeting after meeting after meeting.

And I think that's the most important thing that we do when we get sober, is we keep coming back. And because we keep coming back, it allows us to have these experiences, these very real to the bone experiences that start to change everything. And once that happens, like good alcoholics, we want more, we just want more, and that's how I felt. And of course, I would love to say that that realization changed everything for all time, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

You know, we have these realizations, and then all the rest of life starts all over again, and we have to keep coming back to these realizations over and over and over again. But once you've had it, you don't forget that you've had it. And for the first time, I had a real experience that showed me there was hope, even for me. And that began, even though it didn't change every all the circumstances in my life or or anything really, that began my being open to more of these experiences.

And I can remember one day I was listening to the news, and again, this was probably somewhere in my first year of sobriety, and uh there was a report on the news about a family that had been going to a family reunion, and so it was a busload of family members, and the bus had an accident, and something like 10 people on the bus were killed. And the reporter was interviewing one of the survivors, um, and the woman, the survivor said, I don't know what God intended by doing this, I don't know what the message is. Now, in the past, I would have sneered at this woman. I mean, how ridiculous.

But I heard something very, very different. I heard that her belief was giving her comfort, and I understood that she was reaching for some reason that would explain what had happened in a way that would not produce total devastation in her. And instead of my sneering, I understood it, and in some way I admired her for it. And as I say, it didn't matter that I didn't have faith in what she was, you know, what she obviously had faith.

What mattered was I understood why she needed comfort, and that for her, comfort was possible. Comfort had not been possible for me. And sometime around that time, I found myself I was on my bed staring at the ceiling, which is basically all I could do between, you know, two meetings a day. And I found myself reciting the words of the 23rd Psalm.

And, you know, again, all of this seemed very ironic to a died-in-the-wool atheist like me, but that psalm is so much in our culture. Many people know the words to it: the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And as I was saying the words to myself, he leadeth me beside cool waters, he leadeth me to green pastures, and I suddenly felt what it would be like to be dying of thirst and come on cool waters, and what it would be to be dying of starvation and come on green pastures, and I felt the relief of that, and as I said, the rest of the words, you know, he maketh me a table before mine enemies. I'm not quoting it exactly, but and yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.

I suddenly heard the voice of the person who wrote those lines. I suddenly heard the human being behind them, and I understood that he was afraid and he was seeking solace. He was trying to reassure himself through his belief in this benevolent power in the universe, and something again, something in me just cracked open. And for the first time, I understood on such a uh deep level that it's human to seek solace, it's human to be afraid, and it's human to seek the courage to go on.

And you know, one of the things, at least about my alcoholism was how completely defended I was against showing or admitting, not only to you, but even to myself, especially to myself, how vulnerable I was. It was tremendous for me to finally be able to say, yes, I need help, yes, I need to find comfort. And that began for me a real attempt to understand the principles and the steps. Mind you, when that was going on, so was the rest of my life, and things weren't going so well in the rest of my life.

As I said, I dealt really all the time with um depression and um the kind of depression that was not amenable to treatment, um, and it was just always there. And I eventually began to identify that in some way as uh what we call a character defect. I began to think about my depression as something I could practice the steps on, and that even though I certainly did not get rid of it, just the idea that I could label it in that way made it seem smaller, made it seem like only an aspect of myself. It wasn't my full self.

And I've seen that over and over again with these kinds of um uh the problems we have that we can't touch, you know, the ones that are inside, things like depression and self-loathing and um uh you know narcissism and those things somehow when I've been able to identify them, give them a name, I've been able to, it's as if I can make them smaller and smaller. So they go from being the atmosphere I breathe into you know smaller and smaller until they're a little ball I can put in my pocket. It's all it's going to be there, but it's not going to drive me. So even though things on the outside that I was looking at, my financial problems, my um inability to really commit to my chosen career, so that I was always doing it in what seemed to me to be a half-assed way.

Um even though those things persisted, my attitude towards them was definitely changing, and it was changing really because more and more I was coming to feel that Alcoholics Anonymous was giving me a way to understand myself and hopefully get free. When I was about um, I don't know, something like four and a half or five years sober, and and mind you, in so many ways I had been what I think of now as bobbing on the bottom uh uh with depression, with self-loathing, with an inability to somehow um find solid ground to stand on. Um I had run out of money and I couldn't get the next project going. And um I had started working temp jobs, and at one of those jobs they offered me a full time position.

And, you know, everyone in AA said, you have to take it, you have to take it, you have to survive. So I took It and I felt so humiliated and so certain my life was over, and that somehow the rest of my life was going to be about accepting getting less than I wanted, not getting what I wanted. And uh so I took this job. And while I was working there, I thought I have to um find something to do.

If if my first career, which was writing, if writing wasn't going to work out, I had to find something else to do. And I thought about becoming a therapist. And I went to um, I decided to go back to school, which meant finishing my undergraduate degree, which I had never done in you know, typical fashion. I thought I would take psychology classes, and I went to the first couple of classes, and they were they really weren't what I was looking for.

It was very lab and statistical uh heavy, and that's not my thing. So I went to the bookstore to see what books other departments were using, and the most interesting books were in the religious studies department, and you know, it was history, philosophy, art, you name it, it was in religious studies. And I thought, how in the world can I go to a dinner party and tell people I'm a religious studies major? I mean, no way.

But of course, it is what made sense. So I became a religious studies major. I took two classes at night a semester, and as I say, I thought I was on my way to being a therapist, but um something else intervened, and I realized that what I wanted, well, actually, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I was uh reading the newspaper one morning, and there was a photograph of Bishop Tutu and Alan Bosick leading a march in South Africa, and I looked at it and I suddenly thought to myself, that's moral power in social action.

Don't ask me where I got that phrase, but that's what came to me. Moral power in social action. And I thought, I could study that. I think that's ethics, and I think I could study that in graduate school.

So I went to speak to people, you know, at school, and they said I could get into graduate school, and I went off to study, I thought ethics, but it turned out to be the study of consciousness. And that decision to go to graduate school and study that was the first time in my life. And by this time I was in my 40s. I must, I must have been about 45 or 46.

So, you know, for anyone listening who thinks their life is over at 30, I'm here to say that that is absolutely not true, because that decision that didn't come until my 40s was the first time in my life I did not feel ambivalent about what my choice was. It as it felt as if some magic coat had descended, and I stepped right into it, and it was absolutely the right fit for me. And in fact, it turned out to be the right fit for me. And, you know, over the years, that has led to a whole series of um very interesting, sometimes I think too interesting things.

But I want to say that when I was working at that job that I took with such a sense of humiliation, I came across a book. Um it was written by a Dutch woman. It's called An Interrupted Life, and it's written by a Dutch woman, and it's her journal in the year after the Nazis marched into Amsterdam, and it goes from um, I'm terrified, somebody has to come save us. I don't know what to do.

It moves from that over the course of a year to her saying, no matter what they do to us, there's always room for praying hands. In other words, she had had a spiritual awakening, and she had discovered that the refuge is inside, that no matter what is happening, she had the capacity to find a sense of peace, to find courage, to find hope inside, and that no one could take that away from her. And as I was reading this book over the course of you know four or five days, I suddenly understood that the principles in the steps, the principles we try to live by are not mind games, they're not rationalizations. I think some part of me had thought um I can pretend in some way to be absorbing these things, but I know secretly that they're they're just mind games, and they're not going to lead me any place I want to go.

But reading this book, I saw the real power in the world of these ideas, things like surrender and powerlessness, and what is my part in it, and being of service. I understood in a way I hadn't understood before that what is so important is the real effect that these principles have. And again, you can't sit in an AA meeting and not see the real effect that these have, because this is what we talk about. We talk about how we change and how we get freer and freer and freer, despite you know, the most awful things happening, which they do in life, and there's nothing we can do about that, but we can do everything about changing our attitude towards what is happening, and that began for me.

As I say, I must have been maybe five years sober. That began for me a real attempt to see everything in my life in the context of the steps, and you know, something would put me in turmoil, and I would think, well, is there a spiritual principle here that will help me? Am I powerless? Is it a lack of faith?

Do I need to let go of something? Do I need to make amends? Do I need to take responsibility in some way I haven't? Do I need to pray and meditate?

Do I need to help someone else? You know, these I began to look at everything in the context of the steps. And it's been a slow, slow process. It's one of those sort of ironies of life that insight has to be gained over and over and over again.

You know, even now things happen and I realize that I am being driven by some old idea. And all I can do is be grateful that I have in fact seen it. I I think you can tell that, well, here I am. I'm 83, I'm almost 45 years sober, and I have never been more attached or more appreciative to Alcoholics Anonymous than I am now.

Because what it's given me, and it gives me every day, a way to understand and process my day in a way that leads me more and more towards freedom. You know, I think of gratitude as the aristocrat of emotions. I've always I I somehow imagine when I'm feeling grateful, you know, pulling ribbons out of colorful ribbons out of my chest in some way. It feels so expansive and so connected to the world beyond my own ego.

And I I feel that every day I feel that, more or less every day. But there's never a time when I forget that I am an alcoholic, and Alcoholics Anonymous has given me the way to get freer and freer from all the things that have blocked me. I just can't imagine how I got so lucky. You know, we say in the literature that in exchange for a bottle and a hangover, we've been given the keys to the kingdom.

I certainly feel that. And I I am so grateful to be an alcoholic. Thank you. SPEAKER_00 33:33 Thank you, Sherry.

I was gonna ask you if you were a writer, but you confirmed you are in fact an artist of words. Very beautiful. SPEAKER_01 33:47 Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 33:52 Oh, okay. So you came into the rooms as an atheist. Yes. And I didn't do the math, but you were approximately 38.

38. 38. Okay. Did you have children?

SPEAKER_01 34:11 No. Um, I had been married twice and divorced twice, um, but had not had children, and I didn't regret that until it was too late. That's hard. Yeah, yeah.

And you know, there was a a period where it was very painful. Um, but again, you know, there's there no matter what happens, we shall not regret the past. And um even though there are so many things I wish had been different, and I wish I could change, the fact that I can't has so clearly led me to where I am right now, and that's the thing that I focus on. SPEAKER_00 35:05 And right now you are 83 years old, I'm sure, retired.

But as a writer, you might have side writing things that you do. SPEAKER_01 35:17 Well, part of what my particular problem was was that I could not do it consistently. I for some reason, and even it's you know, some of this I still don't understand. I didn't have the sense I couldn't commit to a career.

Um, I wrote magazine articles, I wrote um two children's books, and then I started writing movies and TV. But I never fully committed to that. Some part of me was always thinking, is this really what I want to do? I'm not sure this is what I really want to do.

And it wasn't until many years later that I saw that I couldn't commit to anything. If I had decided to be a lawyer, I wouldn't have been able to commit to that. You know, that the problem was that I couldn't commit. And I had something I called my emotional anorexia.

I had this image of that I was a seed among many seeds, you know, strewn out on a field. And uh, everybody is growing where they are, except me, who's saying, well, maybe the sun is better over there, or maybe the water is better over there. And at some point I look around and everybody else is thriving because they've established roots, and I'm shriveling because I haven't established roots. And even now I could not tell you why I was like that.

What it was, you know, there's some obvious things that are fearsome about um commitment, but that was definitely one of my biggest problems. And I don't know that I've solved it really. You know, old age and lack of energy has made it, it's not likely I'm going to write another book or anything, or even try. But um somehow or other that seems to be fine.

So, you know, I've done what I've done, and I was haunted for a very long time by my inability to make good on so many opportunities that I had. And when I say haunted, I really mean haunted, um raw feeling in the throat, and just haunted. And at some point, and of course I could say, well, you did the best you could, and but at some point I really understood that I did do the best I could with the very fractured information that I had. And I forgave myself on a level I hadn't been able to reach before.

And I simply let go of all that regret about the past. Some of that is undoubtedly a function of age, you know. It's one of the gifts of age that somehow those kinds of worldly ambitions just they fall away. SPEAKER_00 39:02 So you did not have a career as a writer?

I had a career that limped along. SPEAKER_01 39:12 Okay. And then when I went to graduate school, I assumed I was going to be a professor and write about, you know, whatever my subject was. And somehow or other, I guess uh while I was waiting um between the end of classes and graduation, I started a novel, and that novel sold.

And I thought, oh, well, this means I'm supposed to be a novelist. And I tried very hard to get a second one going, and I couldn't. And my editor really wanted another one, and I I submitted about four different detailed proposals for four different books, and he didn't like any of them. And every time he said no, I went lower and lower and lower.

And I would say for years I was it became obvious to him and to me that it wasn't going to happen. And once that was obvious, I the depth of my devastation, it was huge, huge, huge. And it really took me years to recover. And because of that, I had run out of money, and out of desperation, I started selling um antiques and collectibles, which I knew something about, and that eventually led me into the ephemeral world, paper, you know, items made of paper.

And that's what I've been doing for the last many years is um selling uh vintage paper uh and photographs, and only writing from time to time. I had a little blog for a while, and I've been trying to get a couple of other things going only in the past couple of months, and so maybe there'll be some little essays. Um but that's where life took me. And again, you know, I I couldn't tell people that I was doing this other thing because it meant I was a failure as a writer, and my identity had been tied completely to being a writer, and I couldn't make it happen in any kind of consistent ascending way, you know.

People they do one job and everybody likes it, so they do another. Somehow people's expectations felt like such a burden to me because I was so convinced I could not deliver. Why I was so convinced, I you know there are many reasons, you know, childhood, etc., etc. Why I couldn't seem to break through that feeling.

I don't know why, but that's just what I that's how it was for me. And as I say, you know, at a certain point it all becomes grist for this mill. You know, it becomes it becomes a story, this is what I have to share. And I I can see objectively, I have not had an easy time of it, but it's led me exactly where I want to go, and that is towards freedom, towards hope, towards feeling connected and at home in the world.

SPEAKER_00 43:32 You studied the your graduate degree was in the study of consciousness. Did that impact your career path in any way? SPEAKER_01 43:48 Well, in a way it's become everything because the ideas that I first encountered there have remained of interest. In fact, they're the only thing I'm interested in, really.

And I've just gone deeper and deeper. I highly recommend to anyone William James Varieties of Religious Experience. It's the book that started everything for me. You know, it's written not quite in the Victorian style.

It's more modern, but to our ears, it isn't the easiest. But once you catch his voice, um it's just it's phenomenal. And, you know, he was all about it, doesn't matter what you believe in. What matters is the effect that your belief has.

And and that seems like the truth to me. SPEAKER_00 44:56 You talked about that, actually. You talked about the principles and the steps not being just mind games, but having this real effect on our lives. And what is that real effect?

You talked about the bus accident and the woman, you know, kind of one can say making up a story to make herself feel better, but that is just a very generic way of the power that these principles can have on our life. Yes. SPEAKER_01 45:38 And again, I think that one of the reasons so many of us keep coming back is to hear that over and over again. You know, to hear the way in which other people have found that it works, that these principles have real effect.

Um just over and over again, to see that someone trying to understand their experience, for instance, in the light of surrender or the need to surrender, and to see the light bulb go on and suddenly feel very different about things. Uh to see someone who says, I'll never forgive that person for what they did, watching them come to the point where they want to forgive that person because they want to be free. To see things like that over and over again, it's um if you're having a bad day, that gives you some hope for going on. SPEAKER_00 47:00 Yeah, when you talk about that, that reminds me of the piece of your story where you discussed these real experiences that we have when we keep coming back.

So you had the experience of staring at your ceiling and saying the psalm, that particular psalm over and over again. You talked about it being a slow process, and that you came to this realization that there are no fatal errors. And the longer we come back, the more understanding we have of ourselves and our character defects. And I like really what you said on top of all of that was really the goal is to dig deeper to a another layer of freedom.

SPEAKER_01 47:52 Exactly. Exactly, and the astonishing thing is how that keeps happening. You know, you would think, I don't know, past the age of 70 or whatever. I mean, you would think at some point there isn't much more to learn, but it turns out there is.

And isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful that it keeps us interested, it keeps us feeling alive. You know, there's never I mean, boredom, it's hard to be bored when you're so in touch with the process that you're living out, you know, and isn't that wonderful? Yeah.

You know, I I know I'm gonna go to my grave with certain issues that have always been there. They've been there since childhood. I'm sure they're gonna present themselves, you know, until the moment it's all over. But my attitude towards them is so different, they no longer run me.

Um and each time I've seen them and understood them on a deeper and deeper level, it just propels me forward. And I can see now that that's a process that never, never ends until we take our last breath. And to have that sense that your life has a purpose and a meaning beyond this just the simple events of that life, to have that sense, what could be better? What could be better?

SPEAKER_00 49:51 Are some of those issues or character defects that you've challenged with that have that continuously crop up? Is one of them your self-loathing that you experienced and depression? Are are these two that you well amazingly? SPEAKER_01 50:12 When I was about 75, my depression lifted.

Um, I don't know why. I mean, I could point to some possible reasons, but it could also be hormonal and chemical. I I just don't know why, but I am intensely grateful. That is the self-loathing, it presents itself now as well, just general insecurity, I suppose you could say.

Walking into a room full of strangers and feeling somewhat nervous. Um, you know, that's a minor thing. I know everybody feels it, but that kind of thing is um I'm as I'm as I'm saying this, I'm trying to think if there aren't other examples that have more to do with it. I but I certainly can tell you that I dealt with it, I have dealt with it over and over and over again.

Um but that kind of um wanting to self-destruct, you know, so much of my alcoholism was about wanting to get out from under the burden of living a life. I couldn't have articulated it that way, but that that's what it was. I just wanted out. Oblivion was my drug of choice, you know.

I just wanted out. That disappeared a long time ago. I d I can't say exactly when, but what replaced it, the reason it did go, was because hope started to replace that. Once you understand, this was true for me, once I understood that all the negative thinking in my head was the voice of my alcoholism, and that's what I came to call it.

I had been in therapy, I understood a lot about myself that was certainly true, is certainly true, but it wasn't until I began to call all of that self-loathing and sense of doom. It wasn't until I began to call that the voice of my alcoholism that I became able to make some progress with it. Because the steps are laid out, the steps toward that progress are laid out, and I've come to think of the steps as a ladder that I can use to climb over my ego, to climb over all the noise in my head. That's so good.

Well, you know, this is what my higher perspective is. My higher power is the higher perspective that comes from the steps, from the spiritual principles in that way. And the insight that all of that negativity was simply a projection of an injured ego, you know, an ego that thought it was loveless and doomed to despair. Once I understood that those were only thoughts going through my head, they had no reality beyond that, then I began to make progress.

And as I say, for me, it helped to call it my alcoholism. SPEAKER_00 54:31 Well, I'm just dying to end our recording so I can get my hands on some of your writing because I love the way you use the 26 colors of the alphabet. It's just beautiful. SPEAKER_01 54:48 Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 54:49 Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Um really just beautiful. The the visuals, the the ability to draw a picture while you're telling this bigger, broader, more wide and deep, both breadth and depth of storytelling, you're drawing these really nuanced images that will stay with me forever.

Yeah. SPEAKER_01 55:23 That's wonderful. That's wonderful. SPEAKER_00 55:25 Thank you.

Thank you. I'm gonna see you. I'm gonna ask a couple more questions. Um, okay.

So what does a program, what does your program look like? I mean, 40 almost 45 years, you're coming up on 45 years. What does that look like for an elderly 83-year-old? SPEAKER_01 55:46 Um, well, let's see, I go to one live meeting a week, a women's meeting.

I'd like to add another live meeting, but I haven't really found one yet to connect with. Um, I go to a Sunday Zoom meeting, also women, all of whom are related through sponsorship, and that's a really wonderful meeting. Um I am at the moment, I officially sponsor only one person, but I am also taking another woman through the steps, which was not something we did when I got sober. You know, sponsors or other people didn't take you through the steps where two people get together, read the step, and talk about it.

Um, so this is a treat for me as well, because it's something I've never done. And then, you know, I have a wide circle of women and and others, but primarily women that I talk to, women on the program. But the other thing that's happened in this advanced old age is that somehow I'm more connected to people in general. There are more people in my life than there have ever been.

And you can imagine how grateful I am for that. It seems miraculous, really. Um, but I think in part it's because I have opened to all of it. You know, I'm no longer worried about anything really, except, you know, every day something new on the physical level.

Yeah. But aside from that, but um, so that's what my program looks like. But as I say, I don't think I've ever been, well, I was initially in the first couple of years as in love with AA as I am right now and as appreciative for what I what I have found here. SPEAKER_00 58:02 Oh, when you say appreciative, that reminds me of the ribbons of the rainbow coming out of your chest in gratitude.

I mean, come on. SPEAKER_01 58:11 I know I I see myself like a drum major, you know, just marching along, pulling these ribbons out of my chest, and that's what gratitude feels like. It's just it's so expansive, and anything that is expansive is really good in my book, I have to say. SPEAKER_00 58:43 Okay, we're gonna pause for a minute.

I am going to ask you to take a deep breath and see if there's anything that you left out of your story or that comes to the surface that you would like to share. SPEAKER_01 59:01 Well, it happens there's a copy of As Bill Sees It on my bed right now, and I'm staring right at it. And it makes me want to say how grateful I am for the people who have come before me. Um, starting with Bill, but you know, right through the people that I've known in Alcoholics Anonymous who were there when I first got sober, and and some of whom have walked the road with me all of this time.

I remember in those first couple of years, I was at a big book meeting, and somebody said, This is God-given. And, you know, there I was, and I said, I had to raise my hand and say, It's not God-given. This is what human beings are capable of. This is this kind of, you know, you know, you read the 12 traditions, and at every step of the way they chose tolerance and generosity and an open hand.

And that is so inspiring for me, that somehow or other ordinary people came together and time after time after time made the most productive, the most open-hearted choice. And I can't say thank you enough for that. SPEAKER_00 1:00:51 What do you have to say to that little girl who raised her hand and clarified? SPEAKER_01 1:00:57 Oh, forget it.

So what? It doesn't matter what people believe. SPEAKER_00 1:01:08 Good stuff. Good stuff.

Yeah. All right. Well, we've come to the final question for the listener who is suffering on their journey currently. What message do you want to leave them with?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27 You know, in so many ways, what comes, of course, are the cliches like keep coming back, more will be revealed. But the reason that they're cliches is because they they are true. And that if you keep trying to find the way through, if you keep trying to find the idea that will help you, if you keep trying to have some faith, even when you don't have faith, and even when you're not willing, if you try to be willing, the answers will come. I know this out of my own experience, and I know it out of the experience of so many other people.

Our program works, and there's hope for everyone. SPEAKER_00 1:02:30 For more information, read the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcomingback.net.