Judy F.,

I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA -- the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance -- urges quite appropriate to age seventeen -- prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age fortyseven or fifty-seven.

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result is so easy, happy, and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem. It's a problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew the right principles in all our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away peace and joy, we may still elude, it may still elude us. That's a place so many of us AA oldsters have come to, and it's a hell of a spot, literally. Last autumn, depression, having no real rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long, chronic spell.

Considering the grief I had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect. I kept asking myself, why can't the 12 steps work to release depression? By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis prayer, it is better to comfort than be comforted.

Here was a formula, all right, but why didn't it work? Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them.

And when defeat came, so did my depression. There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever.

Then only I could be free to love as Francis had. Emotional and institutional satisfactions I saw were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing a love appropriate to each relation of life. Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to him by loving others as he would love me. And I couldn't possibly do that as long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependency meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me. This seems to be the primary healing circuit, an outgoing love of God's creation and his people by means of which we avail ourselves of his love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken and broken at death. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult-like love really is.

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love. We may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea, only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes at death. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity, or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine. I kept reading this letter over and over and over again, wondering where I was on the spectrum, if you would, of emotional sobriety.

Depends on what day of the week it is, still. But it also depends on the maintenance of my spiritual condition, as it talks about in the big book about Alcoholics Anonymous. But where I went with it, when I kept going back to the big book, I kept going to the 12 and 12, I kept going back to this letter, was I kept thinking about Bill W. himself, and how much sobriety he had when he wrote the big book.

He didn't really have a lot of sobriety, maybe three or four years, something like that. The big book was published in, it was released on April 10th of 1939, and Bill got sober in 1935. So I'm wondering, because he wrote a lot in the big book, I'm sure other people had a lot of input, then I thought about trying to pass the big book amongst a bunch of drunks. I likened it to a business meeting I once attended that took us hours to decide what kind of coffee we were going to have.

That's where our emotional maturity goes, because of the fact that everybody in that room, if we were trying to vote on what kind of coffee to have here, everybody would have an opinion. And so hence the big book was written. But I look at the big book today, and I still go to big book studies, but I look at the big book as that book that tells me what my disease is really all about. Tells me about alcoholism.

It starts with the doctor's opinion, who worked with thousands of alcoholics, trying to find a way to help them to get sober and stay sober. And then the rest of the book, we look at chapter three and chapter two, the agnostics. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I believe that what Bill was talking about in that book was what he was trying to get at least me to see was my behavior and who I really was. I love the fact that in chapter three, look at some of the references he makes to our immaturity in the big book.

And in chapter three, more about alcoholism, our behavior is said to be absurd and incomprehensible. When comparing us to the jaywalker, we are said to be crazy or strangely insane. So I believe that what Bill was trying to tell me was you are not a normal person. In the chapter to the agnostics, it talks about we are handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.

And then in How It Works, he talks about us being actors. We're self-centered, we're egocentric, we're selfish, and we're very self-delusional. In step four, it tells us if we refer back to this list that we've all made, if we take step four, it holds the key to our future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle.

And hence, to me, that's Bill referring, starting to refer to that it's in this list that I'm going to find out about my own emotional immaturity, if you would. And one last reference is in the chapter Into Action, we are referred to as a tornado. Not like a little sprinkle of rain, but as a tornado. It's roaring its way through the lives of others.

What I believe he was trying to do was to get us to see where at least my alcoholism took me. What it did not just to me, but the people around me, the people that I affected. And then Bill wrote The Twelve and Twelve, which was published in 1953. So now he's sober more.

And its purpose was to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Twelve Steps as first written in the Big Book. And I found so much on this. When I get started, it takes me in a lot of different avenues. So, in The Twelve and Twelve, it says in Step Two, we are all-time losers.

It refers to psychiatrists who call us defiant. As practicing alcoholics, we are irrational. In Step Four in The Twelve and Twelve, it says the most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and depression. Step Seven is trying to talk to us now about that true humility, which is the beginning of emotional sobriety.

At least, that's how I look at it. As I've gone through the steps in The Twelve and Twelve, it takes me in a different depth of taking the steps, what each step is really about. And then in Step Twelve, at the bottom of page 122 to 123, it's referring to well-matured AAs. We were more accepting of the psychologist's conclusion that we were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose.

So, then again on page 116 in Step Twelve, it discusses feeling emotionally secure. Now, this is positive for me because I've taken the steps. Feeling emotionally secure among grown-ups. Can you imagine that?

I mean, like, eventually I was able to go out in the world and play like a grown-up. I was able to have a career. I was able to, most of the time, not all the time, because it's still not true in my life today, get along with people. You know, sometimes I take the worst of me out there.

So, when we develop still more, we discover the best possible source of emotional stability to be God himself. In The Twelve and Twelve, it talks a lot about God's grace. I think Bill was really more into that spiritual realm, if you would, when he wrote The Twelve and Twelve, than he was when he wrote the big book. So, Bill brings the need for emotional sobriety also into the traditions, as well as he discusses the need for obedience and conforming to spiritual principles.

Throughout The Twelve and Twelve, he talks about this obedience. You know, oh my God. I'm going to tell you that one of the first things that I was told, because in the big book it talks about us, that we are undisciplined people. And we're undisciplined people, and that we have to allow God to help discipline us.

So, my sponsor, when I first got sober, said, I want you to start making your bed every morning. That was my first discipline. That was my only discipline. And I still make my bed to this day.

So, in the end, we once struggled and prayed for our own individual recovery. And we now commence to quest. What a word, quest. For the principles through which A.A. itself has survived. In order for A. A. to survive, then I survive. And that's in what I do in carrying the message. And most of my emotional sobriety for me, in learning that there is a place in A. A. for everybody. You've got to find your niche. You've got to find what you enjoy. I am not a circuit speaker, but I'll tell you my joy is in general service work.

It is in general service work. I have just found some sort of peace in finding a home there. And so, you know, if anybody is new, just keep coming back. I mean, I didn't get this well overnight.

I still struggle, struggle, struggle. And my friends will all know that. And so, I believe that the most important thing I did today was I made my bed. I sat through prayer and meditation.

I've been to a meeting already. And I had a peaceful drive coming out to Ports Hill. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you.

Craig R.:

I'm Craig and I'm an alcoholic. Craig, we're going to grab some chairs and we'll let them talk. Okay. If only we could extend the time.

Very cool. Yeah, that's great. Is it just breaking down into subsections to discuss? The idea, I think, that was floated was that we would split into four groups.

That's what I thought. Yeah. It's going to be a challenge with this many people. I'm not sure if that's still the best move.

All right. Next, we have Craig, also from students. I just want to thank you, Judy. I mean, I feel like I'm like, she's all this work and put all this together and printed stuff and all that.

I'm going to lose her. I have just come off. I think I should have probably studied up on something. Oh, my God.

But I just found out this emotional surprise, a hot topic. I have a feeling that, you know, we all suffer from from from emotions. You know, we they run away with us and they control us. They make us say things we don't want to say and do things we don't want to do.

And like, how do you control of that? You know, and I you know, it's the line in the book where it talks about we suffer from a hundred different forms of fear. You know, I look back when I when I was using it's like I was driven by that. Everything everything was was fear related.

I didn't. And because it's a hundred different forms of fear. I couldn't put my finger on any of it. But I did.

I did find the solution. Oh, yeah. Jack Daniels, baby. So you come to Alcoholics Anonymous and you can't bring Jack with you.

What do you do? You know, now I'm sitting in fear in a meeting and it's getting bad. You know, that's why you got it. And you got to suffer a little bit to get here.

You got to have to suffer a little bit when you're new because you got to work through some of those things. And how do you work through the some of those things? Well, what happened to me is the fellowship. The fellowship somehow pulled some of that fear away from me.

And it was in the greeting. And it was in the pat on the back, keep coming back. And it was like, hey, go to coffee with us. And all of a sudden, in that a feeling of acceptance that I felt in Alcoholics Anonymous made me lose some of that fear because part of that fear was that I'm worthless, that I'm not worth anything.

I'm nobody. You know, I'm lonely. People don't really like me. If they really knew me, they certainly wouldn't like me.

But yet here's these people bringing me in and wrapping their arms around me and taking that fear away. And I go on and now all of a sudden I have a second chance at life. Like where do you get a second chance at life? Not at the pawn shop.

But I'm going to tell you, you get it in Alcoholics Anonymous. What a gift. What a gift that we presented to. And it's so interesting that Bill's still touching us through his writings.

You know, he brought, it was a touch of the master's hand to Bill to present this gift to all of alcoholics. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't get it. And that's sad because, you know, I go to a meeting and I bring somebody with me and I go, oh, my gosh, this is the most magnificent. This is one of the guys you could listen to and you'd walk away from him and you'd go, what a magnificent meeting.

And you bring somebody with you and they go, I didn't get it. Like how do you miss that? And then they go off into that world of alcoholism and you never see them again. It's a shame.

We're the lucky ones. So here I am now. I have this second chance on life and I'm going to make something out of it. Yeah.

Because I got the tools now. Yeah, I'm going to make something out of it. And it's interesting, too, because newcomers, it's really important to understand this. You come in here, let us love on you.

You don't need to give anything back right now. Just let us take care of you. It's okay. But let me tell you something.

You know, when I first got sober, they called us babies. I love that, you know. So picture yourself as a baby. We're going to spoon feed you and take care of you, and then we're going to kick your ass out of the crib.

Yeah, go do it. Because we're teaching you. We're teaching you how to teach somebody else. And that's going to bring purpose into your life, man.

And you're going to really find who you really are in this program. Because if you don't drink, you have to look at yourself. It's like you don't drink, and you make all the excuses, and you blame people, places, and things for why, where you're at, and why this happened. And then somewhere, if you don't drink, you've got to come to the conclusion, oh, my God, it's me.

And then what do you do with it? And that's where I was at. You know, I come in here, and I'm viewing life horizontally. I get sober, and I didn't realize that I got the grace of God to get sober, not to take care of my own desires, my own wants, my own needs, to grab for the gusto.

You know, and I'm living life to, I'm going to build this beautiful life. And I do the work. I help people. I go to meetings.

I clean the coffee cups. And, of course, I had to clean the cigarette. You had to do it too. We smoked in AA, by the way, one time.

But yet there was something off. I was angry at nothing. And I would, it's like, why? What's going on with me?

I'm doing all these things. I shouldn't be feeling this way. But I'm looking at life horizontally. And this is an amazing line in the book where it talks about, you know, if I could live, and I've got to try to live this moral life, and I'm trying to live this moral life, you know, but I keep telling these little white lies.

I used to say, you know, I never lied, only two times, when I thought I was going to get something I wanted or I thought I was going to lose something I had. So, but what's happening is, like, all of a sudden I'm like, there's this power that's available to me. And it's like, yes, I had this, I believed in God. And I had this thing where, well, it's mostly a celestial butler, because what I would do is, like, I'd turn to him.

When I get into trouble because I was an emotional wreck, you know, nobody likes me anymore, God help me. So, it's like this. It's like this. When I'm out there, I was looking down.

My visions were down. When I come to AA, it came up like this. And I'm looking, and it's better than looking down, horizontal is better than looking down, because you're trying to do something with your life, but I'm failing. Not on the outside, on the inside.

And that's the emotional thing that I couldn't deal with people. How do I get rid of that? You know, I had to start looking horizontally. And that thing in the book I was going to tell you that line about, and I'm paraphrasing this, that if we could live this moral life, if we could have these standards that we could live up to, if we had the right philosophy about how to live, we would have got sober a long time ago.

But we absolutely could not. With all the earnestness, we still couldn't do it. We couldn't muster up the strength to do that. Why?

I always thought it was alcohol. But no, lack of power was my dilemma. And that's alcohol. No, it's God.

I've got to get that power from him. Again, I don't have the power to be good. That's right. Sit that for a minute.

I don't have the power to save myself. I need help. And it's so hard to say that. It was so easy when I was sitting in jail, right, facing going to prison, yeah, and cry out for help, yeah, baby.

But come day A and now I'm sober, and all of a sudden I don't want to ask anybody for help because, oh, no. You know, I didn't take my year cake because I was suicidal. I was so depressed. I was so ashamed of who I was and what was going on with me.

I wasn't the good AA, right, and then until I heard somebody being transparent enough and talking about what I was feeling, you know, and then I was able to go to him and ask for help and unwind that craziness in my head. So now to know that I'm never going to be able to get out of that mess that I'm in and start looking at my life horizontally, what does that look like? You know, what would my life look like if I really tried to be the highest? What's the highest form that I could possibly be as a good human being?

And that's to look up, and that's to look at something higher than me, and then somehow I got this idea that, you know what, maybe that God they talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous, the one, not all the different gods, there's one who has all that power, because I used to go to some of these other gods that I had for maybe meeting a girl or whatever. I went to that one that I didn't want to go to because why? Because he has a standard, because he has some way you have to live, some ideas about that I didn't want to hear, but it's the most beautiful thing because it's a mirror, and I was able to see where I really was in life, and I was able to. So now in my life it's just the simplicity of that.

And I missed it in the book when it says stay close to him, do his work well. What's his work, right? What's his work? Just try to reach out to somebody and pat them on the back, hey, have a good day, you know.

Just a simple little thing of looking at somebody's name tag at the store and addressing them by his name. God just wants us to take care of his children. That's his work. So that's not that difficult.

And then if I do that, and, of course, we have a higher calling in Alcoholics Anonymous because we also have to reach out to other alcoholics. And the power you have in your story, the power you have in your story will change people's lives. You count for something. Your story used to be dead, now you're alive.

And when people see that and hear that, they identify with that. That's why everybody's here. That's why we built this amazing foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous. That simple principle, one drunk working with another drunk.

So my whole thing is I just stay close to him, and all of a sudden everything changes. I see people differently. I see them as God's kids. I don't get as angry at them.

Boy, I tell you, when I do, whoo! But it's good to have that above me. It's good to have that idea that something's watching over me. I need that in my life because I'm a liar and a cheat and all those things.

I've got to have something that's going to show me which way direction to go. And it's difficult sometimes because I don't know why I battle that. It's because the self, it rears its ugly head. And it just gets it.

You know, the obsession of us leaves. You know, we're basically cured from the ism. The ism is still in me, and it doesn't want to let go. And it needs the fuel to take over me.

But it doesn't got an arm to reach for the bottle. So what it's got to do is it's got to convince me to reach for the bottle so it can take control of my life. That ism, it wants me. So it drives and kills me.

Lies, it lies to me. Those people don't really care about you. That guy said bad things about you. That guy doesn't know how to drive, and he's always in front of you.

And it tries to get me restless, irritable, and discontent because when I'm that thing, this is the solution. Got my two-minute warning? All right, you know, I'll tell you what. You can get a lot of basketball or football done in two minutes.

I ain't going to have enough time. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is I judge my life this way. How right am I with the master? When I'm right with him, I'm right with the world.

And it's an amazing thing because I just kept always trying to get the world right with me. And what a pain in the ass that is. Now, the question. I never thought of this, and all of a sudden this question came to me because it was always what I wanted from God.

And one day this question came into my mind, what does God expect of me? And, man, it crushed me. It crushed me because I knew I was sober because of that. It's his grace.

And I always believe and I always say Alcoholics Anonymous is drenched in grace, you know. And that's what I was saying to the newcomer, you know, that what you're experiencing is you're really, through us, you're experiencing the grace of God because we're sober because of the grace of God and that's what we transmit to each other. And when you commit yourself to this program, you concede to your innermost self and you go, you know what? I'm going to do this deal.

I'm going to put everything into it. Watch what happens. People will come beside you and be instruments of God's grace and miracles will happen. And I'm going to end with this.

It's talking about miracles. There's so much more I wanted to say, but I don't have enough time. But I love this. You know, if you want to see planes, you go to an airport.

If you want to see trains, you go to a train station. If you want to see boats, you go to the harbor. If you want to see miracles, you come to the Grange. God bless.

And I have alcoholism and I will be alcoholic and have alcoholism whether I take a drink or I don't. And I'm having an out-of-body experience right now a little bit. So you want to talk about emotions. I've got an odd mixture of feeling at home and right where I'm supposed to be and also like I'm about to jump out of an airplane.

But the parachute is God, right? And I don't get to do things like this very often. I've never done a workshop before. I love the focus of it and, you know, what it's about.

Dee F.:

And welcome to all the new people. Alcoholics Anonymous is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And I mean that. I don't think I'd be here.

I know I wouldn't. I wouldn't be here. And to be able to even grasp onto ideas that, A, that I could stop drinking, and, B, learn how to live without drinking, to want to live that way and have some kind of peace inside, some peace inside and to be useful in some kind of way. Not up to me how I get to be useful, but any of those things.

And, you know, there were a lot of new people here, and I think that this is probably good for anybody, no matter what phase of your development, no matter what step you're at, because I can go back and look at my first step and look at the unmanageability of my life. And it wasn't the external stuff so much. And there was external unmanageability in my life. It was the internal stuff.

And my emotional life was unmanageable, absolutely unmanageable. What was going on inside, the emotions that I had, the guilt and the shame and the remorse, could just take my breath away in a sober moment. It would just swallow me up. And I don't ever want to lose touch with that.

And that was based on the way that I was living my life with untreated alcoholism. I have two children. I didn't raise either one of them. I was an unfit mother.

And there's a whole other ball of wax of emotions that go along with something like that. And, you know, when Judy was reading this, and I had tried to prepare, I guess, in being mature, trying to be mature and all of those things. I'm not a teacher. That's not what I'm here for.

I'm not here to entertain anybody, and I'm not here to make anybody believe anything about me that isn't true. You know, that I'm just a garden-variety alcoholic that's having an experience one day at a time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's really it. And sometimes it looks good, and sometimes it looks really bad.

But through all of that, you know, I've managed to be able to, you know, with God and the fellowship and, you know, this way of life to be able to navigate some really difficult things. And I know the first three years of my recovery, I spent so much time just trying to look good, you know, and how exhausting that is. So if you're new, we don't get perfect around here, you know. And I didn't know any better.

I mean, some of that was there was some kind of pride going on of, like, oh, my God, I'm not a despicable puddle on the floor that people are just going to walk over. Like, I'm trying to become a lady, and I have become a lady, you know, and I was not. And so there was some good kind of pride going on, you know, with that. But any of us can take a good thing of getting a pat on the back and turn it into something else that's not very useful.

But God uses all of it, uses every bit of it, you know. And I've had things in my recovery that, you know, I thought, man, you know, I guess we all imagine, you know, oh, if this happens or if that happens, there's no way I could stay sober, you know. And I've walked through some things. I've seen people walk through far worse.

So I want to be careful with that. But we all have our own measuring sticks, and, you know, whether we should compare or not compare, we do compare with other people's experiences. And, you know, I had a succession of deaths. My sobriety date is June 8, 2017.

And somewhere in 2019, my late ex-husband committed suicide, and it was just nine months after our divorce was final, and it was a 17-year marriage and extremely toxic and unhealthy, and there was a whole bunch of stuff that came along with that. And then shortly after that, my son's father committed suicide, and then my sister-in-law died. One of the ladies that I had been sponsoring died. It was just all of these deaths.

My birth father had died. My biological father died. And then after that, my stepfather had died, and I feel like I'm actually forgetting something in there. It was just all of this grief, you know, which is an emotion.

You know, there's so many emotions, and I got to navigate that, not very elegantly, but I got to do it sober. And because of, you know, the program that I've been given and being able to, you know, do an inventory, the self-examination, and be able to look at myself on a regular basis and have people help look at me, help me hold a mirror up so that I can see myself because I can't do it all on my own. Anyway, you know, I always like to talk about the struggles and, you know, what the difficulties are rather than, you know, how great it is. You know, because there's always someone suffering in the rooms, and, you know, this is where the suffering come.

The sick, suffering, and dying come here. I don't think they come here to hear how great it is. I think the sick, suffering, and dying come here to relate to other sick, suffering, and dying and to know that me too, I have felt that way. I have been those things.

And, you know, I don't know. To survey my own emotional sobriety, you would have to ask Joe. Joe lives with me. Joe lives with me.

You would have to ask the people from my home group. You know, they're with me on a regular basis. And, you know, I've got rough edges, you know. The rough edges are, you know, is my ego and stuff like that.

And we don't get perfect around here. You know, and I learned in Step 6 and Step 7 that there's objectives. You know, there's reasons why that we do these things, and it's to be useful. You know, is the objective in, you know, achieving some kind of emotional sobriety?

Is it my self-determined objective so I look good? Look how well I am. You know, look how balanced I am. Or is it the perfect objective of God, you know, which I think in some kind of maturity it is to become useful.

Oh, my goodness, to be useful to another person. And, you know, with just seven years of sobriety right now, my usefulness mostly shows up on our campus, you know, being uniquely qualified to help another alcoholic. I love the women in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's nothing that surprises me.

And, you know, I'm just so grateful. And I did make notes just in case I would get a little, you know, what do you call it, human? I get off track or something like that. And I also, from the time that, thank you, Vanessa, and thank you District 7 for doing this, you know, I like to journal.

I don't do it necessarily consistently but I do journal and I've done some journaling and looking at things, especially with this coming up. And it's been, if it's not good for you guys, it's been great for me. And that's the kind of stuff that I've been able, that I can transmit, especially, you know, with the ladies that I sponsor and being able to help and guide them to look at themselves, you know, because you can't help somebody do that unless you're doing it yourself, you know. And I do do that and, gosh, reading that thing, it's like there's so much truth in it and it hurts, doesn't it?

It's like, ouch, you know, but it's true. And that's the thing with the truth around here is that it is nourishing. It is nourishing. The truth is nourishing today.

The truth isn't like, oh, you're going to offend me, you know, to be so offended with the truth. Now it depends on the delivery, I suppose, because I'm sensitive. You know, I'm still very sensitive and I can have that, you know, I am not grown up enough to have somebody step on my toes and not necessarily retaliate, you know. I can have a bit of a mouth on me.

But it's a lot better than what it was, trust me. A lot better than what it was. But to be able to, you know, to recognize that stuff, you know, when I have stepped on somebody's toes with my emotional personality, you know, to be able to say that was wrong, you know, I shouldn't have done that. And keep it really simple.

I'm not a groveler, you know. I was so sorry all the time. You know, just so, so sorry. Pitifully sorry, you know.

So the things that I get to bottle up and drink today, because it's not alcohol, you know, are the gifts of the program. You know, I guess it's the contrast of what we get, you know, because I bottled up that self-pity, boy, and that stuff will kill me. Probably more so than resentment for me. You know, resentment, deep resentment, deep resentment.

I've got different degrees of resentment. And deep resentment makes me real, real, real, real sick. And renders me a walking, talking character. I mean, that's really an emotional, you know, you want to, yeah, all of my emotions are out there.

And, you know, the St. Francis prayer. So out of step 11 of the first fruit. You know, step 11 is emotional balance.

And, you know, that I'm not just constantly on a roller coaster. And it wasn't, I've been through menopause, went through that, navigated that, that was fun, you know. And there's a lot of emotions. I mean, we got some physiological stuff triggering, whatever.

And I don't like to use excuses or anything like that or minimize. I like to try and right-size things if I can. You know, but I don't bottle up and drink the things that I used to drink. You know, emotionally.

You know, excessive pride or, you know, that dependence on other people. That's a real thing. And that's something that's probably going to take me my whole entire life. You know, of my, I guess my sense of worth and value and all of that stuff depending on, you know, what it is that you think about me.

Or, you know, what you might try to get, what's the word, approval or praise. Oh, praise, there we go. You know, from somebody so that I can feel good. But that's what we do around here.

That's what I do. You know, and I can look at myself, especially those first three years, and I guess I feel like I needed that, you know. And it's getting the insides to match the outsides and, you know, being authentic and real and, you know, all of those things. But this is all just one day at a time, you know.

Just the fact that we get to experience a little bit of peace and to be able to love and really care about another alcoholic or another human being, like, really care. That we could experience some serenity. Those were things when I was brand new that I couldn't imagine, could not imagine experiencing any of that stuff. Because all I knew was pain.

You want to give me an emotion? There it is, that's the label, pain. I'm in a constant state of pain of what's going on between my ears. My mind is tormenting me.

And it's not that way today. Yes, my mind still races and things like that. I can have full-on conversations with myself. Inside voice.

Inside voice. You know, to be grateful. To be able to, you know, be able to be happy for others. To be able to, you know, accept some criticism.

That's a hard one. You know, that's some emotional maturity. You know, constructive criticism. Dee, that dress makes you look fat.

I don't mean that. And anyway, I'm just so, so grateful. I don't think I've used up all my time, but I feel like that's all I have to say. So, you know, if you're new, stick around.

Get into the step work. Get a sponsor. Get into the book. I love the last line.

I love the last line from that letter. I have been given a place, a quiet place in bright sunshine. And to be in the sunlight of the spirit, you know, instead of that darkness. We do move from darkness to light.

Do we stay there? No. You know, but there's that gradient gray that we get to experience. Thank you.

Wayne B.:

I want to tower over my friend. Good to be here. I'm impressed with the turnout, too. It's not normally like this.

What you guys have got going on here is pretty cool. I've been doing a workshop on this topic for 30 years, and I'm happy to get 30 people. Because when you start talking about emotional sobriety, all kinds of thoughts go through people's heads, including my own. I just want to say that was an excellent presentation.

I want to tell you, I want to talk about history, though. The history I want to talk about affects me directly. I'm an alcoholic. I drank a lot.

Loved Budweiser. Came out here on a 405, passed the Budweiser brewery, the Roscoe Boulevard exit. Had a moment of silence. Then it went way out there to the insane ward out there.

I've been psychiatrically institutionalized 17 times. Wasn't drinking any of those times. I was drinking in between. But sometimes I tried to stay sober too long.

Many of us understand that. I was in the Watertown Insane Asylum for the Criminally Insane 14 times. I had an abuser when I was a kid. I got bullied and beat through high school.

And when I was 16 years old, a freshman or a sophomore, he was chasing me to give me my weekly beating. I tripped over a baseball bat, landed it in my hand, I picked up and hit him in the face with it. He died the next day. And I was glad.

Nobody ever messes with me anymore. That was an interesting thing. I don't mean to make light of it, but I didn't get bullied no more. But I learned a tool that became a tool for me.

And I'm not a tough guy. There's tough guys in the room. I've already spotted you guys. I like what Bill wrote in the 12 and 12, that many of us have discolored personalities.

And I've been in every kind of therapy you can possibly think of. I don't begrudge them. I don't put therapy down. I'm just stating facts.

You know, my sponsor taught me AA is not a feelings program. AA is a fact program. And I learned from Dr. Paul, I don't mean to drive you crazy, but I don't mean to drive you crazy.

And once, and I learned from Dr. Paul, I don't mean to drop names. These are just my heroes. These are the legends who straightened my mind out when all the experts couldn't do it.

Dr. Paul told me about acceptance. I didn't understand that acceptance is the answer to all my problems. I don't know what you're talking about.

So he sat me down and he told me, he followed Bob's advice. Where would we all be now? Having somebody taking a little time out to talk to us and listen. And I forgot where I was going with that.

That's all right. What? That's all right. Oh, yeah.

I thought you were telling me where I was. So when I came in. Acceptance is the answer. Oh, thank you.

Acceptance is the answer. I have to accept I've got a problem before I can work on it. And that's why sponsorship is so important, because they'll help you accept it or at least become aware of it. When I got here, I had no emotion.

I was bankrupt. Two of my daughters, one was born on November 11th, 1972. I went for the delivery. I held that daughter in my hand.

I felt nothing. On November 26th of 74, happened again. Went to the hospital. My daughter, Melissa, was born.

They put her in my hand. I felt nothing. That was the first time I tried to commit suicide, because I knew there was something terribly wrong with me. I had no consciousness about hurting other human beings.

It didn't bother me what not one little lick did. But here's my opinion. You've heard about me in my neighborhood. You've heard about me.

So if you've guided my sort of whole life, you deserve what you got. That's how I lived. And I didn't know there was anything wrong with that, by the way. And so when I was locked up on the side, it started at the age of nine when I got raped and tortured by a pedophile.

And the insanity started. And the reason I didn't want to quit drinking is something happens to me when I drink. I take a few Budweiser's and I don't feel bad. I don't have that self-hatred that I had, that self-loathing that I had, that wasn't God's name is wrong with me.

I don't feel for anybody. I didn't even know what love was. I got married and didn't know what love was. I got married to blackout one time.

I'm surprised. We drove to Palmyra, Missouri where you can marry your pet. And I came out of a blackout driving a car that wasn't mine with a woman next to me that I didn't know who she was. And she was wearing a wedding ring.

And I like to think I'm a Christian back then. And I noticed she's married. I don't know that I'm married. And we're on our honeymoon.

I didn't know that. She grabbed my arm and I said, what? She said, what's the matter? I said, who are you?

And you women don't like to be asked who you are on your honeymoon. I really did not know we went to Palmyra, Missouri and got married. We stayed married one day at a time. On February 13, 1977, I'd been to AA for five years, not as a member, as an attender.

I never once said I'm an alcoholic. I never once was a member or joined. It's just that they were kind to me. And they would bring me food at the dumpster I lived in.

And when I was in the psych ward, Barney would come visit me. And I didn't understand why he did that. I'm not an alcoholic. I wish I was at times.

And my sponsor never forced me to believe that. He said, okay, just keep coming back. I said, I will. I'm hungry.

On February 13, 1977, my mom came to my dumpster and visited me. And she said, why don't you come home for Valentine's dinner tomorrow? I'll cook for you. I weighed 146 pounds.

Now, when you're six foot two and you weigh 146 pounds, you are too light to fight and too thin to win. And I asked her, will my dad be there? She said, no. I said, okay.

So she came and got me on Valentine's morning, took me home, and my dad showed up. And I was so furious inside. I went out back, set the house on fire. I blew up my dad's car.

I went to a meeting and tried to shoot my sponsor. And that got me locked up in the Watertown Insane Asylum for the 14th time. And I was on a lifetime indefinite hold. I was diagnosed as a psychopath.

Given all that I'd been engaged in, I was diagnosed as a sick psychopath, and I got put in the Watertown Insane Asylum, and that's when I met my girlfriend. Psycho sober symbol. She was a sociopath. She murdered her whole family.

She butchered her family. And she had heard there was a killer psychopath on the ward, and she wanted to meet me. And I came to in a padded room strapped down to a steel bed, and she was having sex with me, if you get what I mean. And I thought, I don't know where I am, but this place is okay.

I share that because I was so out of my mind. The only relief I got was when I drank. And I don't want to get lost in all that. I want to jump ahead now.

So I finally got released from the Watertown Insane Asylum, because my sponsor just happened to be the agent I got that went to this institution every Tuesday and Friday on the alcoholic drug addict wing. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. He went to this institution every Tuesday and Friday on the alcoholic drug addict wing.

I was in the criminally insane wing. And because he met me and brought me into AA, not as a member, a visitor, he went to the Board of Psychiatry in mid-October 1977 and said, rather than hiding him away here and having him medicated so he can't walk, why don't you let me have him for a minute? And by God, they released me to him on October 30th, 1977. And I got drunk that night.

And I sobered up on November 8th, 1977. And for seven years, I did everything you can do. I went to meetings every day, had a sponsor, had sponsees. I developed sponsees.

But at seven years sober, I was worse off than I've ever been before. And I didn't understand that I was living Bill's story. I didn't understand that, because I only knew the part that's in the big book. I didn't know the part that's in history.

And I want to get this before I run out of time. And so I'm out of my mind. I'm sober seven years. My sponsee wouldn't do his four steps, so I put a .357 to his head, and I pulled the hammer. Good enough. I know I don't seem like that. And I pulled that hammer back and said, let's just put you out of your goddamn misery.

You're the most miserable human being that I've seen, and you won't do your four step, so why don't we just end it here and save Bill some property? And he didn't know I was unloaded. And my sponsor called me up that night and told me to bring him my gun. And he did do his four step, though.

And I was a bit unhinged. And I didn't have my relief. I didn't have my relief factor. And I don't understand why I'm worse.

And people in AA are fed up with me. As a matter of fact, they took a group conscience and kicked me out of AA in the state of Illinois. The only one who stood up for me was, guess who? My sponsor.

He said he tried to shoot me. He stayed. So I'm out of my mind. It's time to go back to the psychiatrist, so I quit taking all the medication.

Oh, my God. Was that two minutes? Should have stayed away from all that other. No, I forgot what I was saying.

Kicked out of Illinois. Oh, yeah. Well, so some of the well-meaning members played doctor and told me I should get back on medication again. And I thought maybe I should.

I didn't talk to my sponsor about it. So I went and saw a psychiatrist I know. First thing he did was medicate me. He prescribed three medications, amitriptyline, which I know what that is.

My mom took it for PMS, which is why I didn't understand why they give it to me. Lithium and a new drug for depression that was approved in 1985, Prozac. And he gave me free samples to take home until I could fill a prescription. Here I am seven years sober.

So I pick up that bag of pills and something happened. I felt better. And then the bells went off. I shouldn't feel better yet.

I haven't taken them. Something was wrong with that. So I went to my sponsor. So we had a long talk.

And he says, look, kid. I said, dummy. He said, I know there's something wrong with you. And I don't understand because I don't have the problems you have emotionally.

He says, but I believe you're an alcoholic. And I believe you're suffering from a condition that most people don't talk about that Bill Wilson had. She stole my thunder because I was going to open up with that letter, that very letter. Here's what happened.

I didn't know what to do. My sponsor said, you know, I heard a rumor that Bill recovered from his depression completely, but never came back. That's not what I was hearing in AA. I was hearing all the gossip and rumors.

And I believed it because I don't know what else to believe. And my sponsor says, he says, well, why don't we do some research and find out? I said, okay. So then I went shopping.

That's how I handle anger and depression. Garage sale style. And there was this estate being cleared out and they were selling those stuff outside Chicago. And so I went to the poor man's side.

And they had this galvanized tub, washed up filled with lots of scattered paper in the bottom. It was about half full. And then there was this Webster's recorder that recorded on wire. And there were six pools of wire, five bucks.

Cause it was broke. I thought that's a bargain. I knew my brother could fix it. So I bought it.

He fixed it. My brother was over five years. I was over seven. He fixed it.

And he said, you got to get over here. And it was recordings of Bill Wilson. It was recording of Reverend Sam Shoemaker. Sister Ignatia. and Dr. Tebow. And he was talking about this new thing called emotional survival. And he talked about his friend, father, red dollar who was the reason why we had the 12 and 12.

And in these, all these papers were letters between Bill and these two guys, him and his neighbor. How is it I came upon that? So I listened to all these six recordings. I couldn't believe it.

And I read them. My brother wasn't interested in it at all. But that's because my brother's normal except for alcohol. I don't know, two minutes.

And so I got into those letters and I found that grapevine article inside that tub. And I wondered if I could get help too. And so I researched all this stuff that was in there. And found out that the things that I found, I don't have time to go into that, but I'll tell you something.

I followed all those letters. I found all the footnotes. I found all the Bill. He had written Bill in 1970.

He had written Bill in October of 1970, asking Bill how he stayed sober with his depression his whole life. Because they believed the same rumors. Bill was depressed his whole sobriety. And he wrote him back.

And I had that letter in my hand. It said, my dear fellow AA's, you're mistaken. I haven't been depressed since 1955. He called, I'm in the clear.

And let me tell you about that. And then he told him about his work with Father Red Dawn, who became his de facto sponsor. Remember, Roland was drunk. Evie was drunk.

As a matter of fact, half the authors in the big book died drunk. We don't talk about that much because of the negativity, I suppose. So here's Bill, not a sponsor. And Father Ed Dowling, the Jesuit out of St. Louis, had to meet Bill because he got a copy of the big book in 1970. And he had, or 1970, 1940. And he wanted to meet the man that wrote it because he knew he had to be touched by God. So he made his way with rheumatoid arthritis wracking his whole body.

He made his way to New York, crawled up three flights of stairs to where Bill was staying, knocked on his door. Bill comes to the door and he helps him in. And he said, I'm Ed. And that's where the second part of AA began to take place.

And Father Ed Dowling developed a friendship with Bill. He's a Jesuit and Jesuits don't cross boundaries. Is it okay if I finish this? Yes.

Ed doesn't cross the boundary. He's a Jesuit. God's a gentleman. We don't come by only by invitation.

So he thought he knew what was wrong with Bill. So he was hoping Bill would ask him for help. And then one day he was chumming the waters. How many of you know what that means?

Bill finally said, Ed, I don't know what's wrong with me. And that's where the phrase faulty emotional dependency came from in Father Dawn. And the diagnosis, spiritual depression. Never heard of it before.

That came from Father Red Dawn. He says, Bill, I don't think you're suffering from clinical depression. I think you have spiritual depression. I think you're suffering from a quote, internal spiritual maladjustment.

And I think because you're maladjusted to spiritual life, you've been in full flight from the great reality, page 55. And because of that, you became an outright mental defective. I'm getting goosebumps right now. Because that told me I might not be insane like I thought I was.

Could my behavior all be because I have a broken spirit? Can it be because I'm separated from my father God? Is that possible that all of that insanity I was in could be cleared up? I was afraid to believe it.

My sponsor said, believe it. And so what I found was that Father Dowling said to Bill, I think we can fix that. He said, why don't you let me take you back through those 12 steps you wrote. Why don't we add some things that I'd like to add in step three, four, eight, 10, and 11 that might free your mind.

And those faulty emotional dependencies you have on people for approval. To achieve feelings of self-satisfaction, approval, worthiness, safety, and protection. And from 1947 to 1949, Father Dowling took Bill through the steps one at a time. And he added those components that are spiritual in nature.

And from 1947 to 1949, he would do a step with Bill and then contact and stay in touch with him and make notes about his progress. So at the end of 1949, he had a stack of notes. I found these. He had a stack of notes this big that he gave Bill.

And that's what the essays are. The 12-step essays, Bill took his notes, and with Tom Powers, edited those notes into our language. And then Father Dowling took Bill through the 12 steps, using that information, and Bill said his depression lifted in 1955. I chose to believe it.

And so I took a chance, went back and reworked the steps, added those components to my step work, and my depression lifted by 1990, and it's never gone. Thank you. Thank you.