[00:00:00] Chair: So much, Krista. Okay. And now I would like to invite our speaker, Barb M. N. from Woodland Hills, California. Come on up.

[00:00:30] Barb: Oh, I'm so happy to be here. What a great lunch and what a great group you are.

[00:00:49] So I want to, first of all, thank you all for letting me be here. And thank George Meese for inviting me and Krista for getting us a room. and Michelle taking a spoon and cutting me the line, and all the wonderful people that I've met.

[00:01:09] This is a great program. What can I say?

[00:01:14] I've been here for 50 years. I've been involved with 12 Steps for 50 years. And it changes my life every day in ways that surprise me every day. Because I always thought I was six. And it turns out I need to be fixed all the time.

[00:01:36] I'll start with my journey.

[00:01:40] I need to say my husband is here with me today, and he is not my qualifier. So I want to get him a t-shirt that says, I am not a qualifier. I started getting qualified real early. And I like to say, rather than somebody else qualifying for me, that somebody else was drinking bother me.

[00:02:04] And I didn't know it when I was young, because I am an alcoholic father. My mother passed away when I was six, and things changed dramatically.

[00:02:18] My father, we married shortly after, and he was lucky enough to find another alcoholic. So we had both of them in our house, and I had two other sisters, and then our stepmother brought a brother to us, a stepfather. So there were four of us, and they went on partying at night and came home, whenever they came home. And what I learned really early on was that I always was doing something wrong.

[00:02:53] Growing up in the home that I grew up in, there were a lot of rules, but we didn't know about the rules until we broke them. And those rules changed on a daily basis.

[00:03:06] Example, I remember being sentenced to a store to talk clothing for school for my sister and myself, and I was the middle child.

[00:03:16] And come home, mod the clothes, oh, what a good job you did, oh, that's beautiful, that's fine. Charges for our account, all of that. And then the public account, and it would be in trouble for spending your money. So everything is terribly confusing.

[00:03:34] I was born to a Jewish home, and so I'm happy to do you to any of those of you that are celebrating that. Today is Rosh Hashanah.

[00:03:44] And my second one decided that the better place for us was a capital canvas. Because that makes all the seminars in the world. So when I used to say I was born Jewish and raised tapak, which is two different kinds of guilt.

[00:04:02] There was tapak guilt, which was everything you enjoy as a sin, and there was Jewish guilt, which is everything you enjoy to hurt your mother.

[00:04:15] So being in a convent was an interesting experience because I was different. I became very aware of being different, and I thought growing up in an alcoholic home was also different, and it took until I came to Evermont to find a house that there were other people that were different, too. So they used to be different, because it made me fit in.

[00:04:43] My father married again, and then we were brought home, and I was baptized in the spring.

[00:04:53] I'm not going to talk about religion. I'm just talking about my experience.

[00:04:58] And that was back to that mother, because her father was a Lutheran minister, but she didn't like the Lutheran church because it wasn't classy enough, so then I was confirmed Episcopal.

[00:05:10] I've been through all kinds of religions, and I found I was able to find God in every religion. That was my safety place, that there was a God.

[00:05:21] But who I found in Al-Anon was very different than who I found everywhere else. I went to college when I was 16, I think. Oh, yeah, because I was going to get kicked out of school because I got in trouble when my dad said he was going to send me back to Canada. And I said, how about sending me to college? Because I have enough credit for it. So I didn't want to think I was smart. No, I just got out of the house. And there I met the man in the back of the room who was not my father. I have known him since I was 17. He's been there now 60 years. Oh, wow.

[00:06:06] That's pretty darn cool. Yeah, he's pretty darn cool. Thank you.

[00:06:14] That's when I really learned that other households didn't operate the way I did. I started telling him things about my life, and he thought they were strange. He thought it was strange that my dad put me out from the paper to send me something for the summer and find something to put me to an alcoholic home. I thought that would turn out to be an alcoholic home, too.

[00:06:38] I didn't know those things were strange. I thought that's how everyone grew up.

[00:06:43] So, we married, and I became a perfect wife for me to do it.

[00:06:56] Because I had to do everything perfectly. When I was in a photography school, on Sundays, the kids would have, their parents would come and visit them.

[00:07:09] That didn't happen for me. So the nuns gave me a job to answer the door when the parents would come to connect them with their children. And right next to the front door was the library. So, again, growing up not knowing what the rules were and how to follow them, they put me in charge of the library. And I looked at all those books, and they did not seem to be in order to me. So, in the next, in probably that year, that whole year, I changed the library around to put everything alphabetical. Nobody told me about the digital sciences.

[00:07:51] So, nothing could be found with the library that I organized.

[00:07:56] But, I was laying on my rules, because that's what I had to do.

[00:08:03] So when I got married and I became a perfect wife, I learned at some point as an adult that I brought my disease into that household.

[00:08:18] I'm not much of a drinker. I'm an occasional glass of wine person. Like I'm a weed, too. I don't have to admit that now, but it's legal.

[00:08:29] But I never was, I never took the approach that my dad took.

[00:08:39] So I raised a perfect child, being a perfect parent, and being a perfect wife. And some were around 20 years into our marriage. Oh, I should say, I started learning about 12 seconds. So I was probably too smart to go to meetings. So my approach was to read all the literature because I could sort it out that way. It never occurred to me that a meeting might help. So that's how I started in 12 Steps. And I have to really say that was my salvation. I started reading things and discovering that I didn't have to be perfect, that there was a process, that I could have the God of my understanding, not the one that was punishing me all the time, and those are the things I started to learn, and somewhere into our marriage, as I said, we have some challenges, and a lot of marriages have challenges, and I decided that that was my fault, too.

[00:09:51] So I had to get better. So then I got really religious about going to meetings.

[00:09:58] And then I discovered that life just happens. Life just goes on. And you do the best you can.

[00:10:07] I didn't really understand why there were problems in our marriage because I was perfect.

[00:10:14] And I remember my daughter was a teenager and I was terrified about something. she said to me she actually ended up pretty healthy thankfully this is a program she said to me one day you know mom I can't live in fear that told me a lot I was believing in fear all the time all the time I was saying the other day Maybe even to this day, but now I have voices to tell me to stop doing this myself, but if I'm walking along and say I see a key on the ground, I'm afraid to take it off, because then my fingerprints will be on it, and what if that key is involved in a murder? and then I can't blame you for it.

[00:11:12] That's how I created my voice, with my fear. Doom and gloom. Everything was doom and gloom. That voice in me always told me something bad was going to happen. I had a beautiful marriage, a beautiful daughter, and I always believed that something bad was going to happen.

[00:11:35] About seven years into the program, I crashed, and for those of you that are new, don't be afraid of that crash.

[00:11:51] I had all these tools to go through life with. I had a huge toolbox, and I was learning in this program to let go of some of those tools, and I didn't need them anymore. The fear, the control, the manipulation, the drama. And as I let go of them, I didn't know it took a good place tonight. I got very empty, and I got very scared, and I crashed. And a friend of mine in the program said, "Oh, we're going to do the seventh cylinder." And I was like, shh! There's another one? I thought I did this! Apparently, it wasn't done. And that's what I mean about this program being ongoing.

[00:12:47] A lot of times we talk about the killing of the onion, and there are layers, and what I've learned is not to be afraid of those layers. If they're just another thing that you're ready to face, the topic today is trust the process. That's part of the process. Life is in session. So I have a very good family, and I love my family, and we're all -- my father's third wife, So we all kinds of kids and my brother, my half-brother, who recently passed away, was in surprise-surprised accident while he was drinking and driving, spent a good deal of time in the wheelchair and passed away and pulled it.

[00:13:45] You know what? He wasn't raised in a hollow cone. That's what he told me. Why don't you say that? Why don't you say that? So apparently he was growing somewhere else, and I just figured it out my imagination in the house.

[00:14:04] When I was in high school, because we had new babies in the house, I had an intercom in my room. So I woke up in the middle of the night with babies, that was my job because my dad and his wife were already, so somebody had a job. Um, so no one in my family is in program, no one in my family has ever been in program, and that's okay, because that's their choice. But they think I'm brilliant because I'll say, well, I'm going to be right. I'm going to be happy for it.

[00:14:42] Let go of my God. Let go of my parents. And they think I'm so smart. And now they're like, yeah, that's a program. That's a program.

[00:14:53] Flags are one of my strongest tools in this program. To be able to just let go. To be able to use, to be able to say, wait, why am I talking? I don't have to talk, I'm a part of this.

[00:15:14] To be able to say, maybe you're right. Even though when I said it to my teenager, she would go, why am I?

[00:15:24] That's one of the massive gifts of the server.

[00:15:28] Those slow notes.

[00:15:31] And then there's do's and do's. I was really, really good at doing the docks. Not so good at doing the do's.

[00:15:42] To surrender the prayer, our goal is to surrender the prayer. God grabbed the surrender to accept the things I cannot change. I spent so much energy changing the things I could not change. Everybody else.

[00:16:02] The courage to change the things I can.

[00:16:06] Me, oh no, I don't need to change me, I need to change you guys. Everybody else. Wow, the effort. I was so tired all the time.

[00:16:19] Because I didn't have the wisdom to know the difference.

[00:16:23] The body changed other people who didn't know I could change myself.

[00:16:29] And what can I change about myself? How we look at things.

[00:16:36] Out in the, when we're selling things, we've got a little dice that says God on our side. I got one of those years and years ago at the convention. And it sits on my nightstand. And I roll that dice almost every day. I just bought some more because God is wrong.

[00:16:56] But every time I roll that dice, it comes up God. That's my reminder. That helps me every day to turn it over. Every minute to turn it over. Because I can't as I can't. Think about the steps.

[00:17:18] Admit that I was powerless, my life would become unmarishable. That was easy. If anybody's new, that's not the easy one. I'm broke. None of them are easy to start with, and I'm going to get very easy.

[00:17:33] But being able to admit that I didn't have the power that I thought I had. So scary. Fear is so scary. If I don't have that power, how can I get up in the morning? How can I do anything if I can't make you different?

[00:17:56] But then those sad seconds that came to believe that the power of greater woman's self could restore me to sanity.

[00:18:05] Wow, on a regular basis, every minute of the day. That's the power of a higher power. It doesn't have to be God. Whatever your higher power is, I'm checking my time. Higher power is the right power, so it's a needy answer. Try not to make it the alcohol. I'm just saying. Maybe that would work for you if that didn't work for me.

[00:18:33] But coming to believe that a power greater than myself would be thrown into sanity took some time because I had to spend some time saying, who is that higher power? I'm a little scared of the ones that I learned in all those religions, because that was a pretty punishing one. That's the way I matured in the mood. It doesn't mean that it is for everybody. But for me, I ain't a God who was out to get me. I pray all the time to that God to not be out to get me. But that was what I was thinking. My crazy thinking. And then there was an exercise I did, um, and then on the 12-step program, which doesn't do with working too much and being too responsible. Duh, Maryland. Um, and it said, write a want dad for the higher power that you want.

[00:19:34] And I wrote back, and what I asked for was totally unreasonable, that I would want a higher power that's always on my side, that tells me things that deep plod me doing, that has mercy, that forgives me all the time, that guides me. I mean, the list went on and on and on. And when I looked at that, I thought, that's who I could turn my goal in my life over to. And that's when I could really do step three.

[00:20:07] And really trusting the process is about step three. It truly is. To just be able to let go. to just be able to trust that I'm here for a reason, that God doesn't make junk, that what I'm asking for may not be what's right for me.

[00:20:35] What stops me from having that trust? What stops me is, well, what if I get what I want?

[00:20:47] And maybe I'm not supposed to. And every time that I look at it that way, it's true. Every single time. So we healed our marriage. We learned to talk to each other more. We learned to communicate with each other more. The guy back here doesn't vote for me, but he should guess it's for me. And I haven't heard any complaints so far. So now, one of the things that I've learned about the program is that whatever I'm going through, it works. I don't have that developed policy in my life. But I don't have this stuff in my life because I'm alive and I live.

[00:21:43] Last year, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. That was terrible. And I was so shocked that I trusted the process. That I trusted my mother partner. She's well enough. She stands free. Thank you.

[00:22:08] But that was a hard year. Because I had a few arguments with God. Oh, take me, not her.

[00:22:17] She's got a 10-year-old, 9-year-old.

[00:22:22] They've taken one of us. We're both still here.

[00:22:27] And as soon as the very day that she was clear cancer-free, I found out my cousin that I'm very, very close to had stage 4 cancer.

[00:22:39] She's so weird.

[00:22:43] And guess what? About a month later, I found out I had this.

[00:22:48] And I'm so weird. And when they told me, they told me they thought he was aggressive.

[00:22:57] But we knew it was early. It wasn't aggressive. They didn't make a mistake. And I'm fine.

[00:23:07] And the way that I navigated the past year and a half was so different than what I would have done years back, what I would have done without the program, because it applies whether you're living with an alcoholic, or whether you were raised by an alcoholic, or whether you're ill, or whether you didn't get the job that you wanted, or whether you got fired by the job you didn't want. It doesn't matter. It always works.

[00:23:41] It's like every morning the sun comes up.

[00:23:46] It's something you can count on. It's something I count on all the time. So what happens, I'm perfect right now because I always have a higher power when I was just a higher power move.

[00:24:00] I'm for gas.

[00:24:02] You ever get that feeling you're in this wonderful world of higher power and it's just floating and it feels so good and everything that comes into you you're handling it so well and then all of a sudden you're not there and I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm looking at that bubble and I can't get in and I'm banging on the door let me back in I know that feels good and I don't know how to get there well the dice off the reminder of us Having a partner that says, what about your program? Would that help? And it always helps. It always helps.

[00:24:52] So, I have two sisters, two full sisters. I love them both. One of them is extremely spiritual in her own way. I'm not sure I always connect with that way because I remember when Aunt died and she couldn't believe she died because she had a candle for her. And she said, I didn't think she would ever die. And I said, you know what I mean, never? No, never. I didn't get it for her. So that's one of my sisters.

[00:25:23] My other sister, who's also not in the program, Um, she just made a job, and she has been, lived her life successfully, and she does her things her way, but if you ever talk to her about anything spiritual, it's like, yeah, I don't believe this is that crap. So, it's really interesting, because I'm the youngest sister, and I can relate to both of them.

[00:25:53] My higher part talks to me through my gut.

[00:25:57] My gut is spiritually oriented, even if I have to hold it in. That's how my merry car speaks to me, and my merry car speaks to me loudly that way. But you know what else is in my gut? All of my experience, strength, and hope that I've found from living life for 79 years and being sober.

[00:26:29] It's hard to believe. It really is hard to believe. And a lot of people think you're bringing on your mind when you say this stuff. But it's so true. And what I realize, whatever I get, is that I lean more toward the believer than the denier.

[00:26:46] Because I don't want to be challenged on what it is for us.

[00:26:54] It's good for me sometimes to be challenged, but it works.

[00:27:01] We say it works when we work it.

[00:27:04] I've also heard it works when we let it.

[00:27:09] I've also heard that I'm going to be dragged instead of just like, oh, because it's so true. It's so true to get back into the bubble whenever I can.

[00:27:24] I'm not perfect. I don't know about how perfect I was when I thought I was good. I learned that from 79 years old. And I just want to clap.

[00:27:45] And now it's an 81-year-old who's 81 years old. I'm sleeping with an 81-year-old and I'm hiding inside of a cellar. Oh, no.

[00:28:03] One of the challenges today is aging. Aging is not easy. It really, really isn't. No one told me. My mother died when she was 31. My father died when he was 61. I don't want to allow her, except Aria Ruby, Aria Ruby, said aging is not for sissies. She went to 94 and she wore her sack of her, but she just felt it was on the deal with it. But I know how to deal with it. It's called programming.

[00:28:37] One of the things that was very, very central to me was being the responsible one. She almost got me up for 35 years, long beyond that from my daughter. I wasn't a girl, so I didn't make that for you.

[00:28:58] Be prepared. Do it right. All of those things.

[00:29:04] Be a salsa. Something went wrong. Barb, fix it. Queen, I'm fixing here. I was good at it. She was pretty good at it. But I was miserable. And one of the things I've learned in aging is to not be responsible.

[00:29:23] I've spent about the last 10 years learning to nap, to lay around, to say, I don't know, ask somebody else, to say, I can't.

[00:29:39] I'm not discouraging volunteers here, but I've got to tell you, I was the queen of a volunteer. Whatever you need, I will do. And what I realized is that I am sitting in life with no doubt.

[00:29:56] So I started doing something strange.

[00:30:00] Every time I finished anything, even if it was just thrown in the bathroom, I would take a minute and believe how I feel, checking in with feelings. That is so critical.

[00:30:21] I was reading today, I think it was in, what was I reading? Hope for today, I think. I read the books, the books now. And there's a really nice book I just say to my phone, I don't know if I'm getting different messages than anyone else's when they turn on a phone, but it always knows. So today, we talked about, somebody talked about being new at Adnan and having a sponsor help them get in touch with their viewers. And a bit of hurt.

[00:31:08] And this person wrote, I came because I was in pain. Why is this program making me in pain?

[00:31:19] But the difference is it's pain that I'm processing.

[00:31:24] It's pain that I'm allowing myself to feel so that I know who I am.

[00:31:32] I got to a point in life, and I was probably in my 40s at the time, that I realized I don't even know what kind of music I like. I don't know what kind of music I can tolerate from my daughter likes, or what kind of music my husband likes. But I don't know what kind of music I like. It came back to me, actually. Um, I didn't know what my favorite color was. But I knew what everyone else's favorite color was. I knew what everyone wanted for Christmas. I didn't know what I wanted for Christmas. Because I didn't know me. Why? Because I never took the time to explore. I just went from one thing to the next thing to the next thing and I'm responsible, not responsible anymore except I'm going to look and see how long I've been talking.

[00:32:29] It's been a really long time. So, what have I learned in the last 10 years from my program? I've learned how to breathe. I've learned that fear and faith can't exist at the same time. I've learned to answer my voice my mean, mean voice for a long time I would say oh that voice is going to say oh that voice is going to say oh that voice is going to say oh that voice I was that voice yes I have incorporated things I've learned from that but that's me talking to me Someone said in the program, have a talk with your inner parent and fire them and hire an inner parent that you wish you had.

[00:33:29] And I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of parent I wish I had.

[00:33:38] And my answer was, me.

[00:33:43] The way the parent blouse an aunt, my daughter. Maybe not the parent she wanted. That doesn't matter. It's the parent I wanted. Because that's how I treat other people. Because I wanted to treat me that way back. But I don't treat me that way back. That's what I learned. So I hired my parents and I hired a new one. And the new one, in the last time I used to have been doing, Where did the job? Getting better and better. The other day I was thinking I had an extension for my business taxes. I never filed my personal taxes. And I had gotten an extension, and an extension lasts, for those of you who did like I had it, until October 15th. And oh my God, September 1st, I'm not going to finish it. Okay.

[00:34:40] and then the IRS is going to come after me and go be in jail. Those are the kind of stories that I'm very good to tell myself. And I started writing, it was for the war and so it's convenient, done, start writing. I started writing this whole thing, and then I addressed each thing. I started with, I haven't filed the taxes. And my answer was, yeah, but they're 90% done, and you're gonna file the business taxes by mail, and there's a mistake, so it was. I don't owe him any money, because the tax goes to my personal, that's all I'm going to pay. So, and if I die, or if I die, I'll see you in the house. Maybe I'll mention you in the morning, by the way, and I'm older, I've got to buy out for taxes.

[00:35:39] I've got to do a whole thing like that. And if I'm dead, they can't come and get me anyway. So I have to go through all this stuff. And then I go to the next thing, the IRS will come and get me. Come and get me? What does that mean? That's insane. That's crazy. They're going to come knock on my door and hand up me because I didn't file a whore?

[00:36:03] And anyway, there wasn't just a problem.

[00:36:08] And I heard the last two, they threw away most of them.

[00:36:12] So I went on the way over there. And then I passed the prison part.

[00:36:18] And then at four or five in the morning, I was laughing hysterically at myself. Yay!

[00:36:25] My voice is laughing at me for being that. That is so healthy. That is so good.

[00:36:35] And that's when I look and see where have I come because of this program.

[00:36:41] That some of the things I have thought that torment me are insane. They're just crazy. Why would the higher power call me in jail at age 79 for not going out of form?

[00:36:58] That's not the higher power I believe in. It doesn't go that way.

[00:37:07] So have I changed for this program?

[00:37:12] You bet.

[00:37:15] Trust this process.

[00:37:19] Go to your inventory.

[00:37:22] I like to not call them defects of character. I think sometimes, some of the things we're written were harsh. I like to call them, I'm sorry, I'm running old, I'm going to go to my house. Everyone's complaining about poetry, I'm going to go to my house.

[00:37:45] I'm lost.

[00:37:48] No, so negative coping mechanisms, that's what I like to call them. When I have that crash, that second, that second surgery, When kids took me out of this, I realized that I had not heard of all of the brass tauts and all of those crazy things in my toolbox that were negative probing mechanisms.

[00:38:11] But you know, I can get it back if I want them, and that's what's coming from me. It's like, don't worry, I'm not lost, I'm just in the garage in my camera, you can do that, you want to keep up by yourself, you can do that.

[00:38:24] But I don't need to. So when I take an inventory, which I do pretty regularly, because I find it gets deeper, back to the unknown, I encourage anybody that's 12 seconds, that's 4 seconds, to do it when I'm lost.

[00:38:42] You know, it's not what I'm done. For me, it won't be what I'm done. And as the years go by, I need to do it again. So I look at those, first of all, inventory, when you have a store and you close down and take inventory, you don't just look at the stuff that's bad. You look at everything.

[00:39:03] And you say, okay, those are things I want you to get your rent. There's an expiration date on them for whatever reason. Those are good. Let's keep those. And so that's what I did when I go through my fourth step again.

[00:39:19] I look at my negative coping mechanisms and ask myself, do I still need them? And some of them might do it, some of them aren't you scared yet, they might go, oh, just yet. But eventually, when we go down, they'll let me know it's time. It's time to let me go.

[00:39:42] And the place I'm at in life right now, this is well past time to let go of the fear. I don't have to have that. And when it comes knocking at my door, I can say, no, I'm sorry, I can't let you in right now.

[00:40:00] I have the right to say that.

[00:40:04] I have the right to feel that.

[00:40:07] Every one of those negative coping mechanisms is based in a story.

[00:40:17] The other thing that gets me through the day in key life is gratitude.

[00:40:23] Another argument I have with my intellectual sister. Because I have to be grateful that I lost my mother at six years old. Why? Because this is who I am today.

[00:40:36] I wish I could have been in this without that. Sure, I could do another path guide instead of taking away my mom.

[00:40:47] But that's the way it was. And that's why I've become who I've become. Everything about me that I am today is from the life I have lived and experienced.

[00:41:04] And that's a good thing. Because I do believe that we become what we respect. When we look at ourselves, the traits we respect, we incorporate. If everything is about money, maybe we don't get rich, but we incorporate it. If everything is about integrity, that's who we become. If everything is about honesty, that's who we become.

[00:41:32] And for me, everything is about a power greater than myself.

[00:41:38] I am a drop in the ocean. I'm an individual drop. I'm not minimizing, but I can't maximize it either, come on.

[00:41:51] I remember a friend of ours telling us once that somebody at his company, about his very big deal, got fired. And the guy said, you're going to be sorry, he fired me. I run a lot of things here, and you're going to be really sorry about this. And his boss said, I want you to go home. And fill up the bathtub.

[00:42:15] And now I want you to put your elbow in the bathtub.

[00:42:19] And when you take your elbow out of the bathtub, I want you to see the dent you got.

[00:42:27] I'll let that sit there for a minute.

[00:42:30] The dent in the water. Okay?

[00:42:35] We are like a drop of water in an amazing universe. It works the way it works. It makes me crazy, yes. It compounds me on a regular basis, yes. But I know this. I don't know the big picture.

[00:42:54] I don't know what's around the corner. If I didn't get that party spot, there might have been no reason. If I left ten minutes late, I might have missed an accident. I don't know.

[00:43:09] But I do know.

[00:43:12] I did everything on my list that was good. I do know that without this program I would not be who I am today and I like who I am today. Yeah, I wish I could have a color I wish I had beautiful white hair, like, I would always do. But you know what, that's minor, I don't mean to, you know, that's just white hair, it's beautiful. But I am who I am today for every single day that I've lived. i've learned to breathe in between i've learned to take naps i've learned to say i can't

[00:44:11] and for that i thank my high pop who i was introduced to and who has expanded and grown me to still be alive at 79 years old to this program so i thank you all for being here today and listening to me and giving me the energy to remember what the program is about because all of you represent all of you are living it at the level that you need to be living it right now Don't give up, trust the process. Thank you.