AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
February 5, 2024
(0:00 – 0:16)
This tape was produced in the spirit of AA’s 12th step to carry the message. Members of
the fellowship should bear in mind AA’s 11th tradition regarding anonymity at the level
of press, TV and films and the use of this tape. Anonymity to this extent is actually the
practice of genuine humility.
(0:16 – 0:35)
We assure that humility expressed by anonymity is the greatest safeguard that AA could
ever have. And then I turn it over to God and the mind’s blank. Which I assume means
that I’m not to be too wordy.
(0:37 – 0:46)
I never knew her before yesterday. I got a tape of hers. I belong to one of those tape of
the month clubs out of Tifton, Georgia.
(0:47 – 1:02)
They’ve been sending me tape. And five or six years ago one came of Sister B. And I
have supported those people by buying Sister B’s tape. Because every time I loan it to
somebody it sprouts wings and it leaves.
(1:03 – 1:14)
So you can see for yourself now. Come, come, come. Hear for yourself is better.
(1:27 – 1:31)
Thank you Alice. Good morning everyone. My name is B and I’m an alcoholic.
(1:32 – 1:41)
Her last words were to behave. Well I’m not sure that I can do that. But before I get into
my favorite topic which is myself.
(1:41 – 1:57)
I want to thank Stan and Marion for inviting me. As some of you know I’ve been doing a
great deal of traveling recently. And I didn’t want to pass this particular opportunity up of
being with you in this God place.
(1:57 – 2:07)
Because that’s what I think this place is. I hope that you’re comfortable on those chairs
because my plane doesn’t leave until seven tonight. Just relax.
(2:09 – 2:20)
You know I always say to people that my life was fine until I was two. So you can take a
look at me and you know I have a long ways to go. A long story to tell.
(2:21 – 2:33)
And I’m also real impressed with the way God kind of shows off at these sorts of things.
Somebody asked me a little while ago if I was nervous. And I said no because all I have
to do is stand up here.
(2:33 – 2:48)
And whatever happens happens and that’s your problem for inviting me. I’m just
delighted to be here and it’s just relaxing and wonderful. I’m also thrilled with the way
God did some little peekaboos this weekend to me.
(2:50 – 3:03)
The captain on the airplane when I was flying over here. Well I don’t know how he would
know this but he knew I was on the plane. And he sent his big book out from the cockpit
for me to sign.
(3:04 – 3:13)
Or as they say in Texas to sign. Did I do that right? I’m always looking for a sign. I love
the way they say it.
(3:13 – 3:22)
I do a lot of work in the southern states and I mimic you all on my way. So I’m from
Ireland as you can tell. And Brian probably is the only one who knows what I’m talking
about.
(3:22 – 3:29)
Because his parents came from the same part of Ireland as I come from. So that’s
another little serendipity miracle. You know these little coincidences.
(3:30 – 3:41)
And then I met Alice and I feel like I’ve known Alice for my whole entire life. And we
giggled a lot which was good for me. Then I met several people whom I’ve met over the
years in my travels.
(3:42 – 3:53)
And I especially was delighted to meet Audrey. Who used to coordinate the San Diego
Women’s Retreat that I give every year. And I’m just so shocked and delighted to meet
her.
(3:53 – 4:04)
And I’m just pleased with the way God keeps telling me that God’s there. And I don’t
have to be worrying about anything. So when I was two, what happened for me, my little
sister was born.
(4:05 – 4:28)
And if you’re like me and you’re totally self-centered and selfish and all the rest of the
S’s that it says on page 62 of the big book, you don’t like any kind of competition. And so
she was born and immediately it felt like she moved into my spot. And for those of you
who are new and you wonder what this has to do with alcohol.
(4:28 – 4:47)
Somewhere in those pages in the 60’s of the book it talks about that alcohol today is not
our problem. But our job now is that we have to get down to the causes and conditions.
The things that set us up and connected us with this drug called alcohol that made us
stop feeling.
(4:47 – 5:06)
Which is all I ever wanted to do was to stop feeling. And interestingly I find in my
continued recovering, not being totally recovered, but as I recover, I find that I will do
anything rather than feel sometimes. I don’t know if any of you identify with that, but
you know I will do other sorts of things rather than feel.
(5:07 – 5:24)
But anyway, these little feelings that I had at two seemed to haunt me for a long, long
time. And it felt to me that my parents just spent a lot of time adoring at her crib. And
then they went on doing what they do a lot of in Ireland, as Brian will probably testify.
(5:25 – 5:34)
They went on having a lot more children in the family. We had five of us when it ended
up. And I was the oldest at eight when my father was killed in an accident.
(5:36 – 5:50)
And what I remember about that event was that it was extremely sad in our family. And
my mom took me aside on the day of my daddy’s funeral. And she said to me, B, I want
you to help me to raise these children.
(5:52 – 6:08)
And I started to do what I have not done yet, which was to grow up. And I remember
putting away all my play things and my toys and starting about this thing called the
business of living. And so I had all these little kids.
(6:08 – 6:15)
The youngest was less than a year old. And my mother was a school teacher. And she
taught me everything she knew.
(6:15 – 6:31)
She taught me how to clean and cook and babysit. And she even taught me how to do
little projects and stuff that she used to do with the kids in the classroom. In fact, what
my mom taught me, I think, is written someplace on page 61 of the big book.
(6:31 – 7:01)
And it says something like this. It says, Is he not, and since I’m not a he, I always say, Is
she not a victim of the delusion that she can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this
world if she only manages well? I looked up the word wrest in the dictionary one time, WR-E-S-T. And the definition was to push and pull in a violent fashion.
(7:02 – 7:12)
Now, I don’t know if anybody here ever wrested besides myself. But I think we alcoholics
are good at that. We’re good at pushing and pulling in a violent fashion.
(7:13 – 7:34)
So I wrested with this notion that if only I could manage well, that my life would be
wonderful. And I spent lots and lots of my years trying to manage well. And so in trying
to do that, what I decided to do when I got into my teenage years, I decided, you know,
what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life.
(7:34 – 7:48)
And so what I decided to do was to become a Catholic nun. Now, it often amazes me why
a number this large would want to be spending a weekend, especially a Sunday morning,
with a Catholic nun. I think you’re nuts.
(7:50 – 8:09)
Because I just presume immediately that at least three-fourths of you have a resentment
against somebody like me. And as I say that, I want to tell you that I didn’t do it to you,
okay? I didn’t. I didn’t do it to you.
(8:09 – 8:39)
At the same time, I want to say to you here, since I have this opportunity, I want to make
public amends to you if you’ve ever been hurt by anybody in my profession. If any priest
or nun or member of the Catholic Church has ever discounted you or abused you in any
way, I want to publicly say that I am sorry. I come from a church that is a human church,
and it makes lots of mistakes, and it rarely says it’s sorry.
(8:40 – 9:00)
So I’d like to take the opportunity to do that and to alleviate some hurt and pain that
some of you might still be carrying around. I’ve been doing this nunny stuff now for
almost, well, honest to God, it seems like forever. It’s like 45 years and 3 months and 10
days or something like that.
(9:01 – 9:20)
And if you’re wondering why I’m counting, I usually say to groups, which my sponsor
says I should stop saying, but I’m not that obedient yet. I always say, if you’ve been
doing celibacy that long, you’d be counting it too. But sometimes people whine at me.
(9:20 – 9:42)
I do these weekend retreats sometimes, and people say to me, You know, Sister, we
have been celibate for 8 months, and I think, well, try 46 years. I love the life I’m doing.
I’m a sister of St. Clair, which is Francis of Assisi, which many of us know in the program
was the co-founder of the group that I belong to.
(9:42 – 9:52)
And so I started doing this nunny stuff, and it was all fine. They sent me over to England
to finish my education, and I did that. And when I was all done, I just knew a wee bit
about everything.
(9:53 – 10:02)
You know what I mean? I just got awfully smart. And I had an opinion about everything. I
still have lots of opinions about lots of things, but not as many as I did then.
(10:03 – 10:20)
And I can remember distinctly what happened in my case, was I was teaching finally
after I was all done with my training and all. And I was teaching little kids, and I loved
this. I loved the group of sisters that I was with, and I loved the kids.
(10:20 – 10:34)
It seemed to fit me really well, except that there were all kinds of little inside feelings,
and I didn’t know what their name was. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The big
book calls it being restless, irritable, and discontent.
(10:34 – 10:58)
It was that long time ago, this little restlessness that would come over me and irritable.
And one of the mantras or things would go off in my mind was, if only they would shape
up, I would feel better. And every once in a while when I’m not really working a good
program, that little voice would come back to me, and I would want to blame them,
whoever they might be.
(10:59 – 11:11)
And if only they could do it differently, I’d feel better. And one day I came home from
school, and on our bulletin board there was a notice. And it was from our boss lady back
in Ireland, our superior general.
(11:12 – 11:25)
And it said, Would any of you sisters in this particular convent like to volunteer and go to
Southern California? Well, here I am. I’m the greatest volunteer of all creation. If you
ever want me to do anything, here I am.
(11:26 – 11:43)
And I volunteered, and I got picked, and they sent me. And as I was leaving on the 16th
of August, 1964, I had to go back to Ireland to do all my paperwork and all. And as I was
just leaving, my superior said to me, Sister, we’re going to put you in charge.
(11:44 – 12:07)
Now, there is nothing that a potential budding alcoholic likes to hear better than they’re
going to be put in charge. And we like it more and more and more as the time goes on,
don’t we? We sort of have a tendency to want to be in charge, to want to run the show.
And so that meant I was going to be the boss lady of the school and of all these little
nanny bunnies who were running around me with lots of those then.
(12:08 – 12:42)
And so I arrived in California in August, and it was very hot, and we were dressed in all
the long, woolly, heavy nanny clothes, you know, with our heads all covered with white
serge, and all you could see was our two hands and our faces, that’s all. And I can
remember thinking, this is going to be fine now because now, finally, I’m going to get the
world to work and do it the way they’re supposed to, which is my way. And so I was
getting it all ready and into shape.
(12:43 – 13:04)
And then after a couple of days, I met what was known as the pastor. Now, he had this
notion, and I don’t know where he ever got it, was that he was in charge, too. And
immediately, you know, we began to lock horns, but I was too nice and polite in those
days to say out loud what I was thinking and feeling.
(13:06 – 13:19)
And it was just awful, I can remember. It was very painful, and I planned his demise on
many occasions. I wrote many letters in my head, and I cried myself to sleep many
nights, and it was just awfully difficult.
(13:20 – 13:34)
And a magical thing happened for me, which I know happened for you, or you probably
wouldn’t be sitting here today. A magical thing happened for me, and that was that I got
my first drink. And I want to tell you about that, because it was very significant to me.
(13:34 – 14:19)
It was a very significant moment, and if it hadn’t happened to me, I don’t think I’d be
here with you today. And what happened was that a lady who had her children in our
school, she came to my office door one day and she said, Sister, why don’t you have all
the sisters come over this evening and swim at our swimming pool? And so we piled all
the nunny bunnies into the big station wagon, all nuns at station wagons in those days,
and we all went over there and we swam at our swimming pool, and it was wonderful.
But the most wonderful part of all was that when we were sitting there, after we had the
swimming finished, she came to the side of the pool with this tray and this large pitcher,
big, big jug like this, you know, and some glasses with salt on the top.
(14:22 – 14:30)
Oh! And she poured this, you know, into the glasses. And I would love to tell you that I
knew how to sip. I never knew how to sip.
(14:31 – 14:40)
And I took a large draft out of this beverage. You sound like you know what was in the
pitcher. In some places, they don’t know what that’s like.
(14:40 – 14:54)
Like in Sydney, Australia, they’re not that sure. In Auckland, New Zealand, where I’ve just
been a few months ago, they haven’t grown up on margaritas like some of us have. And
my personal opinion is that if you haven’t had a margarita, you might not, should not
maybe be here yet, you know.
(14:54 – 15:04)
I mean, God, it was wonderful. I will never forget the experience. It was just, it was the
greatest spiritual awakening I think I’ve ever had in my whole life.
(15:05 – 15:29)
Because what it did was it relaxed my neck and my shoulders and my arms and my
whole body right down to my toes. And I just said to the lady as we were leaving, do you
think we could have the recipe for this to take home? And she gave me the recipe, the
way she whipped it up and all. And I just thought the nicest, kindest thing that I could do
for these little nunny bunnies who work so hard, because they work for me, you know.
(15:29 – 15:38)
Anybody who worked for me worked very hard. I wasn’t your easy does it kind of, you
know, basic person. I get things moving and shaking fast.
(15:40 – 15:54)
And anybody who’s ever worked with me like Audrey would testify to that, I get things
moving fast. And I don’t mess around. And so I would say to them on a regular basis, you
know, let’s change all the classrooms on Friday.
(15:55 – 16:04)
Let’s put the first graders into the fifth grade. Let’s put the second graders into the third
grade. I had this notion that if we had lots of confusion and activity and chaos, that
everything would be better.
(16:05 – 16:12)
We never do that. And so basically these gals were always very tired. You know, they
were exhausted with me.
(16:13 – 16:28)
And no wonder they used to say to me, you look kind of pale and tired this evening. Why
don’t you have a little something to sort of calm you down? They were just hoping to sort
of put me to sleep early, you know, in case I’d have another thought that would get them
going. And God bless them, you know.
(16:29 – 16:44)
Poor girls, you know, it took me so long to make amends to them, to make living
amends, to kind of relax them all down again. We didn’t have to live like that anymore.
And it’s nice to be able to tell them that I don’t know the answers, I don’t know what
we’re going to do next, and it’s just fine.
(16:45 – 16:59)
It’s a nice easy way to live. But anyway, I used to whip up this little recipe as regularly as
I could find the ingredients. And so one day the pastor came over and he said to me, is
there anything you need? He was basically a good man.
(17:01 – 17:13)
And I said to him, yes, we would like to have a bottle of tequila, please. And he looked at
me, I can remember well the way he looked at me, and he said, you like that stuff? And I
said, well, yeah, we do. We kind of like that.
(17:13 – 17:25)
And he said, well, okay. He disappeared and he came back in three minutes. And I
believe he got it where they manufactured it, which was in the wreckage where he lived.
(17:25 – 17:42)
Now that’s just a personal opinion that I had, but I’m not sure. But I do know that he
invited us then over to where they lived, which was across the parking lot. And they had
little get-togethers every once in a while and they’d invite some friends in and some
priests in and all.
(17:43 – 18:01)
And I discovered there were all kinds of drinks there. You know, there was bourbon and
vodka and rum, and then there was lots of different kinds of wine. And then they had this
very sophisticated thing called after-dinner drinks.
(18:01 – 18:25)
And there was nothing more cultured, I thought, than just washing it all down with this
gorgeous thing called Brandy Alexander’s. Ooh, it just kind of got you in that place where
you’ve always wanted to be and just nice and mellow and wonderful. And God was in the
world and everybody was fine.
(18:25 – 18:36)
And we were all happy, except that it never lasted very long. I think I had that
experience. I think I must have had that experience maybe twice or three times.
(18:36 – 18:42)
And then I was always wanting to get it, if you know what I mean. Some of you know
what I’m talking about. I know that.
(18:42 – 18:52)
And it was just amazing. And then I noticed something. I noticed that these nunnies
didn’t like to drink the way that I did.
(18:53 – 19:05)
They did the most unforgivable thing there is, which is they sipped and they used to not
finish it. Did you ever see people doing that? I watch people do that in airplanes all the
time. You know, they just don’t finish.
(19:05 – 19:18)
And I just don’t know how people can do that. It’s such a waste, you know, of good
material here. And these gals would say things like, let’s have the little glasses, you
know, when we’d say.
(19:18 – 19:24)
I’d say, are you tired? And they’d say, no, I’m exhausted. And I’d say, well, we’ve all
worked on it. Let’s celebrate this evening.
(19:24 – 19:34)
I never did say, let’s all get drunk this evening. I never said those words. Celebrate kind
of had sort of a liturgical note about it, you know.
(19:35 – 19:44)
Sort of holy or something, you know. And it meant, you know, to them that we would just
sit back and relax a little bit. Maybe we’d watch a little TV or something.
(19:44 – 19:51)
And we wouldn’t have everything at the same time. And we wouldn’t be so regimented
or whatever. But I meant only one thing.
(19:51 – 19:56)
And I know you know what that is. I meant, let’s drink this evening. That’s what I meant.
(19:56 – 20:04)
But they didn’t mean that. But I didn’t know. You know, I just thought I was providing a
nice environment and nice quietness and good feelings.
(20:04 – 20:10)
And maybe we’d put on some music. And we’d listen to some Irish music. And we’d talk
about the good old times.
(20:10 – 20:15)
And we’d get lonely. And I would cry. Or else I would get angry or whatever.
(20:15 – 20:27)
And it just always ended up. And they would say then to me the next day, often they
would say, oh my, but you were something last night. And I wasn’t sure ever what that
was.
(20:27 – 20:37)
You know, I didn’t know if I danced on the table or if I cried or if I insulted somebody. I
just wasn’t sure exactly what I had done. And my drinking progressed.
(20:38 – 20:50)
And as my drinking progressed, so did my internal, my interior depth. One of my favorite
places to drink was Mexico. And we had this friend of ours who lived in the parish.
(20:50 – 21:01)
And he owned a little trailer down in Nestero Beach. And one day he came to the office
and he said to me, Sister, you know, we hardly ever use this any longer. And you all work
so hard.
(21:01 – 21:10)
Why don’t you take the keys and any time you get the chance just drive on down there.
It’s like two hours from where we lived. So he handed me the keys.
(21:10 – 21:15)
I can still remember this. This was a wonderful experience. And he said, this is the key at
the front door.
(21:15 – 21:20)
There were three keys. This is the key at the cabana. And he held up a little shiny key.
(21:21 – 21:29)
And he said, Sister, this is the key of the liquor cabinet. Help yourself. And I said, praise
God from whom all blessings flow.
(21:35 – 21:51)
And I said to the nanny bunnies, you know, pretty soon more than 50% of Southern
California will be Hispanic. And we will have to go down there to Mexico and learn how to
speak Spanish. Because there was a law in California at the time that you had to teach
Spanish from sixth grade level on up.
(21:51 – 22:08)
And so I said to them, let’s go down to Mexico as often as we can so that we can learn
how to speak Spanish with the Americans and the Canadians who are all in that same
little place, by the way. But, you know, the way we tell ourselves the lies, you know, we
don’t know that. We don’t have any clue.
(22:09 – 22:24)
And so we’d pile into this big station wagon every so often, as quickly as often as we
could, long weekends, short weekends. I was always impressed with America because
they had lots and lots of holidays that we didn’t have. We had St. Patrick’s Day, which I
extended like for a long time.
(22:24 – 22:37)
St. Patrick’s Day always happened in Lent. And, you know, so Lent for me meant that I
could stop my fast, which was from drinking. And St. Patrick’s Day would last like 12
days before and 24 days after.
(22:38 – 22:48)
Just wonderful. Oh, gosh. Not to have to do the sort of things that I had to do again is in
itself a tremendous relief.
(22:48 – 23:03)
And if anybody had ever told me that the magnificent things would happen that have
happened to me since I came to this program, I would never have believed them. I didn’t
believe them for a long, long time. And so I continued to die.
(23:04 – 23:42)
And it’s interesting to me when I say that because if I were to start over here and I were
to go all around this room and end with you here, Marion, and say to each of you, do you
remember where you were when you died? Do you remember were you driving? Were
you in a hospital? Were you by yourself? Where were you? And it doesn’t matter, you
know, which program you’re in or anything, but all of us had some sort of a depth or we
probably wouldn’t be here today. Bill Wilson talks about it on page 8 of the big book. He
said that no words can tell of the loneliness and despair.
(23:43 – 24:14)
And if there’s anything that evens us all out and makes us feel that we all belong, we all
fit with one another here, I think the word loneliness and despair, you know. We all know
what that’s like. And he said he was in that bitter morass of self-pity where alcohol had
become his master and he didn’t know where to go or who to ask or where to put his foot
because every time he moved, he felt he was in quicksand and he was being sucked
down.
(24:15 – 24:37)
And he had now met his match and he was overwhelmed. And alcohol was the power
behind that that had taken him. And I had come to that moment in my life in my
convent, surrounded by wonderful people who were kind and good and prayerful and
peaceful people, and I was dying.
(24:38 – 24:53)
And I did not know who I could tell this to. I knew that alcoholics were people who didn’t
know how to do anything and who didn’t have any willpower. This was my concept of
alcoholics and alcoholism.
(24:54 – 25:21)
And because I had all this information about God, you know, I have a degree on God,
which never kept me sober, incidentally, for those of you who are interested in that, you
know, God and I could never keep me sober. I had to meet people like you and I had to
connect with people like you and I had to listen to suggestions from people like you in
order that I could keep sober. Because I prayed very, very hard before I got sober so that
God and I could just keep me sober.
(25:22 – 25:36)
And it never worked. I was trying to do it, you know, I was trying to surrender kind of in a
way that I had devised myself. And I also have this terrible Irish problem that some of us
have and it’s called arrogance.
(25:37 – 25:51)
You probably don’t have it out here in Hawaii. But that means that, you know, I will do
everything I possibly can myself and I certainly would not be asking you to help me. And
to come into a program that tells you that you have to surrender.
(25:51 – 26:06)
If you come from the part of Ireland that I come from, the word surrender is foreign to
our vocabulary. You know, they tell you, you know, all you have to do, honey, all you
have to do is surrender. What? Surrender? I mean, the graffiti that we have on our walls
in the north of Ireland is no surrender.
(26:07 – 26:21)
That means that we will never give up unless we die or we fight to the death. You know
what I mean? It’s just, it’s a cultural thing almost. And when you come into a program
like this, to tell you surrender is what’s going to work for you, you just think they’re nuts.
(26:21 – 26:37)
You know, you really do. And interestingly enough, I find that people from all different
countries have that experience very often when they come to the program. And so I was
dying in my convent and I was standing in the community room and I just didn’t know
what I was going to do next.
(26:38 – 26:55)
And I happened on, if there’s such a thing, this little pamphlet. I just picked it up and on
the very last page is a pamphlet that’s published for sisters. And on the very last page
there was an ad and the ad said, Sister, are you concerned about your drinking? If so,
call this number collect.
(26:56 – 27:11)
So I made a phone call to Massachusetts at nine o’clock in the evening, which was
midnight their time, and I talked to a woman on the phone and I told her that I was very
concerned about other people’s drinking. I told her lots of lies. Some of you have done
that.
(27:12 – 27:19)
Not you, you know. And you really want to help them very badly but you don’t know how
you’re going to do this. And I told her that I was changing jobs.
(27:19 – 27:36)
That part was true. I was moving from being a school principal into a job in the diocese.
And I told her that I knew that I was going to be working with all these priests and lots of
them drank and I didn’t know how I was ever going to help them and she listened and
listened and she was wonderful, very kind and very gentle.
(27:37 – 28:05)
And then she said that there were books I could read and there were recovery programs
that I could tell them about and she really led me on nicely. And then at the very end of
the conversation when I was going to thank her for her information which she was going
to send me some, she said to me, Sister, would you like to tell me a little bit about your
own drinking? Oh, that was not in my mind really when I called her. I just would never
know how they’re so smart in Massachusetts.
(28:05 – 28:34)
You know, they’re just kind of, she just honed in. And she said, because it seems to me
that you probably would not be making a long distance telephone call at midnight,
collect, just to talk about other people’s drinking. And at that moment I received a direct
grace from God to break down and cry into the telephone and I sobbed and I could
hardly talk and I said to her, you know, I don’t know what to do and who to ask and what
can I do and I just don’t know what I’m going to do.
(28:35 – 29:31)
And she said, well, I’ve been in recovery for 15 years, she said, and I’m an alcoholic. And
she said, I can hear pain in your voice and the great gift that you and I now have is that
we can hear the pain in one another’s voices and because we can hear that and we can
see the pain in one another’s eyes too, even as we continue to recover we can see that
and because of that somehow we can be God’s instruments in the continued healing that
we require. And so she heard the pain in my voice and she told me about AA meetings
and AA and send me books and all that stuff and she said, you know, it would be really a
good thing if you could go to a couple of AA meetings and if you could just listen to the
similarities instead of the differences.
(29:31 – 30:01)
What a wise thing to say. Well, I went to, I couldn’t get her conversation out of my mind
but I know when she was finished that I went into the kitchen and I filled up a nice tall
glass of scotch with hardly anything in it and I kind of knew as I was drinking that glass
that that would be the last drink I would ever have. And I sort of sat in a very Irish
fashion in a very dramatic fashion and I blessed it and I cursed it all at the same time.
(30:02 – 30:13)
Now if you’re not Irish you don’t know what I’m talking about but that’s okay. You know,
we can do that. And I knew that it was no longer working for me and that it had turned to
be my enemy.
(30:14 – 31:06)
And I called Alcoholics Anonymous the next day in a town which was quite a distance
from where I live because I want you to know that in those days I used to be very
important in my own eyes especially. And so I remember telling the people I was still in
the school still involved in the school telling my secretary and all the people I was going
to be out for a meeting and you know they didn’t pay much attention to that because I
was already running Los Angeles County and Orange County and San Bernardino County
and most of Southern California actually and if you had needed me I could have taken
care of you too. And so I took off and I went to this meeting and what I did was I took off
all my nunny clothes and put on regular clothes and I put on a lot of eye makeup I can
remember doing that very sophisticated looking going down to this meeting in a place
called Serenity Hall in Whittier.
(31:07 – 1:05:13)
Now I don’t know if any of you have ever been there. And Serenity Hall was about the
size of this stage I think and it was filled with smoke and little old men who were
shuffling all over Serenity Hall and two women one left and one stayed and the one who
stayed was as we say in Ireland she was not the full shilling you know she was just not all
there she was one taco short of a combination plate you know gone totally gone and I
remember thinking oh my lord what am I going to do and I’m sitting there shriveled up
petrified and anyway there was this fellow and he came up to the podium to share his
experience strength and hope and he told us that he had a few years sober and now he
had his family back and his wife back and all and I was kind of impressed with that but
what impressed me even more was that he was using a vocabulary that I used to punish
the 8th graders for writing on the bathroom walls you know what I mean he was using a
word that starts with sh which you probably don’t ever heard of here sh and then he
moved on to he graduated into a word that starts with f some of you might have heard
that word well he was using the f word in sentences and he was using it in various parts
of speech like a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition and a conjunction
and he was amazing he was even using the f word with ing on the end and ed on the end
and on one occasion he used it with the word mother before it and I can remember
thinking you know what I can remember thinking to myself and this is going to be my
spiritual leader for the rest of my life eww you know we didn’t go around the conference
and send f all the time they have learned but you know those days we didn’t do that and
God it was I can remember thinking we stood at the end and we said the Lord’s Prayer
and then they said keep coming back and oh and there were they had these bright
looking eyes you know there was something about their eyes the people and I remember
getting into my car to go home and I was crying really hard and this cheap eye makeup
that I had put on my eyes was rolling down my face and I looked in the rear view mirror
at the stop sign like some of us do and I remember saying the sh word and the f word all
the way home to the convent oh awful and I thought well you know the anger that I had
and the the unwillingness that I had now I know that some of you have walked into these
rooms and you have loved this deal from the minute you walked in I’ve met some people
in fact I sponsor a couple of people who seem to you know to go with the flow and if you
suggest something they’ll do it they don’t fight you you know I just found this deal called
surrender terrible I mean it was just awful for me I heard a definition one time surrender
is the willingness to get well somebody else’s way what do something somebody else’s
way besides my way well that’s just a whole different thing for me I don’t do that well
and what they were basically suggesting at these meetings was the basically five things
you know they’re saying don’t drink and don’t use any mind-altering drugs now I wasn’t
really big into drugs but the doctor had prescribed for me some Elephil and Stelazine and
then I had been graduated into something called Librium and Valium you’ve heard of
those and I used to find that when I swilled those down with a little bit of vodka or stuff
whatever I could get my hands on it made me feel like the music on Twilight Zone you
know na na na na na you know way off the lights are on but there’s nobody home kind of
you know it was just incredible and so somehow I didn’t care for what the drugs did to
me so I didn’t pursue the use of prescription drugs to any great extent but oh I loved
alcohol you know I just really loved the alcohol and I got sober on the 2nd of December
1978 so I didn’t know how you could do Christmas without drinking in a convent now get
this you know a convent at Christmas is the only legal time you can drink is Christmas
where nobody’s going to be asking you questions and wondering what are you wanting a
drink for except Christmas we can’t have all everybody drank at Christmas time a wee
bit you know they would drink a wee bit and I would drink a lot and so Christmas was
something to look forward to now if you get sober on the 2nd of December how are you
going to do Christmas oh I was just in a state and they were telling me you don’t drink
and you don’t use any kind of drugs and then they were saying you know go to meetings
go to lots of meetings and I didn’t think there was anything of these meetings that was
going to enhance what I already knew because a lot of these meetings they were trying
to tell me trying to tell me about God of course you know I had given my life over to God
I thought hundreds of years ago you know they were telling me about a third step you
turn your life over to God you know I’m really embarrassed about how that was then
because I hadn’t a clue about God I knew knowledge about God I’d never experienced
God until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous never experienced God never felt the love of
God never had God made a God of my own understanding until I had met people like you
and the reason I believe the real reason that I have this comfort of a wonderful God
today is because you made me feel comfortable people like you made me feel
comfortable you made me feel loved you enveloped me in the warmth of your continued
recovery and that was what I needed I needed to see that in action they were saying
read the book now and so I brought it down to Serenity Hall God help me and I told them
this and they said keep coming back God help her I mean I think they had bets on me
that I’d never get it you know and then they were saying I had to get a sponsor or it
would be a good thing to get a sponsor if you’re Irish like I am and you’re reserved and
you’re reticent you won’t want to be telling anything personal to anybody and you just
don’t it’s very hard for us it really is very hard for us because we don’t do this well we
don’t put our laundry out there at all oh God forbid you know you don’t tell anything from
the family outside of the family and we have all kinds of rules in Ireland and it’s just
awful and so they said the sponsor would take me to meetings and eventually get to
teach you how to work the steps and you’d be taking a fourth step I said I would never
take a fourth step I promised everybody I said it out loud at a meeting I would never be
taking a fourth step I’d spend half my life going to confession for God’s sake what would I
be wanting to do a fourth step for I had a fifth step and all they said was keep coming
back so you know so what I did with the sponsor deal was I interviewed some women
now they didn’t know they were being interviewed but I did some interviewing and I
hired them on for a temporary time you know until they were telling me things I didn’t
like and then I let them go and I’d move on to somebody else and I oh I was just in such
pain and then I heard people at meetings saying that I’d have to get involved in the
steps and again because of this arrogance and this information that I had this God
information which nearly prevented me from getting any kind of surrender you know the
more you have the worse it is for you especially if you rationalize and analyze and don’t
utilize it’s just really hard and I was now the only thing I didn’t do was I did not drink and
the reason I didn’t drink was because I knew they would know they were oh they were as
they say in Australia the women especially in the area where I come from they were very
nosy and curious and they look at you you know and look at you in your eyes in Australia
they say sticky beaks you know they stick their beaks into your business you know they
ask you things sticky beaks you know me and say be you know when was your last drink
and where do you live and I say oh this is an anonymous program and I won’t be sharing
that with you God you know I mean please preserve us from people like me you know
and I meet them all the time and I have such love and compassion for anybody for
anybody who resists to this deal I love you tremendously because I know what that feels
like I really do I know what that resistance and that struggle feels like I believe I was
born to struggle kind of thing until I found some methods and some ways of trying to
surrender and this is what happened for me I was miserable in Alcoholics Anonymous
and I don’t recommend it and it wasn’t really necessary except that maybe that God
allowed it to happen to me so that I could pass it on I was miserable in Alcoholics
Anonymous for a long time and I was struggling into Serenity Hall this day and I was
crying I was always crying with frustration and rage I saw everybody else with the bright
eyes and they’d say things like oh I had a flat tire on the way to the meeting and it was
okay God how could anybody have a flat tire and be okay just the vicissitudes of life
were just incredible for me and nothing was okay and I noticed that there was a certain
acceptance and surrender in these people and I knew that they found out a secret that I
still couldn’t get and one day I went into Serenity Hall and I was crying again in fact they
used to call me the crying nun now I didn’t know that if I had known I would never have
gone back and this older man from A.A. who has since passed on very gentleman he said
to me B. he said you know this program is supposed to help us to be happy joyous and
free and he said you seem to be struggling a lot and you always seem to be like you’re in
pain and you know honey you don’t really have to and he was really gentle and kind and
I told him how it wasn’t working I told him how I couldn’t do it and I told him how the
book was just terrible for me to read and how sponsorship I couldn’t get a sponsor that
was intelligent enough to understand what I was talking about oh it was awful and I
couldn’t do these steps because I had done them years ago and nobody understood
anything and he looked at me and he nodded and said oh yeah B. it’s hard but you know
what he said I’m going to tell you something that if you do this one thing he said
everything might change for you but I was all ears because I was desperate and he said
go home he said and kneel down and ask God to give you the willingness to change your
attitude now I had never heard anybody with all the praying I had ever done I had made
a 30 day retreat up in northern California like fasting and praying that God would be able
to give me the magical thing that you and I can’t do which is the grace to enjoy our
drinking and control it at the same time you know we try to do that you know control and
enjoy our drinking the chapter 3 says we can’t do that but we drive ourselves to the
point where we get to the insanity or death just trying to do that and he said this man
said why don’t you pray for the willingness just to let go and to change some things for
me to get on my knees and say that sort of stuff to God because I was very arrogant and
I had very important prayers to pray to God and it wasn’t like a little prayer like that but I
did it because I was miserable and I would love to tell you that God appeared to me at
that moment God appeared later but not then and God didn’t appear there were there
were no angels in the sky there was no rainbow there was nothing there was no burning
bush except this one thing that I was driving on the 57 freeway some days after that and
I happened to notice the sunset in the mirror of the car and it occurred to me that I’d
never ever noticed the sunset in Southern California before because my mind was totally
taken up with other things you know especially drinking and it reminds me of Willie
Nelson’s song you’re always on my mind you know that song he sings and I think alcohol
was always on my mind and I was just so intent on running the world and so I knelt and I
said this prayer and it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought of drinking for several days
and I knew at that moment beyond a shadow of a doubt that the mercy’s obsession had
been lifted from me I knew that the miracle had happened and I got very excited about
this deal called Alcoholics Anonymous very excited and that excitement has stayed with
me until today and by the grace of God it won’t leave me this is what I found out I found
out that the recipe for it all is on page 62 it gives me the problem which is all down the
page until the last paragraph it tells me that self self centeredness and selfishness which
in my case meant taking care of the whole world running the universe being totally and
completely responsible for everything everywhere at all times you know that sort of
brand of selfishness and the various forms of fear that we have told me all that and then
it said to me Bee you know Bee honey this is the how and the why but you have to quit
playing God because it doesn’t work now I didn’t think I was God but I was positive that I
was Mrs. God you know ring of my finger the ring of my finger inside says my God and
my all so why wouldn’t I be Mrs. God I’d give my whole life to God so wouldn’t you think
they could call me Mrs. God at least that I could tell God what to do once in a while and
he would do it and it says it doesn’t work if you do that and here after Bee in this drama
of life God’s going to be your director and he’s going to be the principal and you’re his
agent and he’s the father or mother or whatever and you’re his child and then it says
most good ideas are simple Bee and this this concept is the keystone of the new and
triumphant arch to which you would pass to freedom you know ladies and gentlemen all
I’ve ever wanted was what I have now and what I have now is inner freedom inside
freedom inside of every fiber of my being I have inside freedom and what a gift this is for
me for somebody like me who always struggled who always hoped that I would impress
God help me you know who always wanted it to be always different from what it was
always wanted it you know I read somewhere recently where the author was saying
we’re standing on a hill of diamonds but often we’re trying to find the gold beyond the
next ridge and I forget that I’m standing on this hill on this hill of diamonds all the time
and if I take the moment to pause to pause and to listen for and watch out for that
diamond that God has prepared for me for that moment I’m in really good shape but
what I noticed was then as I got very excited and turned on this whole program was I
noticed that it mentions the words self-selfishness and self-centeredness 13 times on
page 62 which is a sign that you know it must be my problem and then it goes on to give
as a result of doing step 3 which is letting God take over and quitting playing God
anymore it goes on to give like 13 promises in step 3 and so I got all excited about the
promises that are caught into the steps and Audrey and some of my friends have known
that I’ve done some retreats on the promises and Alana was one of the retreats I did on
the promises and I found that there were 86 promises there caught into the steps there
are 13 in step 3 and there are 6 in step 4 and there’s 10 in step 5 and there’s a whole
bunch of promises caught in there and my belief today is that if I’m not experiencing one
or a combination of these promises on a regular basis that I’m not connected with the
whole deal somehow that if I’m not continuing to be happy and comfortable in my own
skin with unresolved problems that somehow I’m not getting it and so that was the
miracle for me that I was able to make the connection because I was able to follow one
simple direction which was to pray for willingness to change now I want you to know and
I’m sure many many of you know I’m sure you all know this that anytime I ever get stuck
in my continued recovery anytime I get stuck in sobriety you know when I want what I
want when I want it my own way all the time and I just don’t want to move I get either
complacent or stuck as I call it when I get there and I pray for the willingness God always
says this to me I think God says Bea I thought you’d never ask I just thought you’d never
ask honey I have this big load of willingness to give to you just for today and that’s all
you’re going to need just for Sunday just he never does next year I don’t know why
because my calendar goes into 1998 1999 I don’t know why God can’t like stretch that
willingness out a little bit but God just says you have enough Bea just enough just for
today this is all you need I have all I need right now great affirmation that I use a lot I
have everything I need right now everything I need and I got really excited I got
especially excited about one of the promises in step 4 where it taught me on page 68
the fear prayer oh that was such a relief it says we ask God to remove our fear direct our
attention to what he would have us be and that’s all very fine and well for me to read
that on a page and say well that will work for you but if I didn’t turn it into a prayer for
me it wouldn’t work for me so I turned it into a prayer and the fear prayer that I turned it
into was God remove my fear and direct my attention to what you’d have me be and the
promise then goes at once don’t you love that at once we love things hurried up most of
us do at once we commence to outgrow fear as soon as we say the fear prayer we start
feeling better and I was sharing with some of you that one of the projects that I’ve been
involved in in the last couple of years was developing 11 step house in California it’s
called St. Clair’s Garden and it’s a place for people to come and pray and meditate and
just do step 11 and when I was in the middle of that project I had lots of fear because I
got the idea of doing it when we were in the middle of a recession and I didn’t know how
in God’s name I was ever going to do it and Audrey knows this story really well but it’s
blooming and wonderful now and all through that whole process I kept saying God
remove my fear direct my attention to what you’d have me be God remove my fear and
direct my attention to what you’d have me be God what kind of a woman do you want
me to be that’s really all we have to ever ask what does God want us to be and I think if
we listen we can hear I think we can hear I was especially impressed with the promises
of step 5 2 the 10 promises we can look the world in the eye people like us who are so
ashamed and so afraid and so embarrassed and so caught up with the sorts of things
that we pulled and did and the guilt and the shame oh and to know now that we can look
the world in the eye and that we can feel that we’re on the broad highway walking hand
in hand with the spirit of the universe wonderful wonderful promise and the promises
that we usually refer to on pages 83 and 84 the new freedom and the new happiness
and how we our intuition comes alive we intuitively know how to handle things that used
to baffle us that intuition we’ve always had but the program makes it alive and we
become we start living at them and all that information is there for us if we become in
tune I read the definition that a poet in Australia wrote for the word pause I can never
become in tune if I don’t pause and he called the word pause he said a gap in the human
goal isn’t that wonderful a gap in the human goal where the divine squeezes through you
know when I stop my human goal and let the divine God squeeze through I get to know
what it is God wants me to do but if I don’t pause I don’t I can’t get that I remember one
friend I had in the program Dick he used to say to me Bea every time you see pause
always write stop on the top of it because you come from Ireland and they don’t use the
word pause there so you’ve got to say stop you know just stop everything so when I
pause I find that it works for me and learn learn how to be still and so I was so I became
so aware as I went all over the world which I’m doing now I became so aware that in our
continued sobriety what happens to us sometimes we get caught in this wonderful thing
called enthusiasm and then we forget how to pause and we forget this conscious contact
I was impressed by the promises of step 10 you know the first one especially where it
says guess what Bea you’re going to stop fighting imagine me stopping fighting from the
north of Ireland stop fighting everything and everybody even alcohol and then it
promises me that I’ll be placed in a position of neutrality page 85 you’ll be placed in a
position of neutrality safe and protected isn’t that a wonderful place to be and we’ll be
able to develop this vital sixth sense we’ll be able to develop it I used to teach people
how to pray and meditate before I got sober I still do some of that but I’m embarrassed
when I say that because I found really how to do that when I found page 86 in the big
book because it tells me what to do from the minute I wake up it says from the minute
you wake up you think about the 24 hours ahead and you consider your plans for the day
now you don’t worry about your plots it doesn’t say anything about those you consider
your plans for the day and then you ask God to direct your thinking a wonderful just a
wonderful meditation to imagine God trying to get my thinking in order now that’s a full
time job for God it really is get my thinking in order and this conscious contact I love the
wisdom of this program I love the wisdom of the words conscious contact because I
believe that conscious contact means that I need to be conscious you know I need to be
awake and alive and conscious of what’s going on what I’m feeling what’s going on for
me just not contact I had contact with God all my whole life I said these prayers to a God
way out there somewhere but not a conscious contact before I finish I want to tell you
how I found God in this program I found God when I came to steps 6 and 7 and I came
became entirely willing for God to remove my defects of character and I didn’t I was such
a perfectionist that I didn’t know how entirely entirely was and I grappled with that and I
didn’t think I had that many defects of character and those I had I didn’t want to be
telling anybody and oh it’s just problems with all that and then I finally got to step 7 oh
that wonderful wonderful precious precious step it’s the the step I call it the prayer on
page 76 is the self esteem prayer that’s what it is because it says my creator I am now
willing that you God should have all of me good and bad oh isn’t that wonderful imagine
a God who would have me whether I’m good or bad now see I didn’t know any of that
until I got to AA because I came from a sort of a background where you had to be kind of
worthy any of you hear that word worthy or you had to be good for God I spent most of
my life trying to be good for God I was never worthy I was never deserving and when I
read the words of step 7 on page 76 it said I am now willing that you should have all of
me good and bad and then I knew I knew what I had been teaching everybody forever
now what I had been teaching everybody forever was you know I had been teaching
them little parts from scripture that says you know your God loves you oh your God
really loves you or your God would carve your name on the palm of his hand or your God
would call you by your name your God would love you so much that he would note your
agitation this is from one of the psalms I have noted your agitation and now I will collect
your tears and I will put them into a little bottle can you imagine a God who would think
that we were so precious and I knew that God would do that for you I knew God would do
that for you but I was always this little orphan child with freckles and red hair and I knew
that God forgot about me and when I got as far as step seven I understood in my heart
and in my soul that God meant me too and it was okay for me to come to God whether it
was good or bad whether it was true or false whether it was perfect or imperfect whether
I knew whether I didn’t know and what somebody described to me was you know all you
ever have to do from now on to full time B is you have to become full time B that’s all
you never have to impress anybody anymore you just have to be yourself and God will
show you then what it is that you have to do and that relief for me was something
incredible it was something that I never ever expected that I would get to understand
this God who would think that somebody like me was precious because like most of us I
have this huge low tiny self image oh it was terrible and I know today that I am God’s
precious child and I know that God loves me just the way I am and that I don’t have to
ever impress anymore and what a nice feeling of relief and inner freedom that that is for
me if there is any of you in this room this morning that might be stuck on this God stuff
you know this God as you understand him or whatever it is that you might be stuck with
you might want to you just might want to think about step seven it’s a wonderful step for
getting us to just our size the size that we are you know and just to accept ourselves this
is me this is it I am imperfect I do some things well and some things I don’t do really well
and some things I can tolerate and some things I can’t I am just trudging along like
everybody else and I am not that special and yet in God’s eyes I am real special and it is
a wonderful feeling of self esteem well you know I never will know there is twenty five
promises in the big book for step twelve that begin there in page eighty nine and there is
I think there is about eight for step eleven but I would never know for sure how step
twelve works because it works in the weirdest ways the weirdest times now I know that it
worked through Stan and Marian here through getting this conference ready and all the
people who worked with you all your committees and everybody who worked and that
really is doing twelve step work it works with meetings where we clean up and we set up
and we help and we read and we share and it helps in a variety of ways and sometimes
it works when we least expect it it is kind of like candy you know God uses us when we
least expect that and God goes peek-a-boo you know and we never know for sure when
God will use us we really don’t and it is sort of mysterious I was sponsoring a very
important lady she is still a very important lady in the program I remember at telling her
some time ago, just some years now, and I remember saying to her, you can’t drink, you
never can drink, and she kept telling me every single day for six months, well, I will
always drink a glass of wine every evening, she told me that, but she’d go to meetings
and she’d read the book and she’d do her stuff and she was really very, very sincere
about the program, but she was still drinking, and I kept telling her, it doesn’t work,
you’re supposed to, I took her to breakfast, I wrote her little notes, I called her on the
phone, I talked to her, talked to her, talked to her, and one morning I invited her to come
to my morning meeting that I go to every day, and this fool of a man stood up, you know
how we have, well, we only have fools in California, some of us, we know of foolish
people who repeat themselves, and they always say the same thing, you know, at the
meetings, and you get very bored with them, and I’m always bored when the people
repeat a lot, and this fellow stood up and he was repeating himself as usual, I’m thinking,
oh God, I wish somebody would say something wise so this woman could hear, and he’s
repeating himself and repeating himself, at the very end he says, and this program
works best if you don’t drink, and if you don’t use any mind-altering drugs between
meetings, and we get in the car to go home and she held my two hands and she said, B,
we’re not supposed to drink between meetings, oh, and so what I know today is that it’s
mysterious how God would work, and so when I’m busy taking somebody’s inventory,
you know, and thinking how they ought to have done it and how they should have done
it, God’s busy working, you see, and that’s why, I believe that’s why our code is called
love and tolerance of others is our code, that we can’t afford to be judgmental at all,
because we don’t know for sure where God’s working, how God’s working, when God’s
working, or if God’s working, so none of that’s my business, another thing that I know is
not my business anymore, I know it’s never my business to worry, never, that’s God’s
business, my business is to work, and God never does any of the work, never, you know,
I do all the work, and my business is not to worry then, when I do what I’m supposed to
do and do my work, then God’s supposed to worry, now, I used to think that I was
responsible for everything, the worry and the results and everything, see, so none of that
makes any difference most of the time to me now, except when I’m not doing what I’m
supposed to do, and this is the glorious thing that people like you teach me and bring me
back to what I’m supposed to be doing, so I say that the twelfth step is real mysterious
to me, it always reminds me of a few lines that I think I can memorize from
Shakespeare’s play called King Lear, when he’s, King Lear is just about to go into prison
with his daughter, and he says to her, we shall laugh and we shall play and we shall sing,
and we shall look at gilded butterflies, and take upon ourselves the mystery of things, as
though we were God’s spies, in Alcoholics Anonymous and in Al-Anon, we get to take
upon ourselves the mystery of things, we never would have believed that it would have
turned out the way it did, like page 100 says, when we look back at the things we placed
in God’s hands, that turned out better than anything that we could ever have done, and
because I know that with such tremendous conviction, I am extremely grateful to God,
and I am very, very grateful to you, and very grateful to you again, Marian and Stan, for
giving me this opportunity to share with you and become renewed in the program, to
become reawakened and revitalized by the energy and the enthusiasm that I find in this
holy place, may God bless you and thank you, I love you all. Now we have Debbie, used
to be from Oahu, now she’s from California, and next month she’ll be from Washington.
(1:05:16 – 1:05:49)
Oh, this isn’t a vision for you, oh well, patience please. Debbie, I’m an alcoholic, and God
does have me on the move. Our book is meant to be suggestive only, we realize we
know only a little.
(1:05:49 – 1:06:03)
God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation
what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your
own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got.
(1:06:04 – 1:06:15)
See to it that your relationship with him is right, and great events will come to pass for
you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you
understand God.
(1:06:15 – 1:06:22)
Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give
freely of what you find and join us.
(1:06:22 – 1:06:43)
We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us
as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then.
And here’s Marion to finish it off.
(1:06:46 – 1:07:25)
Hi, I’m Marion, I’m an alcoholic. A very, very special lady who chose to come to this
conference before she starts on a journey that will be arduous and difficult for her, but
she chose to come to Hawaii to be with us today, and she’s going to sing Amazing Grace.
Jane? If you’d all like to stand, please, and join in.
(1:07:29 – 1:08:03)
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but
now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.
(1:08:04 – 1:09:17)
T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did
that grace appear, the hour I first believed. When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first
begun.
(1:09:18 – 1:09:57)
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but
now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.
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