http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2008-05-23/627435/
You gotta read it to believe it. Jeesh.
Anyway, I was there. A friend of mine invited me to help carry the message. She told some of her story and I had the opportunity to tell some of mine...with time constraints we didn't know. It's all good. LOL
I talked about my childhood experiences..some of them. I shared about "secrets" I learned to air out, let out, speak it, share it...thanks to my Higher Power, the 12 Steps and Bernard Fleming (an excellent therapist who's helped me so much). It takes what it takes.
I feel so deeply humble, grateful. I know without any doubt whatsoever...there, but for the grace of GOD, go I.
I still remember the day when Steve Elliott, my Intensive Supervision Probation officer, closed the door to his office on South Lamar, he walked over to where I sat, leaned forward and pointed his index finger close to my nose and told me, "You are one person who should be in prison and I'm the one who's going to see you get there." Words to that effect. He revoked my probation and on my birthday September 2 I stood before the judge and was placed in the custody of Travis County jail for 47 days. The l-o-n-g-e-s-t 47 days of my life. For the first time I read "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck and it opened my mind...a slight opening...but it helped start pointing me in the right direction. Thank GOD. At night I sang gentle, peaceful songs...my voice echoing on the acoustics of the jail. Serenading us to sleep as the jail quieted...on the last day I heard, "ATW"...all the way...I was free at last. I remember some of the younger women cried, "Don't leave us, Carol, don't go." Very humbling indeed. I put them all in GOD's Hands.
In jail, I learned the equation: Freedom=Responsibility. However free I want to be, that's how much responsibility I must take for myself.
Yesterday, brought it all back to mind. Last night, I put my Big Book by my bed and read it in the wee hours of the morning. I found me again on pages 204-207...
"...I began to get a picture of myself, of the temperament that had caused me so much trouble. I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic. My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armor against the world's misunderstanding. That armour had turned into prison walls, locking me in loneliness---and fear. All I had left was an iron determination to live my own life in spite of the alien world---and here I was, an inwardly frightened, outwardly defiant woman, who desperately needed a prop to keep going...
"Alcohol was that prop, and I didn't see how I could live without it...
"Then the miracle happened---to me!...
"...my eye caught a sentence ...'We cannot live with anger'. The walls crumpled---and the light streamed in. I wasn't trapped. I wasn't helpless. I was free and I didn't have to drink to "show them." This wasn't "religion"---this was freedom! Freedom from anger and fear, freedom to know happiness, and freedom to know love.
"I went to a meeting to see for myself this group of freaks or bums who had done this thing. To go into a gathering of people was the sort of thing that all my life, from the time I left my private world of books and dreams to meet the real world of people and parties and jobs, had left me feeling an uncomfortable outsider...and found I had come home at last, to my own kind. There is another meaning for the Hebrew word... "salvation". It is: "to come home." I had found my salvation. I wasn't alone anymore.
"...my once overweening self-will has finally found its proper place, for I can say many times daily, "Thy will be done, not mine"...and mean it."
Dear Heavenly Lord GOD Almighty Creator Great Spirit, thank YOU for it all. YOUR Will be done. Love, Carol xoxox
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