Service This ....

[barb dwyer]

... a good friend and 'step - sponsor' in our group has been having some fairly serious medical problems lately. She's in her seventies, with over 35 years and all that.
So I'm talking to her on the phone, and she mentions that she's got 'some bushes' in her yard that the gal who's doing her lawn for her can't reach.
She needs someone tall to trim them up for her.

I just sat there.
(heehee)

So she mentions again that the girl is just too short to reach the bushes ...
*silence on my end*

Finally, she says 'So, *barb* what're YOU doing monday?"


I said, 'Sounds like I'm coming over to your place to do some yardwork!"

So, like the good alcoholic I am, I recruit a good pal from the meetings to go with me. Thank GOD I did that. And thank GOD she's in better shape than me.

See, I'm thinking, six, maybe less bushes in the yard.

We pull up ...
it's a HEDGE.
Like - the length of a FOOTBALL FIELD.
NOW... I know why people at the club were laughing.

I'm thinking; swaggled again. So I said to her 'How do you live with yourself? Tricking a poor little alcoholic in recovery like me? How do you sleep?"

She says, 'Like a log, honey. Here's the clippers."

We were there for HOURS. I am SOOO sunburned. My shoulders hurt so bad yesterday, I didn't even BOTHER trying to brush my hair. I just braided it and went to the meetings.
I walked in to the club, all beet red and said, to the guys who laughed before -
'I DARE any ONE of you to say a word. Say ONE thing ... and see what happens."
These are biker types I'm talking to.
Daring them to speak.
Then we just looked at each other and busted out laughing.
LOL

But the cool part - was when we were done.
We sat in this lady's back yard, drinking lemonade; throwing the ball for her little dog and best friend ... and she began telling us about her life in Montana. Being the first woman in her group. The only daughter in a big ranch family. All those years sober. What being a woman alcoholic was like in the rough and tumble times in Montana on a ranch; going to the bars on the weekends.
Wow.

All in all, an amazing few days off, even though I am still a bit sore.
My friend and I are going back over there NEXT monday -
we're building her a fence.
Just a little one.
I made her show me the spot first this time.
LOL

We meet the most miraculous people in this Fellowship.

Please add this lady to your prayer list for a while. She's come down with something pretty serious,
and I don't want her going anyplace.
I'd miss her too bad.
She's one of those 'hard core' big book quoting AA women ... who I just don't run into any more.
Everyone in the group fears her.
Only because she tells it like it is.
And I love that about her best.
I love her quite a bit, in fact.
She's helped me so very much.

Thanks for the prayers.

Thanks for letting me share.

[best]

Originally Posted by barb dwyer

But the cool part - was when we were done.
We sat in this lady's back yard, drinking lemonade; throwing the ball for her little dog and best friend ... and she began telling us about her life in Montana. Being the first woman in her group. The only daughter in a big ranch family. All those years sober. What being a woman alcoholic was like in the rough and tumble times in Montana on a ranch; going to the bars on the weekends.
Wow.

Made it all worth it I am sure.

Has she ever rode in town on a horse? *LOL*

Prayers are with her.

[barb dwyer]

LOL Best!

COULD you be referring to my OWN ride through the bar????

She's a humdinger, for sure.

[Sugah]

THANK YOU FOR SHARING, Barb!

Made my sleepless night...

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[sabine]

Thanks for sharing all this...

[liveweyerd]

[CarolD]

And should it be her time to chair
the big meeting above

You will pass on her recovery down here.

(+) (+) (+)
Hugs and Prayers
for the two of you

[Music]

Hey Barb,
The Big Book says that nothing so insures our sobriety as intensive work with other alcoholics. Sometimes that includes intensive work "for" other alcoholics don't you think?

[barb dwyer]

*rubbing shoulder*

yeah, it was pretty intense ... LOL

[Sugah]

There's this old grumpy guy, Joe, who was my husband's "first AA resentment." He's gruff, he's hardline, he's...well, you all know the type. If he's not at a meeting and there's a call for a "sick/concern card," someone's sure to call out his name. It's a running joke. Even the other oldtimers give him a hard time.

And the new guys can often be found out at his farm, working on his barn or fixing his truck. First thing he does is put food in their bellies and very often a roof over their heads. When they get a little bit of time in meetings and off the booze, he lines their pockets some for their time. The whole time, he works along side them, talking steps, BB, life.

Some folks who don't understand his methods thinks he's doing his own version of 13th stepping, taking advantage of these down&out newcomers. Anyone who got sober under his wing knows differently.

When there's a 12 step call that needs to be made in the middle of the night, he's the first one there. When there's a member in the hospital, in jail, in mourning, he's the first one there. When someone else is repairing a roof or trying to get a truck out of a snowbank, he's there. It's a two-way street for him. You can't keep it if you don't give it away.

Your lady reminds me of my friend, for that's what he is, even though he and I have gone head to head a time or two...him carping at me, me carping right back. When it's over, we always hug. Little bizarre, but true.

He's got some serious health problems, and sometimes, he has to be reminded that he's got to take care of himself, too. But we help each other, and in twenty-four years or whatever he's got now, he and many others have stayed sober, together, one day at a time.

Thanks, Barb, for helping me think about those folks who've paved the way for us, kept it all going. They're priceless folks, and I think it's safe to say that their greatest wish for us is that we keep that boat floating when they're gone.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[Barto]

That’s gotta’ be good for at least a week of sobriety – maybe it two.

[Tazman53]

Barb & Sugah thank you both for sharing on service work, so many of us forget that it is more then making coffee or tearing down a meeting.

[laurie6781]

Way back in my very early recovery, before I had a job or was really able to work, my new found sponsor asked me to come over and clean her house.

For some reason I went willingly, just for the chance to have some 'me time' with her. She worked right along side me, talking AA and recovery the whole time, made a fantastic lunch, and...............................paid me a decent wage at the end of the day, saying "there now, you've earned this." WOW

I watched her do this with other 'new sponsees' as the years went by, and, of course, picked up the habit myself.

Barb and Sugah, I have known quite a few 'crusty AAers' like your friends, and ask The Great Spirit daily to help me become half the person they are and Beverly was. To me, that is what RECOVERY IS ALL ABOUT.

J M H O

Love and hugs,

[collinsmi]

She's one of those 'hard core' big book quoting AA women ... who I just don't run into any more.

We'll run out of these types of people, unless.......

[Sugah]

For the record....

I do jail meetings, taking a once-weekly AA meeting to the women in the county jail. Couple of weeks ago, there was a big blow-up on the one block, and one of the women, normally soft-spoken and pretty accepting of things over which she has no control, was ready to burst a vein. Actually, all the women were upset, and it was pretty apparent that there wasn't going to be a "normal" AA meeting that night. I let them go, yelling back and forth at each other and about those who didn't accompany them.

They had all brought their Big Books to the meeting. I sat listening to them and thumbing through my own, marked up "little Big Book." Every once in awhile, I'd gently interrupt them, tapping my cane on the table if I had to, and announce a page number, and they'd all stop their bickering and open their books. Each reading spoke directly to what they were talking/arguing/whining about. In the course of an hour, we covered close to a dozen readings, all dead on regarding their situation.

At the end of the meeting, the girl who was so angry when she came in said, "Man, am I glad I had a meeting tonight! I feel sooo much better!" All the other women agreed.

The program, what's in between the covers of that ugly blue book, has never failed to provide an answer for me. Glad I had and have folks around to remind me of that.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[fraankie]

wow
the miracle of recovery
somebackbreaking work
sounds like a great day
and
you stayed sober


best
fraankie

[GlassPrisoner]

Those Old Timer stories are great. Very old school. Feed 'em, put 'em up, put 'em to work, all the while working program. God Willing I can do that some day.

That said.........can't help but LoL at the thread title.

[barb dwyer]

{{{{Sugah}}}}
Funny, girl - I've already signed up for the group that goes to the women's facility here. I can't get 'in' until my one year ... and I'm sponsoring two in the pre-release program.

Collinsmi -
Yes, I agree. I hope they're not a dying breed. To imagine what it was like, to have to have a man sponsor, because there were no women in the program back then here in MT ... for me, it's that 'if you want what we've got' thing. I want that kind of sobriety. Confident. Independent. Caring. Compassionate. REAL.

I was a hard core drunk ... it only fits that I be a hard core sober-person. Sobreitarian? whatever... *g*

I appreciate 'REAL' anymore.


GP - lol

[barb dwyer]

update -

the fence plan is tabled for now.

she got into an argument with her landlord.
(she's been renting that place for thirteen years;
you'd think he'd know better than to argue with her by now
- everyone at the fellowship does - LOL)

she said she hung up on him.

feisty old broad.
spry.

which means she's feeling a bit better.

keep those prayers coming, folks!

and thanks!

[Music]

Hey Barb, I just noticed you were in Butte. My folks were born in Montana and then moved to Oregon. That's definately God's country up there. I remember Christmas in Butte when I was about 8 years old, visiting my Aunt. The snow was over my head. I thought I was in heaven.

[Peter]

Thanks barb. Now that's what I'm talking 'bout. To be willing to help others and to ask for it when we need it.