Powerlessness and Unmanageability – Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – New Freedom 12 Step Workshop

We have Barb S. from the Magothy 12 and 12 group, and Emily D. from the Hopkins group. They'll be sharing on their experience with the steps 1, 2, and 3, which are, one, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Take it away. Thanks. My name is Emily. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is February We're the first 2008, as he said, my home group is Hopkins. I have a sponsor and I sponsor men and women in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm really glad to be here today, but not so glad to be first. Anyway, I was very grateful to be asked to speak on one, two and three. I actually did a third step with a sponsee the other night and it's just as powerful doing it with somebody else as it was. First time I took the third step, but stepping back a little bit, I've heard people say that they did the first step before they ever came into AA and I have to admit that I'm one of those people. It wasn't a problem for me to come in and admit my alcoholism because I had been doing it in bar rooms for years. My mother got sober when I was 19 years old and she was whisked away to rehab and, um, I felt really bad for her. And, uh, cause I was just beginning to really get started drinking. I was in college. And um, uh that summer while she was at father Martin's, we learned about alcoholism. My father took my sister and I to the Dick Prote lecture series at shepherd Pratt. And we learned a lot about the science behind alcoholism, the disease. Um, and uh, and it was that summer that I diagnosed myself already at, at, at 18 or 19, um, I knew, you know, hearing this man talk about what the disease, how it, how it came out in people. Um, I, I could relate completely. And so now the only picture I have of alcoholism is my mother and she functioned up until the age of 50 when she got caught drinking at school. She's a teacher. Um? So that was kind of an issue, but, uh, I uh, that was my picture was my mother had a great life. She was funny. She always there for me. Um I was nervous when she got sober, she wouldn't be funny anymore. I you know, cause her alcoholism, I still don't think affected me in that many negative ways. It really was not that kind of a thing, but she was hiding it. I mean, it, it was not positive for her, but but the, the alcoholism that I had seen was so I would drink for whatever, 30, 40 years, and then I'd get caught and then i'd be whisked to some like beautiful rehab. And I, you know at this point I'd have kids and a husband who had taken care of me and like that was going to be my life. Well, that's not really how it played out. I got sober at 23. That was not planned. And my alcoholism progressed much more rapidly than my mother's. She drank cases of Coors Light. I was slamming hard shots and drinking bottles of wine before I left the house. And that was not how she drank. So my story was not the same as hers, but it was exactly the same as hers. We both got to the place where we were completely powerless over alcohol and our lives were unmanageable in two very separate ways. But because I had been to that lecture series and I had some idea of what alcoholism was like, I kind of knew what to expect. I kind of understood that once it got bad enough, you went to AA and it started getting better. You know, I wasn't afraid of this place. In fact, I knew it to be a safe place. My I had been to meetings with my mother and and I I liked what I saw. I mean, you guys didn't seem scary or intimidating. You know. It seemed like a nice place to be when I was in my 50s and had to get sober. So when I got arrested at 23 for blowing three times the legal limit, I spent a night in central booking. Um, I, by the grace of my higher power got a message somehow that that was the end. I don't know. It came loud and clear in that jail cell. That was it. You know, that, that I had had my run, that it was done. Um, and, um, I don'T at the time I couldn't have told you it was my higher power, but it was absolutely my higher power because 23 year old drunk Emily doesn't make good decisions. She doesn't make the decision that, you know, that alcohol is ruining her life and she needs to just, you know, calm it down. I never tried to control it because, like it says in the big book, when I would try to control it, I didn't have fun. And when I had fun, I could not control it. So I never trying to control it. I knew that I couldn't because at this point I knew I was an alcoholic. The whole time I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I had the genetic predisposition to alcoholism. And so why try to control it if I know that I can't? So I got the powerless kick. I knew that, you know, if I had a wretched hangover all day, it wasn't even worth swearing off because I was going to drink that night. I worked in restaurants for years and all it took was one person to put that idea in my head. Even if I, you Know, in the morning was like, maybe I won't go out. All it took Was one of my co-workers to be like, where are we going tonight? And I was there, You know, I was completely powerless over the bar scene. I was completely powerless over being seen. You know, it was that whole see and be seen thing. I was obsessed with it. I had a gigantic ego and thought, you know, if I got sober, you know, the auto bar would go broke. You know what? What would you know who would sit in my chair at Club Charles? Like what would happen? And I found that there are plenty of young drunk girls in Baltimore that have taken my place. I'm six feet tall. I think it took two or three. But but for real, like I, I just, you I knew something had to change, but I was terrified. I was horrified. I knew I was powerless. I knew my life was unmanageable. I was incapable of doing anything besides just barely go to work. I spent all day throwing up in the bathroom. I was not a very good waitress or employee. I mean, I was drinking at work, and I just couldn't function. So here I am. I can't imagine my life with or without alcohol, which is the perfect jumping off place. And I'm in jail and I call my mother and I said, I'm in jail. And she said, thank God, because she knew that it was Jailer of the Morgue that would be calling at some point. She knew it was sooner rather than later. She knew I was not going to make it to 50 and to rehab. So so I it wasn't like the movies. I didn't get immediately picked up by my parents. I had to wait it out a couple more hours, and then I got home, and she gave me her copy of the well-worn big book that she had received in rehab, and she give me a schedule for Alcoholics Anonymous. And I had willingness, so I went. I did what people said. My introduction to AA was gentle and powerful at the same time. I so I came in kind of not exactly accepting my alcoholism, but I didn't come in completely kicking and screaming. I did, however, think that my life was over at 23. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be bowling for the rest of my life to have fun. And I know I'm not the only person that thought that because I've heard it in like 10 other meetings of young people that I've gotten sober that thought that that was the only thing they could do was bowl. I don't know where this idea of bullying comes in, but I really didn't know what one would do if they got sober that young. I just, you know – but I still kept coming back. It wasn't like my life is over, you now, that's it. No, my life was over but I'm still going to keep coming to AA because this is my only option. So I got a sponsor immediately. She's still my sponsor today. She's recently moved out of state. So right now we're doing the long-distance thing, but I'm looking for another woman to help me here in town. But she was exactly what I needed. I have never been so willing as I was when I came into AA. And my bottom wasn't as low as some people's are. You know, I know that, like, when some people come in and their bottom is just as low as it can get and they really have no other option that they take every suggestion, that wasn't necessarily the case for me. I think I just have this people-pleasing thing that I know I have this people-gleasing thing, that it was kind of like, you know, I'll do what you say. You know, this is how we do Alcoholics Anonymous. This is how I'm going to do Alcoholic Anonymous, my sponsor. You know? She worked me through all 12 steps and got me into service. I mean, she was just so wonderful. And I take a page from her book with all my sponsees, the ones that are willing at least. that I called her every day. Like, I've never had a sponsee that called me every day, I don't know why I called er every day I didn't like calling her every day but I did it because I knew I was an alcoholic and this is what she said you guys did. I didn' t know that other people weren't doing this, I didn''t know it was an option not to do it I didn ''t know was an option to like smoke pot and like all this other stuff like I didn?'t know that stuff if I had I might have, you know, not called her everyday and done the marijuana maintenance program but like I heard this is what we do, so I did it. And I think that's the reason I'm here today, that I continue to do it. I grew up Catholic, begrudgingly so. I took a philosophy class in college, decided there was no God and decided that meant I didn't have to go to church with my parents anymore. And then here I am in AA and I have to find a higher power and I've got this God of my youth and this non-God of my college years and how do I rectify the too. And, um, and I, I read, it's so funny. I love that I have the same big book that I had when I was getting sober because I have all these little notes in the margins cause I was a good little AA student. And uh, there's a point where I was reading we agnostics and there's just a little note in the corner that says, who am I to say there is no God? You know, I just started bawling one night. I had about a month sober. I was really, really reading we Agnostics in bed before, before I went to bed. And um, And all of a sudden And my hardened heart opened up and I couldn't deny that there was a higher power. It didn't look the way that my, my higher power of my youth looked. But I was thinking about it on the way over here. It was like really overpowering that like, I found God in nothing during my drinking. I mean, nothing. I was so pessimistic. I was such a person. So fatalistic. I was just so, you know, I was going to die at 25. I'm 29 years old. I'm on borrowed time now. But I was going to die at 25. I had nothing to live for. I would listen to really depressing music and cry in my basement apartment all the time. And today, I'm driving here through Dickeyville, and there's, like, the most insane beautiful trees. And, you know, like it just – it's like the biggest flip. I started praying on my knees every morning even though I felt like that was too Catholic. But I started doing it because she told me to. And I would look out the window, and I would watch the trees move in the wind. And that was my first conception of a higher power was wind. And that Was it. I don't know where it came from, but still to this day, I look into the trees, and that just is a weird connection for me. But it was different than the Holy Trinity. It was so different than like the whole Catholic doctrine that I'd grown up with that it was like, okay, like I can start with this. Um, and my coming to believe was a really beautiful, beautiful experience because I, um, it just, I opened up, you know, I just, I just the wall started coming down and I just had this little bit of willingness to believe that there was something out there that could take care of me. And, um and because I had done that, I saw little miracles everywhere and I counted everything as a miracle early on. I still count a lot of things as miracles but like, you You know, I'd run into somebody at AA at the grocery store and just like, oh my gosh, like there's God. You know? Like I would just freak out. I just couldn't believe how many people I had seen in meetings like existed in the real world, you know? And that was a big deal for me, you Know? Like that was really big deal to me. That like, wow, like everybody is just doing their thing and everybody is grocery shopping and they're all, you now, they're paying their bills and they are living their lives and like everybody seems relatively happy. And that was a big deal because I came to AA meetings in sweatpants, crying. You know, like, I'm an alcoholic. I'm just, you know, this sad, sad girl. But I'd see people in public and I'd feel, you know, I'd feels good. I'd felt like there was something out there looking out for me. You know? I'm having a bad day at work and I'm still working restaurants and we're catering some party and who should walk in but somebody in my home group. They were at some sort of work event. So I have somebody sober in the room with me, and I start feeling better. You know, that kind of stuff just happened a ton early on, and it allowed me to see that there was a higher power working in my life that could keep me safe and could maybe return me to sanity, which I now know it returned me definitely to sanity in regards to alcohol. I had the compulsion to want to drink removed pretty early on. Um, I was really lucky in that regards because like I said, I worked in restaurants and, um, my sponsor told me to get out of the, out ofthe industry and I knew better. I can, I can handle this. Um, and the, the deal was that I, Ican handle it as long as I pray and go to meetings and call my sponsor. You know, Icand be around alcohol as longas I do X, Y, and Z. And so I needed a higher power with me all the time because I'm going to be out and about. I'm to be around alcohol. I'm an artist. I go to openings. There's booze everywhere. Like, I need to have a higher Power with me all the Time because I am not going to always have somebody from AA magically appear at every event I go to. So my idea of a higher Power had to get bigger. And taking step three with my sponsor, we held hands in a conference room in her apartment building. We said the third step. And we felt so awkward, or I did. She didn't care. But I felt so awkard. But I started to say the prayer every morning. And something about the third step prayer really comforted me and made me feel like I've really got someone on my side. It's not just like coincidences and stuff. This is a higher power that can really take me through the day and protect me. And I love my home group because there's lots of old-timers in the meeting, and they would talk about what is God's will. Because my sponsor the other day was like, I don't know what God'swill is for me. And he was like freaking out, and I was like whoa, whoa, Whoa. I know that my higher power doesn't want me to drink. My higher power wants me to be the best Emily I can be, and that's as far as I know what God's Will definitely is for Me. And so that was really the beginning for me was I would hear people in my home group talk about, you know, that God's will is for us to stay sober and do the next right thing. And so, you Know, I started praying to do the Next Right Thing and to be the best Emily I could be. And I know that when I am doing my will, things don't turn out right. You know, if I'm fighting against something, it's probably my will. If things are going smoothly, if, you know, things seem to be going in the right direction, it''s probably God's Will. I don't try to ask too many questions. I've gotten a lot of acceptance over the past few years, especially. But it's been an incredible, incredible journey. And I learned more about the third step, especially as more hardships come up. At year three and a half, my mom got stage for melanoma. And, um, I, uh, I really had to rely on a higher power to take care of not only my life, but, you know, but her as well and the family. And I, you Know, I got so much more prayerful, um in that third year, um because I needed it. Um, I was living in Moscow at the time and it was the first time that I thought of a drink was so strong. I could taste the vodka. I mean, it was really, really, really, really scary. And and I really needed to rely that my higher power had me and had my mom and and the doctors had her, you know, I really need to just put it all aside and know that that my heart power if my heart can relieve me of my alcoholism he can walk my mom through cancer treatments and and and he did you know and my heart did in her heart did And she made it through. And it was such a tough time, but I know that it brought me so much more strength in my program because I had to rely on a higher power. I didn't have the wherewithal to do anything else. I was alone in a foreign country. I had my higher power, that was it. And so I know today that I'm taken care of. I know that my alcoholism can only be warded off with the help of the higher power that I continue to seek today. I'm really lucky that my sponsor was a seeker, is a seeper. She was a pagan witch who liked crystal healing and Buddhism, and she had like all these different books. And I needed that because all I had was a past with Catholicism. I needed to learn that there were other ways to seek. And I've got a stack of books that I can read whenever I want to hear something spiritual and loving. I have options, which is the most beautiful part about AA is that we have options. Whatever's bigger than you, whatever's greater than you that can remove your compulsion to drink and take care of you. And for me, that looks different than it might look for you. But that's really the beauty of this program. I am so grateful that things have changed so drastically in six years, that I can sit up in front of you and not cry and lie and speak about spiritual matters. That's a very, very different place than I was almost six years ago. So I'm going to pass it along to the other two. Thanks for letting me share. One or the other. Good morning, everybody. My name is Winslow Sully. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Winslaw. I always love listening to somebody talk about the first three steps. And the amazing gift we get, even through the action of just those three steps, is the realization that God is doing for us what we can't do for ourselves. And that's something that just happens. And I like what Emily said. You just wake up. It seems like you wake up one morning and all of a sudden we feel like we're protected. And I don't know about anybody in here, but I never felt as though I was protected my whole life. I'm not one that came to Alcoholics Anonymous to find out I was an alcoholic. I knew I was An Alcoholic when I was 16 years old. I came to alcoholics anonymous in 1990 when I was 39 years old now, an awful lot happened between those that period of time. And it was one of those things. I, I think there's an awful lot to be said, knowing that we're alcoholic. But we all have that thing in there and it talks about it in our book that somehow, someday I will learn how to control and enjoy my drinking. And it says it's a single obsession of every alcoholic. And many of us are prepared to carry that into the gates of insanity and even death. And then it tells us that we have to decide whether or not we want to accept life on a spiritual basis. But if I believe that somehow well, someday I'm going to learn how to enjoy my drinking. Why would I want to accept life on a spiritual basis? I stayed out there for a long, long time, and if we have some younger people in here, I always like to say that's not a prerequisite. You don't have to do that. Some of us do it. I think what happened for me at an early age is I started to experience a separation from God. And as I experienced a separation form God, then I experienced the separation from man. And the longer I believe that I am the one that is in control of my own life, the greater my separation is from God. And that still happens as much today as it happened 20, 30, 40 years ago. That every day that if I wake up and I decide that I want to control my life, and I do that a lot, then that is a conscious separation from God? So it's either I do it or I don't do it. Now for me, my separation took some time. And there was one time, and I always kind of share this whenever I'm talking about the first step, because it was the first time I realized that I was drinking against my will. Any other time I would tell myself whether it was a lie or whether it wasn't a lie, I would telling myself that it was okay for me to drink as much as I wanted because I wasn't hurting anybody but myself, or I deserved it. Now what happened for me is I had a young nine-year-old boy who was very, very sick. And at that particular time in his life, we thought that he was going to die. And he was in Johns Hopkins Hospital. And this night, I always share this because he begged me on that night to stay with him. And I don't know about any of you, but when the booze starts calling, you know what we have to do. And on that particular night, he was crying and he said, please just stay with me tonight. And I would look at the watch and at first I told him I would. And then what happens? You see, I'm a believer the curse of alcoholism isn't the alcohol. The curse of alcoholicism is sobriety. I can't deal with sobrietry. And I think when we progress to a certain point in our lives and we know that sobriiety is right around the corner and what comes with sobpriety is disorientation, tremendous overwhelming fear, panic, shakes, disorientment, goes on and on and my heart starts beating real fast And that knot starts tightening up in my stomach, and I have called. I've been called. I know exactly what I have to do. And I remember walking out of that hospital that particular night, and I stood in Johns Hopkins Hospital in front of a statue down in the main vestibule of that hospital. And I looked at that statue of the resurrected Christ, andI looked at it, and I said, how can a God permit this to happen? What kind of God out there would let these young kids die every single day and let a drunk like me walk out of here that can't even spend the night with his own son? On that night, I made a conscious separation, a decision to separate myself from God and man. I swore that I would never utter another prayer again as long as I lived and that I Would never let another human being close to me because if I let you close to me i give you license to hurt me and i'm not doing that now i've heard that described as hell by another author a book uh that i'd read one time he says now that it's close to hell as we can get while we're still walking on this face of this earth and what happens is i heard quite a long time later and i like this because i heard it wasn't an aa talk or anything else it was it was another guy and he was saying that when we separate ourselves, that many of us come in here and profess ourselves to be atheist or agnostic. And when we make that sort of a statement or we take that sort of an action, the greater the separation we have from our higher power is the greater, the longing we have to be connected and it's measurable. So the farther I separate myself from God and the farther I separate yourself from you, the greater I'll long to be disconnected. And that will take me to that place of fear and loneliness and desperation that I can't even describe. And I'm sure many of you have been there before. Now what happened for me, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous quite by accident. I believe that God will work in our lives without our permission and I also believe that spiritual awakenings don't have to feel good. Now for me my favorite pastime was drinking and driving. I absolutely loved drinking and driven. It was It was great. There is nothing like getting in a car, getting yourself a nice six-pack of beer, a bottle under the seat, turn that Somebody Done You Wrong song on the radio and just sit back and life is good. And the only thing that can ruin that is another human being. In this case, it was a couple of Maryland state policemen. And on that night, they turned me over to my wife at her place of business at about 1 o'clock in the morning and said, does this belong to you? That's a horrible experience, let me tell you. I'm standing there, these two state cops. I'm in handcuffs. She's in front of her coworkers, and she gets the job of taking me home. Terrible place to be. I woke up the next morning. I stole the tags off my son's car. I went to work on time because I always went to worked on time. I sat there, and my wife called me on the phone, and what she said to me was that she was sick and tired of the hell and misery I had put her through for 18 years and that for the first time in my life, I was to do the right thing and not come home. A couple minutes after that, my boss called me in. They sent a letter across the table, said they'd noticed I'd been intoxicated on a job on several occasions. I had 30 days to put my life together or I was fired. This all happened in 12 hours. I've been arrested, I've been put in jail, turned over to my wife, my boss was going to fire me and my wife told me never to come home again. And other than that, I was having a good day, right? And I'll tell you, I still hadn't done a first step. They told me I could go to rehab and I went to rehab and believe me, I don't think there's a right or wrong way to come to AA. I just think it matters what we do when we get here. So I went into this rehab and they told me to do a first step. I don't fault them, but what they said is I should list out my powerlessness and I should listen to what they're saying. I should write it all down on paper and I should share it. Our book doesn't say anything about that, but that's what they told me to do, so that's what I did. And what I learned is I learned that I know how to manage a first step because if I can manage what I'm writing therefore I can mange the outcome and I can manege the reaction that I'm going to get when I share it to 50 people. So I learned that if I'm manageable in writing my first step, then I'm not powerlessness and I've never done the first step. Of course, I believed I had because they told me I had. I went home. I decided it was important for me to fix my family because they were broken. It's funny the ideas we get in rehab, isn't it? We're a month sober and say, ah, I got it. I'm going to straighten the whole thing out with everybody now. So I go home to straighten everything out and on Mother's Day in 1990, my wife threw me out. best thing she'd ever done for me. And the reason it was the best thing she'd never done for her because on that day, on that particular morning and it was on Mother's Day, all the information that I'd learned good, bad or indifferent from sitting in these rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous made that movement from the head to the heart and I understood. I understood what it was to be powerless over alcohol. I understood what it is to be unmanageable. I believe that the first step and many people disagree with me is a gift from God first step is ultimate grace that for whatever reason I get to a point I get into a place I get a point in my life where I no longer have a good idea a bad idea I don't have any idea I don'T HAVE A PLAN for the first time in my live I did not have a plan on how I was going to get out of the jam I was in I'd come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I weighed 130 pounds. My skin was gray. I shook. I shook inside of these rooms for a year. I could no longer read, and I certainly couldn't get up in front of a bunch of people and say anything at all. That's what I came to Alcoholic Anonymous with. But I conceded to my innermost self that I was alcoholic and I was beyond human aid, and I reached out to the only thing I knew how to reach out to, and that was a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous. Because I didn't have anywhere left to go. And he asked me to come stay with him, and I couldn't come stay with him because I have this thing called pride. And the pride gets in the way to tell me that I still have to pull this off by myself. I had had 39 years of conditioning telling me I had to pull it off by myself, so how does a guy like me surrender to a God that I don't understand or I don' t know anything about? I did the very best I could with my steps for my first seven or eight months of sobriety, and I didn't do well at all. But I did as much. I believed in as much of God as I could on a daily basis, and I turned as much my will as I would over in a daily way. What I love about our literature, it says if we have the faith of a mustard seed, that we can form a beautiful foundation. My faith was in Alcoholics Anonymous because I had nowhere else to put it. So I had to get a belief. So I come to believe a little bit. I believe the entire solution to our program is presented in the second step. I've always believed that because I believe if I'm going to go out and pick up a drink at any time in my life, it's because I stopped believing. It's not because I stop working. It's because i stopped believing in the solution. I stopped living in you and i stopped living with God. Now for me, my second step experience came again as an act of God and not an act of me. I've been asked to go to a retreat. It wasn't an AA retreat. It was just a retreat. And I was a very, I was an isolator. I stayed all by myself and I was walking around the grounds on this particular night and I didn't want anything to do with anybody in the world. And I Was Feeling Terribly Lonely and I walked up and a guy stopped me, a guy by the name of Tom, and Tom stopped me and he said, I want you to do this. I want You to go up to your room tonight. He says, You're one of the lucky ones. I said, Why? He said, Because You came in here. Many of us come in here, and we have all sorts of perceptions or learned perceptions of what God is and what religion is, andwe have all sortsof opinions. He said, you're lucky becauseyou came in here with an empty bag, and all you've got to do is fill it up. That's all you got todo. And he sent me up to my room, and he said, go read Dr. Bob's story. And I went up there, and I read DrBob's story, and there's a paraphrase. I'm going to paraphrASE. I'm not going to get it exactly right, but in DrBobStory, There's a spot in there that says, if you think you're an atheist and agnostic or suffer from some other form of spiritual pride, which prevents you from accepting what's in this book, then I feel sorry for you. And I remember pausing for a second and I'm saying to myself, I said, well, that makes two of us, me and Dr. Bob. And I closed the book and I went to sleep. the next morning i woke up something had happened one guy went to bed another guy woke up to this day i cannot tell you what happened all sorts of believe every last one of us in here are more than happy to share about the god of our understanding but i've learned that the god of my understanding is really the god of my creation, that I will always create an image of God that's satisfactory to me and that's what I pray to. Now, what saved me on Mother's Day in 1990, I don't know what that was. What came again and saved me when I was at that retreat, another guy woke up and the obsession, the mental obsession that I'd carried, I wanted to drink so bad every day I could scream. But whatever happened that night, I woke up the next morning and the exception was gone. That was 23 years ago. It has not returned. I don't go looking for it. I realize whatever that God was that came and saved me that night is the God of my misunderstanding, but that is the god I need to surrender to. I don�t always do it. I do it the best I can. So what's faced with me at that time in my life is I have a decision to make. It's nothing more than that. It's a decision. To turn my will and my life over the care of God as I understood him. Now, what does that mean? What's my will? That's my thoughts. That's My desires. That's all of those things. That's All My Will. And what is My life? My life is My action. My life Is what I show you. My life is what I demonstrate every single day in my life. I make a decision to let God decide what to do there. Now, in the entire time I've been sober, I have never, not a single day, taken back that decision. I have taken back my will. I have taking back my life I have take back every other thing. And when the pain gets too great, I'll surrender it again and I'll surrendered over and over again. The surrender periods come much quicker now than they used to. I think we lose that I don't know whether it's age or length of sobriety It's probably a combination of the two But I don' fight as hard as I used to fight And I remember my decision I remember what's more than that And what Emily was talking about Is the gifts of waking up on a morning And realizing that God is in charge And you take a breath of fresh air As you drive over here Or go out in my backyard and sit or take my dog for a walk or whatever I do and realize that I am just a part of something very, very big. And the more that I realize that, the more I realize it, God is in charge and always has been and that he will use me in his direction. I love alcoholics and arms for teaching me that lesson because it's a lesson in life. And I think I'm out of time, so I'm going to turn it over to Bart. Wait for the microphone, man. My name is Barb. I'm an alcoholic, and I hate microphones, especially right here. My home group is the Magothy 12 and 12 Group. My sobriety date is August 1st, 1987, and I'd like to thank the committee for asking me. It's always a privilege and an honor to give back to AA. um july 31st 1987 i did what i did every single day for years prior to that i came home i got drunk i drank i got drink i blacked out i passed out and i puked somewhere in between there was nothing you could have told me that night that would have convinced me i had a problem There was nothing you could have done to tell me I was an alcoholic and that I needed help. I wouldn't have heard it. I wouldn' t have listened. And I came to the next morning, August 1st, 1987, about 10 o'clock in the morning, and I knew. I knew today that's the grace of God. I didn' t know it then, but something had happened. You know, the curtains had parted, and I know I had a problem. and thank God for the volunteers on the phones because at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning, AA was there, and they answered the phone. And I remember the guy said, can I help you? I said, is this Alcoholics Anonymous? He said yes. I said well, I am one, and I need help. And the most important question I had after that was how much does it cost? I don't know how you were at the end of your drinking. You know, if you said $10 a meeting, $20 a session, whatever it was, I didn't have it. I literally drank it all away. And the guy said, no, it's free. It doesn't cost anything. And then he asked me if I could go the rest of the day without picking up a drink. And he would find me a meeting that evening. I said yes. Thank God for the gift of desperation. I knew Alcoholics Anonymous existed. I had never been to AA. I'd never been court ordered. No one had told me to go. No one has suggested I go. I'm sure the people close to me were hoping and praying I would go. And to the best of my knowledge, I never knew a single person that belonged to AA, but I knew it existed and I knew who went there. And I knew that's where I needed to go and I was so desperate. I knew you people existed and i thought okay it's saturday so who's going to have a lot who's gonna go to meetings on Saturday right we're gonna go to a couple of meetings during the week so I said and I lived at Glen Burnie at the time I said I'll go anywhere around the Baltimore Beltway if you can possibly find me a meeting and I'm sure he laughed just like you did silently and said you know looked it up and found me a meet five minutes from where I lived and he asked me if I'd go the rest day and I could and I remember hanging up that phone sitting in my kitchen. I sat down, and I cried, and I thought, I'm 30 years old, and my life is over because I'm an alcoholic, and I'm a female alcoholic, which is worse than any of you guys because I thought the stigma, the stereotype goes with it, and I just thought, now I've screwed up everything. I knew I was a failure. I was always reminded of that. And I was always put down for who I was. And I thought, I'm going to go into AA and it's just going to be, you know, people just pointing the finger and say, you're nothing. You're worthless. But I didn't get that here. And I came in, you know, to that first meeting. And, you know, before that meeting, let me just say how terrified I was, I cried all day. But it's amazing how the ego works too. Because all that day I practiced introducing myself, you know? And I did it because number one, I was scared to death and I have to be perfect. That perfectionism. And if I don't get it perfect, then you're going to make fun of me. That's what I thought. So I practiced my name's Barbara. I'm an alcoholic. I mean, I'm not an alcoholic, but I'm an alcoholic my name is Barbara. However, I was going to do it. I don' t even know what i came up with that night and you just you just said hi and welcomed me and um when i came to that first meeting i was absolutely terrified as to what i was going to find i knew it was going to be all you old people it was gonna be very morbid very much gloom and doom very secretive you know with the curtains drawn tight and the lights down low and and guilty just very guilty and we're all going to sit around the rest of our lives and talk about how we're not going to drink And thank God that was the only solution I had. I didn't know there were detoxes. I didn'T know there WERE rehabs. I HAD never even heard of them, and I guess that's just not the way I was supposed to get here. And again, I had never been introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous to that point. So I come around scared to death, and the first person I run into is a woman I've been working with for the past five years who was at her second meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous. Yeah. I don't think that was a coincidence. I really don't. I believe that was God putting her in my life because she's the first person I saw. She hugged me and said, come on in. You're going to love it. And I came into this meeting just like here, you know, and they started the meeting and the secretary. And, you Know, this guy started talking and he's telling his story and it would just get worse and worse and worse. And I thought, and everyone was laughing. And I thought how tragic that you're laughing at all these things that happened to this guy. How, how can you do that? And then I realized he was laughing more than anybody, you know, and I could relate to a point, but then he started going where I hadn't gone. He had the DWIs. He, he'd been locked up. He'd lost his family. He'd lossed his kids. He's lost the jobs. He wrecked the cars. You know, all the things that I said, you know, I'm not that bad. It didn't happen to me. And I started slowly comparing out, but he got to a point in his story. He said he got a point In his life where he was sick and tired of being sick and Tired. That's the first thing that got my attention in AA. I thought, okay, there's one more person on the face of this earth that knows how I feel. And i really thought he was the only one. I didn't realize there were millions of us. You know, there are other people that actually felt like I did, you know? And I was immediately attracted to AA, you know, and that first part of the first step. But when I got here there, you couldn't say anything wrong. I knew I was an alcoholic the night before I wasn't, you know, it was that quick, that decision. And I've never doubted that I am an alcoholic. I never doubt that. And I am grateful today to be an alcoholic because of the life I have today. The second part of that first step, I had a lot of problems with that, that unmanageability part. I thought my only problem was I drank too much and other than that, I was just fine. Thank you very much. Because of all those things that hadn't happened. And I went around for the first couple of weeks saying, yeah, I'm an alcoholic, but yeah, I'm an alcoholic, but, and I am so grateful today. I wasn't then, but very grateful today for the honest people in AA that weren't afraid to tell me the truth. And a woman came up to me and I said, yeah, I'm An Alcoholic, but. And I said I'm not that bad. And she said, well, how bad did you want to get? And she Said maybe you should start being grateful that you're here now. And she assured me that if I went back out all those things that hadn't happen were waiting for me. I've also been told that in Alcoholics Anonymous, just because I quit drinking, my disease has kept progressing so that I have to remember how I felt that night I came in and how desperate I was that I wanted to get sober and that my disease had progressed 26 years worse. I can't imagine my life getting any worse than it was the night I got here. I really can't, but I believe it's true. I was at a meeting not too long ago where the speaker said his disease has been doing push-ups this whole time, just waiting, just wait for that moment to tell me you really weren't that bad. You're okay. And I know my disease is patient and it does creep up on me. I hear some people say, oh, they used to have drinking dreams. I still have them all the time, all the time. And in the dream, it's already too late. I've already taken the drink and I'm always getting ready to celebrate an anniversary. And I'm always figuring out how I'm going to lie to you people and pick up that chip because I am not picking up a one day chip, you know, And I wake up grateful every time it happens. When I got to the second step, the insanity part, I didn't really think that applied to me because I didn' t have any papers. I'd never been locked up. You know, I'd ever been strapped down and that's all I thought of insanity. And again, I didn''t think I was that bad. And, you know, a really good person, Alcoholics Anonymous said, well, why don't you think of it as insanity being the inability to make sound, rational decisions when it comes to alcohol? Okay. I got that one. Because if there was a time, the wrong time to get drunk, I found it. And I don't care at whose expense it was, whether it was with my husband at the time, whether it Was it with my son, whether It was in front of my parents. You know, I remember my dad's big retirement party at work where I was three sheets to the wind. They said, anyone want to make a speech? Yeah. Yeah, that was one to remember. Emily talked about, you know, she was going to get sober and all she was doing was bowling. I bowled on leagues drunk for years. That was prime night for me. And it was always three games. First three games, that first two games, not bad. That third game, not so much. I found I was a much better bowler when I got sober because it didn't turn into two lanes to roll that ball. But that was my night. I would drink to get ready to go to the bowling alley to drink because I've got to get primed before I do that. and that insanity there are many years being on that bowling league that we were finished it was a night league and back then they had a late night bowling league you could get on it was bowling for snh green stamps and you could Get These Stamps and win all these fabulous prizes so my husband and I love doing that and we're bowling now I am three sheets to the wind by the time we even start but I keep drinking excuse me and one night um I think we must have been newlyweds at the time because we were still you know very lovey-dovey and affectionate and all that good stuff and um we're bowling I am totally tanked and I remember I'm sitting next to him and we're kind of nudging each other and I decide you know well I'm just going to go down and give him a little nibble on his arm, I didn't realize that he had gotten up the bowl and somebody else had sat down. As soon as I bit the arm, I knew it wasn't him. That was a drunken stupor. That was insanity. And I knew those people too, and they never talked to me again. Those are the kind of things I did, you know, when I was drunk, you Know, those were the funny things. The things that weren't funny was when my son was still in a crib, my husband wasn't home from work yet and I needed another drink and I would leave that baby in a crib, leave the house and go to the liquor store to get what I needed. That was the child I would put in the car seat and drive drunk. You know, that I was the person that when my husband's father passed away, I wasthe one that was trashed the entire time because I thought it was all about me and look what I'm going through. You know, um, I was the one that mortified my family and my friends and did crazy outrageous things when I was drinking. And I was a blackout drinker. Um, there's a lot of things you would have to ask people. I knew, um、 because I don't know what I did. Sometimes I was really grateful I wasn't blackout drunker. What I didn't like where the friends would say, do you know what you did last night? And then they would proceed to tell me. And the only way I could get past that was to drink again, to make all of that stop everything that I was doing. You know, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I remember looking at that third step. And like both of these people, I believed in God when I came in. I went to church. Our whole family went to Church. You know, I was dragged to church every week and I didn't get it. I had no clue what those people were talking about. It just never seemed to apply to me. You know we just went because that's what I had to do when I became a teenager. I'm like, I'm not going back there. That's the most boring week of the hour of the week and and I didn't go back because I couldn't see what God was doing for me and And I was desperate enough that I was trying to do this third step when I first got sober. And I would go around to people, how do you do it? How do you know when I've done my third step? And people would just give me these dumb answers. They'll say, you'll know. You'll know kind of like when I said, how did I get a home group? How do I know which one to pick? You'll now. And I did. But I remember going home very early on in my sobriety. I went home in tears because I couldn't figure out the simple step that was outlined in the big book. I couldn' t figure it out, and I was crying. I got down on my knees. I said, God, I don' t know what to do, but whatever it is, I' ll do it. And that was the first time I made that decision. And as Winslow said, you know, I've never taken this decision back, but that my will and my life, you know, i've taken that back so many times. For me, the third step is something I have to do every single day. I just have to if i'm going to go out and do it my way or the way I think my higher power wants me to live. I came into AA, you Know Emily talked about coming in and getting right into AA and Winslow got right into AA. I came in and I got right into AA, but everything within my comfort zone. I came and I was still doing things my way on my terms. I would go to meetings every night of the week. I would smile like this all the time, you know, no matter what was going on, I was smiling. I was doing great because I wasn't going to let you know how I was really feeling. I didn't want to associate with the women because I knew you wanted what I had. And you aren't going to get it. And then I realized later on that nobody wanted what I got here. But I went around with that and, you know, I just went to a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings. You want me to talk at a rehab? You want to talk at detox? Want to be talking at a meeting? I'm there. You know sign me up. You want my go to jail? Want me to go to institution? Not happening. You know you want me get involved in service? Not happening no I'm not doing any of that. I took all the insanity I came in with the difference was I wasn't drinking but I continued that insanity for my first three years of sobriety by the grace of God I didn't pick up a drink. But at the end of that three years, I remember getting called on in a meeting and it was probably the first time I was completely honest. I said, you know, you would think after three years I'd have my act together better than this. And I feel like I have nothing. And in our big book and how it works, it says half measures avail us nothing. That's what I felt like I had. I got really desperate at that point in time. I had had a sponsor up until that point time, my first sponsor, but she had stopped going to meetings a year before that. Now, if you don't want to work a program, you don' t want to work at Steps, that's a great sponsor to have. But it did not do anything for my sobriety. And desperation today is still my greatest motivator. And I got another sponsor and I got a Step Nazi sponsor and I get a sponsor who didn' t feel sorry for me, Not once, not ever. Not to this day would she feel sorry for me. I'd say something, she'd just go, aww. She did that to me once we were out at a restaurant after a meeting. I went in the bathroom and cried for ten minutes. And I didn't tell her that until a couple years later. She had no idea I had cried, and then she just went, awww. She was exactly what I needed, though, at the time. You know, I was doing a great job feeling sorry for myself. And she listened to me whine for a couple weeks and she just said, so what step did you say you were on? And we went through those steps and, you know, we got back to step three and I made that decision. And she says, are you really willing to go to any lengths for your sobriety? And I said, yes. She says, well, you better be because this is your life we're talking about. This is not a game. And I was, you know, and I truly made that decision. And the decision was to trust God and to go on with my steps. And, you Know, when I came into AA, everybody said, You know, keep coming back. It'll get better. It'll Get Better. It'll Gets Better. And it didn't get better, but when I was finally willing to work this program, I started to get better and I had to make that decision to go along with the steps. And at that point in time, you know, she had suggested I go on this spiritual retreat. And so I said, yeah, because I, you know, I was going to do anything that was suggested that I do. And I remember getting there that weekend and it was a women's retreat. AndI thought, what was I thinking? The last thing I want is to be around a bunch of women for an entire weekend. and it was the the retreat itself i really didn't get anything out of it but the last day of that retreat the very last talk the the nun the sister that there was a retreat leader you know i was coming out of this not wanting to live in total insanity anymore and finally turn my will and my life over to the care of god and getting my life straight She very simply said, if you're going to stay sober, eventually you're going to have to start living your life at a level that's acceptable to you. I'd never done that. I lived my life at the level that was acceptable to you so I could fit in with the guy I was with, whatever was acceptable to him, the friends I wanted. you know a is the first place i came to my entire life where i felt like i fit in and i still feel like that today and i can tell you what if i came into aa and i didn't feel like i would be out the door because that is just as important to me as it was the first night i got here you know and today it's my responsibility to make sure i'm standing at the door to make that new person feel welcome kind of let them know it doesn't have to be that way anymore so and we are out of time so thank you for letting me share