An Atheist’s Step 2 — Write Down What a Power Greater Than You Would Be Like – Janine M.

Hey everybody, I'm Julianne, I'm an alcoholic, and welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club. We are a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This is the AA preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other so that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for a membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help others to achieve sobriety. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in their personal story is described in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aagluchipspeaker.org desperately in need will hear our speaker. We believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, Yes, I am one of them, too. I must have this thing. Our speaker tonight is... I do not know our speaker. I do not know our speaker tonight, personally, but I do recognize her face. And so with that, I will give you Janine, who is coming to us from the Fifth Tradition Group. Hi, I'm Janine, and I'm an alcoholic. As she said, my home group is the Fifth Tradition Group. My sobriety date is February 28, 2008. Maybe 29th. It was leakier that year. And my home group, Fifth Tradition, I have a sponsor, and I sponsor other women. And that's always a real blessing in my life. I feel like telling you all a story about something that happened to me lately. It's like, my God's got like a... And my higher power, that I prefer to call God, it's easier, has a real sense of humor. So, I was... It was around Christmas time, and I had gone in a specialty store, and I had spent way too much money on stuff I did not need. And I realized a couple days later that I really needed that money for, like, something important. And I went back to the store without my receipt and tried to return it. And they wouldn't take it without a receipt. And I had a hissy fit about it. I mean, I acted... I acted out. And it wasn't pretty, and they had to call their manager at home to get her to give me permission to take the return. And I went off, and I felt yucky about that. And maybe about a month later, I was in the store, and one of the clerks must have tipped the manager off, because when she rang me up, she told me she was glad that they were able to work that out. And I walked out of that store without apologizing or saying anything. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, I had the opportunity to make a difference. I was making amends, and I didn't do it. And my pride and my ego were immediately like, I'm never going in that store again. If I ever want anything of that type, I will go to a different mall to get it. And so a couple days later, I'm at a workshop. It wasn't an AA event, but there was all alcoholics there. And in walks that manager. And I was like, oh, my gosh. You know, she walks up to me and says, oh, you're in AA, too. And I said, well, yeah, I bet that explains a lot, doesn't it? And so anyways, we had to pair off in this workshop. And she wanted to pair off with me. And when we got started, I said, look, we can't start anything else until I tell you how sorry I am for the way I treated your staff and how sorry I am that I interrupted you on your day off at home to deal with my situation. And here's the crazy thing, right? Now she's sitting there thinking I'm like this great example of AA. Because here I made the amends and everything. But I don't know how sometimes some of our, foolish acts end up turning out to be a positive example. But there you go. I still have plenty of character defects in full flight. On occasion, right? Anyways, really when it comes down to it, it was a fear of the financial situation, right? So having said that, I wanted to read a portion of the big book on page 66. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic whose hope is in the maintenance and growth of the spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink. And with us, to drink is to die. And the reason I read that is, first I want to say that there is nothing anybody has ever done to me or not done to me that makes me an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. But I can tell you that the first time I got drunk, the last time I got drunk, and I almost drank again in sobriety, was over the exact same resentment. So I know this business of resentment is seriously important. I think we don't walk into this room without a lot of resentment towards other people. And if I didn't deal with those things, I was going to drink again. So I'm always very mindful of that as they creep up on me, as they do from time to time. So I'm from Lima, Ohio. Anybody ever heard of it? Yeah, I used to say it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But then the TV show Glee came out and it's based in Lima, Ohio. So I don't know if that means it has a redeeming quality or not. Actually, I was in the Glee Club in Lima, so I'm an original Gleek. Whatever. So I was raised by pretty much a single mother. My parents divorced when I was five and I had a sister a year younger than myself. My dad lived close and we got to see him a lot, but pretty much was raised by my mother. And my mother was single and she did not get remarried until I went on to an adult. I was married and had kids myself. And my mom worked really hard, too. And then she went off to go back to school to get her masters. But my sister and I were home a lot. And when mom was home, she was getting ready to go out. You know, it seemed like every year we were having to get used to a new boyfriend. Right? And we had to pretend like we liked him and not mention the old one every year, it seemed like. And, you know, I remember begging her not to go out, you know, to stay home with us. Please stay home with us. And, you know, when she was home, she was just too tired, really, to give us much attention. And my mother and I have a fabulous relationship and always have. But have you ever, guys, remember any bullies in your schools that you went to school with? If you can think the worst bully that you ever knew, I shared a bedroom with her. And that was my sister. Yeah, I know, she's a year younger than me. But because she was only a year younger than me, we knew an awful lot of the same people. And we were always in school together. And I think the best year of my high school was, or my schooling was when I went off to junior high. And she was still in elementary school. But, you know, my mom wasn't around or didn't have the energy to really kind of protect me from her. And, you know, she just did some really, really difficult things. And I remember the first time I got drunk. And I was a really good kid in high school. You know, I was just trying to please my parents, right? Trying so badly to please my parents. So they'd love me more. And, you know, the more I had things to do outside the house, the more I didn't have to be in the house, right? So that carries over to today. I mean, I'm hardly ever home because I'm like busy and everything. But I remember the first time I got drunk. I was working at Ponderosa. Remember Ponderosa? Right. And everything was wrong in my world, right? I'm sure I was mad at some boy. And my parents had disappointed me. And my sister had done something horrific again and got away with it. And I got into my mom's liquor case. And I drank a bottle of bourbon, as much as I could tolerate. Threw it down my throat. And then got my car and went to Ponderosa. And they had me cooking the steaks that night, which was really a real treat because they never let the girls flip the steaks. It was always the guy thing, right? But I was burning everything or sending it out rare. And so they took me off the grill and put me at the register. I don't know why they would think that if I'm burning steaks that I can handle money. But what I did was I just went on. I just went out the back door and got in my car and I passed out. And I came to. And it was dark out. And all the cars in the parking lot were gone, which meant everybody I worked with had walked by and seen me pass out of my car. I felt pretty miserable the next day. But the next time I went into work, nobody said a word to me about it. Not a word about it, which made me uncomfortable because I'm expecting something, right? Not knowing is uncomfortable. It was about three months later. I finally got comfortable enough to ask my mom. I just asked my manager why he had never done anything. He says, Janine, you're a good kid and it looks like you're causing yourself enough pain. We didn't need to make things worse for you. First time I got drunk. I don't really remember my first drink. I just know drinking was always around. My mom went out drinking a lot. Actually, when my sister and I were younger, maybe about eight years old, for Christmas, my dad and my stepmother would drink cold duck wine. Anybody remember that? Oh, I don't think it's around anymore. But for Christmas, they had taken a cold duck vodka. They had taken a cold duck bottle, taken off its label and created a new label on it and put great Kool-Aid in it. It was called Cold Ducky. We each got a wine glass. To me, drinking was being part of fun and adultish and sophisticated and all that, right? That was really my impression of it all. But because I didn't want my parents mad at me, I just really didn't drink in high school and stuff. In fact, I wasn't even really invited to parties. But when I went off to college, to the Ohio State University. They got a football team, by the way. Uh-oh, I'm in the South. I shouldn't say that. Anyway, for the first time in my life, I actually didn't have to work because I had worked so hard to stay out of the house while I was in high school that I didn't have to work during the school year. And I was away from my sister. And not anybody there knew my sister. So I didn't have to worry about anybody telling on me. And I wanted to have fun. And I found fun. And I became a little sis in a scholarship fraternity. And we'd go out drinking on Tuesday nights. And we'd go drinking on Friday and Saturday nights. And then, you know, Sunday was still part of the weekend, right? So we'd drink on Sunday. And it just seemed like towards the end, we were always going out almost every night. At least I was. Maybe not with the exact same people. And I was a really good drinker. I mean, I could handle my liquor. I could drink a lot. I could drink a lot more than the other girls, which is interesting. I could drink a lot more than the other girls, which gave me an advantage, which means I got to spend more time with the boys. And I had this little trick. So if I would start getting, you know, the room started spinning, I'd go in the girls' bathroom, make myself get sick, drink a glass of water, and I'd go right back out there to keep drinking. Because it was more important for me to be part of the frivolity, all the fun, the drinking. And I really wanted that in my life. I got out of school. My GPA, I've lied about my GPA so many times. I don't really remember what it is. The Ohio State University wants $35 for me to find out what it is, and I don't think that's a good use of $35. So we'll just assume it was I passed, right? So I got out of college, and I married a guy I had dated on and off all through college. And I had moved down here to Atlanta because my mom had moved down here while I was in college. And I came down here. He followed me down. So here it is. I went to school, got a job, got married, got a house, and started having kids. Like all the perfect order, right? You just think it should all just be wonderful and perfect. Well, that marriage ended up falling apart pretty badly. And really, he told me when I asked him for a divorce, he said, Janine, this is his fault. He said, it's my fault, and you've done everything you could. But right there towards the end, I remember, and I've never told this story before, I was over at 8111 the other night and thought about it. But I was miserable in the marriage. I knew everything was falling apart. And I was on a business trip, and I had come back to the airport. And I drank, of course, on the plane. But when I got off the plane, I didn't want to go home. And so I went to one of the bars in the airport, and I drank. And then that bar closed. And I said, well, is there another bar in the airport to drink at? And he sent me to another terminal. And I went to another terminal, and I was drinking. I came to. On the connector, going 80 miles an hour about midnight. And that scared the crap out of me. Really scared the crap out of me. And so I think the next day or a couple days later, I went to 8111. And I went to a meeting. And I'm trying to think what year this was. This might have been 1994. And obviously my sobriety date is 2008. And I went to one meeting, and I listened to people. And you know what? People were talking about having DUIs or being homeless and stuff like that. And I was like, I didn't identify with any of them. No, I'm just a bitch of them. You know, guys, to this day, I have not had a DUI yet. I'm a really good drunk driver, even in blackout. But I could drive down the road with the windows down with the air blowing on me or covering up one eye so I only see one line in the road instead of multiple lines. Whatever. I always made it home or got somebody to bring me home. But, you know, I wasn't an alcoholic. I mean, I was quite sure that I had a choice in whether I drank or not. And I didn't identify anything with them. But, you know, y'all needed it. And that was really good. Y'all had a place to go. And so when that marriage ended, I got into marriage number two, like, right off the bat. You know, because, you know, having a relationship fixes you, right? And for me, that was always in my head, having that relationship. I did not... Is it for me? Cool. Tell them I'll come back. The... I didn't realize it at the time, but every time he and I got together, you know, we drank together. But, you know, that's what you do, right? I mean, you go out with somebody for the first time, you've got to drink. The first time you have sex with somebody, you've got to drink, right? I mean, you can't do these things without drinking. And the next thing, you know, we're always drinking every time we get together. And, you know, it just never occurred to me that, you know, maybe he was an alcoholic. But, you know, apparently I was too, right? So every time he wanted a drink, I drank with him. And so I could always say it was because of that. So I could always say it was because of him. My drinking was because of him. But I know for sure that from the day he and I spent every day together, for the next 13 years, I drank every day. Now, I didn't necessarily get drunk every day, but I drank every day. And most of those days, I drank and drove every day. And I would drink and drive not only with my kids in the car, but with other people's kids in the car. And... But, you know, he'd come home and he'd already had a couple of beers on the way home. He was drinking them in the car. So, really, this kind of crept up on me over time, right? It just, you know, just really didn't occur to me. I mean, I always thought of myself as a functional alcoholic. Anybody else ever think that they were a functional alcoholic? Yeah, I mean, I went to work. I didn't have any DUIs. I was paying my bills. I was taking care of my kids. You know, I wasn't hurting anybody else if I was drinking, right? I mean, this is my thought about myself. And so, I mean, I deserve to drink if I'm doing all these things. And if you've had some of the problems, I have. You drink too. And so, I felt quite comfortable in my drinking every day. But I think, you know, really gradually over time, you know, I started drinking earlier and earlier and earlier in the day. And I started drinking stronger and stronger drinks, you know, at first. Maybe it was beer after the kids were in bed to, you know, at the end, the second you walk in the door, he'd hand me a drink. And he already had his. And they were strong ones. And I didn't complain a bit. And I took them and I drank them. And drank really to the last second I was awake at night. And... But for some reason, I always made it to work. It didn't necessarily mean I did a very good job there. But I always went to work. Even the day I hit my bottom, I made it to work. I mean, I wasn't sure I wasn't sober then. But I... Well, things started falling apart in that marriage, too. And I actually asked him if he would go to Alcoholics Anonymous with me. That we were alcoholics and we needed to get some help. And he said that he was not an alcoholic. That... If I was, I could go if I wanted to. And I was kind of like, you know, you're the problem, not me. And I remember my excuse to my mom was, like, you know, I drink because he drinks. And when I don't drink, he annoys the hell out of me. So if I drink with him, I enjoy his company. So of course I'm going to drink, right? Just to keep a happy home together. But I... Actually, I had a really great example of AA. His stepfather was a member of AA. Was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And at the time, I remember the story. He had had 13 years of sobriety. But every time they came to town, he would slip away. You know, about 7.15. And he'd come back about 9.15 or 9.20. And I asked where he went. And he was going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And I remember thinking, oh, my God. He's been sober for 13 years and he still can't stay away from a drink. You know, I had no clue that he hadn't wanted to have a drink in a long time. I had no idea, right? But the thing is, here's my attitude. Here's how selfish and self-centered I am. I was like, you know, that's his problem. This is my house. If I want to drink, I'm going to drink. You know, and if that bothers him, he can go somewhere else. I mean, that's how I felt about my drinking and other people and being inconsiderate. But, you know, what the beautiful thing was about him, it had to be obvious to him that we were alcoholic and drinking alcoholically. And he never once said, never once said a word to us about it, ever. Never, not once. He was just a silent example of attraction rather than promotion. And after I was about sober for about six months, I actually sent him an email. It was in AA long enough to know that I had nothing to be embarrassed about being a sober alcoholic. And he was delighted to hear I was in the program. And so every year on my sobriety date, I shoot him off an email and let him know I'm still rocking and rolling and see how he's doing as well. That's kind of neat. But as far as I've heard, I've heard that my ex-husband has not gotten any help. And one of my home group members is a prosecutor in the same county my ex lives in. And I check with him every once in a while to see if he's come through the court system yet. But I haven't heard anything yet. Oh, and I'm not supposed to call anybody else an alcoholic. But he drank more than me, having said that. So anyways, I was quite sure he was my problem. I am really sure he was my problem. So I kicked him out and sent him on his way. And I was decent for about six weeks. I still drank every day, but I don't think I really got drunk. And I started dating somebody else who actually didn't drink much. And I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of him. But when I'd get home from going out with him, I would drink at home. But there wasn't much time left in the day. So I kind of behaved for a short period of time. But when that gentleman moved, and I was... I'm living in Peachtree City at this time, okay? If you guys know Peachtree City, it's this super close-knit environment. It's really super family-oriented. And there's, like, hardly any places to go out and drink and meet people. And here I was, single. My kids were, like, 15 and 18. My oldest daughter was just about ready to go off to college. And, you know, I was lonely. I was crazy lonely. And my kids weren't home, and I was single. And I did not know where I'd meet other single people, make friends and stuff. I didn't go to church. In fact, you know, one of the big things about me is that I... I tried church on and off throughout my life, but I never got it. I thought prayer was stupid. It didn't work. Contempt prior to an investigation. I... In fact, I wrote my mom a letter one time about a year before I got sober that said, you know, like, I know you believe in God. I'm glad you believe in God, but I don't. And please don't ever talk to me about it again. You know. And that's really how I felt about it. I didn't want to hear anything about God. And... So, here I was, and I went... I started going out to the bars. Because that's the only place I could find other single people to do that. And I found... I found my crowd. I found my people, right? I found other people who wanted to drink and hang out and stay up too late and... and do immoral behavior and... And, you know, gosh. The next couple years were really hell. You know, all those things I said I would never do, I did. Right? The kind of behavior, the... I promised my children, especially my youngest daughter, I promised her things all the time. Like, yes, I'll stay home tonight. Yes, we'll go out to dinner together. Yes, we'll go shopping together. Yes, we'll go on a vacation together. And I'd always not do it. And I just kept letting her down and letting her down, letting her down. And it was getting pretty miserable at home. And I used to blame her for my drinking. She was so miserable at home. It was miserable for me to be at home, so it was more fun to be out. I blamed that poor baby on my drinking. And... And... You know. If you'd have told me when I was having my children, because I planned both of them, that I would not finish raising my children, I wouldn't have believed you for anything. Because I had every intention of raising my children all the way. And the thing is, you know, I ended up choosing my drinking over my kids. And, you know, her father and I decided that he was married and had a family unit. And it would be better for her to go live with him. And so I thought I was doing the best thing for my daughter. And I really was doing the best thing for her. But I thought I was doing an adult decision. And the thing is, I literally was choosing drinking over my daughter. And I had a pretty good career going on in life. And I actually... My drinking was getting pretty bad then. And I just didn't have any energy to do much work. And I'd always been in corporate America. And I took a job with the government for a couple years. And that's really where I did my worst drinking. Because I could do that job there with my hands tied back. It moved to such a slow pace. So I was hung over there all the time. But I showed up. But with my daughters gone, my oldest daughter's in college and the other one moved to her father's, I could drink the way I wanted to. And I did. And the behaviors got worse and worse. And the drinking got worse and worse. And one of my friends... It's funny how I always hung around with people who had worse problems than me. Because it made me feel better about myself. Because if they've got worse problems than me, then I'm not that bad yet. And, you know, I just kept lowering my standards. Gosh, just horrible behavior those couple years. And I had one friend that got put in jail for multiple DUIs. And he got kicked out for a medical issue. And I stopped to see him on my way to work. Seen him in the hospital. And I had started drinking in the morning. And I was drinking on the way to work. And I stopped to see him in the hospital. And here he's the one with multiple DUIs, right? And he was so concerned about me. He called my mom and told him he was worried about me. And my mom came and had a talk with me. And what I did is I went to some AA meetings in Peachtree City. And I went in there and I compared myself to everybody else. And they weren't like me. That person's old and I'm young. You're black and I'm white. You're a stay-at-home mom. I've got to work. You know, nobody talks my language. And, you know, this weather woman, all she ever talked about was her cancer. You know, I didn't identify with any of those things. And I actually, I was going on a professional conference to meet up with a guy that I had been dating long distance who was in Charlotte, North Carolina. My drinking got really worse again. I kept picking up white chips. And went into Anchor Hospital to check out their detox center. And I didn't know anything about detox centers or rehabilitation or anything like that. I had no clue about any of it. And I went in there and they told me that they could check me in right now. I didn't know that's how that worked. And I said, no, I can't. I've got to go to a doctor. I've got to go to Disney World for a professional conference where I'm speaking and hang out with my boyfriend for a week. But I told them that what I promised I would do is when I got back, you know, off the airplane, I would come straight to Anchor Hospital. And I go there. I win an award. I had a great time with the boyfriend. And I get back. And I didn't even drink too much on the plane. And I go to Anchor Hospital and they tell me they can't take me because I'm not detoxing. I need to be detoxing. So you guys, don't try to get sober on a good day. Don't try to get sober on a good week like that. It doesn't work. But I did. So anyways, when they went and checked me in, I said, well, are you sending me home to drink? And they go, no. And I said, well, I'm going home then. And of course, the first thing I did was pull into the next gas station, got the little mini bottles of wine and downed them in the car. And when I got home, they called me back and said, we made a mistake. Can you come back? And I said, no, I've been drinking now. Which is ridiculous because I drank and drove absolutely all the time. But I did go the next morning. And I spent the weekend there. And, yeah, I didn't get anything out of it. I know some AA meetings came in there. And I remember like it was a Friday night. And I said, oh, my God, those are pathetic losers. It's Friday night and they're in an AA meeting in a detox center. I don't ever want to be like them. And I do that often now, right? Call me a loser if you want. When the doctor checked me out of there, he told me that I was not an alcoholic. I was a situational drinker. And I knew the situation was like it's too risky. It was day. Or it's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? But what he did was he kind of gave me this golden ticket to go say, hey, mom, look, I'm not an alcoholic. If you had all the problems I did, my finances were going down the tubes just as fast as my relationships were too, right? And I said, look, if you had all these problems. And I was bringing my financial situation on the economy at the time because it was going bad down there. The housing market was going to crash and people were losing jobs. But I did go to a few more AA meetings. But I was going out of the country for work. And I was working for the CDC. And I had looked up meetings in that country and I couldn't find any. And at the end of the trip, I was going to take a vacation with that boyfriend in Charlotte. And I was like, I don't want him to know because we have a whole lot of fun drinking together, right? And I don't want him to know I'm an alcoholic or not drink with him. He kicked me to the curb quickly, right? So that was my excuse to drink again and give up on the AA thing. But so I didn't do it. So that whole next couple of days. That whole next couple of months that summer with the kids are gone and my drinking just was, I mean, intolerable living. And but that boyfriend in Charlotte, North Carolina, who wasn't seeing all this was that said, why don't you move to Charlotte? And we could date like normal people. I heard, why don't you move to Charlotte? We'll fall in love and live happily ever after. And I'll be your knight in shining armor. You know, so I, you know, packed up everything. I left what few people would have anything to do with me and my loved ones. And I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Got a job up there. Got a job that actually paid for me to move up there. And I get up there and I'm not there a week. And he lets me pretty much know that he has no intentions of being my knight in shining armor. And his idea of dating like normal people was once a week. So here I was in a city where I didn't know anybody. And I got a gentleman. I only want to spend one day a week with me. And I was devastated. So the only thing I needed to do was go back out to the bars, right? And it was pretty sad. You know, you go to the bars and you make friends and have great conversations with people. And you exchange phone numbers with them. Girls and men, right? And then you never hear from each other again. And that repeated itself and repeated itself and repeated itself. And I don't want to talk too long about my bottom. But basically, the boyfriend had broken up with me a couple times. And this last time I had gotten so drunk at his house that he called the police to, you know, to get me out of there. And I wouldn't go. And, you know, everything was falling apart. I couldn't check myself into detox because I was at a new job. And they could fire you for anything in the first three months. And they had spent all this money to move me to Charlotte. So I would have had to pay all that back if I lost my job. And I really was at my jumping off point, right? I didn't want to live. But I didn't want to die either. And a really special point for me. But I called my mom who lives here in Atlanta. And I told her that. If she didn't come and get me in Charlotte, that I didn't think I'd live through the weekend. And she was in Cherokee doing penny slots with my stepfather. And they were on their way home. And instead of being five hours away, they were only an hour away. And they were able to come and get me. And my mom's a nurse. And she took me back to here to Atlanta. And I detoxed. And she took me back Sunday night so that I can really wrap this up here. It is so that. Anyway. So that she, you know. Get back to work and everything like that. I picked up three white chips in three weeks. I wish I had done the first one. I do want to tell you though that my last drink was. I had gone to a counselor. I was trying to do anything to fix me. Right? And I was going to a counselor. And we had rehearsed all the horrors of my childhood with my sister and everything like that. And I didn't have a solution then. Right? No solution to deal with this. And even though I had plans to go to a meeting that night. I pulled over at the next bar. And I sat down at the bar. And I started drinking. And I was doing shots of tequila with a gentleman that doesn't even date women. And at one point I heard a clear voice. Right? Keep in mind. I don't believe in God at all. Right? But I hear this voice say, Janine, you can't spend the rest of your life sitting in bars talking to strangers. I paid my tab. I took my drunk butt in the car. And I went to a 10 p.m. candlelight meeting. And I picked up what has turned out to be my last white chip. You know. But I still don't believe in God. Right? So I'm in the program. And I got about two or three weeks sober. And I'm miserable. And I call my sponsor and tell her how I'm miserable. And she tells me, I'm just going to have to find a power greater than myself. And I said, that's not going to happen. What else can I do? And she says, well, can you make me a list? Oh, yeah. I can make a list. That's cool. What do you want me to make a list of? If there were a God, what would that God be like? She said, okay. I'll do this. So I did it. I did it. I wrote it down. I had a God. This is what the God would be like. There's these simple things like, you know, let me laugh again. You know, make me feel like I'm a good person. You know. You know. Make me feel like I'm not alone all the time. You know. Make me feel like I'm hugged. You know. Just little simple things like that. I still have the list. It's perfect. Right? And about three weeks later, I realized I still was pretty miserable. I'm still new in recovery. But I hadn't wanted to have a drink. Because I made that damned list. And for me, the question was, how do I make a list? And I said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And for me, the clouds parted. The sun started shining. And I had realized that something outside myself had removed the desire to drink for myself. And for me, that's how I came to believe in this power greater than myself. And it was a really special moment for me in my recovery. I do want to say that I was about a year and a half sober. And I'm kicking ass in AA. I'm starting to sponsor. And I'm doing some volunteer work here and there. And I'm going to lots of meetings. And I'm doing all day. And I'm going to work. And I'm going to work. And I'm doing all day thing. But I've gotten some news from my childhood and that just stirred up all those old memories. Just justification for my resentments. And I started playing all that back in my head again. Just rehearsing it over and over again and remembering another situation and rehearsing it with my head over and over. And I didn't talk to my sponsor about it. And I just sat on it. And it was a beautiful Saturday. And I remember I wanted a drink worse than anything. Worse than anything. And I said, I know where I'm going to go. where I'm going to go get it, I'm not going to answer my sponsor's phone calls, I'll end up drinking this, and I'll end up dying at some point from this, and it's going to be her fault, and I thought, that snapped me out of it, that's ridiculous, that's ridiculous, my drinking's her fault, I did a handful of things, I tried to get myself busy in the house and get my mind off of it, I got on my knees and asked God to remove it, it didn't go away, picked up a phone call, my sponsor couldn't get a hold of her, called another alcoholic and talked to her for an hour until my sponsor called me back, and I met with her, and hands down, the thing that snapped me out of it was I had to leave my sponsor because I had to go to a meeting early because I had to work with a new sponsor and give her my experience, strength, and hope, and I did that with her, and I went to the meeting, and you know, the next day I was on top of the world, right, you know, there's nothing like working with an alcoholic, and all else fails, nothing like working with an alcoholic, so I know that today, so, you know, resentments are pretty hard for me to deal, tough for me to deal with. And I can't say I've gotten it completely resolved in life now, but I know to talk about it, and I keep cropping up, and I don't indulge any of those self-pity feelings from all of that, so I do want to say that my relationship with my youngest daughter, who is never going to talk to me again, she and I are extremely close today, we had my first grandchild back in August, and I get almost daily pictures of my beautiful granddaughter, she just took her first couple steps here the other day, and, you know, she's a great person, she's a great person, and she's a great person, and she's a great person, and she's a great girl. And one of the biggest challenges for me, and my sobriety, was moving to Atlanta. I was, you know, I had a couple service positions in Charlotte, and in the area, and my parents said to me, you know, when are you going to move back to Atlanta? And I said, you know what, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it now, not later. And my parents are aging, and they wanted me to be here, and my oldest daughter lived here at the time, and so I had to leave my sponsees, my sponsor, who's still my sponsor, she's still in Charlotte, and move here to Atlanta, and my sponsor's actually, the one who turned me on to Fifth Tradition. She knows I'm a really social person and I'm really involved and she had heard about Fifth Tradition from some other people so she sent me to Fifth Tradition and actually I went to their business meeting I wasn't making any decisions so I went to their business meeting and my old home group was a big book study and one meeting a month was a tradition study and I went to their business meeting and they have a traditions chair at Fifth Tradition and I said sign me up, I'm in. That was really important to me that a group that follows the traditions is my kind of group and it took a lot of work on my part here I was moving in a new job I wanted to relax a little bit but I did everything everybody invited me to do if they wanted me to go out to dinner after the meeting I went with them even though I was exhausted if somebody invited me to go get coffee I went. I just said yes to everything no matter how badly I felt because I knew it was important for my sobriety to stay in the middle and the thing is it took some time to build some close relationships and it took some time for people to be able to count on me and it took some time for people to see through that veil of I'm okay because I can tend to put on this face that I'm doing great and everything and I have to be careful of that but I find you all in my room, you're my people I understand every one of you if I hadn't talked to you before it would just take me two seconds to know that you're one of my people and how much I enjoy having you in my life and I'm so grateful to be part of this group and since I've got like two five minutes left I'm going to take a chance to bring up the international convention that's coming up a little advertisement here if you've never been to an international convention I was able to go to the one in San Antonio it's an absolutely incredible amazing experience. If you don't walk away from one of these things with at least four times where you get chills like I can't believe I'm part of this then I'd be shocked and it's something you don't want to miss and if you scrape up the pennies to get to go do it but one of the things about the international convention I want to point out is we need 4,000 volunteers we only have 2,000 at this point and we really need Atlanta to show up because we're welcoming the world to Atlanta and we've got to show on our good southern grace here and if you sign up for a volunteer role Topic Meetings and Greeters is one of them that they're really asking people to sign up for and I'm on that team and we really need some people you're inside and it's air conditioned and you're where the speaker meetings are so that's kind of a great way to do it. Thank you. It's a good role for that all too so hopefully I'll see you all there and if not hopefully I'll see you in the rooms and I really appreciate you letting me speak tonight. Thank you Janine that was fantastic I really identified with a lot of the emotions and the actual events in your life so I appreciate that.