Beth D. – Service – White Knuckling the Fourth Step – 2009

oh happy halloween my name is beth decker and i am an alcoholic my sobriety date is february 16th 1998 and this is my home group so um i am very grateful for this home group i'm very grateful to be here and in all honesty it's an honor to stand up here i've seen and heard some amazing stuff from this podium since we started this group and stuff that changed my life in sobriety and i am just so grateful and privileged and honored to be behind here too because i am certainly not in the category of those that have gone before thank you jason i don't know where you went but thank you for your story, and I like the, it's, you know, to make a long story short, because usually when they say that, they mean, you Know, they're going to go for a while. I was like, uh-oh, and he goes, and then I was in prison. That really was the long story. Sure, but I missed a whole part of that. so my duty here is to share my experience strength and hope what my life was like what happened and what it's like now and um to you know my sponsor I talked to my sponsor earlier today and she's like your job is to just share your experience that's what you have that you've lived your life you know what the story is so um that's all you got to do so I'm telling myself that in hopes that I don't vomit in a minute I'll calm down in a second um amazingly the other thing I was thinking about besides just what an amazing honor it is is uh how grateful I am to be where I am today. Yesterday, my husband and I just bought our first house. So, I am a homeowner, which is scary. You obviously don't know how screwed up I am. Me alone for that much? The fear of financial insecurity hasn't left me. But, oh my God. And I look back and I look at my life. I'm like, holy crap. I can't believe this. I can't leave. This is it and uh I mean it's just and it's not me. It's not the stuff that I've done or it's the stuff y'all have held my hands through and the twelve steps and thank god for sponsorship um and my life is amazing as a result of that and I'm going a little backwards so I'll start at the beginning. Um I grew up in North Carolina in a really small town in eastern North Carolina. We had a population of about 300, and I grew up in an alcoholic home. My father is an alcoholic, and he wasn't the real problem in the house. My mother, the fat, crazy woman, that's okay. I'll just wait for you to do it. But my mom is still in major need of alan on but uh you know and we didn't we didn'T really freak out about my dad because he was such a happy drunk and he was like really cool and you know he just wasn'T there a lot he'D just be passed out on the couch or passed out there passed out here but uh mom was just the nut and so uh our house was just crazy and I knew that it was because of alcoholism and because of alcohol i mean my mom and my dad told me very early i'm an alcoholic he's an alcoholic you know so um i vowed from a very very early age that i would never ever ever drink alcohol because there would be no reason you know to screw up my life and everybody else's life too and um and so i stuck with that for quite a long time the uh other thing in my life at the time was i was in this itty-bitty place in eastern north carolina and my mom was obsessed with making me like a child prodigy for um like school so like i could read when i was two i and it wasn't of my own like doing it was all her it's not that i'm a genius or anything because I'm certainly not, but she was very, like, I didn't have normal toys. I didn' t have, you know, I couldn' t watch TV. I could watch PBS two hours on the weekend, and, but, she was, like,, she would drill into me that this is how you' re going to get out of here. You know, II'm stuck here, but you can get out if you get an education, and so, you know, when you don' t need a man, you just need an education. you know don't ever trust anybody because you will just end up like this so just go to school and so man I was hell-bent to go to School and um I went and I went to school and I excelled when I was 16 I got to go a boarding school in North Carolina that it's public and you apply to go so I was one of the people that got to and for my last two years and I was introduced to Alateen there. There was a girl in the hall from me and she was going to Alteen and she's like, hey, you want to go? I don't even know how we ended up talking about that but I was like, yeah. And so I got a sponsor in Alatein and we'll come back to her. Then I got full scholarship to North Carolina State University which is not the Tar Heels, Chris. It's Nelson's College. we're the wolf pack and uh and i was still you know like straight a's really excelling making sure i'm not gonna end up like my my household and my parents and my dad and and uh doing it all 150 percent you know um so I had the opportunity to study abroad, so I went, and I still to this point hadn't had any alcohol, and so I was 19, and i sat down very logically like a good nerdy kid would do with their parents, andI said mom and dad you know I'm going over to England and I'm gonna drink I think when I'm there. You know I I'm in Allentine and at that point in Al-Anon and I know enough you you know, we've talked about the steps. I know what alcoholism is. There's no way that I'm going to be an alcoholic. And my dad's like, well, you know I'm an alcoholic, and you know both your grandfather's out of alcoholism. You know your uncle got shot treatment in Dorothea Diggs. You know it's going down the line on both sides of the family. And I was like, yeah, I know, but I'm different because one, I'm smart, and two, I do Al-Anon. so I went, and I had a drink, and in England, a drink is like a drink and it's like real beer. It's not natural wine, and well, I didn't know there was a difference until I came home and had a beer. I was like, wow, this sucks, but so I had a beer and people would go have a beer between classes or a pint you know and we had a pub in my dorm room I mean not my dormroom that would have been awesome we had above in my Dorm like in the bottom it was actually right under my room and uh you know was just normal as a part of the culture so i remember like having a drink and going everything in my body sort of like would vibrate and go like wow that's good you know and uh i would want more i think i developed the phenomenon i think I was born with the phenomenon of craving for whatever i touch but uh it was specifically with alcohol because when i would take when i took that first drink, it was a spiritual experience for me. And I loved it. I loved that I was a normal kid. I wasn't a, you know, nerd. I wasn't all those things that I got picked on about. I was just cool in the pub, you're hanging out. And, uh, I was happy drunk at that time. So, um, and at that point I wasn't I hadn't gotten really drunk so at some point I was like you know because I was scared I was afraid if I got really drunk then I would be an alcoholic and um it was always like in the back of my mind and I knew I had an abnormal reaction you know I just knew there was something off because my friends sitting beside me they didn't get all warm and fuzzy you know after one and go like whoa you know and uh so I decided to get drunk and I got drunk one night and uh It was fantastic, and it was another spiritual experience for me. And, I mean, all of a sudden, I was just okay in my skin for once in my life. And before, I always felt like there was this... I always think about, like, at Best Buy when all the radios are turned on, and there's just all this noise, and they're all different stations. And that's how I felt like to live in my world. and when I got drunk that all went out it was like the Bose earphones without the sound you know and like god I can't get the sense of ease and comfort man I was okay and it didn't matter that you know I was who I was or where I'd come from that we've been poor that I didn't have anything. It didn't matter because I was okay, and man, I blacked out. I didn't know where I was when I woke up. I had thrown up.I had no idea who I was with, and I walked out the door that morning thinking, I got to figure out where I am, you know, what's going on, and the thought in my head was, God, I can't wait to do that again. It wasn't, oh, that's a lot of consequences, you know it was man I can't wait and I just knew I was like this is it I'm gonna drink man I have found it that's the thing you know screw education man this is the thing that's gonna make me okay and so I proceeded to live that way and I mean I was just out of the gate and so you know all the weekends was like okay I can start on Thursday Thursday Friday Saturdays and my roommates at time at this time i was back home and they'd go you know beth you just you don't do it like everybody else does it and i was like well you know obviously it doesn't do for you what it does for me and uh my roommate one night she's like okay tonight when we go out when i take a sip you take a sip you know you need to just slow down and get that buzz and carry the buzz man you know i want the oblivion you know I don't want the buzz I just want to be like out of my mind, and so that night, I, she took a sip, I took a sip, she take a sip. I took us in this sucks, so I would she could take a step she turned around and I would just down it you know and a couple hours she's like wow you're really really drunk don't think you've been taking sips it's like you know either your way sucks I'm done yeah well I don't want to do that so uh you know it's my guy I need other friends then obviously because this isn't working. So I found other friends and I found friends that drank the way I did and then they partied all week so I was in you know so my partying went from Thursday to Sunday to Wednesday to Sunday to Tuesday to Sunday and then it was just every night and at the time my grades started slipping so I wasn't making straight A's anymore and I remember going home and thinking, oh, mom's going to be all over me on this one when she sees this report card or whatever you call it in college. I don't know if it's a report card. But anyway, I was like, she's goingto be allover this. And she's like, hey, you know, did you have fun? I waslike, well, yeah, I had fun. She'slike,well, good. You need to relax a little. I wasliked, sweet, man. You know, I'm in. I can live like this. And so I went back to school, and it was on. And I was, like, at the time going for a degree in education because that's the kind of person you want teaching your kids. And so that was the plan. And so I was like, I'll be fine, you know, because I have proof to myself I can drink and get, like A's and B's. And that's all, that's fine. And so I was like, I'll just clean up my last semester. Clean up my next semester because that's when you actually have to go and teach. And I couldn't clean up by the end of the semester. I couldn' t clean up in my last semester. And I would go out and say, I'm not going to get drunk tonight. And I wouldn't know how it happened. I just went to have one. I was going to be the driver tonight. And I don't know what happened. You know? And mysterious things like that started happening. Also, I would drink sometimes and just never get drunk. It didn't matter how much alcohol I was putting in or how many days I hadn't eaten because I had done that so I could get drunker. I had stopped eating a lot at that time just so I Could Get Drunk. All these kind of tricks I played, I would also make myself throw up after the first three or four so I couldn't keep going. So it didn't mater. None of that stuff was working. and my first day of student teaching i missed so i had gone out the night before telling my friends you know y'all have carried me around enough it's my turn to do something for you so i'll be the dd tonight the designated driver and that's like oh that's really sweetie because i never drove or never drove them i drive once i got home and you know all over the place as we do with one eye open and one closed, and anyway, I was going to drive, and I had one, I don't remember what happened. The next thing I know is I'm sort of being like dragged out of the club, and I was like, oh, this, I can't drive like this, you know, and they were putting me in the back seat and of my car, and the windows wouldn't roll down all the way. You know, they only roll down like halfway in the back seat and I'm like hanging my head out you know just sick as can be all over the car because you can't get the window down and and I woke up or I came to the next morning in my bathroom which is where at that time I didn't I had a room upstairs but I would never get up there because I couldn't usually when I would get home if I came home and so I had taken over the half bath downstairs and the sofa, and so I was in my half bathroom, and it was really tough fix, like room to be laid down on, on the tile, where it feels really good. So I'm like curled around the toilet one more night, and I came to, and i'm like oh my god I have to teach, you know, and uh and I started, I was like I gotta get ready, but I was just so wasted still. I was like, I can't go. They're going to know what's up. And so I called in and I was, like, look, I have food poisoning. And I had food poisoning, like oh my god, a hundred times so far, you know, like in a year. And, I'd had multiple, multiple, more than two grandmothers die. And lots of, lots of family emergencies. And uh, so they're like, oh, you got to suck it up and come in anyway. I don't care. I don't that you're throwing up. And I was like, it's, you know, your first day of teaching and you need to be there just so the kids can get introduced to you. And i'm like, Oh, I can't. And uh, so I was sitting on the couch, you after I've made this call and basically like hung up on it when I was, like, uh, you know, I'm not going. And um, it was like I never remember seeing my dad miss a day work. Now he did a lot of stuff, but he never missed work. I never remembered seeing my Dad passed out in the bathroom throwing up you know I never there were all these things that like there was a lot of craziness in my family around alcohol but it was never like I never saw and maybe he just was good at hiding it but I never saw the stuff that I did while I was sitting there and I was like I gotta do something well I guess it's time to switch rooms and go to AA instead of Al-Anon and so that night I went to a meeting you know I slept it off all day, and that night I went to a meeting. And I don't remember a lot about it. I remember I got there late because that's how I do things at that time. And still sometimes. But I was sitting there with my arms on the table, and everybody had already done the introductions, so I was like, sweet, I don' t have to say anything. And I remember somebody going, oh, well, you're new. And I was at a beginner's meeting, and which you know I couldn't figure out that they might think I was a beginner is beyond me but I looked down and I had this pool of sweat like on the table just from like my arms and like I mean I was sweating all over I bet it smelled so lovely all that alcohol and uh so after the meeting this lady came up to me she's like hey you know i'm really glad you're here you need to go to this meeting tomorrow night I was like well you know really hadn't planned going to meetings thinking maybe one would do me and it's like okay I'll go tomorrow and uh I was so that whole time I'd been getting drunk and calling out about food poisoning grandmas and all that my um there was this teacher there was a professor there that was you know taking all these calls and uh I walked in that next night and that professor was standing right there greeting. I was like, oh, busted. She's like, I thought I might see you here sometime. It's like, Oh buddy. She was like well it's obvious something was not right. You can only have like at most with step parents, you know, like six grandmas or whatever. And I was a math major too. So the math went right on that. But she's like you know I think it's good that you're here. And she took my hand and sat down with me and said, you know, I'm here too. It's not that I'm here to bust you. I'm her as an alcoholic. You're an alcoholic we're going to be all right. And, um, she took me through doing lesson plans. Um, took me through how to wake up at five in the morning to teach a class and a couple hours when you're trying to get sober um and she just man she was a saint the other critical thing she did that night she's like you got to get a sponsor and i know just the person for you and i was like man i hope she says it's her because like at least i know her and all these other people were like drunks and you know i'm not so sure about them you know I don't remember I'm not ready to go that far and she'slike talk to that woman over there and her name's dawn tell her that you need her you need to be, she needs to be your sponsor. And I was like, okay. And Dawn was kind of cute, you know, like she had blonde hair and she had on like cute clothes and shoes. I was Like, well, maybe that won't be so bad. And so she was young too. So I was Okay, so I went talk to her asked her to be my sponsor. She said, Okay, tonight, you got to get on your knees and thank God for keeping you sober today. It's like, well You know, in my head, I don't believe in God. I'm an atheist, you know science is the right thing and you're full of crap and I said okay and uh if that's what I have to do that's What I Have To Do because they were laughing there and they were having a great time and they there was something palpable in that room that I couldn't put my finger on and I liked it I liked feeling okay you know it's like I could sit down in the chair in the back of the room they didn't want me to speak anyway like to share they were kind of hardcore they're like I could just sit in the back of the room and just breathe and I'd be all right and so uh so I started my journey with Dawn and um we had a few bumps along the way first uh few years in fact uh I guess after I was sober for about a year I had my book open this is my first big book, and she, my sponsor's sitting next to me, and she's like, what's all those dates in there? She's like oh is that when you've spoken? And I was like oh no. Those were my sobriety dates. Because when I got my first big book this woman at the group said write your sobriery date in it. And I said okay, October 14th, 1997. and there it is and then there's October 24th and December 4th and then my last one February 16th and I found various and sundry ways to get white chips other substitutes that I can use for alcohol the problem was that I wasn't with my sponsor I would call her every day we would meet, we would talk and I was just telling her what I thought she wanted to hear are you an alcoholic? Yes I'm an alcoholic um are you powerless is your life unmanageable yes tell me about it and so i've you know i'd kind of be half honest about some of the stuff but like there was a lot of stuff i wasn't telling her and in allotine even i had said i am never ever in my life doing a fourth and fifth step and so I had I was like you know we're gonna do one through three and then I'm on my way I'm gonna graduate you know get my act together finish my student teaching graduate get on with my life and um and that didn't happen so so i didn't have a solution is what it came down to we were doing step work she was talking walking me through the book but i wasn't doing any you know i was just going through the motions and the craziest and most insane i've ever felt in my life was during that time of not doing anything just kind of showing up at meetings telling her I'm going to other meetings because I was supposed to go to so many you know a week or whatever and um and not doing it and going to the bar and hanging out with my friends and not you know still going out dancing or whatever and not drinking and man I was crazy crazy i can't tell you how much it hurt my head and my heart so i just felt so like empty like my soul was just like i was just hollow i remember feeling like i would just skin with nerves on the outside you know because i felt everything and there was nothing i could do about it and um so one valentine's day where i found a man in the program we're not in the rooms but you know my sponsor said you shouldn't date the first year blah blah blah so I decided to and um went out with this guy I got a boyfriend and it was valentine's day and he only gave me a card and in my I know but if you think about this hollow person who hasn't been able to have any relief since december so two months of no solution no nothing just white knuckling i want to blow my brains out and i and it just kind of put me over the edge and i was like screw it if this is sobriety and i can't go get you know have a beer or 15 because my feelings are hurt then i don't want it and so i went through my medicine cabinet and i Was like you know i'm just doing, you know, I wasn't totally out to kill myself, but I just didn't care anymore, so I took everything. I took everything that was there, prescription, non-prescription, whatever, and I was like, man, at the very least, it's going to put me out. You know, it has got to put me out for some time, and at the most, I'll die and I'm okay with that. You know, and just want it to be over, and my poor, poor roommate who was quite an enabler because she paid many of my bills and dragged me from clubs and picked me up in the middle of the night places found me in the bathroom and she called 9-1-1 and so we did the emergency room thing and and in north carolina there are sort of different rules than there are in georgia i think when you try to commit suicide so they kind of let me go the next day so i'm like oh i'm in aa um you know i'm doing step work and i have a therapist so i'm fine i'm really fine you know no big deal and um i shared this the other night i didn't tell my parents my parents really didn't know what was going on they thought i just kind of like lost it lost my mind and i wasn't telling them i was drinking the only conversation i had with them about alcohol was that one before i went to england and um they just knew like i had loosened up a little and that you know i didn't call as much and and the truth is i had a lot of resentment about them i intentionally wasn't talking to them so um anyway my dad i shared this other night my mom and dad got a bill in the mail like three months later and it's from the ambulance and i hadn't told him anything i had just moved on with my life you know and it's like uh what we read oh my ain't it great the wind stopped blowing you know so that's how i was living and uh and my dad gets the bill or my and i get this phone call from him they're like what what why is this an ambulance bill and it'S IN YOUR NAME AND WHAT'S GOING ON I WAS LIKE OH I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF BUT IT'S ALL GOOD NOW I'M FINE YOU KNOW I'M WORKING WITH A therapist you know I didn't dare tell them I was an AA because that would have just you know been too much so they were up at the house like what is going on and trying to get me to tell them stuff and so I was at some point I finally said look I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous I'm trying to get sober and you know my sponsor had been talking to me about a while for a while about telling them and I had this big book for them and she said buy him a big book so they know what you're doing I gave him a Big Book and you don't has a big alcoholics anonymous on the front and my dad went, you know, thanks, but no thanks. And that was all, that was the end of the conversation. It was about a 30-second conversation and they were, okay, fine. And to this day, they don't really recognize that I am an alcoholic synonymous and I'll talk to them about meetings or whatever and they're like, okay. And they say Dawn, my sponsor, who has been in my life this whole time, they're, like, Dawn really put, you now, she really turned you around. she is just something else and you know her husband is a doctor you know so they think that was what happened you know I was like yeah well they're both drunks you know it's the steps but they don't you know anyway so that was how my parents found out but you know when I thought I was when I was laying on that bathroom floor and i was kind of coming in and coming out of consciousness and i saw my roommate standing there and i Was like oh jesus i'm not dead and i look up again and i'm like i you know if i actually live through this then i swear to god i'm gonna do a step you know swear i'll do i'll really do it because this is miserable and you know it can't be the other thing was like it just can't be that all those people in that room that i've been going to this home group that they're all lying you know because there was something that was going on there i was like so maybe just maybe they're telling the truth and maybe just may be if i survive this i'll check it out for real and so that's when i we started over and i truthfully started doing step work with her and um you know it was coming around the end of the year and you know they say don't make major changes in their first year but I was graduating it's like I don't know what to do so I decided you know this was still I was still not talking to my sponsor about everything but I decided I would uh go to grad school in engineering which has nothing to do with any of the other things i was doing before that my new student teaching didn't work out real well for me so uh maybe i should try something else so i started doing that and i knew i wanted to stay in raleigh i wanted to stay on my home group and i needed my sponsor and i need those people but that's sort of like all i had put together and um things were still very foggy and uh so i got sober or going through some tough steps in sobriety, going to grad school and working full time. And it was a nightmare. Like I can't imagine having to do that again. I pray to God I never take a drink again because I was miserable getting sober. And so we started the step work. We started, I started going to retreats with her because there was a group in North Carolina and they were tight. Their women hung out together. The guy that started the group I got sober in was sponsored by one of the first 100, and he did it the way Tom B. at that time told, you know, that's how it was done. And some people may have said he was a bleeding deacon, as we talk about in the 12 and 12, but I think it was the right way. It's what I needed anyway. So, but it was pretty like, you know, you didn't talk. You didn't, if you didn'T have experience, you Didn't talk during a meeting. And my poor sponsor, man, she had a tough time with me. And I was just belligerent little punk. And the whole God thing still is like, okay, you Know, we've gotten to this standstill on the God. and uh and I was like I know that y'all talk about God and all this stuff but I really don't believe I don't believe there's anything there and um she's like can you believe that I believe there's something there and I'm like well yeah she's okay let's do that and then you know another time I was at her apartment or yeah and uh we were sitting there and we're the whole God thing came up again and I just like man I don t dig it I don like it um I don want to do it and And she's like, I don't care what you pray to. Just pray to something, you know, just whatever. And her cat was sitting there. I was like, okay, well, I'm going to pray to Sam, your cat. And meh, you Know. She's like okay, if you want to, fine, pray to the cat. So she's dragging me around to different places. So one night I had gone to a speaker meeting with her. She was speaking out of town and I rode with her and we're driving back and we got back to her place and her cat was dead she's like you killed him he couldn't take it it was too much maybe that was a heavy burden maybe you ought to find another high power randa asked about my cat that's why i wear a cat today because it's always been a joke between us about killing her cat but uh so i was like maybe i'll take the group as my higher power then you know there's obviously something going on there so that's that's how my journey with god started and you know it's still growing i still struggle in that area a lot about um all the things my head wants to believe and the things that i've kind of talked myself into you know through research i was one of those people that would like just argue with you about the bible on a bar stool you know and like tell you all the things all the discrepancies so i still have those old ideas about god in my head about what god isn't and recently i've been going to this retreat um up in north carolina or in virginia i'm sorry and uh there's a lot of talk about god there in the in referenced alcoholics anonymous and uh one of the things they do on sunday mornings is they have so they have speaker meetings throughout the weekend and on sundAY morning they have us uh thing god as i understand him and two people that get picked out of the audience and they come and share what God, as I understand him, is. And I've heard a lot of stuff there that have changed a lot of my conceptions about God. And Alcoholics Anonymous has changed a whole lot of that too. I think just in general. Because like I talked about, there's something palpable in the rooms, and I felt that here. I felt it here in this meeting when, what's his name? From Nashville, Scott. when he spoke it was like man there was something buzzing and I was like oh that's something bigger than me I don't know what it is but it's something and uh I can believe in that I can believe very strongly also in the love that's in Alcoholics Anonymous because uh I did not love you I did not love me, I hated my parents when I got here I was really angry and my roommates used to get me, especially when I was newly sober and in those months of like not doing anything but just not drinking my roommates would get me to call people that like were, like we had a problem with bills or whatever, they're like call Bell South because our bill's messed up and I'd be like you know I was just angry you know like if you had my life you'd be angry too you know and uh I got I found love in Alcoholics Anonymous um I found people that were willing to take the whole of me even the rotten stuff in me and share with me their experience and how they got through some of that stuff and love me regardless. And even sometimes when I couldn't put, and today when I can't put my finger on what's really going on with me or why I'm just a psycho for no reason, man, I have people around me that love me no matter what. And I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous for that, you know? I came just to graduate and do a step or two and get home. But I've, you now, that's, I can tell you how much that means to me um one of the most amazing things that has happened or experienced that i've had in aa was last year and it was getting married and i used to always hate when people would talk about this from the podium but i'm gonna talk about it i'm sorry uh but we uh first i had a bachelorette party i've definitely never heard this from a front podium but um some of my friends we went up to New York and it was mainly like 90% of the people there were women from Alcoholics Anonymous. I had people from all over come, I had friends that I already knew that were in New York in the program, my sponsor lives in Massachusetts now, she came down and we had this amazing weekend and it Was hilarious you know just the stuff that happens in AA is hilarious and uh it was just amazing gift. I remember we went to see Rent one night, which is sort of a story of redemption and recovery and addiction and other things, but there was a song, and I remembered Becky, that professor that was standing there greeting me, she had taken me to see rent like years and years and ago when we lived in Raleigh, and there was a song in there and it started and i just started just weeping because i was just overcome i looked around me at these women that loved me and have carried me through some major stuff and i was just like whoa i can't believe this is my life and then the actual day that i did get married it was my sponsor was my matron of honor and uh i was cool man we were sitting before before the wedding, and then, you know, we were just hanging out, waiting for stuff to happen, and we're just joking, and a friend of mine texts me from down, you Know, she's actually, like, sitting there waiting for Stuff to Start, and she's like, hey, everything looks beautiful, and I'm texting her back, like oh, that's great, and you know. We're just having a great time, and it's like God, I can't believe this is my life. For like, just a minute, like everything was all right in the world, and uh i was about to do this thing and i knew i'd done an inventory on it i talked to my sponsor at length about it before we ever proposed we had done a very lengthy inventory and talked about it all i'd had invited my concept of god to help me figure out what the right thing to do was man i knew i was doing the right things and uh so it was easy going and um i can't say that all my decisions in sobriety have been like that. Um, I've done a lot of stuff wrong that I've done a ton of stuff, worse stuff and some of the worst stuff in sobrietty I did drinking. You know, I didn't drink that long so I've had a little more time to really screw some stuff up in sobretty but, uh, but I, I have yet to have had something happen that there's not somebody else around that's like, oh, I screwed that up too. Let me tell you about mine. And I can go, oh, mine wasn't that bad. I'm going to be all right. And I've had to deal with my dad's health. He is not doing well. He's had some strokes and I don't know where that's going. I know he's not going to be here forever and i'm and every once in a while he tells me wow it's good to have you back and uh which is amazing because he knows where i've been even if we don't talk about alcohol it's anonymous and uh i know that there's a lot of people in here that have dealt with that and y'all are gonna hold my hand through that one and laura i've already told laura she has to come up if i try to isolate she's got to break in the house and hold me because i'm not going to want it but she's going to do it and uh and i know y'all are gonna do that for me because that's what we do and that's what i've seen y' all do for other people and i've you know i am amazed all the time at the stuff i see in aa just like stuff like that um the other thing that has happened to me significantly since I've gotten sober was um dealing with a chronic illness so about five years ago I started getting sick and not knowing what was going on and um man talk about a relationship with God I I was really upset at God and I um one of the coolest things happened so I I would at the time it was rheumatoid arthritis and so it's like great now i'm gonna be in a wheelchair you know and my husband and i talk about me always because he's a normal person and he he talks about he's like man you get an idea and you run to the end zone he's Like you will not stay here you know he's secure in the endzone and so uh i was complaining one day i was like man i'm being a wheelchair i need a scooter and he's a guy in the zone you go in the end zone, and so I was at that retreat that I said was very meaningful to me, and this man that was speaking there that morning, and he was in a scooter, and he's older, and I don't know how many years sober. He's got a lot. He is more sober than dirt so uh he uh he's talking about and he's reading the big book and he says you know because he's also a minister he can believe that and uh so he's like i was you know praying to god and i was really upset the other day and you know like why am i i used to take a walk every morning in the park and now i'm in a scooter and i can't take awalk in the parking lot and i'm mad at god about it I was like wow you know that's that's impressive and I was really you know cool that he's sharing that he said then I was reading in the big book and it says we're like men who have lost our legs we cannot grow new ones and he says but then I thought but God can get you a scooter and I always just crying I was laughing and crying and going okay God you know it was just the perfect timing and uh and every time now i'm getting upset about what's going on in my life with that stuff i'm like okay god will get you a scooter you know y'all may be scooting me around. I know you'll do it. Um, so I'm trying to, um, so what I do today to stay sober, I go to meetings. I believe in a home group. I am so, so grateful for this home group because it's just what I needed when I needed it. As I was, I needed it I needed structure I needed the y'all that have time to tell me what you do I need y' all that don't have time they tell me which are struggling with so I cannot think about the crazy things in my head and the end zone you know I uh that's made the biggest difference this year and my sobriety. Um, other thing is I've been, I really have been praying and meditating and, uh, and when I don't want to, when I'm mad at God, cause I've had a lot of being mad at this year about my whole illness stuff. And, um, and I've be doing it anyway. And so, uh I've asking to be willing to do stuff I don' wanna do. Um and I been showing up here, and somehow, when I put Alcoholics Anonymous in the middle of my life, and let y'all show me what to do, and listen, then my life gets better. I don't know how that works, but it just does, um, and then, so today, I got up, and I prayed, and i meditated, and we bought this house so I went over to the new house and I was in the end zone painting you know gotta do that now and I took my iPod and I had some speaker tapes I haven't heard and I wasn't listening to the people that were around when I came in the program and who are still around but like those heroes I have you know and man I was just so grateful I'm painting, and I'm just crying, and like, my God, it's so good to me. And this life that I have is amazing if I'll just step back and not think about what it should look like and just accept it for what it is and love it for want it is. And, you know, I'm so grateful for the people that God put in my life and for the things that for that home group I got sober in for that message I got for the sponsor I have that I had and I still have for y'all for having the courage to start a home group that I was too scared to do but I'm glad I got to be here so I want to close with something that that guy that started the group that I got over in always closes with and then my sponsor always closes it with it so I like to close it and it's from the last paragraph in freedom from bondage and it says everything I could have said this at the beginning and sat down but I have too much of an ego so this great experience that released me from the bondage of hatred and replaced it with love is really just another affirmation of the truth I know I get everything I need in alcohol it's anonymous and everything I need I get and when I get what I need I'm bearably fine that it's just what I wanted all the time