Bill Wilson Got Depressed Too — Nobody Says It in AA but a Lot of Us Live with Both – Donna S.

My name is Lisa, an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the Nava Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God. 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 aabloochipspeaker.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker, and 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. This letter... The lady that I have chosen to speak tonight is my longest friend in AA, and I love her, and she's like a sister to me. And her name is Donna. Hey, my name's Donna. I'm an alcoholic and an addict. Thank you for having me here tonight to tell my story. It's an honor for me to be up here to tell my story, and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for... for you all, because I can't get sober or stay sober without you all. This is not a program that I can do by myself. I have to have you all to help me with this program, and it's not something I can do alone. When I first got here, I thought I could do it alone, but I quickly learned that I have to have the help of everybody in AA to help me stay sober, so it's something that I have to have you all here to help me with, and so that's why it's very important for me to have you all's help and support in staying sober, and it is an honor for you all to be here to listen to my story tonight. I will start with... Every time I've ever told a story, people have told me, talk about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now, so I'll just talk about basically a little bit about my life and what it was like getting sober and then what it's like to stay sober, and basically it's a lot easier staying sober than it was getting sober, and I recommend staying sober because... because it's a lot easier. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm not originally from Atlanta. I was born in Kentucky, and I kind of have an interesting start in life. I have two families, and I actually have two birth certificates and two names. I was adopted, and my birth... family, my birth mother gave me away. She never saw me. She never held me or saw me or took care of me or anything. She gave me a name, and then just... they took me away, and I was in an orphanage for about three months, and then I was adopted by another family, and then they gave me a new name, and I had a new birth certificate, and a new family, and my birth family, they were real... they were real messed up, and it's... it's a story that could be like a Lifetime movie. I mean, it was... it's a long story, and it's really messed up, so I won't get into that, but my birth family was really... um... I think I would have been a worse alcoholic if I was raised by them, so... so it was pretty good that I didn't end up with them, actually. So... but, um... anyway, I was raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Uh... I had a brother, and he was also adopted, but we're not from the same family. We're from different families. I've heard a lot of alcoholics talk about feeling like they didn't fit in, and... I think my whole life, I... I always had this feeling like I didn't fit in, and... feeling like... kind of like you're the square peg in a round hole, and that you're... you're always trying to find this way to fit in, and that for some reason you just don't fit in, and I was always trying to find that way to fit, and... I think... I think that started from the very beginning, that for whatever reason, I just didn't belong, and I didn't fit, and I think it started almost like from the minute I was born, that I just didn't fit, that, you know, my mom didn't want me, my family didn't want me, and... I just didn't belong anywhere, and... so... I got adopted, um... my... my dad worked all the time, he was... he was... he was a good provider, but he was always at work, um... my mom, she didn't really know a lot about being a mom, because she didn't have a good role model, and... she was off doing her own thing, and... she just didn't know how to be a mom, so... she, um... kind of left me and my brother unsupervised, and... we'd be in the basement, like with our chemistry set, building all kinds of bombs, or whatever, I don't know what we were doing, but... we were building stuff down there, and... and... just doing crazy things, and... being unsupervised, and... we just... you know, we didn't have a lot of role models, and a lot of supervision, and... it just wasn't a good... we just didn't have a lot of... we just didn't have a lot of supervision, and a lot of role models to follow, a lot of guidance. Again, that feeling of not belonging, and not having any guidance, and not fitting in, and... the other thing that was going on in the house was alcohol. Our... our... my parents, I wouldn't call them alcoholics, but they were heavy drinkers, and there was a lot of alcohol, in the house. This was back in the 60s. 60s and early... late 60s, early 70s, and... there was a lot of alcohol in the house. You know, there was a... a stocked liquor cabinet, and... you know, the parents, you know, after work, they'd have a... two... two to three highballs, I think that was what a Scotch and Water was called, and... they'd have that before dinner, and then, like, three beers after dinner, and then on the weekends, they'd drink all day. Probably when I was about... seven, I had my first drink, and... my mom... would... she started giving us wine with dinner, and... I don't know why, I mean... in... I mean, I guess nowadays, that'd be considered abuse, but... back then, she just thought it was pretty cool to give your kid wine with dinner. I don't know, but... so... you know, and I remember that it was Mogan David, and it had a picture of a family on the... on the label, and... it was a picture of a little family at a table, at a dinner table, on the label. I always remember that, and we got a little glass of it with our dinner at... at... at night, and I was only seven, and... I mean... and I thought it tasted pretty good, I really enjoyed it, but... I... and I don't know why she was doing it, but... maybe it made me sleep good at night, I don't know, but... I don't know, but anyway, that was the first time I had a drink, was starting when I was about seven, and... probably when I was about eight, I drank a bunch of champagne, at... on New Year's Eve, and I passed out, and... that was the first time I, like, passed out, after drinking a lot, and then... probably about when I was twelve, is when I really started drinking, and that was on the weekends, and... remember when I said they had a liquor cabinet? That's when I started, um... you know how when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... when you... you know how when you... drink out of your parents' liquor bottle, but then you put water back in it, to make them think you're not drinking out of it? That's what I started doing. So, like, I'd get in the... like, the vodka bottle, and drink out of it, but then pour water back in it, to make them think, you know, that... I hadn't been drinking out of it. And, um... and do that with my friends on the weekend. So... and that was around age twelve or so, and, I don't know. It just... I guess I was just fooling myself, that I... that I didn't have a problem, but I... I was trying to fill that... that hole of not belonging with something. Because that... that feeling, like I said, about not fitting in, was getting worse. Because I... I was going to school. The higher grade I went in school, the more I didn't belong because, you know, when you're in grade school, the kids pick on you a little bit. But the more you get, like, middle school and high school, it gets a little bit worse, you know, because when you're a teenager, teenagers are worse than, like, preschool or whatever. And the teenagers will pick on you worse than, like, preschool or whatever. And, like, in high school, I really didn't fit in. And the more I didn't fit in, then the more I had to drink to fill that hurt spot of not fitting in. So, I'll see, I guess when I was about 12 or 13 or so, I started drinking a little bit more. And, but it was mostly just on weekends with friends. And my parents always, they knew about it, but they just kind of thought it was, I don't know, just kind of funny or whatever. They didn't seem to really think it was anything serious. They didn't really do anything about it. I never got punished for drinking. You know, they never, I never got in trouble for it. And they never. They never told me I couldn't do it. So, I just kept on doing it. And then in high school, I would drink with friends on the weekends or after school or at parties. And it just kind of went on until I graduated. And then probably my senior year in high school. And it kind of slacked off a little bit because I was more focused on going to college. And I knew that if I wanted to get into college, I had to kind of straighten up and kind of fly right for a while so that I could get into college. But, actually, that was, you know, pretty much, you know, childhood wasn't. I had a lot of, you know, childhood was kind of rough. But I made it through. I was pretty tough and made it through okay. I graduated from high school. And I wanted to go to nursing school. So, but I graduated high school early. So, I had to wait a year before they'd let me in nursing. So, I worked as a nanny for a year before I got admitted to nursing school. And I started nursing school in 1980, 84, I think, or 1983. And it was the first time I'd ever been away from home. And that was good. I really liked being away from home. That was a lot of fun. And I discovered that being away from home meant I could drink as much as I wanted to drink. And that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to do without being supervised. So, I did pretty good in school. In fact, I did really well in school. I was a straight-A student. And we. We would go out on the weekends to the different bars. And I was, for some reason, even though I had no driver's license, I was always the designated driver. Which was probably not a very smart ideal. But I was usually the only one that was never. I was always, even though I was drunk, I was always the one that was not as drunk. As everyone else. And I was always the one that ended up driving home. And how we never got caught or I never had a wreck, I'll never know. But we always got home back to the dorm okay. So, I made it through the first two years of nursing school okay. But then, I got really. I got really depressed probably the last year of nursing school because I think I knew that I'm not really quite sure what happened, but I think I knew I was going to graduate soon and I would have to kind of like grow up and face responsibility and life and be an adult and get a job and take on adult responsibilities. And I wasn't sure I was ready for that. And I ended up getting really depressed and I was drinking a lot and the drinking along with the depression really added up and I got like super depressed and didn't know what to do and I ended up trying to kill myself and I almost did. And it was bad. It was very serious and I almost died. I was in a coma for a while in the ICU and I had to drop out of school for a year and kind of get back on track. And after getting some help and quitting, I quit drinking for a while and got some help and then I was able to go back to school and finish school. And I quit drinking. I got a job after I graduated and then I still didn't drink for about another year, but then after I graduated from nursing school, I got a job in Knoxville. That's where I was going to school and I got an apartment. That was in 1987 and I got a job as a nurse, as an RN, and I was really excited because it was my first real job. But I started drinking again because I wasn't sleeping well and I thought drinking will help me sleep. And at first the drinking did help. It did help me sleep a little bit, but then it got worse and worse and the more I drank, the, you know, it kind of snowballed and it really wasn't helping me sleep, but the drinking got worse. And then I was missing work and getting in trouble at work and I never got a DUI or anything, but I was getting in trouble at work. Because I was making mistakes at work and coming in hungover and just not performing well at work. And so I ended up moving back to Nashville to my parents' home. And that probably was not that good of an ideal, but I did it anyway because I wasn't doing well on my own in Knoxville. And so probably around 1988 or 89, I moved back to Nashville into my parents' home and got a job at a really good hospital in Nashville. And for a long time I'd had a problem with depression. And I know we don't talk a lot about depression in AA because it's kind of a, I don't know, it's kind of a subject people don't like to talk about. But a lot of people in AA get depressed. You know, Bill Wilson was depressed. And sometimes it can go along with alcoholism. And I had an ongoing problem with depression as well as alcoholism. And it really hadn't been treated very well. And it was something I really wasn't that aware of. And I needed help with that as well as my alcoholism. And it really wasn't being treated. And I didn't know that at the time. So I moved back in with my parents. And the depression got worse. And it wasn't being treated. And I wasn't sleeping. And I wasn't eating right. And I wasn't taking care of myself. And, um, but I was living with my parents. And I did get a really good job. And I was making a lot of money. And I was, I bought a new car. And I bought some nice stuff. And, and, um, all of a sudden I was at work one day. And the downfall of being an RN is that you're around a lot of drugs. And I just got this bright ideal one day at work. That, um, I was giving a patient some Demerol. And I don't, we don't use Demerol anymore. Demerol is a medication that's a narcotic. Similar to morphine or Dilaudid. We don't really use it anymore. Now we use fentanyl or morphine. But Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a drug. Demerol is a very potent narcotic. And, um, so I was giving a patient some Demerol. And there was some left over in the vial. And typically what you would do is, is throw it in the, the sharps container. And, you know, and waste it. But I thought, why waste it? I'm going to take it home with me. Okay. This will help me sleep. So I did. I took it home with me. And, I mean, it just, it was just like this fleeting thought. I didn't even think about it twice. I just thought, I'm going to take this home with me. And, and give it to myself. It will help me sleep. And I didn't give it any. Second thought of, it's illegal. It's unethical. It's dangerous. None of that. I mean, I was only 26 years old. So that didn't help. You know, I was young. So maybe that played into it. But none of that seemed to matter to me. That it was illegal or unethical or dangerous or anything. I put it in my pocket and took it home. And the minute I put that, and I know this is an AA meeting. And I'll try not to dwell too much on drugs. But the minute I put that needle in my vein, I chased that feeling for the rest of my life. I never got that feeling again. And I'll probably never get that feeling again. And. I continued to steal narcotics for the next nine months. I got as much Demerol and morphine and Dilaudid as I could from that hospital. I took it from patients. I took it from the cabinet. I didn't care who didn't get their medicine. I get. I had patients who asked for pain medicine. I gave them sterile saline instead. I give them a shot of of a center again, which is something for nausea. Instead of the morphine. Because I felt sorry for them. And I put their Demerol or their morphine in my pocket and take it home. And I've made amends for that. And I paid my dues for that. I'm I'm still on. The. I'm reprimand list for the Board of Nursing, and I will be for the rest of my life. My my license is clear, but you can pull up my name on the Board of Nursing's website and see my consent order. Because I'll be reprimanded for the rest of my life for that. And that's something I'm not proud of. But it's something I did because I was addicted to it. I didn't care. I needed that. I needed that feeling because I was empty inside. I had a hole as big as a volcano in my chest that I was trying to fill up and I couldn't get it filled. I just couldn't. Nothing would fill it. Nothing. So what ended up happening was. I finally got so paranoid because one day I was at work. And I kind of had a like a little bit of a hangover. I guess you'd call it showed up at work one day and I was half doped up and we sometimes we had to move patients out of rooms or move beds out of rooms. And the charge nurse told me to move a bed out of a room because we were going to move a patient in there. And so I went to move this bed out of a room and I went to unplug the bed out of the wall and the beds are electric. So instead of going to the wall and unplugging it, you know, directly from the wall, I grabbed the cord just like right by the I just grabbed the cord and I yanked it. And instead of getting it right by the wall, so I just yanked the cord and doing that made the plug at the socket. It made it a spark fly because I just grabbed the cord and instead of getting it from the wall, so it it made a spark fly at the socket. And a spark hit the wallpaper and it made a spark go up the wall and it like electrocuted it. You know, what I mean? Like in in a spark went up the wall. It's fried the wire in the wall and it electrocuted my arm. Like a spark went up my arm. And. And it went up the wall. And it went up the wall. all the way up my arm, electrocuted my arm, sent a spark up the wall where the wire was up the wall, sent a line of fire up the wall. It set the wallpaper on fire. The sprinklers went off. The fire alarm went off. Everyone comes running. I'm like, oh, shit. They're like, what's going on? What's going on? And, you know, the fire door shut because the fire alarm's going off, and the sprinkler, thank God, just the sprinkler in that room went off, not the whole hallway. And the fire door shut, and my arm was numb. My right arm went numb. And I couldn't use my right arm, and I couldn't go to employee help. I couldn't go to the hospital to get my arm checked out because it was full of needle marks. And I was like, well, what do I do? Because, you know, my arm is, I can't use my arm. My arm's like this. You know, I'm walking around like this all day because my arm is numb, but I can't go get it checked out because then they're going to find out that I'm using drugs. And now the sprinklers are going off, and the fire is up the wall. And it was. It was just a disaster. So I went to, like, employee assistance and turned myself in and said, look, this is what I've been doing, and I need help. Because I was afraid they were going to find out anyway that I was sure they'd been tracking me and that they knew I'd been stealing drugs, but they hadn't been. But anyway, I turned myself in and told them, I needed help. And they said, well, you're beyond our scope of help, so we're going to send you to Atlanta, Georgia. They said, we don't have any treatment for you here in Nashville. So we're going to send you to Atlanta. So they did. They sent me to Atlanta. And I stayed in treatment for three months. And then. They sent me through a program at Ridgeview for impaired professionals. And I had to do that for five years. And I did Ridgeview's program for five years. And stayed in a halfway house for three years. And that was a long three years. But. So my. My sobriety date is actually. Nine. One. Two thousand two. Not. Nineteen. Ninety. Because. Which means Wednesday is my. Nineteenth birthday. So that's what happened. I actually relapsed on alcohol in 2001. Brown 2001. I got kind of cocky. And I got kind of a negative attitude. And said I don't need this. Y'all are stupid. I don't need this mess. I don't need to go to meetings anymore. You know I was going to meetings you know two times a day maybe. And I said I don't need meetings. You know meetings are for losers. I don't need meetings. So you know what happens to people like that. They get drunk. So I did. I got drunk. So I drank for about nine months or so. And then I came back. And I've been back ever since. But. So what it's like now. Is. In the book it says the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. So. I try to live as much of a spiritual life as I can. And that's not always easy. Because that means you have to rely on a higher power. And sometimes that's difficult because you have to first of all you have to know what your higher power is and coming into AA I wasn't sure what my higher power was and I had to learn here the meaning of a higher power and it was working the steps that helped me learn what a higher power was. And. And. And working steps one two and three helped me learn what a higher power was in my life and having a sponsor and working with the sponsor and then working with sponsors helped me learn what a higher power meant in my life. And then the other thing that's happened what it's like now is that. And then the other thing that's happened what it's like now is that. The promises have come true. And. Or most of them have come true. And. On page. On page. Eighty three. So if we're painstaking about this phase of our development. We'll be amazed before we're halfway through. These are the promises. And they start to come through true. After they're the ninth step promises. And it says we're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness and will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. I don't regret the past. There's things I wish I hadn't have done. I know I can't forget it either because I don't want to repeat it. Like the things about you know stealing and being you know being a thief. I know I stole things. I know I did things I shouldn't have done. I know that I can't forget it because there are things I don't want to do again. Just because you get sober doesn't mean that you're not going to have hard times. I've had you know I had it. You can have an emotional bottom and sobriety. You can have you can have bottoms and sobriety. Things can go wrong. It doesn't mean just because you're sober that things aren't going to go wrong. You know I've continued to have problems with depression. And. Sobriety. I had one of the worst times I've ever had in sobriety. And. But I got through it without drinking. And. I don't remember half of it. But. You know. But you know my friends and other people helped me get through it. You know you just get through it with with support of people in AA. And don't drink just one day at a time. And you'll manage to get through it. It says we'll comprehend. The word serenity and we will know peace no matter how far down the scale we have gone. We will see how our experience can benefit others and that's that's come true for me because I have been pretty far down the scale and I've seen that my experiences can benefit others and I try to use my experience to help other people that feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. And I try not to have a lot of self pity anymore. Sometimes that's difficult. I'm always going to have I'm always going to be a person with addiction whether it's addiction to alcohol or drugs or gambling or food. I'm always going to have that struggle with trying to fill that void. And right now unfortunately it's food. And I've pretty much conquered the alcohol and drugs and gambling but the food is a little bit difficult right now. And I'm working on that you know with COVID and everything I I ate like it was the end of the world. You know we all thought the world was ending when COVID came along. So. I stockpiled enough food to feed an army and I ate it all and I'm working on that. So and I was feeling a little pitiful about that but but I'm working on that one and it says we will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. And this one's important because this involves doing service work and working with other people self seeking will slip away our whole attitude and outlook. Upon life will change and this one's important too because this is where your attitude changes and you see that helping other people is more important than helping yourself fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us I'm not I'm not really scared of people anymore and economic insecurity it doesn't mean you're going to be a millionaire but it just means that you're not. Scared of losing everything and that you're going to be safe now that you're sober you're more employable people don't want to hire drunks you know that are drinking you know and and now that you're you know now that I'm not drunk I'm not as likely to get DUIs and have lawyer fines and probation bills and lawyer fees and. All that kind of stuff so I have more money to spend and I'm not as economically insecure so we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us and we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves I think that's the most important one that we realize that God is doing for us I realize now that. There. Is a God and that my higher power is is God that my God can do for me if I just ask them and all I have to do is ask and are these extravagant promises we think not and they get fulfilled but sometimes it's quickly and sometimes it's slowly and that part about sometimes slowly we just have to be patient. And sometimes we don't like to be patient but that's an important part of it to be patient and just wait a lot of times I know that I don't like to wait that I want things right now I want it when I want it and I want it now but I need to be patient and let things happen in God's time really that's about it. I'm just really grateful to be sober things are a lot better now than they used to be my life overall is better now than it ever was when I was drinking and using and it's a lot fuller than it used to be things aren't always great but even on the worst day it's a lot better than it was when I was drinking I just read one little thing out of here. Here. This is out of the doctor's opinion from Dr. Silkworth he wrote a little article in the front of the book where under the doctor's opinion he's talking about a patient that he had and it says this patient was when I need a mental uplift I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York the patient had made his own diagnosis. And deciding his situation hopeless had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die he was rescued by a searching party and in desperate condition brought to me following his physical rehabilitation he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort unless I could assure him which no one ever had that in the future he would have the willpower to resist. Resist. The impulse to drink his alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great that he felt his only hope would be through what he called moral psychology and we doubted if even that would have any effect however he did become sold on the ideals contained in this book he has not had a drink for a great many years I see him now and then and he has the finest specimen of manhood as one could imagine. One could wish to meet I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through and perhaps he came to scoff but he may remain to pray thanks for listening. I was myself a child.