Consequences Didn’t Remove the Obsession — Only Complete Spiritual Bankruptcy Did – Christine H.

Hi everybody, my name is Christine. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is April the 12th, 2023. And I can't tell you how grateful I am to be here. I was invited to come up here and tell my story. One, it never occurred to me that anybody would ever actually ask me. I was kind of surprised when I was asked. So thank you. Thank you for being here for me today. And all of my friends who showed up to support me in this. I wanted to start out just to kind of give you an idea of what my life was like as a kid. So you can get an idea of who I am as a person. And I grew up. In a big family, I had five brothers and sisters. There were three boys, three girls. We were like the Brady Bunch. But we were a pack of wild wolves, to be honest with you. I'm like the Brady Bunch. My parents were very young when they got married and had my oldest brother, Ronnie. My mom was only 15 and she had all six of us kids before she was 24. So we all kind of grew up. We all grew up together, right? And there was a lot of good having my little brother. He's only one year younger than me. So I had, you know, a playmate through all of my young years. And that was really awesome. You know, he and I had some really great adventures. And my father, he was military. He was in the Air Force. And some of my first memories. Are of us being at Patrick Air Force Base down in Florida. That's just south of Cocoa Beach, if anybody is familiar with that area. So we had, growing up on base, you know, kids everywhere. The beach is right across A1A. So life was great. In a lot of ways, life was really great when I was there. But there was also a lot of trauma in that same time. You know, my older siblings were extremely violent, you know, there was a lot of violence in the house. My parents didn't drink, they didn't fight, I've never seen my parents fight, they bicker. But I've never seen my parents fight. My brothers and sisters, on the other hand, they were extremely violent. I saw some things that were pretty disturbing for a young person. And again, you have to remember my oldest brother. He's nine years older than me, so I was very young. And during that time, I started school. And that was really traumatic for me because I couldn't read. And I would come home from school just traumatized. I hated it. I didn't know what was going on. And it took about a year for them to. To figure out that I had dyslexia. And so I ended up in special ed classes, which kind of separates you from the group. And everybody, you know, when you're a kid, they can be pretty unkind about that stuff. And the whole time, I just felt like I was unseen in my family because of the pecking order of where I was at. I was the fifth child. And I was, so I was born between my sister, Tanita, who I lost in 2019, and my little brother. She was the perfect gymnast, cheerleader. My little brother was the football player, everything. You know, they were great. And I was just kind of lost in the middle of that. I felt unseen for years. And unfortunately, that left me. I was a victim to a predator, and I've never told this story to a group of people. So I lost my innocence so young in life, and this person was terrifying for me. I saw a lot of cruelty, things that I just couldn't even, to this day, I still don't understand. Um, I like God. God, worry about those things for me now. So, and I pray for this person daily because they're, they're ill. And none of us come into this world wanting to be ill. I know that. And so I pray, I pray for peace and comfort for this person. And by doing that, I was able to free myself from that trauma that I had carried with me for so many years. And I tried to stay on point, y'all. Um, I wrote notes so I could try to stay on point, y'all. But, um, I'm going to do my best here. My mom was also, I was very scared of my mom. She, um, she was not very kind to me. And one of my first memories of her is her holding me up against the wall. I was maybe six years old. and screaming in my face, and all I could, I mean, how scared I was. I was so scared she was going to do something to hurt me. And my father, like I said, I feel like I was just kind of unseen. I don't think he ever really noticed or saw what was going on with me in my life. And for a long time, I held a lot of resentment over those, you know, the fact that I wasn't being protected by my mother and my father. And it took me coming here, getting sober, to find a way to get past those resentments. It's amazing how resentments can just eat you up. From such a young age that you carry, I mean, you carry the trauma from childhood all the way through everything you do in your life when you don't acknowledge it, look at it, and, you know, find a way of coping with it. My way of coping with it was to get drunk, stay high. I mean, whatever was on the table at the time, I mean, I was doing it. But drinking was always a part of everything I ever did. And when we left Patrick Air Force Base and came to Georgia, to East Point, I was about 11 years old, and at that time, something flipped. There was a switch, and not a good boy. Something switched in me, that innocent, sweet girl. A flip. A switch flipped in me that I was never, ever going to let anyone ever hurt me or do anything to me to the point where I had a knife, and I actually sliced open, at the age of 11, sliced open a person's hand, which is kind of traumatic, even now, thinking about how scared I was when that happened. But at that time, that switch never flipped. It flipped back off. You know, I spent years of my life like that. Just, I'm never going to be a victim to another person ever again. And a few years later, I start high school, and I was a cheerleader. Always made the team. When I came to Georgia, it was really difficult because I was new, and everything was so tight-knit, you know. You got to remember, back then, there weren't a whole lot of people around, you know. There's a whole lot more people nowadays. So, I took somebody's place on the team. So, the girls didn't like me because I bumped one of their, you know, squad members off the team, and then it happened again in high school when I tried out. So, I never fit in with the girls. That. And I didn't understand them. I didn't understand the excitement that they had about going to a school dance, about, you know, holding the boy's hand for the first time, you know, all these things that I should have been experiencing but couldn't because I wasn't innocent like these young girls were. So, I was so much different than they were. And I was mean. I was mean. It was just plain and simple. A lot of my best friends were because they wouldn't fight. And I didn't care who you were, guy, girl. If I saw you picking on somebody, I'd fight you. And so, some of my best friends ended up being my friends for that reason alone. And so, that's how my high school started. At the age of 14. Let me back up. At the age of 10 was the first time I ever smoked doobie. Today, y'all call it weed. I wore my paisley so I could time stamp the time period in which my career started. Yeah. So, back when it was called doobie, I was 10. And a funny story about that. Blue Oyster Cult for the longest time. I thought they kept saying, Don't fear the reefer. Well, come to find out. I mean, I was a grown woman. I found out. No, it's the reaper, Christine. Oh, my gosh. I thought they were saying, Don't fear the reefer. Okay. So, that's enough of the drunken drug a lot. I'm mad. So, I'm in high school. And a lot of the people in my life were adults. Adults. Who could get me alcohol, drugs, whatever I wanted. And, of course, I ended up not being on the cheerleading squad, you know, when I was 14, my second year into high school. I was younger than everyone in my class, too, by the way. That's why I was so young going into the ninth grade. I had started smoking weed a lot. The people that I babysat for. Grown adults. They gave me weed as part of my payment for watching their children. I mean, that right there just is, like, bizarre. So, yeah, I had an endless supply of weed and alcohol. Again, I have an older sister who, when she got out of the military and came home, I would get her weed and she would get me alcohol. And I'll never forget the first time that me and my best friend drank together. We had stole liquor from her aunt and uncle's little RV that came into town to visit. And we took a little bit of everything out of a bottle, put it in this big glass. And I thought weed was really good. But, boy, let me tell you, the alcohol was the thing that was so much different. And she's over there puking in the grass and I'm wanting to drink some more. I'm like, come on, let's go. And she's like, oh, no, I've had enough. So, within that same year, I somehow met a person who, a grown man, he was 36. He had an endless supply of drugs. And so, I spent a lot. lot of nights over at his house but he also gave me drugs to take to school weed and drugs to take to school so I could sell it so I could have cash because I quit babysitting I didn't want to do that anymore so I'm an entrepreneur at the age of 14 you know I think I've got it all figured out and I could only praise God for the fact that I was a minor when I started having trouble with the law because it wasn't any kind of misdemeanor things that I was doing the I did get my parents attention that's for sure because the police were calling them for grand theft I'm in jail and I'm just turned 15 the second time my parents got a call was I was at a house where there was a narcotics raid and so you just don't know how scary a situation can be until you see grown men fully geared out with ARs busting into a house and thank God everything I had on me was already distributed into the room so I was only an accomplice thank God for that well my way out of that my son's father was with me during this whole this whole thing the grand theft the narcotics raid he and I were dating and our way out was to get married he turned 18 I was about to turn 16 so when I turned 16 we got married I was 17 so I got back on the street and found myself there I was 18 years old at the time and I No I came back he was 18 years old a month later and I ended up at Fort Bragg Fort Bragg North Carolina that's where my son was born and yeah I continued on selling sellin drugs selling weed never got And when my son came along, I did, you know, I slowed down a little bit, but I wanted to make money, so I went to work in a bar right outside of Fort Bragg. Wow, let me tell you, you're 18 years old, and you're working in a bar where there's 10 men to every woman in the room. That was an experience. I walked out of there when I left North Carolina, I had very little regard for men, to say the least, because of the, you know, room full of GIs, bikers for bouncers, you know, half the crowd were bikers, you know, the other half were GIs, and it really just kind of opened my eyes to things. One, that is a very dangerous place for a young woman. I wanted to be a young 18-year-old woman to be, for sure, and again, I don't want to ever be a victim, so I walked away from that pretty quick. And I tried to be a mother to my son, I did, I wanted to have children, but I really was not there emotionally for him. I took care of my son, I always made sure he was out of harm's way. Never. I never left him with other people, because of my experience, I don't trust other people, which I carried through my life, not being able to trust anyone. And I wasn't a kind and loving mother, I didn't know how to nurture him, I never had gotten that, and so I didn't have it to give, because I didn't know what that was. And let me try to get back. Some days here. The, um, my son's father ended up taking custody of my son when he was four. And I did a lot of partying for probably about three, four more years. It got pretty rough. Really started getting into the drugs and the drinking, but I was keeping it more at home at that time. And then I decided I wanted to fight for custody of my son, and that definitely stopped all of the drugs in my life, because I wanted to be a mother to my son. And, and I did. Unfortunately, I was married for the second time to a person who was not a very kind person to me. Um, it was a verbally and physically. Abusive relationship, which was really difficult to take, because my son's father, God bless him, he was so kind to me, and he, he, he was a good man. And I really broke him when I left, you know, I just didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted to go out and party and do what I wanted to do. And. So I went through a lot of really bad relationships, making a lot of really bad decisions, and every one of those relationships would end up abusive, and trust me, I, it wasn't always, I, there were a lot of times I was the one that started the violence. Um, and during one time, during a time period when I did. Staying from drinking, I did start to gain a little bit of clarity about the situation, and that was the common denominator. That was me. I'm picking people that are confirming what I think and feel about myself. I am not lovable. I am not worthy. I am, you know, I deserve this for some reason. I guess because. Because of all of the things I've done in my life. So I would pick people who would confirm those inner thoughts that I had about myself, the things that I wanted to drink out of my mind. Um, I didn't like myself at all. I didn't like who I was. And for years I lived like that. I met my third husband. I'm still married to him. Um, we've been married, it's going on 30 years now, and yeah, so he's been through a lot with me. Um, he has seen me at my best and he has seen me at my absolute worst. And for the, for a long time, off and on, I could quit drinking for periods of time. And every time I would go out, my sisters, my two sisters, they lived out on the West. Coast. And I would go out to visit them and I would drink when I was with my sisters and I was always the last one to go to bed. You know, they're ready to go to bed. It's 12. I'm like, Oh shoot, we're just getting started. You know, um, so I would go out there a couple of times a year and every time I got home, I would have to white knuckle it for gosh, two weeks to get past that. I want to go to the liquor store and I did that for, for quite a few years, but I was, I was working a job and no matter how hung over I was, I was in charge and responsible. I had to show up for my job and being hung over was not an excuse. And I did fire a lot of people for that excuse. And yeah, no, it's kind of hard to believe. Right? The alcoholic is firing the person hung over, coming into work, um, coming in late, calling in. It's like, nah, if I made it, you can make it. So that brings me to 2017. Things really got really bad. My grandson Jackson passed away that year when he was born. I. By the time he was two months old, we knew he wasn't going to be with us for very long and I had a hard time accepting that because I saw my son, I saw the hopes and the dreams get ripped away from him. And that crushed my heart to see my son wanting to have a relationship with his newly born son. And knowing that he's never going to have that, it was really hard. And then when he passed away, seeing my son go through the pain of that loss, how beautiful the unconditional love is that a person can have and how absolutely heart wrenching it can be at the same time. It was so overwhelming for me to the point where I just couldn't bear it. And I started drinking pretty heavy and I found out shortly after that, that my sister had stage four cancer, my sister, Tamita was her and my sister and my non-biological sister who came here to support me today, my best friends, they, they know everything about me. And when I lost her in 2019, I spent. Six weeks in California, taking care of her, trying to be there for her, I had to drink a pint of beer every morning to keep my hands from shaking so that I could take care of her and not more than a pint at the end of the evening so that my hands would stop shaking and that I wouldn't get drunk so that if she woke up and needed me, I could be there for her. When she passed away, October 28, 2019, I went off the rail because one of the most important people in my life who had always been there, she was kind and loving and patient and I always walked away feeling so much better about myself when I was with her. And I miss her still today. But the beauty of this program, when I came to AA, I'm going to skip over a really important thing here, COVID, when 2020 hit, I started looking for help. I knew I had a problem and I knew I couldn't do that. I didn't know how. I tried, I begged, I prayed to God every day and every day my car drove me into a liquor store. And I had to go to a liquor store. And I had to go to a liquor store. And I had the biggest resentment against AA because you guys were like, no, we're only doing Zoom. And I'm like, what the heck is Zoom? I don't do Zoom. Zoom, Zoom. That was a song I thought, you know. So I got a resentment. And I thought, well, shoot, I guess I'm not meant to quit drinking. So I just amped it up a little bit. Well, it got so bad that I was even praying every day. In February of 2023, I'm every day praying to God, God, please, please, I won't, I don't want to drink today. And I would, I would still drink. I would keep doing it. And I finally got my butt in AA. I went to a meeting. I found, you know, the doors finally opened up. You guys let me in. And I said, okay, we'll let you in, Christine. So just to sit through the first meeting, I had to drink some whiskey, you know. Because my skin, I had gone a couple of days, I hadn't drank. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm about to be in a room full of people I don't know. Oh, gee, I was terrified. So I drank my little bit of whiskey, sat in the room. And you hear old timers a lot. They'll say. You can't come in these rooms and get it through osmosis. Well, I am here to bear witness that that is not necessarily true. Tradition number three, thank God. The only thing I had to have was the desire to stop drinking that allows me to keep coming back into these rooms. Thank God for tradition number three. Because, man, I was drinking when I was sitting in those rooms. But I was hearing the promises. I was hearing how it works. And how it works. I love where it says, if you follow these suggestions. Do you know why they call them suggestions? Because us alcoholics don't like being told what to do. I mean, you know, is it just me? Okay. You know, we suggest that you try this. Because what you're doing over there is really a big failure. And there was this one in particular day that I just, this went on all the way through into April. Me going into meetings. You know, going a few days without drinking. My skin is crawling. And I'm just, I'm like, gosh, why is this not working for me? And I'm asking. I'm like, God, don't you hear me? You know, God, don't you see what I'm going through? And I had to get so emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. That on April the 12th, I fell to my knees. And I begged with every ounce of my body. Every fiber in my body. My being. I begged. God, please. Please remove this from me. And I sat there for probably two hours. Just bawling my eyes out. And he answered. I picked myself up off the floor. And I knew that I could do this. Because God had me. God picked me up. Off that floor. And from that day, I never, my skin never crawled again. I had no DTs. I was like, oh, my gosh. And it occurred to me. I had been asking all these questions. And I wasn't asking. I wasn't saying the right thing. Am I with God? Not is God with me? God was always there. Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I? Do I listen? When God is speaking to me, do I listen? Sometimes I did. I have a good friend over there that knows that there were times when I did listen. I didn't know it was God at the time, but now I do. And when I look at the world, what am I seeing? Am I seeing all of God's creation? You know, these are the things that I discovered when I came to God. When I came into these rooms, see the kindness. You know, it says that none of us are perfect. You know, we don't claim to be saints. I see saints every day when I walk in these rooms. I see people who are struggling and suffering and praying on their knees, you know, to live to God's purpose. And thank God for this. Thank God. Thank God that I found AA. So when I look out into the world today, I do see God. I see the beauty all around me, even when there's total chaos going on in the world. And I'm going to try to get back to this program, how it works, steps one through three. So I had to get to step three before I could admit. Step one, my life is unmanageable. I am an alcoholic. That's the consequence of what I've done. I will never be able to drink again with impunity. That will never happen again. And I'm okay with that. Step two, no human can help me with this problem. Losing my son, my husband threatening to divorce me. None of that. None of that was going to stop. None of that was going to stop me from drinking. I had to be spiritually and emotionally broken so that I could turn to God. And it says, you know, if you seek, you will find God. He will and he did. And so steps one through three and all that stuff in between that gets you to step 10, 11, and 12, the foundation. What keeps us sober, you know, searching for that continuous contact with our higher power. For me, that is God, the creator of creation. Step 11, prayer and meditation. Learning how to do that where I'm not the center of my prayers. It's no longer about me. It's about how can I be of, you know, use. How can I serve? How can I be, have a... Purposeful life. And then 12, sharing my story and passing it on to someone. But at the age of 59, if I can do it, anybody can. I mean, if you can teach an old dog new tricks, I'm here to show that it can happen. I have spent two sober birthdays since I was 14. That has not happened. I have spent two Thanksgivings, two Christmases. Two St. Patrick's Day. I'm Irish, y'all. That, I actually enjoyed St. Patrick's Day twice now in a whole different way, you know. And I actually got to learn about who St. Patrick actually was. And he has nothing to do with drinking whiskey and going to a party. If you've never read his prayers or any of his prayers, I'm not going to read them. I'm not going to read any of his prayers. I'm not going to read any of his prayers. His, you know, prayers to God, I highly recommend it. They're very inspiring. So I learned a lot of new things since I've been here. And they say that you learn, you know, that you start, you stunt your emotional growth about the time that you start using. That means I'm 16. I will be 16 years old April 12th of 2025. Yay. Praise God. So I feel like a toddler in the room because I know that I'm surrounded by people who have got decades of sobriety on me. And that gives me so much hope. I know that I can live to be 95 and have those 30 some odd years. I just know I can. I want to, I'm going to wrap up with. When I was going, during 2013 and 14, I was going through cancer treatment. And I have an aunt up in Hendersonville, North Carolina, who, she is a woman of God, a woman of faith. And she sent me these. And just this week, I found this little daily inspiration, daily word. That she would send me every month while I was going through my treatment. And this, it just happened to be exactly like this to the page. And it's about faith. I step out with faith and achieve my highest potential. In order to live life to its fullest, I must be willing and occasionally embrace the unknown. This requires courage. Pressing on, even when fearful. And I've been very fearful this week, you guys. Yet, I have more than courage. I have faith. Faith is steady, grounded, and filled with assurance. I cultivate my faith in the fertile soil of spirit. Infinite substance is the source of all creation. Thoughts of faith fill my mind. And I use the creation. I use the creative power of words and action to manifest my good. I may not foresee the precise form in which new circumstances will be birthed. Yet, I am assured that my highest good will be established in faith. I step forward with joyful expectation into the next phase of my life. And I'm going to close with that. All right. And I want to thank everybody for allowing me to share my story. And thank you for having these doors and these rooms open for me. Without you guys, I would not be standing here today, sober, clear-minded, and in a state of gratitude. So, thank you. Thank you so much for your story. I was taught from the beginning that people are God with skin on them. And I feel like tonight. I've definitely heard something from God. So, thank you very much. Absolutely.