Do You Want Temporary Sobriety — That’s What My Sponsor Asked Me First – Meredith M.

and tonight I give you pleasure to introduce Meredith and if you don't know Meredith you are missing out she is an amazing woman and I love her story and I have friends with a lot of her sponsees or pigeons I give you Meredith thank you Kat thank you for coming out thank you to the Tim who can't be here and to Tim and to Kat for hosting it's a privilege to be asked to do anything Alcoholics Anonymous and to hear people talk about the way I am today and sometimes I just can't wrap my mind around it and it's all because of Alcoholics Anonymous and what this program has done for my life so my name is Meredith I'm an alcoholic my sobriety date is May 30th 1998 you don't need to do the math it'll be 28 in May I'm really looking forward to 29 if I live that long because then I will have been sober longer than I drank right now it's a tie okay and I want to beat the tie I didn't know I was restless irritable and discontented as a kid I was introduced to alcohol at a very young age we socially drank at my home and at the holidays it was champagne and I remember at my at my 10 years old my grandmother on my father's side who was definitely temperate said what could a little champagne hurt the kids you know a little they have such pretty glasses and so we each got these like one ounce glasses of champagne and luckily for me I drank mine my brother Jeffrey didn't like his my brother Andrew didn't like his I mean Matthew and then Jackie didn't like hers so I got four rounds of champagne at 10 years old and bazing man I love that warmth that went down my throat I loved how it made me feel I got all warm in my head I got all tingly I just loved it and it definitely produced a certain amount of personality change because now I'm doing you know somersaults and cartwheels that I got my pretty dress on and I don't care that my crinoline is showing and I don't care that my crinoline is showing and I don't care that my I'm playing piano and I always hated playing piano for people and then I needed a nap and and when I woke up I had a terrible terrible headache and the first thing that came to mind was I can't wait till Christmas we drink champagne at Christmas too and so when they talked to me and when I started reading this book okay so uh 31 years later I realized oh my gosh I do have this allergy of the body I do have this obsession of the mind because it rooted with the first drink see we're not you know a lot of these puzzles that we do that it's the obsession and the allergy but the allergy is what comes first I've got to drink it and experience it and boy did I and I remember thinking this stuff is great and and our living room looked like we grew up in the suburbs of New York and our living room looked like something out of Mad Men big fancy you know big fancy living room for parties we added the room on it was so important to my family and we had a standing bar and ho ho ho and cigarette smoke and and I remember one of being one of five kids up the stairs in the children's area and it was so boring up there I wanted to be down there and I was you know under 10 years old and I wanted to be at the party man and I remember when those parties were over I'd go around and eat the cherries out of those drinks man those are my kind of cherries and so I loved it from the beginning and grandma my mother's mother had this twinkle in her eye all the time and and she smelled really good and it turns out it was gin who knew I love the smell of gin I never even knew what it was and I loved it it was on from get-go and and everything seemed to be going along just fine I was raised with a belief in God my father was a protestant not too into it my mother was very catholic totally into it raised to believe in God first husband second moved up to the Adirondacks where we are strangers in a strange land we do not share one of six last names which apparently is a requirement and I felt really out of place and my mother was also out of place pulled from the nest of seven brothers and sisters away from her family in a in a house built in 1863 on a back road and I remember the first winter we moved in December there was a bobcat on the ledge and and in the spring snakes would come out of the stone wall in the basement and it was like where are we man it was very hard for my mother and my father started commuting to New York City for work that's where his job was he never left the job so it became mother raising these six kids and dad who was rarely there and then today the day when he said he wanted a divorce and then everything fell apart like a house of cards and I was sixth grade at the time and I was so mad I was so mad at my my father for breaking my mother's heart you know she she was all in and she wasn't alcoholic but she started drinking alcohol if he was the neighbor up the street and I remember if we came home from school and my mom's car wasn't in the driveway that meant mom was up the road and it wasn't going to be a good night and when my father came home they would drink too much and fight and I remember thinking and then my father would go away again and then my mother would make promises to come after school and watch the soccer game and she wouldn't be there or we'd come home after school and she was still in bed and really smelly and very sad she would stare in her mirror and drink warm Budweiser and cry and I thought I'm never going to be like that that is so weak I'm never going to be like that and as seventh and eighth grade rolled around luckily for me I was one of only 23 people in my class in the leadership of the fourth grade school when I was still older than me and I started at nine ourselves and I know that's bring out what everybody were saying and they got mad at me when I'd grown up I went to a great small school and everybody knew our business but the lucky thing was you could get wine like that the 18 year olds are passing over hallway man so I remember there was a New Year's Eve party I was 14 years old and somebody said we're having a party at soul in so he's out where do you want to drink and I said whatever it chase plante store years later you know so there I liked the reward of doing well. I liked having high honors in class. I liked the $50 gift certificate for having the highest English average in eighth grade. You know, I was elected. I was the captain of the JV cheerleaders. I couldn't even do a split, but it didn't matter because nobody could. There was only 23 people in my class, right? So I could excel at a very high level doing very well. But I was also doing these things on the weekends because now alcohol is taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. And I am hanging out with people that are older than me, and I'm avoiding going home because there's nothing there but sadness and drinking. So I'd make the lunches for the brothers and sisters, and I'd make sure we were all on the bus, and then I'd hit the streets, you know, the damaging streets of the blinking traffic light at the four corners, you know, smoking. But I earned a reputation, and it's not the one I have an alcoholic son with today. You can measure my downward spiral by the nicknames I had. I was bossy, I was mouthy, I was, then where did it go from there? Megaphone, because I was a cheerleader, and then tramp. And then it went downhill from there. But I was also valedictorian of my class, president of Sin Castle. You know, I was just like Bill talks about. I felt so little of myself on the inside that I had to be everything on the outside so that I could be number one. It was so I could feel better about me. Because as I never had much self-esteem, and after dad left and poor mom climbed into a bottle of scotch, I was on my own, and I'm textbook, you know, no father, you know, she's from a broken home, you know. And I would say, I'm fine, you know, and I would pretend I didn't hear the whispers in the hallway. And I remember I had two wingmen, my older brother, Jeffrey, and my younger brother, Matt. My brother, Jeffrey, went off to private school. He hated it. He wanted to be home with us. He knew things were bad, but my parents wouldn't let him come home. But he was always praying for me. And so I moved down here even. He sent me a book by Charles Stanley. I didn't even know Charles Stanley was from Atlanta. And it said, How to Listen to God. And I thought, I need the prequel. I need the one that says where to find him. Because I was raised with a faith in God. But as mom and dad and that life fell apart, and it didn't look anything like a God that would love me and care for me, God was no longer a certainty to me. God was maybe a wish, a hope. And then as I became a Christian, I was a Christian. I became more alcoholic, a threat. I became more and more pulled apart from God. And I didn't know what I was supposed to rely on. So I'm going to rely on myself very much. After 28 years of that, here I am. I drank alcoholically through high school. I was a blackout drinker. My best friend was a home ec teacher. Her mom was. She said, I can't hang out with you anymore because you have a reputation. Even though I was on honor society, for crying out loud. I had three out of four of the characteristics. I didn't have character, but I had the others. But I would have done it. And I told you I did. And alcohol took me places that I never wanted to be. And when they talk about here in Alcoholics Anonymous that we drink against our will. I had to learn what will meant. I didn't know what it meant. It means what I want. And I became a bartender because after going to college and being mad new coon loud in theater and English. That was purposeful. Might as well. First I worked the third shift at a diner. Where the truckers called me their little tomato. I thought that was kind of a step down after all I'd done. And then I became a waitress. And I always had money. I always worked. I was cleaning houses when I was 11. I always knew that money was the answer. I knew I had to get out of that little town. I had a car paid for before I had a license. My best friend test drove it for me because it was a stick shift. And I was going to get the heck out of there because that was the problem. And I got all the way 25 miles away. Worked for the Olympic committee and then became a bartender in this tourist town. And I took up residence and stayed there 10 years. And my decline went ATL. Which I think is interesting because it's Atlanta. But he called it Around the Lake. And I went from the big fancy club to the nice little cottage to Hell's Bar. That's where I earned the nickname Nightmare. That was another nickname I had. What would happen is I would drink too much and I would turn the corner. And I worked for a woman who also turned the corner. And when we went out drinking together, which was the Dolphin, we were nicknamed Nightmare and Cujo. So you can see what kind of a lovely pairing that was. And that was just the beginning. And then I moved to Atlanta because I think, gee, the problem is this tourist town. And my sister and brother-in-law lived here. And they had a logical idea of what life was all about. And I moved to Atlanta. And I thought, I'm going to start over. Like we say, you know, we have a firm resolution not to drink again. And then suddenly we find ourselves drunk. I love that. Just drunk drunk. And I love where it talks about this is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it. It's this utter inability to leave it alone. No matter how great it is. The necessity or the wish. And I started having a wish at 16, 17. When I knew I wasn't going to be the Marian kind. At 20 and 21, when I discovered townies. I went to a women's college to sort of get away from my social issues with men. And I discovered townies and foosball. So it just doesn't matter, you know. We can't shield ourselves. The book talks about any method to try to be, you know, avoid alcoholism. That is physical, isn't going to work. Because it errs where it exists. People in me say, my disease is out there doing push-ups. Out in the parking lot doing push-ups. I wish it was that far away because maybe I could outrun it. It's right here. And that's what keeps me coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's my stinking thinking. My thinking, the insanity of alcohol, as they talk about, is disproportionate thinking. Mountains are molehills, molehills are mountains. Obsessive thinking about what someone did wrong to me last year or 10 years ago. Or 10 years ago. I'm not obsessing about the wrongs I did too much. There's some moments of remorse. But really it's more about all the wrongs you did to me. Rusty Jones always used to tell me, these people on your four-step, they're the people you're holding responsible for your contentment. And I thought, well, I'm not going to let that happen. Like, golly. So anyway, so I come down to Atlanta. And I think it's going to change everything. And instead I take up residence in a nice little dive bar. Sort of places where I can reign supreme. And so, you know, write checks to the bar. That's how reliable I was. I always made sure I had money because that was going to fuel my drinking. But I ended up here and in the same place, demoralized I don't know how many times. It'd be okay if the learning about, you know, it says we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. Too bad we don't learn it the first time. How many moments of incomprehensible demoralization can a person withstand? I think my drinking kept me from killing myself, really. But what happened was, I started developing these thoughts. Any time something that I would regret I did. A thought would cross my mind about something I did yesterday or last year or when I was 15 with that guy in that car. Muscle cars. I almost found God there. But I would think about how awful that was and I couldn't wish it away. Just like I couldn't wish away the obsession to drink, these thoughts would come back again and again. And I started developing this flash where I'd be slitting my wrists or eating a gun. Now that was new. I'd never been that depressed. I'd never been that hopeless. And they weren't things I was thinking up. Like Bill, after his spiritual experience, he says, while I lay in the hospital, a great thought came. You can tell by the writing. The thought came to him because he had a spiritual experience and now his channel is open to God. It doesn't say, I had this great idea all myself. And that's what happens when we start connecting to a God that's greater than us that really does have my best interests at heart. But I had to go through Alcoholics Anonymous to find that out. And that was me in the form of a really bossy woman. And I only, only was able to surrender to that when I had scared myself into Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd gotten used to the way I stunk. I'd gotten used to going home alone. I'd gotten used to trying to blame somebody else for the way I drank. What I wasn't used to and what I was deathly afraid of was the thoughts I was having that I might kill myself or somebody else. I knew I couldn't do that to my mother. She had eventually gotten sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. Wanted all of us to go see a therapist. I'm like, I'm fine. I don't need a therapist. And that's how I came into AA too. But I was also secretly wishing and hoping something would work. And I remember my bottom came in three parts. I remember I was I found myself very thirsty and losing weight and my sister said, sounds like you have diabetes. And I said, well can, she goes, you need to go to the doctor. And I said, can I wait till I hit my goal weight? I'm almost there. And she said, no, that's a dangerous thing to do. So, I went to the doctor. And he told me, he gave his prescription and it had that martini glass on the bottle with the X on it. He said, you have to take this stuff and you can't drink it. And I'm like, whoa. And then I was thinking, gee, if I don't stop drinking and this is honest, I was telling this the other night on my Zoom call. The first thought I had when they said you can't drink alcohol because you're diabetic I was thinking, I'm going to be on that awful bar stool 20 years from now with Coke bottle glasses because I'm almost blind from diabetic damage. And I've lost a limb to it. So now I've got a prosthetic and I'm drunk and I want someone to dance with me. And nobody will. And that, honest to God, was more of a true vision for my life than the fact that I might be able to get sober in this place called Alcoholics Anonymous and be redeemed. It was easier for me to think I wasn't worried that my life was going to get worse I was worried that it was never going to change. At all. And then Monday morning I'm starting over Monday morning I'm starting over and then Monday afternoon it's like, hey you're starting to come back 4 o'clock, we can have a drink we can have a couple drinks. No we can't, we're alcoholic. And I'm like, when did I become a we? Now I'm all fragmented on the inside. I don't even know who I am anymore. And I'm not telling you because the best defense is an offense. So I'm fine and you can just take care of your own mess. And as long as I had the job which I just scared everybody. My boss and my ruling method was intimidate. Just keep them at arm's length especially so they can't smell you. But I was, they told me I was firm but fair in my better moments. Firm but fair. But I was disciplined in that. So anyway, I ended up diabetic I knew I had to stop drinking then I got, I was promoted because in the restaurant business drinkers, we can get promoted. We just gotta show up pretty much. And I did have some good qualities. I had leadership qualities. They were getting a little disintegrated but I still had something going on and I got promoted to director of training where my job was to ascertain talent for the management program which I wrote and then evaluate them. And I was in Myrtle Beach where we had four restaurants and I got really drunk and I was in a bar which I didn't know was inhabited by all of the employees in the four restaurants we owned there. And I danced on the bar with one of the waiters and I think I told I know I did, I told off one of the GM's because why not I know everything. I had an easy recollection of what happened and on a Sunday morning my boss called me and said hey we need to talk. Anytime today's good I'm in Atlanta. It's the same feeling I had when I saw that I can't drink anymore with diabetic medication. The dude lives in Myrtle Beach and he's in Atlanta on a Sunday morning. So I walked up to him and met him at Joey D's and he's like we have something we have to talk about. And I was like oh God. And that's when he said you gotta cut this out. You're a professional. We have to be professional. You have to clean this up. And I said you will never have to have this conversation with me again. And I knew as I said it I couldn't even trust myself to keep that promise. Because I was out of control. But you know what happened. Oh Norman. I named my bottom Norman because this is too much. So I'm dating this guy and I am you know known for my assessment of talent and character for my company and I meet a guy in the bar where I meet all my guys. We've known each other 20 minutes so it's time to plan the wedding and so what I did was I invited everybody to my house to have a barbecue so they could meet Norman and my mom was in town because she lived in Florida and I invited my best friend Tommy who today is doing remastering songs for my brother. But anyway he was there with his wife and his kids. People that really mattered to me. And Norman was late. My mother he called me and said sorry I'm already late I'll be there soon. And my mother said why is he late? And I said he's coloring his hair. And mom said don't you think that's a little odd? And I said no in Atlanta there's a lot of metrosexuals they're very hip you know. And it turns out that I got really loaded after that party and I went out with an old friend of mine a friend with benefits you know those. And we took a limo to Lakewood and we saw Page and Plant and we made a host of fair weather friends and I did a bunch of outside issues and woke up with someone I didn't know and I thought oh I've ruined everything with Norman. I woke up thinking I've ruined my life I had the best thing I ever had going for me with this guy even though I outweighed him and he was quite petite. But I really thought this was the one. And so I talked to my friend Patty who worked at the bar and I said oh my gosh I've cheated on Norman and I've got to find him and she goes Norman? I said yes. She goes Norman? And I said yes. She goes Norman's gay. Now I don't object to that you know it's not my business but that was not my type you know. I said he's gay. So it turns out he used me as a beard thinking I'm a good you know we were both so whacked out. He takes me to his sister's wedding I am hammered but I'm driving a nice car you know but so anyway so I I just thought I have to get sober I don't know this yet about the gay part until about a week later because now I'm obsessing about him but I decide I've got to get sober to save this relationship which turns out didn't exist and that's how God works in my life my God is a sense of humor by golly I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to save a relationship that wasn't even there and I stayed long enough to figure it out. But I got very obsessed with that where did he go what happened to him but that eventually faded away and I came to meetings I was sitting on my hands hoping I'd find something what am I waiting for I knew I'd been to AA before when I first became diabetic 18 months later I'm finally back in there and I know that it's something about sponsorship and staffs I know that I really thought originally that's for people with no jobs and maybe only some of their dental work and things like that but what I realized was it was really for people that were hopelessly alcoholic who suffered this obsession who when we honestly want to we can't quit or if when we start drinking we have no control over the amount we take that was me and so I sat on my hands wishing and hoping I wasn't sure what I was wishing and hoping for and people talked a lot about love you too you can love yourself newcomers most important person in the room and some of it sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher and I just didn't know and then this one woman shared and it was like zing and I could hear her and she was clear and she talked about how she was alcoholic and hanging out in houses with people that she shouldn't have been mixing with and even though she came from a good home and she got to a place where she couldn't stand the thought of living or dying and she asked somebody for help and they took her through this book she diagnosed herself and she took these steps and her life is different today and when she spoke she had a certainty and she had a look in her eye that it didn't suck and honestly all I was looking for was less sucky what you promised here was just too much I just couldn't believe it but I had to do something a little bit better and it coincided with my cousin who was alcoholic sending me a pamphlet saying I got sober in AA I have a year sober today so I took a shot after three times of hearing that woman I finally went up to her and I said will you be my temporary sponsor and she said do you want temporary sobriety and I'm like uh no I don't think so well it says right here vital to permanent recovery is strenuous work one alcoholic with another well yes I do I didn't know like please let me change my answer because yes she goes how long did you ever have sober I said I don't know I had about 90 days and I chose to drink again she said what makes you think you chose I said that's what they say in these meetings that's why I said it you know she goes says right here we've lost the power of choice in drink what makes you think you can choose whether you drink or not and then I started thinking about those last few times I was driving into that crummy bar and crying my eyes out and then goes to a bar on a Sunday night because she can't go home I thought I need to change my answer I was drinking when I didn't even want to and so she said here's what I want you to do and she said this is what you know about getting sober and I'm like yeah I liked her five minutes ago and then she said I want you to start to diagnose yourself as to what this book says because you have to decide if you're alcoholic and this book will tell you if you are or you aren't you think you have a drinking problem you have to know this is for you to identify yourself as alcoholic so why don't you start reading and highlight your experience and we'll meet once a week and read the book together and we'll figure out and man some of those lines I had arrived when I had that Olympic job in Lake Placid I had arrived it was only a nine month job but I had an expense account in a truck and I was hanging out with Chuck Mangione and people that had the best outside issues ever anyway so I knew what that felt like I also knew I felt lonely again and turned to alcohol I also identified with nevertheless I still thought I could control the situation and then the frightful day comes and then the part where it says if I could wish for the end you know I suffered all that so as I started to read it I started to get a little bit excited about the inventory which is weird so one for me was the decision only took 28 years for that one and two the decision to trust the power greater than myself happened when I walked into Alcox Anonymous that's my first foray that's the first action I took to show that I was willing to believe I needed to believe I believed at one point and maybe maybe just maybe and then I did follow the direction of a sponsor who I've learned is a person who puts my hand in the hand of God but if I can't follow a few simple directions from someone with skin on them how am I going to follow this power that I haven't connected to yet and she didn't explain any of this by the way you know some of my new responsees they get kind of the nicer gentler version of me which ain't much but it's better than it was and I'll tell them you're doing this you're doing these disciplines you're following me you're going to call me at a certain time because I'm making that time for you and you're going to commit to calling why so your kids will believe you when you tell them you're going to show up you know this is all practicing for life you know I'm not doing it because I'm a control freak I'm doing it to see are you ready to surrender to something greater than you you know this book says follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world dictates now the plain language big book which I'm a fan of because it helps get the message out to people that have a lower educational level and want to see something a little less antiquated and in there it says follow the guidance of the guidance of that's nice depending on how what kind of sponsor you have you might have a guidance you might have guidance alright guidance and I didn't know that everybody didn't do it that way we had a meeting one time I wasn't allowed to share until I took the steps and there was a women's meeting and they were all complaining about their sponsors and I was like I can't even complain about my sponsor because I can't share in meetings yet I wanted to stay after it just bitch but I was getting results she was getting me there early she was showing me how I could look people in the eye and say hello instead of learning all their shoes you know she taught me how to think less of myself and more of myself even though none of it was comfortable I was making coffee at my first home group I signed up to make coffee until I realized I don't know how to make coffee I had to do it at home but I can't do it here I remember feeling overwhelmed because I was going to have to make coffee for a meeting that broke into five groups and I don't know the measurements and I thought I'm not going to be able to do it so I went really early the first old timer came in and said I'll walk you through it but you guys had I started showing up and I started realizing I'm not thinking about drinking every minute and I'm going with my sponsee sisters who do not like me because I've decided compliance is the way with this sponsor no challenges now my mind is saying but my actions are doing something else and little by little I realize I'm on the path that really goes somewhere it says in this book our feet are set in the path that really goes somewhere so the day comes she says come to my house come early it's going to be a long day bring your lunch I know you're diabetic I don't want you passing out on me so I went to the third step and then launched into the fourth step which caused me to do a lot of crying on her porch and she was napping napping my guts are all over and she is napping she mentions that meant sponsor but when that was all done we did a fifth step she shared some of her secrets with me and the unburdening that I experienced from that because I never had therapy I was never going to tell anybody anything and there was some stuff on there that I would have liked to take to my grave and I found I didn't even really feel it until the next day because I went to bed like I don't know what I just did over there pray write it out burn it pray talk more go to bed and I woke up feeling like I could talk to you I'm not sure about the wind on a mountain but I felt like I was connected to something and I remember going back to my first AA meeting and I'm thinking I got the secret handshake I was on the inventory and I'm walking hand in hand and then she got me started on my ninth step I had to do the first amends in the first week she said pick the easiest one my mother said mom I have to do my ninth step in AA she goes oh no no can I just say all is forgiven I said no I have to say it and so I did all that and I also learned how to do amends in the moment a couple years into my sobriety a friend of mine I made there had a couple years and he learned he had cancer and he was going to die and it was going to be soon and he said I'm so grateful for the ninth step because I can make everything right and I'm good to go and when she said it I thought Luann I offended Luann through her parents Luann says hi well she never heard of it so I called Luann I hadn't talked to her in 15 years and I said Luann I'm looking at my ninth step in AA and she goes oh I know all about the ninth step my husband's an alcoholic and all this and just like that we were back on track it's just tremendous the thing about God is we can accomplish a personal relationship and in the inventory what it talks about is I can read it every day it says you know we've been seeing a different kind of liberation people who rose above their problems we like to say sure people that have connected with God and it says here actually we are fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman and child is the fundamental idea of God we hunger for this we don't know how to name it but we hunger for this and it goes on to say it may be obscured by calamity by worship of other things calamity bad stuff that happens to me it could be my dad dying it could be my computer crashing anything on the spectrum depending on the day alright all those things block me because I don't trust that God is going to take me through it pomp ego acting out I got this don't need God I got this worship of other things what am I giving my time to I gave so much time to that big job I have because I was so afraid of losing it and I have lost a lot since then a portion that I really liked some really fancy furniture but nothing of value and nothing that could give my life any meaning to be in relationships with the people that I love today to have real women friends that came out tonight to be to have a character that people rely on and not wake up wishing I was dead so it says we finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our makeup just as much as a feeling we have for a friend we had to search fearlessly but he was there he was as much a fact as we were see God had become a suspicion a wish a threat when I did this inventory it established God as fact for me I don't know how that happened but I came out of that knowing there is God period because I made the decision God is either everything or else he is nothing and I want everything I am not the bellies on the rocks type I want everything I can get I have to dig for it it is spiritual surgery he is buried under all the garbage of my life that snuffed out the light and then it says in the last analysis it is only there that he may be found it is the last place I look and it is an analysis who knew that making columns and putting down stuff about my feelings and my mistakes was going to be such a spiritual thing but it was the beginning of that journey the relationship with God and what that did was it uncovered the God and I said if you can think honestly and search diligently the consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you sure fact promise so I did it as early as I could and it surprised me and my sponsor said if you want to hang on to that better start doing a 10 step tonight and she showed me how it is a written nightly review so that I can learn to recognize how to do it in the moment so on page 84 it talks about what we do in the moment when these things crop up and they come out of my inventory we share them at once with someone we ask God to remove them that is a prayer on my knees and then we turn my thoughts resolutely to someone I can help now I am not good at practicing that as a newly recovered alcoholic because I just barrel through my feelings a little uncomfortable barrel through do the best you can so I don't have to offend too many people but now it causes me to sit and think and pause and analyze so that I can change because I want to change but it is a discipline I find it a lot but the more I do it the more connected I become and when I was told by a 5th grader friend of mine that she had a personal relationship with God I was like that is nonsense until I started getting some of those thoughts that I know they were not of me they were just not of me two and a half years sober I am walking through my kitchen well what do you think of me it wasn't a voice it was a thought it was a great thought you talk about God in the meetings you don't say higher power you call me God but what am I to you and it took me back to page 47 don't let any prejudice you have about spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what do they mean to you and there were some things from childhood I still believed so I started a search in that vein and the more I did it the more things opened up for me people were coming to me about those things and my world got bigger and I started to matter to people and they started to matter to me hey I hope I care about more people soon but that's what happened as a result of the actions you taught me to take you taught me to have courage you taught me to do it afraid fear ran my life you taught me how to make things right 10th step that became a nightly thing 11th step started out with I want you to pray on your knees morning and night and ask God for help I did that in church first of all I was so separate it's going to be so awkward but so was flashing the bandit whiskers so white and there were more people watching that than me praying on my knees so why don't I just pray on my knees and it's amazing because that one act has become so humbling because I've got a big fat ego and I was angry at things in my life and I didn't want to trust anything that I couldn't see feel or touch until I began to see and feel but it's in the process it's in the pursuit step two says we have to earnestly seek it doesn't say we have to earnestly believe or we have to earnestly figure it out we just have to seek and I remember the effort I went to looking for the drug dealer on Friday night and now it's a pleasure to seek and I love the mystery I'm glad I can't figure out God because that's infinite and I love the mystery the stuff that happens and it's funny because when I get up here and she showed me up and she had to leave the night I was telling my story and it was right after I'd lost someone I met in AA he became really important to me and it was the first relationship I had where I really cared more about what they wanted for their lives than what I wanted for their lives and then died suddenly four years later only fifty years old he had a little boy that he'd lost custody of he was living in Arizona with his mother and one of his favorite songs was Free Bird now there's two camps for Free Bird and I love it so did he and there's a certain pink of a shirt he used to wear and his eyes were ice blue so every now and then the sky has those two colors in it my best friend says that's the Jeff Sky and every now and then I see it and this night when I had to tell my story and I was going to be all alone this dark bird slowly just slowly flew across this Jeff Sky as I walked up to that conference room and spoke and it was just I'm not saying that bird was God that was God winking at me and I have a lot of those God winks so many I can't even I can't even making amends means to change something by adding or deleting and I had to add more kindness and compassion and that wasn't easy for me because I was so hardened and I had to delete some of the less desirable behaviors a lot of the amends I've made are around my family my oldest brother Jeffrey that was one of my wingmen died during COVID he died of despair he was so done with heartbreak and depression and the side effects of Crohn's disease that he just said I'm not going to eat anymore I'm not doing this anymore and because it was COVID nobody knew where he was really his oldest daughter was only 18 living her life and by the time we found him in a rehab center in Virginia he was 818 pounds and he had signed a the nurse said I've never seen a case of a person so depressed in my life and he always was kind of a blues guy and he probably had undiagnosed manic depression but he's cut from the same fabric and I knew if I'm not careful and if I don't follow these principles and if I don't keep looking for God and feel connected I can die of despair here I've got a friend who hasn't had a drink in two and a half years despairing won't leave the house not going to AA anymore not treating this this alcohol treats this at a low level but this hunger is deep and it's only fueled by one thing God and the effects of being in relationship with God and our assignment is to stay close to him and do his work well my brother Matthew my other wingman he also died during COVID my baby brother died years before that so I'm like I'm done I have four brothers three are dead and Matthew was he and I lived solitary lives all of our lives he got married he got married to a woman who was kind of reclusive and kind of odd and they had three strange children and he was like a foreigner in a strange land and he was the most generous and generous spirit I know he also did everything behind the scenes I want credit for everything but he was a quiet good soul he was a respected man of the community he couldn't do enough for anybody he used to fight for my dishonor in the locker room he was a blues songwriter he had two guitar stores in Saratoga when he died we closed the business we knew it wasn't going to be the same without him the entire city of Saratoga put lanterns in all their windows I remember I said February 20th Matt McCabe day and they did an online service for him and there were 484 people on it one guy said there's 55,000 people in Saratoga and probably 70,000 stories about Matt McCabe they're all righteous kids but I love my brother and I decided I was going to stay in touch with them and do as much as I can as an aunt because he always appreciated that I made the effort to be with his family and it was fighting tooth and nail to finally get his ashes scattered in an Adirondack lake this summer and his oldest son is our real piece of work but I'm going to go up and watch his fiance sing in a choir in June and I'm going to honor his memory by doing that and those are acts of forgiveness that I'm not going to be able to forgive until I do it you know it says in the book where the man we dislike we take the bit in our teeth Gunner, Jeff's son was 8 when Jeff died he's 23 now and we began a friendship when he was 8 I'd go visit him in Colorado at Grandma's and I'd go on a snowboard and now he shreds it and I'd just go to the lodge he couldn't do his homework very well in his senior year sophomore and junior year he got a little off track a little too much weed and he called me one night and he said I need a call time now all my sponsees have a call time and Gunner's been here enough he's been to meetings with me who's the craziest one you got now he always wants to know he called me one night and said I think I need a call time he said I quit smoking weed but I'm very anxious I have a hard time just doing it day to day and it's a 3 hour difference so his call time was 10.30 at night in Atlanta he was out for a run at 7.30 and we would talk until and we started turn him on to the stoics and that's the same thing we do here they're the same kind of principles courage, integrity and now he's in school, in college for three years said it was a blast he was part of a special detail because he had strong marksmanship and he was a special detail of the leadership when they left the base he was part of their contingent and he got to wear eyes on and carry a pistol and he was living it, loving it and then he came back and he's at Prescott University and he's studying international security and defense and he's got an internship this summer at Northrop Grumman now I never had enough dignity or character to have a family but he's the gift in black paper for me he said you know we used to kind of like be friends he called me rectum when he was 11 it's a long story but anyway we used to kid around a lot he goes but now you're more like my aunt and I said do you mean you respect me he said yeah that's it he gives me a reason to sort of stay straight and do it right and he loves me and he counts on me and his mother likes me she's like take him for a replace you know things that I really can't measure in dollars the ability to forgive even when I don't want to is a real gift because I don't have to live in the angst and I'm free, I'm free of the bondage of self and my sponsees that I sponsor teach me more about being you know I've got to have enough humility to see where they're right and I always want to have one that's next and hopefully when they come up to me and they say do you want I'm going to ask them if they want temporary support and thus the journey will repeat thank you very much for having me tonight thank you very much for your story