I Was a Lot of Fear with a Little Bit of Skin on It — That Was My Fourth Step – Michelle W.

I'm Julie, and I'm an alcoholic.
Hi, Julie.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NABBA 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 own 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 aabluechipspeakers.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.
Tonight's speaker is visiting us from the Vision for You group in Beaufort.
And I do not know Michelle, but any friend of Tim Ridgway's is a friend of mine.
So let's hear from Michelle.
Hi, everybody.
Okay.
I'm an alcoholic, and by his grace, I'm sober now.
My name's Michelle.
And I'm a member of the Vision for You group in Beaufort, Georgia.
And let's see.
My sobriety date is 1984.
And I love AA.
And I'm especially fond of the Black Partner book.
That's been the highlight for me.
And although I forgot to bring my book in, which is unusual for me because I carry it everywhere with me.
So.
It goes to show you, I just don't remember everything.
And my sponsor told me, I said, Oh, I'm so afraid I might talk too long.
And she said, Put your phone up there and press the button every once in a while.
See how long you're talking like, Okay, so I'm here doing what my sponsor suggested.
And he's giving me a book early in the morning, just in case I need to have a book close to me.
There's something about having a book close to me that I find very soothing.
I got.
I was born in Florida and I'm from an Irish Catholic family.
There's two brothers, two sisters.
My mom and dad loved each other very much.
And alcoholism is very rampant in our families.
You know what?
I'd like to.
It's interesting because you know how when you're going to talk, you run the story through
your head every day for weeks before you get up here.
And I have not even thought about it.
One.
So I don't even know what God's going to do here, but there is a particular event that
happened to me when I was really young.
And so over the years, what I realized is how that that was.
That was the outline of who I am today.
It's what made me I am an alcoholic because I have the disease.
And what that looks like is my perception is can be very warped.
And when I came in.
I grew up.
It was very warped.
So my father is a wonderful man.
And in the big book, Bill talks about a golf fever, how Bill Wilson had these brilliant
ideas and they take off him and Lois, which is my mother's name.
And they go travel and it didn't work and they'd end up back and they were broken.
My father was like that.
He always had these brilliant ideas.
He was a wonderful man.
He really should have just played golf.
We, he would have made more money doing that.
But that was his true love.
But he had this one idea and we moved up to a place called the Kirtland, Ohio, and I'm
from Florida, flat land, flat land.
You know, Florida for me is still my home and it's paradise.
I mean, I knew it, I never got lost there like I do here.
I mean, there was the ocean three different ways, whatever direction you were going north,
well, north coast, whatever direction you were going.
well north you run into land but south and east and west you hit the ocean so I it was very
hard to get lost so I digress okay God I'm ready I'm ready for you to start doing this and
so anyway we ended up in this place called Kirtland and here we my mother had two kids in
diapers she was a she was amazing woman she's still alive my dad's passed but she was an amazing
woman she's the matriarch of our family so we ended up there and and for some there was no real
reason but there happened to be a pedophile in the neighborhood and back then they didn't call
them that they called them babysitters and you know for some reason I ended up being the child
that went there five days a week and it was very brutal and it was violent and um after the first
time it happened to me um
when I came home I knew that I was different the world that I was in before I went there
was totally different from the world that I the eyes that I looked through after that event and
it was to mold and shape me because I it wasn't just one time it was five days a week for we
figured eight months and um after a while I started losing concept of time and I was unable
to function
with people and I was very quiet and I was very frightened and my family is a very Irish
party jovial fun group to be around they're they're they're they laugh a lot they play
together and I used to stand there and be there and wonder why I didn't fit in because you know
at nine years old you don't know what's going on because they don't really tell you to go home and
tell your mother what's going on and and I was very frightened and I was very frightened and I was
and you know and I was Catholic and I was going to parochial school so there was this idea that I
thought that you know God didn't like me too much I must be really this mortal sin and um you know
and it it began to that's how I developed that's what I developed from so we moved again and this
time we moved to a place called Parma and I I thought maybe I was free I thought and this man
followed us there and the first time he came
I went with him and the second time I uh for some reason God gave me an indication on something and
uh which he does and uh I went outside and hid in the strawberry patch and um I said no and that
was to set something up for me where I would say no after a while it was it took me a while
I would take abuse for a while and I said no but anyway um I I was walking
away and I was wandering and what I did is I wandered into a high school gym and what happened
for me is that uh the energy when I walked in there was very vibrant and very alive and very
safe and it had nothing to do with the people it had everything to do with what they were creating
around them because my world was like really pinhole small and and I fell in love and so I
I became a person who exercised to be
safe and I did really poorly in school because it's kind of hard to focus on what's happening
in the class when I'm having daymares of somebody chasing me so that kind of went on I did poorly
in school we moved again we moved to a place called Wildwood and um I fell in love again
with the ocean you know there's something about the ocean that's I can always depend on and and
it's wet it's always wet and these are the little things that I've been doing for a long time
that I had to hold on to in my life was little things that I could depend on and and I learned
to surf and and so I was in love and so that was my life that was what I did everybody else did
what they did and I did that and and I hung with a troop of boys and they never wanted anything
from me they always accepted me and I was just like part of the kids let's go and so you know
I was a teenager and I was a girl and I was supposed to act like a girl and I was supposed
to know how to do all that stuff you know get dressed up go dating and
I just could not pull it off at all it just terrified me I couldn't imagine playing spin
the bottle it's like why do you want to do that I just couldn't imagine it you know so it kind
of created a odd well they called me weird it kind of created a weird person and then when we moved
back to Florida and I thought oh boy I'm back and but we moved out west and it was far west to me
because I couldn't see the ocean I couldn't smell the ocean and that was the first time I tried to
suicide and it didn't work too well I took some outside stuff and three days later I woke up and
nobody knew the difference and I didn't make it so you know it it was just difficult it's just
difficult being a human it was difficult being in my skin I was I couldn't there was I couldn't
relate to anybody only to well anyway so blah blah blah hadn't drank yet and family drinks I
probably
had a drink when I was a toddler because it was a kind of family that would feed a toddler beer
and say well you're having a barbecue and they watch him kind of trip around it wasn't mean they
know better now but you know back then that was nothing kid kid a beer and but I don't recall and
I was a teenager when I had my first drink and I my father was really important to me I seemed to
really need his something from him but I didn't know
anything from him or anything that actually made him what made me feel more comfortable hanging in
music or singing or just something really negative about a club and looking out at everybody for
God's sake he was Rendezvous anything to do with anyone
what you were to say text on Mom's phone for people Mike's telephones for kids imagine everybody
the questions you had in those 14 comments right there and you say you're a dang tenth of an-
let alone at three-year-old-age age about set what it means to be a superhero or kind of like Andre
OK because I couldn't communicate it was like I was an odd duck and my brothers used to make fun
and it was fun it was fun where am I okay so graduate and I want to show my dad I'm something
and I don't know what to be I have no indication from God and from the time that that happened I was
from God and from the time that that happened to me on a daily basis my prayer to God was to die
that's I obsessed about it unless I was surfing or exercising I was thinking about dying and
that was what I was and so I went to Wawa then I worked in a surf shop with these two Hawaiian
guys and we made surfboards in the morning and went surfing in the afternoon and I met my cousin
I thought cool and he gave me this outside thing called Christmas tree and he was studying to
be a priest so I thought it was fine you know a little vitamin I don't know what it was but you
know come to find out it was feed and I started taking that stuff and they found me I was in the
attic for three days and I was in a fever and pretty near close to death and and well my grand
I remember my grandmother and my grandfather sitting at standing at the bottom of the
um
the bed and all of a sudden I left my body went to the corner of the room and I
experienced this freedom and this light and this safety and I thought this is it I'm done
this is good and I you know and my older brother came running in and threw ice in my face
and I slapped back down in my body and I was pissed
I was really I was enraged and and you know you take rage and you make it quiet
and it's depression and I didn't talk much if you can imagine that right I was not animated at all
and um I went home and I just wandered around on the ocean and couldn't figure out what to do and
a friend of the family they I guess they I don't know I ended up touring the country for three and
a half months and uh the main object of that quest was to find waterfalls so I hiked to all kinds of
places find waterfalls and and what I did at night is I learned how to drink fine wine
so I became a connoisseur of fine wine but you know I had to drink like two bottles a night so
that was the beginning of my drinking I'm drinking I I can't ever remember a time when I had fun
drinking I I sponsor a lot of girls and I've heard a lot of stories and people tell their stories and
how much fun they had and for me I I when I discovered drinking I realized that I could
breathe again that's what it did for me drinking and outside influences I could breathe and it God
gave that to me to survive until I could wake up to what was really happening in my life and um
so I came home out well I was on a mountaintop in in Kootenai uh it's in Canada it's a big hot
mountaintop it's way up in the timberline so the air is different and you know take a Florida girl
put her way up there and so I was amazed and I was talking to a friend of mine and I was talking to
God because I talked to God a lot I had a relationship with God but I also had this idea
that I I was not worthy there was something wrong with me but I talked to God all the time take my
life I need to die it's okay and he would give me visions there were nightmares but there were
visions and I kind of have an indication of what to do and um I was sitting up there being depressed
and uh he gave me an idea of my head to become an
uh hairdresser and so I called my mom and and um I said mom coming home I'm gonna be a hairdresser
and she's like cool because my family are in the service business my dad was a bartender
and so that was how our family were serving people so to be a hairdresser was a notch up
and um so I thought I was doing something for my father so I went home I went to school I did
really good and uh you know at that time I didn't I my father and I bought heads because
I was pissed and it was his fault and so I disrespected him one night and um he decided
to kick me out and I deserved it so I moved out to the beach and got three jobs and got I'm I'm
really a hard worker because it I could turn my will into that you know and I wasn't drinking much
because I trained a lot I was really into athletics and I trained a lot and so I could
drink about a beer and a half I'd sit there and peel the labels off of a Heineken and they'd wait
to get goofy and I'd have to go home make air when I could peel a label off a Heineken and
fold it into an airplane they knew I was close it's just then I go home and uh and when and by
the time I was 21 I was driving a Mercedes and I was a legend in my own mind and I was like really
infamous and blah blah blah and so I decided to take my Mercedes home to my father and show him
that I'm I'm successful he could be proud of me and so I drove
home and and he was drinking and he was not interested or impressed at all period done so it
it shifted something into me so I decided uh I got home and I got into black market and I did black
market and I and I did I was a hairdresser during the day and I began to live one of those separate
lives you know two different lifestyles really big and um life got fast and it got big and I
made a lot of money and um and then I had this idea I was going to open a shop in Coconut Grove
and you know I had these dreams all the time and I had this one dream where I was in a head
head-on collision and it's yellow car and I was going to die and I was like kind of waiting for
that one to come up you know and I still wasn't I drank but it wasn't you know I wasn't over the
line yet even though I I was over the line from the moment I drank it I just wasn't out of
control
as badly and um I was driving home to my little self and um this yellow car was coming and it
was the beginning of a head-on and I was like okay cool god this is good and in the last moment
I took my hands off the steering wheel and said god help me and it was a pretty bad collision and
I got a new face and they said I wouldn't be able to work and exercise
anymore but the thing that happened for me that was most poignant was that here I was
gonna have this accident maybe die and I'm I'm asking god to save me so I realized in that moment
that I was a chicken shit and um you know I was I was liar I was the the depth of my lying was
starting to to grow inside of me that inside part of us that begins to die I was just like I was
already dead I was already dead I was already dead I was already dead I was already dead I was already
dead but I thought I could manage well if I was this person and um it took a a year for me to get
back on my feet and I got a new face for Christmas this isn't the one I was born with and um
for the first three months I believed the doctors I thought okay they're right I'm not going to be
able to do this anymore I'm not going to be able to do my I'm not going to be able to exercise
and I did that and I took the drugs you know and I got all goofy and I got all angry and I got all
filthy on the drugs like that and then I had this thought that the body is in a magnificent
machine and it can heal itself there has to be a way and in that thought people started coming
into my life that were into holistic things and a year later I got into competitive roller skating
and toured the country and and competed so you know it was like okay yeah you say I'm dead but
I'm not so there was a part of me that always wanted to fight to live although that's not
there was that other part of me that was just as strong that fought to die and um you know that
separated person that we become when I get the spiritual malady gets so intense that I couldn't
differentiate the true from the false and um I was skating and I was doing really well and I was at a
really big meet it was like a national meet and I needed to get first second or third to be a good
girl and I got fourth and it was really disappointing and disappointments I know today
are
as provoking as a resentment I have to do an inventory on a disappointment that's how
my program works and um so the it was it was a we were real tight-knit group and um there was a lot
of little kids and young girls and boys but I was in charge of a group of girls and their parents
came with us and they were like my age so they always went to dinner and I went out to dinner
with them and they drank normally a couple drinks and they let and but I didn't it'd been
Có clue that theyQue fue 3 años, me Army otra vez g trifue tres años y estaba tres años since I
from a droga or a drink you know it's like them lo que hablan en el libro is como se habla en el libro
the alcoholism they had did not stop in the alcoholismo no había que detenerme en
those three years those three years it was progressing it fue progresivamente
it was like well it was big and I drank it fue gran y me dannan y me dannan
a lot and I didn't show my side a mucha y no me dahe paintaba mi collabida ante la prosa
so I stopped skating entonces i paré
and I got back in it back in the black market y me volví al mercado negro y me STARTé, y en el micro mercado noir, comenzé
using both and it got very fast it got very big and it was it was hard and i was very very
separated and what happened for me is um i started to really come undone i couldn't i couldn't keep
this person over here and this person over here and combine them at the proper time you know
so i i i asked for help i asked one of my customers they were these customers that
have been mine since i started when i was an apprentice and they were just the sweetest
couple they were the christians and they just they loved me so they they gave me a number for
a therapist and um i went to that therapist thinking i had hope somebody was going to help
me i asked for help and and i went to them and i thought okay good i can and i i lost concept of
time by now
i don't know about you guys but you know days and nights ran together i sometimes didn't sleep
for a week or two or three and um so time passed and i had hope and i went back my second time
and they suggested that i not come back because i hadn't been saved now you know at the time i
had a resentment to be able to do when i got over but i know now it has nothing to do with
christianity it was just those particular humans
you
and um they i don't know what they were thinking but they said we can't help you unless you're
saved and i said i could save and they said no and i said okay so i was a little bit flustered
i had this little tick that i do where i walk around in circles to try and catch up with myself
and maybe i'll get a thought and i was beginning to do that a lot and i had other little tickies and
um i don't know how long i stayed sober but i went out to my family's or or i had a little bit of a
i stayed not using and drinking wasn't sober um i went out to my family's and they were having a
festive dinner and uh you know it's they have before dinner drinks and they have in dinner
drinks and they had after dinner drinks and then there's drinks after the after dinner drinks and
i kind of made it uh to the after dinner drinks and they just were like you know how they people
prod you and you oh you can have one you haven't had one in a while and and god bless my family
and i had a drink and three days later um i ended up in my favorite little place that i drank on the
intercoastal and um i was a mess and a friend of mine who got sober five years later gave me a bag
of that white stuff that you put in the bag and it was a really large amount and i went out to the
the pier and sat on the pier and proceeded to drop it in the water and
i didn't even black out but i passed out and i came to and i went in and got my keys and started
to lose all my kamikazes because apparently that's what i was drinking was kamikazes and um i i lived
off of las olas boulevard and there's not too many hills in florida except for the dump and the
bridges so i was coming up over a bridge i lost a lot of the kamikaze and i got my car and i was
coming up over a bridge and the bridge was going up and i had those significant thoughts we have
like okay i'll fall asleep or
i know i can jump off the bridge or i know i'll just break through the barriers and jump the
bridge and that's what i did and i got to the other side and nobody was behind me so i thought
i was safe and um i got home and i pretty much crawled into the house it was one of those drunks
where your your hair hurts and your ears hurts and the hair on your nose when you're trying to
breathe it like hurts so you're like and you can't touch yourself anywhere because it's
just and and my ears were like ringing so loud and my nose was so stopped because i i couldn't put
anything else in it nothing and um i don't know how much time passed and someone knocked on my
door with a six-pack and some other stuff and i get yeah my no go away and so i knew that i was
i was really dead on the inside and i couldn't play outside anymore with you guys
i couldn't pull it off there wasn't enough drugs or alcohol that can help me pull it off anymore
i was dead and so i reached out to my um partner and he didn't use he just was in it to them for
the money and him and my um lifeguard bodyguard they got together and they found a place for me
to go and uh it was a rehab and you know of course i was just your regular alcoholic said
no i don't need that yes i do no i don't yes i do well wait a minute no yes and he was so
used to me that he just used to laugh and wait for me to stop twirling around and um they packed
my bag they got me all together they put me in the car put a bottle of wine and some other stuff
and uh they drove me out to this place called share out west to me it was west couldn't see
the ocean so it was a west and uh he put my bag on the curb and patted me on the head and left
two people knew where i was that was it and
i walked in you know because i'm infamous i'm michelle you know you've seen my banner on the
beach right and i walk in and they they stripped me first they took my scissors so i'm not michelle
anymore and then they took all my vitamins so i couldn't be that perfect health person
but then they took my perfume they thought i was gonna drink my perfume i mean come on
so that's about how long my my defiance lasts about that
long they put me in the um the detox you're supposed to be in detox three days and i was in
there i don't know i went into the shower and i just cried i wept and something happened for me
in that shower me and god had a talk and i had conceded to my innermost self that i was alcoholic
and that i'm getting help somebody heard me i'm getting help you know there's a power
when you reach out there's a power
and it shows up in you guys and so i don't know how long i lasted in there i i really don't know
much about time in the beginning and what they did is they came in and they put a big book and
a 12 and 12 in my lap and they said write read the book and write your story and i can tell you
what i know about the big book back then and all i know all i remember reading is that there was
black letters and that still works for me the black part of the book
always
always
always
talks to you if you have a problem if you have an issue if you have a feeling all you got to do is
go like this open a book and it'll say some under only slightly different condition the same thing
is taking place in many many eastern cities like all of us are gathering in many eastern cities
staying sober so that's kind of how it worked for me i wrote my little story and they gave us a
sponsor in there you know i'm totally god just i was totally blessed because the foundation was
imprinted on me from the beginning and i began to have hope so i did my story and i told my my
business sponsor and we started doing the steps you know and i knew i was powerless and okay i'm
unmanageable you guys you tell me what to do and i'll do it i was like the little puppy that you
could kick and follow you anywhere i was i was willing to go to any length you know i had that
key that they talk about the book and so
i did my step i did step one i know no problem i'm a drunk i'm an alcoholic i get it i'll do
anything and step two i had a god my deal with god was i didn't believe that i was worthy of
anything but i i knew that i could that sobriety was being offered to me so i bought that and then
the third step to make a decision that was easy i made a decision and back then they launched you
into the fourth step there was no thinking about it you made a decision and did the
fourth step that's what it was about and I did that we did I got on my knees with somebody else
who might misunderstand and we said the third step prayer and that night I did my fourth step
and the next day I read my fourth step and we kind of figured it was like maybe I was make
maybe seven or ten days sober and I did my fourth step my fifth step with this beautiful woman she
had these teeth and a smile and she would hug me and I would lose myself in it because I wasn't
accustomed to it I wasn't accustomed to that kind of condus at all and I did my first first step you
know I did the columns that it's set up in the book and you know I got to that core thing about
me I'm you know I'm scared of everything what does it look like I'm scared of everything I was
skin with fear that's all I was was a lot of fear with a little bit of skin on it it didn't look so
bad so people talked to me and I got that I
got that and that's why I started that act.
I was scared of everything.
got it I got that I was afraid that God did not love me and I would never be okay and based on
that you know they had they set us up with a discipline I was really blessed they gave us
these little meditation books that some of them are conference approved some more so I had to do
that in the mornings and I got down on my knees in the morning and I asked God for help to stay
sober and I got down on my knees at night and I thanked him out of common courtesy and I also
journaled because that's the way they set it up that's what they told me to do and I did it
and so I did this force this step and the next day I used to have to run because my blood pressure
was so low you they couldn't take it until I went out and moved around and I had done this step and
I went outside and I had no idea anything had happened to me and I went outside and
I when I walked out the door it was like something was really different it was profoundly
different I could hear the birds the air smelled different the sky was just incredible and I was
running and I realized that I didn't want to die it was done it was out of me and for me alcohol
was only a symptom of my disease you know and
I
just like okay no more alcohol I'm good I'm good and I was excited I'm one of those really
passionate people about AA I love it I love everything about it I love every step I love
all of it if you give me something to do I'm on it like white on rice now that doesn't mean I don't
have a part of me that says I'm not doing it you suck I'm not doing this and but I do it anyway and
so I did that and I had this vital spiritual experience
that Bill talks about in the big book and I had that white light again like I did when I was up in
the room I had that sense of ease and comfort and I wanted to do I was willing to do anything
to keep that to get that to have that and so you know they proceeded to take us through six and
seven I did eight and nine my family came in my my boss I worked in a really big shop 23 people
it was really it was it was a lot of work and it was a lot of work and it was a lot of work and
it was fun there was decadent but fun and then people came in and I did a kind of an immense the
best I could at days sober and some some took it well and somebody my sister didn't take it well
there everybody else did really good they thought now this is great maybe I'll stop walking in
circles and um you know and I did not I did that and then they had me do the tent step I do an
inventory I still do an inventory I still do it I you know I make my living here in somebody else's
but whatever it does I always sit down who made a place for me.
Thanks.
Do you agree with that?
you okay I think Yeah,
you have taken all of these mentors I mean I did take some on a lot because I found it's really
still write um and the 11th step they they gave us some ideas about meditation i had done meditation
in the 70s so i thought okay you know i'm caught up with the class here i got one thing that i can
do good in it yeah i got this you know so so i'm you know i'm good i'm good and so it was a 28-day
program but they had to kind of vote you out they brought you in front of a committee and they
decided if you could leave well when it was my turn to to leave they decided i should stay a
little longer because they liked me so much
no because i was terrified to go out in the world and i mean i had to go out and be a real person and
i had what 28 days of being in myself and talking to people where people actually looked at me in
the eyes
and talked
to me like my job was talking to people in a mirror and in my black market you didn't really
look at people in the eye the guy next to me that was whole anyway he took he was the one looking
and um it was a stupid thing but anyway um
11 step 12 step so they brought meetings in i didn't get to go out of that place till july 1st
and um that was exciting oh my god to be out they took us in a bus to an aa meeting it was so cool
i was excited you know you can tell but before i could leave they set you up like we had to put an
outline out there of what meetings we were going to go to and what our plan was we didn't have a
plan it was like okay i have a plan i was big about having uh notebooks with what i was going
to do i checked things off it was like i could control it
so i was allowed to do that for a while and um they said you had to get a sponsor and every two
weeks i had to go back there and check in with what i've done and it's kind of like what you
get paper signed now but it wasn't really they didn't sign anything i just it was my own deal i
had a choice in the matter and i chose to do that and so i went back and i was like oh i need to get
a sponsor i need them they told me get a sponsor you'll drink and i went okay and i was really
worried about how do you get a sponsor
what do you do so they said pray about it and i was like okay sure so i did and um i was at a
meeting and you know of course i'm praying about it saying well i want this and i want this and
she's got to be this and and she's got to do this or you know otherwise forget it we can't work
together i mean don't you know who i am and this little lady about this big came up to me and
walked up to me and said i've been guided to be your sponsor and i went okay what do you want me
to do
and she started me through the steps again and she happened to be really involved with the big
book seminar with charlie and joe and that was when wesley parish brought that brought those
guys down it was the beginning of when charlie and joe started their adventure and i got to be
part of that and i got to be in the service of that and so twice a year it was amazing they would
come down and at the time in the beginning they had this paul revere group that came with them
and those guys would do the 12 and 13 and they would do the 12 and 13 and they would do the 12 and
12 and the charlie and joe would do this animated encouraging consuming way of studying the big
book it was just amazing and i walked in there terrified and fell in love again it was like
how could you not walk and they had tables and you got books and yellow markers and i was just i was
in heaven and scared to death afraid to talk to anybody but of course my sponsor put me to work
i she put me to i my
service jobs i got a home group right away best home group in the whole world and they put me to
work i wasn't they wouldn't let me near the coffee i make the worst coffee in the universe still
today just i have a thing about keeping it clean and you're really not supposed to do that to a
coffee pot not with soap and um so they gave me jobs like mopping and back then you had ashtrays
and coffee cups so and i didn't smoke back then the meetings had smoke through here and you had
their coffee cups and i didn't smoke back then the meetings had smoke through here and i didn't smoke
i kind of had to sit on the floor to be able to breathe and you know but i was willing to go any
length you know my sponsor had me do inventory on these meetings that had cigarette smokes but
but anyway i was my first big book seminar and i was you know i was like
and charlie and joe got to the third step and we went on a break and i was scared to death i
couldn't eat with people you know back that early on i still have trouble doing that but anyway
and i went to the third step and i was scared to death i couldn't eat with people you know back that
early on i still have trouble doing that but anyway i went home i still had a house at the time
and i went home and i was going to eat and then run back you know i ran everywhere i ran here
ran to me i went to two and three meetings a day because i ran to meetings because you know i'm just
so normal and um i got home and my house had been robbed and i thought well you know what am i going
to do and i started walking in circles trying to catch up with myself and god gave me a thought
why don't you try that third step surrender stuff because that's where he left us off and i thought
okay i said god this is really big i can't handle it you take it i need to go back to the seminar
and in that moment i felt this sense of peace it was what i call a miracle and i have miracles on
a daily basis i invite them in i i'm a firm believer in a miracle is simply a change in
perception and it's up to me and you to decide what our perception is about that i mean a miracle
could be just the ability to see a bird or a bird could be just the ability to see a bird or a bird
or to talk to somebody or to be able to hear something and and i i i have a strong belief
system and i said it was a miracle to me i was like it's a miracle it's a miracle i was one of
them it's a miracle and i went back to the seminar and i was like so excited and in the beginning
they they actually give time for people to talk about what they got from the seminar so long and
they'd ask questions and so i popped up like you know that game where you flop and you pump you hit
up again whatever that's called and i popped right up and they bought the microphone to get and and i
was like oh my god what am i doing i've never spoken in a meeting and here i am in front of all
it's like 150 200 people and i don't know what i'm like about and i told them my story about the
the third step you know and and i felt totally at ease doing that and it's just i love aa i just
love ska if you don't have aa just like they they told us to carry the book with us always
we took it in our bedrooms with us we take it in our car with us we had it at our tables with us
and they used to say and maybe someday you'll pick it up and read it
and you know it's that's a common that and when i anyway so i did that and i was excited
so i did
It went back and forth, and I started sponsoring after that first seminar
because that's what they told us to do.
Sponsor or die.
Or die.
If you have two choices, spiritual life or die.
And I was like, okay.
I mean, I took it that way because that's what works for me still today.
And so I sponsored a lot.
You know, not all of them lasted longer.
But I stayed sober, and I'm still sober today.
And my home group then was just amazing.
We did everything together.
It just feels great.
There was people with my color hair, and I didn't always have this color.
I had brown hair when I came in.
And we used to skate, and we did picnics, and we had really big picnics.
And, oh, my God, it was so good.
It was so good.
And I was working the steps again.
You know how when you do the steps?
And you have amends to make, but you don't really know it until somebody's standing in front of you?
Well, in my first year, I had a really, really cool first year.
So I had that first robbery.
And then my sponsor told me that I needed to call people.
Well, we didn't have cell phones.
Well, I had a cell phone.
You know, one of those big cell phones.
But not everybody had cell phones.
And there wasn't even phone machines yet.
And so you had to make an appointment with people and call them.
And I just didn't want to call people.
I don't know.
Just some of my sponsors said, well, pray about it.
And I'm like, okay.
And I broke my ankle sliding into second base, and I had a six-shift car,
so I had to call people to get me to a meeting.
You know, God's funny.
And it's like, okay, cool.
And my sponsor spoke a lot, and I spoke a lot.
And I had to always go wherever she was.
I mean, that was part of it.
I was like, mm.
And we had that rule back.
And then, too, you didn't have a relationship for the first 12 years.
That would have been better for me, 12 years to 12 months.
But sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
And so, what was I?
Oh, and it was Christmas.
And at that time, Christmas was, like, evil.
Forget it.
I had a happy family.
There's no way I'm doing Christmas.
I'm not doing Christmas.
My sponsor said, come.
I said, okay, fine.
And it was a midnight thing.
You know, midnight, Christmas.
Everybody's doing candles, and they're all happy.
And I'm like, God, get me out of here.
So, I went home, and my house had been ransacked this time.
It looked like the elves had been to my house.
And my house was built in the 20s.
It was a really old house.
And it had a whole life history about it that I didn't know until that night.
And I walked around in circles and was really disturbed.
And on the floor was this, you know, those little camel pins?
There was this little camel pin on the floor.
I was like, okay, okay, simmer down.
And so, what I did is I called the people in my home group on Christmas Eve.
And they all came over, and we sat on the floor, and we had an AA meeting for my first Christmas Eve.
And it was like, how could anything get any better for me at that moment?
And, you know, I proceeded on.
I proceeded on.
And we were playing on the beach one day.
And I had done the steps again.
I'm a firm believer.
It's when you've done the steps, do them again.
Maybe you guys aren't as crazy as I am, but God's continually waking me up to stuff I never knew about myself.
And how this book, oh, that's a word I haven't read before.
Oh, the main thing is that he be willing to believe in a power greater than himself, and that he live by spiritual principles.
And it's in squiggly writing.
It's like, oh, Bill and Charlie and Joe were really big about that.
Squiggly writing.
They would stop, and they'd pause, and they'd say, get your yellow markers out, because there's squiggly writing coming up.
So it's just, you know, I was just blessed.
And anyway, we're playing on the beach skating, because I still skate.
I just do competitively.
And we were playing on the beach.
Excuse me.
And the policemen, you know, because policemen are like, oh, my God, don't come near me.
Because they're just doing their job, and I always had something in my trunk.
And there was this one particular policeman that I knew since the time I was 21.
My first 21 birthday, I got a speeding ticket from him.
He was a rookie.
And I got another speeding ticket from him when I was over.
So, you know, some things haven't changed a lot for me.
So anyway, he was on the beach picketing for more money, and they deserved it, because, I mean, their job is less paid than a teacher.
We need both of them.
And so I looked different then.
And, you know, when you're a skater, you're even taller.
So I looked even worse, the vet.
And I skated up to him, and I put my arm around him.
And he just, like, tensed up, and then he looked at me.
He, you know, he just kind of swarmed right back up, like, okay, this isn't so bad.
And I said, I really appreciate what you do.
And I said, you gave me a ticket.
And he just froze again.
And I said, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate what you do.
And I really hope you get the raise you need.
And I want to thank you for giving me a ticket, because I'm very grateful for that and what you do.
And he just, he was my friend.
I mean, he went from this really sweet rookie to a motorcycle cop.
You know, he had had it with all of us.
And, you know, every time I saw him, he'd wave to me.
You know, because he was the beach guy.
His patrol was the beach.
And he waved.
And, you know, I felt like that was an amendment I never thought I needed to make.
But I wasn't really, like, loving towards policemen, because they were doing their job, and they might catch me.
You know.
So, you know, we have such a warped mind.
My mind was warped when I was nine.
But you pour a little alcohol on it, and you put a little, sprinkle a little white dust on top of it, and then there was me.
Ah.
So, it just.
It kind of happened.
And then my house burnt down.
And so I moved into my parents' garage.
And I'd been estranged from my family.
And so they weren't really happy to see me, especially the sister that didn't accept my amends.
She was not pleased with me.
She let me know.
And my brother, his result for me, he used to sit outside.
I had slept in the garage.
And he used to sit outside and get drunk and smoke coke outside.
And I'd be in there, like, right now.
Writing my journal.
And I'd go to three or four meetings and call my sponsor.
And I was like, oh, God, oh, God, please help me.
So, I mean, I got really close to God.
I really got close to God.
I was really into the steps.
I was, like, memorizing stuff, and I didn't even know it.
And I lived there three months, and then I moved out.
I moved to a place on the beach we affectionately called The Womb.
And that was my first year in sobriety.
Yeah.
Oh, this is really good.
And, uh.
It stayed hot and heavy like that.
It's just been that way for my whole recovery.
I love it.
I just.
So, let's see what happened after that.
Sobriety kind of went along, and I was living in my womb, and I had my business.
I sold a business.
I was making money.
Minding my own business.
And my friends told me, okay, your year's up.
You can date.
And I'm like, no, I don't want to.
Because, you know, I didn't have a whole really good.
I didn't really know what to do.
I really didn't.
I was.
Really.
Naive.
And so I dated this guy for three days, and I said, no, that's okay.
I think I'm done.
You know, and I waited.
And I waited a year, and I spoke, and I met my husband.
I met this really cute guy, and it was across the room, you know.
Oh, he's the one.
God bless him.
And he has put up with me for 20.
Eight years.
God bless him.
And we got married, and then I had another miracle in my life.
I had my daughter.
Being a mother is the most profound thing that I've had an opportunity to do and be.
She taught me what little girls look like, and what they do, and what they like,
and how interested they are in getting dressed up.
And looking pretty, and being cute, and being shy.
I knew nothing about that, because I was terrorized.
And we, I talked to her about autonomy from the time she could look that word up in the dictionary,
because I wanted so much for her to have a separate life,
because I was afraid when she turned nine that some of my stuff would leak out on her,
because I actually didn't find anything.
And so I started thinking about myself until I had seven years in recovery.
My sponsor had suggested I go to a therapist when I had two years.
She said, you might want to go to therapy for codependency.
I'm like, okay.
Sure.
And it turns out that the woman I went to see was, she was like, really, really big
in the industry of child molestation.
She helped set laws and houses for women that were abused.
And so God's really funny.
So I ended up.
Ended up being in, at seven years I went for outside help, and I got a minute.
Seven years I went for outside help and committed to a group outside of AA
and began to have my skin peeled off of me to learn and be healed about what had happened to me.
And I've been healing ever since.
You know, I have no resentment towards that man at all.
And there's a kindness.
I seem to invite women that I sponsor that have had that happen to them in their life,
and they have no earthly idea that it happened.
And that's the job that God gives me.
And my husband had a dream to be a vice president of the company,
and he got an opportunity to do that with his company, and we moved to Georgia.
And I moved to Georgia.
And I was here.
You took a flatland girl.
And you put her in Georgia.
And, you know, these roads, I live north, and they're like two-lane highways,
and animals are always jumping out in front of the car.
They want to play tag all the time.
You do not see dead alligators on the road in Florida.
You know, you don't see it.
You don't even see squirrels.
People stop for squirrels.
So I was like, I'd get to an 8 o'clock meeting, and I was like this.
Oh, God.
And they just fell in love with me.
And nobody carried a book, and I was like, how do you do this without a big book?
So I started some big book meetings, and I started sponsoring,
and it was great.
It's been great, you know, and I've just been enmeshed with that.
And then I felt sick, really, really sick for three years.
And my husband kind of got goofy and went on a walkabout and went to Colorado,
and he lost his job, and our dog, one dog died, and then another dog died, and I was sick.
And he left and went to Colorado, and it was really a hard time for my daughter and I.
And I didn't know he was using.
And he'd been sober for 20 years.
And alcoholism is a terrible disease, you know.
It's really hunting, baffling, and powerful.
So that happened.
I nearly died when he was away a couple times, three times, and I was really goofy.
If you think I'm goofy now, you should have met me.
But Alcoholics Anonymous came and picked me up and peeled me out of my house
and took me to a meeting and shopped for me, and they were there for me,
and they held me when I cried, and they kept telling me to take the drugs for the pain,
and I wouldn't because I knew that I couldn't do that.
And it's unfortunate because maybe I could have.
I don't know.
But so I kind of finally, I didn't do too well with that.
My sponsor at that time was Grace Robbins, if you guys and anybody knows Grace.
And she was just magical.
She's praying with me all the time.
And I got really, really depressed because the pain was so intense.
The world had taken on a whole new color again.
I didn't know what to do, so I asked God for help,
and I opened the other big book that I wasn't really, you know,
I'd been schooled in it in school, but it, you know, I had hope when I moved here.
But I opened it up to the book of Job.
It's a story about a guy who has everything,
and God and another guy, they make a bet to see what's going to happen to him,
if he can pull it off and stay faithful to God.
And so what happens is that he loses all of his money.
He loses all of his business, all of his animals,
his family dies, his wife turns on him, and all of his friends turn on him,
and he gets breaks out and boils all over.
I could relate.
I was like, my life, that's the way I felt.
It was like, oh, my God.
And at the very near the very end, there's only a couple paragraphs.
He has all that bad stuff, and then there's a couple paragraphs where he does something.
And what he did is he shaved his head, he got naked,
and he danced out to the Lord, and he asked for help.
And so I thought, you know,
I'm a really intelligent thinker.
I've got a really sane mind.
It's still warped.
So I shaved my head, I got naked, and I asked God to help me.
People who know me know I shaved my head.
I did that.
I'm sorry I'm going over, fellas.
So I did that, and I began to change.
You know, when we ask God for help, he changes us.
And I began to change, and I started to come back.
And my husband came back, and we were bankrupt, and I got lots of jobs.
And I now work for a man who hired.
He hired me to do something that I knew nothing about.
And he trained me.
And try to, you know, like computers.
If I touch computers, I kill them.
And this guy brought me into his office, and I run his office now.
I still kill it on occasion.
But I have this, like, really good computer guy that I can call up whenever, like a sponsor.
I can call him up, and he'll fix my computer online.
And the boss doesn't have to get mad at me.
So, you know, my story is still...
I love AA, and I still go to retreats, and I still study the book.
And I carry it with me almost 99% of the time.
It's in my car, I promise.
And there's a part in the book, there's a lot of parts in the book,
but one of my parts of the book that I found during that time is that
page 42, it says spiritual principles will solve all our problems.
And it is like all our problems, not some.
All of them.
So, you know, for me, AA is like an exercise.
And I do the steps, and I do the deal like it's an exercise to get stronger with my God.
And I want to thank you all for being here and having a meeting tonight.
Let me go over, and God bless you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Michelle.
That was fabulous.
Fabulous.
I relate it to a lot of what you have to say.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
When I was a child
Things moved out of my way
Running so fast and wild
After time
It's almost up to me
I found a way
To blot it out
Blind as I could be
Every time I got it going on
Knocked down the skies
What's the use in hiding now
Stopped to realize
Stopped the big debate
That I
Stopped to criticize
Love has got the power
There's nothing more you need inside
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
To the labor
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
L-I-V-E
Find yourself somebody to tell
Don't be all alone
On and on we walk along
Love will carry the load
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender to the love
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender to the love
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Love will carry the weight
One hand and the other
One hand and the other
One hand and the other
One hand and the other
One hand and
Oh words they say
Oh words they say
Oh words they say
Oh words they say
© transcript Emily Beynon
© transcript Emily Beynon