I Worked the Steps in Order with Someone Who Had Done Them Before Me and Had a Psychic Change — Barb C.

Please join me in extending a warm welcome to our main speaker tonight, who is Barbara.
Hi, I'm Barbara. I'm an alcoholic.
My sobriety date is August 16, 1992.
Welcome to those that are new or coming back.
Sounds like you can come back no matter what, and this thing's going to work if you work it.
And congratulations to those that took chips.
That's huge.
I took one of my first, well, no, did I take a chip there?
Well, anyways, my memory is that I took a chip at Obie's, but I might have gotten too scared.
But anyways, I strongly suggest taking chips.
It takes a lot to get up in front of people that know when you're full of shit.
I can bullshit my mom, and I can bullshit my dad.
They're not in Alcoholics Anonymous.
My mom doesn't need it, and my dad doesn't think he needs it.
And what I've learned in these rooms is that the one place that I always,
always tell the truth, always, no matter what, and I'm trying to do that everywhere,
is in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Number one, because you'll know if I'm not.
Number two, because this is very serious.
This is a terminal, progressive disease, and I have it.
And for me to be so full of myself to think that I need to have a look good so that you'll like me
or that you'll be entertained is for me to take my life in my hands,
and to take yours.
And I don't think I have that kind of energy.
That's not my right.
I was told from the podium to share what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.
And I was born in 1964.
I'm 40 years old, and I was born in Northern California.
At that time, my grandfather was a successful actor in Hollywood.
He was the ranger on Lassie, Corey Stewart.
And the bus driver on Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe, and about 150 other parts that he had.
And he had a very successful career.
And no one ever believed me that my grandfather was an actor.
Like, I'm going to lie about that, but whatever.
You know, like I'm going to lie about it now.
So believe me, it's true.
Big deal.
And just so you know, the man's dead, and he died from this disease.
In my family, what we do on my father's side is that we drink,
and we drink, and we drink, and then we admit that we drink.
And all the men admit that they're alcoholic.
How do you approach someone who admits they're alcoholic, who's got a problem with drinking?
I know I'm alcoholic.
Now buzz off.
And what happens is that we go to sort of a medium early grave.
And he was married about nine or ten times.
I don't really know.
I went on the web.
It doesn't say.
But it says a lot of other stuff.
It doesn't say how many times Grandpa was married.
But I can tell you that somewhere in there, he gave birth to my father.
And my father admits that he's an alcoholic.
Where do you go with that?
He has a terminally progressive disease.
He's 62 years old, and he likes to drink.
And from a very early age, I became conscious of my father's drinking.
And what that sounded like was a crystal glass with ice in it chinking through the house.
Chink, chink, chink, chink.
I don't know if any of you have heard that sound.
It's kind of sexy.
And...
Some nights, it's kind of scary.
It depends where the alcoholic's at.
And at one point, I got a great idea in my head that I would hide that glass.
And my father lost his mind.
I put it in the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator.
And it's a good spot to hide something at my house.
Because if we don't eat cookies, we're healthy.
You know.
But we drink beer.
Anyways, he couldn't find it.
And he got very upset.
And he was...
From that point on, when my father drank and misplaced his drink, he came after me.
And how sad that is, you know.
His drinking always came first.
And somewhere along the way, very early in my consciousness,
I started to feel as if I was not good enough apart from and different than the rest of the human beings on the earth.
That's a tough one.
Since there's nothing else to identify with but human beings.
Maybe a doctor.
Maybe a dog or a cat.
You know.
But human beings.
I'd like to identify with the human race.
I did not identify with you.
I felt I wasn't a part of you.
I felt on the outside.
No matter what I did, I felt like you were either laughing at me, because you got nothing better to do than to laugh at me,
conspiring to hurt me or reject me, etc.
And I was so uncomfortable, so debilitated with shyness.
It was unbelievable.
One time when I was younger, my mom...
My mom suggested, how dare she, at a playground,
why don't you go across the playground and introduce yourself to that little girl?
And I threw an utter conniption fit.
And I remember it like it was yesterday.
I was like five.
Because I was overwhelmed.
Like, she's not going to like me.
You know.
And I watch children now, and they like beeline to each other.
They play.
They interact.
They're completely oblivious to the fact that someone may or may not reject them.
So what?
So you rejected me.
Next.
Not all children are like that.
Because for me, that's the way my alcoholism manifested.
And so when I was 16 years old, I had the opportunity to go to a little wedding reception that my mom took me to.
She had divorced my father, the alcoholic.
She had decided at some point that he had had one too many affairs.
But she never left him and finally had an affair with her best friend.
And she still wouldn't leave him, because she said once married, always married.
And so he left her.
And of course, he went home and left my mother and myself.
And that woman went home and forgot to leave her husband and kids.
And so my dad was on his own, and my mom and I were on our own.
And what she had decided with all my behaviors was that I was the child of a practicing alcoholic.
And so I went to that wedding reception, and someone put a pint of beer in front of me, and I drank that beer.
And that room, prior to that drink, was a room that was filled with people that were better than me.
And I remember.
I remember feeling like, I can't sit here at this table.
All the popular kids are at this table.
I'm a piece of, you know, I'm not going to fit in.
This is not okay.
Oh.
Hmm.
You're not that popular.
You're not pretty.
And then, I'm gorgeous.
I'm better than you.
I'm intelligent.
I have breasts, you know.
And that room changed.
And I didn't understand that that is not what alcohol does.
Believe you me, I have a funny suspicion.
If that's what alcohol did to everyone, everyone would be drinking that stuff like their life depended on it.
Please, you know.
For me, I had a change.
It changed the room.
And I remember when my mother came across that room, she freaked out because she thought,
if I drank alcohol, I'd become an alcoholic like my father.
I drank alcohol to get relief from the fact I'm an alcoholic like my father.
Alcohol did something for me that it does for one out of ten people.
It changed me.
It made everything smooth, accepting, calm, spiritual.
Essentially, I found God.
And I went home that night and I listened to my favorite song, which was by the Cars,
Moving in Stereo.
And this was big stuff back in the early 80s.
It went from headphone to headphone.
And I fell asleep with, life's the same, I'm moving in stereo.
And it moved in my head and I was like, oh yeah, this is going to happen again.
I'm telling you right now, this.
And I can honestly say that my mind became obsessed with the thought of drinking.
And that obsession, the second I would wake up,
now it's not like I'd wake up at age 16 and go, I've got to drink.
What would happen is I would wake up, go in the bathroom, see myself.
I don't like her.
Same girl every morning.
I don't like her.
She's less than, apart from, not good enough.
She's head cheerleader.
She has great grades.
She's queen of the winter sports court.
Who cares?
She has to do twice as much to feel half as good.
It did not matter what I did.
This hole that I've come to learn to call it,
is a God-shaped hole.
I filled it with everything that I possibly could.
It didn't fit.
It didn't fit.
It did not fit.
Filled it with a boyfriend.
Good grades.
You know, and I had friends that were filling it with dropping out of school.
Filling it with rebellion.
It didn't matter.
The God-shaped hole is a God-shaped hole.
It's like, not going to change shape.
And, you know, I realized when I would get to school every day,
hmm, there was a point there at that receptionist,
that I was more than enough.
What was it that I did?
Oh, yeah.
I drank.
So, what did I do?
Found a boyfriend that drank, that had a beard and a mustache,
never got carded, and we were off and running.
And I drank and drank and drank and drank and drank.
And every time I drank, all the sharp edges were smoothed away.
Period.
Now, I've tried to share that with my mother, the normie.
You know, when you drink and the edges are smoothed away.
Huh?
You know?
My dad, who's still drinking,
I say, you know, when you drink
and you just kind of feel like you're part of the universe?
Oh, yeah.
He gets it.
You know?
He doesn't get this, what we're doing tonight,
but he gets that.
So, you know, I went through high school.
I went to college.
I decided to major in elementary education.
And, by the way, I don't like kids.
I don't like them.
And, uh...
But that's what I got a bachelor's degree in.
And it never occurred to me to get a degree in science.
It was something that I actually would enjoy.
Uh, you know?
Somebody said,
Hey, you got some credits here.
Why don't you become a teacher?
Okay.
You know?
I'm a lemming.
Whatever.
Jump off a cliff, I'll follow.
You know?
I don't know.
And, uh, so I got that degree.
And what I did for five years in college
is that I constantly was trying to fix myself
with boyfriends and partying, partying, partying.
If school got in the way of partying,
uh, school suffered.
And my freshman year, my grades went down so low
that I never recovered after five years of college.
I got a 2.8 to graduate college.
You know?
Um, I decided,
Ooh, I have to go to Delaware on exchange.
Went to Delaware.
I came home Christmas break.
They sent me a letter.
They said,
Don't come back.
Don't come back.
You know?
We don't have time for whatever the hell it is you're doing here.
You know?
And what I was doing was,
What state still exists that I can drink at age 20?
That's what I did.
I went to the east coast to find where I could drink
without getting carded.
Because that's all I do.
I'm obsessed with drinking.
It makes me feel good.
It makes me feel part of the human race.
What else is there?
You know?
What else is there?
Um,
Graduated college.
Decided that,
And this is my mentality.
And I think I inherited it from my father.
And I've heard it a lot in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I did a geographic.
Problem with geographics.
First of all, what are they?
That is where my head says,
Here's all these problems.
Here's all these assholes.
Here's all these things that aren't working out for me.
He's a jackass.
And she's a biatch.
And do do do do do.
And, um,
And my head says,
You know, all these people live in Oregon.
Let's move to California.
That's a geographic.
Problem with a geographic.
I go with me.
I go with me.
Turns out that the common denominator in all my problems in my life was Barb.
That's a problem.
I can't get rid of her.
Every morning in the mirror.
There she is.
There she is.
Piece of you know what.
There she is.
But I gave it a shot.
I moved to Southern California.
And I spent five years down there.
Let me backtrack a little.
In college.
I met a guy.
And, uh, he was a party animal.
Mm.
Mm.
Good looking party animal.
Oh.
He was so beautiful.
Oh.
And he was a real son of a son of a.
And he had a mouth on him.
And he was inappropriate.
And he just, he was self-centered.
He was a perfect alcoholic male.
And I loved him.
I loved him.
But somewhere in me I had sworn I would not end up with a man like my father.
My father's handsome.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
He's an alcoholic.
My father's handsome.
He's an alcoholic.
He's got, you know, he's got that attraction.
Women just glom to him like a, you know, moth to a light.
And this guy was a light and I was a moth.
Um.
But my disease, this is a terminally progressive disease.
His disease went and was just kicking butt on him.
My disease does a little, you know, tiptoe through the tulips.
My disease was kind of it was going along but his has gone a lot faster.
He was two years younger than me.
And he hit a bottom.
in his life. And he got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we were good friends. We dated,
but it didn't work out as, you know, oftentimes it doesn't to practicing alcoholics. It did not
work out, but we were good friends. At about five years of sobriety for him, we hooked up in Southern
California. And we had stayed friends over the years. And I'll tell you the truth. I used to
tell people, this guy got sober for me because I told him one time, you drink, we can't hang out.
Psh, what an ego, you know, what an ego had nothing to do with multiple DUIs that he had
and arrests and his spiritual bankruptcy, nothing to do with that. I said, Hey, you can't be with
this unless you quit. You know, I don't think so, but what an ego, you know, I'm either completely
the poop on the bottom of your shoe, or I am totally above the heavens, you know, insecure
egomaniac, insecure egomaniac, total contradiction all the time, all the time, the battle going on.
Um, he called me one day and, uh, I was living with this long haired rock and roll industry guy
in Hollywood, California. We thought we were very cool. We went to the stock exchange, which is a
club and we'd get picked out in the lineup. You know, they, they come by and they go, uh, you,
you and you are attractive enough to come in. That'll be 20 bucks. You know, it's like, yeah,
it's really a big deal to get picked up out of a line of people and then be charged 20 bucks. But
ego, I need that. I need that. Never stood up. I never stood up. I never stood up. I never stood
in the line unless I had alcohol in me because there's no way that I could put myself out there
in the hopes that you would think I was good enough to get into a club unless I had alcohol,
liquid courage for me, liquid courage. Um, so I had this long haired jackass. His name was Sean
and, uh, he's an alcoholic. Most likely he's a Baptist boy like me, Baptist girl, raised Baptist
guilt, guilt, remorse, guilt. We're trying to make it in the industry, living in Hollywood,
thinking we're cool, fighting every day,
screaming at each other, crying, clawing at myself, just, you know, dying, dying and wondering
this. I have a bachelor of science degree. I'm working for a patent attorney in Westwood. I make
decent money, not enough, but you know, um, I live in a really cute little apartment in Hollywood.
I'm with the hips looking cool people of the universe and I want to die. And by the way,
I'm going to kill you too, you son of a bitch, because I think it's his fault.
It's his fault. Um, you know, and every single person that came into my life, if you didn't make
things better than I used to think, how can I eliminate you? How can I eliminate you? And I was
down there five years. I moved four times. I was fired from every job I had from, you know, oh,
you need to wear stockings to be, you know, you need to wear nylons to be professional. And I'd
be like, F you, I don't think so. What adult says that? You know, it's like, hey, wear nylons so you
can have a job to pay your rent. Oh no, huh? No. It was always about the fight,
the rebellion that, that con it was always conflict. I can't fit in in the world. I'm
uncomfortable and I'm really angry. I'm so angry. Somewhere along the way, I decided that God,
well, he was a dick and he was a man. He was a man. I'm sorry. You know, God's a man. And, uh,
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to buy a crystal at the mall, soak it in sea salt by my
bed every night. And that's going to be my spiritual connection. Now I'm not, I'm not
bad-mouthing connection through.
This piece of crystal rock, but, uh, that got me into this three-year relationship with this
jackass in Hollywood, California that did not come to me at 1130 at night when I'm spiritually
dying. And I'm just rocking back and forth saying, what is wrong with me? Why can't I get a foothold
in life? Why can't I do this thing? I mean, truly it's, it's confusing. Everything appears to be
normal, appears to be okay.
Why can't I do this thing? I mean, truly it's, it's confusing. Everything appears to be normal,
why can't I do this? And all of my loser friends who I like to stay in contact with because it's
good to be better than someone were all, they were shooting right past me. They were shooting
right past me. They were just because guess what? They didn't spend all their spare time
thinking about planning, drinking, or recovering from alcohol. That's what I did. I'm an alcoholic.
I'm an alcoholic. That's what I did. So this guy from college calls me
and I've kind of been thinking about him and, uh, start to kind of get a little conversation going.
We talk periodically and he's sounding like normal, like healthy, like maybe he's worth
taking a risk on. And, uh, he and I hook up and by hookup, I don't mean current day hookup. I mean,
actually just physically getting a car together and drive. He's visiting his father. We drive
down the coastal highway there. And, uh, he said something to me that, that changed my life. He's
incredibly wonderful man. He's sitting right there. We've been married 12 years. Um, last Friday,
he says to me, Barb, you know, you deserve to be happy. And no one to my recollection had ever said
that. Now, if I would have known what that would entail, I might not have signed on, but, um, you
know, there, there is no, you know, none of that in life. Um, and my head said, I do. I don't even
know what that means. I thought life was something that you could do. I thought life was something
that you could do. I thought life was something that you could do. I thought life was something
that you endured. I thought that life was something that you not trudge. Uh, I looked up
trudge. Bill W said, we trudge happy road of destiny. That's walking with purpose. I didn't
trudge. I had no purpose. I clawed, I beat, I screamed, I rebelled. I was a nightmare in my
life. If you came within three feet of me, you were lacerated. I made damn sure of it because
if I'm going to be miserable, you're going to be miserable. I'm pretty sure that's not normal.
I just have this funny feeling. That's not normal.
And, um, he left. And I thought when I saw him that day, I think I'm going to marry you.
That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to marry you. So I went home and I left that long haired
freak. And, uh, you know, and once again, I'm going to, this is what's going to be the answer.
Now I'm not conscious of this. I moved to Oregon and this is August 16th, 1992. And I said to this
man, you don't drink. I won't drink. What's the big deal. What is the big deal? That's no big deal.
Now I started drinking at 16 and I'm,
28 at the time. And for 12 years in my entire life, it's never occurred to me to not drink.
And, and you as women out there that are alcoholic and you boys were there when we were doing it,
you know what a female alcoholic does when she drinks. You know what we do? We do a lot of stuff.
Some of it fun, some, some of it scary, but we do it. And, um, oh, I'm telling you,
I took all of those beliefs, all of that approach to life. And I brought that with me,
but I stopped drinking.
The one thing that had allowed me to be on the planet to feel comfortable,
I swore it off. Big deal. That's the big deal. I'd never tried to quit drinking before.
Alcohol was not the problem. Within about two or three weeks, cops were pounding at the front door.
Turns out neighbors don't like people throwing things at each other and screaming profanities
at the top of their lungs. And, you know, he's five and a half years sober. And what I did,
I remember in college, I played tennis with a bunch of ding-dongs that couldn't play. And I
lettered in tennis, you know, and, uh, they were horrible.
And I'm like, I lettered in tennis and I sucked that day because they sucked. That's what happens.
You play down in your game. You play down. If you're here and you're new and you want to come
and hang out with your old friends, I have a funny suspicion. You will play down in your game.
They might whip out this, that, and the other thing and say, join us. They're not going to say,
oh, can I get sober like you? They might, but they might not. Odds are though, that they might say,
let's go and do that. Let's do some shooters. And you're, and you're diseased.
And they'll say, oh yeah, let's do that. That sounds like a good idea. I took this man at five
and a half years sober and I played him down in his game. And, uh, you know, I don't know why he
did what he did when he got dry, but I can tell you that what was leading up to it, I was involved
in that. And, uh, I was, uh, really such a delight. You know, I was such a delight and see the guys
know, cause they know what an alcoholic woman is like. Y'all have been married to us. You've loved
us. You've had us.
Daughters and mothers and sisters. You understand you want to love us, but it's impossible. It's
impossible. And, uh, one night I, we'd had a particularly delightful afternoon. We were still
up trying to figure something out two 30 in the morning. This man had said to me at some point in
our relationship over the years, you know, I loved you the first time I saw you. How often does that
happen? He had asked me to marry him. How often does that happen? Not to me. And, uh, he said to
me, good God, Barb. And I don't know if he said it like this, but this is how I tell it. He said,
if you could drink, what would you do? Because at this point we had no idea I'm alcoholic.
We, you know, compared to him, I'm not alcoholic. If alcoholism is defined by tickets and being
arrested and DUIs, then I'm not alcoholic. But if it's defined by some of the losing all of your
value system, doing all the things you swore you'd never do, having spiritual bankruptcy,
feeling apart from hating people, being combative,
being men, et cetera, et cetera, I'm alcoholic. Okay. That's what alcoholism from is for me.
Hadn't drank for several weeks. He said, what would you do if you could drink?
Oh, I think I'd have a, I'd go down to Santa Fe. Mind you, I never lived in Portland. I can't find
my ass from a hole in the ground. I can't get anything done. I can barely go food shopping,
but somehow I know I'm going down to Santa Fe. I'm going to have a double shot Corbel gold with
a beer back. I'm going to go over to the mission theater. I'm going to have a pitcher of dark beer,
and then we're going to get it on. And, uh,
I'm going to do it because I'm an alcoholic and, uh, and that that's the lubricant. And then we're
going to get it going on, you know, because beer comes in a case for a reason. That's a serving
doesn't say on the side, single serving case. Um, and he, you know, he said, um, what would your
mom do if she had quit drinking? My mom's not alcoholic. She drinks a thing called a grass
hopper. Don't know what that is, but I've heard about it. I think it's got mint something.
I don't know. Sounds horrible to me. Um, and she drinks it and it evaporates and she takes a sip
evaporates. If you're alcoholic like me, she's the person that you watch and you want to grab her and
say, drink it, just drink it. That's the way my mother drinks. That's what she'd do if she'd sworn
off alcohol. Then he said, what would you do if your father had quit drinking? And I said,
without even a hitch, he'd go down to Santa Fe and you have a double shot Corbel gold with a beer
back. And then he'd head, head to the mission theater. And I stopped short.
And I had what I call a moment of clarity. And I looked at this man and I said, my God,
am I an alcoholic? It never occurred to me. It had never occurred to me. Now everyone in my family
on my father's side has died from this thing. All of them. My aunt, who never had a driver's
license, went out when I was about three years sober, I think two years sober, went out for New
Year's Eve to just have some fun. Apparently wasted out of her mind. The gentleman that dropped her
off at the apartment where she was living on the floor was in an RV.
Probably wasted. He did not realize that my aunt's sweater had caught on the stairs that lead to the
door in the RV. They hadn't been recessed. Drove off. At some point she broke free, but the back
tires crushed her skull. That's alcoholism. That's the way they die in my family. That's the way we
die. You know, that's alcoholism. That's what I got waiting for me. My aunt Sherry, that's how she
got to die. Cardboard box with all her belongings. No one even claimed it.
She has three kids. Gives a shit. She's a drunk. She's a throwaway. She's my aunt Sherry. You know,
that's what happens. And so something in me said, you're alcoholic. You might have this thing.
Every fiber of my being said, thank God. Now I know what's wrong. Now I know what's wrong.
Thought I was crazy my whole life. Okay, that may be true. I'm alcoholic. But there is a solution.
There's a solution for this. A lot of people have a lot of things wrong with them and there is no
cure. There is no reprieve. You take this solution, Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 steps,
and I heard this told from a person that shared in Alcoholics Anonymous. You go to somewhere where
there's people with AIDS and cancer and alcoholics. I won't tell this exactly, but you'll get the
gist of it. If you went into a terminal cancer ward or an AIDS ward, and I don't know if you've
seen AIDS patients, but that's a disease, man. That's a disease. That's an ass kicker. And if
you said to them, guess what? Now listen up. If you read this book, go to some meetings,
do the steps in here, do what's suggested, you know, be of service, find a higher power,
get a sponsor, maybe someone who also has AIDS that's done this,
and everything that's wrong with you, one day at a time, will be lifted. Do you think one person
that has cancer or AIDS would say, oh, hell no, what an order, I can't go through with it?
I don't think so. You know, I mean, maybe one or two. You go and you say that to an alcoholic
who's got a distended liver, who's got the DTs, who is dying from this disease, because that's
what we do. And you say to them, read this book, go to some meetings, do what's suggested, and
get a sponsor, do the steps, find a higher power. You know, it's a journey. It doesn't
all have to be done tomorrow. And you will not have to be where you are right now in
that bed. You can rise up out of that bed and have a life, the life you always dreamt
of, times five to the fifth power. Do you know what most alcoholics say? I think I need
to think about that. You know, wait, wait, I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic.
I don't even really know why you're in my room. That's what alcoholics do. This disease
is the only disease that tells you you do not have it. You don't have it. Told me. And
if I don't stay vigilant in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, guess what? It will tell me again.
And I will believe it. I will believe it. So I called the AAA hotline, back to the important
stuff, me. And just kidding.
I called the hotline. An elderly gentleman answered. And he said to me, oh, sweetie, what
is it that you want to do? Not really sure what he meant by that. But what I blubbered
out was, I just want to drink. Because I'm telling you right now, and I can feel it like
it was yesterday, that would have made it all better. I understand intellectually that
the shit is still hitting the fan the next day. But for now, I'm willing to do this to
have 10 minutes.
Of better. Alcohol was still working for me when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I
went to my first meeting that next day. And I shared. I raised my hand. And they said,
is anyone here for their first, second, or third AAA meeting? And I raised my hand. And
I said, my name's Barbara. And that's all I could get out. Because I did not really
believe I was alcoholic. All evidence showed to the contrary. But my disease, she was fresh,
freshly fed. Freshly fanned, you know. The flame was just, you know.
She was a bonfire of power. And I wasn't going to say, if you say you're alcoholic,
ba-da-bing, you've crossed the line. You is, you know. And I wasn't ready to cross that
line. Every single person in that room, men and women, every single person in that room
that shared that day, they shared to me. They welcomed me. They shared their experience,
strength, and hope. They talked about feelings of different than, apart from, and not good
enough. They were alcoholics. They said, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. Let us know
how you feel. Let us love you till you can love yourself. What? I thought, hello, not
lovable. Not lovable. Good luck. Everything about me was to challenge you. You will fail
as I have. However, I was a broken, pathetic little 28-year-old girl who had nothing left
except a little fleece jacket that said, the gap in the neck. It's the nicest thing I owned.
I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded
it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half.
I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded it in half. I had folded
it inside out and set it at the base of the couch so that you could see that I was doing
okay. Now I look back on that and I think, oh, I've seen a few of those girls tonight.
I get it. I understand, because I'm an alcoholic. I have a terminally progressive disease. I
am broken. I am bodily and mentally different than my fellows. And guess what? That's okay
That's okay.
If you look around tonight, you will see that we have a room full of people on Christmas
who also are bodily and mentally different than their fellows.
Okay?
If they can admit that and they're okay, then you'll probably be okay too.
My experience is that I found someone who had done the steps before me,
and I worked the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Now, I understand that my disease says, bullshit, this is not going to work.
Okay?
What I do in Alcoholics Anonymous, I take actions I don't believe in
because they've worked for you.
At some point, I had to surrender.
My best thinking, well, you can imagine where that got me if you're alcoholic.
That's where my best thinking got me.
Not impressive, can't be put on a resume, and we don't share it at Christmas dinner.
Okay?
That's my best thinking.
I did these steps in Alcoholics Anonymous, 1 through 12.
I did them in order.
I did them with someone else.
And what has happened for me is that I have had a psychic change.
Whereas I felt apart from and not good enough, I am now a part of and good enough.
Whereas I felt like I was not part of the planet, I am now part of the planet.
A host of friends has grown up around me.
I have people that love me, and I have people that I love.
And I stick with the people that understand that I'm an alcoholic.
I don't spend my time with old play friends.
I don't spend my time with old play friends in old play places.
I don't go clubbing anymore.
I'm 40, there's that.
But I don't go clubbing anymore.
You don't want me out there doing that.
You know, but what I've become in these rooms is, and this is the strangest thing of all,
and this isn't a threat to anyone that's young, hips looking cool, but guess what?
I grew the hell up.
I'm an adult.
I am now an adult in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And everything that I thought that I would become,
I sold myself short.
Today, my life is full of the things that they say you can take with you.
I can't take this little diamond ring with me, or my pretty little red car,
or my cute little house, or my bitchin' computer.
I can't take that with me.
What I have today in Alcoholics Anonymous is the love of my friends and family,
for the most part.
I have a loving husband.
I have a relationship with a higher power.
And I'll tell you something.
What I have most of all is that that girl in the mirror, she's okay.
She's okay.
And what happened is that you guys loved me until I could love myself as a result of doing these steps,
coming to these rooms, and trusting that this thing works one day at a time.
So if you would, keep coming back, because I will.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.