Joe and Charlie Were Right — I Get Two Lifetimes in One – Misty S.

Good evening, my name is Misty, and I am a menopausal member of Alcoholics. If you guys don't mind, I'm going to ask my sponsor to come up here with me, so we can say a prayer. A.A. ought never be organized. God, today help me set aside everything I think I know about you, everything I think I know about myself, everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about my own recovery, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth. My sobriety date is September 14, 2021, which so happens to be National Sober Day. I was born in May, May 15, 1970. I come from a little island. Nobody's probably ever heard of Honolulu, Hawaii, is where I was born and raised. I was the very first daughter and the very first granddaughter of my family. My grandparents are of Japanese ancestry. My grandmother was in Pearl Harbor. I was the first daughter from Joe and Donna. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother was an alcoholic, but she didn't want to claim that. I grew up the center of attention. The first girl in the family, my parents, my grandparents, everybody, I was the center of attention, until my sister came, and then I think that's when something changed inside of me. Yeah, I remember the day they brought her home from the hospital, but I went to high school in Hawaii. Well, obviously, I graduated. Before I graduated, I was hanging around a bunch of people that I shouldn't have been hanging around with. I was 16, and that's when I had my... I had my first dream. When I was about eight years old, I remember taking my grandpa beer and going outside and drinking it, and then when they were in the house, I would always go outside and drink the beer, and then my mom caught me one day, and they thought it was funny, so they let me keep doing it. Then I came to high school, and then I started hanging around the people I shouldn't have been hanging around with. That's when I had my first experience with powdered alcohol, and I can picture it in my head like it was yesterday, and I remember that first ingestion. And I said, I'm an alcoholic. I'm an addict. I'm an alcoholic. I went home, and I told my parents exactly what I had done. I guess my mom called my dad. My parents divorced. My mom called my dad, and my dad said, fly her up to California, and we'll put her in rehab. Before I could even keep going, they stuck me in rehab because I knew. I knew I was different. I knew I had a problem. I knew if I kept doing it, it was going to get worse. I went to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Am I allowed to say who I was in rehab with, even though they're past? I was in rehab with Gregory Hines and Eddie Van Halen. Yeah, and this was in 1986. Now, it just so happened the year that I was there, you know, the season I was there, AA had a convention, and we went to the convention. The male counselor, I guess you guys can all imagine, so I ran away from there. I ran away from there, and then I don't know. I can't remember how I ended up back in Hawaii, but I did. Continuing, continuing to do the things I wasn't supposed to do. Now I'm 17. I met another friend who took me straight into a bar, and this bar isn't your local Cheers bar. This bar had lights and stages and dancing and money and men and all those things, right? Yeah, anything. Yeah, and a Vietnamese owner, if that tells you anything. Yeah, the owner was Vietnamese. And I was 17, and everything was fine, you know? I had my first experience with getting money, right? Taking money from men and having fun doing it. I know it's sick, but please, I'm not that sick anymore. I know. From there, needless to say, I got involved and started meeting other people, other groups of people, maybe gyms. Japanese ancestry, you know, groups like that. Am I making any sense? Yeah. Yeah. Tattooed Japanese people. How's that? Yeah? All right. Well, so I got involved with them and got deeper and deeper in the powdered alcohol. While I was at work every night, of course, I was drinking. It was all tequila. I was drinking, and I got to the point where I was drinking so much, I don't remember very much. You know, I just remember being arrested a few times, 74 to be exact. Yeah. Yeah, 74, and I'm not proud of that, not proud of that at all. And what I'm saying, though, is Misty always got her way no matter what. I never spent a night in jail. So 74 times, and then the last one, the last time I had gotten arrested, they released me. And then the judge, who just so happened to know my mom and my grandmother and them, said that I'm going to teach her a lesson. They didn't put me in jail, but they gave me five years' probation. That was enough to straighten me up for a little bit, anyway. So I stayed on probation, did everything I was supposed to do. There's so many details, but I just really don't want to get into all the details, because I don't want you to really know, like, how sick and how crazy and how ludicrous and how I used to roll. What I really want to concentrate on is the here and now, but I know I have to get through this first, okay? So just bear with me. So I was doing my probation. I came to South Carolina. Mm-hmm. I was running away from an abusive partner, took my kids, and went to South Carolina to be with my parents and my sister. I finished my probation there, and then I went to South Carolina. In South Carolina, I started working at a restaurant where I was serving alcohol and just drinking, pouring everything I could into styrofoam cups, drinking, driving. By the grace of God, I have been pulled over, but it was like, oh, Missy, and then by the grace of God, I've never been arrested for DUI when... I should definitely, definitely, to this day, I should still be in jail. That's when the drinking really started spiring, getting out of control. But everybody always enabled me, you know? My mom, my sister, my dad, everybody enabled me. Whatever Missy want, Missy got, because that carried over into adulthood. Okay, now that I qualify to be up here. I'm thankful to you for letting me stand up here and share and for getting me out of my cup. I have to remember, and everybody's told me, this is not about me, it's about sharing the message. So obviously, my first time in rehab didn't stick, okay? That was the first and the last. So I always said, oh, I'm a one-white-chip wonder. No, I'm not. I picked up my first white chip in 1986. Oh, it's not about me, it's about the message. It's not about me, it's about passing the message. All the other alcohol had stopped at this point. Like, stopped. Never bothered to pick it up again. I could sit there around people and, you know, and watch them use it, and I wouldn't be bothered at all. Because working in the bar, too, but working in the bar, you come around that a lot. And I didn't even, I didn't touch none of that. All my own focus was alcohol. Everything was alcohol. And I guess I used alcohol now. Well, I liked the way it made me feel, of course. But then that quickly went away. And then I started drinking because I had to, not because I wanted to. It got to the point where my family gave me an intervention. My best friend. The person that helped me raise my children. My best friend, Carla. They had an intervention with me. And basically told me that if I didn't do something about my disease, about my illness, I couldn't come back around. I couldn't come back around for Christmas. Like, my sister, my nieces, even my daughter. My son always wants to have something to do with mom. But they were just like, everybody did the tough love. To be 100% honest, I don't remember a lot. I don't remember, like, the last. Two years before I came here. Before I got into the room. I really, I don't remember the last two years prior to that. I remember bits and pieces. That's really it. The next thing I know, I have flashbacks of me walking into a hospital. I have flashbacks of that. They put me to sleep. They put me to sleep. In a medical-induced coma. Because I was seeing things. I was hallucinating. I was having the shakes. I was seizures. Seizures. Seizing. Having seizures. Who did I want to die? I thought dying would have been much easier than that. You know, would have been much easier than going through that. But the next thing I clearly remember is waking up. I remember waking up with a blue gown on. And I remember being tied down. And I remember all the IVs and everything being inside of me. And I remember looking up to the light. Kind of like this one. And I looked up there. And I said, God. I said, if you. If you don't keep me sober, I promise I will do anything you ask me to. Anything you want me to. That moment is the moment I truly surrendered. I surrendered. I knew I was powerless. Obviously, my life was unmanageable because I'm laying in a hospital bed. Oh, I forgot to say I have a sponsor. My sponsor has a sponsor. I forgot to say that. And my sponsor is a video. And so that's the moment. That's the moment I admitted I was powerless. And I mean powerless. And I told God, anything, any suggestions, any opportunities that come to me from this moment on, I am going to take from you. Right? Anything that was presented to me, I was going to take it was from God. I thought I was going home. My family and the counselors all got together and they said, nope, you're not going to go home. We have a place in mind for you. But they only have a bed. And I was like, okay, what is this place? And so we're living America. I didn't want to go. God, no, I had a house, a car, a house, everything that I could get back to. But God obviously told me to go in that direction. So I did. I went to Noonan. I was a brat. And I mean a brat. I remember walking in so ungrateful, so egotistical and so full of myself. I couldn't think about anything else or anybody else. I didn't care. I just walked into that apartment and I remember running my finger across the counter and going like that and the director in the guest service there was like, oh, my God, what are we going to do with her? I was so entitled. I didn't understand anything. I didn't understand how a program worked. I didn't understand any of that. They would ask me to go to meetings, ask me to go to work. And I did because God told me to. I did everything that was suggested to me, even though I didn't like it and I didn't understand it. I did everything that was suggested. I got my first sponsor there. I didn't use her. I didn't utilize her. I didn't realize at that time the importance of the program. I was such a brat over there that my now boss, Randy, they didn't know what to do with me. Randy said, why don't you come to Atlanta Women's to drive, to drive and to be on staff? And I said, okay. So I did, came to Atlanta Women's and that's where I met my then director, Jennifer. Well, they're laughing because Jennifer put up with me. Jennifer loved me when, oh, I loved myself, all right. Boy, did I love myself and she loved me and she loved me, she loved me through everything to going to meetings, the importance of getting a sponsor. I remember, I remember she called me one time and I was filling out the recovery forms and everything. And she said, what step are you on with your sponsor? And I flipped my lid. I said, what do you mean what step am I on with my sponsor? I said, who are you to ask me that? I said, I don't need to tell you that. I said, this is my business, you know. This is my business. I don't, I'm not going to tell you. Did I not? You absolutely did. Mm-hmm. You gave me a rub up. Yes, I did. Because I didn't understand, right. But I kept, I kept doing as suggested. I kept going to meetings. I kept doing everything I was supposed to do. Hopefully it'll click. But I didn't know something was going to click. I didn't know that at the time. I got to move up in the company by the grace of God. Today, today, I am the director of Atlanta Women's. And I have, and I have right now 45, I have 45 residents. I have 45 women. Thank you. I have 45 women. They look awesome. Yeah, today I get, today I get to live like that. So, I've got, I got a new sponsor. And then I realized that all the steps that I thought I was working, right. I wasn't working. I mean, I thought I was. I really believed I was. But I wasn't because people are like, oh, the promises, oh, it gets better. I'm like, ain't nothing getting better. The only thing that was, the only thing that was getting better was my paycheck, right. But I just kept going. I came, this was my very, I think this was my first meeting that I came to. And I remember sitting back there. But I was like, one day I think I'm going to stand up there and I'm going to just tell it all. And boy, here I am right now. . I kept coming to meetings. Being a driver for Jennifer and then allowed me to be present at every meeting, right. So, I got to be present at every meeting. So, I got to hear the message over and over and over again. I got to hear how it works over and over and over again. I got to hear the promises. You know, I got to hear all those things until finally it clicked. And it only clicked about two years ago. I got a new, now I got a new sponsor who's taking me through the steps. She's made me realize things that I knew or I thought I knew, but now I know. And helping me release those, like, my fears, you know. Like, I didn't really understand that all those things that I was afraid of were things that were encouraging me to drink. Like, Tim's Jennifer's husband and Tim, he played a huge part in my recovery when I didn't feel like I was enough. Like, what was it called? Imposter syndrome. I suffered from that really bad. And one day I was going to leave. I was going to pack my bags and leave. And I was walking down the stairs and Tim comes pulling up in the van. And he throws open the door and he said, what's up? I was like, oh, my God. God sent him, didn't he? . . And he did. And God sent Tim just like God sent Brandy, God sent Jennifer. I could name all of you guys in here. I am just overwhelmed by the amount of faces I know in here. You know, I get to live like this today, man. I get to come into a room and get hugs and kisses and well wishes. And people that couldn't be here today were texting me, telling me, you got this. You're going to be good tonight. I'm like, I don't know if anyone would be sick. And I still think I am. Now we're working the steps. My life today, every morning at 9 o'clock, every morning at 9 o'clock, I have a big book study that I get to do with the girls. So every day, every day, I get to live in recovery. I get to wake up in the morning. I get to do recovery. I get to eat lunch in the afternoon. I get to do recovery. I get to eat dinner at night. I get to do recovery. And repeat. All over again. Every single day, I get to do that because I know for myself that if I were to go back home, which I've been invited to go back home now, but I don't want to. I like my life right here. I love, I am absolutely in love with my life. I love the way my life is going. I don't ever want to leave here. And I never want to leave Atlanta either. I love Atlanta. Because there's so many God moments that I wanted to talk about. So I used to smoke, you know, of course, right? Because it comes with the territory. You know, it comes with the alcoholism. It comes with the addiction. It comes with the bars. It comes with all that stuff. So I used to smoke. And then when I got to Atlanta Women's, I think my blood pressure was, sent me to the hospital because I was driving a druggie buggy full of women that were, that were insane. So my blood pressure was really high. Jennifer told me to go to the hospital. I went to the hospital. And of course, they kept me. While I was there, they did scans on me. Well, they found a nodule in my lung, I guess about that big. They found a nodule in my lung about that big. I went home and I told my best friend. Anyway, it got to the point where they were threatening not to speak to me anymore until I went to go get it checked out to do the follow-up with the, with the lung doctor. And I didn't want to do it. But I also didn't want them to leave me again. And I know when it comes to that, then it's something I really need. To do with my people start telling me, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Then that's what I know, I need to get up and do it. So I was praying a lot when I went to Grady. I was driving and I remember looking up at the building and I was oh god, please. I wonder if those texts up there know that, you know, what I'm going to get my cat scan. I wonder if they know they're going to heal me. I wonder if they know that when they put me in that test scan machine that or when they put the, contrast in my veins I wonder if they know that that's going to heal me so I went through that got home and then the next day the doctor called me and said I need you to come into the office and I thought oh shit they're going to do the biopsy and then they're going to take half of my lung out google said they were going to take they were going to take out like that much of my lung so he sat me down in the office and he goes misty he goes I've only seen this one other time in my career so what is that and he said everything was gone there was no nodule there was absolutely no nodule at all there was no signs of any kind of anything God oh I just wish God is so good he guides me every single day in my life from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep it's all about God so steps one two and three were no problem for me right of course I surrendered and admitted I was powerless over alcohol that wasn't a problem so that's two and three were not a problem for me either because I did that in the hospital I gave my will of my life over to the care of God as I understood him that day in the hospital step four I love my sponsor and the way she took me through this was different from the first time I had done it with my other sponsor everybody said that the fourth step is scary it's not scary at all mm-hmm it's not scary at all it's so simple it's so simple and it is true what they say that this is a complicated I mean this is a simple program for complicated people it's the truth because when I did it the first time I complicated everything so badly this she sat down with me and we what did she say what did you say that I did a very thorough fourth okay good for me yeah so I did a very thorough fourth step and then um of course four and a five and then right now we're doing six and seven again uh well I'm doing six and seven again this time that's about as far as I can go and I think I'm I'm good and I hope I know I'm sorry I'm squirreling on ADD and I'm so sorry but Joe and Charlie let me let me touch a little bit on Joe and Charlie Joe and Charlie are little earth angels does anybody everybody knows who Joe and Charlie is right all right so anytime I go on a long distance drive or anything like that I listen to Joe and Charlie and Joe and Charlie are little earth angels and I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry but Joe and Charlie one of them had said something about how lucky our alcoholics were how lucky he was to be an alcoholic and I feel the same way like I'm so grateful to be an alcoholic because now I know what's what's going on right I'm not a bad person I have a disease I'm not a bad person I have a disease he said we alcoholics are blessed to live two lifetimes is that what he said blessed to live two lifetimes in one and that hit me because oh right now, I don't even recognize the old Misty. I don't even recognize the old Misty. All I know is the Misty today and the Misty that I'm proud of. And I'm going to read something. My absolute favorite. That's a big quote. Absolute favorite. When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer being all powerful. He provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. That's so true. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more, we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. That's me. I get to contribute to life today. I get to contribute to all kinds of lives, including my own. As we felt new power, we could face life successfully. How true. As we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear. Today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. Those of you who know, you know. And if you don't know, hang around. Hang around until you do know. If you don't understand anything that's happening in these meetings, because I know I sure didn't, none of it made sense. But I hung around and I kept coming back. So if you're brand new and you don't know what I'm talking about, hang around. Keep coming back. And you too will be reborn. Thank you, Misty.