Mental Obsession and Physical Allergy – Step Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Theresa F.

I love how it does that okay are you pinning us so now I see myself let's see where's Mackenzie hey all right so my name is Teresa I'm an alcoholic like grateful to be here grateful to be sober because of a loving god thank you fellowship of the spirit uh for asking me to participate in my recovery i'm excited each week on how we're gonna embark upon the steps i'm nervous i'm uncomfortable my heart's pounding feel like i'm gonna mess it all up but i'm like i always crack up beforehand i'm like i need to study and i'm like what are you studying aren't you living this thing i always think that's so funny how i do that like i have to study tonight um like really i hope i know what i'm doing if not why am i invited to do so uh i'm so excited every week i have some of my favorite gals hanging out with me sharing on the steps uh and this is what i thought i know we didn't have a chance to talk about it um but how about like uh we each do 20 minutes and mckenzie you'll start and then i'll do and then leave 10 minutes if you want to piggyback on anything you know i mean to think about stuff so i want to go ahead and welcome my guest tonight i feel like i'm on a talk show and i'll tell you my sobriety date again teresa alcoholic my sobrietty date is march 29th of 1990 and i am so excited for a guest this week on step one mckenzie come on up mckenzy oh my god thank you um mckenzi i'm an alcoholic uh my sobretty date is march 5th 2009. when they were reading the stuff i was like oh my gosh i gotta I was trying to look through my 12 real quick and um I also messaged I was like are you gonna go first Teresa please go first because so I can piggyback off you but um yeah it is an honor to be here and it's I'm everybody knows Teresa and I'll say this real quick it's an honor to be here with you I'm not trying to pump your head up or anything but Teresa's like my favorite speaker on the planet and I met her one time in Arkansas we spoke together I didn't even know who she was. I'd never seen her, so I'm sitting at a table just bullshitting and talking to her, and then later she gets up, and I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I did it. So I'm glad to be here, and my sobriety date's March 5th, 2009. My home group is the Straight Outta Bondage Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday at 7 in South Haven, Mississippi at 9115 Main Street, and if you're ever in mississippi and need a meeting please holler at me and um you know i i grew up in an alcoholic home um before i took a breath into the world i had ingested substances and liquids and everyone around me was drinking or doing a substance and um it never seemed to be a problem with any i never heard anybody say she's got a problem you know so it just was very foreign to me um and I guess what happened for me was you know I felt I felt completely uncomfortable my whole life and I think that's a maybe not but I thinkthat's a trend with people like us I felt real uncomfortable for a long time I had a lot of weird things happen to me I saw a lotof weird things I just did not feel like I fit in with anybody, and my outlet was, you know, physical. I could hurt people, play sports. I couldn't talk to anybody. I was terrified. People would talk to me, and I would just be like, I gotta go, you now, and so my first drink was four years old, and I didn't get plastered when I was four, you know, and I didn' t continue drinking from the age of four years old, but what happened for me was I felt a commonality with everyone around me. I just all of a sudden did not feel outside the circle. And some more stuff happened and some time passed. And I guess when I was about from eight years old to 17, I was drinking and just drinking and drugging. You know, I started with my mom and it talks about in the book, Women Go Beyond Recall within a few years. And it's a progressive illness. And that's what happened to me. You Know, from eight to 17. i was uh looking i was indicted looking at five years in prison i hurt everyone that loved me i my spirit was pure evil you know i only got enjoyment out of making you suffer and um and i had to drink every i hadto have something in my body every day you know um and that's just i don't know that'sjust what it was for me so anyway fast forward um I ended up going to rehab instead of going to prison and I got in rehab and it took me about six months to decide I was going to stay here but I did not believe I was an alcoholic so I would say I was a drug addict all day but I Did Not Believe I Was An Alcoholic for whatever reason that was lame and I'm not doing that you know I'm a crackhead baby and uh so I got to I got out of treatment and they told me to go to another 12-step fellowship. And I went, somebody tried to sell me crack in the parking lot. So I started going to AA because it seemed like, you know, they were nicer people. And so I started to go into AA and somebody told me, they asked me if I thought I was an alcoholic. AndI said, no. They said, do you have a desire to stop drinking? I said, yeah, whatever, I guess so. And then some girl pulled me aside. She said, just say you're an alcoholic and I was like okay so I just said I was an alcoholic for a long time and I would replace the words in the book and all this stuff and um I had sponsors by name only and I guess I was about three and a half years sober and I'd been in AA not working any steps not believing I was in alcoholic I was coming in the meetings and re-quoting what other people said and like they'd be like oh the topic's on step eight and I'll be like hold on trying to read it on the board and be like, let me tell you about step A. I never worked a step A in my life, you know? And I was sitting in meetings and everybody's life was progressively getting better and mine was not. And I didn't, I thought AA just didn't work. And so I stopped going. I got pregnant, you know, it's called untreated alcoholism. I Got Pregnant by a Stranger. I stopped going to AA. And like a month or two before my daughter was born, I was sitting in my bathroom with the 380 in my mouth. And I'm like, if this is, I know you're supposed to want to kill yourself when you're sober if this is what sobriety is i'm done you know pretty much and so my step one experience was a little delayed um i knew that i could not i knewthat i couldn't put anything in my body because i was scared to go to prison but as far as believing that was what was holding me through you know but as for us truly believing i was an alcoholic i didn't believe it so after that experience i had a gun in my mouth and i'd been going to meetings long enough that some some things were implanted in me and one thing they told me was like you know the problem is not that you drink the problem is your thinking so if you have some messed up thoughts you need to tell on yourself constantly snitch on yourself and i had the thought if i kill myself my baby might die but i just really don't care and that was a red flag and it told me i need to go back so i went back to aa and i told them and this woman snatched me up immediately you know and um so we're sitting here working and she i blamed i thought it was my mom's fault because my mom did drugs and i never met my daddy and my stepdaddy was mean to me and my grand i had every excuse in the book for why i could never take responsibility for why was the way i was and i really truly didn't understand it because i didn't get into literature and do the work i was just kind of raw dog in life if that makes sense and so i got with this sponsor and she sat me down, and she started reading the book with me, something that I was just unwilling to do until that point, you know, that level of desperation where like nothing I'm doing is working. I guess I'll try this. This is my last option, kind of like I do that with God, you know, but so I'm sitting down with this woman, and we get to the part where it says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Well, they admit it's injurious after time they bought all that stuff, and I was like, she said, why do you, you know, why do you drink? And I said, I only drink if there's, if I can't get anything else, you know. And she said, okay, if there was nothing else on the planet, would you drink, and I said yeah. She said, why? I said because I want to get fucked up, you now, and she said ding-ding-ding, you know, I drink for the effect, and it just was like a jolt of lightning through me. I was like, oh my my God, I'm an alcoholic, you know, and then after that moment, it was on for me, and there's a couple other things in the book that I like, but what I really had to look at was, like, you know, my total inability to control. There's a part in thebook that says, you know, no matter the want or the need, I cannot stop. I've lost the power of control, and that's what happened because, you know, at first it was like I was doing it for fun, and I wanted to, and little things started happening, and I was like, that's okay, you know, and I kept going. And then these huge things started happening. Like, I woke up in a bed, somebody's having sex with me that I didn't want to have sex with. I woke up in the ditch. I woke up. I woke up a lot of places, but it was becoming a problem. And and it talks about our alcoholic life seems the only normal one. I can't differentiate the truth from the false. And my sponsor said if you were looking at someone else and they came and told you, oh, I was somebody was having sex with me that I didn't want to have sex with, they, I woke up in a ditch. What would you think? I was like, they probably need to stop doing it. That sucks. Why would you keep doing that to yourself? And she said, that's what everybody else that was watching you thought too, you know? And I never, I don't know. I just never thought about it that way. And, um, and another thing was when I, you Know, there was a time and I'm so glad that I found the book study, you know, but when they talk about the invisible line, there is a time where I had control. I would just drink with my friends on the weekend or smoke a little weed you know whatever and I could just stop and sports were my life I love sports and so sports trumped alcohol you know alcohol was second to sports and at some I got sober when I was a kid you know so I didn't lose a husband and all that stuff but you know what I had I lost it the little bit I did have but at one point time sports trumped alcohol and then at some point that shifted and I don't know when or how but everything I loved cared about and that was important to me became second second best you know and alcohol was primary and um another thing too was it was it was really crazy to me because when I first started drinking I could stop and then towards the end if i started i would go on a two-week binge you know what i mean i'd wake up in a dope house and my alcoholism manifest into me smoking crack and my alcoholicism manifest into me i want to rob everybody and be a gangster and tote a pistol and try to kill people i don't know why but like that is not who i actually am but it wasn't talked about the peculiar mental twist that's probably already acquired and um so anyway i'm one of those young people that came into the room and i had people talking crap to me saying i spilled more than you drank you hadn't even got started yet you don't even know what it is to be a real alcoholic about these young and i live in mississippi so just imagine so my but somebody pointed me to this part in the book and i feel like i'm doing a terrible job i'm glad theresa's coming up after me i'm nervous i'm sweat if you can see me i'm sweating i got sweat dripping down my back i'm so freaking nervous i don't know why i had to tell y'all that but okay this part was so important for me and another thing too i had a friend named jessica she drank for one year that was it she drank her one year she stopped she came to aa and we were in those white paw conferences and people were like she only drank for a year you know who care it doesn't matter the frequency the amount what kind it was what you did who are you with where are you working with how none of that stuff matters what matters is what happens to me after I put it into my body what happens with my thinking I do I do absurd and strange things you know what I'm saying I hurt everyone around me I give up everything I love and like I don't even do it willingly it's like I I don'T even have any I DON'T have any choice you know I'll all say so and this thing is cool. I really like where it talks about in the 12 and 12, like, you know, back in the day they didn't have zoom. They didn't have AA meetings. They had mental asylums and they were doing ice pick lobotomies and stuff like that. Like what do you do with alcoholics? Let's, let's do tests and see what will happen. You know, we don't have that. But back then it said none, none but the most desperate cases could get and digest this unpalatable truth. This ugly, disgusting truth is like i'm powerless i have no power if i had enough power to stop i would have my sponsor said my first she said don't you think you would have done it by now i was like shut up i hate you you know don't YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT BY NOW and then i'm i'm POWERLESS AND MY LIFE HAS BECOME UNMANAGEABLE at one point in time i was managing well but that's been a long time ago and i'm not doing it anymore that's gone that's out and that's when it talks about your palate that's a disgusting this nasty truth you know but it said none but the most desperate cases could digest that truth and even then some of those people had a hard time you know because they couldn't admit they were powerless and what's happened for people like us and people like me I came in when I was a kid you know it says it's a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the in the following years this has changed like you know only the the last gaspers were getting it that's changed it says um people who still had their health their families their jobs and even two cars in the in the garage began to recognize their alcoholism as this trend grew they were joined by young people who are scarcely more than potential alcoholics and i just celebrated 12 years in march and i read this part and it i don't know it messed me up thank you but it says they were spared that last 10 or 15 years of literal hell the rest of us had gone through and so what happened for me is like you know i had people before me sharing their experience and explaining to me that doesn't matter what color you are where you come from or what you drank or what you didn't drink or how much you drank did you go to prison did you kill none of that matters what matters is what happens when i put it in my body and what happens with this you know what i'm saying and i have to look back on my past to get to that point i need somebody take me through it but y'all spared me the last 12 years of literal hell that i would have had to go through you know and hopefully we can do that today with somebody else but um anyway so my daughter's knocking at the door and it's like 80 degrees in my house my air conditioner is not working i'm sweaty anyway so i think that's oh yeah i do have i guess i have two little things i'll say and then i'll shut up but it's kind of a good description of you know there's a part in the book that says um i can't uh where's it at i can'T remember maybe i just need to shut up that's it thank you teresa it'll come back to you thank you oh man I just totally lost so good I want to welcome anybody who's new and old-timers thank you for my life thank you so much Mackenzie I was thinking about the newcomer and their willingness to be here I don't know why you were sharing I was like anybody who's new it takes courage no unless you have some spiritual intervention right like a judge or a family member and that is a grace as well that type of intervention but you're showing up because you're not sure this is an opportunity to examine our relationship with God and I'm so glad that you're here just so glad that the newcomers here and i also i love how mckenzie shares that because you know i got sober young too and how young people do recover and that we do save like so many years of misery being able to get here early and i just remember when you were saying that i remembered i went to speak at this meeting and they were doing chips and this young guy his young kid got up and he took like a 60 day chip and then when i got up to share he said all the way in the back and i was like hey how old are you he said 14. i was like 14? i was like did your parents send you here he was like no did the court send you here like no that your school sent you here said no i was like you crawled up in here on your own he was like yeah i was like you need to keep coming back because if you up in here at 14 and you got an ass whooping from drinking your ass need to keep coming back you know what I mean like you're done and so that's what that means to me if you got whipped by that age oh my goodness the progression of this disease you do not need to go back out there and do any more experimentation so that you reminded me of and I hope he kept coming back um a couple things kept coming to my mind my nephew i talk about alcoholism and what it is and what it means and my nephew had thought he had alcoholism. And he went to he did so he didn't want to do 12 steps, he did celebrate recovery in his church but somehow even though I understand alcoholism even though i am an alcoholic i did not believe he was an alcoholic because he only drank for like six months and then he went you know i mean got into recovery and in my mind i was like i think it was just some experimental thing you know what i mean he was going through a phase it wasn't until i was just grateful he was doing something right just doing something but it wasn'T until iwas talking to his brother my youngest nephew about one of his friends smoking weed and drinking and then my nephew said all i know is that whenever i take a drink i can't determine how much and how long i'll be drinking that and it was in that moment that it solidified for me that he's an alcoholic i was like oh snob i was a human alcoholic so but before that i swore he was just going through a phase and to me that is the clincher how i'm defined how i define myself as an alcoholic which makes me different than any other type of drinker and if i leave this out i'm gonna miss the mark the doctor talks about it i have to have in physical abnormality because there are people who are problem drinkers there are people who they abuse alcohol. They have it in the DSM code, right? There are people who literally abuse alcohol that does not make them an alcoholic. I remember I was teaching DUI classes and I always use this as an example for a few years. And I would meet with the clients. They will come in for any of my DUI people out there. I like when I run into them, but I would meat with the clients, do the interview before the class. And everyone always explained to me that they're not an alcoholic. They needed to let me know in that initial interview, you need to know that I'm not an alcoholic, that was just bad luck, it was a terrible night, it's the system, do you know what I mean? The police are just horrible, they're out to make a buck and, you know, just all the reasons why there weren't an alcoholic and what I would say to them is if I were you, I wouldn't make that announcement in class. That's something I would keep to myself, and they were like, no, I want everyone to know. I said, then you can wear a sign saying you're not an alcoholic, but I'm telling you, I don't think you should announce that because what you're saying to me is if you're NOT an alcoholic. So let me explain to you, an alcoholic has an illness. They have an illness that beyond them, despite everything that they want to do, they're gonna drink anyway despite the fact that it's the best thing not to drink and drive and they'll swear to themselves that they're not going to drink in drive something happens when they have one they end up drinking and driving what you're saying to me on the other hand is that you're just reckless and irresponsible because you actually had the ability to stop after the first or the second drink and waited a series of time before you got behind the wheel so either you're a psychopathic killer okay or you're completely he was on a mission you know i mean to kill someone that night and that's actually what you're saying if you say that you're not an alcoholic because and the good news is this i would tell them the good new is that you've you're going to be able to learn your lesson okay you're gonna get a really good slap on the wrist it's gonna cost you a hell of a lot money it's a very expensive lesson that you've learned and i don't have to worry about you anymore because i should never see you again because you're actually going to have the ability to go this is some okay and you will never get behind the wheel again after drinking you'll get a designated driver you'll stay home so now i need you to ask yourself again do you know whether you're an alcoholic or not because if i were you i would just be willing to listen find out what it is because if it turns out then you're not great if it turns out that you are you're in need of some further help because a fine and classes can't really help you we just that's not gonna help you so when i came into the program what i was grateful for was that they invited me it was an invitation a good ass whooping and the grace of god right that window that i had of that moment of clarity where my desperation and my prayer right to that energy that i felt in this church right after this long ass run i'm in this and i felt this present and i said a prayer and that window of the grace that god opened up so this is a moment and it's an opportunity that carried me to all of you right it bought me because i've been drinking my whole life before that i never went one day without a drink since conception okay i'm born addicted my mother gives me alcohol drugs and my disease progressed because mommy didn't give me drugs even though there was drugs in the house but my disease progress with drinking and then moving on to all the extracurriculum activities like nobody nobody forced that down my throat you know what i'm saying to me that's the progression of the disease and i too like you felt very comfortable saying that i was an addict i don't know what that is with us you know i think it's a cool thing to be an addict it just seems really cool alcohol it just seems very lame you know same and different for me when i know i'm jumping around but what's interesting i i've shared this a couple times with people okay i when i came i told my cousin my cousin's in the program sunshine and i said to her you know what nana i don't think i'm an alcoholic well my problem was crack cocaine that's what happened i'm not an alcoholic now what she said to me i have not said that to another newcomer yet so maybe when i find one like myself i will use that but for whatever reason my cousin knew how to talk to me now this makes no sense but it made sense to me okay this is what she said to me it still cracks me up today she said okay nina hmm so what about this let's say you had a company and the company was named teresa incorporated would you like anyone to come to work and call your company something else and i was like no she was like exactly this is called alcoholics anonymous so you know for some reason that made perfect sense at the time she knew i built companies you know what i mean i'm this you know i mean on this building company mogul i'm a corporate mentality so she used that to some i don't know i said okay and i started saying i'm an alcoholic it because I was a part of an organization that referred to itself as that and I respect the fact that you need to associate with the organization which you participate in so I don't really share that with anybody because that's so ridiculous at no time did I say to her that's ridiculous I just said okay and I followed suit but what I was grateful for was that they gave me an invitation to examine my relationship with alcohol because what I heard was that the very first step wasn't step one. The very first step was that I conceded to my inner muscle and concede is to give to, right? To turn to in every fiber of myself to admit it to be true so I need in order for me to arrive there in the quietness of my own space that means not announcing it in the meetings not when you ask me not when my sponsor asks but in the quietly of my home with me can I really say without a shadow of a doubt that I'm an alcoholic perhaps I like law for a lot of years practice it for many many years actually I passed the baby bar believe it or not uh I love CSI movies and all that kind of stuff so I refer to that often uh I became a private investigator okay and I believe and I put AA myself on trial I don't know visually I'm a visual person and i started gathering the evidence and in order to conclude that i was an alcoholic i had to be without now if the presumption of innocence is really the way justice always begins okay i hope anybody's following me the presumption i come in with the presumction of innocence now the courts don't always do it that way okay but really so let's presume that i am not an alcoholic because that's how i come to you right with the present and you should let me off like the law is designed right to let off 10 criminals or nine criminals right to save the one innocent one okay so this is on my mind thanks folks okay so i'm supposed to be left for hook but you have to presume that i'm innocent and even if i'm guilty i should be let free but anyway so let's start seeing if we can gather the evidence right to support whether I am or not so I'm going to stop trying to prove that I'm not and let me find out if I am okay and the only way for me to conclude that I am there has to be a shot there has been no you know what I mean no like you know I mean when you when you find somebody guilty okay there hasと be like a shadow of a doubt there's nothing there's no i'm forgetting the word right now but whatever okay no no assumption whatsoever that i am okay so you told me to examine my relationship well first thing i had to do i don't know of any again i'm a very visual person and if you ever see crime movies and the people who are working on the crime they have everything on a board right you know how they put everything and then they connect like these these these uh pins and then they have rubber bands and i'm serious that's what i did y'all hold up look what else did i have to lose you know what i mean i can always go back to my crime my life of crime okay so i had some time i'm here all right so let's figure this out okay like i remember my dad said this to me my dad said there were three worlds i was headed jails mental institutions right and death there was another roll call recovery i didn't know anything about it neither did he but if i gave it a try if it didn't work out the other three were waiting for me so i was giving this a shot okay i can always go back to the other tree and so like a crime investigation i had to put up what was alcoholism and i don't i really invite the newcomers to do this what is alcoholism like how am I just gonna call myself an alcoholic just because my cousin said I should okay all right what is it because I like you I didn't know what it was everybody in my family drinks this way and I know they say alcoholic life is a normal one like most people who don't even have family members who drink they just hang out with everybody who drinks right so it looks like we all drink the same and so I needed first to find what alcoholism was because i didn't know what it was and it's defined in our literature it's defined the doctor's opinion lays it out builds up they spend so much time on the big book because i guess they know how hard-headed we are but they spend so much on alcoholism even when they get to there's a solution they're like now wait a minute you know you're like hey i don't know if i'm gonna get to right hold on a second teresa so I started looking at what is alcoholism, well and specifically it's defined as an allergy of the body and obsession of the mind right, and so those are the two key things they pretty much focus on until we get to the spirituality which is the root of it, but the allergy gets addressed with abstinence and I find a lot of people can get a little stuck on the allergy because they look at that word and they go I can see an allergy with somebody with strawberries, with peanuts, it makes sense okay but for some reason it doesn't make sense with alcohol for me it made sense because the definition i'm okay english is my second language i take everything literal and everything for me is black and white what is the definition of allergy if you look up the word allergy it doesn't say you or have a repellent against strawberries you have a repelant against peanuts that's not the way it defines algae allergy is defined as an abnormal reaction so my question is do I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol well what's the normal reaction I mean that's the kind of I was looking at well if I in order for me to answer that question I need to know what a normal reaction is well a normal react to a poison that's called alcohol that is legally distributed which is the biggest cartel ever in time in the tobacco industry okay it is a drug it is poison it is if you drink too much of it you will die okay that's what alcohol is okay it's a substance that is a deadly substance okay just like tobacco they have it on every single cigarette you could die okay now so what is the normal reaction the normal reaction of ingesting a substance that is a deadly substance that's a toxic substance is the first thing that it does to everybody whether you be alcoholic or not is that it puts to sleep your intellect that's the whole point of our inhibitions relaxing having fun having a good time that's what it actually does to the brain that's it given whether you're an alcoholic or that's not a normal reaction gets rid of the intellect okay that's a normal reaction then there's another phase that alcohol does as a normal reaction is that it actually goes through the body the body feels that something is toxic and wrong it dispels it it rejects it okay usually we don't go over that inhibitions point okay when you go with that inhibition point you're in trouble that other part of your brain so the normal reaction is at the body responds if having a little bit too much and says we need to stop we are now in a danger zone this is no longer healthy okay reject okay that's the normal reaction the abnormal reaction is that I go give me another I'll take another that's an abnormal reaction to me that sums up allergy I don't even know why need a trip on that did that happen to me how often did it happen once did it happen twice did it happened every time was it a progression was there a period of time where it didn't happen and then it did happen they talk about an invisible line why are we looking for the invisible line it's invisible i'm not going to spend time trying to figure out the invisible line because the term itself says you can't see it so i don't even know why i'm tripping i'm spending time trying to find it okay so i'm gonna try to find the invisible line i just need to know that there was one and i may see afterwards when it perhaps had changed and so i noticed that there's an abnormal reaction on how i'm responding and it can manifest in different ways for me the allergy does not manifest where i say give me another one that i drink a lot of liquor that's not how it manifested in my body the way it manifested in my Body was after about two drinks my body then wanted crave they call it the phenomenon of craving meaning it's unusual phenomena is you can't explain it it doesn't make sense so why are you trying to explain it you cannot explain it that's the abnormality of it okay something is happening to me beyond description beyond understanding beyond being able to detect that's the phenomena it reminds me of sesame street phenomena phenomena you know that song i love that guy phenomena okay that's what happens all right so this phenomena jumps off and what happens for me the phenomena is i may have a glass of wine cabasie and all of a sudden i'm really okay with some skunk weed now where'd that come from now i'm like sure somebody shows up and says here smoke this you know what i we know what I do I go all right I don't say what is it where was they grown where they come from what's the reaction to it i don't do you have an allergic reaction you know we do a medication is there allergic reaction let me do research okay i smoke it and then i find out what happens and then somebody can come along and go sniff this it could be green powder purple powder orange powder white powder yellow powder i don t care i just go okay i sniff it find out What Happens that's abnormal normal people don't do that so that's how i started seeing my allergic reaction as i mapped out right this illness that you call it i have a lot of evidence that i'm gathering now that clearly tells me i have an abnormal reaction to that because normal people don't do that and you know what's even more interesting is that i could sniff that drink that smoke that right get sick throw up not remember black out do crazy behavior and you know what i do again i do it again that's abnormal that's not normal my brother called me one time and he said hey terry i just had a beer i'm hanging out with some friends my hand is tingling do you think i should drive oh no i think you need to stay put dude sounds like you're in danger you know what i'm saying that's a normal reaction wait a little while before yeah yeah i think i should wait i can feel my hand tingling okay that's normal so when i saw that i had this allergic reaction i said i'm scared are you scared because that one in itself separates me from any other tempered drinker that's what makes me an alcoholic i am bodily different and that's What makes me powerless see now when i understand that and i see that i can use the term powerlessness because there is no way that i could do anything to change that it's almost like telling somebody who's allergic to strawberries peanuts shellfish pollen i'm going to give you this peanut butter and jelly sandwich you are going to eat this peanut ball and jelly sandwich and your throat will not close up you understand me you will muster up every willpower in you and you will tell yourself that you will not stop breathing after you finish eating this peanut butter and jelly sandwich so it will be unfair and cruel to do that to somebody so it's unfair and cool to beat myself up okay for telling myself you're gonna have one glass and no matter what you do you will NOT have another one that's fair and cruel that's unfair and cruel because i have an allergic reaction this phenomena that takes place that cannot be explained that i have no vote no input that demands for more reaches for more and gets more despite every circumstance every reason every consequence i don't know about you but that's scary and then the other component you told me was the obsession of the mind i want to make sure i run out of time ali you let me know thumbs up if i'm going into our minutes right the other components this obsession of the mind well i had to start gathering evidence to see what is this obsession what does that mean if my alcoholic life is the normal life if i can't differentiate the true from the false and i'm delusional in the way i live then how in the hell can i identify an obsession of a mind well I'm going to have to really break this down and i have to keep it as simple as possible well my thinking looked like this when i began examining how my thinking worked okay when i was out there was this i only had two thoughts two principal thoughts now there was many ways in which those thoughts manifested but if i really looked at it there was always two thoughts how to how not to how to get some how not to get something that's not normal i know a lot of people who drink even sometimes smoke weed And they don't spend their days trying to calculate how to and how not to. They don't negotiate. Like, okay, normal people don't go, I'm only going to have three. That's not normal. You know what I'm saying? That's normal. Somebody who doesn't have a problem, don't say to themselves, I'm going to go to this wedding and I swear I'm already going to have a glass of champagne. That's unnecessary. They wouldn't have to do that. So I don't stay to myself. I'm only, I'm going to take my paycheck, put it in a money order, mail it to myself to make sure I don't spend it. That's not normal. That is part of the obsession. I'm always planning and plotting and thinking of how, okay, I am going to act like I don' t have a problem. I am a pretend that I am okay. I'm gonna show everybody that I can do this. That is an obsession. It can manifest by doing things like, I' m gonna go to this event. i don't really have to drink okay i don t i mean i really can control and manage i don t have a problem i'm gonna go to this event i'm only gonna drink water and then i go to this event and you know how my obsession starts manifesting it doesn't say have a drink have a drink you need the drink it's very sneaky it doesn t do that this is what it does i don't like these people no way i don' t even know why i'm at this wedding you know what And first of all, I'm a grown-ass woman. I don't need to prove myself to nobody. See, it starts doing that kind of thing. And look at her. Look at her, she's a drunk. She's over there drinking and she's amiss. I don' t do that. Whenever I drink, I don''t act like her. Look at my mother. She's passing out everything, all sloppy and everything. And I'm going to sit around and say, I'm not going to drink. I can handle my liquor better than she can. Okay, that is an obsession. Or all of a sudden, I was on my way to the event. How did I end up at the dope house? That was not the plan. i didn't have a gps at the time my car is not automatic okay it's not an automatic driven navigating car but somehow i ended up saying oh you know what i have to tell so and so i'm gonna go tell tita something before he does at the bar in the dog house it's hysterical okay i oh i forgot i have to tell tita four days later i still haven't told tita you know what i'm saying as a matter of fact when i got there she wasn't there okay and i stayed so i started gathering i have the laugh thank god for this moment of clarity i always tell the newcomer make use of it you know what i'm saying make use of this moment because what i discovered further discovery investigation of the disease called alcoholism is that it's really sneaky and it lays dormant and it has the ability to disguise itself and so i always invite people to look up the term before i you know we close out for questions i like telling people look up the term cunning baffling powerful okay we say it a lot and i would like to just define it very quickly i have an illness that's cunning bafling and powerful okay this is what's so interesting about this okay hold on cunning i'm like look up you know we say cunning baffles powerful cutting like you don't know the definition okay having or showing skill this is cunning having and showing skill in achieving one's end by deceit and evasion okay it has skill in achieving ones end well what's the end drinking and it does this by deceit and evasion i can't see it okay what is the end game to drink so you know what it's gonna do is gonna tell me i don't like these people at the meeting i don'T need it to be at this meeting i DON'T need a sponsor i DONT HAVE TO READ THE BOOK WHO NEEDS TO WRITE A STEP I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM I'M CUTE I GOT IT GOING ON I got money. You know what I mean? I need a job. That's what I need. I need a job, I need job. I had a relationship. I need a car that's the seat to achieve its own end to push me further away from you right so that's scary to me it's like a ninja okay I can't see it if I wanted to right that's that's coming that's a trip baffling now these words totally tripped me out I was like what are you saying but I think baffling I'm spelling bafflin wrong hold on Siri sometimes don't understand Siri what's the definition of baffin she be giving me Spanish words baffing okay thank you Siri okay oh she gave it to me in Spanish I told you she always talks to me in Spanish okay hold on okay she's giving it to me in Spanish all right hold on sorry you guys she's talking to me a Spanish I appreciate you but I need something else okay baffling impossible to understand perplexing okay not a little bit possible not kind of possible uh not sort of not able to understand it says impossible to understant perplexed no wonder family and friends are going to use the language, what the fuck is wrong with you? Because we're wondering why they're wondering and we're wandering while we're watering because you cannot understand it. It don't make no sense. You cannot wrap your head around something that don't makes sense. You know how lovely the big book is? They give me an example of the jaywalker. And for some reason, the jayswalker makes perfect sense what an idiot who keeps throwing himself in the middle of traffic and getting run over and then they hit me between the eyes and they give me an example what's baffling is that what is impossible to understand and perplexing is that i do the same thing that jay walker does and think i don't have a problem okay that is impossible to understand in perplexity so i don t have to keep trying to figure out how to understand it if you knew you know what i do i just start identifying with it that's different from trying to understand it i begin to identify with the behavior as i listen to each and every one of you and i start going oh my god is that alcoholism i thought i was being creative anyway i thought it had a little ingenuity i thought it was just a little eccentric but you're telling me that's called alcoholism that's deep okay and then our famous word that nobody likes and i think is the greatest word ever is powerless without ability influence or power can i safely say that i have the ability to stop when i say i'm going to no why are we tripping on that can i stop a moving train why am i comfortable saying i am powerless over stopping a moving train in motion but when it comes to my relationship with alcohol i don't like using that word i am proud is because i have a disease that's perplexing it tries to tell me that i'm not powerless the very disease that sets me up in disguise to do it again is the very diseased that tells me i don t have a problem that's scary influence and power has the influence maybe having make decisions i wouldn't otherwise make it has the power to have me do things despite the fact that i don't want to do them as a matter of fact is so powerful and i'm so powerless that it convinces me that i want to do it it's the arrogance of it it doesn't always i don' t always submit to this disease that i'm like oh i'm gonna drink and i don''t want to no it says i could do whatever i want to do when i want do it and i dare you to be all up in my business okay that's how powerful Well, that is, it convinces me that I got power. It convinces me that I'm in control. And it's all a lie. So as I gathered up all the evidence and it was all laid out on the board, I was like, I'm guilty as charged. So I pleaded guilty, right? I paid to take a plea bargain. I within myself do not have the capacity to do anything different and just like you were saying Mackenzie if I could I would I'm intelligent in every area I have an out I have a resume that is outrageous I have IQ that is ridiculous I have the ability to hang out at Wall Street I can hang out in Harlem I can do all kinds of things I can make money but when it came to this area this situation my relationship with alcohol the jig is up the party's over does that sound great no i like the effect man i'm different from my fellows now what now what you know what's interesting it hasn't been eradicated it hasn'T disappeared it'S not gone i have an illness that lays dormant it is still cunning baffling and powerful the only thing that keeps the allergy arrested is abstinence but i'm still dealing with the mind the good news is that there are other steps that are going to help me treat that so i won't have to refer to putting it back in my body and allowing the abnormality of the allergy to take over and so there's hope and we get to talk about that next week so well i hope we got a couple more minutes so mckenzie can say something before we get into the Q&A. Good job. Ditto. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I don't have much to say. I don' t have anything else to say? I'm excited to be here. I'm really hot. Hey, thanks guys. You were great um i am super fresh in my sobriety i have 38 days and i'm still going through moments of trying to convince myself that i'm not an alcoholic even though i had a moment of clarity and it became real damn clear but i still catch myself um any tips for like when you're in over early sobriete and you get in that thinking trap of like well i'm different this way like what's the move? You want me to go? Taylor, congratulations on your time and thank you for your question. What was told to me was nobody has lied to me, screwed me over, hurt me, deceived me more than I have myself and so for me to trust my own thoughts is completely absurd you know and like I have a ton of people around me at all times who are more than willing to tell me the truth and somebody told me a long time ago my my friends the definition of a friend for me is they care more about my life than my feelings and I'm concerned with feelings and emotions a lot I want to feel better that's my whole issue you know I don't like being in pain I don'T like being uncomfortable i want you to tell me yes so what i did was like if i had a funny thought i would call somebody and tell myself all the time and you're like well they don't want to hear from me and maybe they're busy and blah blah all that shit get over that because if they didn't want to talk to you they wouldn't give you their phone number you know so i think telling yourself all the time like use your phone you know because I just need somebody to tell me the truth and it's for me I truly believe to my core that my disease centers right here so I know it's stupid for me to believe and sit with that and I don't want to be stupid that's just my thinking with it you know what I'm saying like and also you don't have to sit here and figure it out because for one you're not going to and two there's people who have done it before you so why don't utilize their experience instead of trying to recreate the wheel you know yeah i say diddle to that congratulations taylor the other thing is the big book actually tells me what i can do about like if i'm really really not sure it actually tells me i can step over to the nearest bar room and try to do some controlled drinking i don't know if that's reverse psychology or not but certainly that's a little terrifying if i think about where i left off uh and so it what i what i really have always appreciated about the big book and about the program is that nobody really tells me what to do everybody kind of does what they do and you can just either do it or not you know i'm saying like you could drink or not to stay sober or not you can follow these steps or not they also make suggestions like the building's on fire i suggest you leave you know what i mean but it's up to you you know saying you can stay i'm not saying you have to leave. You know what I'm saying? It's all on you. And so it's interesting that only me as an alcoholic would notice that I'm trying to tell myself that I am not. That is what I realized. Whenever I had those thoughts that was trying to convince me that maybe I am not, to me that was the flag that I probably am because normal people don't have to do that. So whenever that would happen And I knew that it was a false narrative because they used to call it stinking thinking committee. And I used to tell, I would tell on myself, I Would tell in meetings, I Will call my sponsor that that's what my head was saying. And no matter what, I didn't listen to it. I didn' t run behind it. I didn''t take action on it. And I just kept coming back and examining my relationship with alcohol by listening to others and doing the step work. uh but i i just knew that the fact that i was trying to tell myself that for me meant that more than likely i was in trouble yeah and when she said go try some controlled drinking your eyes got about this big it looked like you kind of freaked out so that might be a little red flag all right thank you um before i move on to pamela i just wanted to let some of you know if you If you're on a computer screen, like a desktop computer, if you look at the bottom of your screen, you're going to see some words at the bomb security participants chat. You're going to see a reactions. If you click on that reactions button, you will see where it says raised hand. So that's the feature you would use on a desktop computer. If you are on a smartphone or a tablet at the bottom of the right hand side of your screen you're going to see a more button and you will find the raise hand feature there so my apologies for not clarifying that when we started this q a so i'm going to move on so pamela i'm gonna ask you to unmute and come forward please Pamela. There you are there I'm sorry I went to another page and I couldn't figure out how to get back that's never happened first I want to say um you guys are amazing um when you broke down that first step like I'm like wow if you don't mind I want share that in a meeting then i that i'm in if you don't mind but my question is i have a few years in and i'll get these fleeting thoughts like if i see a new uh beer on tv or um you know it's doing dishes one time and had a fleeting thought of it's a hot day outside i can just have one beer and i'm like where'd that thought come from and i always tell on myself either in a meeting or to my sponsor depending on which one's coming first um so i need to text my sponsors a few hours before meeting do you have any suggestions on what to do i always play that page through but anything else about those fleeting thoughts to come even though we have some years in the program okay a couple things come up for me when i notice the fleeting thought the fact that i noticed and i'm like appalled by it and shocked by it tells me this program works right so that's number one so i always make note of that because that's uh that's that's the miracle that i actually have a thought and i'M LIKE OH MY GOD I HAVE A THOUGHT where before i didn't even know when the thought came i was just at the dope house or the bar so i find that fascinating with itself the factthat i've even recognized it um i get really grateful i do tell on myself i tell someone what i'm thinking but i put a lot to pen and paper uh what i have found is that a lot of times uh well it does tell me there will come a time i will have no mental defense against the first drink and i have had that experience it's extremely scary um but i a lot OF TIMES AND THIS HAS HAPPENED RECENTLY BECAUSE IT'S CUNNING BAFFLING AND POWERFUL MY DISEASE IS SUCH A SUBTLE FALL LIKE I COULD BE ON THE PLANE AND BE LIKE IF I HAVE A DRINK WHO WOULD KNOW AND is that a relapse i'm in between states you know i'm saying i'm in the sky um that's the that's what makes me an alcoholic because again normal people wouldn't have those random thoughts like that so i'm like damn you straight up an alcoholic and you haven't gone anywhere that means i'm still an alcoholic because i'm still doing that uh there have been times where again though that's too obvious with me with time my disease can't really attack me in that way that's just part of my alcoholism that were like flimsy thoughts my alcoholism with 31 years and has done it with 20 years 15 is sneakier than that uh it hides itself those thoughts are not fleeting those thoughts become dark suicidal no self-worth no self esteem inadequacy uh that's how those thoughts will manifest so if i got in the practice of acknowledging them writing about it addressing it then it to me it puts it in practice when I have these sneaky thoughts like recently for the last two months and I'm doing some writing on it now I've been crying and told nobody I've just been crying like random crying all I feel is sorrow I don't know what it means and for some reason I just been ignoring it like I sweep it under the rug like oh maybe it's just something and and thank god for the practice and working with others that i was like wait a minute something is happening with this my disease is sneaky man don't see that would be too obvious for my disease to say teresa you need a drink i'd be like yeah thank you for sharing shut up mind your business i'm gonna call my sponsor go to a meeting okay leave me alone i know about you it does other things like oh you crying is not a big deal and i don't realize that i'm slowly dying inside spiritually being chipped away and then i don t know how i ended up in a bar that scares me more than anything so thank god for the fleeting thought and thank god for the awareness of recognizing it and willing to address it it's that other stuff that scares the heck out of me hope that helps mine's uh thanks pam for your um i just want to call you pamela i'm a ding dong i don't know why anyway i have a friend named pam i call her that but so mine's kind of similar to theresa's and you know i would see like oh my god they didn't have fireball when i was drinking that's not fair you know just some weird stuff but um kind of a little deeper is like i've struggled with depression and all this stuff. And when I first came to AA, somebody said, if you take medicine, you ain't sober. So I never took it. And I was, and I didn't really correlate those two until later, but I was miserable for like 10 years in AA and not really telling anybody and just trying to accumulate more sponsors and more service positions and doing this and doing that. And in my brain, I had convinced myself like, oh, I can just go on a trip to Peru and drink some ayahuasca tea and be one with god and have this experience it but it doesn't count because it's not going to change the way i feel it makes me sick and throw up and poop my pants so it doesn't feel good so it's okay but it's gonna get closer to god you know and i went and talked to and i don't know if this is way off of the question but i went to talk to one of my sponsors and he said and sometimes i would just be in my bathtub and have the thought like i should just slice my arms open. I'm like, I don't want to do that. You know, why? Like, I don't, where'd that come from? And my sponsor told me like, my brain, I'm looking for relief at all times, you know, and that comes in many different forms. And with that ayahuasca thing, he said, you're looking for a quick way to a solution that takes time, effort, and work. A relationship with God takes time effort and work, but my brain is still always looking for that quick relief and it comes in a million different forms you know so that's what is scary to me too is like well i had a bad i have childhood trauma you know what i mean like all that stuff so i did on what she said and thank you for your question i don't know if that helps thank you ladies and next philip you are next I need to change the batteries in my mouse. Thank you, Teresa. Thank you Mackenzie and Philip. I'm an alcoholic. So I just got distracted with that last answer brought up another question but I'll stick to my first question, which is something I've experienced in sobriety with keeping secrets and you're as sick as your secrets. How did, and how if you have any experience with dealing with a secret that you weren't aware that you were keeping to yourself because it was a secret even from you and how did you, if you've experienced that how did deal with that in sobrietty? you want to go or you want me to go okay so kind of like that stuff i was just saying it are you saying like you had something come up and you're like holy crap is that what happened like it was in the recesses of your mind okay so something like that happened to me and it was like paralyzing you know um and i didn't oh there you are never mind okay but it was paralyzing and it it scared me and then i already don't trust anybody you know what i mean like um for one you know this isn't aa but this is just mine is like sometimes i need outside help too so i definitely told my sponsor my sponsor didn't really know what to do with that stuff you know So a big thing for me was like I, my sobriety really kicked off when I sought outside help and I quit trying to look at AA for things that were not related to alcoholism. You know, I sat in here for a long time, reading the book over and over again, trying to dissect every word, trying to understand why is it not happening for me and why because i'm trying to treat my mental health with aa and that it's two different things you know what i'm saying not that you can't tell your sponsor or trusted advisor or friend what that thing was but to get some true help with it sometimes i gotta look outside the rooms it tells us that that's so true i had an actual experience like that philip um let me see if i could make this short uh it it scared the living daylights out of me it came over me like a thief out of an out of the night uh it um it attacked me demonic it was a demonic experience i was just sitting at the computer it actually came it came it engulfed me the obsession engulf i mean it just engulfs me and my first thought was oh my god is this what happens when people relapse that was my first thought and my partner was in the very next room and i wasn't and the phone was right there so i unable to make a phone call and go tell her uh the first thing i did was i dropped to my knees instead of getting up and walking i fell to my knee and i began praying and i asked god to please remove the obsession and i did not get off my knees until it was removed and it felt like an exorcism i'm being dramatic i don't care that's what i remember happening right that it just kind of i waited for it to lift and after that i went into a panic uh i started making announcements that the disease knew how to infiltrate it found its way in and it's on we're under attack and a is in trouble okay like i totally freaked out i didn't know what was happening and i kept asking people if they had had that experience because i felt like it attacked me and i don't know where it was coming from and i i just didn't know what that was about and it wasn't actually until larry t we were in iceland i was at a conference and i keep asking and larry said sit down little lady okay and what he said to me was i know you work one hell of a program you do inventory you work with others you are knee deep in your recovery and service but the disease is sneaky cunning baffling and powerful and it knows that you slept you sweep something under the rug okay it knows it even if you don't know it all right and then he said to me which i love old-timers do they speak in metaphors and i don't what the hell it means okay and he kept saying to me when's the last time you've been to arizona and i'm like arizonas what this got to do with anything larry can you be a little bit more specific when you've been in arizona theresa i'm like okay stop with all the metaphors and what does that mean to be in a desert you know what i'm saying so anyway what's going on in arizona and he said to me your dad when did the last time you see your dad and deal with your father now at this point daddy have parkinson's i am daddy's little girl i love my daddy but when i talk about it today i don't know how to describe the depth you know i mean of that relationship my daddy was getting sick and he was progressively getting worse but at the time i don't remember saying i'm not going to deal with this i swear to you i did not do that i thought i was dealing with it you know what i'm saying like i was like my daddy's sick is getting worse i i consciously i didn't go on i refused to accept the situation i didn t do that but my disease knew that i did cunning baffling and powerful and when he said it to me tears just started gushing out of my eyes and he said you're gonna have to accept the fact that your father is dying and you're gonna have start doing some work on that now here's the grace and here's the beauty about that because it's cunning bafling and powerful and the disease still lives and breathes and does push-ups okay and what it's he said to me even my sponsors my light is so bright that the disease can't be obvious to take me out okay and so to me the saving grace is that i've been in unity recovery and service there'll come a time where you have no mental defense this is not an intellectual program it's a spiritual program of action so because i'm in unity recovering service because i my feet are trained because i prayed when the obsession came over me because i started telling people you follow me i don't know what it was i didn't know the secret i was keeping but i know the program of action and so what happens with the program evaction more and more gets revealed and now the secret was revealed well i got a couple running out of time but that's happened to me one other time real quick uh with new york with all the years i have been sober i had never built a relationship with AA in New York. And I had never built a relation with AA Puerto Rico, I didn't consciously do that. I don't remember saying I was going to do that. It wasn't until they invited me to speak in New york. I said yes. But afterwards, I said, I'm not speaking anymore. I'm gonna cancel everything. I know want to do it. And i picked up a pen and paper because I thought that was odd. You see what I'm saying? And it was in writing. I call my sponsor and I say yo check this out i had never built a relationship with aa in new york it was almost like break open in case of emergency do you know what i'm saying everywhere i travel i call central office i tell people i'm coming in new York never my sponsor's like isn't that interesting that you'll be worried about relapsing and not getting busted by the police in New York but about somebody passing by going from aa going teresa is that you so that was a secret i didn't know about but thank god for being in this program and in this process that when that came up i was able to acknowledge it right about and it be revealed and so they busted my cherry i spoke at the atlantic group i had to tell everybody and then whatever the grace of god is great because a few months after that they called me about puerto rico and i was like oh man i didn't know what puerto rico too so now i don't think there's no way i can hide thank god for the grace of god in the program of alcoholic synonymous okay uh gary you're next hey great meeting ladies thank you very much for that my name is gary i'm an alcoholic i have a friend of mine who sent me a link to this uh to your meetings and i'm gonna try to attend every week now because i have i have not been putting in the time energy or work on the program lately so i'm trying to get back in there back in the groove my question mckenzie was you mentioned uh something about sponsor and name only what does that mean i had a sponsor by name only so i would tell everybody she was my sponsor but we didn't do shit together we did not meet up did not call her i was like mandy's my sponsor and that was it thank you uh lars thank you mars i'm an alcoholic theresa mckenzie thanks so much that was uh great and congratulations on starting this new workshop i'm gonna go right my understanding is not to do a share and do do a question i didn't hear you guys talk unless i missed it too much on that our lives have become unmanageable the tremendous amount uh theresa or i'm clearly powerless so if you just feel like talking about unmanagable like if i have my job still i don't have the dwi i'm not haven't been in jail i haven't um been arrested i haven's been do what a psych ward um i'm still married how why is my life unmanageable so i'm saying that partly and i think may be helpful to this whole room um that and do you see an interplay with insanity getting to step two a little bit jumping it but insanity and on manageability and the dash what are your thoughts on there's a dash i think it's significant in one that's a bill would be careful and with that he's got a dash that our lives become unmanageable that's what i pose to you please i'll start and then come on in you know the dash is an addition too and for me the simplicity i love the simplicity of the program so when i looked at the and a lot of people tend to we don't focus so much on the unmanagability but thank you for pointing that out what happened there's There's so much meat and potatoes in step one. You just want to cover everything, right? You guys are going to miss out on a really good share when we get done. I'll be talking about it later. I'll let you know. I'll send the addendum. But anyway, but the unmanageability for me, it was like when I defined, when I was able to connect the dots with alcoholism and what it was and that's what I was, automatically that's unmanageable because i'm not able to manage my alcoholism i believe that there was always this some people have this assumption that a manageability means my life having some kind of order and i don't know why it didn't relate it to that um i saw the progression of the powerlessness in my relationship with alcohol and that ultimately that inability to manage and control that was going to lead to unmanageability overall in all areas even if i had a career even if I have a resume even ifIi have a family because how am I managing that if I'm only driven by my alcoholism, you see? If my thoughts are only driven on how to and how not to, then that also is an illusion. I'm delusional about the manageability. I was a CEO of companies, vice president of companies and I cannot tell you what, I'm sorry the expression because I was loaded. So for me, I saw the unmanageability. i could look at the progression i could look at once i had something and then i didn't but i i came to you with a lot of stuff so i looked at unmanageability with my alcoholism i can't control that dictate it run it organize it i can put it on a spreadsheet and complete it to me that was unmanagable regardless of what i owned and what i had that to me was i didn't have to beat that dead horse you know i'm saying but and maybe because that's that was my take on that that's why there's a dash not a period in a separate sentence thanks theresa hey lars good to see you in a different meeting um i didn't have anything to lose you know what i mean i had nothing i was a child and this is this is what happened to me recently i'm on antidepressants and my pharmacy has been giving me the wrong medicine for three months. That's probably why I'm feeling weird right now, but I had no control over that. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of the same way with alcoholism is like, I just started drinking. I didn't, I started taking these antidepressants because somebody told me they were going to make me feel better. I started drinking because somebody told me it was going to made me feel good. And then at some point in time, you know, I lost control over the pharmacy. And I also lost control over, I just had no control period over alcoholism and what it did to me, how it affected me. I didn't have, and I think that's the unmanageable piece for me is when they sat me in a room and they asked me a question, I spit out an answer. They asked me this exact same question. I spit on a completely different answer and I didn t even know I was lying. I didn't know I said two different things. I didn't no that I couldn't, I didn t know I couldn t stop drinking because I really believed I would just quit when I want to. I am not hurting anybody but myself. Meanwhile, like everybody around me is dying and can t sleep and scared that I m gonna end up in a body bag. That seems pretty unmanageable, you know? Like even I ve talked to so many different people and like that girl I was saying she only drink for a year everybody's unmanageability is different so my unmanagability might be i woke up in a ditch and i'm going to prison yours might be my mother looked at me and cried you know like i don't know what that is for you know what i'm saying like it's it's for the individual to determine for themselves and so mine that's why we say it doesn't matter what it looks like it was the commonalities like we got one common problem one common solution and the elements that bind us is the problem is when i put it into my body i have an abnormal reaction i can't control it i do wild and absurd things and some people's wild and observed things is they stop calling their family they don't have a relationship they're they they isolate themselves that's wild and observe compared to what they normally would be my wild and absorb might be i want to go rob somebody but yeah it's up to the individual i think and to stop the comparison game is one big thing in aa is like it's not a big dick contest like who who drank the most and who's so cool and like no that doesn't matter you know that's that didn't say anything about that in the book does it i don't think all right well this will be our last question uh roxanne please come on up okay well hi everybody this is a little bit intimidating because there's like 200 people in here and i am kind of really new to this um i know one person od hi it's so nice to finally see you person face-to-face um I got a sponsor today so that's big steps I am like I just joined a six-week program and I'm on week four so I need to like make some serious plans to when my program's over because it's like an intensive outpatient so like they're gonna pull the rug out from under us sorry this isn't on topic I'm just kind of introducing myself but that's okay um so yeah I got a sponsor Drew Odie her name you hooked me up with her we hit it off so now I have a sponsor I'm looking for a home group still so if anybody has maybe any suggestions it doesn't have to be anywhere like a specific place I can join anywhere because zoom right um yeah i kind of missed half of the talk but um the unmanageability part i will say for me it turned into work being unmanable i could still manage like my child and like that my home life and stuff but do you have a question roxanne no sorry i was just yeah we're just taking questions at this time it was just about the manageability nope sorry that's all it's okay honey it's Thank you.