Redemption Means Exchange — That Was the One Word That Finally Cracked Step 3 Open – Noelle W.

This other road is my middle name.
Let's have an AA meeting.
My name is Amy and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blues children's speaker meeting at Nava Club,
where a member of Alcoholics and Honest with one year or more of sobriety will tell his or her story.
I've asked Lisa to come up.
My name is Lisa and I'm an alcoholic.
This reading is based upon a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language
and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God.
These give a fair cross-section of our membership and clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women,
in our room tonight and listening later on aabloochipspeakers.org,
desperately in need, will hear our speaker and will believe that
it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems
that any of us shall be persuaded to say,
yes, I am one of them too.
I must have this thing.
Noelle is my sponsee and she's my dear friend.
It took a lot for her to decide to get up here tonight
to tell her story.
And I'm here to support you 100% in all things that you do.
I love you.
Here's Noelle.
Noelle, I'm an alcoholic.
I'm not nearly as brave as I come across.
I'm actually pretty scared.
I'm not ready to do this, but I'm willing to go any length.
So, just a couple of quick housekeeping things.
I twisted my ankle Friday night.
I just wasn't paying attention, stepped off a curb,
and it really literally went under me.
So, I'm going to stand up here as long as I can.
I really want to stand and tell it and just get it done.
And I'm also kneeling in a chair,
so if I, you know, go back and forth, it's just, you're not,
your equilibrium isn't off, it's me.
Let's see.
My name is Noelle, but I was not born on Christmas.
I was born in November.
I know that disappoints a lot of people.
I'm sorry I stayed in there as long as I could.
I am a native of Atlanta.
Any other Grady babies in the house?
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I always thought, you know,
I thought for me, I think back then at least, way back then,
the maternity ward at Grady was on the 8th floor,
and I always thought it just made more sense
if I had been born on the 13th floor,
which I think is the psych ward, because I was headed there
from the very beginning.
So, the big book says our stories disclose in a general way what we used
to be like, what happened, and what we're like now.
This is my first time telling my story ever, so I anticipate running out of time,
and if I do, I'd rather focus on what happened and what it's like now,
because I think what I do, sun up to sun down to stay sober,
is infinitely more important than how I got here.
It matters.
I'll tell enough to qualify myself, but it's what I'm doing today to stay sober
that I think matters most to me.
So, I grew up.
And, you know, I really think this is God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.
Like, sprained my ankle Friday night, so I couldn't obsess over the story,
because I was in too much pain.
Now I'm obsessing over the story, so I don't feel the pain in my ankle.
I, right?
Is that possible?
I think so.
Yeah. So, my sobriety date is May 22nd, 2010, so if I don't drink tonight,
tomorrow I'll have exactly five years and seven months of sobriety,
which is a lot.
Thank you.
Every day I don't pick up a drink and don't want to pick up a drink is a miracle,
especially for the alcoholic of my type.
My home group, I'm a strong believer in a home group.
My home group meets here seven days a week at 545, it's a how it works group.
My home away from home group is the early morning study group, and I love to hang
out with them on Saturday mornings, and with my buddies in the breakfast club.
The Thursday night Wednesday night, I'm going to have breakfast with my friends,
and I'm going to have lunch with my friends.
This is a women's meeting, well represented here tonight.
Thank you ladies so much for coming out tonight.
That means everything to me.
It does.
I have a sponsor, Lisa P. is my sponsor, and I'll say that I have a sponsor
who has a sponsor who has a sponsor, and I sponsor women who sponsor women.
And my sponsor is very fond of pointing out to me that the anniversary of AA,
the day we celebrate June 10th, 1935, is the day Dr. Bob got sober.
Not the day Bill W. got sober.
That from its inception, Alcoholics Anonymous is based on one alcoholic carrying the message to another.
And that that's what her recovery is based on, and I've modeled my recovery after hers.
And I'd also just like to say, I know my sponsor is not my higher power.
I get that.
But I also think it's impossible to overstate the role my sponsor played in my life.
Because you guys see me for a few hours a day, sometimes longer on Saturdays,
and it's easy to look like I'm willing between 545 and 645.
But there's a lot of work that goes into that willingness,
and I can't imagine what my recovery would be like without Lisa.
You know, there's a line in the big book that talks about fear
and how it's an evil and corroding thread and the fabric of our lives is shot through with it.
I think what my sponsor has helped me to do is acquire a faith that's a healing and connective thread
and the fabric of my recovery is shot through with that.
So I just wanted to thank my sponsor for loving and supporting me all the way to this point.
Having some of the best sponsors in the world, they save my ass regularly.
They say I help them.
I hope I do, but they save me.
I believe with every fiber of my being that recovery is a mirror.
That God provides an opportunity for me to see myself as I really am.
That is what I want.
I want to see, but as I really am.
Myself and others and God, you know, the God of my understanding.
And the thing I love about both, sponsors and sponsees, is that they hold the mirror steady.
I don't get to shift it when I don't like what I see.
I can turn around and walk away, but they're not going to shift the mirror to please me,
and I need that and I honor that.
So I grew up here.
I have one sibling.
I have an older brother.
He's two years older than me.
I've shared a ton about him.
I love my brother.
We're not...
I love my brother.
I'll just leave it at that.
I don't need to do that anymore.
Had I told my story two years ago, I would have given you a litany of reasons how he's disappointed me.
But you know what?
It's not about him today.
It's about me.
He's cleaning my side of the street.
You know, I can accept him as he is or leave him alone,
but walking around resenting him for being who he is is a waste of energy
and doesn't honor myself or my higher power.
So he is my brother.
He's married.
They have two children who are my babies.
Um, my nephew is 15.
My niece is 11.
And I am rabid protective of them.
Um, my attachment to them is unhealthy and irrational and I own it.
And I'm not going to Al-Anon, so don't tell me afterwards.
I ain't going.
I'm crazy about my babies.
I am.
Um, um, I was raised by, um, my mom and my, my stepfather.
Um, he was a very...
My mom was a very young...
young bride.
She was, um, 18 when I was born and 16 when my brother was born.
And our biological father abandoned her while she was pregnant with me.
So she connected with the guy who could pay the bills immediately.
And, again, it's just one of those situations where they did the best they could at the time.
Things weren't perfect, but they did the best they could at the time.
And today I can just stay on my side of the street.
And that's nothing short of a miracle.
And everything I say that's good in my life,
is a direct result of working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Um, so he was a, a very angry alcoholic.
We were extremely poor.
Um, grew up maybe the first seven or eight years of my life in the Pittsburgh community.
McDaniel Street, Garibaldi, Windsor, those streets, the hood.
And then, um, we upgraded and moved to Thomasville Heights, which is a different hood.
But for us, it was an improvement.
You know, there were still, you know, rats and roaches, but they were different rats and roaches.
Better manners, better fed.
Just, you know, it was what it was.
And, you know, that's the thing about growing up in poverty.
We didn't sit around all day thinking about, boy, how bad we had it.
We made, we did the best we could with what we had.
Um, I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandmother's house.
I don't know my biological father.
I don't know any of his people.
Um, but I spent a lot of time at my biological, at my maternal,
at my grandmother's house, and she sold liquor.
So, I don't ever remember not knowing what liquor smelled like, you know.
And I had to, I had to work.
I had to sell 50 cent shots, dollar shots.
I remember thinking, I thought, the whole world smelled like whiskey and mothballs.
Because it was awesome to be an old guy buying a whiskey or whatever.
But that was all I knew.
Um, that probably wasn't the safest environment for a little girl, but it was what it was.
Um.
I, um, I tasted alcohol over the years.
I didn't really even drink in high school.
I just, just didn't do that.
I just didn't get around to it yet.
I had my first, uh, drunk.
It was after graduating high school.
Our senior trip was a cruise to the Bahamas, I think.
And I remember being excited about it.
It just sort of told me something.
I remember being excited about it because someone, um,
let us know that there are no, um, there was no drinking age in international waters.
And I remember being excited about that before I even had a drink.
So, I should have said something about my penchant for alcohol.
But I got totally hammered.
Um, I got drunk off of slow gin fizz.
Yeah.
Haven't had one since, but, yeah, I, I, I got drunk, I threw up, I blacked out.
I woke up in a room that was not my home.
I woke up in a room that was not my home. I woke up in a room that was not my home.
I woke up in a room that was not my home. I woke up in a room that was not my home.
Um.
Um
I got in a crap ton of trouble.
But, um, I thought I found the answer because I remember,
I don't remember a lot about that weekend,
or however long ago, I don't even know how long we were gone.
But I remember a guy that I had a crush on telling me he thought I was cute and funny.
And I found the answer.
I connected that with the drinking,
so I know how long I'm going to be cute and funny for the rest of my life.
That's how I'm going to make that work.
So I enjoyed drinking a lot for a long time.
I wouldn't have kept doing it if it didn't work, and it did.
It was my solution.
I felt awkward and inferior and insecure, and all that went away when I drank.
I was funny and I was cute.
And alcohol worked for a long time until it stopped.
And by the time I got into AA, my life had gotten very, very small.
I could manage to get to work and back home, and that was about it.
I cut off my friends, or they cut me off.
I wasn't available to participate in relationships.
I was either with them and misbehaving, or I was not showing up,
calling out the last minute, bailing, not participating.
So I was very much alone.
I heard another guy say, just me and a bottle and a light bulb.
That's pretty much all my life had become.
And so getting sober that May 2010,
I had taken a week's vacation.
I was on vacation from work, and I had decided to kill myself.
I just couldn't see a way out.
I couldn't see a way out.
But because the God of my understanding loves me so much,
my God will use my insanity to save my life.
So I had gotten this great idea, or I had become convinced that
if I killed myself, I couldn't get into heaven unless I could prove
I had tried everything on earth to stop drinking.
I couldn't.
I genuinely believed this.
So I had tried church for a really long time, very active, very fundamentalist,
very hardcore, proselytizing, all of the above, and I couldn't stop drinking.
I tried therapy.
I'd been in and out of therapy for 20 years, and that wasn't work.
But I couldn't prove to God that I had tried AA.
So I figured if I can come to AA, get a white chip, check the box,
I can kill myself for gravy.
I'm in heaven, right?
So I stayed off work that week because I knew I was not going to go back to work
the way I left that Friday.
I stopped.
I had a routine of stocking up on all my provisions.
I would get enough fast food, junk food, frozen food to eat for a week,
enough bottles of alcohol and whatever I needed to mix it with.
I think by then I wasn't even bothering to mix anymore.
And I holed up for a week, and I literally drank around the clock.
And when I came to,
that Friday at the end of my week of vacation from work,
a window in time opened up,
just this tiny little sliver of a window in time between life and death and God and me,
and I had a second of clarity.
And I called the central office.
Go figure.
You know, it's almost impossible to get from there to here,
but I called central office, and they told me where a couple of meetings were,
and that Saturday morning, with my head throbbing,
I went to a meeting at Clarkson that morning,
and I came to a meeting here at NABBA that night,
to the 545 meeting,
and I don't know what was said during that meeting,
and I heard a guy share what he told his story,
that, you know, it was less about what happened the first meeting,
but that the fact that he came back to the second meeting.
I came back to a second meeting.
I picked up a white chip.
The guy who gave it to me told me,
asked me if I thought I could stay sober,
for 24 hours,
and come back the next day.
And I was like, of course I could.
I didn't think I could.
But I said that to him.
I took the white chip.
I went home.
Probably stayed up the whole night,
because I was afraid I would drink if I didn't,
and then came back the next day,
and I've been doing that literally every day ever since.
Not drinking, and coming back the next day.
He didn't give me any extra instructions.
He didn't chase me down the street with a meeting schedule.
He didn't do any of that stuff,
and I'm so grateful,
because I think if he had,
asked anything more of me than just don't drink and come back,
I would have ran.
I was looking for an excuse.
But I didn't drink, and I came back,
and I've been here ever since.
And that's just,
this program is so amazing.
It saved my life and changed my life.
So I get here.
I hear I'm supposed to go to 90 meetings in 90 days.
I think you people are insane.
First of all, I can't count that high.
You know how that new recovery brain fog?
I didn't know how many meetings I had attended
from one day to the next.
I didn't know how many meetings I had attended from one day to the next.
So I literally bought a calendar,
and I bought some of those little colored sticky dots
like you give children to reward them
for a chore or a task.
And I would give myself a smiley face
if I went to a meeting that day.
Because I was counting down to 90.
After 90, I was out of here.
So I didn't want to, heaven forbid, I go to 91.
So I started marking on my calendar
my 90 meetings.
And this story is really important.
It's really important to my recovery,
so I'm going to work it in here,
and I'm going to be as anonymous as I can be.
But because I got sober like the week before Memorial Day,
I thought I was doing okay
until someone in a women's meeting shared that
remember we don't drink over the weekend or holidays
or something like that.
And I lost my mind.
Because I just assumed we took holidays off.
I didn't know any better.
So I've been kind of biding my time.
I've got a three-day weekend coming up.
I don't have to work.
Because that's what I'd always done.
And when they said that we don't drink over weekends and holidays,
I lost it.
And that meeting right there, I cried my eyes out.
I was so scared.
I can't stay sober three days in a world
without work to distract me.
Are you kidding?
I shared that out loud,
not because I thought it would help,
just because I was desperate.
And a woman in that meeting who I had just met
didn't know me from a can of pain
had gotten my number.
And on Memorial Day, she called me.
And she said,
Hey, I'm from the women's meeting.
I know you were scared about staying sober this long weekend,
but I just want you to know that you can do it.
If you want to, I'll meet you at a movie.
We can go to a movie together.
Or if they're having,
I think they're having food at the clubhouse.
You want to come up there, I'll meet you.
But, you know, you don't have to drink this weekend.
I was too afraid to return her call,
but I wore that message out.
I played it over and over.
She saved my ass that weekend.
So those little things like making a phone call,
she got between me and that drink that day.
She got between me and that drink and she saved my life.
And I love her to this day.
So fast forward a little bit.
I'm still not drinking.
I'm still just coming to meetings.
But I'm making friends, something I had lost.
So I'm thrilled to be hanging out with friends.
I had girlfriends who would go out to eat
and go out to movies
and just hang out after meetings and talk.
And I loved it.
And then one of my friends
introduced me to her sponsor.
And her sponsor, God bless her,
she said,
She said,
She said,
She says,
Oh, look, you're getting really comfortable
with the fellowship around here.
And I was like, yeah, I'm enjoying it.
She said, well, you know, just so you know,
the fellowship alone will keep you sober.
Who is she talking to?
But she was absolutely right.
I had to do some work.
And eventually the fellowship was not enough anymore.
It was fun for a while.
I floated on it.
You guys carried me.
I loved it and I'm grateful.
But after a while, I got that I needed something more.
I was like,
I was either going to drink again
or I was going to start doing some work.
And I did.
And I call her my awesome blossom.
She's still my sponsor to this day.
And she helped me go through the steps.
And, you know, the first few steps were fairly easy.
I knew I was powerless.
I knew my life was unmanageable.
Not for the reasons I thought, though.
I thought my life was unmanageable because I drank.
If you guys could teach me how to drink in moderation,
I can go back out there and manage just fine.
But she helped me get past that.
And my life is,
as unmanageable by me today as it was then,
but today I'm okay with it.
And then I wasn't.
Step two,
I thought I did some crazy things,
but I wasn't comfortable with the label insane.
You know, being restored to sanity,
that implied that I was insane.
I wasn't quite ready to go that far yet.
You know, she was really dogmatic,
really hardcore.
So we kind of,
I did a lot of writing in early recovery,
a lot, a lot of writing.
So she,
she helped me to go back over a couple of the examples
of some of the outrageous things I did
to make the point that, you know,
a normal person would have stopped.
Very experienced.
I'm on a date with this guy at the,
I think there was a Ritz Carlton and Buckhead at the time,
and they had like a nice restaurant or whatever,
the one right there on Peachtree.
So I'm out with this guy and he's complaining about,
dude thought he could take me out in public
and break up with me and I wouldn't make a scene.
I was a crazy ex-girlfriend before Miranda Lambert was born.
I'm out there.
So he tries to break up with me gently.
I make quite the scene.
I can't remember how much wine I threw at him,
a glass, a bottle, doesn't matter.
It all just kind of runs together.
And I remember the maitre d' inviting us to leave.
He, of course, at that point,
he would not give me a ride home.
So,
um,
on Peachtree,
walking toward the train station with my heels in my hand,
talking out loud to no one because he's long gone about how he just needs to
learn to man up and keep up.
It's not my fault if he's weak,
right?
Other woman drinks like that.
I'm a real woman.
I can drink like that.
I work hard.
I party hard,
right?
Most,
a normal woman,
a non-alcoholic might have stopped by then.
I didn't see that.
Another example was,
um,
I was hanging out with some friends.
We, I partied a lot downtown because that was just kind of the thing to do.
Partying downtown,
uh,
splashing in the fountain,
you know,
like I'm Roman holiday or some stuff like that,
right?
Three coins in a fountain.
One of those old movies I love.
Um,
Atlanta's fine.
Isn't Atlanta Police Department?
Uh,
just wanted me to know that he didn't appreciate me doing that.
And he invited me to leave and encouraged me to leave.
And of course I called him a pig and a bunch of other things.
And I couldn't understand why he was so upset until he pointed out to me that the fountain was empty.
It,
um,
they drain it after the summer.
So I was splashing in nothing.
And he frowned on that.
Can you believe this?
Some people are so obdurate.
So there was that and,
you know,
little,
little things like that.
And then,
um,
there was the,
a nightclub here in Southeast Atlanta.
I know you guys probably haven't heard of it.
It's Mr.
V's figure eight club.
Yeah.
Um,
they wanted to cut me off at like 2 a.m.
But my girlfriend was dating the manager.
Hello.
That means I get unlimited booze.
I don't care about your liver license.
He wanted to cut me off.
So I showed out.
So I was physically invited to leave that club as well.
But that just shows how blind I was to my,
to my illness that other people could see.
I needed to stop long,
long before I could.
And there's a part of the big book that talks about how most of us could have stopped.
Well,
but while there was yet time,
we didn't have a desire to stop.
That was me.
If,
if either of the,
you know,
first 100 had appeared to me in those moments and said,
Hey,
you might have a problem,
but if you stop now,
you can stay a cucumber.
I didn't think it was that bad.
I was headed for pickled them and nothing could stop me.
That sounded better in my head.
But I kept coming back here,
kept working with the sponsor,
working the steps,
steps four and five were particularly difficult for me.
Step three backing up a little bit.
Step three was hard for me because that religion thing I told you guys,
I had tried before to try to stop drinking.
It didn't work for me.
And I was so angry.
I did a lot of drinking at God because I thought God failed me.
You know,
I'm begging God to take away this desire for alcohol without me,
putting down the alcohol,
but take away the desire.
And I was furious.
And when I came here and saw that,
you know,
make a decision to turn my will and life over to the cure of God,
as I understand him,
the God that I understood wasn't going to help me.
So I was at,
I was at a roadblock and my sponsor again came to the rescue because she,
you know,
after going back and forth about this for some months,
she told me she'd be happy to help me work the program of alcoholics anonymous,
but she didn't know how to work the Noel program and she wasn't interested in
learning.
So I either had to get right or get left.
Did I not?
So yeah,
I did.
And you know,
a really dear friend in the program told me that,
you know,
he'd heard it's amazing that one or two sentences at the right time from the
right person can save a life.
A friend told me that,
you know,
he could see that I was struggling with step three,
but he'd heard some people say that they found redemption when they worked the
steps and that word come in with that religious background.
That,
I had redemption.
That's what I needed to hear because redemption means exchange and changing
something that,
you know,
isn't valuable for something that is valuable.
And if I could do that as messed up as I was feeling the way I did about God,
but there was another way that was exactly what I needed to hear it and move
forward with step three.
And then someone else told me step three also just means doing the rest of the
steps.
But I heard what I heard,
what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.
I'm working the fourth.
The fifth step was difficult.
Because I came in with a lot of pain and a lot of resentment,
a lot of anger,
especially at my family.
Um,
when I was little,
things were really difficult at home because my stepfather was a violent alcoholic
and it's just not a life safe places.
If home isn't safe,
there aren't a lot of places to feel safe.
And,
um,
just,
you know,
having to ride out the storm,
never knowing what was going to happen.
And one of the big things,
at least I,
the opinions shared here on my own,
and don't necessarily reflect those of Alcoholics Anonymous,
my sponsor or any demographic I represent.
This is just me,
but I was taught to believe that you don't put your business in the street.
So when bad things happen,
no matter how bad it is,
when you walk out that front door,
nobody better be able to tell.
So that was exhausting to have to get up and pretend that everything was okay
when you didn't sleep the night before and somebody pointed a gun at you the night
before,
and you didn't eat the night before,
slept in the car or slept in a hotel because you had to run for your life.
But to go to school and pretend that everything's okay takes a lot.
I,
I think I could have used a drink in pre-K.
It was just,
life was hard,
but you know,
it was what it was.
And one of the harder things for me to come to terms with was,
um,
when I was about,
that's I can tell maybe about six years old,
I went missing for a day.
And,
I have some ideas about what happened to me during that absence.
A lot of strong evidence to support that,
but the adults in my life told me that either A,
nothing happened or B,
if it did,
it wasn't that bad and I need to get over it.
So I don't,
today I don't say that for sympathy.
I did when I got here,
I wanted a lot of sympathy,
but today I don't say that,
but just to explain where I was and the miracle of AA.
Um,
so that taught me some things that event taught me some things that taught me
that,
you know,
my body is not my own.
I don't have a say over what happens to me.
And clearly I can't tell reality because if all the people I love and trust are
telling me this didn't happen,
it must be me.
It must be me.
So that made me very,
um,
gullible and promiscuous.
And,
um,
just said in motion a series of events that my life might've been differently,
but I don't know that.
But I do know that when I got here and started working with my sponsor,
she helped me get to a point where I could be okay if my questions never got answered.
If nobody ever said,
I believe you,
I got to a place where I'm at peace with that.
And it started with forgiveness.
And I didn't think that was possible.
If you've hated somebody for 40 years,
it's hard to start forgiving.
But it set me free and that's why I did that and do it for them.
I did it for me and I can say today,
you know,
maybe they did the best they could.
It doesn't really matter because I get to be free today anyway,
regardless of what happened.
Um,
step six and seven because I come in as a professional lifelong victim were harder.
I didn't want to believe I had any defects.
My sponsor had other ideas,
but she also helped me to see that,
you know,
to imagine what my life would be like without those defects of character.
If I didn't have to lie,
cheat and steal to get by,
if I didn't have to play a victim or be helpless or depend on a guy who really didn't want me,
but okay,
if I could live a life without that,
what would my life be like?
She helped me to imagine something better.
Um,
eighth and ninth step making amends.
That was hard too.
I mean,
I'm the victim and now I have to go and apologize for what I did.
Well,
I only did what I did because they did what they did.
It doesn't work like that.
I get to clean my side of the street again for me and it was,
it was powerful for me for a couple of reasons.
My family,
you know,
it was awkward.
I apologize for my part being a drunk,
not participating,
taking their money,
whatever else I did,
but it was more like,
Oh,
don't worry about it.
We don't have to talk about that.
Don't worry about that.
That's in the past.
We're just going to move on from here and I get that,
but my lessons came from two other friends.
One friend who I,
to this day,
he won't tell me what I said to him,
but in the blackout,
I said some very verbally abusive things to a dear friend and he forgave me,
but he made sure I knew how much he hurt me.
I heard him.
That was helpful.
The second one was a friend who did not forgive me,
did not accept my amends.
I borrowed money from her and didn't repay it into the day.
She will have nothing to do with me.
And that taught me that my actions have consequences.
It makes me think twice about my behavior.
I needed that.
I need all the forgiveness.
And I got,
and I also needed to know that not everybody will forgive me.
That was powerful in itself.
Um,
working the other steps,
you know,
taking the inventory of my defects.
I'm better at doing that during the day than I am late at night.
Cause you know,
I just,
I go to sleep at eight 30.
I'm old,
but throughout the day,
I liked it.
I can pause when agitated,
my buddies in the breakfast club.
Um,
I liked it.
I don't have to act on everything I feel and give it to every impulse.
I feel today.
I liked that.
I can do that.
And maybe I'll come in here,
stark,
raving,
crazy.
And I have some days I've held it in until I've gotten to here on a Monday or Thursday and just vomited over everybody.
But I didn't have to go back and make an amends.
And that's how AA saves me.
Um,
you know,
the continuing to,
um,
thought through per meditation to improve my conscious contact with God.
It's amazing for me because the God of my understanding,
understanding is just that my God,
I don't have to explain or define or justify or make apologies for my God.
And it's the most beautiful,
intimate,
healthy relationship I've ever had with,
with anyone.
And it's what keeps me sober today because I do,
I have read in the big book where it says that,
you know,
at certain times,
you know,
their alcoholic has no effective mental defense against the first drink that it has to come from a higher power.
I want to be on intimate terms with a higher power.
That's going to get between.
Me and that drink.
And that's why I do that.
I love the guy that can keep me sober every day.
It's step 12 is my favorite because it gives me an opportunity to carry the message.
Few things delight me as much as working with another alcoholic being of service around here.
Some days I'm here.
Holy cow.
We have a coffee house.
I may come to the seven 30 early morning study group and not leave till after the coffee house.
I love nabba nabba saved my life.
I'm a member of this club.
I love this club.
That's just what works for me.
The thing about AA is,
that you can get in where you fit in whatever service you want to do.
You can do as much or as little.
There's a place for everybody.
So okay.
Am I finished yet?
Um,
I'll,
I'll close with just a couple of the things that I heard that have stuck with me.
Uh,
the first is,
uh,
we don't pick up a drink no matter what.
And I say that's because I needed to hear that when I first got here,
no matter what.
No,
I thought that was an exaggeration.
Well,
hyperbole until I heard some of those,
no matter what.
And anything I think that could take me back out on a drink.
I've heard somebody share in a meeting that it happened to them and they didn't drink over it.
So that takes that excuse for me off the table.
I need to go find him or her if that happens to me and ask them,
how did you get through it without drinking?
Um,
I also heard things like just keep coming back.
It sounds simple,
but there aren't a lot of places that were welcoming me by the time I got to AA.
And when we say keep coming back,
we mean,
even if you drink,
keep coming back.
The program will work once you're in this environment is this collective goodwill the rooms work.
So just keep coming back.
It's better if we don't drink,
I think in between meetings,
but even if you drink in between meetings,
come back,
um,
keep the main thing,
the main thing,
not letting other priorities crowd out.
What's most important was most important.
Yeah,
I need to work the 12 steps.
I need to practice these principles and all my affairs,
but at the end of the day,
none of that will matter if I pick up a drink.
So let's just keep the main thing,
the main thing and keep it simple.
Don't drink,
go to meetings.
So I feel like I'm babbling now,
so I'm just going to stop.
So thank you all.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you,
Noel.
You did great.
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You lift me up and give me a place to land
Your love's sunlight on my skin
Clapping reeds, ovation moon
You are the song that makes me want to sing
You're a ray of light
In my darkest nights
I can feel your light
So let it shine
Think of the pieces
You made me feel
You're the song that makes me want to sing
You make it seem so easy
Put me back together
I'm light as a feather again
You're a shepherd
I'm a stranger
You're the star
That lights my way
And I will follow
Where it is you lead
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
I'm light as a feather
On this street
But you're on this deck
So you must decrease
You hold on like a child
You're a ray of light
You're a ray of light
In my darkest nights
You're a ray of light
I'm so tired
Of chasing shadows
You're a ray of light
In my darkest nights
I can feel your light
Your light
So let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
I'm a plane and you're the sky.
Thanks for watching!