Staying Sober on Fear and Fellowship – Kimberly A.

My name is Kimberly Ann Package. I'm a recovered alcoholic and I'm grateful to be alive, I'm grateful to Be Sober, I am grateful to here with you wonderful people today and I am extremely nervous and I thought I just lost the person that I traveled here with so I was having a little bit of a fit in the parking lot so if you were witness to that I apologize in advance for if I've offended you in any way and it was great to see Tom here and I've had the beautiful experience of hearing Tom speak in a lot of different places over the years in my sobriety and I like somebody who's very practical, I appreciate practicality, you know what I mean and I have a great honor in front of me, I have a great obligation in front of me and so I was just praying and asking God to kind of use me as a hollow bone you know I've come a little bit of a ways to come here today and that is not a testament to my greatness that's a testament of my God and you never know where he's going to bring you and I have seen some places in my active alcoholism that alcoholism has taken me to and I really feel like I'm in a far better place now being guided by the father of light who presides over us all and I'm a big book woman I gotta tell you that and it wasn't always like that it wasn'T always like that and I spent the first five years in Alcoholics Anonymous white knuckling it and staying sober on fear and fellowship and that was not because I had you know anything to do with that I think where my higher power brought me I was taught what I needed to be taught in order to be in AA and you know prepared for what was to come, and when I had five years sober I met a wonderful woman by the name of Claire Keller, and she guided me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I do the best I can to continue to make direct amends wherever possible, not whenever possible, wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or other people and I live in 10, 11, and 12 on a daily basis, to the best of my ability and on some days, to the best of my willingness which can be different moment to moment I know that I'm standing here before you today through the grace of almighty God because I wasn't smart enough to know that alcohol was a problem for me I say that very loosely because I really believe that I used alcohol as a solution and I didn't know anything about the disease and I Didn't Know Anything About Detox or Rehabs or Halfway Houses treatment centers, nothing like that that's not my story, that's not my experience. I got sober January 23rd 1994 and I got sober in a little one-story building called the South Philadelphia Group of Alcoholics Anonymous and I shook and I rattled and I rolled for probably about the first 30 days in ignorance because I did not know that you could die from alcohol and delirium tremens and so like I, you know, I itched my skin and my head and my nerves were writhing and a wonderful woman by the name of Marge said to me can I take you to a detox honey and I said I have 28 days you know what I mean she was like ok ok alright you want me to give you half a cup of coffee you know What I mean because I was just shaking so bad that I would spill it all over and I would call my then sponsor about 12 1 o'clock in the morning and I'd say I can't sleep and she'd say you had 21 cups of coffee at the meeting like no wonder you know and so my road was pretty long before I was introduced to the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous, the program before then I was kind of like a woman who shows up at Weight Watchers and when they ask to introduce yourself you know I said I'm Kim and I'm back here doing Jenny Craig and they're like well what do you mean this is Weight Watcher's yeah I know but I like this better I'm going to do Jenny Craig back here and that's how I was living in Alcoholics Anonymous I was living in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous staying sober on fear and fellowship and did not know that there was a practical program of action that was going to help me to recover from this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body because see I no longer live in hopelessness I no long live in despair I am free free in every sense of the word on the inside. That doesn't mean that life doesn't happen around me and I learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous from a wonderful man I had a lot of great teachers in my life and he sits in my home group and he says everybody gets hit with the raindrops and we'll all go through some storms in life but basically if you trust God, clean house and help others you'll see the sunshine again and so that's how I live so when things are happening in my life I do the best that I can on any given day to trust God, talk about it immediately with another human being make amends quickly if I find anybody and then get busy resolutely looking for somebody I can help and be of service to and it doesn't only happen in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous but primarily I work with a lot of women that are working their way through the first 164 pages of the big book How It Works asks me to tell you what I was like what happened and what I'm like now because it says something in chapter 5 our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like not what I did not what i had or didn't have but what we use to be like what happened and what we are like now and i can tell you the cliff notes is you know i was sick and suffering god entered my heart and lives in a way that's indeed miraculous and now i'm not living over there anymore i'm living over here but because i had about an hour i'll try to elaborate so Let me let you know what I was like as a little girl. I was probably about four, five, six years old and I was full of fear and I had no self-esteem, none whatsoever. I didn't have low self-esteem. A lot of guys come to Alcoholics Anonymous, they have low self- esteem. Most women come to AlcoholicsAnonymous,they have no self esteem That's just my experience. I don't know what's happening in Vermont, but in Philly it's like that. So I had no self-esteem and I just did not know why I felt like that, I share this in every one of my stories mostly I'm no stranger to God, I've known God since I was a little girl, always talked to him always prayed to him, always asked him for help, I just was so noisy on the inside that I couldn't hear him. I couldn' t get his guidance. I couldn''t get that good orderly direction that I needed in my life. And so I was really very afraid and I did those maladaptive things that they talk about. You know, the doctor's opinion says that we are maladjusted to life in full flight from reality and outright mental defectives and I was maladjusting so I did these maladaptative things and usually it went kind of like me dishonoring you from the moment I met you Because I was so afraid that you wouldn't like me That I had to figure out a way in a split second For you to like me Because then my worth was evident to me So I would say to you Hi, how are you doing? My name is Kim Love that necklace Like just some kind of little manipulative thing That I would throw out there And then you would smile and you would feel really good And you'd say hey she's a great girl I like her And that's it, I win I get that little sense of self externally that lets me move to the next experience and the next person. So I am, by my own breeding, a people pleaser. Not anymore, but that's what I was then. And now I offend people. I try not to. I try not to, but you know they have a thing that they say in AA. They say the truth will set you free but it will more than likely piss you off first. So I'm pissing a lot of people off in Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis, unintentionally, but I would rather, I would rather piss them off than stand at their funeral. You know, and that's okay. That's okay today. I learned a long time ago from a woman by the name of June B that I had to decide if I was going to live right or I was gonna live popular. She said you cannot save your ass and your face at the same time. You will need to choose. And so, I can't tell you what part of the anatomy I'm choosing today. So I may offend some people and if I do I'm cleaning it up right now. I'm apologizing in advance for anything I might say that would hurt you. So I lied to you. No, I love a necklace. But I lied to you from the first moment that I met you. I lied to you because I wanted you to like me because I ran on four fears. I ran on fear of what other people think about me fear that you would definitely find out what I thought about myself fear that I would not get what I wanted and fear that I would lose something that I had and that's how I operated in my life I was a hundred forms of fear self-delusion, self-pity self-seeking and all the other selves that fall under that dictionary and so I just was consumed and it really didn't have anything to do with I thought that the world revolved around me in an egotistical kind of sense, in a big shot kind of tense I was so afraid of you in the world that I was consumed with staying alive and surviving and so i just had to do whatever it took to have that happen and if I had to lie to you and I had to dishonor you and I Had to tell you that I Wanted you to go first in the game And I wanted you to pick the game And I Wanted You to have dinner at my mom's house with me And I Wanted to have a sleepover party And I Loved what you were wearing And you're really smart All these things that I had To do That's what I had TO do That's What Kept Me Alive That'sWhat Kept You Connected To Me And I Didn't Feel So Alone And Despair And I Would Talk To God As Little As I Could Remember and I would say, God, I know you don't want me to feel like this. I know You don't want me To be like this I knowYou don't Want this to be my experience Please help me That prayer would not be answered until January of 1994 which was probably about I don't know I'm not good at math so I want to tell you I was 6 and I was 23 when I got sober whoever is great at math, figure it out shout it out in a little bit and we'll all be satisfied with that so anyway, I was six years old and I was terrified I was seven and I was eight and going to school was horrible you know I would go to Catholic school and my parents were both alcoholics I can call my father an alcoholic because he calls himself an alcoholic and he is in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and has been he just celebrated 19 years this month and so he has a little bit more time than I do and so I'll call him that because he calls himself a real alcoholic my mother calls herself an alcoholic. She is not sober through Alcoholics Anonymous and that's all I'll say about that. So I have this crazy household that I'm growing up in and there's really nowhere to go, I don't think with this stuff that was going on inside of me. And the truth of the matter is I don' t blame my parents. I love my parents I don''t blame them. I don ''t think I would have went to them anyway because these were secrets that I was going to take to the grave. I was never going to let you know how I felt about myself. I was now going to tell you what was going on in this mind that did not stop spinning and I was never going to let you know how I felt about myself in the deepest recesses of my soul, I prayed to God that nobody ever shed light on that, nobody ever saw that about me and so I just kind of eat through life and I would go to school and I'd count the heads they'd be going around the room reading and I'D be like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and I WOULD PRACTICE AND REHEARSE MY PARAGRAPH SO THAT WHEN IT GOT TO ME I would read it perfectly and nobody would make fun of me and everything would just be okay and you would think, hey she's really smart and I could just read easy and so I went through school like that not learning anything how do you learn anything when you're so consumed with what other people think about you that you're counting ahead and you're not even listening to what's going on and that's how I lived and if you would have asked me to go to the chalkboard I probably would have urinated on myself and cried and ran out thank god nobody ever asked me to diagram a sentence on the board I never got that far but I was really perplexed in school, I was really confused, I Was really insecure, it was horrible because on my little street, Mercy, Front and Mercy I'm from South Philadelphia, so on the little street at Front and Merci, I knew just who to let go first in the game and I knew just who would let pick the game, and I just knew who to invite to my house. And I had that lay of the land that they talk about in the big book of Alpha Oaks Anonymous, you know the actor who wants to run the whole show and is forever trying to arrange the lights and the scenery and the players what usually happens the show doesn't go off very well because it did not fully solve the fear problem or any other for that matter you know what I mean what I was doing was not working it was good as far as it went but it didn't go far enough it didnít take me far enough school was worse than home because there were so many of you now I had to figure out too many people and so I really always had a hard time in school and I was always very awkward and I was very skinny and little and frizzy hair you know, I was just an awkward kid I was an awkward child and I embrace that beautiful little girl today because if she knew how much God loved her then like I do now she would have never had to suffer like she suffered ever so I just went through school the most difficult day of my early childhood that I can remember is when I found out we were moving you know I was probably about eight years old, eight or nine, somewhere in there. And my dad bought a bar in South Philadelphia, half a hall extreme. He bought a car and we were going to move upstairs on top of that bar. And I thought my life was over because I thought now I got to figure this out all over again. I have a new neighborhood. I Have new people. I've a new school and I am just never going to be able to pull this off. And so I was very depressed and I stayed in a lot there. I want to say that we moved on top of this bar and on a Friday night or a Saturday night, any either given night you can see me sneaking down and I would be sitting on the floating stairway and I'd be looking down at the crowd of people because the stairway went through and in the front end of the bar was the bar and the jukebox and the people and in the back end was a pool table and a poker machine and people and stuff was going on and I would sneak down on Friday or Saturday night and I'd look around and I could see people with a cigarette in this hand and a drink in this hands and a smile from ear to ear man, and they looked like they had fresh eyes and they were just glowing and they look really happy and I was never ever ever happy never can I recall right now standing here today I cannot recall a truly genuinely happy moment in my childhood and when I saw those people genuinely happy, seemingly genuinely happy with a drink and a cigarette I knew my solution I have to get my hands on a drink and a cigarrette and I did probably on any given Sunday in the bar at my parents house they would close the bar at 2 o'clock in the morning they would clean up they would go to the after hours club that would come home when the sun was up and they would pass out and me and my sister would sneak down into the bar and I would sit at the bar and I wood line up some glasses and I wold take the bottles and any liquor that tasted sweet I would pour it in the glasses and then I would steal from them and I woould go into the quarter box and Iwoould take a roll of quarters and Iwould crack them open and Iwould go to the cigarette machine which took quarters then it wasn't electronic so I'm aging myself a little bit just had my 40th birthday and so I would feed these quarters into the cigarette machine and they would be really loud going to the bottom so I'd put them in one at a time and listen for my parents and then I'd put the next one in then I would grab the handle on the cigarette machine and I would pull it out and then i'd walk it back in like that, so it didn't make a lot of noise and the cigarettes would drop and uh, so i'd have probably like grenadine or sweet vermouth or melon liqueur in a glass and a cigarette that I did not yet know how to inhale and I thought I had arrived. And I would get a buzz. I would catch a buzz on a Sunday morning. You know what I mean? I was really very young and I can tell you that alcoholism is incurable, progressive and fatal and in my life it was very aggressive. By the time I was 10 I was drinking as often as I could and if that meant stealing from my mom and dad's beer box in the basement, quarts of beer wasn't 40s then it was quarts or six packs or stealing money or asking for extra money to chip up with other people to get the older heads, to get a beer, like that's what I would do so by 10 I was drinking almost every weekend, by 12 I was drinking at minimum every weekend and by 15 I was having my first alcohol overdose on grain alcohol and I can tell you that I had this I had forged this love affair with alcohol that you were going to have to pry it from my dead cold hands. Because this fear-filled, insecure, no self-esteem having girl put one drink in her body and that drink took a drink and that drank took me and it took me to being able to talk to you. It took me be able to dance. It took to be able socialize. It took be able think I was valuable and pretty enough to have a boyfriend if other girls were having little boyfriends. It just gave me all the things that I didn't have. I'm a very big fan of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm also a big fan I'm just a very big fan of the 12 and 12. I know they're essays from Bill Wilson and that's okay too. I'm quite comfortable with that and the first step in the 12 and 12 says that alcohol now become a rapacious creditor and if you don't know what that means it means greedy and everything it gave to me it turned on me and it took tenfold from me. It took tenfold so for several years on the upswing every time I had a drink in me I was feeling great and then on the downside of that I couldn't stop drinking I had drank myself and warped my mind into such a destructive obsession for alcohol that only an active guy was going to be able to remove it from this alcoholic and I could not stop being preoccupied with alcohol because I was looking for relief because I wasn't I was restless I was irritable I was discontented I was unhappy I had all the human problems that they talk about on page 52 I was chronically malcontent I felt like I don't understand why I'm in this world I don' t understand why I'm not in this life I can't take it I can' t succeed I can''t feel good about myself I can'T relate to other people Like you want to talk about problems In personal relationships I didn' t know how to have a relationship With another human being I couldn' t talk to you I couldn''t function I was just I was a trembling Despairing nervous wreck of a person And when I drank That went away from me That went way from me and so I was a solution drinker drinking was my solution and so I really was not letting go of alcohol and you couldn't even tell me it was the problem I mean I hit a point in my drinking where people would say to me you're drinking again and I'd say that's what we do I'm alcoholic, we drink I thought the abnormal had become normal and I was drinking or drunk or blacked out or passed out I drank my way out of relationships I dragged my way out of school I dragged My way out Of friendships I dragged My way Out of jobs Like you know And I always had A justification And a rationalization And I always blamed Everybody else For everything That was going wrong In my life Everybody else From my parents To my grandparents To the people That just don't Understand me To bosses Who have favorites To teachers Who have Just everybody else. That's as far as I ever got. That's how far as I ever gotten. They talk about that in the big book right around the fourth step. You know what I mean? Far as I never got is that you and this world wronged me and I was hurt and I wasn't and I didn't and I offended and I would soar and I burned up and I stayed that way and I just existed like a bottom feeder and I don't know I don' t know what to say about the person that I had become but I went from this crippled with anxiety this person who was crippled with anxiety, crippled with fear, crippLED with no self-esteem to somebody who would put a drink in her and I was dangerously and disgustingly antisocial. My behavior was humiliating and embarrassing. Alcohol takes women down harder and faster and I read that in the big book and truer words were never spoken. I demoralized myself and degraded myself and I allowed others to demoralize and degrade me. that's just the way it went for me do I want to stand up here in front of 50 people that I don't know and tell that story you know, I ask God to help me to tell the truth and to help him deliver the message that he would have me deliver so I want say to you that there was not a relationship that I was ever in that I could be honest with and it wasn't because I was this evil big shot, you know I thought I had it all and I had to have my just in case guy, it wasnít anything like that, although I did have a just in place guy, itís because I swore when you found out really about me you were never going to stay with me I wasn't the marrying kind I wasnít the kind that you brought home to your parents I wasnís the kind that introduced at parties as your girlfriend thatís not who I was just ask me so I had such a low opinion of myself that I just moved through life and moved through jobs and moved through residences it wasnít a stranger to me to come home and find a big orange sign on the door that said, like, you know, the sheriff is, you know, not giving you permission to enter in here today. And you have to go somewhere. And I would have my trash bag and I would Have to go somewhere. Like, that's just my story. You know what I mean? And I tell that part of my story because I cannot convince you any other way that the love of God will not be outdone. And what he can take you to, no man can ever measure. And that's just the way it is in my life. I want to tell you by the time I was 15 years old I was alcohol overdosed and out of school you know what I mean alcohol told me that school was for all of you people suckers actually I called you all of your suckers and I was going to be an entrepreneur in the business of sales and you know that did not go well I can just tell you that it didn't go well and it was ridiculous and it was humiliating and it was a whole lot of ego involved and a whole lot of trying to fit in and a whole lot to try to carve out my space because really deep down inside I didn't think I was smart enough to finish school. I didn' t think I worthy of finishing school.I didn't thing I was worthy of the gifts that God was going to give to me and so I just was going be an entrepreneur in the business of sales and so that didn't work after a little while and I decided to take a career change and I went to be a bartender and so I went from selling what my friend Dave would call non-AA conference approved materials. That's what my friends were doing. My friend Dave was calling them and that's what I'm calling them. So, I switched from being in that career to being a bartender full time. And as a part time job, I sold non-aa conference approved material while I was bartending. and I worked at a bar in a neighborhood that I grew up in and I had arrived, you know what I mean? Blue Collie neighborhood, people coming to the bar on a Friday or Saturday night and they were dropping their money dropping their Money and they had a nice kitty and they Were buying my materials and drinking and I was drinking with them and then I was taking a nice tip home at the end of the night and I Was going to the after hours clubs and I was drinking until the sun came up and I took the walk of shame on the way home and I don't know how many people here have taken the walk of shame, but it looks like this it's about 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning and the sun is coming up and you're just going home from the night before or maybe the day before if you were close to drinking like me because I'm a real alcoholic I'm really alcoholic and I fit the distinction I can't predict with any degree of certainty what's going to happen once I put a drink in me and once I put a drank in me I can't control how much I consume like that's just the way it is and so I would take that walk of shame home hoping that you would never even notice me and I just felt like I couldn't even be inhabiting the same space as you normal people you good hard working earning family human beings like I didn't feel like I belonged around you at all and I would go home and then I would curl up in a ball until I cried myself to sleep feeling like when is this going to be over I didn't have enough thought, you know, courage to kill myself I didn' t think about killing myself actively I know that's in some people's story thoughts of suicide or whatever but there have been many times that I came to and thought why did you wake me up I don't want to do this anymore I don' t want to feel like this anymore I don´t want to think like this any more I don'T want to live like this no more please kill me if you´re not going to change me like that is how I lived I have a best friend that I met when I moved into this neighborhood when my parents bought the bar and we're still best friends today through God's grace and she is sober also in Alcoholics Anonymous in fact she called me yesterday I was sharing with some women and she just completed her fifth step and she istrilled and on fire and it's a joy to be a part of so she came into a bar that I was working in on South Street called Makos and she said to me Kim you look a mess and I can tell you that she wasn't lying to me just the way it was by that time I was drinking around the clock my shift started at 4 I was showing up at 12 I was thinking from 4 o'clock to 2 o' clock in the morning behind the bar I was taking the walk of shame home every single morning and that was probably about a six day a week you know deal for me so that's where my alcoholism took me and she came into the bar and she said Kim you look a mess why don't you come down to the shore and down tothe shore from a Philadelphia perspective is Wildwood, Atlantic City, Ocean City you know down at the shore and she was living in Ventnor down atthe shore and working in the casinos and she wanted me to get some help and she want me to calm down and she wanted me to clean up a little bit and she neglected to mention to me that they were all entrepreneurs in the business of sales and they were drinking around the clock like I was but I looked worse than her so she just assumed that I was drinking more than her and I took my dog and pony show over down the shore with her and I packed it back for three days and I drank down there for three years it's just the way it goes you know, that's what happened for me and everything is like a blur you know I met a man down there his name is Joe Johnson he was the most stable human being I had ever met and because I look for all of my goodness outside of me I thought this is why God put him into my life, you know he had a job and he was not alcoholic and he went to work every day and he wasn't a family oriented guy and he had a home and a car and a boat like not things just evidence of stability and consistency, he had that in his life, and I was a train wreck. And I knew that the answer was in that relationship because he was going to teach me how to cross over into normalcy. Instead, I dragged him kicking and screaming into my world. At the end of our relationship, which lasted a couple years down there, he was on his front lawn, streaming with tears, banging on the ground saying it's too painful to love you, you have to go that's really where alcohol takes this woman and I do not blame my behavior on alcohol I know that I am alcoholic I know that I have a mental obsession I know that I know that I have a physical allergy I blame it all on that spiritual sickness that spiritual malady that they talk about because pouring alcohol onto this spiritual sickness was like trying to douse out a fire with gasoline they just magnified by 10,000 so it is the spiritual malady that I had going on with me you know what I mean and I was spiritually sick in every sense of the word and I thank God for the direction in the big book that once we straighten out spiritually then we straighten up mentally and physically and it doesn't happen in any other way and I know that from not living the dream in Alcoholics Anonymous until I had about five years of sobriety because I was a train wreck and spiritually sick in Alcoholics Anonymous and my list of people that I owed direct amends to got exponentially greater when I was living on self selfishness, self-centeredness self-will, self righteousness all of that self even into AA so I was down at the shore and Joe and I broke up not by my choosing obviously and I was just I was broken I was a broken woman I was an evil person I was not a human being I was in a broken spirit and I just drank and I did not think my drinking could have gotten any worse but because I am somebody who reaches for alcohol to be the solution I couldn't wash the pain away anymore I couldnít wash the shame away anymore I couldníd wash the guilt away anymore and God knows I tried and I drank probably at least a fifth and a half of Cuervo every day lots of long neck bottles of bud and at least one to two bottles of wine mine or not mine from around the condo I was living in and that was like a daily like I was just drunk and I felt worse and nothing I was at that place of pitiful incomprehensible demoralization I couldn't live with alcohol I couldn'T live without alcohol you couldn'T tell me alcohol was the problem I was very defensive you just couldn't even come near me you couldn't touch me and I met a guy because that's just really what I did because for me it really is I'm not proud of that but I thought if I had the right man and I hadthe right job and Ihad the right house and it had theright size white picket fence around it and Ihad the right set of circumstances that all would be well in the world then I would really be happy like I believed in all that Cinderella story stuff I believed it without a murmur of doubt and I just continued to talk to my God and continued to not be able to listen to him and not beable to hear him and I would say God maybe this is the one maybe this guy that's going to help change me I was always looking for external means to fix an internal condition and I did not know that And so that did not go well. That did not go well and I was seeing a drummer in a band and he had long hair and he hat a biker jacket and he would play music and I would drink and be like a groupie and as humiliating as that is, that's my story and I would say to myself one day one day he's going to tell me I'm beautiful I'm special, he loves me I'm valuable you're my girlfriend, I want to marry you and right after that he's going to cut his hair and we're going to ride off into the sunset and everything is going to be great and that's not what happened you know what I mean that's how it ended up I got really drunk with him one night and I asked him what I was to him and I wanted with every fiber of my being for him to say those things that I had imagined he would say you know that delusion that space I was living in and he said we're going to always be friends and I died a thousand deaths and I know that men may comprehend that a little bit but I know that there are women in here who have had that experience and I now that that hits them to the core of their person because when you just crave somebody to tell you that you are worth something and to hear that, no, that's not who you are. That just strips you of every fiber of your being. Like I just was broken in that night. And he left, and I drank myself into oblivion. And I passed out on the floor of my condo next to my bed on the floors. That's how low I felt about myself. I did not even feel worthy of sleeping in my own bed. I was doubled over in a fetal position In the corner of the room Crying, begging God To help me Or kill me That was my story And in the pit of that cry From the depths of my spirit I had enough humility In that moment Where the grace of God could enter And expel a mental obsession So subtly powerful That only he could do it Like I just couldn't be fixed any other way and I didn't know that and I came to the next day and like I described myself my body was itching in my head and I felt like I had bugs crawling on me and I was searching wildly around the condo for alcohol there was no alcohol to be had by this time I was living in Ocean City which for anybody who doesn't know it is a dry town they don't sell alcohol there and like the closest alcohol that you can get is Summers Point and I did not drive and I wasn't in no condition to drive and so I was just writhing and this voice out of nowhere says call your sister Dawn and I thought, call my sister Dawn absolutely not I have not talked to my sister Dawn in a couple years she got tired of bailing me out she got tired of cleaning me up she got tried of defending me when people would say horrible things about me that were probably true I brought shame to my family. I didn't realize until I experienced the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the far-reaching implications of my thinking, feeling and doing. Like I didnít realize how far out it went and how far it reached. And it reached well beyond me. And my sisters had to live in my shame when they were in the neighborhood. And she really got tired of it and like Joe she told me it was too painful to love me and that I needed to just leave her alone and so I knew I couldn't call her I didn't understand this voice that was crowding out all else, I didn'T understand why it was telling me to call my sister but I just pushed it aside and I'm searching around and I'M thinking you know, what am I going to do when it came again call your sister and I thought, alright now I know that voice was not coming from me because I don't talk to myself in the third person you know what I mean so it was like Kim call your sister so I picked up the phone and I called my sister and she said we love you Kim please come home and alcohol is cunning baffling and powerful without help it is too much for us there is one who has all power that one is God may you find him now not next month not next week not next year may you fine him now and so here I am on the phone with her not knowing that half of the sentence only knowing and realizing how cunning, baffling and powerful alcohol is in my life and I'm telling her I'm fine nah, come home, what do you mean in my head, my head full flight from reality and give up all this are you kidding me I'm in a condo in Ocean City I got a building pool out in the back out on a deck working in the casinos down the shore it was January I was laid off the pool wasn't filled I never swam in it anyway like the reality and where I lived I guess I'm on my topic spiritual make-believe I didn't know I didn' t know I would hit it but yeah I was living in fantasy I was literally living in fancy and I was telling my sister that there was no reason for me to come home and she was saying to me I cannot hear you and I didn''t understand but when I looked down I had the phone to my ear and my shoulder and I was packing a bag and the grace of God was doing for me what I was not capable of doing for myself and that divine intervention that took place from that cry out to my God carried me a couple days I can tell you that what happened for me was that I ripped that condo to pieces I ripped it to shreds not only my room I'd like to stand up you know I'd be able to stand here and tell you how virtuous I was but I wasn't and I ripped that condo to shreds looking for money to get to her because she had said to me I want to come and get you and I said pick me up at the bus station in Philadelphia and she said where is it and I say 9th and Filbert she said when are you going to be there I said I don't know my sister taught me how to be loyal she left after we hung up the phone and she never left until I got there and it was many many hours in between and I ripped that condo apart and between $1 bills and 50 cent pieces and quarters and nickels and dimes and pennies I came up with $12.10 only and it cost $2.10 to get the bus from Ocean City to Atlantic City and at that time it cost $10 for a one way bus ticket from Atlantic City to the Philadelphia bus station and I was complaining because I was selfish and self centered I was explaining I can't even get an orange juice I was so upset by that I didn't want an orange juicy and anybody who's a real alcoholic knows I didn't want an orange juice I was just deluding myself and feeling sorry for myself self-pity has always been my favorite character defect there are moments in my sobriety where I could take a bath in it backstroke in it, woe is me it's really sad thank God I have tools to get me out of that but I was in that place then and I was feeling really sorry for my self that I didn' t have an orange juicy for the ride home and here I was from that point God was about to blow the doors open for me and nobody would ever be able to close them and I had no clue I was complaining about an orange juice how insignificant is that in the great reality of what was to be my life so I came to Philadelphia and she picked me up at the bus station and she took me to my mother's and my mother decided in her kindness and it could only be a mother's love that would have tolerated me coming to her and asking her for a place to live because what I had put those people through was unconscionable I had no right to ask her could I stay at her place but I did anyway and she graciously allowed me to and she let me into her house that night and I pretty much told her what was going on in my life now I didn't tell her I was alcoholic I didn' t tell her that I couldn' t stop drinking I told her that I could' n't live anymore and something had to be wrong with me mentally there was nobody that thought like me there was no one that felt like me and I swear I needed an inpatient mental facility for at least one year because I'm nuts that's what I told her and I really believed that I really believe that my problem was that I was so crazy now I know we are you know what I mean I know what it says in how it works you know that there are those who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders and many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest so I was sitting at my mom's house being honest I'm nuts and I really need some help and you have to help me and she said what do you want me to do and I said I want to talk to daddy and my dad and her had been divorced for many years by that time their marriage did not survive their alcoholism so she said okay and I stayed at her house that night in the throes of delirium not even knowing what they were and God kept me sober anyway and God kept me alive anyway and I walked to my father's house the next day and I banged on the door and it was probably late it was probably about 8 o'clock at night I would imagine and I and I walked to his house and I knocked on the door and my grandmother answered the door terrified at the sight of her grandchild and afraid to let me in because again the far reaching you know alcoholism and spiritual sickness that lived in me affected my grandmother too and thank God for a ninth step that on her deathbed I was able to make direct amends to her before she left this world and to hold her hand and to be in service to her because she was terrified of dying. Despite her being a devout Catholic and getting communion every Sunday and having the priest come to her house and she just was scared. She was a fear-filled woman and I was unable to make direct amens to her and I'm so grateful for that and I knocked on her door and she reluctantly let me into her house and she sat on the couch here and I sat on a chair here and she looked at me and in the sight of me did not know what was going to happen and I said to her, where's my dad? And she said, he's at a meeting. Right. I was like, hmm? What? I said, what do you mean he's had a meeting? I had never even heard of AA. I had ever, ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, I didn't even know what AA was and I didn' t know that AA stood for Apohon Phenomenos. I didn''t know any of it. And so I am sitting across from her and she said he's at a meeting and I said what do you mean he's had a meeting? And she said I don't know. You know, he has to get this paper signed and she held it up. She said and he goes to these meetings and they're down on the avenue of Fernand and I say who's listening to him? like really, I mean my dad in my recollection was an alcoholic a domestic abuser you know he was somebody who was unfaithful to my mother he was neglectful and abandoned his children like that is the picture that I had of my father that's what I had and I loved him but that's who I had to work with so I couldn't understand what kind of meeting was he at and who would be listening to him like what did he have to say that somebody would be interested in and she said, I don't know what's going on down there but if you're going to go find him can you bring this paper because he can't go back without it being signed and I said okay and I took the paper and I looked at the paper and it said meeting attendance sheet and it says 1605 East Moymensing Avenue South Philly AA and so I knew where that was and I went down to the avenue in Fernand and I banged on the door because I didn't know about AA So I didn't know you didn't have to knock. Dined on the door, and some guy answered the door. And he looked at me like many people did, like this. And he said, what do you want? And I said, I'm looking for my dad. And he says, who's your dad? And I say, Christopher Package. And he say, I don't know him, but there's a lot of people in here. Do you want to come in? And I says, okay. And when he stepped away from the door My dad was probably down where this young woman is in the back and he did one of these and he looked me up and down and then he called me down to him and I went down and he got up and I sat down and I said, Dad, I need to talk to you. And he said, don't talk to me during the meeting. And I thought to myself, why did I even come here? Remember I told you self-pity is my favorite defect. So I thought, why did i even come here? He never listens to me. He left me. He this, he that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Always consumed with self. And I heard somebody share something, and I thought, I did that. So what? And then I heard someone else share something. And I thought I felt like that. And of course, I have my head at the floor because I can't look the world in the eye. So I had my head on the floor, and he said, Kim, I said not during the meeting. And then i heard somebody say something, and I though, oh my god, I can believe you are so crazy sharing that in a meeting in front of all these people. And when I looked up to see who that person was, I saw bright eyes big smiles hearty laughs fresh skin and a cup of coffee in this hand and a cigarette in this and I was home I knew I was home and I tell you and I kid you not that that was January 23rd 1994 and I have not found an excuse to pick up a drink or any other mind or mood altering substance since that date that is not by virtue that is by the grace of God that is what it took to get me to Alcoholics Anonymous because I was not smart enough to ask somebody for help that could have said let me take you to a detox, let me taket you to rehab let me taken you to meeting, I didn't know I just didn't no but the grace of God picked me right up, pulled this chronic alcoholic back from the gates of death and dropped her right off at a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous where I was relating to you good people and what you thought and what you felt and what did and where you been and even the crazy person that I had no idea would ever have the courage to share what they shared in that meeting that day and I knew that I was home and after the meeting my father said what do you want? And I said this. And I didn't even know what this was. I had no idea. And a woman turned around from in front of me and I always give her her due respect her name is Teresa DeCero because she helped me like nobody else and she did not take me through the big book of Alpha Hawks Anonymous but she was the first woman in AA to turn to me and say think before you drink kid the time to call your sponsor is before not after now I would like to tell you that I was like thank you ma'am and this and that that really wasn't how it went down but I took that coin I took that coin and that woman laughed at my belligerence and my ignorance and my rude conduct and verbal statements she laughed at all that and I knew she could tolerate me and she became my first sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous and she taught me lots of things that I hear in the rooms of AA that are not based on the basic text of AlcoholicsAnonymous but they did help me in the beginning and I stayed so I am not going to talk ill of another human being she told me that AA was like a hula hoop and it doesn't work unless you're in the middle of it and so she took me to service commitments and I wasn't eligible to do service, but I was eligible to make coffee. I was eligible to clean up ashtrays at that time AA was smoking and wipe down tables and put away chairs and when I had 60 days she took me to speak and when i had 90 days she told me to chair and she told me to do all these things that we do in AA and i was explaining to some people that i had breakfast with not strangers, friends i hadn't met yet that i met this morning and, you know, I was explaining to them that I had the cart before the horse but I did not know it. You know what I mean? I didn't realize at that time that we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as the absolutely clean and you get well spiritually first and then you serve others. You serve God, you serve Others and you show up for duty whatever that may be. But because I didnít know God kept me sober anyway and I did the things that this woman told me to do. and when I couldn't look at myself in the mirror anymore stay out of the mirror wasn't working for me you know she kept it very simple and I'd say I can't look AT myself and she'd say stay out OF the mirror kid and that just wasn't working for ME anymore I didn't want to walk around self-loathing I didn' t want to walk around feeling like I did not belong in this world and I'D be better off out of it and so would all of YOU I didn'T want to walk around like that anymore so I met another woman Joanne C and she told me what she could teach me until she relapsed And then I went to a meeting and I was sharing what experience, strength, and hope I did have. And a woman walked into the room by the name of Claire Keller. And she brought with her a new woman. And she thought she was bringing that new woman there for her first meeting. Out of the way. You know, alcoholics and our, you know, we are egomaniacs with no self-esteem. So, you Know, this woman didn't want to go to a meet in her neighborhood. She wanted to go out of the first meeting out of a way. So Claire brought her somewhere. and I shared my experience, strength and hope and Claire, she cried in the front row the entire time. And I thought this poor woman, she needs my help. I have to take her out to eat with us at the diner afterward. And really that wasn't the reality. The reality was that she was crying because she had been tapped into a power. And she knew that she didn't come to bring that woman to her first meeting she came to met me. And she walked me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and she has been sponsoring me for over 11 years now and I have had the great opportunity to sponsor a lot of women through this process and I suit up for life now and i show up for life and let me tell you a couple things that God has done in my life I can look at you today you know what I mean I took that third step with this woman and I love the promises and people leave them to the ninth step and there are promises all throughout the big book of alcohol it's anonymous and it says when we sincerely take such a position right before you take the third step all sorts of remarkable things follow. You'll have a new employer being all powerful he'll give you everything you need provided you keep close to him and perform his work well and that's what I've tried to do since I've lived in the third step with her and I took that step and I experienced that step and I tried to just let it wash over me and now I've been like I've become an agent for God that's What I Do, That's What I Love To Do, It's First And Foremost In My Life, It Comes Before Anybody Or Anything I am proud to say that I have made a list of resentments and fears and harms to others with the emphasis on sex conduct because that was a really big area of my life that needed an overhauling but I was sensible about that matter and I don't feel like a drag of society anymore and after sitting with her and experiencing a fifth step withholding nothing, I was truly delighted because I could look you in the eye and I could be alone with perfect peace like I feel comfortable in my own skin whether I like what's going on around me or whether I don't like what is going on around me I know that I have a God that is greater than me and he will not be outdone and I've offered my God at that moment after I got quiet I offered him my defects of character and I asked him I asked him, humbly, please remove these from my life. Please. He's taking his time with a lot of them. You know what I mean? And that's okay. That's okay because I was explaining to this wonderful woman earlier that I met today, Cindy, that nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Absolutely nothing. And if you believe that, then you know that there's not a mistake you're going to make in Alcoholics Anonymous or otherwise that is not purposeful in some way. You might not recognize it at that moment, but absolutely it will serve a purpose somewhere down the line when you have your aha moment that's why that had to happen so like in 6 and 7 I humbly asked him to remove these defects and shortcomings from my life and I had a list of people that I had hurt and it was really long I'd like to tell you that it was like just a couple people, my immediate family or the pat answer that you hear I really hurt myself, no my list was really wrong and I set out to make direct amends to people some people I have been able to make direct amends to over the years some people I have not been able to make direct amens to I leave that in God's hands I've done all I can humanly possible to make that come to pass and then I'm not in the results business you know, that's not what I'm here for and I'll share this and I know I have like a few minutes and the love of my life is here in the room with me today and I'm so happy about that I couldn't even be happier because God will not be outdone and I had the opportunity to make amends to another human being that was in my life for a lot of years Monday night and Tuesday he took his last breath and died and you want to talk about I prayed for years God how how is this going to be removed from me I can't get rid of this resentment I don't have the power you need to help me you need to guide me you need to show me you need to bring me you need to tell me like I can I can do it and it will not happen your way because I had no idea that on Monday my phone was going to ring and his brother was goingto tell me that he wouldn't live much longer and I got myself up to Jefferson Hospital and I dot on my knees in his hospital bed and he was conscious and he heard everything I was saying and he asked me to stop crying I was sobbing asking his forgiveness for the wrongs that I had done to him I wasn't there to take his inventory I was there to provide forgiveness and seek forgiveness in his hour of need and at the time of his death and when I tell you the power of God runs deep it is just incredible everything washed from me and that's when that resentment was gone when I was able to seek his forgiveness and give forgiveness and the peace that washed over that man there wasn't a dry eye in the room his whole entire family noticed the transformation he cried they cried I cried and I left and I got the call that he died at 7.09pm on Tuesday like that is the miracle of God it will happen in his time and in his way and I tell you I have no regrets in this life and I make a lot of mistakes I have not regrets I know that if I trust God and clean house and help others and show up for duty and drive $11, $12 to come somewhere and meet wonderful, beautiful, glorious children of God that are like my soul mates in this journey in life that all will be well with the world. All will be Well. And I'm going to go today and I'm gonna see a new place and I am so happy to be like above ground and sober and living in 10, 11 and 12 and loving God and liking myself and who I am and who am becoming embracing myself all of myself good and bad asking God to work with me and just being able to give love to another human being without any expectations my world is beyond my wildest dreams when God took this woman who was an apoholic, unlovely in her cups and he made her a woman of dignity and honor and grace and his glory shines through me every day and the greatest power I have today is the power of example and I never know who's watching and my friend Johnny Hughes says that all the time the greatest powerful you will have is the power of example and you never know who's watching so walk the walk thanks for letting me share