Step 4 and the Pen as a Spiritual Translator — Megan T.

Oh, that's good. That's nice. It's a good life. I'm Megan and I'm an alcoholic. What a place to be. Midday on a Saturday, surrounded by you fine people. I can tell you that I certainly would not have been enjoying a moment like this just a few short years ago. My sobriety date is October 4th of 2015 and my home group, located at a minimum of three tables in this room is the fourth dimension. We meet in Toms River, New Jersey every Wednesday night at 7.30 p.m., and it is my home. And they have taught me how to be a lady of dignity and of grace here in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now when I walked in the doors, that's not how you would have described me. I was not a lady. There was no dignity, there was no grace. That was all from God. God allowed me his grace to get into the room and my home group and those recovered alcoholics who met me at the door, they were the ones who treated me with dignity. My family that I come from, they're amazing. I'm sure that in some measure every family has some sort of dysfunction I'm sure that we repressed more feelings than we expressed, and we certainly rushed over a lot of the embarrassing details, such as mental health. That was viewed as embarrassing in my family. But the truth is, I come from a loving home. I've got two parents who are—they happily celebrated 38 years of marriage this year. And they showed me by example what a loving partnership can do. And I have two older brothers that I was able to look to as examples in my life. And I was highly involved. I was a go-getter. I played sports. You know, I was the first one to get a job. I was also a class officer. I don't know if you can tell, but I was just a little bit of a rule follower is the truth. A lot of you guys would be too cool to have talked to me in high school. Because when you guys talk about cutting class, not me. I loved class. I loved learning. I truly did. The fact is, I had every advantage in the world given to me. And yet, there it was, this thing within me that had always separated me from you, always separated my from the world around me. And the pain that I was in made no sense in comparison to my circumstances. And I was told that several times. Not by my parents, who are the most loving people that I know. My mom is probably the greatest example of God's love that I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, knowing, being a part of. My father is a hardworking and honorable man. I grew up in a home filled with laughter and with light I realize that I have had every advantage especially after hearing some of the stories that have been shared by people so the fact is I certainly can't point to anything in my past and say that's it, that's where it took a turn there's my alcoholism those are the traumatic circumstances that forced me to drink because there weren't any sheer selfishness, absolute self-consciousness and that conscious separation from God so what happened for me is I built up the hopes of everyone around me and then I brought it down crashing down on their heads I imagine myself You know, the leader, the head of vast enterprises, and I think a lot of other people did as well. And I proved them wrong. I proved dem wrong many, many times. Mari did a beautiful job last night of describing steps one and two. And I can tell you that alcohol provided a solution for me to the internal pressure that I had been feeling and the separation that I have been experiencing from God and you and the world around me for as long as I could remember. So when I was introduced to a drink of alcohol as an early teen, it did allow me to be present for just a moment. And all of a sudden, I got curvy. I got prettier. My skin smoothed out. My hair was suddenly neat. And I was able to talk to my friend's older brother that I'd had a crush on for years. Sorry, honey. It didn't work out, obviously. And I'm sure what I said was something really smooth at the time. But what it did for me was it allowed me to be present for the first time in my life and allowed me forget about me for just one moment just a moment, that's all I needed just a second of relief from the constant noise and the constant chatter and the consistent pressure and they were all internal I will tell you that my parents never put that on me my father when I was in the throes of alcoholic addiction he sat me down and it's got to be 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and he is sitting across from me in the living room and it was uncomfortable, the force with which he was trying to explain to me just how unconditional his love for me was. And that the only thing he wanted in the world for me was to be healthy and to be happy and I couldn't pull either one of those things off. I had every opportunity and I had everything I could and every reason to be sober, to be successful, to be happy and healthy and balanced. And I just couldn't pull it off. I saw everyone around me almost as though they had been given a guidebook that I just didn't have access to. And I truly believed that there was just something different about me. And it just wasn't possible. Happy was not on the radar. Freedom was not one of my priorities. Freedom was never going to be a possibility for me. And I believe that to be true in my heart of hearts. but that has not been my experience here in Alcoholics Anonymous not one bit so what happened for me was not a quick progression I didn't take a drink at age 13 and everything went out the window I went on, I succeeded in high school I went onto college and I was introduced to other substances I am an alcoholic who became addicted to drugs but we practice a singleness of purpose here in AA and I've been taught that these are sacred grounds and I should hope that nothing that I say here would discourage someone from returning to an AA meeting because we didn't have the exact same set of circumstances. As I was taught when I came in the door, my drinking was but a symptom. But I will tell you that the combination was potent and it took a pretty short amount of time to be leveled, absolutely leveled. Me and the rest of my family. I told you I come from a good home, and I come from a small town. I didn't grow up at the Jersey Shore, although I love it as my home now. It's the home that I never knew that I wanted, and yet always needed. I saw it on TV for years, and i thought that's what I'd be walking into. I did. We used to have viewing parties of the Jersey shore, that reality show, the real trashy one, because it came out when I was in high school, and You know, me and my friends would get together. I told you I was a real goody-goody. Hard to believe, I know. And they'd come over, and we'd be eating popcorn like the wholesome kids that we were on the couch in my parents' house. And we're like, oh my gosh, these Jersey Shore people, they are something else. Am I right? Turns out, the man that I end up marrying, his best friend, made out with Snooki. and i only found this when i mean we've been together for seven years and i think jimmy only told me when we were already married for two and i was offended like jimny how are you held out on me for this long snooki really but his um fiance is a little possessive so i can see why he didn't really reveal that personal detail So I didn't grow up here. I didn' t grow up at the Jersey Shore. Go Phils. Sorry, Mary Beth. I grew up in a small town. It's called Mullica Hill, New Jersey. The town motto is something like In the heart of antique country. That was the town motto. It was gorgeous. It was amazing. It's everything that you picture about the idyllic childhood. And I wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction. I wanted Nothing to do with it. All of the unconditional love in the world offered to me, and I wanted Nothing to deal with it." I couldn't have run out of there fast enough. What happened for me was alcohol provided an escape, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for every single drink that I took. I truly don't think that I would be alive today without it because it was able to bring me enough relief from the mind that was killing me and it gave me a little breathing room. Just enough, just enough to keep going, just enough of a feeling and just enough for me to keep moving. And what happened for me is I just started relying on it more and more and turning to it like Bill talks about in his progression until it became the master of my life and King Alcohol was making all my decisions. And it didn't matter that I had a family who loved me and it didn' t matter that I was a capable young woman and it did' n't matter any of these things. The only thing that mattered in every moment, every bit of energy that I was provided was directed towards getting one more. and I was a savage out there. Don't let the appearance fool you now. I may be a lady of dignity and grace today, but I would have done anything to any one of you to get one more. That sounded a lot dirtier than I meant it to. I truly meant that as like I would've done harm to anyone, but my goodness. I mean, let's face it. You know, part of... Never mind. We're not going to get into details. Although we are covering the sex inventory today. So we may. I'll share more about those details later. So what happened for me is I turned into the tornado that was described. And I did my best to hide it. I prided myself on what a wonderful actress I was. God, I'm so talented, I would tell myself. Such talent that these people surrounded me with love and with care and their time and their attention, and they didn't know the depths of the pain that I was suffering and they Didn't realize the dependence on alcohol that had come in and had consumed their little girl. that there was barely anything left to me. So after a few years of this, let's say six or seven, right? And because there were other substances involved, everything was gone at that point. But no one was really aware except for whatever boy of the week I was dating. And by this time it was usually a drug dealer. And what happened one day was I get out of the shower. I'm working at, you know, the 25th diner in as many months because it was the only job that I could hold down, and there's a diner on every corner in South Jersey, so there was plenty of opportunities. I get Out of the Shower, and my dad calls out to me, and he says, hey, Megan, I need you to call out of work today. and that's a foreign concept in my house we do not call out of work we work hard, we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps we get it done and I look over at him just shocked that he would even suggest such a thing and he holds up a bag and there's paraphernalia I came in with a lot of scars on my arms and I truly don't know how my dad I hadn't had a heart attack in that moment. They had no idea what was happening behind the scenes. They just thought that I was struggling with some depression, that I wasn't really living up to my potential, we'll say. And I asked him about it later. Obviously, I wasn'T very inquisitive at the time as to how he had found it or why. To my knowledge, it wasn't a regular occurrence for my parents to search my belongings. There was no suspicion as far as I knew. What my dad told me much later after some time had passed and some healing had taken place is that he was just, he didn't even know how to describe it. It's funny what we do in here. We're asked to put words to a spiritual experience. We're ask to put word to the thing for which there are no words. That thing which is beyond description. And I asked him about it sometime later, and he said that he was seized in that moment. That he was just seized by this feeling, this uncontrollable feeling that something was wrong with his baby girl, and he had to go find out what it was. And, well, he was right. There was something very wrong with me. there was something very wrong. And I thought that it was, you know, the abuse of alcohol. I sure did. I believe that to be true at the time. And so we started running through the guidebook. We started going through every resource, you know, that we could get a hold of. I say we as though I was an active participant in all of this. I was just along for the ride because I wanted a roof over my head. Okay, so my parents, my loving, caring parents started extending themselves, trying to get me any sort of treatment that they thought would save my life. Checked into the detox, got into the rehab. My dad took a leave of absence from work so he could essentially babysit his 24-year-old daughter when she got out of rehab. And I can't imagine the level of humility that my father had to go as a director at his company and talk to his boss and say, I'm going to need three months off to go babysit my 24 year old daughter but he did because they were willing to go to any length for victory over my alcoholism and I certainly wasn't yet so we tried that and then we started with the rounds of the therapists and we started with the psychiatrists tried a couple different cocktails of medications and just nothing was fixing it and I was still miserable, and I couldn't stay away from it. I spent a couple years in South Jersey. Anyone who's from South Jersey, I'm sure you wouldn't know who I am today because I was the girl sitting in the back of the room for a good three years collecting a white chip. Constantly, constantly. I tried three different fellowships. I haven't tried Al-Anon, but it sounds superb. Truly. I identified a lot with what you were sharing, Lori. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I identified a lot. So I tried a couple different fellowships, and I would get so frustrated because every time that I would say I was on day one or I was coming back, they would say to me, what happened? What happened? And I thought, you're not as sick as me. Because if you're asking me what happened, you clearly don't know what I suffer from. I have no defense against it. Those are not the words I would have used at the time, but I have no defense against it. Because what they kept telling me, you know, there was a couple of meetings around there. The one, and again, this cute older boy had introduced me to it. Sorry, honey. He had introduced me to It, and the home group's name was something like No F-ing Drinking. And I thought that was so cool. I thought that's so cool. And I go there, and they keep talking about how we just don't drink no matter what. And there I am again. There I am Again, and I've run out of road in 12-step fellowships because I drink no mater what. I pick up a drink every single time it's been proven. Every single time. My family started excluding me from family funerals because it was too heartbreaking for them. because I wouldn't show up, or if I did, there'd be about 10 minutes to go. I'd show up with holes in my pantyhose. It was the best I could pull off. They would have to shield my grandmother because she was already reeling from the death of her mother. And I'm showing up and I'm stoned out of my mind and there's holes going up the back of my pantychose and my aunt comes over and shields me from her vision to try and protect her from me, from all of the hurt that I was causing my family. And so by the end, they just stopped inviting me. And I thought, how dare they? How dare you exclude me from grief? How dare você excluir-me por outra razão para eu justificar meu bebê? As though I had a relationship with these family members who would pass on at this point. I didn't. and there were several graveside amends that I did have to make to those family members because I wasn't able to make it to them in person. So what happened? Because that's what my life looked like. My life looked like I drink no matter what. Your fellowships are not going to help me because sitting in these meetings, all I want to do is drink and I can rarely get to the meeting without it. I'm running out the door as soon as the meeting's over because I need a little breathing room and I'll tell you what guys I don't like talking to people it makes me very uncomfortable I can't say I don' t like it it makes my very uncomfortable so it was just another reason to run out the door the second the meeting was over because it was less human interaction less opportunity for connection and as desperate as desperately as I wanted to be understood and feel some sort of connection in this world I shied away from it with every fiber of my being and how does that girl that broken little girl go from there to here that's all God I can't take an ounce of credit for what's happened the miracle of healing that's taken place in my life is all thanks to God's grace and a conscious connection with him and the work of other people's 12 step service so I don't know if you guys are seeing a theme here but then I met another boy I meet this boy and in all at once my soul is at peace and it's on fire and it is practically the same effect that I got from alcohol and I think This might be it. So I drunkenly announced that to him, you know, within the first three months of us being together. I get kicked out of a sober house down in South Jersey because drinking was against the rules at a soberhouse. Couldn't believe it. They call me and they say, Hey, it was reported to us that you were drinking at Hollywood Cafe last night. We're going to test you. and I came in hot. I came in hot, guns blazing. How dare you? I'm not going to take a test but how dare you I'm packing my stuff right now I'm offended by this. So I've been dating this boy for all of two months at the time and he says why don't you come home with me? We'll go to Tom's River you can move into my mom's house and I think well sure I have no other options, you know? Sure. I'll leech off of you just like I do everyone else in my life. Now, there were several legal consequences as a result of my actions. I got arrested several times in back-to-back days. And as a result, I had to complete an IOP program to graduate from probation, to be let off of probation. And I told you guys that I was pretty convinced at that point that I didn't have a problem with alcohol. I could see the issue with the other substances. I could See how that was unsavory to folks and it was kind of hard to hold down a job. But alcohol is so commonplace, so socially acceptable, I couldn't imagine my life without it. but I agreed to the IOP program, and as a requirement, there was a standard that you had to abstain from alcohol as well. And I thought, no problem, no problema. So my sobriety date, as I said, is October 4th, 2015. I entered into the Iop program maybe a couple days after that. And I was getting towards the end of it, and already my behavior had started to change because there was something in me that was just done. We talk about the heartbreaking riddle of alcoholism all the time. We just saw a friend of ours pass away the other night, and you just think to yourself, selfish as we are, why do I get this opportunity? Why did I get to get to a place of willingness? And in truth, I just believe that God's got a purpose for me. I get to be here with you guys and share a message of hope and recovery and healing through the 12 steps. And that's why I get this opportunity until he sees fit. So I get so this IOP, and I'm like the counselor in there. I'm talking to the other girls. They're telling their war stories. And I'm, like, excuse me, ladies. I think we should be more conscious of the language we're using. It sounds like you're glorifying drug use. And they're like, get this girl out of here. Like she's a narc. You know, get her out of the group. So I'm about two months in and I'm about to complete the treatment. That's why I said, I can't tell you what happened that night. I don't know what my motivation was truly. I was thoroughly convinced AA didn't work. I truly thought that I had tried it thoroughly. But what happened was, I told my boyfriend at the time, I got to borrow your car. I'm going to check out an AA meeting. Like I'm going to the bowling alley on a Friday night. I'm just going to go check it out, see what it's like. And I came in late and I sat in the back of the room and I didn't say that I was new. I said that I wasn't new to the area. Like maybe I'll get a couple ladies' phone numbers. At least I'll know someone in the area because I'm living in Ocean County and I know no one except this boy that I've been dating for all of six months and his parents whose roof I'm living under. And what a magic moment that was because when I raised my hand And I said, I was new. After that meeting, I was surrounded by a group of well-intentioned women. And they said, that's my phone number on the back of the book and mine has a smiley face next to it and call me if you ever feel like it. And I thought, there goes another opportunity because I'll never feel like it, I'm never going to feel like calling you guys. That's not my M.O. And then there was one woman and that's that magic moment, that magic moment where someone who shared my problem, who drank like me and felt like me and thought like me, and behaved like me. And went just as far down the scale as I did and who wasn't like me anymore. That's when it happened. And she ran over to me like a bat out of hell. And she said, you're dying. Like you're rude. I didn't say that out loud I wasn't that brave I wasn' t that bold I was deer in headlights I was so scared of having that human interaction she said you're dying of untreated alcoholism you're suffering from a three-fold illness and if you're willing to go to any lengths for victory over alcohol I'm willing to sponsor you okay I wasn''t coming to the meeting for a sponsor her, but okay. And she said, do you give me spiritual consent? I was like, I don't know what that means. I'll say anything to get you away from me right now. And she goes, spiritual consent is very simple. It means that I'm going to give you directions. I'm gonna give you directions out of my own direct experience. I am going to show you the way out, but I'm also going to be challenging your alcoholism. Because your alcoholism centers in your mind. She told me that that very same night, and thank God she did. She told me it centered in my mind she was going to be challenging all of my old ideas. And she said, be at my house tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. It's a sacred responsibility that we're tasked with here in Alcoholics Anonymous. This is hallowed ground that we walk on. The opportunity to be sober, the opportunity to be of service and Alcoholics Anonymous, I can think of no greater privilege. And that woman took that sacred responsibility very seriously because of who taught her. Because of her teacher. The same man who's responsible for about three tables full of people being here in this room today. the same man who would later teach me what a privilege we get to have here in Alcoholics Anonymous, and if she didn't take it so seriously, if she had waited a couple days or said call me when you feel like it, or even later than eight o'clock, if he had given me just an ounce of breathing room and a little time to think, I'm not here today. No doubt in my mind, because then I had to go back home to this new boyfriend, and I'm like, I need your car again. I've got to drive to Howell tomorrow to some stranger's house. She said she wants to be my sponsor. And he's like, I don't like the sound of this. He didn't. Didn't like The Sound of It. You know, he said, I think this AA thing might be the end of us. And I told you the effect that this man had on my very soul the moment I met him, and it was like coming home. And up until that point, I had never experienced a moment where I could truly be honest and raw and brave in the face of risking it all. And to me, he was all at that time. So when he said this AA thing is going to be the end of us, what naturally should have come out of my mouth next was, yeah, you're right. I don't need to be there. That's my MO. I don' t show up. I'm unreliable. I tell you I'm going to do something and then I don'. I should say that was my MO it is no longer and hasn't been for seven years. But what came out of my mouth instead was God. What he said for me, what he did for me was, I hope not, but I gotta go. I gotta got. oh, I've got to be there. He did for me in that moment what I could not do for myself. And my sponsor the next morning, she wasted no time. She got me immediately into the work. She was tireless. She was relentless. She was a force of nature. I was so attracted to the power of God that I saw in her that I was willing to do anything. And I had also run out of options. because when you've tried every single solution that I could think of that was available to me that was within the realm of possibility on the material world on this material earth there was nothing left but to pick up this simple set of spiritual toolkit at my feet. So she started to teach me what I suffered from And I'll tell you, I started to have an experience. She told me about the home group. She told my about getting in service. She made me take a greed and commitment. All of these things started to change me. I started to have a real experience and I started to establish a relationship with a God that I had maybe believed in but surely had no interest in. And then we got to inventory. We got to that inventory. And I had heard a few whispers at meetings as though the fourth step was something to be feared, something that would make you relapse again. Terrible information people were sharing. Terrible info. Terrible infomation. In my experience, I should say, that's terrible infomration. Because what I got from writing inventory, what I continue to get is freedom. I continue to get free, and there are levels of it as I go along. So let's see. What this woman did for me was walk me through the first three steps, and when we got to inventory, she said, I want you to follow each of these directions to the very letter. The pen is going to be the spiritual translator in this spiritual exercise, and I do not want you picking up inventory without praying to God for his guidance. She gave me a set list of prayers. I'm a woman who thrives on clear-cut directions. Tell me what to do, please. Except for my husband sometimes. He's over there going, you don't like to be told what to do. You're right, there are exceptions. There definitely are. But in this case I was pretty grateful because she had told me what I was up against and there was some relief in that because as I told you, I had gone to years worth of 12-step fellowship meetings and when people told me just don't drink and didn't offer me any other solution beyond that. I didn't know what to do, and I didn' t know that there was one available. But what Alicia told me in her kitchen was that all of these things, your belief system, your delusions, all of your old ways of thinking, these conditioned behaviors and patterns that you've been engaging in for the first 26 years of your life, they're driving you. That's the conscious separation from God. That' s the unconscious separation from your fellows, and you will die if you don't write this inventory. She was very dramatic. I mean, she was right, but she was very traumatic. So we got into it. She had me write down the cause. She had me writing down the people, the institutions. She had my write down principles. There were a few of those. They're embarrassing. I probably won't share them today. And then she had me write down bullet points of why. Why I was burnt up, why I was sore. And I'll tell you what, guys, I didn't really think I was that angry. And then I learned about a little passive-aggressive anger, a little bit of repression. I found out I am full of rage and that inventory was necessary because I was convinced at that point that if I didn's start to access some power, I would drink again. And at that moment, fear of relapsing was enough to keep me moving. It's no longer my driving force today. You know, the two driving forces that we have, the two motivators in AA, alcohol and God, and alcohol was enough. Fear of alcohol was enough to motivate me at the time to keep moving. And then we got to that third column. And my sponsor taught me that we needed to expand the third column, right? Because just like Butch talked about the other night, I'm going to time warp, clearly. It was last night. I've just been so far up in my head since I received this invitation. It could have been two weeks ago and I wouldn't know any better. So he was talking about the idea that we write inventory to identify the manifestations of self which had defeated us. So know thy enemy. Know thy enemy, know thyself, and you need not fear defeat in a hundred battles. And in this case, the enemy was my ego. And it's certainly not something to be feared or hated, but it's something to being known. It's something to be identified so that I can actively watch and recognize when it crops up. If I don't know the enemy, I don' t know what to look for. I need to be aware and awake to these plans and designs. And so I was told to expand the third column. Not just identify the area of self that it was affecting. But write down the exact belief system that I thought to be true about that area. What story was I telling myself about my self-esteem, about my pride, about how you should be acting in this relationship? And I'll tell you what, I'm a storyteller. I was a real good storyteller, I had so many stories, I'd been the leading actress in my life and in many other people's lives unbeknownst to them for about 26 years. so that column was a little uncomfortable sure then we get to column four and we turn back to the list for in it lies the key to the future and I started experiencing freedom for the very first time in my life because my sponsor told me that I had lost the privilege of drinking I was pretty clear on that I thought it was weird that she called it a privilege but I was quite sure pretty clear on that, and that's why I was here. And when I got to that fourth column, she told me, you also lost the privilege of blaming anyone else in your life ever again. You lost that privilege. You abused it. And it might not have felt good to hear it that day. It might not have felt good for her to tell me that I'd been playing the victim, but my God, there was such freedom in it because you guys didn't have to change. My parents didn't have to change. The boyfriend didn't have to changed. The job, the living circumstances, nothing had to change outside of me. And it meant that for the rest of my life if I stayed current with these sort of spiritual tools I would get to be present for my life. And maybe that's a low bar for people out there but for alcoholics I think we can pretty strongly identify with not being present in the moment. That's why I drank, to provide ease and comfort. And as I started to write a thorough, a thorough inventory, I began to find out that my driving motivation in most cases was to seek ease and discomfort and relief. We started getting into the fear inventory. I heard a clap, I was like, I'm not done yet. You guys don't have a lunch break for like another 38 minutes, so you're stuck with me. We have snacks on table 28 if anyone gets hungry. We get into the Fear Inventory and, you know, I might not have thought I was angry. I sure knew I was fearful. I knew that I was fearful, and it felt more like an embarrassing experience than anything else. Anger might be sexy in a way. I might get power from anger. Fear, I do not. Fear is humbling and humiliating, is what I thought. But I wrote and I wrote, and I kept pouring my heart into this, pouring my mind into it, pouring anything that I had into it. and then we got to the sex inventory and I thought, this shouldn't be so bad pretty much a common pattern of behaviors in my experience and it was eye-opening it was eyes-opened and I found that I had abused men just as much as I had used alcohol now. When I tell you that I wrote a thorough sex inventory, I didn't realize. And in reality, she let me do it. My sponsor didn't tell me not to, and she allowed me to share this during my fifth step. I thought that the sex inventory was supposed to include your history and positions and specifics. And I told you, I follow directions. So I wrote it. I wrote it, I shared it, every last bit. And she never stopped me, is the crazy thing. You know, here I am, this woman's up on a pedestal and I look back and go, that was kind of a questionable choice. You could have stopped me after the first one. Well, what happened for me is my eyes began to open. And just like I had lost the privilege of abusing alcohol to escape my own self, escape my mind, I also lost the priviledge of being driven by fear anymore and by abusing and using my relationship to escape myself. And those behaviors started to fall away. and my sponsor was very clear cut in this area, she was a phenomenal teacher she told me if any of your interactions with men if you wouldn't feel perfectly comfortable with your boyfriend witnessing that shouldn't happen I said that's a gold standard right there absolutely I'm willing to stick to that and when she heard my sex inventory She saw why that was so important. She saw Why That Was So Important and So Vital because it was a dangerous area for me. I thought that I was blocked off from you guys for the first 26 years of my life, and I didn't think that I had any sort of connection with God despite all evidence to the contrary because I'll tell you what, guys, I had been getting, let's call them signs, you know? It was truly evidence of God for some time. Moments of clarity, moments of lucidity, moments of transcendence where God continued to reveal his presence to me. Bless you. But those were soon drowned out by the worldly clamors, mostly those within my mind. So despite all evidence to the contrary that I was not truly separated from God for all of the unconditional love and support that had surrounded me, I still remained blocked off by my mind. And if my alcoholism centered in my mind and I was continuing to live in that place and I wasn't clear, I was going to drink again and I Was Going to Die. Or more realistically, I wouldn't, like Mari said last night, because despite all my best efforts, I welcomed it. I welcomed it. One of my goals which is so sad to say. Talk about setting a little bar. One of the goals was to join the 27 Club. I thought that's what I want to do. Go out in a blaze of glory. One of my goals was to die young. I have such a good life today that that's a horrifying thought it truly is and I can't imagine I can imagine a little girl who had been so surrounded by love her entire life shown God's love again and again and every moment just wanting to die just wanting oblivion welcoming the idea. But I sure did. I sure did. So I was willing to write inventory, I was willingly to share it, didn't really matter. I had been through a lot of uncomfortable moments already up until that point and I had promised this woman I was going to see this task through. So I went and we shared it and she explained that that fifth step is a life and death errand that we're on. It's a life and death errand that we're not going to leave anything, anything in the shadows. We're going to shine that light on every single dark corner of your life. And this woman, I mean, she was a single mother of four children, constant activities, constant running around. And she made time for me on two separate days. We probably spent about eight or nine hours for that first fifth step, shedding light in all the dark corners of my life. And I can't tell you that I walked out of there that day completely free of all of those things, but I certainly began to have a spiritual experience. And what we do in here, why I say this is sacred gown, not just because I've been taught that, but because it's so important that we stay awake and aware. And i know today that if I'm promising to give of myself and sponsor for a woman, that I better see that through. And I better treat it like the sacred responsibility that it is. Because in that eight or nine hours worth of inventory that this poor woman had to sit through, because as much as I'm looking back and I'm like, yeah, that was thorough and clear, I can't tell you if it was well written. I don't know how clear it was. It certainly was thorough. I certainly was able to recognize a lot of the things that had been driving me. but it would have been so easy for her to just tune out for a few minutes and yet in one of the more innocuous pieces of my inventory, a resentment against my sister-in-law that really wasn't even very there wasn't a lot of emotion attached to it she really hadn't done anything to me I resented her because she had two kids, and I had chosen not to. And when we got to that third column where we get to identify the areas of self and the belief systems and the things that are driving me, the little piece, the one line four words came out of that third column. And I said, I am beyond redemption. And I believed it. I believed it in my heart of hearts. I'm beyond redemption for the things that I've done. And so when we finished up our inventory, she gave me a couple of corrective measures. She said to me, if you're willing, if your open-minded to the idea, there was an item in your inventory and it leads me to believe that you should go and share these items with a priest. Now I grew up in the Catholic church. I did. The Catholic church was on my first inventory because I'm a hypocrite, because I am a real hypocrite as I came to find out. I was judging them for being judgmental, which, my God, woman. So she was gentle with me and she said, if you're open to it, I'd really love for you to have the experience of sharing this one piece of inventory with a priest. And I said, I'm open to it. I'm open to it because I promised you any lengths, even though I might not have known what that would look like. But I promised you that however many months ago on an open discussion meeting on a Friday night in Thomas River, I said any lengths and I'm going to see it through. So I went to the church and of course I'm shaking in my boots and it had been years since I had gone in. And, um, you know, and it's just a quiet afternoon and I, uh, and I approached the priest. And I'm so scared, you guys. I'm so scared because the things that I had done I was going to have to spell out. And I knew that it was very clearly against church doctrine. And I sat eyeball to eyeball with this man, this man of God, and I told him exactly what had happened. And I prepared myself for the hit. Because when you go to confessional, there's penance. He gives you penance, tells you how to make it right. And I'm like, what is this guy going to say? I'm getting kicked out. You know, I'm not even a member of this church, but I'm being kicked out and the priest looks at me with such kindness, with the light of God flowing in and through him. And he says to me, you know, I see the pain. I see the pain that you've caused your family. I see the pain that you're in. I want you to keep doing what you're doing in alcohol synonymous from what you've described to me and there's more. I'm like, okay. I knew I was getting off too easy but there's more. There's more. And he said, I want you to be joyous. Such mercy were shown here. Such mercy for the pain that I caused. Such forgiveness that greeted me at the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and it turns out in all other places as well because God is in all things is what I have experienced here and what I've come to know to be true. It's the truth that I walk in and live in every single day. That God in me honors the God in you. Or something like that. I haven't been to yoga in a while. But he told me that that was my penance, that I was to go out into the world and be joyous. And I'll tell you what, guys, I'm not capable of doing that without God's help. Joy comes from God, from a connection with God, from a relationship with God. From presence with God in this moment. And I'm able to carry joy on my own. It's about something that I can produce, any more that I can produce sobriety. My own efforts had shown that. But I'll tell you what, I've been doing it. I've Been Doing It for the better part of seven years now. I do have a close, conscious relationship with that God that I had no interest in. Now, I told you guys that I was here to talk to you today about writing inventory and sharing inventory and a piece of that, a privilege that I get to have now is listening to inventory. And a couple of the ladies that I sponsor are here today. And I just want to tell you a little bit about an experience I had had because I was pretty early in sobriety and I was a real firecracker. I thought I was going to, you know, go out and save the world and I would go into discussion meetings and say, you're wrong for sharing this and you're right for sharing that and I didn't really recognize the harm in it because I thought I had the best of intentions. I was having such an experience with the 12 steps that I wanted to just force it on everyone else around me. And shockingly, I was fired in rapid succession by four of the women that I had been sponsoring at the time. One of them is also in this room tonight. But we have a very good relationship today and she actually had very good intentions but I was super arrogant at the same time as well. I'm sure that was a driving force. And then, you know, and I'm talking to my sponsor at the time. And I'm saying to him, Freddie, I don't know what to do. Freddie,I don't want you to do this. I don' t know whatto do, and this man's never led me astray. He's always guided me back to God. Come on back to center, to the central fact of our life, that God has entered into our hearts and our lives in a way that is indeed miraculous. And he said, keep doing what you're doing. Don't lose enthusiasm for the process. And so I prayed about it just like I was encouraged to do, and I showed up to a meeting that night. First and last time I've ever been to that meeting and there's a girl in there and she's day one and I thought, she's for me, you know? How selfish, how selfish. I'm like, day one, I'll take her, you now? I'll taker. And so what happens is she's willing and we get to work immediately in the 12 steps and she writes a thorough inventory and makes her appointment and we join together on this sacred errand, this life and death errand. This matter of trust between two alcoholics who have never known a life of trust. Who have been suspicious and fearful their entire lives. And we sit across the table from each other eyeball to eyeball despite how uncomfortable that makes both of us. And we pray we invite God into this errand we ask for his guidance, we ask for his insight, we asked for his courage, strength and direction. It's a way of life. What ends up happening is this girl shares some childhood trauma with me. Events that no child should ever have to go through. But I am tasked with a sacred errand, and I'm told to give feedback, and I'M TOLD TO GIVE CORRECTIVE MEASURES, AND I ASK HER GENTLY AFTER SHE SHARES THIS INVENTORY, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PRAY FOR THIS PERSON? and what i can tell you is i had heard quite a few fifth steps up until that point and i had provided that feedback before and let me tell you they weren't willing and they made it known with profanity in the midst of a fifth step that they were not willing and i thought that's okay that's on you that's on you i will continue to guide you i'll continue to encourage you but here was this little girl who had been broken apart, broken in two by this event. And I asked her to pray for this person and I just saw years, years of hurt and years of pain just fall away. And when you talked about the idea of meeting resistance with no resistance, I saw it happen in that moment And I thought, my God, what we get to do in here. What a miracle of healing that we get to experience. I can't imagine that I would have been as willing as she was in that moment. Although the truth is, God has done for me in many instances when I never thought possible. I write inventory on an annual basis. It's how I've been taught. I've been taught to stay as current as possible on the things which block me off from you. Because you're God's kids, and if I'm blocked from you, then I'm locked from God. I'm blacked from the power source, and I'm drinking again. My life has gotten far too good. I have an abundant life today. That same boy, that same boy who told me, hey, it's going to be the end of us. It's goingto be theendofus. That sameboywhosetmy soulonfire. I got to marry him a few short years later. He's here today to support me at an AA conference. Can you imagine? He supports me. We have a partnership in our home, best friend in the world. And I am shocked by the love that flows in and through our home. I thank God for it every single day. so I write inventory regularly. It's become a practice. I am disciplined, just like the 11 step talks about. It lays out a plan of action. It says God will discipline us. I don't have to do it. I just have to follow the directions. I've become disciplined to a way of life and it has not failed me yet. So I write in inventory and I stay current. I remember just a couple years ago sharing inventory over at Jimmy and Mary Beth's home group. And a piece of that inventory that came out was I had just gotten married. It was maybe a month after I got married, and I knew that my husband wanted kids. And the truth was, I still wasn't sure if I did. I was terrified at the thought. Absolutely terrified for multiple reasons. I'm lazy. I'm irresponsible. I am selfish. So I did what I was taught to do. I've been disciplined. I wrote the inventory. I wrote a lot of fear inventory, fear of responsibility, fear of the unknown, fear of being controlled. And it started getting clear on some things. And God started to soften my heart. God started to change my heart. And I asked him in regular prayer on a daily basis to mold me and change me into what he would have me be. And we welcomed our baby boy about a year later, and he's a year and a half now. And talk about joyous. My life today is an absolute miracle as a result of what you taught me. I look at that baby boy and I think if he were sick and he were dying who would I trust him to because I was sick and I was dying and God held his broken little girl in his arms and he brought me to all of you his trusted soldiers because he knew that you would take the responsibility seriously. He knew that you were going to meet me at the door, make me feel welcome, tell me what I suffered from and that you were gonna show me the way out and he knew that you'd be there for me. That you would teach me how to continue to pass that message on. God, I love my life today. I truly do. I love my life today. My life is an absolute miracle as a result of what we do here. And my hope, my hope for all of you guys is that next year when we're sitting in the audience together at this beautiful event, that all of these shadow soldiers took the time and energy to organize for us so we could just come and listen to these amazing speakers. That sounds arrogant. I really was talking about these guys. I wasn't trying to talk about me. But your time and your attention and your organization and your commitment to service is inspiring. So next year, when we're all sitting together, I hope that you can come up to me and you can share with me the experience you had this year getting into that fourth column of a resentment inventory and getting free. and maybe we can share a laugh at the ice cream social and you can tell me about the delusional thinking that was beyond your fear when you finally decided to walk through it and put pen to paper and maybe you can talk to me and maybe tell me about a home that's been healed as a result of writing sex inventory and getting clear on your motives and your behaviors And perhaps, perhaps you can tell me about the sex ideal that you wrote. The sane and sound ideal that God shaped, that he allowed you to live up to. Because let's be clear here, I'm only here to demonstrate through me what he can do. And I really look forward to seeing all of you guys next year so you can share your experience with me. I'm a lucky woman. Thank you, AA, for my life. Thank you.