Step 9 – 2020 New England Big Book Workshop Weekend – Part 1 of 7 – 2020 – Kerry A.

Hi, Carrie. Welcome. We're happy that you're here. We understand you've had some Zoom issues or internet connectivity, but we're delighted that you're here and that you've been able to join us. We knew you'd mention it. Please welcome our next keynote speaker, Carrie from Tarringtonville, Pennsylvania. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Carrie. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is September 6, 1994. My home group is a way out beginners meeting on Friday night in Tannersville. I have a sponsor. My sponsor has a sponsor and I start all of my talks that way because I needed to stop drinking, get a home group and get a sponsor in order for me to recover from my alcoholism. So, you know, like, talk about an act of humility of like not being able to work my Zoom properly. And I'm a counselor and I use Zoom in my job all the time. But because I'm in doing this for my own personal reasons, I had to use my, you know, technology and apparently I'm not as good as my company. So it's a pleasure to be here. And I absolutely love speaking for Alcoholics Anonymous. And I, I love, you know, I'm a very privileged woman that I have had the opportunity to, to, to, to meet tons of people and be able to talk about the power of Alcoholics Anonymous and God and recovery. For me, it's, it's been this incredible blessing because somebody like me isn't supposed to. Somebody like me, you know, doesn't, doesn't survive their alcoholism. Somebody like me doesn't become a mother with four kids and a husband, has a husband and a job and a, you know, and an education. Somebody like me, somebody dies an alcoholic death. So, you know, a little bit about me. I grew up in North Jersey. I'm one of five kids. Both of my parents recently passed. So, you know, it's been an interesting year. In fact, this has probably been the most difficult year of my, my, my recovery without, you know, the 12 steps, God, AA and all the wonderful people I have in my life. I don't know if I would have, would have come out, as unscathed as I have. So I'm the youngest of all the kids. We're Irish Catholic family. What like, you know, typical white lace curtain Irish. I don't think anybody in Massachusetts would know anything about that. Right. So, you know, four of us have a substance abuse problem. I'm an alcoholic. My sister is an alcoholic. My brother is a heroin addict. And my other brother, he was an alcoholic and really likes to smoke crack. But he tells me that he manages it just fine. So I grew up in a household where like drugs and alcohol were like par for the course. I had my first drink when I was three years old. Somebody gave it to me on Thanksgiving. And I remember it was like a salient moment in my life because it was a moment when I was like, Ooh, that's why all the grownups in my life are doing this weird stuff. And I remember like, feeling warm. I remember feeling at home. I remember feeling, you know, this incredible sense of like peace kind of washed over me. And I remember thinking to myself, this is a really cool thing and I need to keep doing this. And I was like four, you know, so I wasn't, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of concrete thoughts in my head, but one of them was, this is really good liquid. Um, , and then, um, um, um, and then, you know, I kind of progressed from there. Um, my brothers and sisters were all a lot older than me. So for me, it was like monkey see monkey do, you know, they, they were using at that time. And they, my house was really hectic. Um, there was a lot of violence. Um, there was a lot of, you know, uh, rehabs and cops and things like that. My parents surprisingly are not alcoholics. They're like, they were, uh, they were like, uh, pillars of the community. My mom, when my mom passed away, she was a Eucharistic minister. Um, and my dad was an usher for the church. Um, you know, my parents were really good people, but they were ill equipped to deal with their kids. Um, like there was like a genetic super storm when it came to, uh, to, to my parents, like genetics. Um, I tell people, you know, when I explain my family, I was like, my parents were beautiful people who were ill prepared for the demon spawn. They had, so they didn't, you know, like, and no one gives you a handbook. There wasn't a handbook in the sixties and seventies. Like, how do you deal with your child who has, you know, a significant alcohol and drug problem and is breaking things in the house. You know, like they just don't. And my parents, um, were in their eighties when they passed away. So like they were raised in the, in the depression. So they didn't, you know, if they put a roof over your head and, you know, they didn't kill you before you were 18, they did a great job, you know? And by their standards, you know, so they didn't, they didn't really know about like, Hey, like, like my kid is, um, you know, seeing some stuff's going on with them. And like, so I, I think, you know, thing I might need to like take them to counseling or like, you know, do something like that. Um, they tried by the time I got to me, they really tried, you know, they had learned a lot for my brothers and sisters, but for a lot of it, it was just like, you know, they're not, they're not żeby, they're not scary. And this is something that I remember when I was a kid. Um, my, it was funny cause my older brother's seen, uh, uh, summed it up really well. He said that we had a dog, his name was shadow and we really love shadow a lot. But when we got tired of him, they tied them up at the garage and they really didn't pay any attention to him unless, you know, unless something was wrong. And my brother, you know, said that's what they did scary because I was so little and there was so much going on that. I really was able to, you know, get into a life of my own and, you know, get into a lot of things very young. So, you know, I was drinking on a regular basis by the time I was 11. I was doing non-conference approved substances by the time I was 12. And I was in a relationship with a gang member slash drug dealer by the time I was 13. You know, so I got, the great thing is I got sober at 18. So like, it was like a bunch of really bad stuff and a lot of drinking and a lot of misery condensed into this really short period of time. And then I got better. And that would not have happened without AA and good sponsorship. In fact, my great grand sponsor, Don P always said that all the problems in Alcoholics Anonymous can be solved by good sponsorship. And I, and I absolutely believe in that. So me and drinking, right. Cause that's what, and me and recovery and me and God, that's really this story. But I tell you what, it's not that I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. I'm not a drinker. And I will just let you know this from the gate. So by the time I was 12 years old, I had experienced a pretty significant amount of physical abuse. You know, pretty significant amount of psychological and emotional abuse. And I had been sexually abused by multiple members of extended family and neighbors. So by the time I was, you know, in that pre-adolescent adolescent stage, I was pretty damaged. I don't think that that caused my own illness. I don't think that that caused my own alcoholism. I used to say that it did. Like I would tell people, like, if you had my life, you would drink too. You know, it's like, if you knew my story and I would run that story and I would tell them, I'd go through the litany and I'd be like, you know, this is how bad it was. And it's so terrible. Pour me, pour me a drink. But there's a line in the big book that saved my life. And it's in the doctor's opinion, which, you know, the doctor's opinions, the Roman numerals, nobody ever reads it unless your sponsor makes you should really be page one, probably one of the most important chapters in the darn book. But, you know, I didn't write it. So I'm going to keep that somewhat to myself. But in the doctor's opinion, it talks about it talks about, about having, you know, you know, grave mental and emotional disorders. But, you know, but, you know, but that's not why I drank. And it says that it says that, you know, some of us have them, but that's not what caused my alcoholism. You know, did it accelerate it? Sure. You know, like there was a house fire, my alcoholism is a house fire, that stuff definitely poured some gasoline on it. But it didn't cause it. And when I read that, and and I sat down with a sponsor and went over the first step, and I found out what the step really was, and what alcoholism really was. I realized that, like, you know, the things that happened to me didn't create my alcoholism. You know, that my alcoholism was something independent of that, I needed to heal from those things, as well as my alcoholism. So that's the wonderful thing about talking about alcoholism, how many options do you have to really think about controlling the alcoholism? Jonathan Zittrain, Ph.D.: Well, I mean, I Więc ver. Uh, I mean, I've developed, I've gotten so many different ways of doing things, human experience. The one thing that owners have taught me is be careful when it comes to it. And the other thing is, is don't think about alcoholism. So I want to say let go of everything that happens during these years that comes down carelessly. And I'm going to say you don't really need to leave any room. You know, these days it's much more difficult than any other time yet, right? There's just a lot left you've got to forget. drink when things are great. You know, we drink when the sun is shining. We drink when it's rainy. We drink when things are great. We drink when things are bad. We drink because we're breathing. You know, I drink because I drink. But I had been in and out of rehab a bunch of times. My first rehab was at 13. It was just a short time. My mother found out that I was dating a drug dealer slash gang member and she separated us, which I was devastated about because, I mean, how dare you take me away from the love of my life where I barely remembered his name by the time I wrote my sex inventory. I was like, who was that guy? But she sent me to rehab, got out. What was interesting for me was, and this is where it's kind of salient in terms of my alcoholism and my recovery. I went, my mom sent me to Poconos, where I live now, actually. I bought my sister's house, which is why I had Wi-Fi problems. Because I was using my Wi-Fi instead of my work's Wi-Fi, trying to be an honest creature. And my Wi-Fi is satellite Wi-Fi because we're in the middle of nowhere. And my work's Wi-Fi is like, you know, super good Wi-Fi because I work for a drug and alcohol facility. Anyway, so I got sent to the Poconos to live with my sister. My older sister, Maureen, is not an alcoholic. She says things like, I'm going to have a nightcap. And then she drinks half a glass of wine and says she's sleeping and goes to sleep. And I don't understand that. That's not my experience with alcohol. My experience with alcohol is I drink until I drink and then I drink some more and then I drink and then I fall down and I wake up, I throw up and drink. Sometimes not always in that order. But she's a non-alcoholic. She's the only non-alcoholic out of all of our brothers, all the brothers and sisters. And so she was going through a divorce and my mom thought it would be a really good idea to send me to go live up with her. She wanted to get me away from the drug dealer. I said, I'm going to go live up with her. She wanted to get me away from the drug dealer. I said, I'm going to go live up with her. She wanted to get me away from the drug dealer. I said, their boyfriend, which in retrospect was a very good idea. But, you know, she sent me to the Poconos because she thought, okay, well, it's the people that Carrie's hanging out with, not, you know, the alcoholism, not, you know, that, that gnawing hole inside of my, my gut, not the, my life is run by fear, not the selfishness and self-centeredness, not all of that stuff. Cause I mean, she didn't know that what she knew is there was something wrong. And the best way to fix it is to rearrange it, the deck chairs and the Titanic. And she did. So she rearranged that those deck chairs, and I ended up in the Poconos and that's when I really learned. And, and I, and again, a lot of what I learned about myself was in retrospect, because Kierkegaard said that life is lived forward and understood in reverse. And that's definitely been my experience. So a lot of times, like, you know, in doing the step work in the inventory work that I did, I was able to look back and I, identify like, okay, so that's what was going on with me then. I didn't really understand it in the moment, but I was able to put it in context now. So what was going on with me was that I moved to the Poconos and the Poconos. Now we have a little bit of something like we're still the woods. I mean, I had a bear in my, in my, in, in my backyard last night, going through my garbage on a regular basis and a flock of deer and some turkeys. You know, we're, we're definitely rural. Yeah. You know, you can hear wolves at night sometimes in the summer. It's kind of cool, but you know, so back then, you know, I'm 14 years old, so I'm 44 now. So long time ago, like we had, like, we had a Kmart, we had to James way. We had nothing else. We didn't even have a red lobster. Now we do. But I was a kid who didn't have a driver's license dropped in the middle of the woods in the middle of my sister's divorce. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Poconos. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Poconos. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Poconos. And I was with her four kids who are basically my age. Like my, my nieces and nephews are like my brothers and sisters because I'm only five years older than my nephew. So I'm closer in age to my nephew than I am my siblings. Um, in fact, a funny story about me is everybody thought that I was my sister, Maureen's the non-alcoholics illegitimate child. Cause she was 16 when I was born. And I look a lot like her. Like if you put us together, you'd be like, okay, my nose is, she's got a nicer nose. I have bigger boobs. That's kind of how it works. Um, um, but like we were both dark haired, light skin, green eyed, very Irish looking, you know, and from, from 50, uh, from 50 yards away, we look like we're twins. Um, she's a very beautiful woman kidding. So anyway, um, you know, my mom sent me to go live with her and she was kind of going through this rough time, but it was like, I would help her and help me. So I'm in the middle of nowhere. And then one of the things that I removed from is alcohol. Now she was in the midst of a divorce from an alcoholic because she is not an alcoholic, but she collects them, which is a whole nother thing and Al-Anon and a completely different fellowship. But that's, that's theism, right? Like if you don't have the, the physical, you know, the physical allergy and the mental obsession, and, you know, you have, you know, like if you live in the family that we lived in, you'll, you'll develop theism, you know, and hers is collecting alcoholics. So she was married to an alcoholic and like, when she, when he left, there was quite a bit of alcohol left behind. I definitely finished that. But after that, I didn't, I didn't have access to alcohol. So, you know what I did? Um, I tried to kill myself about four or five times. I slept all the time. Um, I could barely function. I cut off all my hair and some weird thing where I was like, I don't want to be attractive or something. So I shaved my head. Definitely was not my finest moment. Definitely a Britney Spears moment. I had a Britney Spears moment before Britney Spears. Um, I wasted away, you know, wouldn't eat because I was severely depressed. And here's the thing. There's a line in the doctor's opinion. Well, more than a line, there's a couple of lines in the doctor's opinion. It talks about irritable, restless, into discontent. So can we, we can at once feel the ease and comfort that comes from taking a few drinks, drinks, which we see others taking with impunity. So when I don't have alcohol to medicate that, that spirituality, that those bedevilments, those, that thing inside. That the gnawing hole, you know, I don't have anything to distract from that. I implode rather than explode. You know, in that time when people would talk to me about like being an alcoholic and I'd be like, no, you know, like I went six, nine months without drinking, you know, you know, I did, I just literally tried to kill myself a lot of times. And in fact, pretty successfully, you know, I was in the psych ward a couple of times that clearly in that time, because she, my sister's a nurse. So the first couple of times she made me throw up or found me or whatever. And I did make amends for that, by the way, I'm like, sorry, I tried to kill myself a bunch of times in your house. And thank you for saving my life. But you know, you know, a couple of flight, you know, flight decks and, you know, things like that. But something, but upon reflection at like, like I look back and it's that thing is that about being able to control and enjoy my drinking when I'm controlling my drinking or not drinking. I'm not enjoying life. And when I am drinking the way I want to drink, I'm out of control and I can't control how much I take, you know? So I ended up moving back to New Jersey because after all of that, my poor sister was like, okay, I'm done with you. I love you very much, but you must go. And that was a right choice for her. And I moved back in with my parents. I was in rehab two other times, three, three times that year, expelled from a couple of schools. I got expelled from this beautiful Catholic school. It's actually a bunch of Dominican nuns, a really great opportunity because I'm actually quite intelligent. So I can fool people a lot. Like I, like I'm able to do that. Like I, in school, like I could, I could just show up and not take any, you know, not do any homework and just take the tests and do those things and, and, you know, pull bees and whatever. So I actually did rather well in school and got into a pretty decent private school, was expelled within two months. And one of those months I spent in prison. I was in prison for like, I don't know, like, I don't know, like, I don't know. I was in prison for like, I don't know, like, I don't know, like, I don't know. So I was in rehab. So technically I was maybe in school three weeks total before I got expelled, drunk, lit a fire, beat up a girl. I remember being in the, in the, you know, the headmistress's office and she, as she's, you know, she's the Dominican nun and she's explaining to me that I'm being expelled. And I remember looking at her and being like, but my parents pay for this. Like, how could you, you don't want my money. Like you're expelling me. Like, what do you mean? By the way, people say that to me. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I'm like, haha, karma's a bitch. Anyway, you know, but there's a thing is like the, what was salient about that time in my life was I was 16 years old. I had a really nice boyfriend. Like he was like a normal person. Actually his sister married my brother. So maybe not that normal. But he was a normal guy. He's actually right now he's a, a, a gunnery sergeant in the Marines. Like, lifer in Marines and is a wonderful man. But I had this boyfriend and I had a posh private school and I had all this stuff. And I said, I said, okay, all right. The, the, the, the gangster, like wannabe running the streets, little girl, like I'm going to stop doing that. Right. And I'm going to like, be good. I promise I'm going to behave like I'm going to pretend to be different. I'm going to act different. I'm going to change everything about who I am. I'm going to, you know, stop doing bad things and I will not drink anymore. So guess what happened? I'm walking home from school, coming home from the bus stop, run into somebody I know they say, Hey, Carrie, do you want to smoke this non-conference approved thing? And I think, sure, why not? It's just plants and stuff. So I smoked that and then I drink and then I end up drinking, drinking, drink, drink, drink. And then I kill myself, literally die for two and a half minutes, intubated, wake up in the, the, see you end up in the psych ward, another round of rehab, get out of that rehab, get drunk, light a fire, beat up a girl, get expelled from school before Christmas. And what that shows me, what that shows me is that, that thing that it talks about, it says, it says, the delusion that you're presently may be like the delusion that you are, that you can be like everybody else or presently maybe must be smashed. The delusion that I can just, you know, pretend that I'm a normal person and pretend that I'm not an alcoholic and I won't be, that has to be smashed. And when I think back to all the times, like in Bill's story where, you know, I thought like, well, I'm a really smart girl. I can figure this out or I can, you know, you know, manage my way through my alcoholism. You know, I can, you know, I can, you know, I can, you know, I can, you know, I can, you know, I can, you know, manage an unmanageable thing, you know? So that delusion that I'm like other people and presently maybe had to be smashed. And it was. Throughout all this time, I was in and out of AA. I've been in and out of AA and our sister fellowship NA since I was 13 years old. You know, I died an alcoholic death in AA at 16. And it wasn't the first time and it wasn't the last time. Luckily, you know, we have really good EMTs and good hospitals. My parents had really good insurance. So I survived. And my family, you know, my poor parents, what I put them through, surprisingly, out of all my brothers and sisters, I was, you know, they paved the way, but I definitely, I definitely took my pound of flesh from my parents. But fast forwarding, you know, I was in and out doing the liars and criers thing in AA. And, you know, like I did everything but work the steps. You know, I, I got sober in an area where at that time, the steps really wasn't, it wasn't a thing. Like nobody read, people like use their big book for a coaster. I mean, I remember like my sponsor had at the time, cause I had sponsors, you know, she gave me a rock, told me it was a higher power. I thought that was cool. My mom threw it out, you know, cause I ran away from home and she threw out all my stuff. Which understandably, and it was, she threw out my, my higher power. But I had a, you know, she had a big book and she used it to prop open her window. So, you know, this was an area, like, this was like, it was like Bloomfield young people. So like, basically all we did was meet at the meeting, you know, go to the diner, hook up with each other, have drama. It was like Melrose Place in 90210, you know, you know, with, with really bad coffee and, you know, a bunch of brats. And that's what I did, you know, and there were definitely people working steps now that I look back, but I didn't see anything probably because people, you know, I was the girl who would like go to a meeting and like, and I'd get drunk in the bathroom, you know, or I'd show up, you know, trashed or like I was a shit show and everybody knew it. And I lied all the time about everything, you know, so like, I'm sure like the people who were like, had their head on straight were like, I'm staying away from this girl because she is a hot mess. And I was like, you know, not receptive. I'm sure that was it too. But what happened was, and this is, this is kind of like the end of it. So by the time I was 17, I had run away from home a bunch of times and I ran away the last time on Mother's Day. Yeah, because that's, I'm that kind of kid who decides that it's Mother's Day that I'm going to get on the back of a motorcycle of a 38 year old man who is divorced twice and has two kids. But I'm going to get on the back of his motorcycle. And leave. My mom was definitely devastated from that one. So I run away from home. And, you know, living with older men in order to take care of me because that's what I what I what I would do. There's a website for that now it's called sugar daddies. Another thing that, you know, I'm like, Hmm, thank God I got sober. Before like cell phones. And like, and like, you know, tick tock and Twitter and Facebook and, oh my god, the, I don't even want to think about what kind of digital wreckage I would have left behind. I was bad enough in person. Getting a recording of it. Hmm. Anyway. So, I was living in the East Orange, New Jersey. And I was living in the East Orange, New Jersey. And I was living in a, in a, in a crack house. I was. So I got kicked out of it because like alcoholics are really annoying to crack heads because like they're looking for the shadow people. And they're counting license plates. And so like when you're drunk and bringing people into the house and you're like, you know, really obnoxious and weird and falling down and that gets a little disruptive even for I guess the, the crack house. So they asked me politely asked me to leave. So I have the distinction of being kicked out of a crack house. So I have the distinction of being kicked out of a crack house. So I have the distinction of being kicked out of a crack house. I think that's what it says. I think that says enough about what unmanageability looks like and carries life. But I had met my husband or my, the man who was to be my husband. He was about three days sober and 25 years old and on state parole. He had spent two years in a California prison and moved back to New Jersey. I met him and said, I'm going to marry this guy. And I did. But between then we drank. We were a mess. We were a mess. We were a mess. We were a mess. We were a mess. We were a mess. We were a mess. By the time I got sober, I was 85 pounds. By the time I got sober, I was 85 pounds. My sister, who I love very much was feeding me off the back deck because I wasn't allowed home. There was only one day that I was allowed to be at my parents' house, which is Sunday, because if you know anything about the Irish Catholics, we have to have Sunday dinner and Sunday dinner, anybody can show up. Right. So I would show up and I would, you know, grab money and food and, and my sister would like leave like leftovers. Right. And I would just like top ramen on the back deck and I would take it and I would pretend she would pretend she didn't do it. And I would pretend that I didn't take it at one point. She was so worried about me. She brought me to Planned Parenthood because she knew I wouldn't go to any other doctor to be able to get me checked out because she was like, you know, you really shouldn't read care like you're a mess. I had I had scabs all over my face. I picked my face and it wasn't because of stimulants. It was because I didn't like myself and I would stare in the mirror and hate what I saw. I would pick at my face because I just wanted to go away. And and the last thing that kind of the straw that there were two straws that broke the camel's back that got me in to got me back into AA and then ultimately into the steps. A few weeks before I got sober, my mother was driving home from Rutgers. She was an administrator at Rutgers University. She was my mom was a lady. My mom when my mom was dying in the hospital. She. She made me put on her eyebrows. And she told me before she went into a coma, make sure that my that that that my eyebrows are done because that's my mom. She wore a girdle until till till she went into the hospital. My mom was a lady. So my mom's driving home from Rutgers and I'm standing on Park Street Park Avenue and in the East Orange on the corner. At this point, I'm. I'm wearing a mask. I'm wearing a mask. I'm wearing a mask. I'm wearing a. I'm wearing a mask. I'm wearing a mask. I'm wearing a cut off Daisy Dukes a T shirt. I'm 85 pounds. My face is full of scabs. My hair is basically dreadlocks. And my mom sees me. And she looks at me. She's about 10 feet away from me. She's in her car. She had like drove a little white Volvo station wagon. And she saw me. And she just looked straight forward and drove away. And I remember thinking like not even my mother. Not even my mother. Wants to acknowledge me. You know, and then the day before I got sober. I was on my way to, to, to Harlem. I was, you know, in carny at that time. Cause I used to break into people's apartments. And or apartment buildings and sleep in their laundry room. And I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I was in carny and. I was about to get a ride into the city. And I happened to meet my ride with my boyfriend, future husband. At a place called town hall park in carny. And there was an AA meeting right next to it. And there was a guy named Billy. Billy that's has since passed away. But he saw me and he was like, hey kid. He's like, why don't you come downstairs? I'm like, I'm going to. downstairs to the meeting and I was like, nah, Billy, like I got a bottle of Bacardi and, you know, $300, like I'm not going anywhere. And he's like, nah, he's like, no kid. Like, why don't, you know, you can come down here anytime. Like, you know, you can always come down here. And, uh, and I was like, all right, whatever, Bill. Um, but when I woke up that morning and I woke up on the, on the basement floor of an apartment building in Elm street in Kearney, New Jersey, uh, right next to West Hudson hospital. And I was, you know, covered in my own piss and vomit. You know, at that point I probably had drank myself into like, you know, alcohol poisoning. And I, you know, and you know, when you're like, you, you're so, so, so sick and you're so drunk that like, you, like, you know, that like you're, you're barely breathing, you know, like there's a moment of my favorite. Speakers. His name is Earl H talks about heart and lungs working. Um, and that was definitely heart and loves lungs working night. And, um, you know, I, uh, I woke up on that floor and I realized that had I died that night, like my mother would never know where I was. No one would ever know what happened to me. And I knew I wasn't welcome home. I mean, my, my mother had drove, driven past me on the street, but I knew that, uh, I knew that my father would be there. And so I walked to a meeting. I walked about three miles to a meeting in Lynnhurst. And then, uh, it was a big book meeting. I stole a big book and some cookies. And then I walked to a meeting at five o'clock at the VFW in Belleville. Um, and then I walked to a meeting at Trinity, uh, in Kearney that night. And then somebody gave me a place to stay for that night. And, uh, and I did the same thing the next day. I went to the new, the meeting and then I went to the next meeting and the next meeting. And I did the same thing. I didn't really have any intention of getting sober. I didn't really want to get sober. I just knew that I was dying. I didn't think I had alcoholism because I didn't know what alcoholism was. I said I was an alcoholic, but what I really wanted to do was to figure out how I could be like everybody else. Um, it took me two years before I got introduced to the steps. I think that last experience, we talk about, you know, the grace of God, getting us here and doing the will of God is keeping us here. And I think that God graced me for the first two years. Now I ended up finding out that I was pregnant by the time I, by the time I had 60 days. Um, I found that I was pregnant with my daughter. Um, her name is day. Um, and so my, my husband and I were like, okay, great. So now we have like, we're new, newly clean, you know, pretty much homeless and we're bringing a baby into the world. So I was like, okay, so I really have to like, try and be clean. I have to really try and do this and be sober. So I did something like the steps. Like I call it an Ikea four step because I like went in the big book. I looked at the picture and I did what it said. Um, but if you look at the picture on the big book, it's got three columns, not four. So I wrote a three column inventory and stayed really sick, but I shared it with my sponsor and it was something, um, I made crappy amends, um, that were mostly justifications, but it was something. And there's definitely, um, the line in week Gnostics that says that, you know, God doesn't make too hard terms with those who seek him. I think that really matters because if I look back at like the, my first rudimentary attempt at the steps and they were just crap, you know, I was flying and blind in the dark, just trying to figure it out because, you know, no one around me was really doing it. Um, you know, they were talking about what they would do when they worked the steps, but they weren't actually working them. So I just, my husband, you know, you know, he, you know, he started writing a four-step and I was not going to let him like, you know, be better than me. You know, like he, you know, he writes a four-step, I got to write four-step cause you know, I got to keep even keel with him. Um, and I stayed sober for two years on that. And then by the time I was 20 years old, I wanted to die again because there's that thing is that if you don't, if you don't actually treat your spirituality, you know, it continues to grow. This is a progression. Disease, you know, and the problem is, is that I'm in more pain when I'm not drinking and I don't have God than when I am drinking, you know? So I held on for those two years, but those two years were like, you know, we're like living hell, but God is amazing. So I ended up having to move to Staten Island, New York. And, uh, my husband got a job there. It was a good job with the school board. Blah, blah, blah. We moved there. And then as soon as we got there, he lost the job because there was like some sort of, it was back in the time when they kept, when the New York school board kept hiring like pedophiles and it was a whole thing. And they found out that my husband had a drug charge was for acid, but they fired him. So I'm in Staten Island, right. With my husband and my daughter. And, uh, and we figured it out. Like he got a job doing, uh, doing construction and, and I, um, tried to make it work and he got into the steps. He found a big book meeting and he started to do big book studies in my house and I hated them. They, those big book people come over and I would like just hate them. And, uh, and you know, they would all be happy and laughing in the kitchen. And I'd be in the TV room, like, just like hating every second that they were there and jealous as hell, but not willing to ask them to help me because like, that would be admitting that I needed help. And they would look down. And I would be like, you know, I'm not going to be able to help you. And I was like, you know, I'm not going to be able to help you. And I was like, you know, I'm not going to be able to help you. And they would look down on me and all of that other stuff. So I just sat there stewing. And then my sponsor at the time who was having an affair with a married man, because, you know, water seeks its own level guys. Um, she, uh, she came over and she was like, Hey, let's go. There's a good speaker. Or I heard there's like this famous speaker coming, you know, from, uh, California who is, uh, speaking at this meeting and it was called, um, common solution. And in this meeting, you know, and, uh, like, let's go there and judge them. You know, like, let's listen to this swarmy like speaker and then like, like pull it apart. And I'm like, yeah, like those big book thumpers are jerks. Um, and so we went and it was on the nine step. Oh, and the nine step was my favorite step to talk about. Cause I like to talk about all the amends that people owed me. Everybody owed me an amends. It was their fault. I was an alcoholic. If they would just apologize, then everything will be okay. And then at one point, I kind of thought like the people who screwed me up should apologize to the people I screwed over because since it, if you didn't scroll me at screw me up, I wouldn't have screwed people over. I didn't really have any responsibility. Those two should meet and work it out. Um, so this speaker was a guy named Joe H. No, Joe H looks like if David Crosby and Captain Kangaroo had sex and had a love child, this is what this man looks like. And he's there and he's, it's just before he's going to study with the Dalai Lama, which of course just annoyed me too. I kept calling him the Lama Lama. Uh, I was like, Oh, you're going to study with the Lama, you know, Allah, uh, Caddyshack. Um, anyway, um, he's sharing on the nine step and he taught, he keeps taught in the eighth and nine step and he keeps talking about this word all make amends to them all wherever possible. And I'm like, so in my fiery, angry 20 year old, untreated alcoholism, I decided that I was going to raise my hand and explain to this guy why, while he's full of crap and why, what he's saying is wrong. And I told him my, my thoughts on how the people who screwed me up and the people who I screwed over should meet and they should talk it out because really I didn't play any part in this because I'm just the middleman between two people. Um, he laughed, you know, when you have somebody that's so sick, like their spirituality is coming out of their pores. Like they are so toxic and so crazy that like, you know, that you have them, like you can set that hook because they just want something. They want an answer. They want, they were just looking for some kind of relief. And he laughed and he he's like, you know, let me talk to you after the meeting. And I'm like, I'll talk to you, old man, blah, blah, blah. And he asked me three questions that no one had ever asked me. And I was 20 years old. I had spent seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous. No one had asked me these three questions. What happens when you drink? I drink. And he goes, well, what happens when you drink? I'm like, I drink more. He's like, um, you know, can you control your drinking? I'm like, no. He's like, do you think about it all the time? I'm like, I can taste it. He's like, do you hate people who can drink and you can't? I'm like, I want to stab them in the eye with a fork. And he's like, okay. He's like, do you believe that there's a solution to your problem? And I answered him honestly. And I said, no, I said, I don't really believe AA works. I don't. I don't believe that God really cares about me. I don't believe that there's a solution. I've been here for seven years and this is how I feel. And I want to die. And you're telling me that there's a solution. Where is it? So then he pulled out this blue book and he says, it's right here. And he introduced me to somebody. His name is Tommy. He's since passed on, but he's an amazing man. And Tommy brought me through the book the first time he didn't do my, he didn't hear my fist up because at that point I hated men as much as I hated God. And I felt like I wasn't ready to share that with him. So my best friend Denise and I swapped fist steps. We wrote a four, we, we, we like we're meeting with him together and doing step work. And then, uh, we swapped fist steps and something happened inside of me. The first time I life, I didn't want to die. I stopped fantasizing about the day that this would all be over because I looked at life as like Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the mountain. Right. And every day Sisyphus pushes the boulder up the mountain and every day it rolls back down. And I felt like that was all it was going to be was suffering. And, uh, I kind of learned something. Um, one of, one of my great, one of my wonderful spiritual teachers introduced me to a guy named Albertus Camus. It's a weird philosophy guy from South Africa. Um, but he's an absurdist and he says that, you know, life is like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain. Um, and I said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But we have, but we have control and we can, we can control our attitude and how we look at it. And he's like, you can be a who and who bill, you know? And I like to think of that as like the Grinch went and stole all the who, who people's toys. Right. And all the who people's Christmas stuff. And the way that they responded to losing all of those things was to circle up around the tree and sing the who song together. And the word we is a big piece of that. Um, so, you know, the steps has given me and God has given me the ability to find joy, even when I have pain to see the beauty in that because suffering isn't, you know, necessary. Um, but it happens, but what's something, what's something that's really amazing for me and what the steps has done for have done for me has allowed me to find the beauty in my suffering. And I'll explain that in a minute. Um, so I told you a little bit about what it is that I've been doing. And I've been doing it. I'm just telling you that I've been doing it for a long time. And I just wanted to share with you a little bit about what I was like as a kid. So can you imagine what my poor parents went through? Um, when I came, when it came time for amends with them. Now I have done the four step 101 different ways. I probably go through the steps every, well, I was going through the steps every year for maybe the first 15 years. And in my old age, um, I've probably gone through every two or three years. Um, I do do regular inventory and there I've, what I call 10 step like when I, when I resentment shows up on my nightly review and, and I, I text my nightly review cause there's an app for that. Um, I have 10 step bodies that I share my nightly review with. Um, and if I have a resentment that kind of shows up two or three days in a row, I write out full resentment and fear inventory. And then I have, I have a couple of couple of people that I share that with. Um, it's really important. So like I clean up as I go along and then every year or two, um, you know, I go back and I sit with inventory. And, and I, and I attempt to, to make sure that, uh, that, that I'm, you know, living in accordance to God's will and the principles of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, but you know, what I, what I like to talk about and like how I like to end my talks is to talk about the amends process, because for me, the amends process, the four step was great. And the fifth step's amazing. And I, and I, and I love, I could do workshop after workshop on those, like, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, I love it. Um, but I love the amends because it's the thing that really changed me. Oops, that's somebody else's phone there. No one saw that. One of my coworkers phones just went off. Um, so, um, it was the amends that really changed me because it's the thing that, uh, that began to really test my faith, right? Because it's like, it's easy to have faith when you're in the room and you're in the room and you're in the room and you're in the room and you're in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and you're around people. Um, uh, when you're around people who are like you, it's a lot harder to do it when you're like knocking on the door of strangers or people that you harmed because of your alcoholism and you're facing them. And I think that's really where like God comes in and like that, that leap of faith really comes from like where you be, I begin to put my money where my mouth is. So for me, there's a couple of, um, amends that were like the most salient. Um, definitely the amends to my mother was huge. I made amends to her a bunch of times because, you know, I have one of those amends that you make amends and then you have to make amends again. And then you make amends and you like do the thing and then you make amends for it. So one of the things I had a real anger problem. I know that's a big bit of a surprise to you guys that I may have been, had struggled with anger and resentment. Um, but I did. So, um, and I had this thing where like my mom would do something that would remind me of something that I was resentful at. I would flip out and yell at her and it was this whole thing. Um, and then I would have to make amends and I would do inventory on it and make amends to her. And I was about five years sober. And, um, and my, my sponsor cast at the time, you know, cause I I've also had quite a few sponsors. I've been so blessed in my life. I mean, the spiritual teachers and sponsors that I have, and I've been privileged to know. Um, I mean, I just can't even, I can't even begin to express that gratitude. Um, but Cass taught me and she, you know, like, you know, she really had me sit with, with, um, what was the expectation on realistic expectation I had on my mom? Like, what is it that I wanted from her? Why, why did I keep coming back to this resentment? And, uh, and the unrealistic expectation I had is I wanted her to admit that she was wrong. I wanted her to say that she was sorry for the things that had happened to me. And Cass helped me to understand that I don't need that from her, that I have that already. I have that from God, that I don't need my mother to acknowledge that, um, you know, that, that the things that happened to me happened, that God already knew all of that and had, you know, and accepts me exactly how I am. And she was like, until you let go of that expectation, I was, she's like, you'll never, your amends with your mother will never take. So I did a bit of work on that, fear inventory with that. And, um, and I came back and made amends to my mom, and, uh, and she did the thing that I never thought she'd do. She looked at me and she said, she's like, Carrie, you had a very hard childhood and a really hard life. And she was like, I wish I had known now when I knew then. And, uh, and, and I really respect the woman you've become. And, uh, I, I can tell you that from that moment on at five years sober, I never raised my voice to my mother until she died. And she died on November 17th, 2019. I never raised a voice, never raised my voice to her, never raised my voice in anger. And I was the daughter that I always wanted to be. And it was because of that amends. Um, the amends that I made to my high school principal for being, you know, verbally abusive and setting fires is what made me go to college. And I remember that I was like, I'm not going to college. I never planned to go to college. It was a high school dropout, you know? And I, my sponsor made me make amends. She's like harm to anyone institutions. She's like, you, you harm them. She's like, write a letter to the faculty, go to New York, go to the principal, make amends. You know, um, I had to do that for a couple of schools and I did that. And, uh, and the principal of my school told me that, um, that in order to set it right, I needed to go to college and get a G and D. And I told him, I told my sponsor and I was like, I'm not going to go to college. I'm not going to do that. And I was like, there's no way he's going to hold me to that. Like, you can't make me do that. And she said, yep, you have to do it. So I, I went to college. I didn't get a GD. Actually I got, I actually had to get a GD like a couple of weeks before I graduated college because, um, I sort of fibbed and said I had one, but that I lost it. Um, so anyway, um, I ended up going to college, got a master's degree. Never have done that without the amends. Um, you know, and what, what I'm going to say, and what I'm going to wrap this up with is that, uh, the past year, um, in 2018, I lost my father in 2019. I lost my mother when they died. I was there. In fact, I was there for my father's last breath. I held his hand. I'm the one who gave him the fatal dose of morphine while he was on hospice. Um, I got to be, the woman that they needed me to be. And I got to be the daughter my father needed me to be. Um, I got to be there with him and to show up for him, you know, in a way that, uh, is miraculous. Um, my brothers and sisters who are all older than me, uh, they looked at me and, uh, they said, I don't, how did you get so strong? How could you do this? How, cause I made the decisions. I called the priest. I did all of this stuff. And I looked at them and I said, what do you think A.A. has taught me all these years? I was like, these things that I did, I'm not doing because of me. I'm doing because A.A. has given me a connection with a higher power. And I never had to do these things alone. I don't have to make these decisions. I don't have to do this alone. And I'm grounded in the faith that if I make decisions that are based on honesty, compassion, love, patience, tolerance, and understanding, then I have to do these things alone. I don't have to make these decisions alone. And I'm grounded in the faith that if I make decisions that are based on honesty, compassion, love, patience, tolerance, and understanding, I don't have to make these decisions alone. I don't have to make these decisions alone. I don't have to make these decisions alone. understanding that things will be okay. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here for you. And I'm so sorry I started late, but I hope I gave you an approximation of a decent talk of Alcoholics Anonymous. And thank you so much for the privilege allowing me to share my recovery with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Carrie, for your powerful message and for your service. We're delighted you were able to join us.