Tara R. at the Appalachian Roundup – 2024

Hi, everybody. My name is Tara, and I'm a recovered alcoholic, and Cliff is right. You guys look beautiful. You really do. This is a really special conference for me because, as Cliff said, a lot of some of my favorite people are here, and I couldn't wait to get here. And my sponsor's here, and she just prayed with me in the bathroom. She said, we can pray at the altar or we can pray in the bedroom. God's going to show up. So thank you, Marion, for that. My sponsee drove four and a half hours from North Carolina, my dear friend, to be here. And I have other sponsees here that are dear to me and just friends from all over the country. I want to thank Ben and the committee for inviting me here because I wouldn't have wanted to miss this one. I would have come even if you didn't invite me when and I saw who was going to be here, so thank you for that. And for Shauna and especially Gemma for making the trip and picking me up at the airport when my flight was delayed. I know your mom didn't think it was a long time, but you did. So thank you especially to Gemma. And to everybody who's been involved. You know, I've put on conferences with people before, and if you've never been involved, you have no idea the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. So to anybody who's had anything to do with this, I truly thank you. This is an amazing weekend already. I want to thank Cliff for step one, right? Powerless. Oh, that was phenomenal. I've been tasked with speaking on steps two and three, and in We Agnostics it says, and it means of course that we're going to talk about God. That's what I'm here to do. And if you have a problem with God, oh well. Because I love him dearly. You know, I listen to Cliff. I don't even know which one is mine. I'm going to open a new one. I listen to Cliff say he came to Alcoholics Anonymous for 45 days and just came to meetings. My sobriety date's August 24th, 1986. So I'm coming up on 38 years sober this year. But you can only clap the half of that. I need to tell you a little bit about why I love this book, and it's not the book. It's where this book led me. It is not the books. It's not me. It's why this book lead me. I got sober in 1986. As I said, I was 26 years old at the time, so don't hurt yourself doing the math. I'm 63, but I got sober young back then in 86. When you were 26, you were young, and I jumped in with both feet as well, and I did everything I was told to do. You know, I joined a home group immediately. I got a service commitment cleaning ashtrays, and yeah, we got to smoke back then. I was a three-pack-a-day smoker, so you people who get sober and have to go outside of meetings or wait an hour, that's a whole other level of sobriety in my opinion. I don't know if I could have done it. But at any rate, got a sponsor. I went to retreats. I worked in a sober nightclub. I went to sober club meds for vacation. I literally thought I was supposed to trial for Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I put alcohol down, I did not get better. I got sicker. and this disease progresses whether we're drinking or not. You made it 45 days. I suffered for 19 years that way. And Cliff, when you said if I didn't pick up a drink at 45 days, I would have blown my brains out, I was suicidal quite a few times in those 19 years and actually went for a loaded gun at one point. I did more harm sober than I ever did when I was drinking to my parents the harm I caused my daughter my husband at the time selfish and self-centered to the extreme I was restless and irritable and discontented and I didn't know what was wrong with me because I was doing everything that they told me to do in Alcoholics Anonymous and the more the years racked up I couldn't tell people I want to die I'm sponsoring a million people right what are they going to think I really didn't want them to think it didn't work I really did have that in the back of my mind so what happened to me is at 19 years I got the gift of desperation now for 19 years I didn't want anything to do with the God thing so let me just be straight up like if you have a problem with God, so did I I was literally in church basements banging the table, cursing God I wanted anything but God to be the solution but when you get desperate enough, you're willing to be open-minded and that's what step two requires just a little the end part of my story that brought on that gift of desperation so I was married for 20 years to a man who was sober, we were both sober 17 years married for 30, had a 9 year old daughter and he ended up drowning and my whole world blew up and I have this 9 year older and I'm a single mom And, you know, God's really putting it on my heart to tell you how bad it was before I got that gift of desperation at 19 years that you know why I needed him so badly. So when I say I blew up my life and hurt people more sober, after two years of my husband being gone I decided that I needed to find another husband and a father for my daughter and I was married, divorced and remarried by 23 so if you kissed me you had to marry me and I had literally never dated I married my high school sweetheart that I met at 15 And then I was married to this second husband for 20 years, so I'd never dated. So when I was ready to start dating, nobody in my little town of Long Beach, Long Island, it was a barrier reef island, had asked me out for even a cup of coffee. And I have to say, at that time, I was 40-something. I had bleach blonde hair. You could see my abs from across the street. I was tan. I looked as good as I ever did or ever will look in my entire life. Okay, let's just say that. And nobody was even asking me out for a cup of coffee. And I said to my friend Richie, I said, you know, what's the deal? And he said, my husband was a Long Beach detective when he died. And he says, there's not a man in this town with balls big enough to ask you out on a date because if he hurts you or your daughter, he's going to have to move out of Long Beach. The whole police department is watching you two. So I was like, okay, so what does this look like? Okay, nobody in AA is going to ask me out. So somebody suggested Match.com. There's a lot of young people here. I don't know, the swiping, the fishes, the whatever you're doing, the left, the right, they'll want to know. We had Match.come at eHarmony and eH Harmony had to answer 200 questions and that was way too much work. So when I say that it really, I really cause more harm, I need to let you know what this looks like. if you're not drinking and you're suffering from a spiritual malady, which I didn't know which I was suffering from, it looks like this. I use other things to try and fill that hole in my soul. So when my daughter was an infant our electric was shut off and I had a cord running to my neighbor's house to keep the refrigerator on so her formula wouldn't spoil. And I walk into a meeting with a new $300 pocketbook to show my girlfriends. And when they look at me like are you crazy? My first thought is, do you not like the color? Should I have gotten a different color? Because these four women knew the truth. They knew that I had an electric cord hooked up and I'm showing them a $300 purse. So it manifests in all these ways. But the most harm I've ever done in my life is to my daughter. And they say, you won't regret the past or wish to shut the door on it. I'm going to regret this till I draw my last breath. And I've reconciled myself to that. But my daughter was raised in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous from the time she was an infant. She never saw anybody drunk. She had sober parents. I was bringing home strange men that were around my child at 11, and she would say, Mommy, please don't let them come here anymore. They scare me. Turns out one of them was a pedophile, never laid his hands on her, But an 11-year-old had more sense than I did. I finally met somebody in AA. We went to a couple of funerals together. He didn't drive, so I gave him a ride. My daughter loved him. Great guy. Great guy, really great guy. I mean, I really, really loved him and she really cared about him too and life was great. When we had one little hiccup, he started smoking crack. And now my daughter, who's never seen anybody drunk, is going, Mommy, what's wrong with Brian? He's acting funny. the woman I am today if I were to be dating and I had an 11 year old daughter and I had access to the Long Beach Police Department before you laid eyes on my daughter there would be a complete background check, I would need to know you are a man of integrity, that you are a man of your word, I wouldn't just meet you at a Starbucks and bring you home and have you around my child. So now I have somebody in my house smoking crack around my daughter. My parents had retired to Tucson, and I got a phone call. They said, please find us a one-bedroom apartment that takes pets who are moving back to New York. I disrupted my parents' retirement at 19 years sober, going to meetings having a sponsor doing all these things this is how I'm behaving in Alcoholics Anonymous I caused harm to my home group there was ch-ch-ch of course there was ch-sch-sch we're human I had to make an amends to my own group but God two of my favorite words are but God, but God used a crackhead named Brian to literally save my life. Because at 19 years, I was in the car with him out of my mind. And he said to me, you know what, Ty, I'd never want you to lose your 19 years. But I can't stop thinking about what it would be like if we got high together. And it was on me like a cloak. You know that when you know that you know that you're going. I knew I was going. And I called my dear friend in Texas. Imagine doing that to your dear friend. Oh, I'm going to go smoke crack with Brian now. Like what's she going to do? But God, but God said through her, didn't you meet some woman? Didn't you take some woman's number at a conference? I was like, yeah, this woman Val. She said, do you have her number? I said, yeah. I wrote it in the back of my big book and she said, I'm going to stay on the phone with you until you call her. And Val picked up on the very first ring. And I was blubbering like an idiot. I am going to smoke crack. I'm going to die. My daughter is going to be an orphan. I don't believe we can get sober for anybody, but I believe it can get us motivated to want to get sober. And the one thing I could not live with is leaving that little girl an orphan and I knew I was going to die. And I'm like, going to Die. Smoke crack. Orphan. Snap coming out of my nose. She met me once. And I am sure she regretted it at that moment. But anyway. She asked me the most peculiar question when I took a breath. She said, have you ever read the big book? I was highly insulted. I reminded her that I had 19 years sober and that of course I had been to big book meetings. I had. She said honey let me rephrase that question. have you ever read the specific set of directions as outlined in our big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and my response, and I'm mortified every time I say it but this is the truth there are directions in that book so Val said to me what are you willing to do not to pick up I know what the gift of desperation feels like And I know why they call it a gift, because there's nothing I wouldn't have done at that point to not leave my daughter an orphan. She said, I'll tell you what I'm willing to do. I get up at 7 o'clock every morning at work. I'm going to wake up at 6 o' clock every morning on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays and read that book to you. Are you willing to call me at 6o'clock in the morning on Mondays, Wednesday, and Friday? And I was like, yes, ma'am. God worked through this woman to literally save my life. I had my brand-new big book with my blue highlighter, because it had to be blue, and my blue notebook, and my bluing pen, and My Ashtray, and I was ready to go. And she took me through this book, and what I got so clearly, which was necessary for me to get step two, was that I was beyond human aid. I was sold at the doctor's opinion because when this medical man of science kept saying over and over and over again that you need something more than we doctors can do for you, and he loved us and he was the best in the field, and He kept pointing to a spiritual solution. I believe if you, my experiences, and I've seen it over and Over, if you do a step thoroughly and honestly to the best of your ability, it shoots you right into the next one. There's no pause. So here was a big kicker on Beyond Human Aid. My daughter can't keep me sober. I can't keep me sober. My sponsor can't get me sober, my sponsees can't keep me sober. My parents can't keep me sober. I told you I came in cursing God, but I'm also a rule follower because I'm like a straight-A student so I need to check all the boxes and somebody said, well, you have to have a higher power tower. You have to Have a Higher Power Tower. So they're like, well you can do G-O-D, Good Orderly Direction or Group of Drunks. And I was not too interested in any good orderly direction, so I opted for the Group of Drunks choice. this was a spiritual experience for me you people loved me you never shamed me you never ran me out of the rooms no matter how crazy I was you loved me, you embraced me and I'll be forever grateful for the men and women who loved on me for 19 years but you never had the power to fix me I cannot rely on a group of drunks to address a spiritual malady that only God can fix I had assigned you a job that you were going to fail at for another 19 years if I lived that long so when she said are you willing to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. Do you know what it's... I don't know if any of you in here have experienced it. I'm sure I am not unique. We do some horrible things, some gut-wrenching things that we regret, and then we go, oh, I was in a blackout, sorry. Oh, I wasn't in my mind. I don' t really remember that, but, you know, how can I make it right? When you do that sober, there is a different level you can't blame it on the alcohol and people like what's wrong with you so you bet i was willing to believe you know it says um that willingness is all that that's required for step two we only have to be willing to believe in a power greater than ourself and i certainly was willing and i knew it couldn't be a group of drunks. So when I tell you I was cursing God, I wasn't one of those people who didn't believe in God. Just the opposite. God bless you. And I mean that. I was just talking to my girlfriend. She made me this tissue box that said, God bless you. I got it wet and it's wood and I couldn't use any more. I'm like, can we make one out of plastic because all I can find is ones that say, bless you. And I want it to say, God bless you, not just bless you so I meant that. Now I don't even know where I was. Okay so can somebody help me? Wow, we got a lot of different things going on here. I covered a lot in a short amount of time. I love it. All right. Well, at any rate, so I'm willing to believe. I'm absolutely willing to believe in this power. Okay, I know what it was. So it wasn't that I didn't believe before. My childhood was great. I, too, came from parents who were terrific parents, didn't drink, didn' t see any alcoholism in my family, grew up on suburban Long Island, life was great, but I got bullied horrifically when I was a kid. You know, there's all this anti-bullying stuff going on now and thank God there wasn't the internet because I probably wouldn't be here today to even talk to anybody. I don't know people suffer that degree of bullying, but I was very isolated. So nobody hung out with me. I didn't get invited to birthday parties. Now that made me an alcoholic. But the point is, I was pretty much alone. I read incessantly and my only friend was God. So it wasn't that and believe in God. I loved God when I was a little girl. He was my best friend. I picked up at 12 years old. I believe it saved my life. My husband hates when I say that, but I believe I would have been a teenage suicide if I did not find that sense of ease and comfort that came at once, where I could finally breathe and say, I can do me, right? So at any rate, I had to go back to that God whose heart I had broken for all those years. And that was a pill I didn't want to swallow. But when you get the gift of desperation, you're willing to do whatever you got to do. And I was willing to believe. So we crossed that obstacle. You know, when I work with women and they're struggling in we agnostics and they'RE struggling with step two, that word prejudice is used a lot of times in that chapter. And Val said to me, you know, what does prejudice mean to you? And I was born in 1960, so I guess prejudice to me was synonymous with racist. When I grew up, if you were prejudiced, it meant you were racist. And she said, I want you to look at that word prejudice every time you see it and look at it as old ideas. You're old ideas, you have this prejudice. So when I work with women and they have these old ideas that don't work, if you have a solid first step, I'm like, but do you want to believe? They're like, yeah, I wanna believe, I just don't know if I can believe. And I'm like, you're in. Willingness, you just got to want to believe and you're in. All right, let's keep going. God doesn't make too hard terms on us, right? He doesn't take too hard times on us. So I got to the fact that I needed to go back to this God. Lucky for me, I believed in a loving God and not a punishing God. But then we came to step three and that's where I really saw when my life was off the rails. the self-will run riot. You know, if I get this, I'll be happy. If I just get that, I'm going to be happy If I get that degree, I will be happy If I drive that car, I would be happy And then the shine would wear off and I wouldn't be happy My favorite story about discontent I'm a car person I've loved cars since I was a little girl and I'm in Long Beach on Park Avenue. I'm stopped at a light and this car pulls up next to me, top down convertible, couple of surfer dudes in there, you know, blasting the music. And I'm looking at this car going, I have never seen this kind of car before. It is beautiful. Like I'm lusting after this car. So I let him pull up first and it was a Saab turbo convertible. 900 Saab Turbo convertible back in the day. Jerry Seinfeld drove one in his episodes. And anyway, I was like, if I just get that car, I'll be happy. And it was black and it had camel interior. And I went out and I got that car. Exact car. You'd puke if I told you what the car payment was back then. I wouldn't pay that for a car now. And I'm just like driving with the top down with my bleached blonde hair and the music playing and life is good. And I am happy. I am finally happy. This was it. Right? And then what happens? I see a candy apple red one coming towards me. And I'm like, I should have got the red one. It would have went better with my blonde hair. And now I'm discontent driving around in this car I can't afford because I should've got the read one. I'm always looking for something else to fill this hole. I didn't realize it was a God-shaped hole. I didn' t know I had a spiritual valley. And there's this line in the book that just made everything click for me. It says, when we straighten out spiritually, then we straighten up mentally and physically. I kept trying to get it all together before I would even consider maybe looking at this spiritual thing. When I can get everything right, then maybe I'll approach the spiritual. I had everything in my recovery asked backwards if I had it at all. It was asked backwards what I did have. So we get to this point where we're talking about how I'm trying to run the show, how I'M selfish and self-centered. I didn't see any of it. You know, I love that it doesn't talk about denial in the book. It talks about being delusional. You don't know you're in a delusion until you come out of it. Everybody else sees it. Oh, boy. That was painful. That was painfully painful. It was painful to see the truth of the insanity of how I was living my life sober. So she pointed out all these different ways that I was trying to run my life, even if my motives were good, and I just didn't want to be the same person anymore. I clearly saw that I was making an absolute disaster of my life, intelligence backed by willpower. I just couldn't be happy. I couldn't pull it off. You know, I am at this point literally hurting the people I love the most with my best intentions, with going to meetings every day, and having all of that. And so we got to the third step. And I was so tired of trying to manage and control my life. It's exhausting. It's an exhausting undertaking. And I wasn't able to do it. I was finally willing to just let God have it. But it's a scary proposition. And there were times in my life when I gave God pieces of myself, right? But they're strong words like abandon ourselves completely and utterly and let go absolutely. And like it's pretty. God is everything or he's nothing, you know? It's like pretty, there's not a gray area there. And I've been in the gray area a lot, you Know? It's Like, oh, okay, like my finances are messed up because I'm buying everything to fill this hole in myself. Oh, I can't fix it. Okay, God, please help me with my finances. Please, I'll invite you into the part that I'm already bloody and battered and tried my best to manage on my own. You know, I'd give him this piece. I'd given this piece, my relationship. I'm selfish and self-centered. I can't even go to have selfish and soft. I didn't see it. I didn' t see it and so I give God pieces of me, but this was asking for me to give my whole will, my whole life, all of it to the care of God. And I can tell you, I didn't have a white light experience where the room lit up white, but I can say that I can't tell you I've been forever changed because of that. It is the most important decision I have or ever will make in my entire life. Ever, ever will, ever, ever, never will. God gives me visuals. I'm a visual learner And it's crazy the visuals that God, like, pictures that I see in my head at times. So this is what my third step looked like. And Val's in Virginia, I'm in New York, and I'm a puddle on the floor. She explained to me what it meant. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me. With me, to do with me, like I'm going to do this with God. That was pretty exciting, right? Relieve me of the bondage of self. Why? So that I can have a great life? No. So I can better do your will. And I saw so clearly how selfish I was that I'd never be able to do God's will if he didn't relieve me of the bondages of self-will. You know, I worked in a detox for a couple of years and I remember I was out on the patio with these kids on the smoke deck. And most of them were vaping, but some of them were still smoking. So I'd be like, you got a light? You got alight? You got alight? Finally, I started bringing lighters just because they needed a light, right? And I thought about how when I was a three-pack-a-day smoker, I always had a backup. When I was vaping I had a back up for my backup. I didn't just come with two batteries. I came with six batteries. There's always had to be the back up to the back up. So I had this thought, if I'm sitting there and I have two lighters and I'm a smoker and somebody's and theirs goes dead. They can't go out and buy another lighter. They're in treatment. They're not going anywhere. God will always put the generous thing on my heart. Hey, Tara, you got two lightters. Why don't you give him one? And I want to give him one until I think, but what if mine runs out? I don't know how much glue is left in mine. What if I give him the one that's... I can't do what God's will is, which is always kind and generous and loving, if I'm stuck in my own selfishness. So I'm asking him to relieve me of the bondage of self so that I'm capable of doing his will. When he puts it on my heart, I actually can do it because I'm not in the way. Okay? I had recited that prayer for 19 years. Nobody ever explained to me what the hell it was. I knew it by heart, but I didn't know what it was about. You know, take away my difficulties so that I'm, you know, happy, joyous, and free. No, it's that victory over my difficulties can bear witness of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life, right? So we get to bear witness that we're sober, but, you now, when you lose a parent or a child or a spouse or a job Or we go through difficult times, like we don't escape unscathed in here. Am I going to handle that with grace and dignity? And when people say, how are you getting through that? God. It's all God. It's All God. So she explained to me what this was, and that I basically was going to have hands off my life. I no longer have a say. it's a pretty crazy thing to ask of somebody but 19 years of trying to do it my way being suicidal, going for a loaded gun screwing up my parents retirement causing such harm to my child she's in therapy now thank you for answered prayers and she's got three weeks sober thank you for answered prayers. And I will tell you, I am looking forward to the day when I can book a flight when she says, mom, will you come to therapy with me? Because there's some stuff I need to tell you and I'm going to listen and I am not going to defend or justify. So anyway, yeah, I don't want to do my life anymore. I just don't want to do it anymore. So it wasn't as hard as it might have seemed before, I guess. I don't know. But this is the visual God gave me. It was so intense. So I'm on a jumbo jet, me and the pilot. The pilot croaks. The plane's going down. This is my life. Like, if this doesn't work, it's game over. I'm going to die. And I hear God say, Tara, jump out of the plane. I hear this. So I start looking around for a parachute. I am like, God, I can't find a parachute? He said, Tara jump out of the plane. And I had this picture of like the door being open and my toes over and standing here like this. And he's like, Tara, jump out of the plane! And I knew in that moment that God was either going to be everything or he was going to nothing. And it was the most terrifying feeling I ever had in my life of letting go, just letting go. But simultaneously, I experienced a peace. I hope everybody in here, if you haven't experienced it, it would be my prayer that you would get to experience the peace that passes all understanding. And the peace was that I never had to figure anything out again for the rest of my life. I just had to seek his will and do it, and it was going to be great. Because I knew he loved me. I knew he'd never steer me wrong. I new he was my biggest cheerleader. I knew that he would always direct me in the right path and the right action. I didn't have to figure anything out anymore. Peace. Calm. I was a mess. An absolute mess on the floor. Ugly crying again. You know, one of the things Val said to me before I did that third step prayer with her over the phone so it can be transmitted over the phone was I'm only going to ask one thing of you, Tara. If this works for you, and I know it will, I want you to promise me that you're going to bear witness. that you're going to bear witness that there is a solution to alcoholism that we can recover and you've got to talk about God's power God's love and God's way of life and my friend Val just passed away recently and I am happy to say that for the past almost 19 years I've kept that promise I am passionate beyond passionate I am more passionate now than I was almost 19 years ago to let people know I know what it's like to live in AA without a solution and I know what it is like to live with one I know what it's like to live in AA on self-will and separated from God. And I know what it is like to have a deep, intimate, personal relationship with God. That relationship is above my child, my husband, my parents. It's above everything. I can be a woman of grace and dignity today. I am comfortable in my own skin. He has never failed me. He has ever let me down. He comes to all who seek him. He loves you more than you will ever know. Every single one of you, no matter what you've done or where you've come from, you are loved. The fact that you're sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous, there are people who are never going to make it to these rooms. so I had this life changing third step experience I've heard people say that they take their will back I don't know how to jump back in the plane after you jump out so I have not done that And I'm not saying I got it perfect, and I'm not saying that I don't screw up, and I do, and thank God for a tenth step, and thank God for God. But then Val said, she let me have a good snotty cry, and she's like, that was intense. I'm like, yeah, it really was. And she said, okay, now for the bad news. And I was like, seriously? she said, you know that God that you just turned your will, your life, your daughter, your everything, turned it all over to? I'm like, mm-hmm. I'm all in. She goes, well, you're blocked from that power. I was like, what? I don't know how. Like I said, one step tumbles you into the next. If you turn your whole will and your whole life over the care of God as you understand him, and then you're block from that powder, well, why wouldn't you want to start writing immediately? Which we did because it says next and at once. So you are in for a real treat because tomorrow a good friend of mine is going to be speaking to you about how you get unblocked. You know, how you getting blocked. When I got asked to work in this treatment center, I got ask four times. I said, no, three. And they didn't have a 12-step program, and they asked me to write a 12‑step curriculum. And I sat down with all the bigwigs, and I said, before you say anything to me, if you're looking for me to get them through 1, 2, and 3 and send them out the door, I'm not interested. You either let me go as far as I can or I'm just going to sit there or I don't know why I'm that interested. And he was like, why? I said why do you want me to have them know they're absolutely screwed, be willing to believe that there might be a power that can help them have them turn their wills and their lives over to that power and then send them out into the world blocked from that power I love Alcoholics Anonymous I love God there are people in this room I love more than they know and there are a lot of people in thisroom I like more than you know and hopefully I'll get to love you if I get to know you Thanks for having me. Thank you.