The Danger of Meeting-Based Sobriety – Katie P.

A wonderful woman full of life and spark and spunk. Spent a couple hours with her on the way back from Detroit, and we had a great time. So if you can all help me welcome Katie. Hi, y'all. I'm Katie. I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic. I've had the gift of sobriety since October the 28th of 1984. For that, I'm very grateful. That is five months more than my husband. And one of the important things about that is that sometimes when he's not getting it, I always tell him it'll make more sense in about five months. So it is such an honor to be here, and I want to thank everybody for inviting us. I know it was supposed to be Mark that was here, but I've got to tell you, in the four years that I knew Mark Houston and absolutely loved the man, he absolutely changed Charlie and I's life, he would want us to be here. If he could have said, You know what, Chris? I had no intentions of dying, but since I did, bring Katie and Charlie. I do know he'd say that. He absolutely loved us and we loved him and we always were trying to make Mark a social butterfly. If you knew Mark very well, he wasn't a social butterfly and Charlie and I were determined to get him in the parade. He's a wonderful man but I am very honored to be here with Chris and with my husband and I love Alcoholics Anonymous with all my heart. you are my people. I feel at home in anything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous is where I feel at home and one of the things is guys the book does say for me to tell you what I was like and what happened and what I'm like now. I always feel like that means what I Was Like Without God In My Life, What Happened and What I'm Like Now. I don't tell a lot of my drunk story mainly because there's a lot of humor in alcoholics drunk stories, but I don't know that there's a lot of knowledge. Your story is the same as my story. I couldn't stop drinking. I know incomprehensible demoralization. Once I start drinking, I don'T stop. And I love these weekends that have the big book involved because we can get into the meat of the work in that. But I do like to talk about what I was like as a kid Because if I believe that alcoholism has everything to do with me and very little to do with booze, if booze is merely a symptom, I don't want to tell you how I drank. I drank like you drank. I drank till I got drunk, till I couldn't remember. Although mine were brownouts is what Charlie and I realized. You know, we had a long discussion on what do you consider a blackout? Only drunks would have that. And he goes, so you never blacked out? It's like, no. I go, I mean, the next day you had to kind of remind me of some stuff, but it came to me pretty quickly. You know, I did wake up and think, how did I get here? And then I came through to it pretty quickly, but I didn't ever go, you know, sometimes I hear drunk stories where they went three days in a blackout. That was not my experience, never was my experience. As a matter of fact, if you want to look at me as a kid, you take this same kid and you pour booze into me and you watch the difference in personality, where the book talks about being driven by a hundred forms of fear. I was so driven in life. That sense of entitlement was what it was like my shield is I'm going to get it. I deserve it. Nobody else does. I better be the first one to do everything. And so that's what I like to talk more about because when you take away the booze, man, there's that same personality still there. I was born in 1958 I'm 52 years old I've got a beautiful 31 year old daughter 21 year old son 3 and a half year old grandson let's just have a moment for that we just went to Toy Story 3 oh god dang you see you know I mean I don't take sobriety for granted at all I walk in there thinking this would never have happened 25 years sober, this would never have happened if I were still drinking. Never. Not a chance. My kids would never trust me with their children. And so I was third born, and I don't know about you guys, but if you're the baby of the family, you were tortured, yes? Let's hear it for the third borns. Come on. Come on! I do not want to hear it from the first born. No boo boo. and uh the third born child right is the tortured one or at least i was tortured my brother and sister loved me dearly but the truth of the matter is is you know i was always kind of like let mikey try it you know let katie try it let katy try there's no baby pictures of me there's no memories of katie by the time the third one comes around mom's tired dad's tired okay yeah yeah she's around here somewhere and so i i figured out real quick that i i wanted to um I wanted to be noticed, and I was going to jump on out there in life, right? There's two things. When I look back and I look at alcoholism, you know how you have those memories where you think, wow, that happened, and wow, THAT happened. You know, you don't think those things when you're drinking, but when you get sober and you start waking up to this deal, a lot of things come kind of eye-opener for you. And there was two things that I lookback at today. I clearly did not like the way I felt. There was something wrong, but I couldn't have identified what it was. I couldn'T have identified it for many, many years, but I loved to hyperventilate. Did anybody else like to hyperventeilate? Oh, my God. And see, you're proud of it too, aren't you? Get me that close to death and I dig it. And what we used to do as kids long before booze, long before dope, You wrap that towel up tight, you strangle somebody, and you go straight out, right? And when you come to, I don't know about you, but I couldn't wait to do it again. There was that euphoric come-to moment where it's like, oh, dude, do it again, do It again, Do it again, and then there were the kids that came out of that and went, don't you ever touch me again, you know, and that could have been a good test for alcoholism. I really think that that right there, that group's alcoholic, that ain't. And I loved hyperventilating and I loved Vicks Formula 44. And I was a sick kid and I drank that stuff like crazy, that black stuff. And I would never have thought anything of it. It was just the way it was until I got sober and woke up way into sobriety and started thinking, wow, I wanted to change the way I felt long before I found the booze. I just never felt like I fit in, so I had to overachieve in everything. Now the book talks about self-manifested in various ways is what caused our failure, right? If we're all in this same understanding that booze is not the problem. Now booze will kill you. It doggone sure will. And I'll end up drinking and dying. That's a very big problem. But if booze isn't my problem, then why am I crazy in sobriety? because it ain't the booze. The booze will end up killing me or I'll kill myself. See, I'll get so restless, irritable, and discontented, I'll end it. I've got to figure out how to end it pretty fun, but I'll send it, right? And so when we talk about this level of self-manifesting in various ways, it's how does self show up? I mean, the person who sits there quietly and drinks at home and the person who's got a drink outside in the club, their personalities may be very different. It's just how they're manifesting doesn't mean that there's any difference in the allergy and the mental obsession, right? We've got to get down to those causes and conditions and really unfold all that. Well, my old ideas are getting ready to be pretty obvious to you. As a kid, I'm third born, I am driven to be noticed in the world, right, and that kid is the pain in the ass. How many of y'all have given birth to that child? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know that one kid where you go, my God, this kid's going to drive me crazy. Well, that was me. I mean I was that kid. We're tooling along in life and, you Know, my dad's booze in my household was fun, fun, fun, FUN! I mean my dad was an ex-football player, ex-professional football player, played for the Steelers. he was a party boy when we had alcohol it was always around parties that he and my mother had and we had the entire buffalo bills team over one time and i mean alcohol represented fun i don't know if you guys experience that but in aa you hear a lot of tragedy you know booze and dad beat mom and man that was not my experience alcohol always equaled fun and so i just saw it as a as an enhancement you know that's what it was i i tried my first drink around 11 started drinking heavier at 12, right? I mean, you had the open bar at home. And but around nine years old, my actually I was eight and my mother got sick. And the next thing you know, you know it's back in the 60s, 1966 for you guys that were around. You know there was a in the hospitals you weren't kids weren't allowed in the hospital. There was three channels on TV. There was no internet, no cellular phones. Your bicycle didn't even have a seat. Are y'all with me on that? Yeah. You're riding around with that tube sticking straight, that pipe sticking straight up. And I mean, you know, swimming in the dark brown bio water. I mean am I talking to the right group of people? You dive in. You don't know where the bottom is. You don't where the snakes are. You just pulling through and coming out with twigs all in your hair. And you know we just had a ball growing up. But the truth is, is that it was a different day in age back then, and my mom got real sick. And I remember my dad saying, we need to go see her. She's in the hospital. And, I mean, it was like overnight. Now I find out she'd been sick for some time. Well, long story short, they take us into the hospital, and once again, kids weren't allowed in the hospitals, and, you know, childhood illnesses and all of that. And it was very eerie and very weird, and everybody's whispering. And these are moments I remember clearly. And And we walked in the room. She was a small woman, and I remember thinking, I want out of here. I don't have any recollection of how bad it was for my mother, anything like that. I wanted out. Don't like this feeling? Get me out of her. Now, most people would say, you know, well, that's a kid. That's not my sister's experience. My sister's experienced was very much on how she could help my mother. What's wrong? What can we do for mom? I want it out. See, that's the root of my problem. All I ever think about is how this affects me. And man, I'm telling you what, that stuff comes just behind me like a wave all the time, especially when I look back at it in life. I mean, that level of self-centeredness, when the book says self-will run riot, there's a comma that we usually doesn't think so. I mean... I've never been in a riot. I've seen them on TV. I've watched a fist fight from the sidelines, right? You feel pretty protected. Nobody's going to be throwing a punch at you. But a riot, man, you don't know where the bullets are coming from. You don't Know where the glass is coming from and it tells me that that's my life And I usually don't think so see I'm so self-consumed And the more and more I'm awakened to my level of self-centeredness the freer I get It's just a matter of what I am, right one time my buddy Bob D said something that I thought was so cool. He said, you know, when life is good for the alcoholic, if they're not working an AA program, they'll drift just like the person where life isn't good, right? Doesn't matter if it's good or bad. I'm going to get restless, irritable and discontent no matter what, if I'm not working those 12 steps. And he said, if you were diabetic and you were going into a diabetic coma and you got rushed to the hospital, they wouldn't go, I don't understand what's happening to him man he's got a nice car and a beautiful home I mean does that make sense it's unbelievable and that's how I am so the next day my dad comes up to my sister and I's bedroom and you know my brother that was back when the kids slept in one room they all got to have their own room now don't they Their own room, their own car, their own bike. Don't even get me started on that. My mother had passed away. I was nine, my sister was ten, my brother was twelve. We went through a series of housekeepers. My father was a traveling salesman for Union Carbide after he played ball. We went through a series of live-in housekeepers and mothers. In six weeks, he had a woman moved in. That's pretty quick, right? And now, once again, when you look back, you start going, whoa. So my dad had a woman moved in, she lasted for the weekend, and she was gone. She had two kids with her, I do recall that, and I recall hating the youngest one for taking my role. You know what I mean? I considered pushing her in a pool that had no water. Am I in the right room of people here? Okay. Yeah, that is not normal, okay? Um, within about three months, there was another woman that came in and, uh, she lasted about, I think she lasted somewhere from three weeks to three months. It's all a little blurry to me. Another couple of live-in housekeepers. And then he moved, then he married another one. So my dad married three women in 18 months and we had six live-In housekeepers now, you know what that did is that gave me a tremendous amount of old ideas. Yeah. The book says old ideas we had to let go absolutely? That's what they are. See, when I grow up, I got all this stuff I looked at in life and all these opinions I took, judgments I took beliefs I made, call them whatever you want to. The book calls them old ideas and prejudice. And so I went through life with these old ideas, and they're driving me. I mean, they drove me crazy. I was a huge cheater in school. I learned early on that I didn't get whatever the teacher was saying. Did any of you guys miss formal education? Anybody? I mean, I missed it. I'd be listening and going, I'm not getting it. And then one time I noticed in school everybody's taking notes and I'm not. And, then I'm taking notes, and nobody else is. It was like, oh my God, do I just pick up on the shit that doesn't matter? I mean, what is wrong with me? You know? And I mean so I learned early on in life that I was going to have to cheat. And I mean to tell you I became an incredible cheater. Oh God dang. And Iím not talking mildly looking over to somebodyís paper. Iím talking in the fifth grade leaving the building unlocked the window so I could crawl in knowing where the janitor started cleaning so that I could change the grades. And remember back then all you needed was a number two pencil. You did not need anybody's computer passcode. Number two pencil, I'm in. Bingo. I even got so creative because back then we were doing a tremendous amount of outside issues. They were easier to get than booze, at least for me. Outside issues, there was so much dope in Houston, Texas that you could just get dope everywhere. I mean, and I did love that you said we could talk about dope. I did so much LSD. And they said your brain cells would not rejuvenate. Yes, they will. I'm just telling you. They do. And I loved LSD, but so, you know, we could get all this, all the dope we wanted, but when you're a kid, you can't really get the booze too easily, right? And so the way we got booze was we'd sit in front of that 7-Eleven and we'd wait for that creepy guy to pull up. I always love to look at the girls. They all go, oh. And you wait for the creepy guy, right and the creepy guys pulls up and you ask him if he can buy booze and he's like, oh yeah. You know and you're like 14 which really makes this guy a pervert, and I know that creepy guy's in here, aren't you? Go ahead. Uh-huh. Let's have a moment for the creepy guy. But so, you know, you're 14, you don't have a car, so you've got to lose creepy guy pretty quickly. And so, I don't know, you're bobbing and weaving because he wants to hang with you. You know, he's got the booze, and he sees the young girls, you know, so we're bobving and weaving through the woods, and we usually lose them pretty quick, but so you know I'm a cheater in school. I mean I'm telling you guys I'm talking cheating. I'm breaking into briefcases, getting essay papers, and here's the deal. When the book talks about driven by a hundred forms of fear, right before it it says selfish and self-centered that we think is the root of our trouble, right? And what that means is self-consumed. If you can't wrap your brain around those two words and you say well I'm not selfish. I'll share my booze with you. I'll share my dope with you." I mean, I'm not self-centered. I don't just talk about me. I'm stingy and conceited. I am self-consumed. All I ever think about is Katie. And so when you're this self- consumed, you're driven by a hundred forms of fear. The book could have said a thousand forms of fears. Fear is not the root of my problem. what drives me. And see, for me, dropping out of school was absolutely not going to happen because that would label me a loser. And I am not a loser, I am okay and I'll show you. So I'm not kidding you guys, I got no education. Now I can read, I don't comprehend well. I can reading, I own my own business. I'm incredibly successful in life, but I'm telling you there was, I was sitting at a pretty fancy dinner party one time and somebody said, I hope I get this right, honey. I screw this stuff up so bad. What is San Juan? The capital of Puerto Rico. Somebody said, what is the capital of Puerto rico? And I swear, I'm like, and they look right at me and I'm thinking, I don't even know where Puerto Rico is, man. You know, and I go, oh, he said, you know, it's on the tip of my tongue. I just give me a minute. Give me a moment because that's how nobody needs to know. I've got no education because for some reason the world likes to judge the people with no education. I've gotten no formal education. Now, I don't know about you guys, but y'all that don't have much education when you came into AA and they handed you a book was that a bad idea oh my god I went you got a book you got it like on cd or anything like that any any tape man I god dang and then I'm reading Bill's story and it sounded like I was talking to my great-great-grandfather and you know oh my God and I don't know about you but the first time I read the Jay Walker I went what and I just thought oh I can't I'm not getting it I am not getting it but um and so that's what I'm talking about though I'm driven so I leave home when I'm 15 right my father and I are just bucking heads boy we are just battling it out I don't like rules that level of sense of entitlement is unbelievable Charlie and I are trying to get on the plane this morning for some reason they lost his reservation And he normally is the one who does all the standing at the counter thing. I have learned in life to step back after losing my husband, long story there. And this woman was not answering him. He'd ask her a question. And he'd ask Her a question and I thought, I'm just going to reach over there and slap the shit out of her in a minute. I mean, I thought... I'm not going to Canada. I am not just, you know, and I thought, oh my God. I mean, to walk me off the ledge from that moment, are you with me on that? I mean I, oh down Flicka, down Flacka, you know, when it says pause when agitated, if you're not working an active AA program, that's a crap shoot. You know what I mean? And thank God I'm working an Active AA program but, okay so you've got an idea. So this influenced my old ideas. Left home at 15, still finished school. I was most popular. I had to be everything. And I'd like for you to think I am the most popular of the two boys if there's any sort of voting that's going on at the end of this deal. But I, so this is Katie driven, okay? When I found that booze, that is the only thing that gave me this booze and dope man oh my god so by the time I overshot the mark right and and we all know what that looks like I ended up having a child when I was 21 and you know trying not to drink and do drugs when you're pregnant you boys don't know what you're missing there you know all of a sudden you talk about guilt shame and remorse you try not to be you know doing tons of dope and tons of drinking when you know you're growing a baby it's tough and uh and I didn't do it you know I tried to do the best I could but but when we when we walk that all the way down it gets so ugly and what I ended up realizing is this has gotten out of hand this this drinking and drugging is out of hands man I have got to stop and that's why that's the program I led I did a program based on the abstinence of drugs and alcohol. I really, really thought take that away and I got it from here ma'am. I stumbled into AA, met a boy got married, loved him to death. We were married for 20 years go figure huh? Most people you know he had 6 years, I had 10 minutes That's a good match. The whole AA you know home group is like oh let's watch this one unveil oh it was a ride people it was a ride but you know I'm a year sober and Charlie Joe and I are just inseparable right and I love him to death he knows the big book and he reads me the big books I mean how romantic is that because I don't read very well I mean I read okay I don't comprehend and so we're sitting in an AA meeting and And I got about a year sober. Joe has seven now, and Charlie walks in and shares. And God dang, he's so damn funny. And I leaned over to Joe, and I said, oh, my God, we have got to get to know this guy. And, you know, I'm 26, Charlie's 28, Joe's 30, and we're littermates. And you know how that is. I mean, you guys know when you get sober, you've got your people and you've Got Your Littermates, and We're Littermates and We'RE Inseparable, right? We're doing, you know, come over to Charlie's house and we barbecue every night. We watch Miami Vice, if that's dating me at all. Joe and I's wedding was a Miami Vice wedding. Oh, yeah. But we just loved Charlie and Charlie loved us and we all grew up together, you know, and that's, like I tell you, that's the fellowship I crave. And Joe and I are tooling along, and we're pretty secure in AA. We're the couple that made it, right? Charlie would come over. Pavela was another one of our buddies. He'd come over, and what ended up happening, guys, was at about three years, and listen to the dates because I think they're crucial. I like to say how we are at five years and at 10 years and at 15 years. Charlie doesn't like it, so I'm going to honor that he doesn't like it and won't say it. May come out this weekend. But, yeah, he told me that in the pool and I thought, shut up. Shut up. But I believe, okay, at three years, I don't believe the new guy gets the self-peace. I just don't think he does. I just believe you get it. I believe you're asleep to the self peace. So you are living a life based on the abstinence of alcohol, right? And you're getting your life back together and all of a sudden, man, you got the job and you got the car and you've got the family and everybody's back together and you're just marching through life and you become, or at least for me, I became the victim of the delusion that I could wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I just managed well. I was managing my ass off and I was a nice person. I'd let you in on the line. Come on, come on. You need me to help you get with it? I'll help you with that because I'm a nice persona. And that's what I thought that whole piece meant. Well, Joe says to me, Katie I want to go back to church and he always liked the Bible a lot and I thought you know I just didn't dig it I didn't have a bad taste in my mouth I just Didn't Dig It, I was raised Catholic and they were still doing the Latin thing and I said I'll tell you what, you go to church and if you really dig it, I'll go to Church and so he came home, he goes I really like it Katie, man they got a big old screen, it's non-denominational It's young people. It's really happening. Okay, I'll give it a shot. So I go in there, you know, and, I mean, we are singing and doing the hand-waving thing. And, you Know, I'd never done anything like that before. And I thought, I'm digging it, man. I'm liking it. And the next thing you know we walk away from AA. Three years just kind of walk away. Now, I got three years, and he now has nine. We walk away form AA. Kind of making meetings, still keeping our fellowship, right? This is how cunning, baffling, and powerful the disease of alcoholism is. He was a huge big book thumper, huge. I mean, it's just shocking. So we get into church, and we kind of decide that the book says we need to, well, it says on page 14, it say imperative to work with others. How appallingly true for the alcoholic, for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life, for some reason I put a period there, it says through work and self-sacrifice for others he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead so it's telling me i need to work with others well i'm thinking i need to go to church to find this spirituality now don't get don't hear me wrong and don't hear what i'm not saying for god's sakes but what i did is i came to church and found Jesus. I don't know if you've ever found that, but I found Jesus. Are you with me? Now, if you're from Texas, you'd know what I mean. I found Jesus. And that is a very dangerous place for somebody who is not working a 12-step program and now they have found Jesus because what ended up happening is I needed to come back and save you people. Because it was Jesus that you were missing. Oh, my God, you guys. Somebody armed with just Jesus that's alcoholic and no 12 steps is a dangerous person. There is a great balance between the two, yes? You can have all the church you want. As a matter of fact, we encourage some sort of spiritual denomination of your choice. And Alcoholics Anonymous. but not just that. Otherwise, we just need to go to church, right, to find that spirituality. Well, I got so crazy behind Jesus that, oh, there's a picture of Joe and I. We look Amish. Because, you know, we are chameleons, you know? We'll just go in and fit in and do whatever we need to do, you know? And so, oh. And Charlie was one of the few friends that stuck with us, you know? He was like, oh oh, I guess I just don't fit into your whole Jesus thing. No, you don't. You're a sinner. Oh, it was terrible, terrible. And so we go three years, no AA, only church, and it was ugly. And so I'm sitting at an intersection, and in Texas they passed a law that you could take a right on red. Now, I don't know if you guys can do that in your country. I don't know what you people do in your country but so I mean I don' t know about you but a right on red is better than any iPad, iPhone, iTunes anything you know what I mean that was cool when that happened and I'm sitting there at an intersection I remember this like it was yesterday and I am sitting there thinking there is a woman in front of me she is not taking her right on read she has her blinker on and I am going to shove her into the intersection to teach her a lesson under the name of Jesus. Yep. And I mean, you know, I wanted to slap that woman this morning. I'm not kidding you when I say I'm pushing her in the intersection. I am insane with no AA program, insane. And I got about 100 more of those stories. Thank God I didn't do it. But I got home, I called Joe in the house, and I said, I'm losing it, man, I am losing it. He goes, you knows what, so am I. And I go, what are we going to do? We're starting to hate the church now. You know, they're a bunch of sickos too. Every time we had a problem, we'd talk to the people in church and they'd go, we are praying for y'all. And I'd say, come on, bring your stuff. Oh no, we're praying for you all. So we ended up, Joe goes, let's go back to AA. And I said, let'S do it man. So we go to the noon meeting and we sit in there and I swear this is what I thought we are home I can't tell you that feeling and I'm telling you that's all God God was everywhere but the only problem was when you walk back into Alcoholics Anonymous and you get that relief it is not freedom in an AA meeting it's relief right It's magic. There's plenty of magic that's happening. But you only get the freedom from the 12 steps, working them. It's an action program, not sitting in meetings. Now, I didn't know any of this was going on. Heck, I Didn't Know I Hitched My Wagon to Middle-of-the-Road AA. I Didn'T Know I Was Doing Meeting-Based Sobriety. But what Joe and I did from that day forth, we never touched our big book. We'd done the AA program. By this time now, I had six years. He had nine. We're long into this deal. And so we sat in Alcoholics Anonymous for 10 years, getting the relief but not the freedom. Never even occurred to us to pick the big book up. And I'm sponsoring people. I know. I was a good life coach, people. You bring your problem to me and we'll talk about it. And I'll teach you how to set boundaries, good boundaries. Oh, I know, isn't that terrible? I don't know what's worse, that or Jesus. And I'm a likable individual. I attract people to me. You know, they like me. I'm funny. I'm this. I'm that. Oh, my gosh, you guys, it was just crazy. Well, then here it comes. You know what it says? It's the highs and lows that come at us in life. Well, let me put it to you this way. Joe gets sick. All I can tell you is when he got sick, you talk about driven. Now, I'm the gal who will take care of everything. Right, ladies? Are you all with me? I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan. You need a baby? Let's pop another one out. What do you need? What do your need? Come on. Bring it on. Bring it off. I mean, the insanity behind women is crazy on the level of what we think. I always love to look at the women on this one. They're like, oh, sister. I'm right here. Yeah. Pregnant with twins? I can do it. I can go. I can't do it? Yeah. I sponsor a little gal who's a single mother and she was pregnant with twins. I'm like going, what? I can do it? I'm, like, oh, my God. And she's doing it. It's unbelievable. But what we women take on, so I take on so much when I find out Joe is sick. I mean, I am doing all kinds of stuff, and we have no medical insurance. So you know what my best thinking is? Somebody says to me, I have the fitness profession I've had for years. Somebody says zu me, you know, if you drive a school bus, you can get medical insurance like that. And I thought, I can do that. I love kids. I can be a teacher. I can teach them how to do that and so, oh my God, did you hear what I just said? Drive a school bus? Oh my God. I mean at the time it sounded like a great idea and then I am driving that big old tube down the road with 70 screaming kids and I'm thinking, oh, I am in over my head. Oh my god. I mean, ohmygod. You know, and you're watching everything in that mirror, you know, hey, hey, Hey, Hey. sit down, sit down. You, hey, where are your hands? Hands up in the air, buddy. Be touching that girl next to you. Oh my God. I got so many bus stories. They would just crack you up. But I'll tell you, you know, when we're talking about that sense of entitlement, you screwed with me on that bus. And you know what I did? I just popped that stop sign out. It was like, go ahead. Try to pass that baby now. I mean, I was insane. There was a little 16-year-old kid that would drive too fast past my bus. I popped that sign out. I got out of the car. I went over to him. He's eating a sucker, you know, and that stick sticking out. He goes, lady, you didn't have to get out ofthe bus. And I am just, you know, and all the kids are just, oh, my God, Miss Kate is losing it, man. see when it talks about self-will run riot oh yeah i don't think so he's a little punk so when you're awakened you get you get to see all of that stuff right well we're in the hospital i got only five more minutes but well i want to i want To wrap this up because this really gets while i joe finally goes to the emergency room i said joe listen i'm driving that god dang bus i'm pulling off five other you know things in the fitness business i'm spinning plate after plate and you've got to get into the doctor to find out what the hell is wrong with you man we couldn't figure out what was wrong with them and one psychiatrist said i think it's organic what does that mean you know i i mean i sometimes you know words it's like i don't what does that mean well that means something's growing in you and so we get him into the emergency room and this doctor comes in i tell joe i said whatever you do you fail this test we're getting a cat scan we are not leaving because i'm thinking i am not going to stay on that bus forever we're Getting a Cat Scan if i got to push you in there and hit the button and so he goes i said so when that doctor tells you, you know, touch your nose, but touch your elbow. You know, when he says rub your head, rub your stomach. So I'm giving all these tests. So we go in there and the doctor goes, so you think something's growing in him? I said, yeah, the psychiatrist said something's organic and the physician said we need a CAT scan. And he goes, well, Joe, touch your nose. And Joe goes... And he's like, touch your elbow and Joe goes, and i thought oh my god well long story short the guy ran several other question tests and he started failing them terribly and so he takes him in there and he does a cat scan and he comes out and he goes my god he says he's got he's Got a huge mass in his brain and he said it's about the size of a grapefruit and it's gigantic and if this program is what it says it is and the root My problem is selfish and self-centered. You know what my very first thought was? I'm going to drive that damn bus forever. That was my first thought. That's how awakened I am to the level of self-centred I am. And I didn't say it, but it was like, oh, God dang, I'm gonna drive that bus forever." I love my husband. Didn't mean I didn'T love him. But that is the root of my problems, guys. I drove that bus for three more years my husband was a very very sick man I take untreated alcoholism very seriously I think we're sitting in the rooms of AA dying of it if you don't know where your big book is if you haven't read your big books if you're not sponsoring if you've not done an active 10th step if you have not done a 4th step in a long long time you're probably suffering and I told God I did not want to be the one to share this message, by the way. Because, see, my popularity is going to drop quickly right here. And all of a sudden I was the fun, cute one, and now she's kind of bugging me. But the truth of the matter is, is my husband, who was not going to die of this brain tumor, at first they thought he was going to Die, then they go in there, he has massive brain damage, he's never going to work again, he's got about the mind of about a 16-year-old, But I love him, you know, and we're going to make it. We're goingto make it, and that's the kind of gal I am. And he ends up dying of a heroin overdose. Yep. And you know what? It wasn't a brain tumor. I wanted to believe that forever. We were in untreated alcoholism. He had absolutely no mental defense. He couldn't handle it. And I almost gave it up. 17 years sober, the obsession came back for me. And I'm telling you what, you know what? Pride can keep you sober for a while. How many people in this room know what I'm talking about? You bet your ass. Charlie said to me one time, I said, Charlie, I want to drink. And you know What he said? He said, don't drink without me. And I thought, oh, that's so stupid. But I tell you, I thought Okay, I won't. Oh man, you can white knuckle it For so long and Mark Houston fell into our world And Chris R. And I didn't like either one of them When I first met him I didn't like him at all. I had 17 years. You can't tell me anything. You know what I'm saying? And I thought, I don't know who this guy is. I kept turning them off and turning them off and turn them off on the CD. And Charlie goes, oh, for God's sakes, can we listen to the man? And I'm not kidding you. I went back to my meeting. I was going to five meetings a week. That curtain was pulled back. There was not one bit of AA talked in that meeting. You know why? because I had to be at a meeting where there was no AA talked at. When you don't work a program, you darn sure don't want to go to a big book study. No, thank you. I want to just talk about whatever I want to talk about. You know, when the book says we're always in collision with something or somebody, that was my meeting. It never grew. There was only 15 of us. It stayed 15. You came in. We were so toxic, right? We're always in collision with something or somebody. And, I mean, that's what we did. And then all of a sudden we stumble into Mark Houston's big book study, and I kid you not, I remember Charlie going, good God, what book is he reading out of? I go, I don't know. I've never heard it. I have never heard anything. I am shocked. And I don'T like him either. And they send us back to our room, right? And Charlie's doing the evening review because he's such a suck-up, right, You know, and he goes, aren't you going to do the evening review? And I went, absolutely not. That is ridiculous. You know. And I come back in there. And I remember I took Mark off. And I'll never forget this. If you knew Mark well, you knew this laugh. He goes, ha, ha. And I told him something that was very serious. And he did that laugh. And I thought, oh, I really don't like you now. I mean to tell you, I am so grateful for those two men. They literally pulled me. And I'm not an easy one. I am a very tough bird. I got so much pride. I told you, you know, I left home at 15. I finished school. I am tough, tough, tough. And those two boys pulled me out. God sent them to me knowing that that's how hard headed I am. And they pulled me up and I got to tell you guys today, I work a program like you wouldn't believe. And as a matter of fact, when I know it's getting tough and I've got that inner feeling of, of it just ain't right. and I can't really figure out what's going on, and I'm sick of looking at it. I throw myself so knee-deep into working with others. I probably sponsor 25 gals. Man, I'm calling them. They're calling me. I don't miss a phone call because that seems to work when nothing else does. You know, the book says that. It says it works when nothing other than God and nothing else is. You know what nothing else says? Calling my sponsor. Blah, blah, blah. Blah. Right? Doing an inventory on it. Kind of sort of see it. Yeah. He's still bugging me. Okay. right I mean all these things I go I'm not getting through it man I'm either self-righteous or self-pity I flip between the two and I mean it's terrible it's horrible terrible terrible you know what I'm talking about right you know that level of mental obsession behind whatever oh my God and so I know I'm out of time but I just want to tell you guys that I'm so looking forward to how all three of us work together this weekend I do hope you vote for me Thank you.