The Higher Power That Sent Lightning Bolts – Sandy N.

I'm Sandy, and I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Kevin for asking me to speak here. It's always a privilege and an honor to do anything for Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a little nervous. It's been a while since I've been up here. Can you guys see me okay? Okay. before when I talked here I talked over here because I don't know I just felt really really short back then but now I can handle being short it doesn't matter that's what happens when you get sober for a little while and your life changes you get to be happy with whoever or whatever you are and that's a good feeling so I'm supposed to tell you what it was like what happened and what it's like now I don't even know where I'm going to start because I figured I was going to let my higher power take over for me and let the words be his so that, and I'm trying to get out of the way so that if I do have a message that anybody needs to hear you know, that the words will be his and that it'll be carried to the people that need to hear it So I guess I should start with probably be the beginning of my drinking right I didn't really start drinking until I was like 32 I used to smoke pot up until that time because my parents had drank alcoholically and I didn' t want to be like them and so I smoked pot every day religiously, a lot of pot and I didn't think I was addicted to it but something inside of me told me if I drank I would probably like it too much so I went on this houseboat vacation with my best friend and my family and her family and it was hot we were up in Lake Shasta in California and out there floating on the inner tubes we'd start drinking at 9 o'clock in the morning because it was 12 o' clock somewhere and I wasn't drinking a lot because I'd just be sitting out relaxing in the sun enjoying the beer and enjoying the heat, enjoying the water the most. And when I got back from that vacation, I started thinking about drinking constantly. It was... I'd go to work, and I couldn't wait to get off work so that I could have something to drink. And I thought that was insane, and I'm going, how did this feeling take over in me because in prior years and times, I've been able to drink once or twice a year. I didn't really like it. I'd rather smoke pot because I didn'T get carried away like I did when I got drunk. But then once that vacation was over and I started thinking about drinking more and more and more, and drinking allowed me to become a little less limit, or I can't think of the word anyway, I wasn't shy anymore and I decided that some guy that was my best friend's brother oh I thought it might be nice to go out with him even though I was married so you know I should have realized already that alcohol is having me compromise my principles but no I couldn't pay attention to that so anyway I decided that maybe I should leave my husband for this guy because he was really nice to me and my husband didn't agree he came over to where I was staying and this happened, this is really really weird because 29 years ago this past week is when this happened and I was feeling really down the night that Kevin asked me to speak and I'm going, oh yeah, I probably need to and that's probably a good part of it because 29 years ago this week my husband came over with a sawed off shotgun to use on me on himself on my boyfriend anyway he ended up using it on himself and that's when I decided I really needed drugs and alcohol to be my therapist. They were my psychiatrist. People told me, Sandy, you need to go talk to somebody. You need to take your kids and go talk to somebody, and I'm going, oh, we're just fine. Glug, glug, blug, doing lines and smoking weed. We were just fine because I kept pushing it further and further in. and anyway, needless to say that man liked to drink and do drugs just like I did liked to drinking and use drugs and not go to work I mean before this the whole time I'd known him I'd know him like 10 years before this he had always worked and now all of a sudden he doesn't want to work and he didn't want me to work either and he just wanted to have sex, drugs and rock and roll. Big party every single day and the money that I had gotten for my husband dying I spent in like three years and I carried around a lot of guilt from it For a long time I felt responsible for my husband's death. I kicked myself in the butt constantly for it I beat myself up I don't know until about maybe two years ago because this program has taught me how to not beat myself but anyway this guy then ends up not being such a nice guy and I have him leave and go stay at his mom's house and about a year after that well I got together with another guy that wasn't so nice because I just thought didn't have a good you know no self respect no caring about what was happening in my life because I still felt so responsible for my husband dying until I was just buried in drugs and alcohol and the drugs I did was methamphetamine because I wanted to be able to drink more and it was cheaper than coke messes up your brain a lot more than coke too I think I have some friends that can share that anyway so that husband goes and lives at his mom's house and I get a call on a Sunday morning at my job that he died the night before from a heart attack. And I'm going, oh my goodness, if he can die, so can I. I mean, that was the first little seed that was planted. Did I quit drinking and drugging? Oh no, not yet. I still had to go, you know, you've got to have so much misery or whatever it is you've Got to Go Through. For me, it was misery. and the other guy that I ended up with after that put me in jail for breaking into our apartment. And I couldn't believe it. I'm going, oh my God, how could he do this to me? Blah, blah, blah. For two days I'm in the jail crying. And then all of a sudden I realized, oh, well, I asked God for all of this because I asked him to take away my drinking, my drugs, fighting with my boyfriend, and smoking cigarettes. So where do you go? You go to jail. With that, I learned to be careful of what I ask for. So with this other guy then, he was a real winner. I don't know how I managed but anyway he was just as mean as what my husband that had just died had been so when we went down the hill, I lived in the mountains we called it going down the hill to go grocery shopping. I took some friends down one day and I was flat broke. I think I had two dollars to my name and they'd asked me to take them shopping and I didn't have any money and I was sitting out in the car waiting for her and she was taking a long time because she had done meth and so she was probably looking at every item in the store and right next door was a liquor store So I searched in my little old purse and found enough money to go buy a half a pint of vodka and an orange soda. That was quite the combination. Of course, I only used about maybe a half an inch of orange soda, but it was still terrible. anyway I drank that half a pint and then proceeded to take a walk through the parking lot because when I was drinking and doing drugs I thought everybody wanted to talk to me I thought that they all needed to know what I had to say you know, I wanted to know what they were doing because I was a curious person and then I ran into these little boys they were all fighting in their mom's van and she was in the grocery store shopping so I started talking to them because I didn't like to see people fight I'd had enough of that in my life already and I started talking to him and asking him why were they fighting and why didn't they get along and I starting to tell him ways how they could get along thinking that I was giving them this big revelation But anyway, they did quit fighting. But right after I walked away from that van, it hit me. And at that time, I think I was probably 47 years old. And it hit мне that I needed to go back to school because I didn't graduate from high school. I was too busy having fun smoking all that weed. and so I think this lightning bolt came down in the parking lot in a state of brothers in Claremont, California and it said Sandy you've got to go back to school go down here to Ontario High School get your GED and then move back to Michigan where you can go to Wachtenau Community College and you can go to Eastern. Well, a week later I went and I did that. I signed up for a GED class and got my GED and then it was so it took me about three months after the lightning bolt in the parking lot to realize that I've got my GED now I need to take the other steps move back to Michigan and how was I going to do that? Especially since I spent all my money on drugs and alcohol. How could I even, I couldn't buy a ticket to get back here. I called up my brother and I said, please send me some money or send me a bus ticket and so he does and he sends me along with it $35 to eat well they don't let you on the um greyhound bus if you're drunk they they really shine and they really shy away from that and they tell you if you are drinking we don't want you on this bus so me drinking heavens no you know good alcoholic I am uh I don't know how much I had to drink that day but I took that $35 and I had bought some drugs because you know I'm leaving California, I'm living the drugs behind I'm quitting, I am going to quit everything when I get to Michigan my life is going to change, I will go to college and everything is going be great so anyway I took the money and bought some drugs and bought alcohol and a friend of mine used their food stamp card to buy me some food to take on the bus. So at least I didn't go hungry but I was willing to just to have the alcohol because that's how important the alcohol was to me It didn't matter if I was going to be three days on the boss without anything to eat, I had to have something to drink the whole way here and sneaking in on the box and having people look around they're going you know you're not supposed to be drinking on the boats oh hey so I'm not supposed to be drinking on the bus and the people that you meet on the bus, oh my goodness sometimes they even bring the dogs on the bus. I didn't bring any drugs with me. Oh yes I did but it was tablets so the dogs weren't going to smell those out anyway because they bring dogs on the bus searching for drugs so I get back to Michigan and there's my sister-in-law and my brother waiting for me at the Greyhound bus station and they go, oh we're so glad you're here and I'm going, oh I'm so glad to be here and I am going to quit drinking and I will quit doing this and I'll get a job right away and everything is going to be perfect as soon as they left I started searching my son's house because I spent my last money on alcohol because I came here and I had to live with my son I started searching his house, his couch whatever for pennies, nickels whatever might be hidden so that I could go buy some alcohol although I was quitting so then my son came home he didn't have any pennies in the couch or anything either I couldn't figure that one out so anyway my son came home and he said we're going to go over to your brother's for dinner and I'm going oh good this will be the perfect chance for me to get something to drink and it was they had gone to the grocery store and I stayed at their house while they went to the grocery store watching whatever she was cooking for dinner and in the back of the refrigerator happened to be a bottle of wine so, you know, I didn't think nothing about asking anybody for anything I didn's think nothing about, oh I'm taking this wine what if it was something that she had wanted it wouldn't have mattered to me because all I could think about was myself and what I wanted and what I needed and how I wanted to be. It was all about me. And it stayed that way for oh, I don't know, about four months. Because I'm still knowing in my mind you came here to accomplish a goal. What are you going to do about accomplishing that goal? And I think that was my higher power always there putting in those little bolts of lightning into my head, going, you better start. So anyway, I kept drinking and I decided one day after I woke up so sick I thought I was going to die. I said, I can't take this anymore. I was at the point where, you know, every day I was waking up going, God, I wish I was dead. I can't take this. I hate this. I don't like living this way. But then I'd say, no, you don't want to be dead. You just want to quit living thisway. But I didn't have any idea how that would look, what I was supposed to do in order to get there so that he didn't hate waiting, hating to get up in the morning. So I called my brother. I have a lot of brothers and this one happened to live in Battle Creek and he happened to say that he was sober when he had called me. So I called him to find out how did he get sober because I wanted to know. If he got sober there had to be some way of me getting sober and was he really sober? Maybe I could move to Battle Creek and drink with him. You know, I was open to suggestions at that point. So I went to Battle Creek drunk as can be. Before I went into Battle Creek, I went and bought a 22-ounce beer and sat in the Alano parking lot drinking it. And thinking, well, I could just go in there and find out how you get sober because I know those people in there know how. People were coming up to my truck, and this is, you know, it wasn't my truck it was my sister's truck coming up to the truck saying why don't you just come on in and I'm going oh no I'm drinking I'm not going in there and they said no it's okay come on you're the kind of people we can help in here oh maybe I'll come back later so I decided to get on the highway and go to Battle Creek and my brother was working I'd never known my brother to work so I thought he'd been lying about everything when he called me and told me he had a job and he was sober and then I pulled up in the house where he was living and I'm going there is no way on God's green earth my brother lives in this house I mean it was a really nice house and I knock on the door and nobody's home so I go down to the pay phone, call him leave another message well, I'm bored waiting for him I'm figuring, okay, I know he's walking around town somewhere and so I went started to drive around all the bars in Battle Creek to see if he was in you know, I'd keep my head in to see si he was there I didn't find him that night I passed out in some parking lot somewhere for a couple of hours and then I woke up and went and called it was about 9 o'clock it was just getting dark and he says yeah I'm home come on over so I get over there and I pull up in the driveway and he walks out of the house yes he really lives in this beautiful house and I look at him and I can see a change I can see the peace and serenity that he had. And I could see that he really was sober. What a miracle that was. And, I figured if that could happen for him, maybe it could happen for me. So, I asked him, I said, well, how did you get sober? And, he's going, let's just slow down a minute. And he asked me some questions. He said, do you think you're an alcoholic? And I went, well I don't know. I drink like this and this and this. You tell me, does that mean I'm an alcoholic? He said, I can't tell you. You have to say it for yourself. I'm going, well that's crazy. I need help. Then he said, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Well yeah. I mean that's why I'm here. I'm so sick and tried of waking up every day miserable and blaming the whole world for my existence. Sure, I'm sick and tired. He said, well are you willing to go to any lengths to fix it? And I'm going, well what does that mean, any lengths? That's crazy. So he says, well come on inside, we'll talk about it. And he goes and he sits down in his little easy chair and he reaches down beside him and he pulls up this blue book and I'm going what's that? And he's going it's Alcoholics Anonymous and I went well darn I could have just stayed in Ann Arbor for that but actually I couldn't because he explained the program to me he took me to my first meeting first meeting I'd been to sober anyway because when I was in California I'd be into a couple meetings drunk. He took me to my first meeting and he bought me my first big book which I still have to this day. And he told me all about AA, how it works. He's going look for a sponsor by doing this and this and somebody. Look for somebody that's got something you want. And then he tells me with the men and the women with the women. And I went, oh no, there goes my world. That isn't going to work for me because I honestly get along with men so much better than I do women. Today I have the best women friends in the world. I have it's just amazing what this program has turned around and given me. But anyway, so I go back to Ann Arbor and I stayed sober for three days. I started drinking again and was drinking with my ex-sister-in-law one night and I woke up in the morning and, I mean, I was really shaken. And my brother just happened to call over at my ex's sister-in law's and I said you have to tell me about detox oh and by the way I was asking my children's friends about Dawn Farm and what I could do to get sober and those people didn't want to talk to me they didn't know they didn' t want to tell me what Dawn Farm was they didn''t know anything about it and they didn ''t know anything about getting sober because they didn'' t want to be sober and when I'd start talking about it they move away from me and uh but anyway I went I called detox and I went to detox and um you know how when you go to detox they ask you this crazy question what do you want after detox what do You Want To Do With Your Life After Detox and I looked at the guy and I said well I hope you don't take this wrong because I was all you know puffed up and because I'm I'm getting sober now. I want your job. Like I said, be careful what you ask for. Not really. It's the best job in the world. But I didn't stay sober. I called what used to be Access and they said, oh, we'll fund you for outpatient treatment. I'm going, okay. So I went to outpatient treatment and I was drinking about a month after I started and hiding it. So did treatment do me any good because I was going there lying, not being open, trying to hide to make sure that nobody knew what I was really doing saying that I had a sponsor because I'd really gone to a meeting and asked somebody to be my sponsor but did I call that person? No. And I'm drinking, and I've got all this guilt. And so as soon as outpatient treatment gets over, I didn't get kicked out. I skated by, and I can't believe that I did that. They didn't breathalyze you there, though. So maybe that's why I made it through there. I don't know. And anyway, I went and got a job, a part-time job at a factory until I finished outpatient treatment and then I got a full time job in this factory and then that's when I really started hearing things about people from Dawn Farm and the president of Dawn Farm comes out to go out to lunch with my boss and I'm going what are they doing comparing notes and he always told me he said Sandy I've seen you drunk and I went oh because I didn't think I drank at that job But, you know, it could have been what was left over from the night before, too. I don't know. And anyway, I was going to meetings. Go to meetings, go to meetings., go to readings. Sharing them. Did I have a sponsor? Did I open the big book? did I take anybody's suggestion about what I should be doing no because I can do it I got it, I'm okay but then it was miserable still I was so miserable that I took off and went, I was going to go back to California now what was California going to hold for me I had this dream in my head you know pipe dream that just was all my friends miss me. I can go back there and live with any of them I know I can. I don't think I could have but I'm glad I didn't have to find out. But anyway I take off with these two guys drinking and we end up with a broken down car in Ohio and again I've got to make a phone call to my brother and ask him to come and save me so he came and saved me when he walked in the motel room I said please don't yell at me don't say anything to me I already know how messed up I am and so he didn't we get in the car and my sister-in-law turns around and looks at me and she goes because I'm going I know those people at AA are right I'm gonna go back to AA and I'm willing to get a sponsor I'm really gonna go to meetings I'm going to take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth and listen, and find out what I need to do. I'm gonna get a sponsor, and I'm gonna listen to that sponsor. I'm gonna do what they say. And my sister-in-law says, I don't think that's gonna be enough for you, Sandy. You need long-term treatment. Oh! You've gotta be kidding me. Because long- term treatment at that time was between eight months and a year. and was I going to go anywhere for that long? Oh no, I was too scared. I was filled with fear. So I told my sister-in-law, okay, if it doesn't work, if I relapse again, I'll go to long-term treatment. That's how scared I was. I stayed sober. No, that was because I'd had enough. I really had. When I woke up that morning and realized where I was and what I was doing with my life, It was a real revelation, you know. It's that turning point you come to and you go, okay. But then I was so scared it wasn't going to work for me. I had no idea if it could. So I went to work, and that guy that just happened to be at detox when I went to detox was now working at the factory with me. And so I looked at him because, me, I don't want to go to detox, and I ask him to watch me. Make sure I'm okay because I was shaking, and I mean I shook for three weeks like this. I could not pick up anything to take a drink out of it. I couldn't eat anything for a week. I mean, I see people in detox that aren't near as bad as I was when I got sober, and man, I feel sorry for them because they're green and I know I was green but anyway, I decided yeah, I'm working the steps doing what I'm supposed to do doing something other than what I want to do listen to somebody else's suggestions like it tells you rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path I'm going to follow that person's path until I get to the meeting and I ask for help and then this 22 year old girl says do you want me to sponsor you and I'm going uh but then it's another God moment God said what have you got to lose she's sober and you're not whoa okay revelation here we go so I started listening to her and this 22 year old girl is telling me if I wanted to take a day off from work I had to call her and ask her permission because she said I didn't know how to handle life on life's terms and I would be making up lousy excuses about why I needed to stay home from work little did she know I didn' t get any paid days off so I wouldn' t have stayed home I needed my paycheck but anyway I took that suggestion to heart and I did all the things that she asked me to do I mean practically well I just realized I'm supposed to be telling you the truth right yeah and I had a few people remind me today that I needed to tell the truth too anyway I started working the steps and my life started changing I still was scared to death I had no idea that this program was going to work for me how's it going to look for me you're a doctor, you're a nurse, you are a lawyer your teacher, your an owner of a company why is this thing going to work for you, who am I why are you willing to help me what do you really want from me if I ask you to help me. I was terrified but I was more terrified of drinking again and I knew that for me to pick up another drink would mean that I would be that, at that time there was this big African American woman who pushed a cart down the street with dreads and all of her belongings in it, sitting faces and I knew that would have been me you know I could feel that in my heart that that was what was going to happen and I could see myself sleeping in the doorways of the stores and the police coming by and kicking me and telling me to get up that I didn't belong there so that's what I was more afraid of I finally began to trust just a little bit just a little bit you know when it came time to do my fourth step and some people say well they're afraid I found when I did my fourth step, it's right there in front of me oh this is what has been causing me to act and react to the world the way I have been what a revelation the fear of doing it Because I was afraid I was going to do it wrong, for one thing. And I found out you can't do a fourth step wrong unless you leave something out. So I did this fourth step, and even though I knew my sponsor was going to tell other people about what was on that fourth step. I knew I had to get it out, and I had work those steps. and that's when I first really began to feel like I was having a spiritual awakening when I had that spiritual experience of telling another human being and my higher power the exact nature of my wrongs you know they weren't as bad as what I thought they were she wasn't as squeaky clean as what I was thinking she was because she shared some of the things that she had done. And then, you know, life on life's terms keeps happening but life changed for me. I did go back to Washtenaw Community College. It took me two years after I got sober because I was so afraid. That's one thing this program has taught me is not to be afraid anymore. it's taken away. I mean, I still get afraid sometimes, don't get me wrong. But I don't sit and cower in the fear that I used to. And when I got here, I couldn't even put a sentence together. I couldn' talk to anybody in any way, shape or form. Now you can't shut me up. But I'd walk up to people and go hi. And they'd say hi back. and then the next week I'd go, oh hi how are you? It was a slow process for me to learn how to start communicating with people I didn't want to say give me your phone number please do I really have to ask that person for their phone number? And then call them, oh my god my hand shook and I'm going, I don't but they did, they wanted to hear from me. I'm amazed and you don't know that stuff until you really try it until you experience it until you start working the steps and you start reaching out and you started asking for help and then your life starts changing and you're going oh my god what a miracle this is you know then I started having this getting tired of working at the job that I had and lo and behold I did another job doing things that I like to do and I always like to call it and I know there's lots of you out there that agree with me that I got paid for driving other people crazy laughter we've had a lot of fun in that van haven't we laughter oh I love AA and what it's done for me is truly amazing. It's given me a life. It's shown me how to react to the world, and it's taken me through some really hard times. Two years ago, I found out I had breast cancer, and I'm going, I knew that it was going to be okay because I had a higher power and the people in these programs I had people praying for me all over the world I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing is going to keep me down not that anyway and that's what happened I'm still in remission as far as I know I just had an appointment last week and I have another one in a couple more weeks that will let me know for sure. But, you know, if it isn't, then I take care of it just like I did before. And I was able to do this without fear or reservation because of the support I got from the people that I worked for, the people that I hang around with, and the people in the community that knew I was going through a hard time. Because that's what AA has given me. It's given me a community, not just me and being able to walk out there in the world I have a whole community that I can talk to that Ican rely on when I need prayers I ask people to pray I asked Bill to pray with me once in the grocery store I thought since he was a reverend it would be more important Oh, I thought he knew how to pray. You know? Little did I know that all of us know how to pray. And then this year, not so long ago, I got a phone call from my granddaughters in California that told me that my 44 year old daughter was found dead probably of a heroin overdose you know I always knew that it was possible for that phone call to come this girl had been in and out of prison in and out of, she went to jail she went into prison in my name she did all kinds of things but this program taught me that there's still hope so about two weeks before I got that phone call I said God every day I give my kids to God every day I imagine them in his hands and he's taking care of them because I can't all I can do is stay sober today and so I prayed and I said God you know maybe for her and all the suffering that she's going through maybe it would be better for her if she died which you know it felt weird when I said the prayer but still with the life that she had been living she was beaten up a gang in the neighborhood she was living homeless in had taken her over and made her their slave and she had broken bones they would beat her up, they'd rape her they'd steal any money she had they'd belittle her that's no way to live so I know now though that she's in a much better place I still miss her the pain is still worse and deeper than anything I've ever felt in my life but because of you guys and this program and the prayers and the women my beautiful women that have stuck by me like someone called me or texted me almost every hour for the first week people called me and said they were willing to come to my house in the middle of the night if I wanted a glass of water me who 13 years ago thought I wasn't worth anything so for you guys that are just starting out there's hope because if I can make it anybody can make it all it takes is a little willingness a little tiny bit of willingness and the seed gets planted and then as it says in the 12 and 12 the key of willingness gets put in the lock and the door can open just a bit but you put willingness in there and it will swing wide open and I know it's hard in the beginning but I just want you to know that you're all worth it there's something about you that has brought you here tonight and your higher power, even if you don't think you've got one is there for you. And if your higher power isn't there for me, I'm not going to be there for you. My higher power is there for you so and I also forgot to add that I did graduate from Eastern I got a degree last year and I have the most fabulous job in the world working for Dawn Farm Sparrow Recovery Center because every day I get to see miracles and every day I get a chance to be a part of and every way I get to see hope and every day I get to come to work and talk with people that remind me where I came from and you know I never want to forget where I came from, so I'm so glad that all of you have been here for me, and I appreciate you and love you immensely. Thank you. applause