The People-Pleasing That Kept Her a Different Person to Everyone – Sandy N.

Good evening, I'm Sandy and I'm an alcoholic Wow I was thinking I needed something to stand on so I could be seen but it'll be okay So grateful for Alcoholics Anonymous, it's saved my life I've seen many miracles happen I can't say enough about it because it's so near and dear to my heart I'm supposed to tell you what it was like and what it's like now or whatever, I don't know sometimes I can'T think anymore I blame it on age I don't know if that's it or just being nervous. Anyway, I have a sponsor, my sponsor has a sponsor and I have sponsees and let me tell you I love my sponsee. Today one of my sponcees I went to her son's wedding last night and it was fabulous, just absolutely fabulous and she knew I'd be tired at work today so she brought me a Starbucks coffee you know I don't know what I'd do without the women in my life it used to be I hated women didn't want anything to do with them because you know they might want my boyfriend or my husband or they were talking about me behind my back or you know they were just being catty and when I learned about that I had to be friends with women in the program. How is that ever going to happen? But it has. Anyway, I drink a lot. Jim's laughing because he's seen me once. I still don't think I was drunk that day. But anyway, I started drinking when I was 32. And I had crossed the invisible line into alcoholism. Because before that, I didn't drink but on birthdays, anniversaries, New Year's, Christmas, whatever. I didn' t like drinking. I didn''t like the way it made me feel. I didn't like, you know, because I always had to drink and drink and drink. And then I'd have a hangover and be in the bathroom on the floor begging to feel better. And I didn't want to do that. So, but I went on this vacation on a houseboat and we started, we would drink floating out on the river in tubes and we started drinking like at 10 o'clock in the morning or something. When I came back from that vacation and I didn't know it at the time, that's what turned my alcoholism on, I started thinking about drinking all day long. Couldn't wait to get off work so I could drink. My husband didn't drink so that made it a little bit difficult. And so most of the time, I didn't drink. But I started going out to lunch with him, and he went to this bar. And he didn't used to have a drink when he'd be there, but I'd have a beer when we'd go in there. And it just was weird to me that I craved alcohol so badly every day. I worked at a place that served beer so I'd sneak it and then I don't know I'd think that I would be okay but I look back on it now and I'm thinking I was a mess and I didn't even realize it I decided also right after I started my alcoholism to have an affair and in order to have the affair I had to drink because that made it easier I was drowning my actual feelings. And I separated from my husband, and my husband decided that he didn't want to deal with life, and he committed suicide. and that's when I really got into being into drugs and alcohol because that was my therapist everybody said well you should take your kids and go and have therapy I went oh no we're just fine just stuffing it just pushing it in so it was like diving into a swimming pool of hiding from my true feelings and hiding from life so I and then I ended up staying with the guy that I'd been having an affair with and that was a horrible decision to have made but at the time who knew you know hindsight is always 20-20 and you can see everything clearly when you've already gone through it. So he didn't trust me, because why should he? You know, I'd had an affair with him, so I could have an affair with anybody. And so he quit his job, and he stayed home. and we had lots of fun because I had social security from my husband who died to support us which actually belonged to my children but anyway, we stayed home and partied. We had sex, drugs and rock and roll 24-7 for 10 years and that's why I look back now I see my social security and there's that 10 years where I didn't work nothing, nothing, and I go oh my goodness I'm surprised that I'll be able to get any social security with that 10 year gone out of there but then because we didn't get along I finally found a way to tell him he had to go and it took me, I would get up every morning and I'd say please God do not let me forget because usually I'd get up in the morning we'd get in a big fight the night before and I get up and everything would be okay and I said please don't let me forget the things that he said to me and so finally I wasn't forgetting them and I told him to go live with his mom and he did that and my life got increasingly better except I didn't quit drinking and I didn' t quit doing drugs and I did methamphetamine so that I could drink more and so you know that was a crazy life I was living in the mountains in California and everybody I knew that's the way they lived too and I would look at people and go well I'm not so bad because they're worse than I am but you know that's my thinking that's what I'm saying that's why that's how I was probably about the same as what they were and so I got into a relationship with another guy that wasn't good and one day I was coming down from drugs and not feeling all too good and I took a friend down the mountain to go shopping and she was high so she was in there sketching and I was out in the car and I decided to go to the liquor store and get a half pint of vodka and orange juice so I poured most of the orange juice out, poured the vodka in there and I thought I would and I'm looking at it going oh well that just doesn't look right because it was almost all vodka, it wasn't hardly any orange juice in it and I drank it and then I proceeded she's still in the store deciding all the things she wanted to buy I guess and I didn't want to go in there looking for her because that would have been too much trouble. But I decided I would walk around the parking lot and talk to people. Because that was my favorite thing to do, was to talk to People when I was drunk. And my kids used to say, Mom, do you have to talkto everybody? Yeah, I do. They really wanted to hear what I had to say. But anyway, while I was in that parking lot talking to these kids in a van that had been fighting. I walked up to one and I said what's happening guys? And they didn't want to talk to me at first, they were afraid of me. They were about 12, I think between 10 and 12 and I started talking to them about school and how they were doing and everything and telling them that, I said, do you have any trouble with school? And they go, yeah. And I said well can't you guys help each other out? So I'm thinking I'm doing all this great work and being, you know, motivational. And the thought hits me, well, see I didn't graduate from high school So the thought hit me, well, you know, I really, really needed to quit drinking. I really really needed to quit using drugs. And I really needed to move out of California. So the thought hits me, okay Sandy, you need to get your GED, move back to Michigan and go to Washtenaw Community College and then go to EMU and to me that was like a lightning bolt from God you know okay I didn't get sober right immediately but I did go get my GED and I left California three months later and I came back to Michigan but in order to come back to Michigan I had to have my brother pay for it because I had spent all my money on drinking and doing drugs. And I wasn't working before I... So without a job, I didn't have any money because I didn' t get Social Security anymore. My daughter turned 16, and so it ended. And so I called my brother and asked him if he'd pay for my ticket back here, and he did. and when I got off the bus and then I drank on the bus you're not supposed to drink on the bus but it was a horrible horribly long trip and I didn't know what else to do the bus broke down in Omaha and I got to walk to the liquor store which was blocks and blocks and blocks away and buy a six pack and I went alright I can make it back when I got done buying that six pack I had a dollar ten left in my pocket but you know I had my alcohol that I needed because I couldn't make it without it and I didn't realize that that made me an alcoholic I still hadn't come to that conclusion I just knew I drank too much and I should quit but so I got back here and I started working started a job found a couple of jobs with my drinking it increased because I quit doing the meth and so my drinking increased and I kept losing jobs and I never lost a job before and I'm going okay I really have to change this and I didn't know what to do I had heard that Alcoholics Anonymous was the thing to do but my sister-in-law years ago had told me well AlcoholicsAnonymous is great except they get too personal with you and I went okay, that made me a little afraid because never in my life had I been the same person to everyone I didn't even really know who I was. You know, like I was a different person to the teacher. I was different person to my boss. I was another person to my neighbors. And so I didn' t want anybody to know everything about me. It scared me. It really scared me to think that somebody was going to know everything abut me. And so I took AA to begin with slowly. I went to my brother who lived in Battle Creek because he said he was sober and I figured okay if he can get sober so can I so I went into Battle Creek and I had taken my sister's truck which I borrowed and didn't tell her where I was going and then wondered why she got mad at me and took it away but that was getting really close to the end because everybody was really getting tired of me They were thinking that I was crazy and that I really needed help. And I looked at him and went, what are you talking about? It's all good. Losing jobs and not being able to handle life, how is that good? So I went to Battle Creek and I asked him, I looked at him and I went oh my god he is sober because I thought he was lying to me but he wasn't because he had this change about him there was serenity, there was peace and I'm going oh my God I want what he has so I asked him how did you get sober never mind we're going to talk about you right now do you feel you're an alcoholic and I went, well, I drink like this and you know, I have to drink in the morning and I drink a lot. And he goes, so I said, does that make me an alcoholic? He said, I can't answer that for you. You have to answer that for yourself. Do you feel you're an alcoholic and I'm like, yeah, I guess I'm an alcoholic. He said well, are you willing to go to any lengths to get better or he said, first he said are you sick and tired of being sick and tired and I went absolutely that's why I'm here and then he said okay are you willing to go to any lengths well I guess so what does that mean go to many lengths to get sober so then we went in his house and he sat down in his chair and he reached down and he picked up his big book and I'm going oh no it's Alcoholics Anonymous and I go okay but he told me all about the program how things work which I'm really grateful for he gave me a meeting book for Ann Arbor and told me about which meetings I should go to and that was really good so I went back to Ann Arbour I stayed with him for two days and he took me to my first AA meeting and women gave me their phone numbers and going I don't live here. I'm not going to use these phone numbers. That's crazy. But, and then when I got back, I think I stayed sober for, oh, I know. I had to go find another job. And when I found another job, I decided that I had a drink. I had something to celebrate. Nobody's going to know. It's all going to be good. So I got a wine cooler because wine cooler wasn't like having all the other alcohol. I could drink it slowly. Did I drink it slow? Oh, no. But anyway, I got the job and I hated it. It was the worst job I've ever had and I drank on the way to work. I drank while I was working and I didn't see that those were the reasons why I hated the job. So I decided that I would quit that job and not tell them. I was just not going to go back. And then I went on a real good drunk for about two weeks and I didn' t know what to do. I'm going okay, I'm powerless over this stuff but I didn't realize that if I went to AA it would all be okay so I went to detox and I felt like I had gone to the spa it was like a real vacation it was the first time in a lot of years that I did not have to worry about what I was going to drink and where it was going to come from. So it was awesome and I got to meet some people that are some pretty good people went to meetings and saw people that were happy and I'm going I don't know about all this stuff, it just doesn't seem real so then I went to outpatient treatment because they said I had never had any treatment, that's all I needed. And I was scared to death to go to long-term treatment because I didn't know what it was about, which is crazy. But, you know, I had so much fear of everything. I ran on fear and anger and resentment for so long and I didn't even understand it so then outpatient treatment they picked me up they dropped me off they picked me up at 8 o'clock in the morning and dropped meoff at 4.30 in the afternoon and just being sober that was horrible I wanted to take a nap you know I wanted it to be easier and I didn't want to have to talk about what was going on and it was my birthday so I had to drink and just hoping that I didn t get caught and I did n t get caught. So the whole time I m in outpatient treatment I m drinking at least once or twice a week and I graduated they never knew and I didn't think I was a liar not letting anybody know about that yeah I got a sponsor, did I ever call her no it was a name only so that when I was in treatment I could say yes I have a sponsor she doesn't call me back though but anyway so then after I got an outpatient treatment it was Christmas you know what are you going to do at Christmas time because what had I done for so many years but drink and so my kids are getting mad at me because they're going mom you just got out of treatment you said you didn't want to drink anymore what's going on and I'm going it's just Christmas I'll quit right after Christmas oh then you know after Christmas comes New Years so what do I got to do I had to celebrate New Years and that's what I did and after that I was trying to hide my drinking I would go to a meeting and get a bottle, half a pint on my way home because I couldn't get beer because if I opened it up, the kids would hear it. So I'd get a half a pint on my way home and go in the bedroom and drink it and tell them that I was sober. And I didn't see that that was lying either because when I got sober, I thought, well, at least most of my life I've told the truth. thank God for this program that says okay you have to be honest rigorously honest oh how do you do that but anyway in fact I came to this there was a man that used to work at detox and he had 28 years sober and I came to this meeting half drunk to hear his open talk thinking that nobody knew nobody could smell all the alcohol that's pouring off of me that was crazy but you know I had to be respectful to him because I worked with him and oh the craziness that of my thinking the craziveness of the way I lived my life the craziness of, or the insanity actually and doing the same thing over and over again expecting it to be different okay I'm not going to drink today how many times I said that I don't know because every day I would still have to find a way to drink finally I went on a three-day binge, four-day binge with a couple of guys that drink just like I did. We drank a lot. And I woke up Sunday morning and I'm going, oh my goodness, those people at AA are right. I am an alcoholic. I need to go to meetings. I need to get a sponsor and use that sponsor and work the steps. So I went home. Well, yeah, I went home and my son said, Mom, we thought you'd lost your mind and we were ready to have you committed. And I went, oh, I didn't know I was that crazy. But I was. And so I went to work that Monday and the guy that I worked with that I'd come to hear his open talk when I was drinking he used to work at detox so I asked him to watch me instead of me going to detox because I thought if I went to detox I'd lose my job and I needed, I'd spent all my money so I needed to work and I saw detox to work and let me tell you that is go to detox if you need to detox because that, you know, it was horrible. And then I was asking him a bunch of questions and I'm going, I've got all these questions on my mind. I don't know what to do. And he goes, okay Sandy, when break comes I'll call my girlfriend and I'll get her to help you out. And I went, oh, it's that easy? Okay. So she, I went to the woman's meeting that night and met her there. And while I'm waiting for the bus to go to the woman's meet, I'm telling all the people that are standing there with me what's going on in my life because I had to talk. There was just no way I'd, you know, I was shaking like a leaf and I'm so so sick. And I know that if I don't go to a meeting that day, I won't be able to meet that night. And tell people that I needed help that I probably wouldn't have stayed sober so I went to that meeting and asked for help and I got some women's numbers I got some rides from other women and then I went to Vision on Wednesday night and I asked for help there too it wasn't as big as what it is now so it was easier to ask for help and at the end of the meeting, I went up front to get women's numbers and to find a sponsor and this young girl says to me do you want me to temporarily sponsor you? And I'm looking at her going heck what the heck God said to me Sandy she's sober you're not what have you got to lose thank God for that girl saying that to me because I was scared to death of everybody and everything I spent most of my life thinking that I wasn't worth anything, shoving down all these feelings that I had, burying them and I found out when I worked the steps cause this girl had me working the steps and I really you know that's when I found peace doing a fourth step every time I wrote something down I'm going oh man this is bad but then I'd have to remember I never have to do this stuff again I never have to treat another human being the way that I had treated them I never have to stop I mean I never have to drink again because it says in how it works rarely have we seen a person fail who was thoroughly that followed our path and I believe that because I'd seen it work in other people the people that were happy at meetings the people that I at first thought were full of you know what and I thought okay they're just drinking once in a while they're just doing some they're smoking weed or something how are they that happy but anyway I finished my four step and did my fifth and I asked my sponsor could I please have an extension because she had to give me a date to get it done by can I have an expansion she went no you don't get an extension and so I got it done on the date that she said I should have it done and then she had me wait two weeks to do my fifth step. And I'm going, okay, this is crazy. But I still had to trust someone and something because my life was starting to change and things were getting better. Things got better when I reached out my hand and said, I need help. Life started changing for me at that point. so then I did my fifth step and you know how the big book says some people feel like they lifted a whole weight off their backs and everything, I didn't have that feeling but we had gone down, the next day we went to Akron for Founders Day and when I look back on it I went to Founders Day walking this far off the ground because I wasn't carrying around all that junk anymore. I had finally gotten honest with somebody because I couldn't understand why does it say that you have to share all this garbage with another person and God? Why can't I just share it with God? I found out by doing a fifth step that by sharing it with anotherperson and God it makes things easier and I don't know why that works but that's what worked for me kept working the steps and when I got to the ninth step, I got afraid my daughter was high strung, of course she was because she had to live with me and all the fighting that my ex-husband and I had done and so I was scared to death and she was going to be my first person I made amends to being scared to death and my sister and my sister-in-law rented a motel to go swimming and they didn't invite me so my feelings were all hurt pour me, pour me pour me another one so I went down to the liquor store and I bought a half a pint and I took the first drink and went what am I doing? Why am Idoing this? It's because I didn't have any coping skills I didn' t know how to handle life on life's terms yet but because I bought that half a point and I prayed the whole time God, please do not let the obsession start again. I'm just going to drink this and that's going to be it. And I didn't like the way it made me feel. And that was all I drank. I didn' t drink anymore but did I tell anybody? Did I tell my sponsor? No. I didn''t tell anybody for three years. and I mean it's a miracle I didn't drink again but I had buried you know I'm really good at burying things and so I had buried the whole time I'm going I'm not really drinking this the insanity the total insanity so anyway a week later I went ahead and made amends with my daughter and when she came home from work I looked at her and said hey we need to talk and she said look I'm not talking about me. I don't want to hear what you have to say I've heard what you had to say for a long time and I don' t like it. And I'm going okay that's fine it's not about you. I want to sit down and talk about the things that I've done to you the harms that I' ve caused you. She sits down on the couch pulls up her legs and goes, okay, let's go mom. Let's go, mom. And we talked for three hours. And it was awesome. I told her about why I had to help people in the program and how the program worked. And after that she became my biggest ally. So anyway, to get back to not telling about that drinking, Sharon remembers because Sharon was the only one after I told my sponsor Sharon wasthe only one that I told because I was so embarrassed that I had been that stupid that I hade been that insane actually, I'm not going to say stupid because I don't like that word but my sponsor got a new sponsor at this time because my other sponsor was moving away and she was too young anyway, you know 22 years old she was good for I worked all the steps with her that was all good because I needed to do that then I needed a new sponsor somebody that was more my age so I got a new sponsor and then she says well you need to do another four step and I'm going oh no and she said this is the one you get totally honest with and I'm going oh that's cool I can do that, that's easy I don't have anything to hide but I had buried that drinking incident so deeply that I got the fourth step done and I am ready to I am telling her whenever you want we will do the fifth step and I hadn't put that on there so I am at work and I worked in a factory at the time and I was working on this machine that would weld these parts together and this wheel would come out and it'd go, pshh, and then it'd come back in and it would go, pshhh. So I'm on the machine and a thought hits me, Sandy, you drank. Are you going to put that on your forest tip? So I am going, no I am not. So when the wheel would go out I would go nope, and we would go back in, yes. No I am not. And I was determined, no I'm not. I'm going to bury it again. And then it had to have been God saying, do you want to take a chance on drinking again? And I went, oh no, I don't want to do that. So I'll tell. No I won't. Yes I will. No, I won' t. Finally I got to the point where yes I will and I was determine that I couldn't change it because I didn't ever want to have to drink again. Drinking to me would have been, so I said okay I will and I wanted to call her right away and say hey I got my fourth step done and I have to really tell you this and then I realized now other people do four steps and they don't have to call their sponsor and tell them all this junk. They wait until they do the fifth step when we sat down to do my fifth step that was the first thing I told her and what a relief that was what a belief that was things just kept getting better and by that time I had passed my GED in California and I was at Washtenaw and I got to graduate from Washtonaw and I got a job that wasn't in the factory and it's a job I called driving people crazy because I got to drive farmers to their appointments and pick up donations and stuff I had a lot of fun in that van with those clients and I've seen a lot of miracles too a whole lot of miracles, stuff that just you know it makes my heart smile and I went to Eastern and I was of course doing a social work program and when you get to the end and you have to do an internship so I asked if I could do my internship at Detox and they said yes and I loved it there. And so that's where I work and I love working with people in detox. It's an awesome place. You see so much pain and so much misery and within a few days you see people smiling. Oh, it's just amazing. Somebody will come in and they haven't been in the program ever before and they haven't gone to treatment and they're hurting and they don't know what to do and they are confused watch them change because we ask them you have to go to meetings we want you to learn about the big books so we have a big book study we keep them busy and a lot of times they hate it but that's ok in the morning they have to get up by 8 o'clock and come out and do morning meditation and it used to bother me that I couldn't get these people up in the morning and I'd be so I found a way to not do it that way. I go down and I sing to them. Do they like that? Not really. I did have some clients that say will you sing to us again? So anyway it made it so that I had a client the other day that said I hated it when you came in and sang. And I went well that's the point. To make you get out of bed. You know you needed to come down, I mean come up to meditation. And if I sang to you most people got out of bed If they didn't then I still had to I still had to kind of nudge the end of their bed and say, hey, you've got to come. But it makes life easier when you get to smile and you get a chance to show people that sobriety isn't all bad. It's fun. And so I try and show them, okay, we can goof around today. We can goof about a little bit. I'm still serious as can be when it comes to getting a group, working on what you need to work on calling people on the phone that 200 pound phone is horrible. I can remember when I picked it up the first time I went oh how do I talk to these people and I have clients now that say how do we talk to them? You just tell them that we made you call and they'll know what to do and so they do and I see life's changing just like mine has changed you know, I've gone through things in sobriety it hasn't been all easy but I have sponsees friends, people that made sure that I'm okay that I don't have to pick up a drink because my daughter died a year and a half ago when you're a parent and you lose a child it's difficult but people called me in this program every single day every single day people made sure I was okay would I have had that out there when I was drinking? No absolutely not people probably would have wanted to run because they wouldn't want to have felt feelings either. And I went through having cancer and had people praying for me, people taking me to my appointments and making sure that I stayed sober. Without this program, my life would... Well, I wouldn't have a life. I'd be dead for sure by now. But because of this program and because of working at the farm I got to learn, I didn't go to treatment at the farm but by being working there I got to learn the things that the clients were learning and because I'd take them out in the van and we'd be talking about all kinds of stuff and I got to learn how to handle life through my clients and it's just awesome so I hope just one other I want to touch on one other thing having a higher power has been the most important thing to my sobriety except putting my sobrietty first my sobretty's got to come first, God comes second and everything else comes after that and as long as I can do those things I can stay sober So I hope, and this is what I tell clients every day, I hope that you can find some hope in these rooms because there's plenty of it. There's plentyof miracles. And yeah, you don't want to ask people for numbers, but when you do, you find out that there is hope and you find OUT that there are things that youcan do in order to stay sober today. So I thank all of you for helping me to stay sober today. Thanks. Thank you.