The Phenomena of Craving and the Truth About Controlled Drinking – Deb H.

Oh, hello everyone. My name is Deb. I'm a real alcoholic. It is an honor and a privilege to be with you this weekend. It's an honor in a privilege, to be on this dais, to be participating in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in any way shape or form. I am really really really grateful to be here. Dave said that he booked me three years out for this and indeed that is true. So I've been traveling and talking at AA conferences for 17 years, and that means that at least once a month if not twice or three times a month I'd be on a plane going somewhere talking to a room full of alcoholics and participating in Alcoholics Anonymous. There was one point when somebody said well what's your home group? And I said it's all of Alcoholics Anonymous right because I participated out in the big big world of Alcoholic Anonymous and two years ago I decided that I was gonna take a break from traveling and talking because I wanted to be at home, I wanted to be an alternate GSR, I want to go to assemblies, I wanted to go the district picnics and all of that stuff. And I hadn't gotten to do any of that since I travel and talk so much. And so this is ‑‑ I haven't talked at a conference since last October. But when it came to clearing my schedule, I looked at Joplin, Missouri and said, well, I'm going there. you return to the places where two things happen. One is if you experience God there, you must return often. And two, if they feed you every three hours, you must return often, right? And so Joplin, Missouri is a place that I will always return to when I'm asked. This room, not only full of brand new friends, but also full of friends that I've had since I talked here in 2008. There's been a lot life lived since I was here originally in 2008. And some of these people, they just got into my heart and they got into My Life and they wouldn't leave. And so they've walked with me every step of the way. And it's really special for me to be here this weekend with them. Thank you. my sobriety date is march 15th 1987 and for that i'm insanely grateful i'm really grateful for the gentleman i was after the sobriery countdown i ran out to use the restroom one final time and he said you don't look a day over 31 because i stood up for 32 years of sobrietry and i was like well thank you very much just another reason to return to joplin missouri I tell you what, it's been an amazing life It really has been an amazing life. I did come into Alcoholics Anonymous really young I walked into the doors of AlcoholicsAnonymous and I stayed when I was 15 years old And so I was telling my story giving this pitch in Louisiana at their state convention I don't know, a long time ago 15 years ago or something And to thank the speaker line as people are coming up and just giving a little bit back from what you had just given them. There's this one old guy and he has white, white, white hair. And every time the line would almost be finished, he'd hop to the back of the line and somebody else would come in and he'd pop to the top of the line. And so he finally gets up and he's the last guy standing. And he said, you know, he said when you said that you got sober at 15 years old, he says I quit listening. And I'm thinking dude, this is the thank the speaker line right like if you don't have anything nice to say and uh and he said but God had his way with me he opened my ears and I heard you and I'll be damned if you're not a real alcoholic I said yes sir I am he said I'm gonna stop ignoring those young people in my home group I'm going to go home pick one out and sponsor him and a couple of years later I was talking down in that part of the country again, and there was this young guy who came up to me and he said, it's you. It is all your fault. And I said, what did I do? And he goes, this old guy picked me out a couple of years ago and I haven't been able to shake him. But he had been a chronic relapser. He'd been unable to maintain any length of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, and he was standing there with two years. And I say, well, you know what? There's magic that happens when folks who have been around a really long time decide to get outside of their comfort zone and sponsor somebody that doesn't quite match them, right? There's a lot of magic that happens when someone who's been around a real long time decides that they're going to go to a mat for someone who is really young and has a lot energy. There's just magic that happen when one alcoholic sits down across the table from another alcoholic. And in sharing our stories with one another we begin to relate in a way that has depth and weight. And we decide to sit all the way down, and we decide to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that magic happens right here. They were trying to save the lives of alcoholics for centuries. There are stories that go way back about all of the things they used to do to us to try to get us sober. And in 1935, Bill Wilson, who had five months of sobriety, travels to Akron, Ohio. His business deal goes belly up and standing in the Mayflower Hotel he puts a nickel in the phone and he makes a phone call and he gets to sit down with Dr. Bob and that that 12-step call was supposed to last 15 minutes based on Dr. Bobs level of willingness and he heard his story with depth and weight he stayed for five hours and then Bill stayed on an Akron for the rest of the summer it was the longest 12-Step call in history, right? But he stayed on in Akron for almost five full months. And I've gotten to travel. So Stepping Stones is Bill and Lois's home and it's just north of New York City and it's totally worth the trip if you're ever in that area of the country. And there are letters that you can read there where Lois is begging him in the summer of 1935. She's begging him, please pal why don't you come home to me where have you been i miss you so much you're my best friend i am so lonely without you please return to me why are you still in ohio and his letters back to her saying pal i'm just not done here yet i will be home as soon as i can but i love you please don't give up on this but this is where i'm supposed to be and the sacrifices that started for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous from the very beginning can be felt and measured in those correspondence letters, right? Felt and measured because they started sacrificing so that you and I could be sitting in Joplin, Missouri celebrating continuous sobriety and having a great time and eating like it's never going, just holy Christmas. Oh we ate lunch and it was a full five hours before you fed me dinner. I was like, what's up with that? Right? Like, seriously, I haven't chewed and swallowed anything in, you know, what seemed to be days. And Joe Reed told me if I talk too long that he'll be at Andy's started on his third ice cream by the time I get there, but he's not waiting. Oh. I was born and raised in a really small town right outside of Akron, Ohio. And for those of you who know the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, I know we have a lot of new people in the room do not. But that fateful meeting between those two men that I was just talking about, that happened in Akron, Ohio. I was raised literally 10 minutes outside of Akron. Ohio. I had no idea what Alcoholics Anonymous was. I had no idea that it was magical. I had no idea. I had no idea that God came and he visited us there and he sat down and he stayed. I had no idea that all that was going on because in my house 10 minutes down the road What was going on is that I was being raised in active alcoholism. You see, my dad is one of nine kids that came out of the hills of West Virginia when the coal mines started closing down and they crossed over into Ohio because we were in the middle of the Industrial Revolution and the boom was on and there were factory jobs and they were union jobs. And so they came over to get a really good union job and finally live with some dignity and some safety and some respect. And that's my dad and all of his brothers and sisters and my grandmother and my grandfather, they came out of the hills of West Virginia and that's how they ended up in Ohio. And really, really, close to Akron, Ohio. And my dad had a case of alcoholism and I'm pretty sure that he's got his case of alcoholism predated by birth. I'm pre-dating him. I'm not pretty sure about that. I mean there are pictures of him as a young man. There is not one without a bottle of whiskey or a beer in his hand. And the stories about who he has been his entire life. It's really clear to me that he's had alcoholism for a really, really long time. He is still alive today. He still lives in that little town where I was raised. He is now living in a, let's call it a high-rise, it's a four-story building where a lot of older folks move into. It's not an assisted living, but it's just an older folks apartment building. And when he moved in there about 10 years ago, they passed around a petition and they were signing it to make him move out. Because my dad has been angry, I think, since the day he was born. And he has resentments that go back easily 60 years now. And so he's just one of those guys who just treats everybody poorly as often as possible. And when he moved into that apartment community against his will because he could no longer live on his own because his alcoholism has deteriorated him physically. I mean, he's got a little cirrhosis of the liver, whatever that means. He's got gout in both legs. he's had several strokes, and he's just not a well guy. And he hasn't been a well guy for a long time. But he would take his little electric scooter, and he would drive up and down those hallways, and he would pick fights with his neighbors and call them names. Right? And so they started circulating the petition to have him move out, and I was like, yeah, there he is. There he is, right? In all of his loveliness, in full-blown alcoholism that has never been treated. You know, that man's never been interested in getting sober. He's never been interested in drawing a sober breath that i'm aware of um i still go visit him anytime that i am in ohio i will generally go and i'll pick up lunch and i will sit and have lunch with him and it's really difficult because we have really nothing to talk about but i will go anyway and take him his lunch and check on him from time to time and invariably he will go back in time and share with me one of those resentments that he has still been holding onto for 60 years and I just get to see what alcoholism looks like when you hang on to it a little bit too long. Nobody else will go see him. He's just treated everybody so poorly for such a long time that people just don't sign up for that kind of stuff anymore and lunch is about all I can manage when I'm in town and that's just long-term alcoholism. When I was a little girl and I was being raised in that house, my dad was a really violent alcoholic and I had no idea what right looked like when I was growing up, right? Because one day I would do something and it was fine and the next day I Would do the exact same thing And for some reason unbeknownst to me. It was just not okay And so I didn't I had No idea how I was to act I had No idea what I was allowed to say out loud what I wasn't allowed to Say out loud but I Because one Day I would get hurt for it and the other day It would be absolutely fine. It Was just 100% unpredictable Growing up in that house. I was terrified all the time absolutely terrified and for pretty darn good reason you know I've revisited my childhood I've gone back I've tried to tell that story a different way I tried to make out like it wasn't what it was and and I was telling my story um I got to speak at Founders Day which is AA's birthday party in Akron Ohio and um and when I got done you know giving my pitch from the podium there was a guy in the thank the speaker line and he came up to me and He said, oh my God, I know your dad and his brothers. I'm so grateful that you survived that and look at how you've turned out. And I said, no, I don't think it was that bad. And he said, I knew your dad. I know you're dad and he's brothers. I'm sorry you had to grow up in that. But I'm happy you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And a little bigger piece of that healed for me. Because it was just validated. needed. And I have one sister, my sister is not quite two years older than I am and growing up we looked exactly alike. I was a little tall and big for my age and she was a little small for her age and we looked alike, our mannerisms are alike. I mean the whole deal when people meet my sister they're like oh my well there's your sister. And so she and I, she was my person right? When you're growing up in alcoholism it's important to have a person right someone that you can rely on someone that's going to have your back no matter what. And my sister was my person and she and I, we were surviving our childhood together, right? And as terrified as I was, I think she was doubly terrified. There are pictures of me when I'm a little kid and I have my shoulders pinned to my ears and my little hands are balled up in fists and I just look ready for anything because here's the deal. I watched my folks when I was little and I figured out real now I had none of this language, of course, when I was a little kid, but I figured out very quickly my mother, she looked scared all the time. And everyone took advantage of her and treated her poorly. She looked the way I felt. And my father looked angry all the Time and nobody messed with him. And somehow I decided when I Was little that I was just going to be angry, that I was going to look angry and I was going to look tough and I was going to keep everybody out here and I was going to try to protect myself and the pictures of me when I'm a little girl I look angry and I look ready because I was living life on high alert I mean high alert all the time it's funny what I do for a living today I'm on call for large major disasters and emergencies and someone asked me in my professional life a handful of months ago they're like so how did you start training for that profession and I'm thinking do not tell them, you were raised in active alcoholism. But it really is great training, right? I mean because when you live your life on high alert and you're ready to respond and survive anything, it was really great training. I had my very first drink of alcohol not because of all of that. I had My First Drink of Alcohol because I wanted to know why alcohol was so important. I knew that it was really, really important for my mom that my dad never have another drink and it was really important to my dad that he have a drink every single day, right? So there was constant conflict in my house and I just wanted to know why that stuff was so important because they fought about it all the time. And I spent the night with one of my girlfriends. Her parents had a bar in their basement. I don't know if you guys do that in Missouri, but in our basements we refinish them even though we know periodically they're going to flood. I'm not sure why we do that. And there are bars down there and whatnot because it's really cold in the winter. And anyway, her parents had a bar in their basement. I spent the night over there. I had to talk her into drinking with me. She wasn't interested. We were nine. I didn't understand why she wasn't interested, but we were nine, Her parents, they had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward alcohol, right? They weren't alcoholic. They weren'T even really heavy drinkers. They would go down into that bar every now and then and have friends over, and it was a place of conviviality and fellowship for them. But I talked her into drinking with me because I needed to know what this stuff was and why it was so darn important. And it is that simple. That's why I had my first drink of alcohol. I was on a mission, and I was doing a little research. And that was the night of firsts for me. It was my first drunk, my first blackout, my First Hangover the next day. I mean, it was my First of everything. And the problem was I had no idea how to drink reasonably. I had no, like I had No, I didn't know what I was doing. Right? We were just picking bottles off the bar and taking the caps off and seeing if we could get past the smell to actually try to swallow some of it. Right. And every now and then we thought maybe we could stomach this one. And so we would take a swig of it on the first bottle I picked off the Bar. And you know, we alcoholics, we are funny because we remember details about really important things in our lives. Right And so I remember all these details about my very first drink of alcohol. It's ridiculous but the first bar I picked off the bottles was uh off the bar um was Christian Brothers and I used to say that it was Christian Brothers whiskey and I was telling this story in a pitch at a podium similar to this one and Sister Maurice was in the audience and she reared back and out loud in the middle of my pitch like right now she said honey that's brandy and I I was like, well, leave it to the religious to know their booze. Anyway, the really important thing about that night was not what I had to drink or how much I had to drink because I can't tell you what it was or the fact that I even wanted to drink and figure it out. The important thing was this. When I got enough alcohol into my system, this is what happened for me. My little fist let loose. My shoulders came all the way off my ears. I exhaled all the way for the very first time and I experienced freedom from fear for a little while that night alcohol removed fear I had never lived without fear I didn't know that I was scared all the time right because I just was it's like if that's what you do all the time that is your normal and I didn'T know that there was a different way to feel I didnT even know that I felt bad until all of a sudden I felt okay. And it's really simple for me. I came to the next day, I pushed all of the negative that had happened that night out of my mind and I pushed out of my head how I felt because I was hungover and sick. I pushed all that out of head and I made a really simple decision at nine years old. I said I'm going to drink as much of this stuff as often as I can. And why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I? I mean, it worked. I didn't even know I was looking for something to work on something, right? But when I had it, the effect produced by alcohol was so profound in my life. When I was nine years old, I just decided I'm going to drink as much of this stuff as often as I can. And I re-evaluated every relationship in my life. If your parents had a bar in their basement, you were now in my inner circle. And don't, and I have led everything that I have been a part of since I was tiny. I had a posse in my neighborhood, right? Nobody did anything without passing it by me first, right. I have always had this really strong personality and no matter what group I was a partof, right, I was running that group. And so I was literally re-evaluating every relationship in my life and I was deciding how close in you were going to be to me based on whether or not you increased or decreased my access to alcohol. Again, I wasn't planful when I was that age. I had no idea how to execute that plan, right? It was just the way I did business because I needed to increase my access to alcohol. I also needed to find safe places to drink it so that I wouldn't get caught because I knew the moment that I decided to drink alcohol for the first time I was doing something I was not supposed to do and it was not going to be a popular decision. I was really clear about that. So I had to step it up. I Had to start lying and cheating and stealing and shooting angles and manipulating people and all of that. And I had to, and I had to double time it in order to drink as often as I wanted to drink. I didn't know anything about drinking a lot. I Didn't know anything about increasing tolerance. I Didn't Know About, You Know, Increasing Cascading Consequences And All Of This Stuff. I Had No Idea About All That. All I Knew Is That I Wanted To Drink Safely And I WantED To Have A Little Relief From Fear. And Alcohol Was The Only Thing That Had Produced That For Me. And What That Did For Me, Right? So The Unmanageability of alcohol hit my life immediately because for me, unmanageability came when I was drinking because all I could actually think about was how I was going to get and consume and survive drinking alcohol. I didn't have a lot of mental capacity left to put toward a lot of other pursuits, right? It became a singular pursuit really, really quickly for me. And by the time I was 15 years old and entering into my sophomore year in high school, I was unable to draw sober breath. In order for me to be sober for anything, I had to go through a significant period of withdrawal. I don't know when I crossed the line into alcoholism, but what I know is that the allergy for me developed very, very quickly. The phenomenon of craving was on me from my early, earliest memories of drinking. The moment that I had a little, I wanted more. And the more I drank, the thirstier I got. And that's the way I drank from the very beginning, right? And I see some heads nodding out there so and I don't know that you got sober at 15 but you certainly know what it's like the more you drink the thirstier you get and that was just my truth and that would be my truth today if I chose to have another drink of alcohol and that's the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous is that I am 100% convinced of that right there is no safe way for me to consume alcohol I know that I have watched people in my life return to drinking over and over and over and good friends dear dear people to me in Alcoholics Anonymous and I have watched them get up from being fully seated and slowly move toward the door and one day they walk out the door and they don't walk back into it and then I've heard about you know how how quickly it took for them to end up back in prison or dead right I know that I can give the gift of the recovery from alcoholism back at any point. And so I'm just going to stay in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you don't mind, right? So every time you look at the middle, I'm going to be standing in the Middle. And you're welcome to come into the middle. If you're on the fringes, come all the way in and sit all the way down, I'd be happy to have the company. Because I've watched people over and over and go back out. You know, the phenomenon of craving is just it's I find it fascinating. I found it fascinating when I was drinking, right? I knew that when I started to drink that there was going to be no stopping me until I passed out, blacked out or ran out. Somebody said that in their talk. It might have been Cliff last night. But that was the way I drank too. It's like somebody had to get in my way in order to stop me from consuming any more alcohol and the consequences didn't matter and nothing mattered. What mattered was that I was continuing to chase that freedom from fear. I was continuing to chase that feeling of relief. And that's what alcohol did for me, it produced a feeling of release. And I absolutely loved it. I became obsessed with the feeling of freedom. And in order to get the feeling Of freedom, I had to consume alcohol. And when I consumed alcohol, it triggered the phenomena craving and when the phenomena of craving is triggered, in folks like us in this class of person only, meaning the real alcoholic, when the phenomena of craving is triggered, there's no telling what's going to happen. But we know it's going to be ugly and we know its probably going to resemble something really close to what happened to us the last time. And so when I was 15 years old in a sophomore in high school, I was unable to draw sober breath that was just my truth at that point. For somehow, so this little tiny town I grew up in it a population of 5 000 people and so um you know every anyway and because i ran everything i was a big deal in that school and so i was having to work extra hard to hide the fact that i was drinking like i mean i was pre-drinking when i was 12. i mean just so i had i had to manage the perception even of the friends that were my age i had to do a little pre-Drinking and i had to hide The fact that I was pre drinking because you know people my age when we're freshmen and sophomore in high school, right? We would drink, you know, have a beer, right, and sneak the beer before the football game and maybe one after the football games or whatever. But I needed to have four or five before I got to have the one beer, and then everybody would have their other one and they would go home and I would go and I cross the tracks. My little town was on the railroad, we're on the railway tracks, and there's a right side of the tracks and a wrong side of the tracks, doesn't matter what railroad town you're in, there's right side and a wrong side. And in this particular little town, we lived on the first block on the right side of the tracks, which meant that you could see the wrong side of the tracks from our house, right? And I had been warned over and over andover, you do not cross the tracks. What I came to discover is my need for alcohol grew, is that the people who came to my little town and were on the wrong side ofthe tracks, they were coming to mylittle town to stay off the radar and lay low and get day work and they didn't ask any questions and they didn't care how old I was and they would buy me my own fifth of vodka and all I had to do was cross the tracks and decide to pay whatever it was they were charging. And I would go over there day after day after day because I needed more alcohol than I could actually get on my own. I was too young to have a job, I didn't have a car I didn' t have all of the access to resources and I was to a point where I was drinking a fifth of vodka a day. And somebody had to give that to me. And so I was crossing the tracks and I was just, man, I was, I hated who I was. I hated Who I was right just at the height of our adolescent vanity. I was unable to look in the mirror, right? I wasn't looking in the mere to brush my hair or brush my teeth or do any of that kind of stuff because I hated Whom I was I hated any of those moments when I had to get sober for a minute, because when I was sober, what I would do is I would relive and revisit all of the stuff that had been happening in my life, right? All of the stuff that I was participating in either by design, by choice or not, by design or by choice. And I would just revisit those things over and over and so for me being physically sober and being comfortable they didn't exist in the same space they couldn't. I could not be sober and comfortable at the same time. I Could Not Be Sober and Not Be Covered Up. Now it's not just fear but it's terror, bewilderment, frustration and despair right now I can't breathe all the way in or all theway out not because I'm scared but because I am sick all the time and I am just eaten up right from the inside out there is a reason why early on in our history Dr. Bob used to talk about soul surgery I used to go to meetings when I was really new I used to go to Cleveland, Ohio and go to meetings up there. And there were a group of meetings up there, and they would talk about the soul sickness in a way that just grabbed me. Because that soul sickness, when it was on me, it was like I just ached from the inside out. I just absolutely ached all the time. And it was really simple for me. I ended up getting thrown into a treatment center in downtown Cleveland in the fall of my sophomore year of high school and it wasn't any great story I just finally got caught and it's that simple and you would think in a town of 5,000 when it was my dad and he's one of nine kids so that meant I was related to most of the town that wouldn't have taken that long but it did right I finally shot the wrong angle at the wrong time right in the wrong direction and everything everything came to a head and before I knew it I was in all kinds of trouble my sister was in juvie jail again um you know my sister had a really so let me tell you about my sister I drank she did drugs that way there's no conflict of interest in our house that was the way we did that right I never did drugs she never drank that's just the way that went and it kept things really clean between us right and it allowed me to be her person and her to be my person and you know and goodness knows there's enough conflict with everyone else in our lives we didn't need it between the two of us and my sister couldn't do things like she couldn't make curfew at night, right? For some reason, she just couldn't seem to drag her butt home. And all she had to do was let my mom like see that she was in the house and she'd be free, right. And what I would do is I would drag myself home at 10 o'clock. My mom would lay eyes on me. I would go upstairs. My mum would finally go to bed. I'd sneak out of the house and I wouldgo finish drinking, right, like I had it figured out. And then I could sneak in before she woke up in the morning. I had a system, right? And it was a system that kept me out of a jam and my sister didn't have the system. My sister's in and out of juvie jail over and over and over and because she just can't do the simplest things, right. She just can'T do the simplest things and I remember talking to her and I'm like if you would just drink rather than doing all that weird stuff I think you'd be fine because clearly I was fine, right, and if she would just not do drugs she'd be finE and she could make curfew and everything and she wouldn't have but anyway my sister's in and out of juvie all the time which has actually worked out pretty good for me and I knew that right because it meant that all of the attention was focused on her because she was the one that was in trouble all the Time and nobody paid too much attention to what I was doing which worked out until it didn't and uh and so in the fall of my sophomore year you know the wheels came off I got caught the cops were called there were warrants issued for the arrest of some of the people from the wrong side of the tracks for aiding and abetting minors and doing a whole host of other things. And it was just a whole lot of ugliness for a tiny little town. And I knew that I needed to get out of town, but I didn't have a job or a car, and I wasn't real sure which direction out of town was. And so I ended up through a series of circumstances I won't walk you through, landing in this treatment center in downtown Cleveland on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1986. basics. And when I went into that treatment center, I had been trying to drink myself to death for a couple of weeks before I went in to that treatment because somebody had been in that treatment centre, one of the adults who was buying me booze on a regular basis. He said, you know they lock that unit and you're not going to be able to get out of there. And I said what do you mean? He said the moment you go in there you're not going be able drink anything at all after that, nothing. And he said no, he said they are going to force you into sobriety. And I was like, I'm not okay with that. And he's like, well, I don't know what to tell you, but that's where you're headed. And it never occurred to me that when they put me in this treatment center, I wasn't going to be able to shoot some kind of angle and get out of there and just get a little something to take the edge off, right? Just enough to take The Edge Off. Like, I knew that I was drinking a little much, so I probably shouldn't go out and really tie one on, but I needed to take THE EDGE OFF because I couldn't be sober and okay at the same time anyway and he's and he convinced he told me what the what the requirements were going to be for me once I hit this treatment center and so I decided that it would be better if I just not wake up and so i tried to drink myself to death and um and I chased it down like I hadn't chased anything down ever and and I checked into that treatment center on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I came to on Monday night and I had been in a drunken stupor that entire time and I had been really, really sick. And in that treatment center, they too did not believe that adolescents were real alcoholics and so they didn't put me through a medical detox. They just put me in a room, threw me a set of pajamas and let me shake it out. And I had be drinking to die for the last couple of weeks and so it took me a full 10 days to become constitutionally capable to do things like keep water and oatmeal down and sit upright to try to sit through a whole session of people talking. And it was a really, really tough one. And I was absolutely certain after I was going in for 10 days, I knew I was gonna be able to do this 10 days and then they were gonna look the other way and I was wanna get out of there because I had a story I was Gonna tell them that would lead them to believe that I was being treated unfairly and that adults were overreacting. So I had his story concocted and then that's the story I Was gonna tell him and I'm pretty sure it Was gonna work. But instead I went in there in a complete and utter blackout and that drunken stupor and at some point I told them the truth. and so after that 10 days, they gave me my clothes back, and they said they were keeping me for 30 more, and I had to go downstairs, and i had to start treatment, and so i go downstairs and because of the because of being raised in the active violent alcoholism that i was i was not a fan of loud noises things that move too fast like things that were really unpredictable loud just right the hair on the back of my neck would go up quick and i would you know because i was on high alert all the time and and I get downstairs to start my 30-day inpatient treatment and all of a sudden their sirens going off and they call this code right and there's a little light that's flashing and it was an old hospital so it's the old code blue thing that they were using and and all of you know the counselors are running back up to where I just came from and I grabbed one of them like physically stopped him he was in full flight and I said what's going on and he said, your sister's here. And they had tricked my sister, right? Because she was my person and my sister and I had never spent 10 days apart. I mean, she's my person. Why would I ever spend 10 days from her? And so they tricked her and they said, well, it's 10 days. Do you want to go visit Deb? And she was like, heck yeah, I want to go visit. Right. And so, they get her to the hospital to visit me. Right? They take her upstairs to the locked unit. I had just come from the door closed and locked behind her they threw her own set of pajamas and she tore the place up so 10 days later my sister comes right and I'm like oh thank god finally someone that I can talk to is coming right because here's the deal I needed a drink right I needed to drink I'm a real alcoholic at that point I am sober 20 freaking days 20 to zero days with no alcohol and I am not okay I'm not okay and all they're doing is talking to me right it's groups in lectures and individuals and just in meetings and just people just talk talk talk don't talk and I was like just shut up right like I need a solution and you're talking he's not getting it it's just not working and when you have outbursts like that they give you extra days in treatment right and and finally so my sister's coming down and I ran up to my sister when I saw her you know my 20th day of sobriety and I was like oh thank god and she looked at me and she said don't go to sleep oh she was so mad because apparently when I had gotten honest about what I had been drinking and how often and where and with who and all of that kind of stuff I also shared a little bit about what she was up to and so based on my information that I had provided they called my mom and they said you have another one why don't you bring her in when we get this one done with the assessment period and so for the next 20 days I stayed wide awake in treatment because they put us in adjoining rooms right and my sister was oh she was we so my family we know how to hold a grudge that's what we call resentment we hold a grudge and it's a sport it is absolutely it is something that we are taught right I remember like I'm in first grade and you know one of my little girlfriends had done something right that was unacceptable and I went home and told about you know how badly she had treated me and my dad said you're never to talk to her again I was like all right and then two days later I'm talking to her igen because you know little kids are really close to God and they forgive quick and uh and he said I thought I told you to never talk to him again I was yeah but it's okay now and he's like it'll never be okay that's how we are taught to treat people and so my sister right is 20 days in the so i'm anyway we're 20 days together and she is not forgiving me easily and so i don't sleep while i'm in treatment i'm just surviving it i'm not listening i'm not learning anything guys they are trying to give me some hope they're trying to show me like they're drawing a roadmap to you and i and i can't hear it and i cant see it I just can't hear it and I can't see it. And I don't know why. I get out of that treatment center. My sister grabbed me when I was getting on the elevator and she said, you do not relapse until I get out of here. It is because of you I'm in this place and you will not be out there drinking when I'm here. I said, fine. And so I went home and I have no idea why I waited but I did. I went and I got my bottles and I got her some random baggies of this and that and I waited on my sister to get home from treatment so that she and I could relapse together because I'm trying to make amends, right? In my own way. Right? This is all I got. So I'm Trying to Make Amends. So I wait on my sister. She gets home from treatment. I drag her upstairs and I lift the floorboard and I show her everything that I've gotten. And I was like, oh, thank God, right tonight we're relapsing. And she said, well, they called it a spiritual experience. And i said, what? And she says, I had a thing that happened and they said it was a spiritual experience and we're not going to relapse. We're going to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, no, we're not. And she said, no, we are. We are going to go to AA. And I said we can't. I said, AA, you don't even drink. She said, I know, but they said NA sucks. I have to go to AA! And I said, we are not going. And she said yes we are if we don't go. If you don t go with me, I'll tell. And I'm like that's not okay. It's just not okay but off we went to Alcoholics Anonymous 100% against my will and here's how we went there my ma dropped us off like my car my cool card is officially gone right my ma drops us off 15 minutes before the meeting starts we stand outside long enough to be late all of the meetings in northeast Ohio where I got sober they were all held in church basements with concrete floors and metal folding chairs. And if you drag a metal folding chair across a concrete floor, it makes a lot of noise. And so we would go in late, right? I would walk through the center of the meeting. I would drag my chair. I didn't even like coffee at the time, but I'd have three cups at every meeting, up, down, up, up. Up, down. And I got to know your tempo. And when you people would circle up to pray, I would leave because here's the deal I wasn't raised with God I wasnít raised with prayer I wasnís raised with any talk about any of that stuff I wasní taken to church none of that I donít know how to pray and there are a lot of words in the Lordís prayer and I donít know them and Iím not going to get in your circle so you can pull my punk card like that not going to happen and so every time you guys circle up I leave so Iím coming in early Iím coming in late Iím leaving early Iím a complete and utter distraction in every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I go to. I'm just a wreck. And in and around Akron, Ohio, they take AlcoholicsAnonymous a little bit seriously. And there were some old-timers who were... There was one in particular who was... Anyway, he was still alive. He was one of the first 100 members of Alcoholic Anonymous, and he was going to meetings in and out and around where I was. And the president of Alcoholix Anonymous... His name was Max Shadburn. and Mac he had an assigned seat at the back entry point of the door all the guys that he sponsored they were the welcome gauntlet that you had to walk through if you went into the meeting on time which was another reason to be late and Mac absolutely hated me I could tell by the way he would just glare and so I stayed as far away from Mac as I could and the queen of Alcoholics Anonymous her name was Jane and Jane was I mean Jane had been sober since Christ was a child I I mean, she was old and she was sober a long time. And Jane, a newcomer would drive her to the meeting and she had an assigned parking place right by the back stairs. And when she got there, they would yell and they'd say, Jane's here and four newcomers will go grab this wooden high-back chair. They would take it out car side. They would physically load her into it. And then they would pick it up and they would carry her down the stairs and across the floor. And they would put her right here by the podium, right where Mike is sitting tonight. And we had long tables and she would sit there and she got the only crystal ashtray in the whole place, right? We were all using those metal ashtrays where after you put out cigarette butts, like the bottoms would get wavy. I'm going to have to quit talking about that at some point because we don't smoke anymore. But she would get the only crystallized tray in the whole place. And she was beautiful. And she had this white hair and she Would wear it in a soft bun on the back of her head and she smoked cigarettes on an extender. And when she would get there and she'd get seated, they'd bring her her ashtray and her cup of coffee and she'd light a cigarette on the extender and the line would form. And everybody was saying hello to Jane and they were talking and she just loved everybody. And she knew something significant about everybody's life, right? She was the one that was going to ask you how that job interview went and whether or not you got to have dinner with your daughter because she knew all of that. Because she just, in her own grumpy way she loved people so much and I would watch all of this happen and I'm like I'm not getting anywhere near her right I never went to the front of the room to get anywhere near Jane because here's the deal I knew I knew that if she knew who I was she was going to reject me and why in the world would I stand on a line and wait to be treated poorly by that old lady so I'm not getting anywhere near her right I'm not staying long anyway so why should I invest my time with her and so I never went anywhere nearer and so I'm sneaking out of a meeting one night right and I'm looking this way because I'm trying to find my sister in the group and I am sliding down the back wall this way and I bumped into something and I looked over and Max Shadburn had gotten out of his seat the president of Alcoholics Anonymous and he was standing like this in the doorway and he just looked at me, and he said, get in the circle. And I just looked at him, and I got in the circle. And as soon as the prayer was over, I went to leave, and Mac had not gotten in the circle, he's still standing, taking up the entire doorway. And he looked at me over top of these ridiculous little glasses that he had that sat down on his nose, and And he said, are you alcoholic? And I looked at him and I gave him the only answer I had at 15 years old. And he said, can you control your drinking? And I gave them the only answer I hade at 15 year old. And he handed me five dollars and he said here's five bucks, go find out. We are tired of you treating Alcoholics Anonymous like a joke. and i went and i found my sister and i'm like go get your five bucks we're out of here i was like it's about time somebody with some authority right weighs in on this situation i got going on here right like i'm bucking the system and i finally got this guy this guy's on my side and my sisterandi we relapsed because here's the deal my sister was in the wrong room my sisterwas in thewrongroommy sister didn't suffer from alcoholism my sister was having trouble with drugs. She was sitting in the wrong room. She wasn't able to hear her story, right? So her disease is working on her from the inside and I'm working on it from the outside and my sister doesn't have a shot. She's not going to be able to stand against that because she's got nobody to have her back. And so she and I, we relapse, right? And for me, like I had been around here long enough, right, it was March 14th, 1987, I go out and I relapse and I had heard enough, like, I get it, okay, I gets it. I was drinking a little too much, I was overshooting the mark on fair frequency, right? I understand why everybody's freaking out about that. I have learned my lesson. I am not going to drink like that anymore. I'm not going overshoot the mark. I'm going to put down some boundaries and we're going to lock this thing down and it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine and so I go out. I have three shots and two beers now. Yeah, you're seeing a shot glass when I say that there are no there are no glasses in the way I drink. I'm an adolescent. That's three long pulls off the bottle with a couple of cans of warm beer because that's how we roll and I drink them real fast because here's the deal. I have not been able to exhale for five months. I Have Not Looked in the Mirror. I Haven't Slept. I haven't none of it because I am sober and I'm not okay. I have no program i have no god i have nothing in my life that is giving me any relief whatsoever and if i thought that i was terrified when i started drinking when i was nine you should have seen me then because i am terrified and i am miserable and there and i haven't been able to do anything about it other than just to grit it out and when i have those three shots and two beers I am just waiting for that thing to come on me so that I can just exhale a little bit so that these shoulders at least start to come down off my ears so that my hands can let loose. I need some freaking relief because I have been dry for five months with no solution and no God and what I can tell you standing here tonight is that I am bodily and mentally different from my fellows I just am right there is no putting this genie back in the bottle there is no setting parameters and living inside them there is no drinking a little bit and just cutting it off before I go to oblivion there's no not crossing the tracks because I'm still only 15 and I got no financial resources and when the phenomena I craving gets triggered I gotta go somewhere where I can get my medicine and that's where I gotta go right and so that night some things had gotten better for me with physical sobriety, right? Some things had stopped happening because I had physical sobrietty. And that night, with my plan, which was three shots and two beers, the phenomena of craving was triggered. I did not believe that I had it until that night. And it was on. And the next day I came to and I'm filthy and I black and blue and I am sick. And I have no recollection of what happened after a certain period of time, because I'm a blackout drinker. And I'm grateful that I was because I remember enough. And for some reason, I look in the mirror for the very first time in years and I see he was looking back at me and I'm sick and I's just sick. And that morning, there are two things that I hear. There are two voices that slip in and those voices were different. And one of them was Max Shadburn's voice when he gave me that five bucks and told me to go out and try some controlled drinking he said this if it doesn't work you get back here but you better be willing to do something different and the other voice was a voice I did not know and it said this very clearly you will always drink just like this and for some reason on that on that morning I believed it I had just experienced the phenomena not craving I had just tried one more time to control my drinking after the entire mess that I'd been living in for all of that time and the darndest part is I was terrified even when I was going into my blackout it just wasn't working anymore and I was like oh my god I've got to go to Alcoholics Anonymous ah and I went back that night I got there on time I sat in the middle I had one cup of coffee and I got in your stupid circle and as soon as the circle was done I went to leave that room and guess who was standing in the doorway Mac was back standing in the doorway he looked at me over top of those little glasses and he said did you get a sponsor and I just looked at him and I was like how did he know that I was out drinking and he and I and I looked at and I said no and he went And I walked back in that room, and I walked up to every woman in there, and I said, will you sponsor me? And every woman said no. Oh, honey, uh-uh. So I went to leave the room, and Mac was still standing there, and he said, well, did you get a sponsor? And I said no one in here will sponsor me. He said, that's a lie. I said I'm not asking her. So I had to come up to the front of the room and stand on the line, which I'm not a big fan of, right? And I stand on The Line and wait for my turn to address the queen. And when it was my turn, I just got up and I looked down at her because she stayed in a seated position the entire time and she took a long drag off that cigarette extender and I said, will you sponsor me? And she said, oh honey, why should I? And instead of telling her where to shove that cigarette extender which was literally all I had I said because I need to be sober and I don't know how and I was like oh my god who said that and she said well I guess you'll be doing some things differently now won't you and she gave me a list of everything I would be doing in Alcoholics Anonymous and everything I no longer be doing an Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went home and the next day I'm sitting there and I it's, you know, close by 7 o'clock in the evening and I'm pretending to do my homework while I'm thinking about how my life is over and I've just turned it over to the care of 70-year-olds. And this enormous car comes pulling into my driveway. I know some of you will remember the Ford LTDs from the 70s, right? You guys remember how big those cars are, right, and it's like the body was too big for the chassis or something because when it stopped, right the car would kind of do one of these numbers, right. and it had a big steering wheel, like you could steer it with one finger, but if you wanted to make a turn, you had to start a half a block back, right? And one of these cars comes floating in my driveway, and my mom was like, who's that? I said, I don't know. Go find out. So I walked out to the car, and there's two old guys sitting in the front seat of the car,and they're smoking cigarettes and listening to country music, and they're laughing about something, drinking some coffee, and I knock on the window, and I said can I help you, and they said, Jane sent us. Get in the car. And I said, fellas, I'm good. I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous last night. I'm completely sober, as you can see. I don't need to go to a meeting. And they said. Jane sent US get in the call. And I said I'm really good and they said And they just sat there and I went in the house and I said, ma, AA's here. And she said, okay, honey, have fun. And I went and I got in the backseat of that car. And we went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they needed, their job was to teach me how to set up a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous because you can't make the kind of bad coffee we're used to in Alcoholics Anonymous without some instructions. And it was their job to teach me how to make really bad coffee and how to set up the chair so that the old-timers who showed up that night had their chair in their place so that no fights ensued. And when that meeting was over, I don't remember a thing about it other than there was white hair row, right? It's like all the old timers with the white hair, they would sit over on this. And it Was a speaker meeting, a pitch meeting, And somebody got up and gave their pitch. And in northeast Ohio, they still do this. They'll open the floor for comments once the pitch is done. That usually goes really lovely, right? Like people are like, oh, I related to this and such and blah, blah, blah. And it's just like it's a two-liner, you know, thank the speaker kind of thing out loud where you're identifying out loud. And sometimes it doesn't go so well, right, because if you get up there and you're, you know, telling a lot of lies and people know that, you know they'll call you out on it out loud. It's just a fascinating process. anyway this meeting wraps up you know nobody you know gets chewed out or anything like that and we and we clean up the meeting right because that's important to learn how to do too we clean up the meaning I get in the car we pull out of the parking lot and they turn one way and I said fellas I'm pretty sure I live that way and it was as if I wasn't even there right they just continued on their way because here's the deal after meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous in northeast Ohio 32 years ago when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, you didn't just go to a meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous. You had to go to the freaking donut shop after every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you know what you did at the donut shop? You rehashed everything you just talked about at the meeting of alcoholics anonymous, right? Only in far more detail and a little bit of judgment. And I had to goes to those meetings because I'm riding with these guys and I'm like, fellas it's like 11 o'clock like i got school in the morning and again it's like i'm not even there and right and so the next day i'm you know i the same deal seven o'clock right the big car and i go out and i'm like seriously like two days in a row like i'M COMPLETELY SOBER and they're just like getting in the car like this this is not this isn't negotiable just get in the car and it was a different two guys in another great big vehicle right and i'M HERE TO REPORT YOU CAN fit 12 newcomers in the backseat of one of these Ford LTDs, right? You really can, right, and there were nights when we would go do the neighborhood sweep, right. The people just kept piling in and every single night when the meeting wrapped up, we'd go to another donut shop and here's the deal. I did not get sober in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got sober in donut shops across Northeast Ohio, reading out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and listening to them rehash everything that had just been said out loud in the meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous because I don't know your language. When I'm brand new to AlcoholicsAnonymous, I don' t know what you're talking about, right? We have our own words that we use in here, and they taught me the language of the heart, the language for alcoholics anonymous sitting in donut shop s. They never asked me for gas money, and they never asked me to buy my own cup of coffee or my own donut because they knew how poor we were. They never asked. They just showed up every single night at 7 o'clock. And what I didn't know is that Mac had called an emergency group conscience meeting. And the reason for the group conscience meeting is because my sister and I were going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we were acting so badly. And so Mac called the meeting and got the whole group together and he said by god these girls got to go they're ruining Alcoholics Anonymous and we should throw them out they're probably not alcoholic anyway and so he had the you know the the group was rising up to you know yeah yeah yeah they gotta go you know they were drinking three cups of coffee and they're up down up now and they just just you know all of that and thank goodness for the service structure in AlcoholicsAnonymous where we ensure that if there is a minority voice in the room that they get to be heard. There was a man in that meeting his name was Bill Long. And Bill Long never, ever, ever talked, ever. And Bill Long was sitting in the back of that room. And as it's told to me, Bill Long raises his hand and everybody stops talking and looks and they call on him. And he said, well, the way I see it is that God gave us those girls. And we should probably try to put them onto the program of Alcoholics anonymous first don't you think and he turned the group on a dime and somebody said yeah but it says that they should go down and try some drinking in the nearest bar room and if it doesn't work and they said that's fine mac you can toss them out but if they come back we're going to have to put them onto the program of alcoholics anonymous and then someone says well if they come back who's going to sponsor them and the way it's told to me is that nobody looked up like didn't want to make eye contact. Like, not it. And another man who was sitting in that room, he said, I have a feeling that these girls are pretty badly damaged and if they come back, it's only going to be us old folks with white hair that got a shot at these girls. And they all looked at Jane. And Jane said, I don't have the energy to sponsor those girls. And the group said, Jane, it's okay. If you take come on, we'll all help. And I had a Monday crew, a Tuesday crew, a Wednesday crew, a Thursday crew, a Friday crew, a Saturday crew, and a Sunday crew. There was somebody sitting in my driveway every single night at 7 o'clock waiting for me to get in the car. There was a different donut shop after every single meeting. They also took the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous and they divided it up and each group who had taken responsibility for one of my nights, they also took responsibility for a part of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they had update meetings with one another to let folks know where I was at in my step work. And they collectively decided that they were going to be dedicated to me and they were gonna save my life. And they took me to a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous every day. They took me do a donut shop every single night after the meeting of alcoholics anonymous. and they started putting me through the 12 putting me on to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and working the 12 steps with me and they did it by really tricking me I mean they really did right it wasn't like all of a sudden I was moved by the spirit and wanted to get sober and be like this 12-step person right I didn't want to do the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous right the inventory terrified me right because based on the fact that I'm not sleeping and that when I'm sober I can't it's just there's a lot going on up there and I don't want to put any of that stuff on paper. And one of the old guys said, why are you starting at four? You're nowhere near one, right? And so they spent the time sitting at the donut shop walking me through the doctor's opinion in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And because their belief was this, if you don't really understand what's wrong with you, you will not be long for the program of Alcoholic Anonymous, you Will Not Stay Sober. And they told me, they said, and it is especially true in your case because you're really young and when if you walked into a discussion meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that was focused on the first step what we often hear is a long list of consequences right how many cars we wrecked how many days in jail how many prisons we've been to how many kids we had and didn't raise and right that mess that we cause and we talk about that when we're talking about the first Step of Alcoholic Anonymous and they said you're never going to relate or identify to us that way. You must understand what's actually wrong with you and thank God they did that because they were right. I hadn't been to prison, I didn't have a driver's license to lose, I didn'T write none of that stuff that we talk about and so I had to know what was actually wrong with me and that's when they described to me the phenomena of craving. And they waited to hear me tell them that I had alcoholism based on the information as laid out, right? One night I'm sitting at the donut shop and I said, that's how I drank. That happened to me. And one of the old guys says, well, I think she's ready for step two. And I would take all of my problems to them at the donut shop right I came to trust them because they were there every single night at seven o'clock right consistency goes a long way with us when we're trying to win the confidence of a new person it just does right they didn't have to treat me kindly they didn'T have to listen to me babble they didnT have right it wasn'T about what they the only thing that mattered was that they were there every singLe night at 7 o'Clock somebody was going to be in my driveway and I don'T know how long it took, but I started out hoping that nobody would be there at seven o'clock and hoping that I would get a night off to standing at the front door with my coat on looking out the blind waiting for them to pull in. And then I started to get to know their tempo and I knew who was coming for me on Monday night. And boy did I have questions for them, right? And I knew who was coming for me on Tuesday night. And I started to get an idea as to who is responsible for what in my life, right? I clearly had a God squad, right. There were a group of them and it was their sole vocation in life where I was concerned to put me into a relationship with God. And they were all about it. Every time I would take something to them at the donut shop, they'd say, did you pray about it? Did you pray abut it? And one night I finally said, I don't know how. And the guy says, well, give me your book. So I slid my book across the table. He opened it and he started underlining and highlighting all the tiny little prayers that are in the text of Alcoholics Anonymous. He closed it. He slid it back. He said, pick one and try it. And one of the other old guys sitting there, he goes on your knees. And I don' t know why I listened to them, right? I don''t know why I listened to them, but I did. It had to be because I could feel, I could feel their concern for me. I could feel their care for me, right? It was because they showed up every night. I didn't like them all, but I knew they were coming for me and I knew where I was going and I new I could trust them and I know that they weren't gonna hurt me and I do that I was gonna get a donut out of the deal and i knew that all i had to do was sit with them and rehash everything we just talked about at the meeting of alcoholics anonymous and little by slow i started to pick up on your language and i started to understand the program of alcoholix anonymous and when it was time to do my fourth and fifth step and do all that work i didn't want to do right they said stop thinking about the fifth step just do the fourth right they drew out the columns sitting at the donut shop and they said we got a couple hours just sit here and do it and I was like yeah but there's so much and they said uh-huh whatever just start writing just start riding right just be confident enough in the prayer that we just said in the third step to at least pick up the pen and start writing right they knew that the decision I had made to to participate in a relationship with God that that was really really thin right when you got a couple of months of sobriety it's really thin right it was a brand new relationship and I was borrowing one of their concepts of God because I really had none of my own right but I was doing everything I was told and participating in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and little by slow like all of my edges started to round off a little bit and I realized that I was exhaling a littlebit right and every time I would take one of those actions in Alcoholics Anonymous that Iwas told to take my shoulders would come a little farther off my ears and my little fists would let loose just a little bit. And they spent two and a half years with me and they put me on to Alcoholics Anonymous in a very, very meaningful way, right? They put me into service. I was the secretary of a small home group that had seven people in it, right, I was a secretary and the treasurer and there were weeks when I couldn't drink because I was like, I was not the only person that had the key to the church, right and so I would stay sober just because who was gonna let everybody in? I mean, it's just ridiculous stuff, right I look back on it now and, you know, they're tricks of the trade, right? I do that stuff now to people I sponsor. But they put me onto the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and they gave me a foundation that was 100% unshakable. And what I know today after being in this deal now for 32 years is that surrender is a process, not an event, right. The more life I live, the more is revealed to me and the more I have to surrender to the God of my understanding. And today I can report to you, thank God, because of the work that they did for me is that I have an active and productive and loving and trusting relationship with God. At some point, I stopped using your concept of God and then switching to your conceptofGod and taking yours for a spin and little by slow, I started to develop one that was all my own, right? And I had to go back and revisit that second step over and over and over because I realized that I had some weird ideas about God that just weren't any good, right? They were anyway. And so over the three decades now that I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous, I have gotten to dive deeper and deeper and deeper into this loving relationship with God. And I've gotten to surrender layer after layer after layer. I finally, so my relationship life was an absolute wreck, right. I mean clearly I don't have any skills to be in a romantic relationship. And And so, you know, little by slow after, you know, some damage mounting up and having to do four steps on it and ten steps on it and all that kind of stuff, I finally get it right, right? And I fall in love with this guy. I mean, he's a good guy. He's not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but he's a great guy. He's a major in the Marine Corps, and people follow him just because he's leading. I mean he's just a really good human who does the right thing the right way in the right order the majority of the time without having to work a program. And anyway, and he and I, we rode Harleys together and we golfed together. And we were just, we were huge. I mean, just great, great friends with one another. And God kept coming to me over and over and over in my meditation, right? Because I had an active meditation life at this time and God kept come to me and he kept saying, I want the rest of it. You're going to have to give it all to me. I have perfect love to give you and you continue to block me. I want that. I want to give him the rest of it and I kept saying no, no. Like I'm not giving him up. i got it right this time right i got it right this time and i'm not doing this any different and god kept coming to me and saying yeah like i need you to be in a relationship with someone who loves me the way you do and that is the one thing that this perfect man did not have was a relationship with god right we didn't pray together we didn't have spiritual conversations right i went to my friends and alcoholics anonymous for all of that and god just kept saying look if you're going to be with someone for the long hall I want you to be in a relationship with someone the one who loves with someone who loves me the way you do and I kept saying yes but in order for that to happen I'm going to have to give him up and I'm not going to do it and God pursued me pursued me then I'm on the only place at one point in my life when I'm comfortable is on my knees and prayer and meditation it's the only every every other place I can't fit into my own skin and God keeps coming over and over and over and saying I want the rest like look look at the life that you have every time you surrender something to me your life gets bigger and better why won't you trust me with this and I kept saying no and finally one day it was it was so powerful I had to say yes and I and I got home from that particular conference and um and I went to dinner with his name was Lee I went zu dinner with Lee and I said look I got to let you go. And he said, you got a what? And I said, I have to let you go, I need to be in a relationship with someone who loves God the way I love God. You see, my very life depends on my spiritual life. My very life depends on my relationship with God and I need to be with someone who can support and encourage that and you don't even pray. And he says, but I love God and i said, i'm sure you do but I need to be with somebody who has an active prayer life who can support me in this because my life depends on it and I broke up with him and he walked away and I walked away and I went to the Catholic church and I turned myself in and remember I was raised in no religion so I went into the Catholics and I'm like alright, sprinkle me, dunk me do whatever you gotta do I'm supposed to deepen my relationship with God He's delivering me to you and the priest is like boy and you're really happy about that too aren't you and I'm like I don't have time for this let's just get it done and anyway so I start into this process of trying to go where I'm being led and it's really hard because it's flying against everything that I've ever wanted right I mean years of prejudice stuff I didn't even know I had was flying up and what I didn'T know is that Lee left that conversation he went to his battalion chaplain because he was a Marine he went to the battalion chaplain, and he said, Deb left me. And the chaplain said, man, what'd you do? And he said she's going to become Catholic and says that I'm a distraction and that she needs to be in a relationship with someone who loves God the way she loves God. What am I supposed to do? And the Chaplin said, Man, Deb's pretty great. I think I'd go to Mass if I were you. and so Lee and I he came back he proposed marriage we took a year to put our spiritual house in order and then we married and then he left and he went to Iraq and he was a he was an infantry officer so he was on he was out front and uh and it was and he was living outside of the wire in Fallujah and it was a really dangerous deployment, and they'd driven a vehicle-borne IED into the place where they were living, and just a lot was going on. And he came home from that deployment, but what happened for me during that deployment is I went to all of the spiritual people that I had in my life, and I said, you got to help me because I am now married to this man who I absolutely adore, and people are shooting at him on purpose, you have got to help me. And I am praying and I meditate and I'm like, God, I don't know how to do this, right? I don'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. And God's working through everybody and I am turned on to this thing called practicing living in the presence. And so I learn, right, little by slow while he's deployed to live in the presence of God, to practice living in his presence at all times, right. And so i wake up in the morning before i even get out of bed, i close my eyes and I try to see God lying next to me, right? When I get out and I'm brushing my teeth like he's standing behind me in the mirror, like I'm practicing seeing him everywhere I go because I need to be connected to that source of power because I am powerless. I am powerless, stone cold sober, I am powerful. And so I do that work and my relationship with God deepens and I learn how to participate with him in a way that I had no frame of reference for. And he survives Iraq and he comes home and he's home a couple of months and the deployment to Afghanistan gets moved up and I'm still deepening this practice and he and I are going to mass together and I explain to him what I'm doing and as we're having conversations when he's deployed, I'm able to say things to him like, how can I pray for you today, right? Because we have a spiritual language that we share now and so I'm unable to walk through that deployment with him in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do and I couldn't have done the first time and that's one of the bloodiest deployments of any infantry battalion even to this day and I got to the point where I didn't even want to open an email because it said things like honey another IED nothing left but a boot four more down today right and when they got back from that deployment we had these memorial services and all these people were grieving the loss of their Marines and I would just and I'm going to meetings and I am praying and I see God everywhere I go and somehow there is comfort in the midst of all of that chaos. And when Lee comes home, I'm like, God, I don't know how to do this. How do I receive a man from war? Because I know that there are things that happened in war that changed his heart, and I don' t know how to do that. And God said, you don't have to, I do. Right? And little by slow, he starts to come the rest of the way home. And he's home from that deployment five months or so. I take him on a motorcycle ride right because I need to be with him and he needs to not talk to anyone right well I so the motorcycle trip is a way for both of us to get what we need right because I get to be avec him but I'm not talking to him because I'm on my own motorcycle and so we're on this motorcycle trip and I'm making all the decisions cuz he also can't make another decision he was he was the XO of the battalion so he was making big meaningful decisions every single day with lives on the line and he was just kind of over it for a minute so I was making all the decisions. And one day I went to pull into Mexican food for lunch and he said, what are we doing? I said, we're going to eat lunch. And he said I don't want Mexican. I said what do you want? He said I want Italian. And I said great welcome home. Where are we going? Right? And so little by slow he comes home to me. And i do all of that because i stay in lockstep with the god of my understanding. You see when i came to Alcoholics Anonymous i came here to get people off my back. I came here because adults were overreacting. I come here because okay fine yes I drank a little too much, right? Okay, I got it. I got this phenomenon of craving things. So just deliver me from the grips of alcohol and I'll be fine. Well, you know what? Being fine today takes a lot more than being fine back then because my standards for my life have gone up. You raise my standards, right. I require an active relationship with God today. I require long-term friendships with people who love me. I require to be an active member of this fellowship. I require these things to be a real and true part of my life, and thank God today they are. Lee was killed on his way home from work one night. He had been back from Afghanistan about five months, and when I got that, anyway, I don't have time to walk you through all of those details, but he was killed in a vehicle accident on hisway home from work. I was 22 years sober. That was 10 years ago today, And what I can tell you is this. God did not abandon me. Alcoholics Anonymous did not abandon me My life was full of people and love and the spirit and I was given a safe place to grieve out loud and I even grieved from this podium as I traveled around and talked at conferences I would talk about what had just occurred in my life and you would listen to me and you helped me heal and today I'm 10 years past like he's in April Lee was gone 10 years and now I'm 32 years sober and I look back at my life and I'm just really grateful that I had him and I'M REALLY GRATEFUL THAT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD WILL BE AS DEEP AND AS MEANINGFUL as I am willing to work. I am really grateful that I trusted you enough to tell you the truth when it mattered most. One of my girlfriends called me one day and she said, what are you doing? I said, I'm laying on the floor of the closet in a pile of these clothes. I can smell them and I can't get up. She said, it'll be right there. I tell you this. I tell the truth today. And you don't run from my sadness and you don't run for, right? You allowed me to heal. And today what I can tell you is on the backside of that, not only am I deeply connected with God, but I'm searching to go deeper than I've ever gone before. I stand upright, I look everyone in the eye and I think I'm darn near fearless. I really do. I don't have children so I've had the greatest loss in my life that I'm likely to have and I survived it because you never left my side. and for that I thank you I thank You for my life I thankYou for my relationship with God I thankU for having a purpose that will never die will never die I thank U for inviting me to places like Joplin, Missouri and feeding me every three hours whether I need it or not Thank U