The Promises – Janine W. – 2012

Hi, I'm Janine. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic. I want to thank Bill and I want to thank Dave for having me and the Promises in Paradise Convention as a whole, putting this together. I'm a nervous wreck. I'm incredibly grateful to be here, and I'm incredibly grateful to be at a meeting right now. I haven't been at a meeting since we got down here on Sunday. I don't know what it takes to put something like this together, because up in New York, I was a GSR a couple of years, and we have a Southeastern New York, you know, the Cine Convention in New York. We have four areas, and we're part of Area 49 in Queens. And we put on the Cine Convention, and it takes a lot of work to pull something like this together, and everybody pulls together. We do together what we can't, you know, do alone, and it's really awesome. And I feel so blessed to be here. I was, you know, briefly telling Dave my neuroses about how I feel like a fraud in a GV here. You know, why am I here? But, you know, it's a lack of humility. I'm here because God wants me here. I'm here because I hadn't been on a program. I'm here because I hadn't been on a program. I've been on a plane for 13 years, and the only way God was going to get me on a plane was to invite me to speak at an AA convention, because I was taught in the very beginning to never say no to AA. And I've said no to my mother when she begs me to come down to South Carolina. I have my best friends in Florida, and I'm like, hell no. You know, I would sooner drive 15 hours and be cramped and all of that than get on a plane. I hadn't been on a plane since my first year. And I'm here, I'll say, abstinent, because I had a—I picked up. I originally got sober in 1997, and my sober date is March 27, 1999. But everything was necessary, and I'll get into all that. But anyway, so I got down here, safe and sound. I prayed the rosary for the first two hours. I held my friend's hand on the plane. And, you know, they say fear of economic insecurity, fear of people. No fear of, you know— The fear of flying hadn't dissipated. And I guess the longer I stayed away from it, the more fearful I became. And our big book talks about fear as an evil and corrosive threat. You know, it eats away, it rips away at the fabric of our existence. And it prevented me from doing a lot of wonderful things. So my friend and I went ziplining today. And we had these bracelets, and it was a John Wayne quote. And why don't you read that to me? Please. And saddling up anyway. Yeah, so courage. You know, right? Men of faith have courage. And so the meditation I read this morning in the 24-hour book was—which is not conference-approved, and I know this is a conference, but I read the 24-hour book in the morning with my prayer meditation. And, you know, it absolutely talked about staying close to God. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get this right. I'm going to make myself—I'm going to get this right. Stay close to God all day long type of thing. You know, pray to him all day. Stay close. Keep that conscious contact. And I've got to tell you, if I'm flying, it's going to be conscious contact all day because I'm in prayer the whole time and ziplining. You want to get close to God, go zip lining. It was wonderful. And I'm not really doing the experience justice, but it was an amazing experience. All right. So I'm from New York. All right. And I've proven to myself I'm not all that tough. I clearly have a whole bunch of fears that I've been given the privilege of walking through this week and over the few years that I've been sober. I got sober in Astoria, and like I said, originally in 1997. I had lived in the city my whole life. I was born and raised in Manhattan. And a lot of people talk about when they had their first drink. I have no recollection when I had my first drink. My father used to drink vermouth in beer. He used to give me sips. I know my mother used to put a little gin on my gums. I promised my friend I'm not going to get any like I was born. Because I have an hour. I've never spoken in an hour. I have no idea what's coming out of my mouth. But, you know, she used to put gin on my gums when I was teething. And then any time I was sick, I had the hot toddies, you know, a little tea, a little lemon, a little honey. And she used to use scotch. And I remember loving that. I loved it. And instead of putting me to sleep, I would wake up. That I remember. But I don't necessarily consider that my first drink, not my first drink of my own decision, so to speak, you know, where I was looking for ease and comfort necessarily. So when I was about 12 years old, my parents got divorced when I was about 6. And I moved with my mom. I grew up on the west side. So my father lived on the west. My mother lived on the west side. My mother was a. I was a single parent then. My father was elderly. He was 60 when I was born. My mother was 23. He was a German Jew. My mother's a Protestant Baptist. And, you know, they always talk about that feeling of isolation that we have or separateness or different, you know. Well, from a very young age, I recall feeling very different and having nothing to do with, I mean, at the time, alcoholism. But I do remember being self-centered. I do remember being embarrassed about my father's age. I do remember my father introducing me as his daughter. And me correcting or, you know, whispering, oh, that's my grandpa. That's my grandpa. And because I was embarrassed. So early on, I learned this feeling of, you know, shame and just not feeling right with myself. Not comfortable in my own skin kind of thing. Anyway, so I moved with my mom to the west side. I mean, to the other side of town, the west side. And I don't know what happened, you know. I believe I was born an alcoholic. So it was just. It was just a matter of time that I would pick up that drink looking for ease and comfort, you know. That restlessness, irritability, discontentment. My sponsor, Sadiq, up in New York, he always says, easily annoyed and never satisfied. I'm not of, I'm not of the school of, I am of the school of men with the men and women with the women in the very beginning. And if you don't have a spiritual basis. But my sponsor is a man. My previous sponsor was a man. And they were the best sponsors I could ever bring. I could possibly ask for. Because if you can't separate the spiritual from the physical, then you probably shouldn't be sponsoring if you're a man sponsoring a woman. And likewise, when you're sponsoring a man. But that's just my experience. Anyway, so that being said, I'm like all over the place, but I expected that. So I started drinking, I would say, at about 12 years old. I picked up cigarettes. I picked up weed. I'm going to keep it to a singleness of purpose because this is AA. But I picked up weed first. And then I started drinking. I started drinking beer. And very quickly, the consequences of my drinking started to manifest in my life. And those consequences were I couldn't make it to school. 13 years old now, not making it to school. I'm running away from home. I'm getting in trouble constantly. I'm already sexually active. I'm not listening or being, minding my mother at all. Smoking cigarettes in her bathroom. I'm violent. I have a rage in me. I don't know where it comes from. I put my hand through her French doors and sliced my wrist open because I punched it. I was incredibly defiant and obstinate. And this poor mother of mine, who I used to point the paint at, she was the bane of my existence. She was the cause of all my problems. This poor woman. had to concede to herself that she couldn't handle me and she started taking out what's called the pins petition on me which is a person in need of supervision and i gotta say i'm probably still that person in need of supervision but you know that's why these 12 steps really helped me because they're you know that discipline i've needed all of my life you know something to keep me that god and the 12 steps and the fellowship keeps me kind of you know on that uh focus track as a kid i was just wilding out she couldn't control me she couldn't control me and she had to concede to that so so she basically went to the family court and she took out a person in need of supervision and she basically started making a case towards me and this is all as a result of my drinking because it was that phenomenon of craving it was that every time i started to go to school and then i decided to go around the corner and meet a friend on the way to school we decided it was a good idea to drink a 40 ounce i couldn't stop drinking and i'm like now 14 years old and at 14 years old i had the craving i had the allergy to alcohol um i look back and i know that to be a fact wasn't drinking to get drunk necessarily definitely drinking to escape not that i had such high class problems at that age but i didn't like my life i always felt that like something's not right not treated fairly at home my father's dying whatever but so i used to start drinking and then i wouldn't make it to school and hanging out with people that my mother was very afraid of you know and i was stealing so i had all of these defects of character cropping up at such a young age i was stealing from my father i was pickpocketing him as as we were walking down the block because he was becoming weaker and weaker and i was an opportunist i was selfish and i was self-centered and i didn't care about him and i only cared about me and i wanted to get his money and i wanted to buy my friends and buy whatever i could and i started forging his checks and by the time i went to family court at the age of 15 um at the age of 15 when i finally went to a proceeding after being arrested in my own home having my miranda rights read to me for stealing mail and forging checks and all that good stuff and this is because i'm like 15 now right so this is this is my teenage alcoholism um i also had a delinquent charge because i had been stealing mail from the mailman and the woman who i forged her check the press charge against me so that combination put me into uh you know we like to say jails institutions and death and obviously death has not come knocking at my door as of yet but institutions started a really young age um and that was a good thing because it plucked me out of manhattan at the time that crack was coming into the city you know i look back today and i looked at the you know we look back and you know over the poor me i have a sponsor a sponsor i sponsored now who you know they were dealt with unfair hand and i identify with that and i told and you know and that's why he doesn't believe in god right i don't believe in god because it was dealt with unfair hand if there was a loving god it would look different and the only reason why they feel that way and the only reason why i felt that way was because i hadn't had a spiritual awakening i didn't get the promises you know how my story can benefit others that everything that happened was a blessing which is the truth today everything that ever happened was a blessing but at 15 when all of this was happening this was horrendous my mother just wanted to get rid of me it had nothing to do with my behavior at home had nothing to do with putting myself in uh reckless situations and it had nothing to do with arousing emotional insecurity in my mom and and causing financial stress between her and my father and so on and so forth and nothing to do with that it's just because she wanted to get rid of me and uh you know the judge was a jerk you know and that was it but anyway so i went to a group home up in uh westchester until the age of 17 which was a blessing because like i said other people got sucked into that whole other world which by grace i did not i got stuck in other things but whatever so so by 17 i got my gd because i was unwilling to stay any longer than i had to because i was mandated for 18 months and i went into a group home in manhattan and lived there until i was 20. and at that time they asked me if i wanted to um go to college or uh get a job but i had to do one or the other and i wasn't going to go to college because i couldn't barely make it through high school my my life was really about partying so i thought party it's a party it's always a party you know it's always a party and so i did the thing that would afford me the right to drink which was get a job get your own money pretend to be an adult don't you know if you're making your own money nobody can tell you what to do right so i get a job on wall street working for uh working for like a mob boss guy who actually has a real job he's got like polished fingernails and lizard shoes he wears a pink tie and his name is mike and and i work at a place called thompson mckinnon down on wall street and um i get to go drinking with the adults and at night i go home to the group home and it's uh i'm like this is awesome this is great you know i can buy my own i can buy my own liquor and nobody can tell me what to do and and um i had had that reprieve of a couple of years of being up in westchester and we we found ways of drinking but it had subsided you know i i you know i could never really stay away from that first one but there would be there was more time back then between those first ones you know there was more time because i was mandated and the threat of going to a facility called spotford and back in the 80s that was not a facility i really wanted to go into a little white you know had a big mouth and it just wouldn't be pretty probably as tough as i thought it was but but anyway ultimately so i anyway so i start working on wall street i'm working for mike and i'm drinking you know with adults and i'm living this double life and in our fifth step in the big book it talks about how we live this double life and i'm an actor and i have this this this image one day and then at night i'm living another completely different you know i appear semi-normal um but if you hang around with me long enough you're going to know there's something not right and i pretty much i think it was about it was my first company christmas party i went to my first company christmas party and um and my boss ordered me white russians and and i slammed down like i don't know four of them and then i was getting a little woozy so i told him maybe i shouldn't have so much of the milk right so he ordered me black russians he was like we'll fix we'll get you some black russians i was like that sounds like a much better idea let's do them so i drank the black russians and uh the party started at six and at seven o'clock i was at i was being brought a chair into the bathroom growing up until nine o'clock and they put me in a cabin and sent me home back to my group home so back to my group home and that was my first experience i'm 17 working on wall street first company christmas party in the bathroom growing up three hours so that was it and that's pretty much my last drunk too growing up drawing up three hours i was at the party i'll say that story later so um and it kind of went on like that and then i had a fist fight in the lobby of the of the office building because somebody looked at me funny you know it's just my life was completely unmanageable i would i would drink and and it would seem okay and then something would set me off and then all hell would break loose so it started to become evidence of people around me that i might have a problem at a young age like i said and by the time i was 20 i left that job i got my broker's license i got my stockbroker's license only because it was a test i could study for without having to go to college again and maybe make some more money so i could be self-sufficient and and i did that and i got my broker's license and i immediately left to make more money and i went to another brokerage house up in midtown and i was dating a lunatic one of many and um when i um you know it's relative i was a lunatic he was more of a lunatic and uh he had more problems and i was gonna try and like fix him or something like that not that i knew that then but or i would hang out with him mostly because he kind of made me look stable really true she did and and that's really that was a pattern you know hanging out with people that made me look stable my one of my best friends when i was drinking god bless her her name is giselle her name is giselle i don't know where giselle is but but she would get so sloppy drunk and i'd be like oh my god you know like pull yourself together you know but but uh but i was a mess and uh she just made me feel so much better about myself you know yeah so i did that a lot i guess i did that a lot with boyfriends and and friends and and basically you know we talk a lot about controlling our drinking as many methods right so we tried beer one now i didn't do that i didn't do that i did try to stay away from the first one for me i did that but i have no effective mental defense against the first drink so that never really worked for very long and god forbid something happened or i perceived something that has happened that was negative in my life and it could be anything then i had to drink i didn't realize i was trying to you know find ease and comfort i just drank that's what i do i had no choice to drink i didn't know that but um so the methods of control that i really tried were you know switching not drinks but people because if people got on my nerves and started about my drinking they had to go they just had to go because they and then they i you know and i could never leave a relationship obviously in a healthy way so we would just you know fight until they could take no more and they'd leave and that would be great and then i probably was broken hearted but really i was grateful because i could then resume drinking and it would be a while yet before the next guy figured out that i had a drinking problem um and then ultimately i figured out just you know dated drunk and it's perfect and um it's a little violent but it's it's not bad it better you know it's not bothering you about the drinking so i could pretty much put up with anything they took because you know you could you know what you'll put up with is incredible when you're drinking so you know that's you know fine so we fight once in a while but he's not trying to take the drink away from me so that's a good thing right you know um so i did a lot of that and so i thought it was fun i love to go clubbing i love to go dancing in the city but inevitably i've always had a fist fight and be kicked out of the same club i had a great time earlier in the evening and and i never talk about my drinking this is just the weirdest thing okay so um so um you know we try to get to the solution in new york no i'm just i i normally just try to get to that and now i'm this is so weird it's like rehashing so anyway so so where am i i don't know i'm somewhere in some brokerage house dating lunatic and i'm just drinking more and more and that's really it and i i can go down the roster of things that why and the unmanageability but truth is is you know at 22 i got arrested for threatening a cop and i spent the night in the holding cell and you know that didn't really scare me because i got my prints expunged you know i i've had a car accident but i got the insurance to pay for the accident because i convinced them that a car hit me and and so that didn't really count and when i got the reckless driving charge down at the you know jersey shore i talked my way out of a dewey and into a reckless driving charge like i just said so that was good and the cops drove me back to the hotel and i didn't really think much of it you know so i really wasn't impacted by my own unmanageability because it's been the case since i was very young i really i really didn't find any of this so uh unbelievable you know terrible it was all pretty much the norm for me the abnormal became normal and that's the truth for me you know and and and the threat of taking the drink away or stopping drinking or living with out a drink i just hadn't arrived at until i was in the last two years of my drinking and i think it just starts to get really bad when you actually want to stop because before you want to stop it's not it's obviously not an option um so you have to need to stop and want to stop and find that you cannot stop and so all these horrific things happened to me intermittently throughout my life and nobody but what ultimately happened was spiritually which i didn't know i had anything spiritual about me but you have to be spiritual in some sense as a spiritual being in order to have spiritual bankruptcy that means there was something there once upon a time and now it's completely gone erased and um i was spiritually bankrupt at the end and i had you know other things going on other habits that cost a lot of money i had absolutely no self-respect i was incredibly mischievous i couldn't look at myself in the mirror the last couple of years i crossed every line that i had drawn in the sand for myself um i'm never going to do that that's never going to happen to me things happen um and and the guilt shame and remorse when my dad died i was 17 years old and it wasn't until i was sober two years that i started to mourn his death because i was oblivious all the time but the things that you know i did that in daily life they weren't very춤 i just continue to you know you for drink on drink and you feel nothing you know so i wasn't aware so a lot of people at the last company i worked for which is from the age of about 23 to 29 23 yeah 23-29 i got fired from my last job after working there for seven years because i couldn't show up and i was costing them a lot of money because i had clients and i was losing money and i could care every intention of coming to work or not I would have every intention of not drinking on Wednesday but then I would and then I couldn't make it to work and if I did make it to work I needed to drink during the day just to get through the rest of the day and it got to the point where if I drank at lunchtime if I had one drink and I came back with the you know the determination to stay at work I had to run back out and continue drinking because I wanted to rip my skin off so this the allergy for me was so powerful you know this physical allergy stuff only the minute we were powerless over alcohol our lives had become unmanageable and so physically I knew something was different about me I knew something was different about me and I knew I recognized it also in people in my family my mother definitely clearly when she drinks she drinks to excess a lot and and I could never stop and I never tried to stop and if I if I did it was only because either somebody I think it was only because I went to jail you yeah I don't even recall a night where I actually try you know the big book tells us if you're not sure you're an alcoholic go to your local bar and try having one or two stop abruptly and see how you feel and you'll know because you'll want to rip your skin off and I do know that because that was actually my relapse but I'll get to that um so I wanted to stop I wanted I kept trying to stop the last two years and um and then I got fired and for my job and I had a friend who had about at the time 12 years sober she'd broken her anonymity anonymity to me excuse me uh but when she had about five or six years sober she had first met me and so I went over to her I said I got fired she said good now you can go to rehab I said I don't need an effing rehab I don't need an effing rehab and she said she goes how the hell do you know what you need look where your best thinking got you and she was speechless how could she talk to who the hell but you know what tail between my legs so walked away and about a week later i went i went into rehab in in 19 in 1997 i went into rehab and it's it's because i wanted to die i had been invited so i got fired in the beginning of december for my job i got fired in the beginning of december for my job and um i wouldn't leave and and like bill wilson i was a hanger on at brokerage houses i'm literally that guy my friend was talking about who are you talking about from friends uh costanza like you know what are you still doing doing here and they would say what are you still doing here you know and i'd be like i'm just getting my stuff but i didn't have stuff i didn't have pictures i didn't have a normal i didn't have like pictures of it i didn't have family i was you know i didn't it's nothing to take but they didn't they just they felt they took pity on me and they'd be like okay when you're ready you know so i stuck around long enough to be invited to the christmas party so so i was a a to the christmas party they were like look you know you were here seven years if you want to come to the christmas party you're more than welcome i was like christmas party fired me i have more dignity than that but i had two then i that night of the christmas party two bucks grapefruits and uh and i went to the christmas party i went to a bar with a friend and i was like i'm going to christmas free liquor so i did that and i uh so i went to this club called tattoos on the east side and i made a complete i begged my boss for my job back and it didn't work i danced on a bar which was fine normal for me i um and i made out with my my 60 year old married manager who was known for having halitosis they were always like oh my god you smell this breath and i was like i made out with them and everybody and they all said you made out with my aunt i was like no because i was a blackout drunk i didn't mention that conveniently and i'm grateful because god knows god knows i don't need to god knows i don't need to know half of what happened what i know is enough thank god so um yeah so the next day i went back to work that i didn't work at after the christmas party oh my god so i went back to work and uh i had a boyfriend named joey from bensonhurst and joey joey oh yes and then i went home with someone and joey was not with someone and and joey's friends were there because he wasn't at the christmas party and joey was outside because of course i dated internally you know i would say i dipped the pen in the company but that doesn't work for women i guess i was the ape so you know so um so joey said joey said i think he spit on the ground in front of me and said i was distracted and then he stormed off and i was like oh man what is he talking about like i really didn't know what was happening and i went upstairs and i found a friend who i trusted who was not a drunk and i was like cindy what happened she was like oh my god don't you remember i was like you know she was you made out with frank lindsey and then you went home with i don't know who you were begging joe hay for your job back and blah blah blah and i was like oh my god i am a disgrace you know what a disgrace i guess i'll go to tequila bill down the block and figure it out i guess i'll go figure it out and have another drink and that's what i did i went to try to figure it out it was 11 in the morning i went to tequila bill and i had uh about 10 am stills and about 20 shots of cuervo and somebody put me in a cab and gave me some money because i woke up um christmas party's always on thursday because it's cheaper so it was friday so it was a saturday it was a saturday i woke up with my 200 i didn't know where it came from and it was i had 10 messages that i didn't hear the phone ring once and everybody wondering if i was okay which is good because people care um but but um and i wanted to die and at the time you know i'm all over the place and i was going to some sort of outpatient i don't even know how that happened but i somehow was doing everything but coming to alcoholics anonymous so i went to some outpatient and um so i figured maybe they can get me in rehab that's what i wanted i wanted to get into rehab immediately i was i was disgraciata i had 200 of somebody's money i had no money of my own i had oh i had gambled away my 401k in the stock market um on margin and it's called a dead cat bounce dead cat bounce and i never freaking bounced so i lost a lot of money really quickly and um that was poor for the course but anyway so i had no money i was in debt i had no job i had no boyfriend and that's how god got my attention and i uh and and so it really wasn't good enough though i'll tell you because i i did go to rehab i i begged insurance to cover me they covered me 48 hours i had the little van pick me up and take me to a place in new york and i did my 28 days and it was the longest amount of time i have ever had without a drink that's a lot i'm lying rigorous honesty i'm lying i had 52 days but i was smoking weed and that was like a couple years before um anyway so back back to the rehab so i was in the rehab for 28 days and they would graciously come in and bring meetings out of focus and i was a bit mo Successful, mostly out of focus right and um i would hear a little here and there and the only most the most powerful thing that happened to me while i was there was uh i was in a meeting and i wanted a drink and since they didn't have a rolling bar at this rehab the feeling passed and i was like oh i guess it's true this two shall pass and it was the first time because i didn't understand the mental obsession i had never understood the mental obsession because i had never not given in to the to the desire to drink I you know if I wanted to drink I gave in I just drank that was it I know choice it's a strength so it was probably it was a very lucid moment I was like oh it was very powerful and was listening to a speaker I couldn't tell you what he said I didn't remember anything so I got out of that rehab and they told me there was a guy in New York old-timer named Jerry oh he gave me a list of women's numbers he said I want you to go to a meeting in Astoria and get a number that and don't let your stinking thinking you know stop you and I was like that okay and and so I went back to my apartment in Astoria I had just moved there a month before bless you and and it took me 52 days to get a sponsor I did join a home group called Astoria group I got a coffee commitment and I got a coffee and I got a coffee and I got a coffee and I got a coffee and then I was the best coffee maker and like I said took 52 days to get a sponsor and I got my sponsor cuz she was pretty and she rollerbladed and I had just started rollerblading and I thought it would be a good match you know you want what we have I didn't know I had no clue what she had I was like I mean we can go rollerblade something so so that's you know anyway so she uh she haven't she handed me a bunch of the times she handed me a bunch of um Haselton I don't know first step Hazelton book or something and she handed me a first step Hazelton book and had me do some writing on the powerlessness and it was like how are you physically affected as opposed to you know you know you know list some examples of the phenomenon of craving you have an allergy that separates you from normal drinkers you know we're not normal our bodies are different it was you know explain the physical problem here with what is what does it mean to be powerless in the three ways how's your life unmanageable you know really didn't really didn't talk about i don't think it talked about obsession but and and it really didn't hone in on the craving thing so i was writing things like how did i get affected physically when you know you know when i when i drank well i cut myself with razors i woke up one morning in a hallway in my apartment building and i had a black guy and i had no idea how i got it i'm sure the other guy looked worse but you know i don't know i i i don't know so i had you know hangovers and uh things of that nature but uh whatever so i finished my writing and i handed it in and she gave me some uh second step stuff um and but she was a great sponsor she taught me the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer she had to teach me the lord's prayer because my father was a jew my mother was a non-practicing christian so i you know i had no clue what the lord's prayer was i didn't know you know i didn't know how to say the our father i didn't know the words it's a little embarrassing in the aa meeting and since it's all about appearances when you're first getting sober um you could care less about anything else i was like write that down and let me memorize that because that's embarrassing so uh you know so uh she did that for me and and god bless her and we're friends today but so by the time we got to this third step um most important thing to me at that time was getting breast implants and um avoiding getting an hiv test that was basically where i was in and you think we did some third step work in rose will island anyway it's all blur after that i continued to make coffee i didn't do any further step work and um i was dating a guy in the rooms and uh i was reading his fourth step because i didn't trust him and i was pounding on his door if he didn't pick up my call and i started working in brokerage again and i decided it would be a good idea to try to get a client and i was like i don't know if i can do it but i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna and start to meet him for dinner and since he liked me more than just being his broker I could parlay that and make more money and so I won his trust over and started churning his account basically until I lost him about thirty thousand dollars on margin again not drinking mind you all right left untreated gets worse never better there's really very little difference between a dry drunk and an active drunk in this drunk's world because you know you know cliche if nothing changes nothing changes it's the truth for me I my life was more unmanageable not drinking without a program without a spiritual experience without having a psychic change without taking an honest look at myself without admitting to God and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs it was unbelievable and restless irritable and discontent and then I had this mental obsession on me monkey on my back every day every day every day I'm just not gonna drink today I would tell my sponsor I want to drink and and this was my now temporary sponsor because of course got rid of Hazelton girl I was like see you later because I just wanted to drink so you'll pretty much do everything and anything my alcohol so I went out to dinner with my married boss I started having a little affair with also and we were at a cigar bar called merchants and I asked him to pour his scotch on my creme brulee just pour it on my creme brulee okay just yeah and I'll wash it down with my old duels and my buckler and my you know non-alcoholic beers are for non-alcoholics I was told by a guy at New York Intergroup oh that's a concept interesting anyway so and I and I drank the scotch on the creme brulee and then I went downstairs to the bathroom at this place and there was a there was a glass of red wine sitting on the on the on the bathroom by the sink what they called things sink and it was and I looked at it I was like because I didn't consider the creme brulee and the scotch a big deal I didn't consider the creme brulee at this point like delusional it's the insanity the insidious insanity of the first one insane so I come out of the stall I look at the wine again and I look to see if there's lipstick because that's most important for an alcoholic in recovery if they're going to drink that there shouldn't be lipstick on it it should be a clean glass because that's the problem here dirt so I drank it I ran back upstairs and I still wasn't like oh my god I drank I just was I had this moment of no defense you know people say that we're an arm's length away that's not my program today but um I was an arm's length away because I had no effective mental defense I had nothing that was going to keep me away I didn't have God in between me and that drink I hadn't changed so I had you know this was just the only thing without without treatment I drink that's it that's all I know so I drank and I ran upstairs and I'm like and I um anyway I woke up the next day in denial UH being dishonest to myself delusional didn't want to admit that I had picked up I I white knuckled it all night that was the first time in my entire life I ever white knuckled it Pride fear whatever I don't even know but I had never done that and I um it took me five days to get honest in the meeting I even qualified during that I qualified during that time. I was like, yeah, I've got something going on. I'm still trying to figure it out. And then finally I heard somebody say, I know I'm selfie true at the end of a meeting. And I just put my hand up and I said, I applied days back. And I started calling the interim sponsor that I had. Her name was Laura. Laura, oh, she's, thank God for Laura. And she basically, she was my interim sponsor. And I always like to say, I'm not an interim drunk. You know, we've talked about temporary sponsors, interim sponsors, not a temporary drunk. And I'm definitely not a, you know, somebody who's going to be a part-time drinker or anything like this. I need a full-time sponsor. And anything else is BS for me. So I finally started calling her. And she says, what do you want me to do? And I said, I want you to hit your knees every morning and ask God to help you and to be useful to someone. And to thank him at night and pray all throughout the day. And I want you to do your fourth step because this is what I was avoiding with the interim. And she basically read me the ABCs. A, that you're alcoholic and cannot manage your own life. And, you know, B, probably that no human power can relieve you of your alcoholism. And that C, God can and will, you know, if you seek him. There's action and more action. So I did. I wrote down my resentment inventory within 48 hours. And I was so afraid. She got to me, though. I said to her, I said, I don't understand this third time. I mean, what is this? It affects my financial insecurity, emotional insecurity. I didn't understand it. And it was too complicated for me. And she goes, Janine, just dumber, dumber, dumber people than you are doing their fourth step. So I said, oh, hell no. And that's it, right? She appealed to me through my false pride. She was like, what? Right there. So I said, so I did. I did it within 48 hours. That's what she said. And it worked. She found the chink in the wall of my ego or something like that. Or she appealed to my ego. That's not the chink. That's like her ego is so fragile that this will do it. This will light a fire under her. And so I did it. And I did the resentments. And I got to write down everybody who harmed me over my whole entire life. And, you know, my mother, who I had blamed for so many things my entire life. And this unfair, you know, hand I was dealt turned out to be a lie. And all the people that I, you know, that I felt harmed me, it turned out I harmed them. Either I stepped on their toes and they retaliated or, you know, I reacted so negatively to some infraction that certainly didn't warrant the response that I did. I had an extensive. I had an extensive eight-step list for my fourth step. And there was a lot of financial amends to make. I learned that I was driven by self-centered fear. Not this girl. I'm not fearful. I'm not scared of anything. And I wasn't scared of flying men either because I was wasted every time I flew. I didn't know I was scared and thought, you know, drink that. But, you know, I found I was full of fear. And that was a trip. And I also, you know, when we talk about our sex inventory, you know, all that guilt, shame and remorse and the harms done to others. And I remember writing down my fourth step and every single man on there was like, he slept with me. I'm such a victim. He slept with me. He slept with me. Like, were you there? I was like, you know, and what was the self-seeking motive for you being there, you know? And what was that? Start to look at those things to really say, you know, there was always a motive for me. You know, I could play victim all day long. Because that serves, that fuels the drinking. But truth be told, there was always an underlying motive, an agenda. You know, not a good motive, a self-seeking, I'm going to get mine, whether it's protection from something. I slept with the boss that protected my job, you know. You know, it's very clear to me. It became very crystal clear, very scary clear. But God doesn't give us, you know, more than we could see in that moment. You know, we're only going to see what we could see in the first inventory. So I've done multiple inventories. And I shared it with my sponsor. And I'm still a smoker, I hate to say. But I smoked, like, I don't know, four packs of cigarettes. And it's kind of like being at the bar, actually. I smoked four packs of cigarettes. And I ate, like, ten empanadas. And I made an apple pie. And I just banged it out. And it was a long talk, you know. A talk that tells us we better be prepared for a long talk. I had no idea it was going to be such a long talk. And I was drained. And there's fifth step promises, you know. Fifth step promises, where it talks about you will feel the nearness of your creator. You know, you'll feel like you're walking on the broad highway, you know, hand in hand. I didn't feel that. I wasn't that girl. I was like, I don't, oh, no. I didn't feel any of that. But I was exhausted. I was exhausted. And I was grateful it was done. And I was still too sick to see that there was any lift, any something. I was exhausted. And I was grateful it was done. And I was still too sick to see that there was any lift. And I was grateful it was done. And I was grateful for that moment. I needed something that, these things, these are obstacles between me and God. And I, something lifted, because I've been able to develop conscious contact. She had me sit quietly for an hour and to read, you know, from the book and to read the first five proposals basically. Just read the first five steps and ask myself if I've, you know, omitted anything, if there was any stone left unturned, you know. I was willing to believe in a higher power at that point. You know? Thanks for asking. because I had to, and I, and I, because I had to, and I was a professed atheist my whole life, and lack of power was made so clear to me during my relapse, you know, that's why I said it was so necessary. Anyway, so in the third step, that took me a couple of years to understand through practice of the rest of the steps, you know what I mean? It's like, okay, yes, I'm making a decision, I'll make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand God, fine, yes, done, I'm desperate, what do you need me to do? Do the fourth step, fine, done, okay, so I did all of that. Fifth step, great, done, what? You know, that was, I'm, in six and seven, like I said, it was like very rote, it was from the book, it was sit quietly, meditate, we don't wait to the 11th step to meditate, we meditate on this right after you do your fifth, and, and I did, and I felt like I was thorough, I was afraid not to be, I had one thing I didn't want to share with anyone, and I was going to take it to my grave, and I did not, and I had the privilege of sharing it with sponsors who, I always ask that question, is there anything that you haven't shared that you would like not sharing, you know, because that one thing might kill you, and first you'll drink, you know, and if, and if you don't drink, your sobriety will be precarious, so I recommend letting go of all things, so I always ask that question, because I also had that one thing, and I, I did share it, and I felt free from that one thing, I, I thought I was, it was, I just thought it was so disgusting, and she, and she looked, and I was looking at her like, you know, I didn't want to look at her, but she, she went, is that it? Is that it? Yeah, okay, let's go, and I was like, she was the warm fuzzy sponsor in the beginning, so anyway, so I got my eight step list for my fourth step, and like I said, it was pretty extensive, and I started to have to pray, I had to pray for the willingness, I didn't make lists of nevers and all that stuff, but I, I, those lists were here, the list of, no, I'm not, I, no, I can't, but the, the things that, that I never thought I'd be able to, like, go over, the things that I, you know, couldn't say face-to-face to my dad, and I pickpocketed my dad, I wasn't there for my father when he died, he died in a nursing home in 1985, alone, while I was in a group home, I went to visit him three times before he passed away, and I carried that, that guilt around with me, and so I couldn't even talk at a meeting, without crying, if I brought up my father, and I didn't know if I would ever be able to, I'm going to cry, because I have been rid of it, it's, I didn't think I would ever be rid of the guilt, I didn't think I was forgiven, I didn't think God forgave me, I, I didn't know how I would, um, reconcile, kept him alive, and that's just one way, there's another way, there's a better way, and I can, and, and, and that's a living amends, even though the person is dead, because there are people on the planet that I respect, and I feel sorry for my father, that I will reach out to, because he was elderly, that's one way, I've done the letter, that was okay, that was free, a little bit, um, and I hold his name in high regard, and I don't make his death about me anymore, you know, as I did when I was drinking on the border, oh, my dad, he was old, he was old, it was all about me, and, and, and drawing that attention to myself at the expense of my, my father's death is one of the most self-centered things you can do, so, so that is, all of that goes away with sobriety, thank god um and i've been able to be there for those in my life who who have come to pass i was you know with my grandmother so i i always look at that like it's a second chance you have a chance to show up for somebody today jimmy you know it's you're not living that self-centered extreme it's all about you you make it about you you know i got to go my grandmother died she lived a nice life she lived down in virginia and when she had a massive stroke i got to jump in my sober car that i couldn't even i couldn't even you know rent cars at the end i couldn't get a cell phone when i first got sober um i mean it was like you know this big anyway but i had without a two thousand dollar deposit and i could get in my car and i can go be there for my mother and for my grandmother and be there at her deathbed and my grandmother was a devout christian and i never believed in god during most of her lifetime and most of my lifetime her lifetime watching me and um and i got to read the bible over her while i was in the hospital she was in her you know the death room and stuff like that that those are the blessings you know and then i would later get baptized in sobriety which is a blessing full immersion too which is really cool um and um stuff like that and my you know either from my mom you know so in early recovery i i uh in early recovery i dated for seven years um um and and don't think i think that 13 years is an early recovery i actually think i just started getting sober a few years ago but that's another story you know i feel like i'm still a newcomer and um i want to remain teachable and willing and honest and all those good things but um when i was first getting sober i dated a guy in the rooms he was younger than me i'm not sure i'm not that much of a cougar but he was younger than me and uh and uh he he was a gentle soul god put him in my life because i needed a gentle soul because i think there's a gentle soul in there so the rough edges still but he was like uber gentle and i needed that and and then he would get diagnosed with brain cancer for the second time in his life and he was sober he got sober real young you know um yeah he got sober real young and then and he got he had brain cancer and at the same time my uncle got killed in a car accident the same week that my boyfriend at the time was going to start radiation at Sloan Kettering and I'm sober but I'm like I don't know what to do not not being it's about me but I'm not two people I have to be there for my mother I have to go to Sloan Kettering and I have to drive from the radiation and stay strong and I had to actually tell him he had cancer because the doctor actually told me over the phone that he had cancer that the pituitary was not a tumor and and it was one of the scariest moments of my life having to tell somebody and look them in the eye that you love that they have cancer and yet it was a moment that God's grace allowed me to say it in a way that didn't scare him to that to death that he was going to be okay and I believed that because I prayed on my knees hysterical how am I going to tell this guy he has cancer that's crazy how am I going to say that to someone so he's uh he's in remission he's not my boyfriend anymore but we're like very close friends and he taught me a lot about what it is to love you know what it really is to love he's an angel and he's still alive thank god you know um so to I don't even know where I'm at all right so ninth step I continue to make amends you know um to clean up the wreckage of my past to build a deeper relationship with God the ninth step is the step that I feel that I finally understood what it meant to be a Christian and I feel that I finally understood what it meant to have conscious contact with God it says we'll be amazed before we're halfway through and there's a reason for that because that is the full dependence on God you move out towards yourself to your fellows and you must depend on God and there is no self-sufficiency when you're going to make an amends um and and then I was told promptly to do my tenth step as I clean up the wreckage of the past because a person like me will have stuff that I don't even know what it is to make an amends um and and then I was told promptly to do my tenth step as I clean up the wreckage of the past because a person like me will have stuff that I don't even know what it is to pile up really quickly you know so so I continue to take my inventory with the tenth step and um I've gotten really excited about meditation over the last I don't know five years I'd say like really where it's not like oh I'm gonna meditate you know like prayer and meditation to me and not prayer or meditation so so I so I like to dabble in a lot of um things a lot of different things for meditation it says make use of what others have to offer to you and that's what I've been offering so um I do and my friend and I this week we've meditated on a beautiful deck and this beautiful place and and um and I prayed the rosary I got married and divorced into Miami that was cool that was interesting we got married that's good somebody married me that was never going to happen when I was drinking and um I don't know there's just too much so so anyway um my 12-step work is uh a blessing my 12-step work is a challenge and I miss my sponsees when I'm down here I uh I have one sponsee who's more interested in hearing what's going on down here with me uh than my boyfriend he's like how is it you know I'm like oh this is so cool man you know and um and they absolutely help to keep me grounded and sober they say you know work with another alcoholic when all you know will work when all else fails you know but to me God never fails but I I do know that when I pray to God when I'm going through something my phone rings and if it doesn't ring it gives me the wherewithal and the willingness to pick up the phone and call my sponsor or to call a friend and I know for a fact that you know all difficult things come to pass I know for a fact that all good things come to pass and um sobriety is the most amazing person could ever be given so um i'm just grateful to be here and um i still don't know why i'm here i know billy mack like this my friends in new york put a plug in for me i was like are you at your mind you know most people have to audition for something you know i was like well you know what god bless saint thomas for taking a leap of faith they don't hear the speakers you know i am a little bit of a lunatic but i mean obviously that's all right right you know it's like if you're nervous you're like oh my god they don't even like audition you they're probably like what is she going to sound like but nobody's thinking of me like that right you know the self-centeredness is unbelievable man you know but and it's it's been this week has been amazing because i was thinking when i think about flying i think about the like this what i don't even know what the percentage is let's call it one percent one percent chance of planes going down for a million reasons i will contemplate all those reasons if you don't live in the now you're projecting and when i project i'm not with god god only dwells in the now but when i'm thinking about flying i'm constantly thinking about all the worst case scenarios so i'm thinking it's just limited to flying right but i get down here i make it down i got through the flight and then we're going to go zip lining and then that's all i think about what if the line is the thing that's what it is it's like holy crap it's like it's incessant i constantly have to pray to god to remove the negative thoughts and i you know one day it might get better i but it's okay it forces me to go to him but it's just i don't know it's just something i've been like really aware of down here anyway it's been a long talk and i'm really grateful and thank you