The Restraint of Pen and Tongue – Astrid H.

To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.twelvesteptapes.com. Hi, I'm Astrid and I'm definitely an alcoholic. And I want to thank the whole committee here for asking me to come share my experience, strength and hope. and I know that it takes a lot of people to put something like this on and I have so much respect for the people in AA that take on the commitments that suit up and show up setting up the chairs, making coffee getting the flyers out making all the phone calls I know there's a lot to be done in something like this and it is an honor for me to speak here I see so many people come into AA and then they go out again or they get a year or they gets six months and to even have the honor of being a guest speaker is huge for me. And I don't take it lightly, and I don'T take it for granted. Like, God has really done for me what I couldn't do for myself. I have an unusual style of transmitting the message, and I DON'T like to do too much what it was like, what it WAS like, what it WAS like. and I have a deep respect and an interest in pathology and what makes people tick and how we crossed over the invisible line and how I grew my character defects and how frustration and how anger and how behavior is set into children. And so I've done a lot of rummaging in my own life because, you know, I've looked and looked and look and read and read about alcoholism and they haven't found the gene, and they haven't necessarily even found the area in the brain, and the jury is still way, way, WAY out with our children born alcoholics. So, in my heart and in the depths of my soul, I do believe that the infant is perfect when it's born, and that the environment often helps to shape and mold the child's personality and behaviors and you grow either a sturdy tree or a bag of weeds. And that's not to blame my parents. It's just to get to the heart of the matter, because at the end, it's really me who has to take responsibility. And if I stand up here tonight and I remain a victim, then I'm never going to recover. I have to take full responsibility for my actions at some point. But I look back in my childhood and I can see that my mom was a war survivor from nazi occupied germany you know and there are so few of those people left from that war that uh we're not even really around them that much you know my mom's 82 most of these people have passed away and i think that maybe even a lot of us have forgotten what it would be like or don't even really know what it Would be like to be a war survivor to have a war start when you're three years old and end when you're like 10 and so all of her formative years were starving and bombs and scrapping metal and hiding in bomb shelters and canning cherries and trying to hold on to food and a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety and anger. So I have this mommy that comes in and marries my father who comes from a very cerebral and intellectual background and between the two of them they wind up having three children very, very quickly and I'm the middle of three girls And there's a lot of screaming and a lot Of spanking and a lots of arguing that goes On in my household. There's very little Really healthy problem solving. The idea Of waiting your turn or not speaking over People that didn't exist, or apologizing When we're wrong or even admitting that We're wrong, or saying excuse me. And so There was a tremendous amount of shaming And guilt and over-disciplining in the the wrong way and maybe not just planning correctly in the right way. And maybe they were just ill-informed, and they really didn't know how to deal with children. So at an early age I'm spanked and I'm hit. And we can see now what that does to a child is that it really pushes down the self-esteem at a really early age. And I personally believe that if you want to make a child an alcoholic, just knock the crap out of them several times a week and they'll probably wind up at the local bar. not really a healthy way to rear a kid. Hitting is like the lowest rung on the whole entire totem pole and yet most people have to cultivate and grow patience and kindness and sitting for long periods of time and disciplining in a healthyway with explaining things over and over and over, and most parents don't have that. It's tools that need to be grown through tremendous amount of information. So when I look back, my parents never took parenting classes and were never interested in parenting classes. So there's screaming, there's yelling, there're spanking, there's over-disciplining. And when you take a child and you do this over and over, you're going to get several different types of pathology. You don't always get an alcoholic. So you can have three kids that come from the same household and one of them shuts down at a really early age and winds up eating and eating and eating themselves almost to death. Maybe by the time they're in third grade, they're grossly overweight. And then you get the next one who turns into an unbelievable A-type personality, and their mind just tells them if I overmanage everything, if I just get everything right, if I just get my hair right, I've got to get up on time, I got to get to school, I gotta get the grades done, I'm gonna get it done, oh my god, my teeth gotta be brushed, the shoes, they aren't right, they need to be shined. And they just think in their mind if they overmanaged correctly that they'll somehow get out of this or they'll somehow be okay. And then you get the child where alcoholism manifests and way before we drank, we were very restless, very irritable, and very discontent. We were the class clown. We Were the bozo on the bus. We Were often the not noisy good fellow it says in the big book. Most of us weren't shy and I'm not saying blanketly that we all were extroverts but The characteristic for the most part is noisy, loud, boisterous, attention-seeking because there wasn't enough nurturing and there wasn'T enough attention in the household in a healthy way. So I'll figure out how to get it in an unhealthy way. And my mother would say things like, don't touch that. And the minute she'd turn around, I'd touch it. Don't play with the burners and I'd light half the kitchen on fire. Don't go into these cupboards and the next thing you know, I'm pulling everything out. you know don't I don't even know what don't play on the train tracks don't light fires don't whatever it is and I'm gonna do it don't hit your sister don't taunt siblings don't cuss don't say dirty words and out everything would come tumbling I had so much impulse a lack of impulse control it was unbelievable and so if you know the structure of the alcoholic mind you can see that I'm going to seek some type of relief at somewhere along the line and I am probably going to get some kind of relief. So as the frustration begins to build, my self-esteem is very, very poor and every child learns how to compare themselves to other children. So I'm not pretty enough. I'mnot smart enough. People are always telling me to shut up. I come from a household where I was never told that I was smart or that I should go for more or that, hey kid, you can do it or we're going to show up to your game or oh nice grades, you know, you get a gold star. There was none of that stuff. So at a very early age, I hated myself and I hated myself so much that I wanted to kill myself. And I remember by the time I was even like six or seven, I wanted To Die. I Wanted To Die was one of the main themes that would go through my mind. And then the other main theme as I got just a little bit older, probably about eight or nine, was I want to kill my parents. And i would think it all the time and I didn't know I was pathological. How's a seven or an eight year old supposed to know? I would just think, I wish I could have different parents. I wish i could kill my parents. I wish, I could move to a different neighborhood. I wish. I could be in a different family. I wish my mother would die and I could get a different parent. And that is so tragic when I think about it today. How sad, how broken, how damaged. This kid is headed for freaking trouble. I'm headed for the Budweiser plant. There's no doubt. There's absolutely... I'm heading for a bong. I'm headed for some heroin, I'm headed for trouble, the future does not look bright for me you know the average alcoholic child doesn't think I want to arrive in AA, it's not on the to-do list we all thought maybe I'll go to college I'll have a career someday, I'll have a house with a white picket fence I'll live the American dream we'll have property maybe I will grow some vegetables and this and that and for most of us not only does that not come true But the whole entire fiasco is just one big drama after another, after another After another So as I go through elementary school and then junior high I'm suffering, and I'm offering all the time I'm biting my nails, I have anxiety, I can't sleep at night I've got all kinds of emotional problems And I wind up at a party somewhere And somebody opens a Budweiser and hands it to me And alcohol for the first time in my life does for me what I could never do for myself and I feel absolute 100% relief. I have a change in my character. I have an change in my perception. I have psychic change. I have psychic change. Alcohol becomes a power greater than the tiny little broken self that I was and all of a sudden I can sit back and I can relax and I look at people and I'm like, yeah, this is cool. We're good. Right on everybody. I like this. Budweiser's good. Wow. what sign are you cool everybody's good I like it he's cool he's kind of cute this is nice oh my god and I can see and feel that there's a different way to relate to people and just take a little hit or take a little sip and part of the ego slices away and partofthe pain dims down and something else blossoms and now I have this fuel that gives me enough courage to change the things that I couldn't before. And so I don't have as much social anxiety. So now I can even go on a date. So, now Ican even hang out with people and actually look them in the eye better than without liquor. But what happens over time is that we all cross over an invisible line. And it's called an invisible line because none of us really know when or where. I don t think that any of us could really pinpoint the day or the time but I can tell you that scientifically for the most part if we continue with the terrible cycle using alcohol morning noon and night for a period of time something's going to shift at a cellular level with our pancreas with our blood sugar with our liver with our kidney with our brain chemistry and the phenomena of craving is going to begin to develop and for some people it doesn't you know only six percent of the the population in the world are alcoholics. So the other 90, 94%, they don't have the physical allergy. But I also wonder if they were able to channel their problems or their pain in a different direction, or they wereable to process their painin a different way. So as time goes on, I'm drinking and I'm pushing and pushing andpushing down all my hurt and all my harm and all my frustration you know and I can remember even as a young kid like going to therapy reading self-help books and still not knowing what was wrong with me and I would feel so good after walking out of the therapy session but within like an hour or a day the ego would restructure itself and there'd be no relief anymore and everything was a hit and a miss you know. And I think maybe if I could just get the right boyfriend or if I just went to the right school or if I just got better grades or if i just lost weight or gained weight or had a breast implants or something and my mind kept telling me if something out there changed maybe I could do it maybe I could feel better maybe I calm myself inside alcoholics have no capacity to self-soothe that's what liquor was it was an absolute solution it was my psych med because I was psychiatrically unstable. And the book says here, in the doctor's opinion, it says, we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his or her mind. And so now at an early age with fueling with alcohol, my mind begins to get skewed. My perception's off. The way I view people and the way I review myself bear very little resemblance to reality. But my mind at a young age speaks to me with such great authority and my ego is so large and in charge that if you told me, girl, you ain't seeing things right or you're off, I couldn't even hear that. I couldn'T even hear it if somehow, you know, Sigmund Freud or a great psychiatrist sat in front of me and said, it's your perception. I couldn't see that the main part of the illness centered in my mind. I was, you Know, the ego, it's so large and it's so in charge that to separate the self from the ego and to really look at the structure of the ego takes usually a humongous bottom, a tremendous amount of pain and an enormous amount of willingness because the way the ego operates is it's not going to die without an enormous fight. And even when it hits a bottom or breaks out in handcuffs or winds up in bed with some idiot or in the backseat of God knows whose car or does pitiful and incomprehensible things, within 72 hours, the humility or humiliation is gone and the thing is restructured and I'm just back on track. You know, and that's what the steps are really there for. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous is there for. So as time goes on, I'm a youngster and I'm in junior high and I start drinking every night, every night. But I still think I'm going to go to college and make it and make something of my life. And the last thing I realize or I can think is that alcohol is actually destroying my life and that there's a whole lot wrong with me. So, as time goes on and people are going to college, I am like in a bar all the time and I am constantly hung over. And I remember thinking things like, I drink 365 days out of the year. There's something wrong with me. And i remember not being exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous and I remember feeling a lot of shame. Like how come at quarter to two I'm the only one at the party? Like oh my god it's beer 30 past the hat 7-eleven we got to get six packs let's go beer run. And everyone's like slow down turbo or i gotta go home or i've got to go to work tomorrow and i always want more and i never want to be out of any and i can stay up till two and three and four in the morning and people would say things like man that girl can drink you under the table or watch out for that one she's a real like whoa whoa whoa you know that kind of a thing and so i knew there was something wrong with me but i'd never really been exposed to the information about alcoholism and the word alcoholic had such a tainted meaning for most of us. We thought because once in a while we'd see a homeless person out in the street, you know, with a brown bottle, we'd think that we'd equate that to alcoholic or alcoholism and never what my lifestyle represents. I come from an educated background. I grew up in Claremont, California. My parents are college professors. My dad's a Harvard graduate with a PhD from Princeton. I'm not that. See, one more time, like it says, I'm full flight from reality. I am a downright mental defect. And the mind is just as abnormal as the body. Like there's something wrong, really, really wrong with me. My thinking is skewed. So as time goes on, things go from bad to worse and, you know, I start getting in fights and DUIs and I can't seem to get along with people, you know, with or without alcohol, the bedevilments on page 52 really describe untreated alcoholism because I don't need liquor. It's but a symptom, but it asks me, was I having trouble with personal relationships? Man, oh man, I don' t know when I haven' t had trouble with professional relationships, including at 11 years sober now. Let me tell you, I could burn your ear up about somebody I can't stand yesterday. You know, I have huge troubles with persons. I couldn't control my emotional nature. Well, did anybody get stuck in three and a half hours of traffic on the 101 today where the dune buggy went over, the trailer went over? The entire dump truck went over. The guy's pickup truck, all his clothes and his shit everywhere. And all I could think of is, you moron, what were you doing? Were you texting? You lost your dune Buggy? All your stuff, your whole trail, what were you doing? Like, I just like to burn your ear up for just five. Did you really spill everything all over the one-on-one and screw up all of our lives? Not, not like my sponsor, Valerie says it's time to pray for those people because maybe they died. I don't want to pray for them, Valerie. I'm pissed. They screwed up my day. Don't you know? And you see the first thought that comes is the untreated thought. That's in sobriety. It's not like, oh, let me sit on the freeway with my air conditioning and all my gas going down the drain and think about peeing in this cup because I've got to go so badly and dumping it out the window. Let me just be patient and kind. So was I a prey to misery? I couldn't control my emotional nature. Was I a pray to misery and depression? You know, alcoholics are up and down and up and downtime. Sometimes they're even diagnosed manic depressive, bipolar, whatever, you know? And I'm not against meds and I'm not against diagnosis, but I know I was up and down and up and down and I could be up and down 20 times a day. And it wasn't until I found a way of life and I understood what character building was and that I had to apply character building as a way of life so that I could uproot my up and down-ness. Until I figured that out and knew that, I just thought, well, that's the way I am, you know? Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. You know, I just have an anger problem. You know what? You need to just like me for me. I need a guy that likes me for me, for who I am. If you don't like me who I am, then you can all fuck off because, you know what, I'm good enough the way I am." Like, oh, that's really going to get me far. You see, I am full-flight from reality and once again, I don't know it because the disease is designed not to see itself. It's never gonna tell me, hey you're full flight from reality. This isn't a way to get along with people. You know, you need some skills. You need some tools. Um, the other thing it says that, um, I couldn't seem to be of real help to others was my, was not my basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether so. So at some point I want to look at, I can't even help other people and don't, I really need a solution to this. And alcohol was the solution for a long time. And as time went on, I emotionally stunted myself more and more and more and to the point where I was not easy to get along with. My frustration would snap at the drop of a hat. I could scream at somebody in the bank. I could really cut you like a knife with my words. I could present and create so much harm. There could be one small conflict between me and whatever boyfriend or whatever person, the drama du jour. And I could blow it up like you wouldn't believe. The punishment that I would inflict upon you never, ever, ever fit the crime. One small infraction and I just blow my mind up. And i'm seeing other people that are my same age and they're problem solving and they're going off and they'RE going to university and then they're getting married and then they're raising children and their kids seem okay and they still get along and they compliment the wife or the husband in public. They hold hands. They're kind to each other. They never talk smack about their family members. And I'm like, what freaking planet are you people on? And I don't realize that it's me. That I'm the breeder of confusion, not harmony. I don'T know that there's so much wrong with me. I have no idea. So as time goes on, things go from bad to worse to worse. You know, I love this line, my picker's broken. You think, you think, like how about this one? Well, you attract what you are. You know, I mean, like I would get a guy and like six weeks later I'd go, I don't know what's wrong with him. He's changed so much. He's different. He's so different than when I met him. He's change so much like what kind of a line is that? That's my only reference point. That's how I would view people. He turned mean. He turned on me. He turned bad. He wasn't like that when I meet him. I don't even know how to look for a healthy person. I don'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A HEALTHY PERSON IS. I DON'T EVAN KNOW WHATA HEALTLY RELATIONSHIP IS. I DONT EVEN KNOW WHATA HELPFUL DISCUSSION IS. I DONOT EVEN KNOW, LIKE, TO KEEP YOUR SECRETS OR TO RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY OR TO NOT RUMMAGE THROUGH YOUR PAST OR TO NOT BE NOSEY WITH WHATEVER. I DONNOT KNOW WHAT ANY OF THAT IS. IT'S ALL A FREE-FOR-ALL. RESPECTS. I DONNT HAVE ANY FOR MYSELF AND I DONONT HAVE ANY FOR YOU. SO AS TIME GOES ON AND PEOPLE ARE, LIKE... growing emotionally and growing up and becoming women or men in the world I'm getting sicker and sicker. And my social skills stay very small. And so often we hear things in Alcoholics Anonymous like when the year that you started drinking is basically when you stopped growing emotionally. There's a tremendous amount of truth attached to that. It really is. I mean there are people we come in here in our 40s 50s and 60s and we just you know we've got a crowbar Tanya Harding style for you because you parked in my parking space and I'm going to take everybody out and Nancy Kerrigan's going to be on the floor and I'M GOING TO BE ON THE FRONT PAGE NEWS FOR THE MOST TINY INFRACTION I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PRACTICE THE RESTRAIN OF PEN AND TONGUE I DON't KNOW HOW TO BE CENTERED INSIDE AND SO I USE ALCOHOL AND I USED ALCOHOLE AND I'M CRAZY AND I AM A MANIAC AND THERE'S ALL KINDS OF THINGS WRONG AND THEN I DECIDE OKAY I THINK I'm going to get sober. And the first time I got sober, I went into a rehab, stayed there for 30 days. I spun dry. I was like 27 years old and I did everything they told me to do, but I did it intellectually. There's two different IQs. There is an EQ which is my emotional intelligence and there is an IQ which is intellectual intelligence. My intellectual intelligence did all the homework and my emotional intelligence didn't do any of it. And even when I had to do amends, I didn't really mean it. I didn' t really have an experience or I kind of meant it but everything tumbled back and I didn''t really have a surrender and I did'nt really know what it's like to turn something over and allow God to be the manager for my life. So I get a sponsor and I go through the steps and I get all these commitments and I keep all busy, busy, keep all busy, you know And maybe I do a prayer here and there, and I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of liking it. I'm some kind of weird, like, psychotic, untreated, you know, hypermanic cheerleader in AA. But, you know? I don' t really know that there's a whole lot wrong with me. I don''t really know that I'm pathological. I don'T really know that I'M not really having a character change, that I' m just going through some motions that I''m suiting up and showing up, and that's about it. You know, and then they say things like stick with the winners. I DON'T know what a winner is. I think like the winner has big tits and nails And drives a Mercedes She's got a bunch of money That must be a winner The lady over here with the station wagon I saw like two of her teeth back here Kind of missing And she's a little too humble for me She talks a lot about her dog And she let her hair grow gray And I don't know about her You know And I'm not going to lie My mind is skewed I can't see the forest from the trees I don' t know the truth from the false There's really I am really full flight from reality And yet I cannot see it because the disease, once again, is designed not to see itself. So I stay so dry that I could start a forest fire. I stay så dry I could spontaneously combust. And in the meantime, I have a child and I start a business and I buy a home and I go through a teacher training course and I get certified in massage therapy and Waldorf education. And I'm so restless and I'm zo irritable and I am so discontent and I'm always in resistance and every morning I wake up and I am talking to myself and I so in fear and my mind is telling me I am never going to make it and there is not enough money in the bank and everybody is an asshole and whatever you know that Monsanto is going to poison us and the water is bad and what's wrong with the government and they are all trying to take us down and they're a bunch of liars and there's a conspiracy going on and there something in the phone and there some thing in the water and there somthing in the air and there smithing everywhere and this place ain't no good and we need a freaking plague so half these assholes will die and I can get here on time on the 101. And my mind just speaks and speaks and speaks to me and I'm sick I'm toxic all day long, I'm so sick I'm intoxic and I am sober I'm in untreated alcoholism and I don't know it I don' t know what untreated alchoholism is I think untreated alcoolism is she or he can't stop drinking. I don't know that I need an emotional IQ. I don't what a psychic change is because I don t know what I don t know until I have the experience of the psychic change. It's all experiential. I can think about it and I can listen to somebody else's CD, and I even see how lovely and nice and gracious and sweet and patient and kind and forgiving they are, but I don' t know how to get that. How do I get some of that on me? Sneeze, lady! Maybe I'll get it through contagion. What am I going to like set up enough chairs or hand somebody a water and poof, you know, Glinda, like the good witch is going to come down in a fricking bubble and strike me emotionally sober. It doesn't go that way. So what happens is if you be a real alcoholic, it's going to be you in the bottle someday. And I remained restless and I remained irritable and I remained discontent and my mind authorized getting another drink, going back out because I wasn't having fun sober. I hated my life. I hated everybody. I was so frustrated. I fought with my mother and my siblings all the time. I was over-managing my bank account. I couldn't stand the dust, the dirt, the laundry. Nothing's ever right. I'd get in my car. It's either too dirty or too clean. You know, I hate the sun. I hate it. I hate everything. I cannot function in my life, so I pick up a drink, And what happens is I completely forgot about the phenomenon of craving. I'd forgotten all about that I was going to want more. And that first drink did for me what I couldn't do for myself. I drank after 10 years of dry sobriety, and I remember that first drink felt so amazing, and my disease was treated. And I remember tears came down my eyes, and I'm just like, man, oh man, this is good, what a relief. And within a few hours, I could see that I wanted more. And I remember the very next morning I woke up, and there was that thought of... To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.12steptapes.com When are we going to drink again? like are we going to do it today or are we going to wait until tonight today's Wednesday, should we wait until Friday what are we gonna do and then all of this self-talk came in like you would not freaking believe the planning committee was on in 24 hours now I've got to hide things, I've gotta conceal things I've Gotta Chew Gum I've Got To Figure Out How To Get Taco Bell Cups I've Gotcha Pour Things In Soda Bottles I Gotta Put Stuff In The Back Of Cupboards I Gotta Try To Hide This From My 10 Year Old Daughter and she's very, very smart. And here goes, the terrible cycle is now set in motion. And let me tell you, there is no problem on this God's green earth that alcohol could ever make better. So all of my problems that were of my own making, I poured tons of liquor on them and it only made it worse, way, way worse. And that second time around was so disastrous, it was 10 times worse than the first time around. And I had so much to lose. You know, I'd worked and I'd purchased a home. I had a four-bedroom, three-bath, two-car garage house. I had daughter in a very expensive private school. I had private practice. I had all that outside stuff, and I was a maniac on the inside, just a maniac, like a toxic, lunatic maniac on inside. I could not manage my bank account. I could manage my thoughts. I could no manage my emotional life. I could nosh manage my parenting skills. I could get along with people. I could, I was blowing my stuff up day and night. So I start drinking and at first it's like beer and wine. It turns into vodka very, very quickly. And then things go from bad to worse. And I start waking up with horrendous hangovers every day. And in case you didn't know, the American Medical Association has now told us, taught us that alcohol is actually a huge depressant. So I wake up with a hangover every morning and I want to kill myself. Every morning I wake up and I just want to die. I lay in bed and I'm like, man, I want to die I hate my life I hate my life you know I think I'll kill myself today is the day I'm going to kill myself I'm never going to do this again I swear to God I'm not going to do this again and somewhere around five o'clock in the afternoon every single day I changed my mind because because obsession is stronger than self-will there's no amount of self-willed to stop the phenomena of craving I can't do this on my own and I have not invited a power into my life as a way of life so things just keep going the way they're going and I stop in at a meeting here and there. And I try to connect with an alcoholic here and there from AA. And all my mind tells me is that they're dumber than me, that they don't know anything like people with 20 and 30 years. And All My Mind says is you're a moron. You're an idiot. You're stupid. And it's so shut down. It's gridlocked. And my heart is so hardened. I can't feel any love for anyone. My ego is so disturbed. I feel so less than and in two seconds later, I'm so superior and it just swings back and forth I know there's balance here somewhere I see it every time I swing by but I don't know humility I don' t know what balance is I don''t know what like being a worker among workers or you know let me see if I can find this one thing where oh man you know it's about character building Bill Wilson says hold on Give me one second here because I think I can really find it. He talks about the true love of man and God. He says, most of us thought good character was desirable, but obviously good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied. With a proper display of honesty and morality, I'd stand a better chance of getting what I really wanted. But whenever I had to choose between character and comfort, the character building was lost in the dust of our chase for whatever I thought was happiness. And so even to be gracious when somebody was kind to me in AA, even to sit and to be patient or to acknowledge, thank you for taking my phone call. Thanks for standing in the parking lot after the meeting and trying so hard to keep me sober for one more day. Are you kidding me? I didn't have that in my character. I was a taker and I had entitlement issues and you all owe me and you're a bunch of morons. And it's so sad because it's the most painful place to live. It's very dark there. There isn't any love. And my mind tells me something like, Love or being open, I'm not going to get hurt. But you see, in that open receptive space is the only place I really can live. That I really CAN be alive. That I REALLY CAN allow the sunlight of the spirit. Bill says, Seldom did I look at character building as something desirable in itself. Are you kidding me? Something that I would like to strive for, whether my instinctive needs were met or not. I never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and the true love of man and God a daily basis of living. The true loveof man and god? Are youkidding? You guys are all a bunch of idiots, you know? That's all I thought. I was so angry. I wasso hurt inside. I was a deeply injured character, so deeply injured. So now here we go. I'm drinking and I got a kid and I got a house and I've got a lot to lose. And you all have seen the next phase of this story, right? Here goes the bank account. Here goes The Fear. Here goes your good looking body and here comes the wrinkles and you look like hell and you feel like hell. And everywhere I've gone I'm like, what? What's your... I don't know! I'm just even more crazy. Everybody just needs to shut up! I just need some time to think! That's what I'm like, you know? All day long. Somebody's laughing so hard because they fully relate. That's what I'm like all day long, dragging my kid through hell. So these people come over my house and they try to do this intervention and it doesn't work out very well. And they offer to take my child. They say, we want to take your child while you get some help. So I moved my own daughter, my 10 year old daughter out of my house. I give my daughter away to this family and they start raising her. And now it's really on because I don't even have to get up in the morning and make a toaster waffle or peanut butter sandwich or pack somebody's lunch or take them to a skating thing or drop them off at the mall. I don't have to do anything anymore. And I just start drinking around the clock, around the clock, and I cannot get sober. And i go into American Hospital and I go into Tarzana Treatment Center and then I start coupling drugs with the alcohol and I understand that this is AA and I'm hardcore Alcoholics Anonymous but I can tell you that the youngsters that are coming into Alcoholics Anonymous these days are all addicted to drugs. And the landscape, excuse me, of AlcoholicsAnonymous, in case anyone hasn't noticed, the landscape has completely changed dramatically. And if I don't figure out how to meet the conditions of these children that are coming in, I'm going to be ineffective to anybody. I'm not going to be able to pass on the AA baton. I've got to understand that these people are taking Adderall they're snorting Xanax they're going to CVS and they're chugging cold medicine they're taking their psych meds and their bunky psych med they're whiffing gasoline and I don't even know what you name it they're doing it and what I found is that addiction and alcoholism isn't necessarily in the liquid or the powder or the pill or the smoke or the whatever it's in me because I'm broken and i need to get as far away from me as possible and if we had more of that information in aa and we were more open-minded maybe we could help and touch more people's lives like i said the landscape of alcoholics anonymous has changed dramatically we don't see kids in front of the liquor store anymore sitting out there saying hey man could you buy me a 40 could you get me a six pack i never see anybody no kid ever asked me and all that even fake id stuff like yeah my friend had a fake ID, you know, we got a case of beer, Budweiser, right on. Like those days are gone. They're gone. There's other substances that these people are getting a hold of. And the bottom line is, is that they're checking out and they're remaining restless and they'RE remaining irritable and theyRE remaining discontent and they'Re full flight from reality. And they'RE a harm to their own self and theyRe a menace to society. And there are steps here that can really transform people's lives if they're presented, if the person's willing, if we make it palatable. So as time goes on, then my daughter moves out with these people and I just start doing drugs and I start really losing my mind. And I eventually move out into the street and I live in the street for, in the year 2000, 2001, 2002, and a portion of 2003. So for years, and I never saw my daughter ever, ever again. Well, I've seen her now. I have a relationship with her. But for about three years, I never saw my daughter and I prostituted and I panhandled and I slept on the side of the freeway and I dumpster dove and I changed my name and I was filthy and I was dirty and I have 26 prostitution cases and 18 drug and alcohol related cases. And I went all the way down. Like I remember even not really knowing what year it was, not knowing what month it was. You know, not remembering like my driver's license number not really sure about like so much of my past even started to be erased and as I went deeper and deeper into the street all of that stuff where I already didn't have an internal emotional healthy structure got more and more hardened until really the bottom of untreated alcoholism kind of looks like this you want a piece of me bitch what the fuck come on And that's who I turn into. Hardened, nasty, angry street. I'll shank you. I'll take your stuff. I will slice you. I will dice you. You are not taking me out. Don't you think I know who I am? I got all the street language and I'm not joking around and I am not afraid of anything. Let's go. And that is where it takes you. It is a horrible, horrible disease. You don't die quickly. You marinate slowly, slowly down into the gutter. It doesn't really want you dead. It's a disease, it's a parasite, it needs a host and it just so slowly sucks the life and the God and the light and the blood out of me. But it doesn't want me dead because then where would it go? So I'm sicker and I'm sickness and I lived in the street for several years and I saw it all. I remember one time this kid, we were in a back alley and he had shot up a bunch of speed and he went completely out. And there he is, and he's turning blue, and he'S not even gasping anymore, and his friend's slapping him, and this other kid's throwing water on him. And then I remembered those classes, that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation thing, and you pinch the nose, and I'm like, out of my mind, and I'M like, blowing air, and the kid's kind of gasping. I'M LIKE, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO DIAL 911, AND A KID'S RUNNING ACROSS THE STREET DIALING 911, AND I'M BLOWING, THIS 16-YEAR-OLD KID, AND I'm blowing, AND BREATH IS COMING, AND IT'S COMING. AND THEN DEAD AGAIN, and then I'm blowing more air and I'm thinking, what the hell? And I'm pushing on his chest and finally sort of he like coughs and I can hear 911. I can here the ambulance coming and as the ambulance gets close, I don't want to go to jail. I don' t want to be around a dead body and I know that the paramedics are real close and boom, I just go high tailing down the street like I did the best that I could at that moment. You know, and that's the kind of lifestyle that you live out there. You know I remember one time some guy he had gone into somebody's greenhouse house and he had stolen a whole bunch of their weed. And he had a backpack full of very green bud and they had shot him in his arm at a big fricking bullet all the way in there. And I'm in the street dirty and filthy. And He's like, Hey man, I'll give you a bunch of this bud you could sell on the street, but you've got to get this bullet out of my arm. And I'M sitting there with like tweezers and stuff from the 99 cent store. And Iím digging and digging and digging and dig in and dig In a fricking Bullet out of this guy. I mean, where is he today? God only knows it probably turned into gangrene or who I can't believe you know and it's like almost everyday stuff for you you know you see people completely lose their mind or they've robbed somebody and they jump out this spray of jewelry and you can tell it's somebody's grandmother's and great grandmother's rings and Tiffany silver and like oh my god and you just become immune and you become harder and harder and harder and you know I've told this story before and if you've heard it oh well You know, I remember one time, you know, this is how hardened you get in the street, though. This guy picks me up some trick and he sticks a gun in my face. And he's like, take your clothes off and you're going to suck my dick. And I'm like, hold on, Turbo, slow the hell down. Not only am I not going to take your gloves off and I'm not going to suck your dick, and I knew he was probably psychotic. I could see it in his face. There was something really wrong. This wasn't a normal trick. This is a nut. Truthfully, you don't get those people very often in the streets. Those whole Silence of the Lamb people, they're like 1% of 1% of 1%. They're not all that common. This is a real psychopathic, real hardcore sociopathic that has every single tendency. So I looked at him and I go, you know what? I'm not doing any of that. And what I want you to do is I want you to take that gun and I want your to look in my eyes and I'm going to count to three. And I'm gonna say one, two, three. When I say three, I want to look at me and I want you to blow my brains out. And I meant it. I'm like, you know what? This guy is not going to cauterize my shit and snip my nipples off and make some fucking lampshade out of my fat ass. We're not going there. If it's on and cracking, get it on now. Let's get this thing over with. And he just looked at me and he goes, lady, you're crazy. Get out of our car. Get out. Get outta my car. You know? And I really didn't know what I was going to get at that moment, but I'm going to call your bluff because I'm not going to sit there and I'm not going to shake in my boots and I'm not going to beg for mercy and I am not going to beg for my life you know it's interesting because today with 11 years of sobriety it's so odd I think I would behave differently my life is valuable to me now I don't know what I do I meant it like bring it on God I feel so sad and my daughter is in my life and I have a good business and I friends but I could see that there was just no value left none at all my desire I couldn't have cared less. I felt like I'm just a tissue or something to be disposed of, you know, just throw me away. So I go in and out and in and on and in an hour. I'm out of jail. I'm in the courthouse all the time. You know, the judge is always, how? Don't you want Prop 36 drug diversion? We can get you into a program. And I'm like, death before detox. I'm not going. No! You know? Back out into the streets. Revolving door over and over and again. again, I'm not getting sober. AA's for morons. They're a bunch of freaking idiots. I'm not going. And then the police really start stinging the streets and now I'm getting arrested over and over and there's this one guy I met in the street, this like crazy young guy from India about this big. I swear to God, this is so the truth. And it's so hard sometimes for me to even still say from the podium, the kid was a virgin and how I wound up being his first piece of ass is still beyond me. I don't know how, but he picked up a trick in the street and he told me, and I know he was because you could just tell by the look in his eyes. And then he thought he fell in love and he turned into Captain Sabaho. And every time I'd turn around, he'd be like kind of stalking me in the street and like making chicken salad sandwiches and wrapping them up and rolling down the window and telling the other hookers in the street, hey, have you seen her? Do you know where she is? And they'd go like, there's this guy from India looking for you all the time. So every time I'd go into jail, he'd come in and he'd put money on my books and he tried to convince me that I should go into a rehab. And I think he thought that maybe we were going to get married or be an item. Or I don't know what he thought. It was the strangest thing. It was God. It was only God. God worked through this very pure young, young man. He was a young man, he was not old. I mean, I was like 42, and I think he was maybe 28 or 30. But he was relentless, and he never gave up. And every time I'd go into jail, he'd help get me out again. He'd want to get me in a program. He'd spend his money. And I'd Go into these programs, and I would be in so much pain so fast. You know, the thing that killed me the most was leaving my daughter. I bonded with my child properly. I breastfed for three years. She was in a Waldorf school. I did all the right things for those first formative seven to ten years, and it just was so painful every time I'd think about that she's somewhere else, that I haven't seen her for so long. I mean, my heart would just break, and the tears would just pour. I felt so bad. I've burned all the bridges back to safety like it says in the big book. I don't see how I'm ever going to get back. How am I going to repair this life? What am I doing to do? And I go in and out and in and ought of rehab, And finally I go to this one place, I go To the ABC club in Indio, California With Danny and Helen Leahy And you know no rehab Is the be all end all You can get a $250,000 big book At Betty Ford or you can get A county bed at the Salvation Army Steps are the steps, God is God The big book's the big book, you know Coffee's coffee, sponsors are sponsors The information's the information It's the application of the steps that I didn't know about It's that I need to do something On a daily basis so I'm in this place called the ABC Club and my friend that I had known for years and years she got sober and off the street and she was all cleaned up and doing real well and she turned me on to these tapes by this guy named Bob Anderson and he had 44 years in Alcoholics Anonymous and he started this group called Primetime Primetime has a website, it's called primetimesnow.com I'm not selling anything, AA is AA I'm just saying that my home group has a web site And we've got several meetings down in Sherman Oaks, Beverly Glen, and Ventura Boulevard. We've got a women and a men's meeting there on Mondays and a big speaker meeting there on Saturday nights. And the format is unusual. And it says that they talk about alcoholism, ego, and self. And the first three steps is a foundation for my life that we don't talk about drunk logs, yesterday's problems, or blaming other people. But we talk about looking inwardly, describing how self behaves in the day that we are in. and we do refer to steps but only in the treatment or non-treatment of the disease and that i have to understand what a spiritual principle in application is just like it says on page 15 the third paragraph in the foreword it says that aa's 12 steps are a group of principles and they are spiritual in their nature if they're practiced practiced practiced as a way of life they'll expel the obsession to drink and then they'll enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole. See, that's what I want. I want to be happily and useably whole. I don't want a loiter with the intent to recover. I don'T want to wait around. You know, sometimes people have these myths like, oh, wait, you know, the magic happens in the ninth step or, you know, seven year itch, a lot of people go out at seven years. You know? That's like predicting I'm going to take a dirty cake. All of that stuff is a myth. You know there has to be something that's in this room that's as accessible to the newcomer as it is to somebody with 40 or 50 or 30 or 20 years, or it's not a program of recovery. It's a program of weight or a program of failure or a program of someday. You see there has to be something here now and often the power of God and the power of the application of prayer and the power behind two and three isn't talked about enough as an as a way of life. So this guy Bob Anderson that started primetime he was a god man and he was a step man and he was a character building man and he had had a true psychic change and i could hear it in his voice on those tapes i knew that something happened to this man he talked about that he used to beat his wife he talked About that he hurt people with his mouth he talked About that. He left people behind and that he didn't care about anyone He talked about the unmanageable life of owing people money and never being able To hold on to anything and losing things all over the place And for the first time I really heard, I heard something. And I heard that the main part of the illness actually centers in the alcoholic's mind rather than their body. And that it's not my conscious mind but it's my subconscious mind. The main part of the disease rests and marinates And percolates in the depths of my soul Where all my stories are All my yesterdays, all my hurts All my harms, all My resentments All my character defects All of my inability to control my emotional state My frustration, my anger, my hostility The way I look at you, the way I Look at me The way i victimize people, the Way i play the victim The way blame people, The way don't want to take responsibility the main part of the disease centers in there. You see, I don't have character defects. I'm a defective character. If I don' t concede to my innermost self that I am truly an alcoholic with untreated alcoholism, I'm never ever going to get better and there is something really wrong with me. Really wrong with me. There's not enough liquor in the world to fix what's wrong with me i am so broken inside so what the guy said was and what i learned in my home group is start watching the thoughts that surf the waves of your brain check your own track record if the shoe fits wear it maybe you don't have untreated alcoholism maybe you wake up every day to unicorns and bunnies floating down ventura boulevard maybe it's all good and you had the best mom and dad in the whole world and as a matter of fact you don t even know why you re sitting here and you need to go home early i don't know i'm here for me for my life first and foremost everybody in this room has a gown that's open in the back with testicles and tampon strings hanging down but we're the last ones to admit it i don'T WANT TO ADMIT THAT I'M FULL FLIGHT FROM REALITY THAT I'M A DOWNRIGHT MENTAL DEFECT THAT I'm MENTALLY ILL I DON'T WANNA LOOK AT THAT THOSE WORDS HARM my ego. I don't want to see that. I do not want to peek at that but if I do NOT start conceding to my innermost self that maybe, maybe, just maybe the calls are coming from inside the house maybe, JUST MAYBE I am the breeder of confusion not harmony maybe, Just MAYBE the disease is in my mind and that I got to get God into my mind then maybe there is some help you know so I start looking at my mind and I start seeing the thoughts that surf the waves of my brain. And I was taught, look first thing in the morning for sure. Like first thing в the morning before you even get out of bed, what were the first thoughts? You know, and like Bill Wilson always talks about those three primary instincts, my instinct for security sex and my desire to be somebody in society or my desire for approval. Any thought that's repetitively circulating over and over in the alcoholic's mind is somehow interwoven and entangled with one of those primary instincts and you know the desire for sex isn't always that I want to mate but it's even like how I look or how I don't look I'm fat I'm skinny I'm bald I'm ugly you know I'm hairy I'm this I'm that you know i should look different I don' know whatever it is there's a story in my mind and then you know my instinct for security it could be my tires are bald I don''t even like my car I don ''t think it looks good you know im ashamed to drive it or my wrinkles or I got to count my bank account over and over and over because there's never going to be enough. And then it creates a tremendous amount of fear and the fear generates more defects and then I set the terrible cycle in motion and I'm barely out of bed and the phone rings and I say, what? You know, and I just answer the phone like that and they don't know. They didn't do anything. They just get a big dose of my untreated alcoholism because I don't know how to treat the disease, and I don't know what a psychic change is. So as I start to look at the thoughts that surf the waves of my brain, I got to see that it's quite possible, it's quite possible. It's quite possibly that every single solitary thought that surfs the waves of my brains is infected with untreated alcoholism, that my stories of yesterday, that my ego that my fear of the future that my resentments that everything is infected with untreated alcoholism and there's only one solution and it's a spiritual solution or blow my brains out alcohol is not a solution anymore it couldn't even do for me what I couldn't do for myself anymore I went down to such a just such a state of despair I went Down So Low it didn't even work anymore. So I start to maybe, just maybe, take in the idea that I could look at the second half of step one and I could see that my life is unmanageable. My thought life is completely unmanangeable of me, by me. I don't know how to get along with people. I Don't Know How To Be Patient. I Dont Know HowToBeForgiving. I DontKnowHowToBeLoving. I dontKnowHowToJustAllowYouToBeWhoever You Are. Even if I think you're wrong, I don''t have to point it out. I don't know how to just wait in line. I don't know how to just be on the freeway. I don't know how to just not peek in my past and carry my shame and my guilt everywhere I go. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that. So the second half of step one is that my thought life is unmanageable and if my thought life gets managed my third dimensional life will become more manageable. So I look at step two, and it says that I must come to believe that there is a power that can restore me to sanity. But I have to first concede to my innermost self that I am not of a sound mind, that I have a mental defect, that i have untreated alcoholism, that my mind is infected with untreated alcoholicism. Bill Wilson says in step eight, let me just see if i can find it real, real quick here. Step eight, step eight. He says very deep, sometimes quite forgotten damaging emotional conflicts persist below the level of consciousness. At the time of these occurrences, they may have actually given our emotions violent twists, which have since discolored our personalities and altered our lives for the worse. So he says very deep, oftentimes quite forgotten emotional conflicts persists below the level of consciousness. So there's a lot wrong with me even before I ever drank and then my whole history during drinking. And now, you know, I've lost my child and I've lost my mind and I'm so disturbed inside. There's so many stories going round and round and around that if I don't come to believe that there's a power and invite a power into my thought life, all bets are off. I'm going to remain untreated for the rest of my life. So what I was taught to do was to go into step three and to make a decision to turn my will and my thought life over to the care of this power. And how do I do that? I do it by, you know, in step 11 when it says that I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God. I need a conscious contact with the power. This thing isn't a race. It's not a homework assignment. It's a way of life and I need to apply this to my life and to my problems. So I start inviting this power in. I start petitioning with my heart, and I say, Power, I can't think. I can'T get out of bed. I can' t even pee without losing my mind. I can''t even look in the mirror without seeing wrinkles. I can ''t even Look at my bank account or lack of bank account Without going crazy. And I'm so upset about all the harms of yesterday, And I''m so afraid about what's going to ever happen Between me and my daughter. and I begin to pray and I begin to praying deep deep with reverence and with desire and with will and I ask this power, power could you please protect me from my mind because my mind is so infected with untreated alcoholism can you just get me through the next five minutes? Can you help me just be okay? Can You help me make a pot of coffee without going to hell in a hand basket? And I start to get relief. You see the prayer and the seeking through the prayer and meditation it puts a buffer in between me and the untreated alcoholism. So the thoughts come up, and I see them come up and I'm like, whoa, slow down turbo. I'm not taking the bait. And I say, power, look at my mind. My mind's trying to hurt me and my mind's trying to harm me. Can you help me be okay? And I get relief, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but I get relieved. I start to feel some peace. I start to feeling okay. I am not invested in seeking approval. I m not invested in trying to over-manage or fix anything. I'm not invested in getting into an argument today. I'm non-invested in being right. I'm none invested in you seeing me or apologizing to me. I start to back down. I start know what true humility is. I start really build a new character through spiritual principles and application by praying. By praying in step two and three way before I even do a fourth step inventory with a grudge list. I start to ask this power to be the manager for my life. And, you know, it says great events come to pass for you and countless others. That is a great fact. Abandon the self. So I begin to look at this self, and I can really see, man, this thing's a maniac. It's trying to get me at every corner, everywhere, all the time. And I ask the power, can you help me not be ashamed of my life? Can you help мне express my feelings? Can you helped me be loving today? can you help me be in a place of open-mindedness where I'm not in resistance and I'm not telling myself the story and I am not character assassinating and as I start to get relief I get empirical evidence that there really is a God, that there is a god that I can tap into and I can allow this power to be the manager for my life and you know it becomes so much easier to face my problems, to face the past You know, I was taught I have no business going into the past with my mind unless I'm in an inventory because the roster of harms are so big and the story is so enormous that to look in there, it doesn't do me. It doesn't serve any purpose. So really, I had to get a sponsor and I had TO have somebody really hold my hand through all of this, you know, and even getting back together with my daughter. I would say, you know, I was sober probably six months or so when I first saw her. And, you know, thank God the people that she was with were, uh, they were sound-minded enough to like get a therapist and there was, you know, I was outside in a hallway and my daughter was in this room with some other people and the therapist came out and she like prepped me and said, you know, it's a couple of things that she said that were really good. The therapist said, your daughter doesn't want you to touch her. She doesn't want you to hug her and she doesn't Want you to cry in front of her And I'm like damn and she Doesn't want me to Want you To ask her for forgiveness She wants you to just be neutral You know I couldn't even really hear All that I was like God what are you Why are you telling me all this but I see now See somebody had a sounder mind Than me I just wanted to walk in Like hey we're cool right I missed You so much and when I walked in And I saw her eyes I could see all the damage that I'd done she's like hold on I don't know if you're safe or what you are you know she'd gone through puberty she was different she had boobs she had braces I mean it was all an optical illusion and we're sitting there and it's a moment let me tell you it's the moment you never forget and thank God for therapists and people that were more sound-minded because I needed all the help I could get and we started to go through therapy and we decided to work out our differences and we started to grow a relationship. And as time went on, she moved back in with me and she graduated from high school and then she went on to a four-year university and she's a successful artist, musician. She's educated. She doesn't have alcoholism. We have a good relationship, but we just didn't go from zero to 60 without a whole lot of stuff in between. And God made that possible. I couldn't have done that on my own. I could not have donethat. I would have messed the whole thing up. And, you know, even my mom and my frustration and my childhood and rummaging around in that, I have to ask God continuously to help me see the truth about my life so I don't remain in the victim's seat, so I do not continuously blame everybody for my pathology, so that I can take responsibility today for the choices that I made, even if I was blind, even ifI could not see. Help me, God, to express myself better. Help me to have the right words so that I can come through to somebody else and have a meaningful conversation instead of overriding somebody or needing to be right or needing to be heard or having my opinion. And these are all spiritual principles. You know, Bill talks about, I think it's in Step 10 in the 12 in 12. He says it's a spiritual axiom that any time I'm disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with me. If somebody hurts me and I'm sore, weren't they wrong also? Are there no exceptions to the rule? What about justifiable anger? You know what? It's a dubious luxury, and I don't get justifiable anger. And for me, I've got to remember that it doesn't mean that I don' t get mad. I get really mad. Ask my friends. I can blow a gasket. I can want to burn your house down. I have got to check myself before I wreck myself. I need so much power in my life I have got to pray and the first thought that comes to mind is I'm going to take somebody out and the second thought right behind it is you better get yourself a God and you better pray because I have free will and I can go either way and what I don't want to do is I don' t want my past to become my future I don''t want to continue to make the same mistakes over and over I want to be the new character I wantto grow in the sunlight of the spirit I want to carry the message and to practice the principles in all of my affairs. I want be rid of the self. I want offer the self to the power. I want step aside and allow God to have the steering wheel because I get relief in that place. So, you know, even he talks about even the application of this. You know, he says our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. This carries a top priority. Bill Wilson says the first development is to practice self-restraint. That I've got to learn how to internally slam my brakes on and go, whoa, whoa. I need a buffer and God makes that possible. That's a spiritual principle in application. To slam on my internal brakes and to say, don't say it, don' t do it, don't press that send button, don''t gossip, don'T tell them. When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot. I mean, how many times? We're impulsive maniacs is what we are, I swear. One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin a relationship with another person for a whole day or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like the restraint of tongue and pen. shut my cake hole shut it up I think I need to tell you everything I think I need to let you know hop told him told her that'll fix that you know I don't get anything from that it really I'm vibrating at such a low frequency by behaving that way that's not God's will for me and it doesn't mean that I'm not a doormat it doesn'T mean that i don't know how to say no It doesn't mean that there aren't times where I do need to stand up for myself or I do need to stop something that I think is an unsafe environment or that I do need to remove myself from something. But most of the time, I need to just be quiet and allow people to live and let live and allow the world to just unfold in front of me and participate in an open-minded way where I don't need to be up in front and managing everything. And in that place, that's where God comes in and there's intuitive guidance and there is intuition and there isn't enthusiasm and there' s inspiration and the God consciousness mind really begins to know how to behave. It's not that I had to get taught it. It' s that I have to move the self out of the way and all of a sudden experientially i feel differently the person that i couldn't stand last week i don't know why they don't bother me maybe i don'T love them but they don'T bother me anymore resentments they vanish i'M only mad for 10 minutes instead of 10 years you know i DON'T feel like telling somebody off you know I mean these stories used to go round and round in my mind my mind was just so full of obsessive thinking infected with untreated alcoholism i couldn'T function my mind'S not like that today. Really, if you could hook me up to some electrodes and you could look at a brain scan of before I worked steps and incorporated them into my life as a way of life and who I am today, I'm a different character. And it's through seeking this power through prayer and meditation to really asking this power to be the manager for my life. I didn't take a class on how to get along with everybody and how to park it and put a sock in it. I've just practiced the principle of allowing God to be the manager and the restraint of pen and tongue, and everything opened up in a completely different way. I have healthy relationships today with people. I have a healthy relationship with my mother today. I have health friendships. I have a daughter in my life. I have a private practice. I have a bank account. I have a brand new car outside. I have a healthy inside life. I think good thoughts about people. I'm appreciative. I'M grateful for everything that people have given to me and done for me. IM grateful for the electricity in here. I'm grateful for people that set up the chairs and break down the chairs and put this whole thing on. That's not me. That'S a new character. ThatS an AA woman and a woman of god and that's what alcoholics anonymous is here for it's here to renew us it's here to restore us it'S HERE TO GIVE US A NEW LIFE A NEW LIFE BEYOND OUR WILDEST DREAMS AND THE PROMISES SAY THAT FOR ALL OF US AND IT'S NOT NECESSARILY THAT YOU'RE GONNA GET THE GUY OR THE GIRL OR THE MONEY BUT THAT I'M GONNa REALLY INTUITIVELY KNOW HOW TO HANDLE SITUATIONS THAT USED TO BAFFLE US THAT THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY NOW A SAFER PLACE BECAUSE I'M TREATED THIS IS good news for the whole public of the state of California. It's very good news. Maybe they should even put it on a milk carton somewhere. I was a menace to society. Drunk or sober, I was the kind of person that people call security on. I'm not that person today. I could resurrect it and pull it out of the basement, but I tried to the best of my ability not to be that, not to lead with my wound, not to bleed all over the place not to infect the world with untreated alcoholism I just want to say thank you again so much for letting me come share my experience strength and hope and I hope that I said something tonight that helped somebody Thank you Thank you Deanna, alcoholic? Hi. Let's give our speaker another hand. Thank you all. Thank you. We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.12steptapes.com. Thank you.