The Ritual of 90 Meetings in 90 Days – Denise S.

Hi everybody, my name is Denise and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm very grateful to be here tonight. It was quite a trip getting here. I apologize for being a little bit late. All I have to say is I'm not in Brooklyn anymore. It's really beautiful around here. Wow, I had no idea New Jersey could be this pretty. What a beautiful community. I want to thank Chris, first of all, for inviting me to come here tonight and give this talk to you all. I'm so excited actually to be at this group because this group holds a very special place in my heart. As you'll hear when I talk a little bit about myself, I became very reclusive as a result of my alcoholism and I was unable to get to meetings. So I went online and your group right here was the first group that I had started to hear something very different from what I had been used to. So I formally get to say thank you for being here and for carrying this message because it gave me such hope, you know. I had been going around to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous since 1986, and what I heard here was a very, very different message indeed, so I'm very grateful for that. My home group is the Primary Purpose Group in Lindbrook, New York. We meet there actually every Tuesday and Thursday night. Chris has been gracious enough to make the trip, and I have a newfound respect for him now for coming to visit us. And if you're ever in Lindbrook, it's not all the way out on Long Island. It's actually not too far from the border of Queens. Please come and see us. We'd love to have you. My sober date is November 11th of 2007, But as I said before, it's a long way from 1986. That was the first time that I ever actually entered into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't think it was for me and by 1991, I got kicked back in to the rooms. Alcohol became a great persuader. And what I'm going to talk about tonight is my experiences. I was one of those people that kept on going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for many, many years until I was able to completely surrender to this deal. But what I want to talk about is how God really showed up in my life and attempted to pull me back. And it wasn't until I woke up here finally, for God willing, the very last time that I came to a realization of that, you know. But that first time in 1991, I remember I was in a hospital in Long Beach and I had alcohol poisoning. And I was pretty, pretty sick. And I remember crying, you know, hysterically and thanking the nurse there for taking care of me. And I looked at her, and I'll never forget this, I looked in her eyes and she looked at me. And I said to her, I said, I am so sorry that you have to take care of somebody like me. I know you have sick people here. And she looked at me and she said, sweetheart, you're very sick too. And at that moment then there was a realization that there was something much bigger than me that was extending its help to me. And I was aware of that at the time and I actually went into the rooms of AA and I can't call it sober but I didn't drink for almost three years at that time. I got a sponsor. I did everything they told me to do, and I never worked with deafs. I made 90 meetings in 90 days. I've got a coffee commitment, you know, the normal deal that we're told to do in those type of meetings, you just don't drink and go to meetings, shut up and sit there stupid. And I did all that, and when the going got really kind of tough for me. By the end of that third year, I approached my sponsor and I said to her, you know, I'm really thinking about drinking. You know, it had some stuff happen in my life and I didn't have the tools to handle it, you know? And she took me to a psychic. You know, this is the God's honest truth. Yeah. It's unreal. She took me through a psychic she actually took me to my sponsor was Puerto Rican and she took me to this woman who did Santeria and I went into this I don't know where I was it was some kind of crazy place and the woman was like in some kind of crazy trance and smoking a cigar and you know I didn't understand a word of it because I don' t speak Spanish but she was reading the smoke you know and pretty much you know to encapsulate this And she said that my life was going down the tubes real fast. I kind of knew that already, you know. And she says it wasn't going to really amount to anything, you know. And boy, that really sealed the deal for me right there. You know, she gave me the answer that my mind was telling me I needed and obviously I drank again, you know, because that was the solution to the problems that were inside of me. And I stayed out there though for about 13 and a half years which wasn't really too funny, you know. I endured a lot of pain and suffering, even on a physical level from this disease, you now. I have a little bit of brain damage probably from being out there for too long so if I jump around a little I'm sorry but I still have a hard time remembering things. You know, I ended up in the room, I'll be 53, I was was 50 years old, so I was out there for a long, long time. So that was one of the times when I experienced this power separating me, and I never really had a problem with knowing that there was something bigger than me out there. In the past, when I was in my 20s, I was like a hippie girl in the 60s and 70s, and you know, I was into all of the stuff that we were all into at the time. Those of you who are old enough to remember that. But then I got involved at that time with a Christian research and teaching kind of ministry, and I got very involved in it. I'm a Catholic girl born in Brooklyn. That's why I said I'm not in Brooklyn anymore, as if you couldn't tell I'm from Brooklyn. I probably still have a little bit of the accent. And I clung to a lot of that, And I believed that there was something out there. And I'd read all these books like Carlos Castaneda and, you know, all of these books that kind of indicated that there was something else greater than me out there, you know, hallucinating on acid at the time wasn't really probably a good combination to help me find my higher power. But nonetheless, you know, I didn't have a problem with that when I came here to you guys. Um, like I said, I stayed out there for 13 and a half years, and when I picked up that drink again after that three-year period, you know, I remember the feeling. You know, our big book talks about it. It talks about the doctor's opinion, you Know, that sense of ease and comfort, you know, the effect produced. Man, that effect produced for me was just incredibly elusive, and I really ran after it, you I needed it, and I find that I still need an effect produced by something today. And that's why this program works so well, because it gives me an effect produced if I follow the suggestions here. I get that sense of ease and comfort, which doesn't come in a bottle anymore after just following a few simple directions. you know. I guess I was in and out of a lot of detoxes through that 13 years. I never made it to a rehab except for the very last time, but I was In-N-Out of a lot of Detoxes over and over again and I'm going to talk about probably the three to four years when it got really bad just a little bit. I remember this one time I was in this detox and I had been into the detox the night before and I was there for nine hours and they sent me away so I got good and loaded the next night because I had a great desire to stop drinking, by the way. You know, I desperately wanted this. I was one of those people who would go to meetings drunk, you know, and they'd be whispering, you Know, she's drunk, stay away from her, it's her again. She must not want this bad enough, you know? And I would hear things. It was just like nails on a chalkboard, like, you now, stick with the winners, stuff like that which drove me completely crazy as if we really win or lose here and get a gold star at the end of our 12-step accomplishment or something like it ever ends. But I had gotten into this detox finally. I went totally crazy and ballistic in the waiting room. I started to throw chairs around. I was cursing and screaming. So they got a room for me, and they didn't have a bed in the detox unit, so they put me in just a private room in this hospital. And I'm in this hospital, and I'm out of it at this point. And there's these church members that keep on going back and forth and back and fourth to visit my roommate. There was this woman in there, this Haitian woman who was pregnant. She had some kind of complications. And by the third day that I was in this detox, you know, about 30 of these people came into my room. And I was just starting to like, the fog was just started to lift a little bit, you know? And they came over to me and they were Haitian Creole. They were speaking French. But the main guy came over to me and he said, would it be okay if we pray for you? And boy, tears just rolled down my face. I said, please pray for me. And they didn't know what was wrong with me. Like I said I wasn't in a detox. And I was in a regular room. And they started to sing Amazing Grace. Which was unbelievable because it's like the song that was really about people like us. you know, and I just started to really wail at that moment. And again, at that moment, I knew that there was something out there, you know that was greater than me, pulling me back, you know, trying to pull me in, trying to reel me in. You know, when I say that my sober date is November 11th of 2007, you know, I truly believe that God separated me. I had no power to do that on my own, absolutely none. And when you hear a little bit more of my story, you'll see how desperate I became. And I sobered up after that time in the detox and I really had an earnest desire to stay sober and it was actually the first time that I met my group. I was one of the first members of the Primary Purpose Group. We're a pretty young group. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay sober through the whole time. Today, I'm an active member of that group. I'm happy to report. But again, I had started to hear a message that was very, very different from what I had been hearing in the rooms of the meetings that I was going to. People with double digits in the back mumbling under their breath when I'd walk into a meeting. She doesn't want it bad enough. I couldn't take that anymore, you know. So I started to hear a message of hope and for me, I really believe that that was my journey home. Even though I couldn't stay sober, it was the beginning of my journey back home to you guys, you now. And I actually made an honest attempt to try this deal the way you guys were presenting it to me through this book, you kno, but I wasn't willing to let go of certain things. And at the beginning of this meeting, you know, we read the set-aside prayer, you know, and I have to read that prayer a lot, you know. You know, I was so intellectual, you know. I knew more than you knew, you know. So I was very well-read, you know. Who do they think they are, you know? And that really got in my way, you know. And so I went out again and over and over and over. And every time I went out there, it just got worse and worse and worse. Like I said, I ended up with many detoxes. The physical part of this was really bad for me. I started to suffer delirium tremors. I would stop drinking. I'd see demons coming at me. Um, I felt stuff crawling on my skin. I, I really, I, really went through all of that kind of alcoholic torture that they talk about in the big book, you know? Um, so by the final time, um, I started my last trip back home, God willing, for the last time. I had gone out on one of my binges and when I went out on a binge, it kind of looked like this. I didn't drink for a day. I would barricade myself in my apartment. I just sold my house. I have a ton of money in the bank. And I wouldbarricademyselfinmyapartment. I put the robe on and the slippers on. Eating was the last thing on my mind. Bathing was the last thing, and I wouldn't talk to anybody. You know, I was unable to leave that apartment. And it's interesting because I look back now, andI had become reclusive way before that, you know, where I was shutting myself in and withdrawing myself from the world slowly but surely, even when I wasn't drinking, even wenn I was going through those small stints of sobriety, whatever they were, three months, one time it was a big eight months that I think I put together. But, you know, so I was in this apartment and I would order literally like four cases of vodka, you know, all the, you know, whatever it is that would go with it. And, you know, and I became addicted to some other substances as well. You know, Xanax was a big thing for me. You know, I'd been to every psychiatrist known to man, Every self-help program known to man. I was on every kind of antidepressant that you could think of. And, of course, because I'm a bright little bunny, I convinced the doctor that I was suffering from anxiety when I had the shakes and I was able to get Xanax whenever I wanted it. So I took those an awful lot. So I was locked in that apartment by my own will. And I'll never forget being in there. I don't know if you get the experience. I often fool around about it. I don' t know if any of you guys know who Vinnie the Chin Gambino is, but he was a mobster that acted like he was crazy and he had, any pictures of him at the time, you saw him with a robe shuffling, you know, with the newspaper. But that was really me. I really was crazy, you kno? So my alcoholic personality at the tim e I refer to as Vinnie The Chin, you kno? That was me, boy, you no? end up but I remember the feeling of hopelessness boy um I remember there was a time I'm sitting in my apartment and just crying my eyes out and looking out the window and watching everybody going to work you know because work was without man I I said all functions were off in the end for me you know um I attempted to really you know be functional if there is such a thing you know up until that point but toward the end all functionality was off and I remember crying and just wishing that I could go to work, I could do all those things. I was completely unable to. And I looked at it, I would drink these big things of vodka and I hated it. And I had to drink it. I was like a robot. I was literally drinking around the clock, up for days, sometimes weeks at a time. And a dear friend of mine actually came on a regular basis, and he would bring me soup. He's one of us, you know, he'd bring me soup because I wasn't eating. And he would sit with me, and He didn't shove the stuff down my throat. But what He did do is He told me that God hadn't given up on me, and that I shouldn't give up. Because, you know, I just wanted to die. You know, I just want it to weigh out so bad because I really thought that this thing wasn't meant for somebody like me. You know, my belief systems took me to a place that, you know, being Italian from a male-dominated family, if you're a woman growing up in Brooklyn, you know, where I come from, and you're mother and you drink, you are the lowest form of scum on the face of the earth. And all the validators that I had in my blood process told me that over and over again. And there were times in that 13-year period, you know, that I tried to kill myself. They were feeble attempts, but nonetheless, you know, they were attempts, you know, at trying to take my own life. Because I just didn't want to go on like that anymore, you know? Life really wasn't worth living. And the alcohol and whatever else it was I was taking certainly had stopped working a long time ago, boy. You know, so for me, I had no solution to be locked in like that. You know, being where I was in that place, you know, I am so grateful for every single day that I am outside in the sun and I can see the world in color, you know? It's a miracle that I'm standing here talking in front of you people right now, boy. You Know, this is not someone, you Know, that would have been able to do this not so very long ago. The transformation that God has pulled in my life, it amazes me and I get to see that today and it's truly miraculous. So my friend rescued me, he took me out of the apartment, I was really showing some bad physical signs and he took me to Nassau County Medical Center. And again, I was stuck in this waiting room for hours and hours. And I brought a big bottle of vodka with me and whatever else I needed. And just sat there. And my vodka ran out. And then I was sitting playing with some children in this waitingroom. This mother had taken her children there. God bless this woman. She actually let her children talk to me in the state that I was in. But she was truly, you know, sent there by some other force, I believe, because if she wasn't there, I would have died that night. And I looked at her when my doctor ran out and I said, I think I've got to go now, you know, and she detained me just long enough to save my life. She looked at me and she said, you Know, sweetheart, why don't you stay? You know, I and I looked at the clock and I says, No, I've got to leave. And as I started to walk out of the hospital, Well, you know, the doors opened. They called my name, and as I walked into the triage, I had a massive heart attack right there. So thank God that woman looked at me and stopped me for that second. And if that's not the power of God working in my life, well, I don't know what is. But God's got some purpose for me today, and it keeps me pretty busy, thank God. I went into that detox. I was there for about five days, and after five days I signed myself out and I picked up on the way home from the hospital you know, that's how sick I was you know I could not remember with sufficient force for minutes at that point you know it didn't scare me, I didn't care you know really up until that point I wish people would have just let me die you know because I had been trying so hard but I locked myself I went right back into my apartment right back to my little domain where was the only place I felt safe and I can't really remember how long I was in there for, it might have been a couple of days or a week or two but I was sitting I'll never forget it, in my office and this is going to sound really crazy and corny but you know I love music so I was listening to something on iTunes And I started to do like this thing with Eric Clapton. And he started a band called Blind Faith way back in the day. And I never knew this until I was like in my insanity that every song in this album was written about him finding God and getting sober. And if the light went on in my mind, I kept on playing this song, I Can't Find My Way Home. you know and I just kept on praying to God please God help me find my way home I can't get there you know and I desperately prayed and I don't know what was different about that moment I honestly don't I just knew that it came from a place inside of me that was so true I meant it there were absolutely no reservations inside of it and I begged God please help me and what was different about that moment as I said to you, I'd had them before that God showed up and I knew he was there and I had communication with his power but what was difference about that moment was that for the first time like, you know, you ever hear the term struck sober in these rooms? I was struck sober and I didn't want to die all of a sudden. I had this overwhelming feeling like, I don't want to die and want to live, you know. And I reached out to a couple of people who, you know, the only two people I had been communicating with at that time. And I got sent away to a rehab in Texas called La Hacienda Treatment Center, the first and only treatment center that I'd gone to. And my experience there really changed my life forever. They disturbed me, boy, on the question of alcoholism. And I met a crazy text in there from my friend Chris who I love and adore to this day. And I had another experience when I got to the rehab. They had to detox me obviously because I was going through, you know, these shakes pretty bad and the delirium tremors. And I woke up out of the detox, and they sent me into my first deal with, you know, whatever it was, the group, you know? And I started to experience what the whole deal that they were going to put me through. And it was like therapy sessions. And I flipped out. Here I had just made this great resolve, right, that I'm willing to do anything. I'm going to surrender. I wake up out of the detox that they gave me and I'm ready to book and I go into Chris's office and I look at him and I say are you kidding me I paid all this money to come to this place I thought there was a big book deal here man and he smirked and it reminds me of one of the stories with one of the guys when they approached him after a relapse and I didn't like that and I looked at him and I said what are you laughing at? And he just sat there, looking at his book or computer. And he goes, you know, little buddy, let me ask you a question. He goes, I know you've been doing this for a long time and I agree with you. I've been through all the doctors and all the therapy and it never did work for me, but I'm going to tell you something. We have some of the finest doctors here, some ofthe finest staff here that you're ever going to find. He said they've all been through the 12-step process. And then he looked at me and he said something that just kind of stabbed me right here. He said, let me ask you a question. He said you've been doing it the way you think you ought to be doing it, right? I said, well, I guess. He goes, well how's that been working for you? People have said that to me in the past but man, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized at that moment that I needed to borrow a brain because mine was not working. You know, I just surrendered. I went back into my room, whatever it was that they gave me there at the time, and I got on my knees and I said the third step prayer on my own. I went through it again formally, obviously, with a sponsor. He took me through this work a couple of times since I've been back. But I surrendered right there in that very moment, And I became willing to do whatever it would take, you know. And I told God right then and there, I said, you know, I will do anything you ask of me, anything. Even come out to Bernardstown, New Jersey and speak, you know, any way you put me, any where you send me, you know, I'm okay with that, you know. And my life has just taken on a whole new turn, you You know, I wanted to bring something with me tonight because I rushed home from work and I didn't have a chance to bring it. I forgot, actually. Whoops, a few brain cells, you know, weren't regenerated yet. But I lost my daughter as a result of drinking, you now. She's 18. I have a daughter who's 18 and I have son who's 22 years old. And I ravaged these kids' lives. I really brought through them violently. And, you know, the last couple of times that I drank, you know, I remember that time I was in the hospital and the people saying to me, you Know, I had this great resolve. I told her that I would never drink again. And I promised her, you know, and I drank again, you know, And I love my children more than I love, you know, anything in the whole wide world, man. I adore them, you know, and my daughter just didn't want to see me or be anywhere near me, you know, anymore and that really broke me up terribly. But my daughter wrote something, she's going into college now in August, she is going to be going to the University of Arizona and I've been asking her for about six months if I could see this, it's actually about mom and my alcoholism, you knows, and I was asking her can I please see it, I'm really okay to see you know but she remembers the old mom who would be like what do you mean you said that about me you know trying to defend myself you know don't you love me you know trying so I can still guilt in her but what she wrote was how her whole world was changed you know as a result of my drinking you know and and how much she loved me and how real powerless she felt, you know, that she couldn't do anything but walk away. And in essence, this essay that she wrote pretty much said that walking away from me, you know was probably the best gift that she could have given me, you now. But what a real experience and a real gift that is for me today to have this experience with my daughter, You know, to be able to read something like that, you know, and understand where it came from. You know I carried around this guilt and shame inside of me for such a long time. You know that's no longer there anymore. You know? I know that I am an alcoholic and I will always be an alcoholic until the day I die. And I've done the very best that I can to clean up the things in my past and not be that person anymore today. I think that women in AA have a tough time with this a lot. I know men do too, but we're mothers. We're not supposed to do these things. But I got over it, and I'm able to be a mother to my son today. I'm unable to be employable today. I lost my business completely because of my drinking. I had a business for 30 years, which was pretty lucrative and I did real well in. But when you start to tell your clients that you think you might have a brain tumor and you're going for scans and you lie to them. And I actually told some of my clients that I was in the hospital, that I had something wrong with my pancreas and all this stuff. And it was just insanity, just complete insanity. And I think at times I actually believed some of that craziness. But today I don't have to do that anymore. I was able to face these people and say I was sorry for the things that I had done. I'm pretty open about my experience today. I'm open at work, I'm opened wherever I go. Everyone knows who I am and what I am. I have no reservations about it anymore. You know, I want to get free today and I want to stay free. So for me it had to be that way. There were a couple of times when I went through this work and I was not willing to do the amends and go through the amending part. Now I don't know if that's why I drank again. I can't really pinpoint it to one thing. It was probably because I had some reservations that were lurking you know, some notions in there somewhere. But today those are gone thank god um and i don't have those anymore um and god's actually blessed me with some people he sent into my life to sponsor today which is incredible to me you know um that i could actually help somebody today wow what a cool deal and some of these women are actually out there uh sponsoring other people you know i remember i would be in here not not not even being through gotten through the steps and I'd be giving my advice to people that was a pretty crazy thing but today I just lead people around take them through this work the way I was taught one day at a time I don't know if I could actually speak for this full hour, I've never really spoke for a full hour before but I wanted to think about a topic tonight when Chris asked me to speak and one of the things that he mentioned one ofthe things that I thought about is freedom what does that look like in my life today am I free from some of the things that were holding me captive am I truly free from those today what doesthat look like in mylife so I think that's enough out of me for right now I'm just going to end it with that and we'll share, okay?