The tight grip of women holding Tracy K. While She Fights Recovery – Tracy K.

Alright, let's have an AA meeting. My name is Julie and I am an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAVA Club. We're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more sobriety tales, his or her story. Hey, I'm Lisa and I'm an alcoholic. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God. They give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabloochipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker. And we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, Yes. Yes. Yes. I am one of them, too. I must have this thing. And I have been asked to introduce the speaker tonight. Her name is Tracy Kelly and she is a very good friend of mine. I met Tracy about 30 days into her sobriety and she was an angry young lady. She had 30 days and she asked me how much time I had and I said six months. And she was like, God, I thought you had like two years. So automatically I loved her. And because I was an old timer, all of a sudden. But we definitely from that moment forward have, you know, bonded over life and alcoholism. And she has such an amazing, amazing story and an amazing way to tell her story. She is a beautiful human being that has so much to offer. And I'm really grateful to know her. So here's Tracy. Hey, you guys, I'm Tracy and I am an alcoholic. Hi, Tracy. See, blue chip speaking is quite an honor. I wore blue in honor of that. But the idea that I would have a year or more of sobriety eluded me for an extremely, an extremely long time. What an honor to be here. I love coming here because Tim is always so gracious. And I don't know if it's because I was asked to speak. But all of a sudden I get. Emails from him now that are so full of good stuff from all the literature. And it's a lot of fun. So I'm ridiculously nervous. And so I want to start out with a joke because that just kind of lightens up the room a little bit. Right. So you all have to promise to laugh at the joke. And that was a joke. The I have to let you know ahead of time that there's absolutely nothing or maybe just a little bit. Of what I have to say tonight. That's original. It's all come from you. I heard everything. I've learned every single bit of it from you. Including this joke. So there was a young woman in sobriety and she was working with a sponsor. She was really having a lot of trouble with some of her, her sexual maybe indiscretions in her alcoholism. And so she asked her sponsor. Where can I, I go and read about this in the big book and her sponsor being all knowing. And one of those sponsors that knows all the parts of the black book said, go home and read page 59. And so later that night, the young lady got home very new into sobriety and she sat down with a book and she could not remember for the life of her what page she was told to read. She thought maybe it was 69, but surely. They're not. Going. We're going to talk about sex on page 69. So maybe she just inverted the numbers. And so she turned to page 96 and she read at the top of page 96. And here's what it said. Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You are sure to find someone desperate enough to expect with eagerness what you offer. We find it a waste of time to keep changing. Facing a man who cannot or will not work with you. That is from working with others. And it is our true words, but not in regards to your sexual indiscretions. Thanks for laughing. And after laughter, because we're not a glum lot, there's absolutely nothing glum about me today. But I do need to. to quickly just pray because this is not um my story is not a laughing it's not a laughing matter and when i get up here my ego takes over and i want to look good and i want to sound good and i want to say all the right things and i want to be memorable uh and and that's all ego and i don't i don't deal in ego anymore i mean i try not to it's every day that i have to just turn it over and and and be humbled and remember that this is not about me at all anymore that my story is no longer who i am i turned myself over to the care of a god that i have come to know and love so dearly that i don't have to be my story anymore um so with that it just indulged me for a second and i'm i i don't pray out loud very often and so it comes up kind of funny you can laugh okay i i offer myself right here to you at this moment to do with me as you will please relieve me of the bondage of self so that i can just better do your will and take away all my difficulties any stuttering or repeating of things or nervousness especially vomiting like just i ask that you remove those things you can laugh okay i i offer myself right here to you at this moment to do with me as you will simply so that it's it's a witness to other people in this room and i hear this of the power that you have had in my life the change that has come in my life only because of my relationship with you may i do your will for the next 30 minutes and and for always amen amen okay so um the last time i had a drink was september the 12th and that was uh that was a sip of wine it was really more like a couple of gulps and it was out of this aluminum bottle which was covered in beautiful pink flowers and i carried this bottle everywhere with me for maybe two years and it was constantly filled with alcohol wine most of the time i loved this bottle because it had a pink screw on top so you couldn't smell anything and it definitely was a drink for me and it was a drink for me and it was a drink for me and i took it everywhere with me it held an entire bottle of wine and i filled it up multiple times every day um my last sip out of that bottle was in a hotel room with my mom in the shower who had driven me five hours to a treatment facility in nashville tennessee i'm not from there um i'm here but there was no way i was going to be able to go to a rehab here because somebody might know me and my mom was in the shower and i was in the shower and i was in the shower and i had saved just enough alcohol to drink a little bit before having to go into treatment and i left that bottle in that hotel room and i hope to never see it again i have a sponsor i have an amazing sponsor and she has a sponsor and um so in that i have like grand sponsors and on top of that i have a fellowship of women that are absolutely amazing and if you don't have a sponsor that you love that you talk to on a regular basis you're missing out on a really big part of this program um i have a home group which is awesome it's called the peace of mind group and that's what happens when i go there i get a little peace of mind and we meet on mondays and thursdays at 6 30 and flowery branch which is in between like here and gainesville so if you're ever in between the two and you need to grab a meeting we're a small group and we're we are absolutely not organized it says so in the book that we should not be organized and we have a lot of fun we read right out of the literature we have a big book study on thursday nights and then on saturday mornings at 9 30 we laugh we have an open discussion based on the literature of alcoholics anonymous and we have a blast um the the idea of being part of a home group then puts me into service and i have held a position in the home group and i have held a position in my home group i host a step study with women in my home i most recently have tried to expand my fellowship and include my husband who's not a member of the program and joined a traditions and relationships study with other people that are other couples that are in the program and so i can i try to um do several conventions and retreats and stay in the middle of the bed and that that keeps me sober and sharing my story is a big part of that so thank you for having me i think that throwing all that stuff out there is is great it's good to hear you have to do those things right if you want to be sober and that's what we hear in the rooms all the time but i need you to also understand that i have a god of my experience and that's the thing that keeps me sober today and for the longest time i refer to that god as the god of my understanding and i was at a retreat and i heard a speaker say you know it's not the god of my understanding because i don't understand god it's the god of my experience and i loved that and i adopted it and that's what i know today i know the god that leads me to this meeting with all these women that love me that showed up and drove all this way that's the god of my experience because today for me there are no coincidences in my old life that would have just been happenstance for they would have wanted something or there would be some excuse but today it's the god of my experience that brings me here and is going to have just an amazing story to tell you i have alcoholism from like in the womb i came out alcoholic there's no question in my mind i could not rightly relate to the world and maybe you can understand that but it started off in weird sort of ways so like to this day i can't eat a tomato unless the skin is peeled my sweet husband does that he peels the skin from my tomato and like even as a young girl maybe if you have kids you can relate or maybe you have the same probably socks the toe line of the socks that would really bother me um i did not wear a pair of pants until well into fourth grade i wore a dress everywhere i went to the playground i lived in the north so it would be 30 below and i would be in a dress and i would wear a dress and i would wear a dress and i would wear pants because when you wear pants i don't know if you guys have ever noticed this but when you sit down like the zipper doesn't like it doesn't mold to your body it has like a mind of its own so when you sit down the zipper kind of like it kind of like comes off a little bit and i didn't like that because it made me feel like i had a penis and i didn't want to have a penis so pants gave me a penis and i didn't so my solution was just don't wear pants and if that's not alcoholic uh the starting of alcoholism the solution is to just not wear pants so instead of just saying okay your zipper sticks up a little bit it doesn't mean you have a penis instead it was i'm not going to wear anything except a dress and i don't care if i freeze my ass off the concept of alcoholism taking all these different forms starts there but it continues on i've lived in a world of drink my entire family um they just consume alcohol uh there are three admitted alcoholics in my family one of them is in the program of alcoholics anonymous and has 25 plus years the other one is me and the third one is dead and but all of the rest of my family members drink alcoholically none of them are admitted alcoholics but i surround excuse me i surround my myself with them and all of their drinking my whole life so i didn't know anything else there was no one in my background anywhere i could look that was sober i had no one to say wow you don't need alcohol and my story growing up is one of happiness alcohol was fun it brought out the best in my dad it brought out the best in my mom the whole family would get together and laughter would be all you would hear and drink in hand and that's how it went for me there were no real consequences there was no fighting there was just really happiness and so i just thought that was a very normal way to live life with alcohol the first time i ever recognized that maybe it wasn't quite normal i remember being in third grade and my dad moved us around a lot he wasn't military but he was climbing the corporate ladder and so i was born in pennsylvania we moved to texas packed pennsylvania to georgia back to pennsylvania to ohio back to pennsylvania so having friends was was difficult and i had one girl who was able to come spend the night and i remember on a friday night being outside playing and having a good time my parents next door doing what they do friday night they're drinking cocktails with the neighbors on the patio and out of nowhere this mom comes screaming across the yard and yelling at my parents how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how do you do that how dare you take care of my daughter in this condition and she picked up her daughter and threw her over her shoulder and put her in the car and they took off and that child was not allowed to see me ever again and i remember pointing at them and being like that's weird you're strange what's going that's not drinking is fine and that's how i rolled really all the way through my 39 years of alcoholism was just like pointing at you if you didn't drink and wondering what the hell was wrong with you so my alcoholism is always twisting and turning and taking these different sort of pathways and and i'm not thinking anything of it i'm in love with my aunt who is admitted alcoholic and dead and i love her i completely relate to her she's fun she's exciting gregarious outgoing she lived in fort lauderdale um she was a lesbian there are all these parties and women everywhere and she had money and life was great and i remember thinking about her and i remember thinking about her and the real short of her story is that i watched her go from this really fun and exciting woman with tons of friends and lots of money and lots of life to her funeral where there were literally four of us standing at the graveside at the age of 56 it stripped her of everything and i watched her go down the whole time and that to me to this day is one key piece of my sobriety because she showed me she showed me the ultimate gift in this program she showed me what happens if i drink and i love that and i'm so grateful to her for that as the the drinking i remember my first drunk at 13 uh definitely did the whole drink to get drunk thing and knew i was going to do it forever and and that's just how it went down i had some consequences when i was in high school i was good i was the manipulator good at lying you know how it goes at one point i remember getting pulled over for alcohol underage and i just flat out lied about who i was we just moved there so i gave the name of this friend of mine in texas and um everyone else got in big trouble but i had given this fake name and they couldn't find me in the records and so as i laughed they all lose their license and ha ha ha about six months later you know my mistake was that i gave an actual name and an actual address because i you know knew the girl so i think i'm knocking on my door so i'm in front of a judge at 17 for lying about my identity and um so there were little consequences like that along the way off to college i go because i need you guys far away from my parents as possible i'm an independent woman i can do it on my own come down to the university of georgia and i drink and i discover another form of alcoholism and for me that was bulimia i i began to binge and purge when i wasn't drinking and in a strange sort of way it seemed sort of like i'm not in myself i'm hovering sort of out there and that was my life and for a very long time was was binging and purging drinking binging and purging drinking and when i say bulimia it wasn't like you know once a week once it was three four times a day and then drinking on top of that you know almost every day i still wonder i look back and it's only in looking back because when i was in all of that was completely normal absolutely nothing wrong with it but i look back and i wonder how in hell i got anything done because in the midst of all of that i was getting a degree in psychology i was specializing in addiction because my aunt was an alcoholic and she was going to die and i met a guy and i got married and i had kids and all this is going on and i'm active bulimic and an active alcoholic and i'm not seeing any other thinking it's completely and totally normal to have my six-month-old daughter in the car and have a four-pack of wine in the glove compartment so that after i'm done teaching her the day i can have a couple of drinks before i have to pick up this wine kit completely normal as this progresses and the drinking just continues now i'm having a good time you know we're bonfire in the backyard we're the neighborhood to be at like everybody's hanging out with us the kids are all having a blast they're growing up around the exact same thing i'm growing up around i can remember when i was trying to get sober one of many times and i read somewhere that um alcoholism runs in the family but recovery can too recovery can run in the family and i hold on to that because my daughter and my son need somebody to look at and say you can live life without alcohol because still in my family i'm the only one i'm the only person who doesn't drink almost every single day and that's only because of the grace of god oh wow the um the alcoholism just continues we're drinking all the time my husband and i are now beginning to fight a lot because it's just constant alcohol and i can remember this one quick story is uh this is a bad one uh we had a fight in the morning and he's gonna head down to uh atlanta to go to a music festival and that pisses me off because then i'm stuck at home alone with the kids and so i set in my mind to get a babysitter and i'm gonna head out with my friends but that's really gonna suck because i'm gonna have to drive myself i was always really quick to say not driving somebody else can just take that but this time i had to count the drinks and this is all in hindsight count the drinks make sure i stopped an hour before when i couldn't drink i was just gonna smoke some pot i get home and my husband's not there yet so i let my babysitter go she lived across the street cute little 13 year 13 year old girl and i get home thank god i'm home because now i can really have a nice glass of wine sit down with my nice glass of wine i'm all ready to have my cigarette my wine i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go i'm all ready to go and it's my husband and he tells me that he is been in a horrible car accident is upside down on 985 and can i please help him and then the phone goes dead so what do you do i call the babysitter can you come back over i jump in the car no i've only had a few drinks i jump in the car and i head southbound on 985 the accident was in between two exits so i get to see the accident as i'm headed southbound as he was headed north and it's bad the car is completely upside down smashed in his stuff is everywhere golf clubs phones everything scattered all over the road i have to get off the exit turn around and i come pulling up behind the accident and he's in the ambulance and the ambulance is pulling out so i jump out of the car and i run over to the state trooper and i'm like oh my god why is my height things and the officer says ma'am have you been drinking how many ages can you say to a state trooper when alcohol's on your breath he puts me in the back of the car and i'm dumbfounded like this isn't this is this doesn't happen to me i don't get duis i this is unheard of and my 13 year old babysitter is at home with my two kids and my husband's dying in the hospital because i saw the car and i'm absolutely sure that he's not alive right now and they're going to take me to jail and they don't care and i'm saying nothing and he's so sad and i'm like oh my god i'm so sad and i'm like oh my god i'm so sad and i'm busy trying to get me to talk and say something that he doesn't pursue my husband up to the hospital so he gets up michael gets up there and immediately refuses all care jumps in the cab and gets home so i took his ui uh talk about some resentment so it was at that point that um he decided maybe this is enough and he slows down on his drinking and mine just skyrocket because now you're an asshole sorry and i'm taking your dui i can't believe i've got a dui i'm gonna lose my job my career everything i've ever worked for everything's going to hell in a handbasket and this is terrible i can remember the lawyer that i had telling me why don't you just go out and do something for someone else i had no idea what that meant at the time and i'm like who are you to tell me to go do something for someone else because i was calling her continuously like have you heard anything what's going on because i was certain that the story in and of itself was going to get me off the hook right i mean you get in the car it goes to your husband who's upside down on the middle 95 so they end up reducing it but nonetheless i go to the dui school i don't have a problem denial is so thick the wall of denial is so thick and so tall that as i sit in the dui class there's wine in my car and at lunch break i go out and drink the wine the woman who was teaching the class had to take my cell phone from me twice and i'm not thinking a thing about any of it so from there the marriage gets really rocky and we're headed for divorce and i'm drinking all the time and i realize i need to stop so i start doing all those things that we do all right so i'm going to get in shape because i'm putting on too much weight i'm gonna i'm gonna run a half marathon that's a great goal to have so i'll quit drinking for that and so i was i was okay when i had kids i could quit drinking when i could need to get in shape i could stop but it got to the point where new year's eve would roll around and i would be sure okay i'm gonna give it up and then i would remember that the super bowl comes after new year's and then after that's my birthday and then there's valentine's day and then then i'll stop but then there's st patrick's day and that one's really hard and easter who doesn't have wine on easter and then there's spring break and then there's new year's eve and then there's new year's eve break gotta drink on spring break and so i'll stop after that and but then there's summer and i'm a school teacher so you got to be at the lake and on the beach and at the pool and you have to be drinking and there was always something you know there's halloween and then there's thanksgiving and it would just it went like that for two years for me non-stop drinking an excuse to not stop and finally when i had said okay this is enough i have to get sober i lied to my parents and asked them to please take my children to our family reunion i was not able to attend because i needed to be with my husband complete lie but i knew i could not get sober with my children in the house parenting without alcohol like who does that that's impossible so she takes the kids and my husband leaves town and i curl myself up on the couch and i almost died i was consuming so much alcohol and other substances that i laid in the future and i was like i'm gonna die fetal position on my couch and watched Nurse Jackie, like every episode of Nurse Jackie, for four days, almost died, curled up in the fetal position, shaking, not having any idea that I was going through that massive withdrawal. Cannot believe that I'm getting through it. Finally kind of break through the sweat and can get off the sofa, can stomach some food, and I begin to hover on a line, AA online. And I remember thinking that people being first name and last initial, like so dumb. Like if I'm going to chime in here, because all I did was hover, but if I'm going to chime in, I'm certainly going to have some like fun name, like drinking and driving girl, or something that's more like Tracy K. All these people are duh, duh. So I hover there for a little bit, and my parents bring my children back to me, and I stay sober. I stay sober for three weeks. And it was the end of summer. And you have to celebrate the end of summer with just one drink. That's it. I'm just going to have just this one day of drinking. But that one day happened to consist of me being in charge of four children, driving them to Helen, tubing down the river, drinking the whole way, drinking on the road with the kids in the back all the way home, then getting more alcohol, like burning myself trying to cook them a frozen Tony's pizza. Just ugly, ugly alcoholism. And that was it. After that, I couldn't stop. I couldn't not drink. And that scared me to death. I really tried. I would wake up in the morning, and I would say in the shower, I'm not going to drink today. And the next thing I knew, I was kicking everybody out of the house to take my pink flower bottle and pour a whole thing of wine in it and stash the bottle somewhere, put the pink top on it, and take it to school with me. At this point, I'm shaking so bad when I'm trying to write on the board that it has to be apparent to the students that I teach that something is wrong with me. And then the gall, the nerve, the self-centeredness that I'm bringing the alcohol into the school building, to my desk, and sitting it there and drinking it in between class changes. Who does that? Sweet little 13 and 14-year-old kids. Their parents have played. They've placed me in charge of them. At that point, I begin to, like, this is not good, Tracy. You're out of control. And I'm a pretty strong-willed individual. So I just decide that I'm just going to get through this school year drinking like this. And it just escalates. I've got the nerve to take the bottle to the lunchroom. I've got it sitting next to me in the lunchroom, opening it up, hoping nobody. Smelling it. Still can't believe nobody can smell it. No one says a word to me. The irony is that very shortly after this, I go to rehab and I come back and I'm teacher of the year. Swear. And just that concept in and of itself. So here's what sent me over the edge, was that I teach gifted kids, really smart, brilliant, amazing kids that are way smarter than me. And one of them happened to be the superintendent's kid. And he was in a terrible hunting accident on Labor Day. And his cousin had shot his leg and he was facing amputation. And I knew I had to go to the hospital and I had to pay my respects and see the young man and his family. And his dad was the superintendent. So I have to not drink because I'm going to be in this small little hospital room with the superintendent of schools. I can't drink all day. I have to go in there sober. And that was the hardest thing. I have ever done in my life. And I walk into that hospital room and there's this young boy sitting there facing whether or not he's going to cut off his leg. And I'm worried about getting back to my car so I can get alcohol. So the next day I made some phone calls, found a treatment facility. And when I finally admitted the truth, I fell apart. I have no idea how I held it together. But once I finally let go, I looked like shit. Every single piece of me fell apart. Having to confess to my husband all the alcohol, where I was hiding it, what I was doing, all of the other substances that were going on. And then off to rehab I go. And I come back and now I'm being held accountable because I chose to not go the insurance route. But we decided to come out of pocket because I couldn't. My ego couldn't let anyone who could never be on record that I went to rehab. So we paid for it out of pocket. And everybody's pretty pissed at me at this point, right? So I've stolen all their pills. I drank all their liquor. I've lied to them bold-faced. Like, that's not a good feeling to be lied to the way that I lied to my family. So I'm doing 90 meetings in 90 days. And here's what happens to me. These women in the front row, they scoop me up. And they hold on so tightly to me that I try to run almost every single day. I come in pissed off, upset, yelling at you. You're dumb. You're stupid. This is a cult. I hate it. There is no God. This is dumb. I don't even want to be here. And they never let me go. Not for one second. I can remember thinking how selfish of them because in the rooms I would always hear that we sponsor because it keeps us sober. I don't sponsor women so that I can get them sober. I sponsor. So that I can stay sober. I was like, they're just trying to stay sober. All they care about is themselves. I was not happy at all. And so I set off on a mission to prove that this program did not work. By God, I was going to do everything that was suggested and then some. And then I was going to go back out and I was going to drink like a normal person. And I was going to write a big article about how AA doesn't work. And what happened in the meantime was sobriety. What happened in the meantime is that I found a God of my experience. What happened in the meantime is that I developed a fellowship that was way more than alcohol. It's still hard for me. I struggle. But I heard early on that we all struggle. Any alcoholic struggles. But it's that struggle that creates the perspective. That only. An alcoholic can have. And I love that I know that perspective today. That I can see it. I can see my God stringing little pieces together. And I'm not sure where they're going to end. I used to have to know. I used to have to figure it out. But today I can just let it go. And just see what happens. Because I trust today. I trust. I don't trust a human being. I trust this God that continues to show me that I can stay sober. One day at a time. And it's the most amazing program in the world. I love that God is changing me. You know, the person that is standing up here today is not at all the person that walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am completely and totally like 180 degree, maybe 360, but like not because it's so much. But it's not right back where I started. It's unbelievable what this program has done for me. And it's because I do what I'm told. I do the things that are suggested. And I don't say no. I think I said no once. And then I felt so bad about that that I had to go make amends. So the idea that I can be still today is super hard. I'm just coming off a spring break, right? That was party week. And my husband was ill, very ill for like seven days in the bed. And I was making living amends. Because I was there. And I was there. I was present. That would be the best reason to just run out and drink. Because he's all in the bed. You're gross and sick. I don't want to be around. But I was present. And I was in the home. And I was there. Now, he needed very little, which created quite a bit of boredom for me. And as an alcoholic, I get bored very easily. So that meditation piece has been huge for me. I love working in 11 because it helps me to be able to be still and not feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. But then what's cool is that every single day that I wake up, I am bombarded, like literally bombarded with 50 texts from all of the women in the fellowship. And I love that. And I used to need that manipulative sort of conversation with people, the gossiping piece, the what kind of trouble can we get in. That used to be what fulfilled me. And today, it's stuff like people sending me the word, honest, courage. Humility. God's will. And if that's not transformation, then I don't know what is. I am so incredibly grateful to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The fact that I'm sober today, I know makes my aunt so incredibly proud that she was the most special person. And this disease stripped her of her dignity. She was so special. And this disease stripped her of her dignity and her life. And to stand here at a blue-chip speaker meeting and have a year more under my belt is an absolute miracle. But it is not a coincidence. One of my grant sponsors made me memorize the foreword. Glad she's not here. To the 12 and 12. And it says that the 12 steps are a group of principles spiritual in their nature if when practiced can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happy and usefully whole. Usefully whole. Like I came into this program full of holes. And I plugged them with cork bottles. Just plugging them all the time. Holes everywhere. H-O-L-E. Holes everywhere. All over everywhere. And I found a holy God. H-O-L-Y. And He filled those holes. And now I get to put a W on the front of it and tell you that I'm whole. I'm W-H-O-L-E. And that is the truth. And I'm a holy woman. I'm a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. I am a holy woman. so I needed this meeting so badly and this meeting doesn't happen if you don't show up so I'm incredibly grateful thank you guys wow that was great, thank you so much for being here Tracey was that Sonia that you got to shoot? was that your sonia? y'all make it easy, they're right here I'm Sonia, I'm a grateful alcoholic where I hang out with Tracey that was amazing and I just want you to know Twyla is smiling right now thank you for that here at the NAVA we have a chip system that marks your time in sobriety the white chip is the international chip of surrender it's when you're done or you want to think of a white chip join our way of life or you've gone back out the Abbey story anybody need a white chip? oh okie doke how about this really pretty silver 30 day chip? 30 days anyone? 90 days? I'm going to have a resentment if somebody don't pick the chip how about sunshiny yellow for 6 months? ok and the pregnancy chip in AA the 9 month chip, anybody? ok and then we have a blue chip I believe there's going to be a blue chip tonight anyone? hey I'm Lisa I'm an alcoholic 4 years I just listen to other people I don't do anything just like what Tracey said I follow the suggestions handed down to me God does everything it's divine intervention from the beginning to where I am right now God working through me through you thank you congratulations Lisa thank you guys for the white chip alright well thank all of your sponsors for the chips you wrote thank you so much I didn't realize Helen Mirren was here Mirren is good thank you everyone thank you all for joining the blue chips that you did tonight