Took Direction From a Higher Power Instead of My Own Plans and the Anger Just Evaporated – Kelly T.

Y'all ready to have a meeting? Let's have an AA meeting. My name is Melissa, and I am an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday 8 p.m. Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal story describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way that they establish their relationship with God. This gives 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 group tonight and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org will hear our speaker. And we believe that this is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems. That any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too. I must have this thing. Tonight's speaker is Kelly T., and she is from the Gainesville Morning Miracles Women's Group. I'm going to start with cracking one open. It's a LaCroix. If you don't have a replacement drink yet, you should find one. I recommend LaCroix. I love them. I'm going to take a deep breath. Thank you for having me. I'm Kelly. I'm an alcoholic. And I just want to start off with a prayer. I'm going to say the third step prayer. Offer myself to thee, to build with me, and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, so that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I do thy will. I'm nervous now that I've stood up here. I'm never nervous in the car, but now it just happens. Once I'm in front of everybody. I want to go ahead and just say that when I'm speaking, a lot of times I will stare off into the distance where there's nothing there. I'm not seeing ghosts or anything, but I tend to lose my train of thought a lot of times when I make eye contact with people. Maybe that won't happen tonight, but I have to say that because it makes me feel more comfortable. But like I said, I'm Kelly. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is March 15th of 2017. I have a sponsor. I sponsor other women. I've been very lucky and blessed to have had the experience of being sponsored by the same woman of my entire sobriety, and that has been such a huge blessing. Everyone's experience is different, but God, we've just grown such a deep relationship, and that relationship has been the most spiritual, special relationship that I've had. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for having me. I also want to thank the two women that are here that came to support me today. My rider dies in the second row there. I also wouldn't be sober today if it weren't for the women in my life that have been there through thick and thin. But yeah, I'm here to talk about what happened, what it was like, and what it's like now. I'm not going to waste too much. A lot. That's about all. That's about all I can say. I could get really nitty-gritty and kind of describe some things about, you know, but really, I had a really good, like, younger years childhood. It was kind of magical. I always felt like in my head I wanted to kind of, like, just see my neighborhood and just, like, see the world. And so I kind of always had that, like, thing to get away type of. Sometimes I feel like I want to jump out. I want to jump out of my skin and just, like, fly. Like, I just, I was very kind of spiritual at a young age in a way. As long as I can remember, I was to God. And I think that came from this is neither here nor there, but for me. And so I just kind of from a young age had this idea of, and so I, but like I said, everything felt pretty, pretty good growing up. Georgia, when I was, that's kind of when I, that I wasn't good enough that, you know, all the kids figured out. I was in my awkward phase and as far as neighborhood and school. And I just, I think from that point, I learned that I had to pretend to be somebody else. And I had to pretend, yeah, I just had to pretend to be interested in things I wasn't interested in, okay with things that I wasn't okay with. Because a lot of what I experienced at the school that I went to was, yeah, it was hated it. I hated it. I came from a diverse community, diverse friends. And just, I think that, that plant implanted some anger in me. But I always had this idea in my mind. I wasn't brought up religiously. I always had this idea in my mind or intuitively that I didn't want to, I didn't want to drink. And it was connected to God. It was like, it's not that I thought it was bad. I just, something. I, to this day, don't. I don't understand why. I guess it was, yeah, I guess it was just this spiritual kind of like nudge when everybody else was drinking and doing things. I felt very like repelled about it, like scared of it. But, you know, eventually I gave in to that. And at the age of 14, which that sounds young still, right? But everyone else had been drinking and partying for a while. But I had my first drink. And leading up into that, what had started happening. Before I had that first drink was that when I, my ugly, I hate that term, but like my awkward stage started ending and my outside looked, you know, good enough for the popular girls, good enough for the popular guys. And I'm getting suddenly all this attention. It's like I became obsessed with that. You know, it's just like I have to look and act a certain way in order to get love and approval. And these people that didn't used to look at me or talk to me. Are you? Are now giving me attention, you know? And so it just, there was a deep insecurity there. And I just felt like I had to be perfect all the time around friends, around guys. And one night at my boyfriend's house, I used to feel so uptight around him. Like I had to be perfect. And I just decided I'm having a drink tonight. And once I had that drink, it was like my whole body felt warm. I felt happy. Like released from all care and worry. And, you know, I progression of the disease for me was long and slow. So just long and slow enough to like boil in the frog, right? Like it was enough to over the years, always keep me thinking that I didn't really have a problem. Um, I ended up going to college and declared my major to be, well, first I was going to do whatever. My dad thought was a good idea. And then I just couldn't do it. Um, I did get diagnosed with ADHD in high school and had gotten on Adderall. The terrible reaction to that, as well as every other medication that they told me to try, um, made me feel emotional, made me feel suicidal. Um, but it also made me not want to eat, which was great, you know, because that helped me look better for everybody. So I continued that into like, I think my second year. First year of college, started abusing it, started partying a lot. And to this day, I probably drank more my freshman year that I haven't in any other point in my life. Um, and yet I don't think I was powerless over it at that point. I was literally making the choice to drink that much. Um, I did end up graduating within like five years to get an art degree, which I did art my entire life. So I've always painted. Um, that is what I do today. I own, um, like it's connected to what I do today. Today, I'm grateful and, and blessed to own, um, a paint party business where I, where I teach art and I love that. And that's only because of my higher power. Like I would never be able to do any of the things that I do. I'm going to take my shoes off. I'm going to slow down. I would never be able to do any of the things or have any of the things that I have in my life today if it weren't for this foundation of these 12 steps. Um, if it weren't for a loving God that loves me so much and brought me into these rooms at the right time, you know, I want to say that I believe down in my core, believe in God's timing and like we can't compare any timing in our own lives or how like higher powers work in our own lives to anybody else's because it's exactly the way it's supposed to be. Um, so yeah. I want to kind of skim over a lot of, as much as I can of, I'm 36 years old y'all so this could go on for a minute if I give the timeline all the way up till I get sober. But, um, you know, I, I've made it out with school. Like I didn't perform or get the grades that I wish I would have gotten, but I'm proud that I graduated. I did good in my final presentation. Um, uh, my major was painting, was painting. I'm a painter. I'm a visual artist. And I married those two things together, painting and art mainly, but I see my whole person, apism and, and getting lost in this other world as an abstract artist, surreal artist, like trying to kind of like reflect what's in my mind, you know? And I, and I had, um, idea of like, I hear that from a lot of people in recovery that are creative is this just kind of like, you're kind of on this like downward spiral and you're going to have to do this and you're going to have to do this and you're going to have to do this and you're going to have to do this and you're going to have to do this and you don't really care. There's something romantic in the mess of it all. And, and that's, that was my identity. Very much so. Um, and the more that I drank, you know, I'm not going to say there weren't good times. There were good times for sure. I had a lot of fun, but I've heard it say there's, you know, people say there's three stages of drinking, alcoholism, whatever, fun and problems, uh, or sorry, fun, fun and problems. And then just problems. Right. And then those problems. And for me, I know that that's where I was headed. And I know if I pick up again, that that's, that's where it will leave me, um, or even worse hurting or taking the life of somebody else. Alcoholism took all that beauty and all that light that was in me. And it just slowly started destroying me from the inside out. It made me think that, that the disease that was taking me over was me, was my identity. And it wasn't, you know, I'm, I was just sick, left untreated. I am sick. I have to work a program. I have to talk to a lot of people. I have to do a lot of things in order to maintain my, my spiritual, my spiritual health, you know, and my sobriety. And I don't make any apologies for that. You know, I definitely have had people in my life that are like, you're going to another meeting or, or, you know, or, or have fear of judgment about how much it takes for me to, to really feel good, you know, but, um, everyone's different, you know, everyone's different. Everyone has their own program of recovery. And like, for me, I have to be like, I love alcoholics so deeply, guys. I love you guys so much because you have been where I've been. You have that same hole inside of you that you were pouring things into. And it's just so painful to like, give that up, give up all the trying and the reaching for everything else. But when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was 29 years old. Um, at that point, lots of bad things had happened, um, as a result of my drinking and broken. And I'd had lots of bottoms leading up into that point. Never had been to a rehab, never had been arrested, never even had my family tell me that I was an alcoholic. They just said, you need to chill out with the drinking or you're so, you know, you're such a great person when you're not drinking. And I could give, I could stand here and give so many examples where everything inside of me wanted to not take that drink. Everything inside of me. I had every reason not to take that drink. That was the plan. And you guys know that just goes on day after day after day. That can go on for years until you die. That will go on years until I die if I pick up a drink again and I don't make it back into these rooms. Um. You know, I, I remember like the point of me realizing my powerlessness was a few years before I made it to my first meeting and it was like a really subtle sensation of realizing like that this thing kind of had me. Um, but I still didn't put two and two together that I was an alcoholic. So, um, the drinking really just kind of, I, I always, as an alcoholic, unfortunately or fortunately, I really just care about how I feel now. Okay. That's what I care about the most. Like I want to feel good now, whatever it is, I want that instant gratification. I think that's in kind of embedded in all of us, right? I just have different tools today for what that looks like to feel good now. And it doesn't involve a drink or a drug. So I came in the rooms when I was 29. I've said this a million times. Let me get to the point. Um, slow down. I, I just, I love when people can just be hard for me. Um, for school, I basically lived with my mom for a little while, my brother for a little while, went to Atlanta for a little while, got evicted from an apartment in Atlanta, came back home, found the same people, you know, found the same playground. Um, I got into playing free roll poker as when he was at it, I got addicted to free roll, free roll poker, because it always makes me think about the part of the book where they talk about him. Um, caroming, if that's the word around in the golf course, you know, with the tan of the well to do, like, cause it's acceptable to drink, right? It's acceptable to drink and golf, to be in the service industry and drink. Um, and for me, like, that was just one more stop for me. It was like, oh, I can drink during the day and do this. Um, and I had an art studio, um, in Buford. It was at, uh, Tannery Row, Artist Colony, and I had had it for years and throughout the years. I had, you know, participated in art shows and, you know, had some, like, accomplished some, some cool things. Um, and I would often feel like when something good happened, I felt like it was a co-sign for me to keep drinking. And then whenever, whenever anything bad happened, I felt like I was being punished for it. But on the day of my last kind of resentment, I remember it was the morning time and I drank a little bit of, just a little, little bit of liquor. It was probably, like, that's what I would do. I'd say I was going to paint, go to the studio, stand in front of my painting, and I couldn't be in there without alcohol. And then I couldn't be in there without alcohol and something else. And I would try to make myself do my work, and I could not. I had to have something. And then once I had something, then I painted for a little while, then I had to go to the bar next door. I absolutely had to. Every day, it didn't matter what I said. Um, so I went over to the, you know, poker, poker place. And, um. And, I mean, these are people that, like, there's nothing wrong with them, right? But they're, like, retired and stuff. Like, that's why they're playing poker, most of them. Some of them were like me. But, um, you know, I was, like, one of the younger ones in there. And I had a, somebody bought me, like, a beer or two. And I really don't know if it's that my tolerance had changed, because that had been happening. But I ended up blacking out at some point after not many drinks. Um, I don't know if somebody put something in my drink. Or what. Thank God I woke up. I woke up at my mom's house. I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know where my car was. Um, my dog had been with me. And she was not with me anymore. And, um, I lost it. I was just like, I want, like, God, I just want to die. Mom came over and drove me back to the studio. And I'm just praying the whole time that she's there. Because I didn't remember a thing. Um, and she ended up being there. And then on the way, um. And she's, because I was with other people. I put a huge ladder up. My dog's barking in her cage. And, yeah, I had just mentioned something to me. Like, of course, it was, like, the worst. I felt terrible. But it's also that whole, well, got away with it again. You know, there's that, there's that level on our brain where we're like, got away with it again. Um, it's not that big of a deal. She was like, Kelly, why don't you just put something in me new? Like, I just need to, it's like something to talk about the skills of me. And I just felt is not what. It's so simple. And it's so much more. More complex than anybody. It's the obsession. It's the allergy. It's the spiritual malady. Once I learned meeting, I ended up getting 12 steps by my sponsor. Meeting, but I went out for sober. And I had before I got out of the, you know, to text them when I dumped out. Because I felt just an energy of safety, you know. And it's that, it's that. I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy. I wasn't like, oh, people are laughing here. I probably didn't even notice that. But it's that, like, joining your tribe for the first time. And you don't even know that they're your tribe yet. By the grace of God, from that day forward, I actually met her once a week. And we did step work in the book. And I learned about what alcohol is. Like, so many lines hitting me in the gut. And just feeling like, man, I never read anything that hit me in the gut like this. You know, reading from the big book. Describing my pain. Describing my problems. The way that I think. The way that I interact. You know, feeling like everyone's, feeling like things are great. And then it's this wall all the time. And so it wasn't just the way it described the drinking. It was the feelings that really, that really kind of took my attention. Something in my brain was like, okay, like, I kept hearing the problem. It all sounded terrible to me. Like, I couldn't live with it. Couldn't live without it. But I thought, but the reason it sounded terrible is because I felt so terrible when I wasn't drinking. You know, it just felt awful when I wasn't drinking. But to learn what the obsession was. And to learn that. That can go away if I work these. And I wanted to believe that. And I have reason to believe that because of everybody in the rooms. They looked happier than normal people in a lot of ways. And like a lot of other people in my life that weren't alcoholics. Yeah, I started working the steps. And just not how, not surface level stuff. Like calling them up. Hey, one conversation. The next time I'm calling them it's because I want to drink. And I need you to talk me through this because I want to drink. My. Somebody. Suggested. I don't think it was my sponsor. Because I did believe in a higher power to believe in God. To get on my knees every morning and night. And ask God to keep me sober. And thank him at night. And it's like looking back on the first year of sobriety. Like I did that night. But like, and God. You explain it until you start doing it. And I think that, you know, everyone in here who has worked the steps knows that it's just like. It's just kind of makes life feel like. Hard things still happen, right? But when you hold on. And you trust. Almost feels like magic unfolding. If you can see that like. Oh my God. God put, you know, this person here at this time. And they put this person here at this time. And I literally just said this prayer. And then I turn around. And this happened. And it just. You start forming this like active spiritual life that becomes more. Way a thousand fold more time. Interesting instruction that you were living before. You know. And that's what started happening. For me, and I had promised myself after working the steps, if I wasn't happier, I didn't feel the promises that I would drink. They say acceptance is the answer to all our problems and that we have to know we can never drink again. But like, I didn't accept that right away. I just accepted that I'm going to work these 12 steps. That's all I was going to promise. I'm like, I'm going to finish this. And I'm so glad that I did that. I'm so glad I wasn't like, well, I'm just going to go to like 90 meetings. Like, no, the solution is the steps. You guys are telling me that. That's how I get the happiness. So I'm going to do the steps and find out. And I'm so grateful I did. And through that, through the working of the 12 steps, which I still have to work today, all the relationships in my family, like especially with my father, was so incredibly broken. I had not talked to him for two years. I was filled with an anger and a pain that I cannot even put into words. And I thought this man owed me such intelligence. And I like even thinking that he was the one of men that I was like scared to make. I was scared if I made amends to him, I might drink again. Forgiveness meditation before I before I did that the next day. And when I tell you that, like, I made that amend, just evaporate. But he didn't change or apologize or own things that I needed him to own. And it didn't matter because I cleared my side of the street and I got my relationship. With my father back. I got my dad back. But I do think that when we live this way of life to like the people around us to change, that's not the aim. That's not the motive. But it does happen. And it's incredibly beautiful. I think I got about 10 more. I just want to share with you all like I'm a little bit scattered right now. I went through something. God's like talking about God's timing. Whenever I get asked to tell my story. Not every time, but sometimes it's like right off the cuff of something really difficult. This is right off the cuff of like a really difficult situation that I went through. I found myself in another country and to go see my partner and after not seeing him for a month and a half and the relationship just kind of like fell apart when I got there and I couldn't come back. And we were there. I was told to be in a place where like I didn't know the language. I couldn't leave. You know, it was mutual. It was a mutual thing. But it was like it felt like it was out of our control. It just happened. It was supposed to be like one of the most beautiful trips ever that I was looking forward to. And instead it was just like it was just heartbreak. Just brutal heartbreak that I couldn't escape from. You think about a drink. 15 days. And we did not yell. We did not disrespect each other. We did not fight. We were calm. You know, I mean, I was crying for sure for me. At least I'll speak for myself. And it was like I just thought I can't bear this. I can't bear this. I can't face this. I can't sit in this. I can't wake up and keep feeling this way. But I just I bought books, found the English bookstore and I read books. I read this Buddhism book and just breathe. And I prayed and God started. God was letting me know that he was with me the whole time. And I made it back. You know, we both made it back in one piece. And like that's a miracle. That is a miracle. I did not think about drinking when I was there. Because the pain was great enough that I felt like it wouldn't be crazy if I had thought of that. The day that it happened, I asked my sponsor if she would do step work. So at 1 in the morning, my time, I was doing step work with her. And we get help. It's just so beautiful. I don't do this thing perfectly by any means. But I think the most important thing is that we're always being honest with somebody. You know, preferably our sponsor. Now I'm like probably overly honest with all the women in my network. But I have to get out the truth on a regular basis. No matter how messed up or sick or twisted my thoughts might be, I have to have somebody that I can share that with. You know? Because we're all beautiful. But we're all also sick. You know? We all have to like share what it is that's on our minds. Because this thing can happen where there's like these shoulds of like, I'm a year sober. I should feel this way. I should look this way. I should know. The alcoholics that I respect the most are the ones that sit in the chair after a lot of times sober. And they share their pain. And they share how they're getting through it. Pain doesn't go away. It gets compounded. It's just enormous in active addiction. In sobriety, in recovery, I am like, I have so much peace. I have so much peace. I know I'm talking about like some harder, darker stuff. But like I trust God. Like my higher power always works it out. And it's always better on the other side. And I'm always better on the other side. And the reason I'm better on the other side is to help somebody else. And then it's even, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. One of my favorite things is Sandy B.. He says, if the program could be summed up in two words, it would have to let go. I have to take my hands off the wheel and trust and love that I have relationships with all of these people that all have a different concept of a higher power. And I see that higher power working in their life. And it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter what it looks through them. You know, so again, don't let the God word deter you because it doesn't matter. My sponsor does not have the same spiritual beliefs as I do. They're similar, but God shining through. It's never stood in the way. It's only actually expanded, you know, my, because I was in the debating game for a long time, for years into sobriety. This is wrong or is this right? And I just couldn't give up the freaking debate. And I get my feathers ruffled. All of this stuff. But my experience is that, that my God is loving and my God loves to be. And no, there's none. Higher power is not mad. If I read a Buddhism book or I'm like interested in Hinduism or I'm, you know, doing this or that. And like that took a while to shed too. It's like I have to seek in all these different ways. Seek in all these different ways. This thing gets deeper. I feel like I'm not saying I've been sober forever, but it gets deeper as time goes on. And I'm doing, I'm still doing like healing. I'm still doing like healing stuff. They say it's like an onion, right? And you might get a little frustrated when you realize like, you know, the pink cloud wears off. And it's like, oh, there's this other layer to work through. But it's really beautiful because like I was given the chance to literally like reach my highest potential that my higher power wants me to be. Not who anybody else wants me to be, but who my, who my God wants me to be. And that's all that I want. That's, that's like when I hung. You know, hung up my hat with the drinking and signed up for the, for the 12 steps. I'm like my, my plans are over with. Like I take direction from my employer. And I don't always know what those directions are. Some people I think get those directions quicker. They, they know them, you know, and they're like, oh, I got the next 10 years planned out. That's not really how it's, that's not been my experience. But I have a deep trust. And I've had a beautiful, beautiful life. I hope that if you're here for the first time or it doesn't matter. I don't care what time, how many days or whatever. But, you know, I think this thing is about inches and seconds. And it's just about like Mel Robbins talks about this. She's not AA, but she talks about you have the inclination to do something in like five seconds. And if you don't get up, like it might be to go to dance at a wedding. You feel like dancing. And if that five second passes, you're not going to do it. Or to say any, to ask someone to be your sponsor. To ask somebody out. Whatever it is. It's like that courage can fade. I pray that you move in those inches and seconds that feel like they've been instilled in you by that small voice. Telling you to fight for life. And telling you to, that you're worth it. Because you are. And you don't even know the person that you, you know, are going to be. The best I could say is like all were before everything got to us. Like that's who we are. That's who each and every person in this room is. And we can get back to it. And we can help other people to get back to it. And we can live a really, really beautiful life. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't give up this life for anything. For anything. So, thank you for my sobriety. And thank you for letting me speak tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. That was very inspirational. I can relate a lot to that. Thank you. My pain. Or the feelings. Like a winter rain. With a drink. Or an angry word. Deep inside. It won't be my friend. That I can't explain. Life's too blue. Like a road. I stumble and fall.