What Happened to You as a Child Never Changes — You Just Learn to Live With It Sober – Creta T.

Take me where the promised land is. My name is Gary Neidhart, and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. Yeah, I just note there's some faces here that are really familiar to me. I haven't seen them inside the perimeter all that terribly often, but, you know, the Gwinnett room we've got, we've got the solution here, and now a meeting I'm not familiar with, keep it simple. And I will say that, you know, it's a special opportunity for me to hear Credo one more time. I think she might have told her story, I don't know, it was five, seven years ago at the solution. I think I heard you do that. And. When we needed a speaker, I know that you were the first one to come to mind. Hi, I'm Susan, and I'm an alcoholic. And this is a reading based on the 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. These 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 aabloochipspeaker.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 able to hear our speaker. And we do not, at all, not at all show our support for any of you. Yes. And we believe that any of you, at all times, shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too. I must have this thing. And tonight, it's an honor to introduce our speaker. And Creda is not only my friend, but she is also my grand sponsor. So I met Creda a little over eight years ago. And she has spent a lot of good quality time with me. And she has taken me and many other women through the steps in the big book. And I've gone on retreats with her, AA retreats, prepaids, and a lot of really fun vacations. So I know that when she got here, based on what my sponsor told me, she's not as sweet as she is today. And with that, she was not as sweet as she is today. With that, I'll give you Krita. My name is Krita, and I'm an alcoholic. You know, I never write down what I'm going to say, half the time because I can't spell work, too. But when you get ready to speak, for some reason, you kind of reflect back to the way you used to be. And sometimes it's hard for me to even think I was really like that, you know. So, but my purpose here tonight is to tell you what happened, what it's like, and what it's like today. Did I say that right? It's close enough. But my sobriety day, and y'all forgive me because I'm going to be shaking for a little while up here because I always get very, very nervous. But my sobriety day is July the 27th. It's 1984. And I'm not going to go back because as old as I am, I would need about four hours to tell you my story, okay? So I'm going to kind of cut things short. I was born in Clovis, New Mexico. Got a lot of family banisters for their last name. Okay. And we didn't really have a good upstanding family, you know. My grandmother had 17 kids, and my dad was the third of those 17 kids, and he was an alcoholic. And back in those days, you really didn't know what an alcoholic was. But there was something about him. That just absolutely would touch my heart when he would come home throwing up. And I was the only one that would react this way, but my heart would hurt. And I loved my dad very much. And I think I spent a lot of years trying to be like him, you know. So I came from a very poor family. And this is... This is my story. So, you know, it doesn't really change. But my family, we were so poor that we lived out in the woods. We lived out of our car. I was homeless before it was fashionable, you know. But I thought... I pretty much thought everybody lived the way we did. We lived in a lot of motel rooms, like on Highway 66, those little shaggy hotel rooms. We used to spend a few nights in those places. Daddy would tune pianos, and he was a mechanic. And he would work for a week or so. As soon as he got a paycheck. We might not see him again for a couple of weeks. Because he would go drink. He tried real hard to be a good dad, you know. But he just didn't know how to be a dad. And my mom wasn't too cool either. I didn't have a lot of good mentors. In parenting, let's put it that way. I got married when I was 13. I had turned 13 December the 5th. I got married January the 8th. I had my first child at 13. And I stayed married to that man for 22 years. I had five children by him. He left me for a younger woman, which was kind of weird, but I was 40 when he left. But I think when I took my first drink, I was 13 years old. We moved to New York. Norfolk, Virginia. And it was my sister's birthday. And we went to her house. And we drank pink champagne. First time I ever took a drink. And I threw up, passed out, and blacked out. Very first time I ever got drunk. And I thought, man, I ain't never drinking that stuff anymore. And I never drank that stuff again. And I never drank that stuff again. And I never did drink pink champagne again. It was awful. Then I decided, well, probably because I was so young that I couldn't handle my liquor. So every couple of years, I would try to drink. And every time I drank, I would throw up, pass out, and black out. And I would throw up. Never remembered what I did. That was just my pattern of drinking. And I did just like the big book talks about. You know, I would try different. I'd drink beer. I'd drink bourbon only. But the one drink that I loved the most was tequila. Because it did for me exactly what I wanted. What I wanted it to do is to black out. You know? My husband that I was married to was very abusive. And I found out that I could drink liquor and not have to feel anything. You know? I was very, very uneducated. I didn't finish school. Well, I got married at 13. So, I think I was in the 6th grade or something. But I never went to school. I would, I'd go fishing. We lived in Corpus Christi, Texas. And so, when I was about, I was 5, 6 years old, we moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. And Padre Island, they've got Padre Island there. They've got North Beach there. And I used to go to Padre Island and go to North Beach. And I'd go fishing. Wouldn't go to school. Because I had a, I was dyslexic. And I didn't know what that was at the time. But I had a real hard time reading. And so, I felt very different from other people. You know? I wouldn't let people come to our house when I was a kid. Because you never knew what condition my father would have been in. So, and my dad died at 42. He died in 1956. So, he got cancer. He died. And I had, at that time, I had a child, a son. And he was a year old. And once we moved to Norfolk, after my father died, and my husband was in the Navy, too. So, we moved to Norfolk. And things were going along for us pretty well. And then we started having a lot of marriage problems. He was very abusive. He started, you know, doing. Slapping around and hitting around. Everything. And then we moved from there to Orlando. Orlando, Florida. And that's where I had all my kids. Or I had the four kids in Orlando. And we started, I was going to church. Kind of back up here. I started going to church to try to change how I thought. To improve my thinking and my lifestyle or whatever. And so, after I had my fourth child, Danny was born with a cerebral hemorrhage. He was born with brain damage. And by that time, I decided that if I had, if I'd be a good person, go to church, that my kids would be okay. So, I started doing that. Then, then I had an automobile wreck. So, now I'm going to church. I'm being a good girl. And so, I had this automobile wreck. My son, my oldest son went through the windshield and cut his face in half. My other son had a brain concussion that was in the back seat. And I went through the windshield. And my son Danny hid the dashboard. And by the time the fire department got there to him, they took him immediately to the emergency room They said his heart beat was four beats a minute. And I remember being pulled out of that car. And I just, my knees just hit the ground. And my legs just went and I couldn't even touch it. I just said, please, God, don't take my baby. And the fireman took him in the fire truck to take him to the hospital. And I just knew that he was going to be okay, you know. So to make a long story short, there was a long process of his healing and all, but he got better. He got well. And so I'm standing out in the yard, and I hear this scream coming from my neighbor's house. And I go running over there, and this girl's little boy, Raymond, had been burned to death that day. And something happened to me. Something happened to me. Something happened to me at that time. And her and I started going out. That was her only child, you know, and mine was getting well and doing fine. So I don't know if I felt guilty or what, but Shirley Bordner and I would go to the bars and start drinking. And that's when my drinking really took hold. And it got to the place where. I would take a drink, and I couldn't stop. I just couldn't stop, you know. If somebody did something to me, I'd drink over it. If the kids were acting up, I'd go get drunk. I wouldn't want to hang around anybody that didn't drink like I did, you know. If I was going to come to your house, you had to have liquor there. Or I ain't coming, you know. And I'd start hiding my liquor. And so at the end of this, y'all kind of give me time when it's time to stop. Sandra, let me know, okay. But when I really started drinking so bad. I didn't realize that it had gotten as bad as it had, you know. And the ex-husband was trying to control my drinking. We'd go to bars, ABC country. Steve was talking about, somebody was saying something about this that I had told them. And one night I went to ABC country in Orlando. And I'm not sure what I did. Because they used to fight in that place, you know. But I got thrown out. And trying to find my car. And I'm literally crawling in the parking lot looking for my car. And as I said before. You can't really find your car when you're just looking at the wheels. You know what I mean? You know, I was having a really hard time. And so this little guy. Somebody went in and told him, Freda's really a mess out there in the parking lot. And so he come and he took me to his house. And I remember throwing up. And I remember throwing up. And I remember throwing up. And I remember throwing up. And he was in his bed. I just made him have some of his bed. And I remember him driving me back the next day to get my car. And I felt so disgusted. I walked into the house. And my son Tracy and my daughter Terry looked at me. Instead of them looking at me with disgust. disgust, you know, and hatred, my son come up and he put his arms around me, and he said, Mom, you're sick, you know, and I remember just putting my head down and crying, you know, and that day, a lady from Alcoholics Anonymous come to my house, and I don't know how she, I don't know how they got there, I don't remember who called, I have no idea, but she, Jean and Judy stayed with me the whole day, they were so concerned about our health, because my daughter suffered from anorexia, and I think I weighed about 70 pounds, I don't know what she, she was very little. She was thin and sick, and, but I had drank so much liquor in the past, about the past two years before they came to my house, and I had tried to go to Alcoholics Anonymous a few times, you know, I'm like, man, I've got to do something about this drinking, and I'd go, and I'd think, well, I'll take care of it later, you know, I'm not that bad yet, you know, well, this, this time, Jean and Judy, I have no idea what they talked about, I don't, I don't remember, all I remember is that they cared about me enough to stay there that whole day. She said, I want you to go to a meeting tonight, and back in those days, they didn't baby you, they didn't, you know, they didn't pamper you. They said, if you want to get sober, get to a meeting. If I don't see you there, that must mean you don't want to get sober, and I'm like, man, I better show up, you know, I better show up, and so I go in, and go to my first, go to, this wasn't my first meeting, because I had been to a few meetings, but, you know, July the 27th, 1984, I walked into this meeting, and I remember they were saying, I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic, and I'm like, liar, liar, you know, and I was angry, I hated you people, I did not want anything you had. I did not want anything you had. I did not want anything you had. I did not want anything you had. I did not want anything you had. But I knew that I had a problem. Before I went to that meeting, and before I called Judy, let me back up and say, tell you a little story about, I had OD'd on alcohol. Now, I don't know, I didn't know that you could OD'd on alcohol, but I had OD'd on alcohol, and I ended up in the Orange Memorial Hospital. They had poured charcoal down me, trying to absorb the alcohol, and my heart had stopped, and they were trying to get my heart pumping again, and I don't remember any of this, this is just what they told me later on, and I ended up in the psych ward, so I had to stay in the psych ward for several days. I had to stay in the psych ward for several days. And I'm in the psych ward, and I'm thinking, I think I'm in the wrong place. But I actually wanted to be more of an insane person than an alcoholic. That's how I didn't want to be an alcoholic. So they told me I couldn't get out of the psych ward unless I promised to go to this one. And I said, okay, I went. And it was just a bunch of men in there, you know, so I'm manipulating the men and telling them how mean my husband was to me and how he beat me up and everything. I got them so mad they were going to go beat him up. And, but they said, you can't, no more drinking for you. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. I left that place. I left that place. I left that place. I left that place. I left that place. I left that place. And I got drunk that night. And so, I mean, I have many stories to tell, as you all do, is drinking stories. But July the 27th, 1984, is when my life changed. I didn't know it was going to change, but my life changed. A couple of months. later, my mother passed away. And I went to Clovis, New Mexico for my mom's funeral. And I come back to Orlando and went to a Thursday night meeting. And I walked into the meeting and I had my head down as I usually did, looking, you know, at the floor. I didn't want to look you in the eyes. And I heard this man talk about the four-step. And he had the most beautiful veritone voice that I had ever heard. And I looked up and I don't know what I thought at the time, but there was something so special. Something so soothing, so comforting about this man. So I saw him a few other times at meetings. And then one night he come over and he says, could we go have coffee? And I says, I don't know. I have to ask my sponsor. Because I'm getting serious now about getting sober. So I'm doing what they're telling me to do. And Judy said, she said, he's a great guy. Yeah, you can go have coffee. And that was the change in my life. He lives in Atlanta, but he was transferred to Orlando. And I've always said, God sent him there for me. Thank you. Thank you. Because God knew I needed someone like him to help me, guide me through this deal. And he was the best friend I ever had. I adored him. Absolutely adored him. He was six years sober. I was three months sober. And when I said I had to ask my sponsor, he said, how long have you been sober? I said, three months. He said, uh-oh. Because he wasn't really that type. He didn't go after, you know, it was just that I was so special, you know. But, you know, he showed me not just about getting sober, which he did show me a lot, but he showed me about how to be a lady. He never cussed, you know. I'm a F in this and F in that, you know. I mean, I've got a very foul mouth back in those days. And I was always so angry, you know, if you rode my tail in a car, I'm going to stop the car and get out and say something to you. It's a wonder I didn't get shot. But, you know, and he was just so, he had the most wonderful, calm nature about him. I remember one time, because he was very intelligent, too, and he was dating an attorney. And I remember looking at him one time and I said, DeWitt, why in the world would you want to date me? He said, because you're so funny. You know, you make me laugh. And I'm like, okay. But he knew everything about me, you know. We went to meetings together. You know, and I don't really recommend this to girls I sponsor. And I've sponsored quite a few girls in my day. But I truly believe there's times that God steps in and does things. That maybe is not the norm. And I really feel like this is what happened to me. You know, I come to Atlanta when I was a year sober. Oh, my Lord, I hated you people here in Atlanta. You just didn't know how to do it. You know, your AA meetings were different. I was telling somebody tonight, I remember being in that meeting. Behind this thing there. It was a bunch of women. So DeWitt brought me here. And I'm still having an anger issue, you know. So he brought me here and I go to that women's meeting. He come out here, I guess. And I'm sitting there and they're talking about makeup and bras or something, you know. And I got, oh, I just blew up. And go walking out. I just blew up. there in the lobby out there and this woman come after me and are you okay and I've come to I wanted an AA meeting this you know because I always had to have my say you know you you gotta do it my way or think like I think and I was thinking about that today and I was thinking about how different I am today not because of me but because of you people have shown me how to act like a lady and and how I don't have to be the center of attention anymore oh something I've been dealing a lot with lately is is where is your place at 34 years of surprise you know when you go to meetings and um usually I don't talk I don't usually say anything unless I hear something from somebody that I can walk over to them one-on-one and talk to them about something if I've got something to share but you know what I said in amazement just in awe of these young people that are coming in today and um you know I sit there wow you know they're really getting it still and um I think my job now is to encourage young people uh you know where I've been what I've been through but encourage them you know keep doing what you're doing uh because it's just great watching uh the young people get this deal you know um it's very hard for me sometimes to actually start off from the beginning to the middle to the end of my story now you know because it all has gotten so it's almost like it's hard to realize where I came from you know where I've been I've got uh I've got a wonderful relationship today with all my children except for one I've got the boy that uh when I was 13 when he was born always had an anger issue about me being so young and he told me one time we've talked about it in the past he said do you realize what it felt like for me to be around boys my age and you'd show up for school you know and you look like you were a high school kid yourself you know because I'd be like 27 I guess when he was in high school and I never thought about it that much until he he talked about that but he's got very serious anger issue with me I can't change it I didn't really drink a lot when he was little when he was young my drinking didn't really start until he was about 16 17 so he didn't really see a lot of my drinking um but the other four did and I can remember when I had to make an amends to my children and I went to each one single not you know as a group but each one of my boys told me oh mom you wasn't that bad but my daughter which was the youngest I had a serious talk with her and uh she said yeah you were that bad mom you know but I each one of my kids I told them you know um to me making amends for for how I do that with my children is every day every day uh I try to make an amends to my kids I tried to be a better mother today than I was back then a better grandmother today than I was uh well I wouldn't have grabbed them back then but but uh I've got a great relationship with my great kids got a great relationship with all my kids but each one of my kids I said I know I hurt you I know I can't give you your years back but tell me how I can make it right and um and all the boys have said oh mom you wasn't that bad you know uh but I tend to see I tend to make it right for my daughter more than uh than the rest of them for some reason I guess it was because she she had uh she had a lot of stuff that she had to deal with you know and so she's uh she's a great kid you know she's she's uh in her 40s now she's got three kids um I've got about five or six grandkids now so uh life is good life is good today you know but um if um if it wasn't for for you people I I probably wouldn't be here today you know I would be dead I'm just sure uh because my drinking was was at a place where I was either going to get it or I was going to drown you know and um I thank God every day by my husband uh passed away in 2007 and you know the greatest gift that God gave me is uh he was paralyzed for 15 months and we spent a lot of time at Shepherd and uh I brought him home and I was able to take care of him um and we had we had a great time um even though he was real real sick you know I've thought many of times of uh you know thank God I wasn't drinking you know out of all the things that's happened to me as a sober person there's not one single thing that a drink will make it better and that's really what I've learned in in this program there's been times that I've gone through stuff that like when he passed away the day he passed away uh I went to a meeting you know uh because I knew it'd be safe uh and I probably I can't identify any worse pain than that pain of when when he passed away uh because he was my truly my very best friend and we had such a great time together and he showed me I remember one time when I I just wanted to get into an argument with him because I was very argumentative back then and uh and I got so mad that I didn't want to say anything to him because I didn't want to cuss him out which is what I normally did with people and I remember getting so upset that I didn't want to say anything to him because I was so upset and he said we do we need to talk and I said to him you know I am so angry right now that I don't think I want to talk and so I waited about three or four days and I said can we talk about that now and he said yeah so we sat down and started talking and I thought wow this this is what grown people do this is what big people do how they solve a problem they talk about it you know for me if I got mad I wanted to cuss you out tell you off throw things at you you know but he taught me that's not the way you handle things you know and and I think probably Alcoholics Anonymous showed him that you know because and then he passed it on to me and um and girls that I sponsor we talk about the importance of a relationship you know whether it be you know if they're married or dating or whatever uh because I can say I didn't have that I didn't have any kind of mentors to show me how to be a mother I didn't have much of a of an example of a you know of a mother and uh some of the stuff I had to learn from you people you know I've had some great sponsors I have a sponsor my sponsor has a sponsor and uh that's just the way it works you know I've had a great life with something like uh who's a mom was talking about um there's uh well her sponsor becky is uh is who i sponsor becky and i've sponsored her for about 22 years 27 say jesus time's going fast i'm gonna get over um but i've had a lot of girls that i've sponsored and i've kept you know we we've had wonderful times we've gone skiing we've gone to montana we've gone to hawaii you know um and usually it's aa stuff but uh i remember going to hawaii and my clothes my getting clothes i i can remember going to hawaii it was girls in in treatment is what it was just a bunch of women and at hawaii you know and i remember uh sitting there because a lot of them it was about abuse a lot of abuse and i can remember sitting there and just shaking from my head to my toes and uh ria was there and uh these girls becky and i'll put their arms around me while i was just sitting there shaking you know and uh that's when i realized i had to go to treatment when i got back i i started seeing a psychiatrist about some of the things that happened to me as a child that i never wanted to talk about and uh so i did that and i got better you know uh but one of the things that uh this one particular and i can't remember her name but the one thing she said really hit me the things that happened to you as a child never changes but you learn how to live with it you know in other words being an aa and the things that i went through as a child things that kept me up at night things that made me want to take a drink so i could forget them never change but you can learn to live with it forgive people that hurt you which was just so foreign to me i can never do that but i learned i forgive the people i don't forgive the act you know and i was able to uh to work through that so you know it's just amazing to me what this 12 steps you people have taught me you know on a daily basis things that i've gone through in my life there's not one single thing that i that i can imagine that a drink will not make it better it's just not going to happen you know and there have been times that i'll think oh you know you've been sober 34 years greta maybe you're not an alcoholic when i have that thought i'll get to a meeting that day i don't wait and i'll usually tell on myself if i don't just blurt it out i'll tell somebody i'll call my sponsor and tell somebody but i still work my steps i still read the big book i read my meditation uh i also read my book i read my meditation i read my meditation i read my meditation i read the other big book too so um you know and it uh it just keeps me balanced and that's that's that's all i ask for i i pray that i went to a funeral uh somebody in the program he had about 36 years uh tommy and uh there's been so many great people that i have met clancy i was called clancy last year you know if you don't know who clancy is he's he's i used to when i first got sober i used to ride around the car and listen to clancy's tapes all the time just lap my tail off of him i was so glad that i actually got to meet him one-on-one but you know and uh i was thinking about uh john corneas i always started thinking about john corneas he he made my wedding cake and brought it to orlando and uh uh so every year since he passed away i have a picture of john in his santa claus suit so i always put it out on my mental in december you know but those are the people that have uh touched my heart you know it's to think that i get to have the opportunity to meet him and to talk to him and to talk to him and to talk to him and to talk to him gary and mary i mean just sweet just sweet wonderful people uh i could just name you all you know susan sandra steve i just love you all so much and uh and that's what you gave me that unconditional love i could come in there and say the things and they just bob their head at me come on back you know come on but um am i is that done okay almost okay i'll tell you one other little story real quick i remember i was going to a sunday night meeting in orlando and uh i didn't know the difference between all men and all women you know i don't think you really can have a just a women's alcoholics not as me but you know how that goes so i was going to a sunday night meeting and i was going to a sunday night meeting and i was going to these men's meeting i wonder how come they know my men here so i'd go in there and my little tank top no bra you know i thought i was so cute and and so i'd sit there and and they were talking about uh um they were talking about the four-step and uh character defects and they were talking about the four-step and uh character defects and they were going each one was saying something they got to me and i said i i ain't got no character defects and every one of them i still remember seeing them every one of them keep coming back keep coming back darling but they never you know they were never disrespectful they were very respectful and i went to that meeting i love that meeting i was the only girl you know um it's i loved all the attention that uh i was telling somebody the other day i said i remember when i was about a year or two sober i'd go to a meeting and i thought pretty sure but it's going to turn around say oh creed is here you know uh i don't feel that way today i don't feel like i've got to be the center of attention anymore you know i just uh i want to know what my place is where god wants me to be and i want to know what my place is where god wants me to be and i want to know to go what my journey is uh what i should be doing today because uh i only got today and so with that i'll shut up thank you creta um all i can say is uh you can't tell a book by its cover well that's for sure and good and good things come in small packages um uh actually uh i've asked nobody to come up and get the chips mary will you do that they're right up here i try well they've got they've got a 60 day one too okay all right hey everybody my name is mary i'm an alcoholic if anybody's coming in or would like to try our way of life or be through the things that maybe creed has told us about we got a white chip anybody want to take a white chip today okay um 30 days and 30 nights we got a silver chip and i have that okay what is this now the gold 60 60 days 60 nights gold sorry i didn't know that um 90 days right 90 days red chip okay all right six months yellow chip anybody okay nine months we got no no oh we have a nine month thank you amen any other nine months no how about years and multiples any birthdays we got here oh wonderful you did it all right uh i didn't drink went to meetings you got a sponsor uh got a home group and uh kept coming back with the energizer bunny all the mistakes i've made i appreciate it thank you all right we'll offer this any other birthdays we don't know about we always like to offer it uh the white chip one more anybody any takers okay it's here if anybody wants it you can just come up and get it on your own thanks thanks for letting me thanks for all the chips you hold thank you one and all for joining the blue chip speakers meeting tonight