Why Higher Power’s Will Sometimes Sucks – Sara I.

Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm an alcoholic. Hi! In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have sat all the way in the back and had to walk through here. But thank you, Andy, for asking me to be a part of this and having for your beautiful talk on Step 1. And I will step on your toes a couple times here because I can't get to step three until I talk to you about how completely and utterly broken I was when I came in here. The fact that I drove two hours today to talk to You about my relationship with God is something that is absolutely unbelievable to me. If you knew who I was before I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, that was never going to be on my radar. I was never going to get in my car and talk to YOU about a power greater than myself or a relationship with GOD. I wanted nothing to do with that. I came Into AlcoholicsAnonymous. I had a conception of God that had not worked for me for my entire life. I was brought up in the church, and I was bought up praying around food, and I brought up with a God that felt like it was so far away from me that I couldn't reach it, and a God I felt judged by, and a god I felt abandoned by, and a guy who I could not connect with. When I come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I want nothing to do with this spiritual experience. I'm totally okay going on to the bitter end, blotting out existence rather than accept spiritual help because it is too painful for me and too frightening for me to consider the possibility that this power is going to transform my life. Even though I've witnessed it in other people and I've watched sober people come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I see it all around me every time I step in a meeting, I certainly don't believe that that redemption, that freedom, that joy that you've all experienced is something that is available to an alcoholic like me because of the person who I come in AlcoholicsAnonymous as as the woman who abandoned her children for alcohol, the woman Who stepped over every person she ever loved for alcohol. And I come in here thinking I was choosing that, that I chose to be the way I was, that I choose to, you know, alcohol over my children, my family, my parents. And I believed that to my very core. And I coming, you Know, covered in shame. And I don't think I can find a way out of it. And it wasn't until I was completely and utterly broken and alcohol had its way with me and I had exhausted every other option other than spirituality. I exhausted the men, I exhausted the jobs, the money, bringing babies into this world, human powers all over the place. I exhausted every single one of them and then finally you present me with a spiritual kit of tools and I have nothing else left to pick them up but to pick some up that's it. My first come to believe was coming to believe in the hopelessness and futility of the life that I had been living that was it. I just was convinced that I could not go on the way I was living sobriety had become too painful and drinking wasn't working anymore. It just wasn't an option for me, so it had to be God, but I didn't know how to turn my will and my life over to the care of something that I was afraid of and that I didn'T think loved me in return. You know, it's interesting. I come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and you tell me I have to turn My Will and My Life over to this power, and I'm like absolutely not, but at the age of 15 when I picked up a drink, I turned My Will in my life over to the care of alcohol, and I did that for 20 plus years. And alcohol was my God and my master, and i gave it everything. I fed it everything, and there was nothing i would not have done for this power. Nothing. But i come into AA, and im terrified to turn my will and my life, over to this care that you guys are talking about. A care of a loving God, a care of a forgiving God. And like Devin so beautifully laid out, i had to throw out every conception i had of this power, this idea that God was Santa Claus, who was supposed to perform my will for me was supposed to give me the things that i wanted and if this god didn't do that for me there was you know that god didn'T love me or god wasn'T there for me and i come in alcoholics anonymous and uh and i witnessed god in in the eyes of a sober member of alcoholics anonymous a woman i drank with who i knew was just like me and she was sober and her entire department her whole department shouted she had an answer and i knew she didn'T do that i knew in that moment that there must be something going on here that was bigger than me and this third step experience for me has a bit of an evolution in the 10 years that I've been sober. Because coming in, my first third step experiences, you know, similar to what Devin says, like, I believe it works in you. And I get on my knees and I say this third step prayer, right? And I miss this moment where I make the most important decision I've ever made in my entire life. I miss it because I'm too obsessed with myself. I'm thinking about myself.I'm thinking about kneeling on the floor, holding this woman's hand, other people in the recovery house looking at us and like, what do they think of me? Oh my God. I'm praying in public. Part of my story is that I was brought up by these parents who went, like we would pray in McDonald's over our food. And I had a lot of shame and embarrassment around that. So I'm just sitting there thinking, oh my God, I'm saying these words, these beautiful words. And I don't even know what they mean, but I'm so broken. I'M JUST SO UTTERLY BROKEN THAT I'M LIKE, whatever this woman tells me to do, I'M GOING TO DO. AND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED. I GOT UP FROM THE PRAYER AND I'M NOT GOING to step on you know go into this this four and five but like it says it right over on that next page this decision is a vital and crucial step it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort of face and be rid of what was blocking me and that's when everything started to kick off my decision in that moment was to continue through with this work and take action and have that experience that devon was talking about to experience god you know i didn't know that's what we were doing here. I come in and I recognize, I know I don't have any power. I've conceded that to my innermost self. I don'T have the power to do this because if I had the power to stop, I would have done it the first time you took one of my babies away from me. I would've stopped then, but I couldn't. I didn't have the Power to do that. I wanted to. I had moral and philosophical convictions galore. I wanted to be a good mom. I wanted to be a good daughter and sister, mother, wife, all of these things but I did not have the power to do that. You know, and that's how I come into Alcoholics Anonymous with this knowledge that I don't have power anymore but I have to find this power and not only do I have to find power, but I also have to develop a relationship with this power and turn my will and my life over to this power. What the hell does that look like? How do I even do that? how do I turn my will and my life over to something I can't see, something I don't even understand and initially my initial experience with this step is like I do what you guys are telling me to do you guys direct my life for me because I canít do it anymore when you tell me to pray, I pray and I donít understand even what Iím praying you guys had to teach me how to pray because every prayer I ever said was selfish and was self-serving thatís it, like please get me out of prison, you know, please someone pay my bill, whatever it is get me some money, fix this relationship, bring him back to me. Like that's what my prayers look like. And so I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and you're telling me, oh my God, I'm not praying for myself anymore. You guys teach me how to pray and you tell me when to pray. And you guys tell me when to write and you guys tells me when amend something and you told me when go out in the world and try to help one of God's kids, right? And try to carry this message to somebody other than myself and get out of my own way. Like this program of subtraction removing me from the equation and I start to have this experience all of it is in hindsight I look back and I realized that moment on that floor of that recovery house holding that woman's hand was absolutely sacred that sacred moment where my head was a mess and I was too busy being embarrassed that I turned everything over in that moment and my life started to change and I would love to stand up here and tell you I made that decision and that's it that's it I made the decision I don't need to do anything else anymore turned it all over and like these steps none of them are one and done absolutely not especially for an alcoholic like me because on any given day I am convinced I am sold on the delusion that I can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only I manage it well I just was an hour ago when I was checking to see if the approval on my house went through like that's in like I want to know why isn't they you know the mortgage agent getting back to me why isn tis working on my timeline like I need this to happen i need this to happen on any given day my mind is convincing me that i need out here to look okay for me to be okay in here and i i will believe that lie if i am not actively involved in this work and i am actively in these steps you know aligning my will with god's you know i have two voices in my head i have the loud alcoholic voice that is full of stage characters, that is full of all these survival skills. And this is that God of reason that it talks about in We Agnostic. And I worship this God. I am a smart woman and I know I can figure this out and I can put this life together and I knows I can fix this problem over here. And then there's the other voice. The still small voice that deep within my soul. That quiet voice that's God. And the only way I can get to it is to shut this down but how do i do that the steps are a perfect outline of how we shut our brains down and how we remove self from the equation so i can hear that still small voice within me that guiding force that is a power greater than myself that god that i'm looking for in a church in a man in money in all of these other places was the that always deep down inside me i didn't know that i had no idea until you beautiful people and alcoholics anonymous showed me and directed me and help me find that power. And here's the insane part of how my alcoholism works, right? I come in and I have this amazing experience and I watch these miracles God has performed me in my life. One of the biggest ones being the fact that I'm actually sober because the reality is, is like for 20 plus years I woke up with an active obsession to drink and I gave everything to alcohol and the fact that I am living one day at a time not picking up a drink is an absolute miracle. But then what happens is that my life starts to get better on the outside. I start getting the job and I start getting a relationship and I stop getting things back, stuff back and my ego comes into play. And I start thinking I did that. I start think that I was responsible for this drastic change in my life, this psychic change and it absolutely has nothing to do with me. And then I look around my life at the things that I have and I don't want to let go of them. they're my things now and this is the way my life is supposed to look and i don't even realize that i'm back to running the whole show again you know it was this part of the book that i found out what my real problem was you know coming in i think it's alcohol and other things and i'm not saying those things are not a problem because once they're in my body they absolutely are like um they are definitely a problem but once i put it down this is where my my real problems problem begins. And I didn't know that. I don't know that until I have an experience of, I don' know, sitting in a prison cell when I first got separated from alcohol for 18 months with no chemical or spiritual solution in my life and I'm just sitting there a dry drunk and I am an absolute selfish monster who is calling home to my parents on a phone account they pay for telling them what they need to do for me or long apology letters home about I'm sorry but if you were better parents I wouldn't be here money, you know? And that's how I show up. When you remove alcohol from me and you don't replace it with another solution, that's How I Show Up. And that can return at any given time the second I stop doing this work. Because it says later on in the book, and I won't step on anyone else's toes with this, but what we get is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. I come in thinking one day at a time is like, I come and I sit in a chair, I hold on to my seat and I shoot for midnight wanting to fucking kill myself sorry but like that's what I really am, like that is what I am convinced of and that is What I think the rest of my life is supposed to look like one day at a time but that doesn't sound like freedom to me, it doesn't sounds like freedom to me but what I have come to learn is one day a time for the rest in my life if I maintain my spiritual condition and my connection with God I can experience freedom I can get well and when I'm well and When I'm spiritually fit sobriety is the Byproduct I don't need a drink to fix me Anymore a drink doesn't have to be the Solution anymore and that's what I've Been you know that's been the experience But you know I unfortunately struggle Staying in that place some days I get up In the morning and I'm absolutely Convinced of what needs to happen in my life in order for me to be okay. And I can fall deeply asleep in that narrative, in that story. I can, you know, be hypnotized by the stage characters and the voices in my head that say, if this relationship, if you don't fix this with him, you're going to die alone. So put up with all that garbage, put up With the lies, put it with the cheating, put Up with the drinking, put up WITH all that stuff. This is sober, by the way, this is sober. So let me turn my will of my life over to the care of God for me, but I'll fix him. I'll fix him, I got this God, don't you worry about it. Like this is what current agnosticism looks like in my life when I'm not doing this work and when I're not aligning my will with God and it leads to a lot of pain. It leads a lot to a lot of current suffering if I'm not, you know, seeking God and trying to move out of my own way. And that takes a lot of work and again it involves inventory and prayer and all the work that we do in the later steps every single time i've had the experience of stepping out of my own way i've seen what god can do for me i've seeing it like you know i i had a few years ago i was stuck no not even it was last year i'm sorry i'm insane but uh last year I was at this job i'd been in it for five years and you know i i'm you know it was okay i made okay money things are going really well but i'm just like i don't think i'm ever going anywhere here and i started applying for jobs like crazy and i'm going all around i'm like applying here applying here you know this is what i need to be okay i need this job i need and i'll get shot down but i am also getting job offers and then i'm sitting there going weighing the pros and cons right using the god of reason to try to figure out what my employment should look like so I should this place pays more money but it's in Jersey and I don't feel like taking the bridge and you know back and forth and back and fourth and it was making my head crazy it's impossible to live in the in the place of peace in the space of God when I'm when I reliant on the God of reason and I'm going back and my head about what I should and should not do right finally I had a job interview in the you know I canceled I just didn't want to do this anymore I had that moment where I was just like sick of living this way and I canceled this job interview I called them up and I said listen I don't want to waste your time I'm busy today I can't do it well you know call us back if you change your mind in the next couple days I'm like sure with no intention of doing that none whatsoever and uh I I met up with my sponsor that night and I was talking to her and she asked me how the job hunt was going and I was like I'm done like I's gonna graduate college soon when when that happens I'll see where God wants me but I'm pretty sure. Like, I had this peace. And then 24 hours later, the managing partner for that job I had applied for called me himself and said, I need you to come in. This resume is amazing. And that man not only sat in front of me and offered me a job, but he offered it knowing I'm an 11-time felon, that I'm alcoholic in recovery, and he offered It to me anyway. Coming from a job where I had to lie about who I was every single day and not tell anybody. This is what God does for me when I step out of my way and I allow God to do God's will for me. The only problem is I forget that. I forget it. I forget this. I think I need this, I need that, I think this. And here's another hard truth. Sometimes God's will sucks. It really does. It really sucked in 2015 when my sister died. That was God's Will. Because my will, Sarah's will, is that she's still here with me. that's what my will would be but my sister suffered horribly and i don't consider that i take reality personally i take life personally god did this to me he took my sister from me and i got this experience where god was present in all of that and i felt god and i felt this power flow within me and god carried me through that and I knew god was present, but it doesn't mean I like it. It doesn't mean I don't like it, and it doesn' t mean a month ago when my baby brother died of this disease that I was at all okay with this because sometimes God's will sucks and my will for my brother was that he sit down with a man like Devin and he go through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and he has an experience that I had that he wake up. In our last phone conversation, we argued because my will was that he take accountability for his life and stop blaming mommy and daddy. That was Sarah's will. And thank God for the 12 steps and his sponsor and the willingness to take suggestions. I cleaned that up before he died. But my will is that he get this. And when he died, that was not my will. It is not my will to lose my brother. It is not my will to watch my parents suffer. It is not my will to be in this pain. It wasn't my will to carry him in a little box on my lap to a funeral home. That was not my will but God's will was something bigger. I just couldn't see it and I still some days can't see it. My brother was suffering every day of his life of untreated alcoholism and I know what that looks like. I know what it feels like to be in this place so full of shame and fear that you can't even breathe unless you have a drink in you. And I know that he just didn't have the power to be different, and maybe, just maybe, God took him away because he was in too much pain, and baby, just baby, it isn't about me. And that is the hard part of this step, of aligning my will with a power greater than myself, because I have an idea in my head of what my life is supposed to look like, And oftentimes, God's idea and my idea are just not the same thing. But what I get with these steps and this work and doing my best to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life and my relationship with God is I get a peace that passes all understanding in those moments. And at some point, the peace will settle in my heart about my brother. I mean, I cried the entire way here, and I had no idea how I was going to get up here and do this talk today. it's just been really hard but the one thing that has guided me through this entire thing is my relationship with God through Alcoholics Anonymous I wake up in the morning and I ask God what is your will for me like how do I do this and I do my best to quiet that that voice in my head those stage characters that tell me you need to do this, and you needto do this ,and you need to listen I'll find weird things to obsess about in order to avoid the pain like I really will I my brain does not want to feel the ache in my heart so my mind will try to protect me these stage characters want to protect me from what feeling the loss feeling my heart feeling what's in here and like that work that decision that I have to take every day sometimes make this decision multiple times a day is to take it from here to here, move it from my head into my heart. And that's hard. That's hard because it's easier to obsess about buying a house than it is to mourn the death of my brother. It's easier for me to do that. It is easier to focus on something I feel like I can control. The delusion that I can't control anything is easier than feeling what's going on in my heart. But one day at a time, if I get up and I make this decision in the morning and at noon when I show back up again loud, convinced my boss is going to fire me for no reason, you know, in those kind of bizarre ways, when I make that decision, the peace returns. And sometimes I have to make this position a hundred times a day. Sometimes I have to go back to this over and over and again. What does it say? To God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as that will relieve me of the bondage of self. That bondage itself is these, it's not you, that's the problem. It's me. It''s every, it''s the way I see the world. It'''s my perception. Relieve me ofthe voices in my head, the narrative, the story. Relive me of this, my mind. Sometimes my prayer is simply protect me from my mind because that'''t how bad it can be but you know but that's so powerful because that bondage is a very real real thing once i i let those stage characters take over and once those voices in my head are louder than everything else i am driven by them it says we are driven by a hundred forms of fear self-seeking self-delusion self-pity like driven these things are driving me around making my decisions for me deciding who i should be in a relationship with deciding what i should buy deciding how i should react to people like they make all the decisions for me if i don't go to god and if i don't do what i can to quiet these voices through prayer meditation whatever it is they're going to take over they're gonna take over and then i'm back to the shame that you talked about sober making horrible decisions sober having a an eight-year sober and amends list that was 26 people long sober and these weren't like oh i'm sorry i cut you off in traffic amends they were big um you know because I am my problem out you know it's selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles not alcohol not alcohol who knew right alcohol was doing something for me I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day about how I there were there were ways that I called let cause less harm when I was getting loaded I'm not saying I didn't hurt people like I don't ever buy into that that that lie that I'm you know my drinking only harms me i'm talking about i you know i experienced that sense of ease and comfort and i was nice i don't care like sure okay but like you get me driven by a hundred forms of fear self-seeking self-pity all of that forget it i step on the toes of my fellows and they were you know all over the place because i think not only do i think i know how i should live but i'm absolutely convinced of how you should live and what you need to feel better and like i i will be completely sold on this idea and then i give you this script in my head by the way you've never actually gotten this script um but there's a script and if you deviate from it there comes the resentment setting myself up for all the problems that come after or you know and and that's the whole thing and and odd that's it like that's the biggest delusion i i had that delusion long before i came in alcoholics anonymous actually long before I picked up a drink I had a delusion that it had everything to do with the outside and nothing to do with the inside like even when I was a little kid if I just had more friends if my parents would just stop moving around you know you know if if all of these things if we had more money I would be okay all i've always fallen victim to that delusion then as i got older well you know if i just get married like my sisters and have like the 2.5 children i didn't even want to be a mother by the way i had babies because i thought they would bring me satisfaction i thought that if i did things on the outside they will make me okay inside and today you know i can still believe that i can still like dress up the outside and have all these great things going on and i can walk out and see my brand new car and be like there's one ding in it well you know what this is garbage this is garbage like it's just like i i this is this is for me has probably been one of the hardest journeys in alcoholics anonymous is understanding which voice to listen to i wish they sounded different oftentimes my voice in my head sounds a lot like god i'm like yeah that's a great idea i'm sure he's reformed now i'm Sure, he's telling the truth this time like you know i like i want to believe it why do i want To believe it because i want my will to be god's well that's all it is That's all It is And and when i'm able to step out of my own way and when i'm able to truly you know turn my will and my life over to the care of god miracles happen miracles happen like walking through all this pain and all this loss and not once thinking about picking up a drink and being of maximum service to god and my family and my mom and my dad and my sisters and you know i i remember you know I'm going off a little here But when I made amends to my mother, and I'm not going to get into the amends thing, but I made an amends to my my mother. I asked what could I could do to make it right. And she said, I need you to be a living example of recovery to your brother. And I was on the phone with her the other day. And I said, Mom, do you remember? Do you remember when I mean, I made my amends too? And do you remember what you asked me to do. And do you think I failed? And my father was in the car and I didn't know this, right? I said this in this moment and I didn'T know it. And they both chimed up at the same time. No loud, emphatic. No. And my Father jumped in and he said, no, in fact, it was the opposite. Everybody was shocked that he didn'T get it after witnessing your transformation. For years, for years, I've been trying to align my will with God's and I failed in every single way. But even failing at it miserably, I get to be a representative of Alcoholics Anonymous and the power of God because that's what the second part, that's what the rest of the prayer says right take away my difficulties difficulty so that victory over them may bear witness to those i would help of thy power thy love and thy way of life may i do thy will always and that's what happens when this power is in me i get to bear witness not with my words like devin said i can get up here and i can talk about spiritual principles and and go out here and fail miserably at that. But when I am in line with God, and I'm in line with this work, and this power is flowing through me, my life bears a witness to those I would help, and even those who I wasn't able to help. But I know I'm helpful to my family today. I know that. And I know my mother today. And I know that i know that god bears you know i bear witness to my daughter of the power of these steps that would that that girl didn't have a mother her in her entire life up until she was 18 years old she had no mother and now she does my life bears witness to other people in alcoholics anonymous that you can stay sober and pick up a drink through loss my life bears witness to the fact i listen i have a son i haven't seen in 16 years my child was taken from me and rightly so by the way i was a dangerous woman and i was danger to my child he was taken fromme and he never was returned and i have been trying to make an amends for many many years now and that is not being received my life is still bearing witness to the fact that even though my boy, who I love dearly and would do anything to make this right with, even though he has not forgiven me, my life bears witness that we stay sober through anything when we do this work, when we remain willing, when мы have a connection with God. And my hope in my heart is that eventually my life will bear witness to him that I am not the person I used to be and that God has transformed me. Like to be this living representative of the big book of Alcoholics synonymous that would me would be you know the aim and the goal here and that's why like we don't pray for ourselves anymore when you guys taught me that like my whole idea of God changed my whole idea of what God was supposed to be and what God Was supposed to do for me God wasn't supposed to you know you know we talk about a life beyond our wildest dreams I come in here and I think that's a six-figure income and a hot guy and like all this other I think it's all out here a light beyond our wildest dreams doesn't have anything to do with that a light be on our wildest streams that talks is it I believe for me is that that peace that passes all understanding through anything the ability to walk through life gracefully and not so gracefully through painful situations without a thought of a drink and without hurting people and when I do having the power to let go and you know admit that I'm wrong like knowing that it's more important like what happened with my brother that it was more important to love him than be right and that's what this step means to me is aligning my will with god one day at a time and getting up and asking god to direct me making that decision to have god direct me rather than having my fear direct me my self-seeking desires direct me my self pity direct me drive me around and the only way I know how to do that is through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and through a relationship with you and through transparency and honesty and connection and love and God you know before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous all I ever wanted to do was feel connected to something greater than myself I picked up a drink and that happened I did but eventually that that connection led me to deep isolation and fear and loneliness the 12 steps brought me back to that place of connection and love and brought me to god brought me into this relationship with god and no matter how imperfectly i have practiced these 12 steps or continue to imperfectly practice these perfect principles that connection is still there and it can be there one day at a time for the rest of my life. All I have to do is continue to make this decision to turn my will and my life over to a power that is not me and step out of my own way and trust that God can do for me what I cannot do for myself and I am not special and I'm not great at this and I're not unique. The freedom that we experience here is available to every single person. We just have to work for it. I don't have anything else. All right, we're going to do another break and then get rolling in the next.