Debbie B. from San Jose, CA at San Jose's "Sober and Free"

And, it's actually with great honor that, I get to I see she has tissue in her hand to introduce my sponsor who has been with me for the last ten and a half years. And I just I love listening to her because ten and a half years of sobriety, I still want what she has. And I hope you guys get something out of her share today. So Debbie B. Hi, I'm Debbie and I am an alcoholic.

And that was a surprise. I wasn't anticipating that. It's not fair. I started tearing up. I was tearing up when Sue was talking.

So I'm glad we have Kleenex. I am an alcoholic. My name is Debbie and I want to say first off, thank you to the committee. Thank you to everyone involved in this convention this year. It is an honor and a privilege at any time to serve in any capacity to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

There are a lot of avenues of service work and one of them is what you're seeing today, both showing up for the meetings and having the honor and the privilege to speak at any particular meeting. Whilst just talking I was thinking, I've spoke several times here and there and there's a comment read. One of them is this. I don't care who you are. You get up here and you start to talk and even if you feel dumb as a cucumber, your gums start to stick to your teeth just a little bit.

And that's why we have all these water pictures up here. The problem is that if you speak and you know you're being taped, you don't really want to wander too far off and keep talking. So the deal would be to get one of those camel packs. Could you imagine? I just had to splash when Sue was talking and you have a little straw coming right here so you can just not miss a beat.

And it's true and I'm a nurse. So I feel those little signs of heart rate looks up. When you pick up your glass, you're like that. I just have to take a sip. That's kind of a sign that there might be a little nerves going on.

I actually feel pretty centered today. And I'll tell you probably that's all about. I had the most wonderful evening last night. I had an opportunity to show up late afternoon yesterday and I stayed and it was a fabulous between the people here, the energy and the speakers and the whole works. It was a wonderful conference.

It has been a wonderful conference so far. So I am honored and privileged to be here today and I was looking out at the crowd and I decided that that's trouble row right down there because I've got a lot of people that are near and dear to me and that I love that are making faces. So it's kind of fun when you're sitting here and that happens. I feel privileged to share this afternoon with Sue. I was at the Super Bowl party and I don't know why she was looking at me when she was talking about people's personalities coming out.

But but, yeah, it feels good. It's also April, 2002. And it dawned on oh, and I have to throw in one more thing. My partner, Elaine, mentioned to me last night that rather than wearing a watch because I tend I don't know how Italian, but I talk with my arms. So I'd never get to glance at the time.

Maybe I ought to put a watch down here. So instead of a watch, I brought this humongous stopwatch with big numbers. But I realized, be ready to duck because I do talk with my hands and there's a good chance it's going to go flying. So April, this is April 2002. And it dawned on me today, I kind of share about when I came in and my sobriety date and in 30 minutes I certainly am not I'll weave in my drinking past, but it will be incorporated with recovery.

And it dawned on me that usually start with August 1986 after when I headed towards my bottom, but not really, it started in April of 1986. So it was actually 15 years ago this month. Spring of 1986, April, I started to slide into my bottom. And in April of 1986, I lived in Menlo Park, California, where I was 27, soon to be 28 in October, 27 years old. I had my own apartment, live with my cat.

I was a cocktail waitress. I had achieved my incredible goals for my life and that was cocktail waitress. At the top, I was at the Ricky's Hyatt in Palo Alto, it was just wonderful. And but what happened in 1986 is an accumulation of 27 years of drinking and using. I ended up in my apartment in Menlo Park with the drapes drawn by myself drinking the cheapest, biggest bottle of and I don't know that I exaggerate, but wine I haven't gone looking lately, but wants to come in.

I don't know, I call it 5 gallon. I don't know how big it was. It was a big thing with a twist top. You almost had to hold it and pour, you know, like that. And I had a plastic tumbler tall and I would just sit there and I would drink the cheapest wine.

I barely came out of my apartment at that time, right at the end, right at the bottom. And, the people that came to my rescue in 1986 after I assaulted a police officer in a bar in Menlo Park. I picked up a flower pot and threw it over his head. And I have no idea why really. I also at that point now looking back realize that alcohol and drugs had completely I mean I was not myself.

I would anger to myself without knowing it. I was just gone. So I'm in this bar after work, because that's what we do. You work in a bar and when you're done there, then you go to the other bars where they know you and they do you right. And so it was a Sunday afternoon and I don't really I'm not clear what happened exactly, but they asked me to leave and I wasn't going to not till I finished my champagne.

And this was a Stamford Arms, which is a pretty nice hotel and I ended up Stamford Arms or in Peanuts on the Shell, just a dive corner bar, all in the same day to be there at the end there. And what happened was my sister got a phone call to get me out of the bar, wasn't going to leave. They sent the police to kindly guide me out and I assaulted a policeman. I ended up getting arrested. I went to Redwood City Women's Facility, in which I sat in there I think for about a week, week, 2 weeks arraignment, all these things went on.

And in that week, in about a week's time, I wasn't aware of it, but my family stepped in, okay, and came to my rescue. My brother, who's at that time was practicing law down south, so he's an attorney. So, I had an attorney, but I didn't know I had one. And then my dad, who I left home when I was 16 and I took my 14 year old sister and I had never been back, came in. My sister got involved and I was released.

And all I wanted to do was go back to my apartment where I had been, okay, and just get my life back together. It was a bum rap, just a bad accident, a bad day. If I can just go home, get myself together again, I'll go back to work. I'll think of a lie to tell where have I been for a week. So instead of going to my house, we veer off towards my sisters.

And I asked what's going on. And they didn't think I was taking all this very seriously. And they were deep concerned about me. And at that time in my life, I'll tell you something. My defenses were so huge that right then and there anger just shot up.

I hated with darts, all 3 of them. And it was like I couldn't jump out of the car, but I couldn't wait till they stop because you know what, I am not going into my sister's house to be bombarded. I've had a rough week, I've been in jail. And is this and basically what happened, what I realized now, I had no capacity of seeing their concerns. I had no capacity of seeing the pain on their faces to be able to see that, none.

I went back into the mode that I got to at 27 years old, which was I don't need you and I don't need anybody. I'll take care of myself. Thank you. And I couldn't see that I had taken care of myself right to this point. And then I needed help.

So I jetted out of there, I walked home, it was a few miles. And in my house, if you open the refrigerator, you had some ketchup, I think there's some mayonnaise, beer, wine and maybe nail polish or something. So cracked open a beer, sat down trying to plot my core. And what ended up happening was I had my brother, probably had his friend from Berkeley, who's a psychologist, must have taken a Learjet down to Menlo Park because by late that evening, there was knock on my front door. And it was my brother and his friend and my father and my sister and they weren't leaving until I went to see a psychiatrist at Stanford there.

So we hemmed and hawed and I refused and then I said, okay, fine, I'm going, but I never want to see any of you again. I've disowned you. That's it. I'll go give this guy 10 minutes of my time, this doctor, whoever it is I'm supposed to talk to, and I'm out of here. Never want to see you again.

10 minutes of my time turned into a 72 hour hold. But I'll tell you what, now this is where it tells you that I was not quite altogether because I got shipped over to Stanford N. O. B, which is in the Hoover Pavilion, it's the old part of the hospital. And when I got there, it was quite nice actually.

We had steak for dinner, I got the pink room. We played football in the backyard. It was lean, everybody was nice and I just had to talk to these doctors in White Coast periodically, different times in the afternoon. So 3 days later, they let me out. That's when I went into the devastation of drapes drawn and the booze and isolated myself in the apartment.

I lied. I was incapable of telling the truth to my family, to the policemen, to the psychiatrist. I just told them what they wanted to hear. I was completely shut down. So I kept doing my thing.

And what happened after there was a succession of trips to the psych ward. That would be a phone call from my neighbors who would say I think she's at it again. My music was going on and I'm like 12 sheets to the wind there in the park. And Menlo Park Police would come and then the ambulance would come and they'd get me in there. But then I called NOB, the Ritz Carlton of the psych wards.

Okay, that was the Ritz. And then something happened. I don't know how my ticket there got changed. But instead of going to Ritz, I end up in County. And I'm in 4 point leather restraints, and I'm urinating on myself and oh, the people here are just nasty and they're all crazy.

They're all crazy in there and they're shuffling and smoking their cigarettes. And I don't belong here but I did belong there because alcohol and drugs had crossed that line and I was absolutely incapable of seeing where I was at. When I got out, I lost everything and I ended up moving into Los Gatos with my father. Stipulation was I stopped drinking and using. I hadn't lived with my dad, like I said, since I was 16, moved out, took my 14 year old sister with me.

My mom died when I was 12 and she was 10. And after that, my dad's alcoholism surfaced because she kept it undercover very well, very loving home prior to that, but alcoholism was rampant. So from my age of 12 to 16, those last 4 years was all about after men died, I don't need you and I don't need anybody. And my dad, God bless him, heart was broken and he hit the bottle and he didn't know how to take care of us. So we took off and took care of ourselves.

So here I am now living in his house again. The thing I said I would never do, I said I'd never go to his funeral ever. You're never going to catch me at that guy's funeral. And here I am with a bed in his living room, 1 bedroom apartment. I say Las Gattas, don't get your hopes up.

It wasn't a mansion or anything. It was a little one bedroom apartment and my dad would go to bed and I would wait the crack in the door, I'd see the light, he's reading, then it would go off and I give 10, 15 minutes and I reach under my bed and I'd have vodka something in a shoebox under the bed. And I would drink in the dark alone. And then I would get up and I would go during the day to Vasona Park with something I could afford to buy cheap wine or beer by myself. The stipulation to move there was I quit drinking and I quit using and I said okay.

But I didn't know how. I had no tools, I had no idea. I didn't know what was wrong with me, I thought I'm just crazy. And then talk about angels. I know that God put an angel in my life in that park and she 12 stepped me with me not even knowing it.

I offered her a beer. She said she didn't drink but that's about it. And we talked and she let me drink. She brought her daughter there and she said I'm going to be here tomorrow same time, 10 10:30, whatever. Okay, I'll meet you.

Go back the next day, same thing. Then I'd bring like something different. If it wasn't beer, I might bring a little wine. Maybe she just doesn't do beer. And she'd tell me, no, I don't drink and then she'd add a few more things to that.

And before you know it within, it's very foggy, it was August 1986. She told me that she belonged to a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she began to explain what that was. And then she asked me if I wanted to go to a meeting. And you know you guys, I was so lonely. And something happened.

I'm gonna tell you, lonely. But in that foggy period of August of 1986 in the park, I started to look forward to my meetings with her. I thought it was just because I was lonely. Hey, it's been done a geographic move in with my dad, lost everything. I'm 27 years old.

I'm crazy. And, you know, at least she'll talk to me. But what it was was one alcoholic talking to another, and I didn't know it because I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I began to look forward to talking to her, and and I started to tell her things I never told my family who cared deeply for me, the police who had my welfare as their concern or the psychiatrist or doctors or whoever I saw. I could not tell them the truth.

I began to let little bits of me out to her, total stranger. She brought me my first meeting and that was Saturday Night Live. 10 years that was my home group. I still owe life to that group. I owe my life to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Fabulous. She brought me to my first meeting. And let me tell you something, she picked me up in like the last few weeks in August. And I did all I knew what to do. And that was prior it was noon meetings I would go to.

So she'd do her thing in the park with her daughter and then she come swing by and pick me up with the baby. And I drink before she got because I was drinking. But now she's taking me out of the park and we're going to an alcoholic's not in. She told me a bit about it. We don't drink.

Okay. So I drink first thing in the morning and then I brush my teeth and whatever cologne I had, and often I'd go. And then something happened. I had alcohol in my system, but I kept going to those meetings. And in a period of time, very short, maybe a couple of weeks, September 1, 1986, I stood up at Saturday Nightlife and I said, oh, my name is Debbie and I'm an alcoholic.

And prior to that in the morning at 10 o'clock, she picked me up. I said, Brent, I haven't had a drink today. She did not, judge me, shame me, say anything like what are you talking about? You've been doing this for 2 weeks. What do you mean you have a drink today?

You know, she knew. Of course, she knew. Everybody in there probably knew. I probably reeked of alcohol, you know, but she nothing. She she was like, oh, my god.

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Maybe that's what I caught. I don't know. But I spend the meeting and I haven't had a drink. And I want to share that with you because it is possible.

Irrelevant to whether you're in and out, in and out, in and out 20 times or whether this is your first day, okay. You need never drink again. If you are someone who has had a history of relapse, which I haven't experienced, so I'm trying to learn more about it, okay. It's not my experience, but I share this with you. It is time to put that down.

It is time to put that shame and that judgment down and claim this day today as your stay of robbery. And if you do this and you take some direction and you work this program, I can make you a promise that you'd never drink again. And one day you can stand up and tell people, you know what, on what is the date? On April 28, 2,002, I took my last drink. I'm assuming that for people who have had a struggle, there's maybe a lot of guilt to let go of, maybe a different form than what I came in with.

But it's not impossible. You're not different than the people who get to stay here from day 1. Okay. And I share that with you. But you have to make that decision.

I had to make a decision, that I wanted this thing. And what I realized now today is that when I stood up and said, hi, I'm Debbie and I'm an alcoholic, what I really was saying is, hi, I'm Debbie and I wanna live. But I didn't know I was doing that. I don't know how. Help me, but I wanna live.

The point of sobriety is life. It's not complicated. The point of sobriety is not all the bonuses. That is a gift that can come with sobriety. The point of sobriety is all the blessings of gifts.

Because see, what happens if you're an individual sitting out here today who has lost their home, partners died, their car has broke down, and they're on the borderline losing their jobs. You're gonna ask yourself what the hell is the point of sobriety. Okay. Because goddamn it all the promises and gifts and blessings I everybody yappy yappy up here talking about I don't have. But I might have 10 years, I might have 5 years, I might have 40 years.

In those moments, we have to ask ourselves, I have to ask myself, what is the point of sobriety? It's life. For as long as I'm breathing in and out, there's hope. And if I'm sober, you know, oh, God, beyond there's so much hope. I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

The book tells me that and I claim it. I had a sponsor who told me early on, let's go with the book and I want to start claiming these things. And you guys, I didn't believe any of it. There's no way. I wasn't even sure that thing was going to work for me.

I had a big difficult time with the God's concept and I share with you at any point in recovery in your path, it's a spiritual path, will continue to be spiritual seekers. The beauty here in Alcoholics Anonymous is that it is higher power that we talk about. Don't let anyone speaking of their higher power as God or Jesus or Buddha scare you away because it's individual concept. They're all good. One truth known by any name.

One truth known by many names. And we get the freedom to separate and to explore our own personal concepts of our higher powers. And the longer you're here, God willing, you keep you willing, I know God is, you keep seeking. The book is very clear. What I have is a daily reprieve content upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition.

Step 10 in the big book. Okay, maintaining my spiritual condition. To see for me the obsession to drink and use has been removed. Now I'm learning how to do life, I need tools. I have lost the choice of drink.

I don't get to choose that one. What I get to choose today is recovery or not. If I don't choose recovery, sometimes that's a slow process. Eventually, I have no choice but to drink. But I have lost my power of choice as far as alcohol goes.

I knew that when I got here. I mean, it was obvious, right? And then okay, I learned that and I learned I'm powerless and it was a powerful concept. I've been called everything else in the book out there drinking, as we all have, but no one presented it as being powerless. And after I worked the steps, I became empowered.

Wow, controversy. I'm powerless now. I never felt so powerful. Okay. But it didn't change the fact that I still have lost my ability to choose so far as alcohol is concerned.

Just because I'm sober doesn't mean now I have a choice of whether I want to drink or not. For me it's not a choice. What I have a choice about is whether or not I want to recover. If I choose to drink, you better take a look at my entire pattern, what's happened. Somewhere along the line, I've stopped choosing recovery.

And then I had no choice but to drink. In recovery, my concept of God has grown more and more. And now you know what? I'm a runner. I love the outdoors.

I find that's my thing. Okay, everybody has a thing. I get away into a mountain by myself on a trail running, makes me cry. And I can put life in perspective because it's so crazy down here. We're just like a bunch of ants, you know.

You know, we're honking, you know. Get the fuck out of my way, you know. And it's like, you know, and it's just like, oh, I get away and I can put life into perspective. What it's really all about might just be that little butterfly that's flying on so innocently. And I go, it helps me put my worries and my concerns in perspective.

I no longer react to life the way I used to. I've had a profound alteration in my reaction to life as a direct result of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous have enabled me to go inside and to discover who Debbie is, to find out over the years what are my values, what are my beliefs. I get stronger in that and it's fabulous. It's an ongoing journey.

They are a process of healing. I wouldn't be today had I not only worked them but incorporated the 12 principles as a way of living. This didn't happen overnight. I'm not a guru. None of us are with lots of time.

I'm sorry, Rod. But you know what? Roger is not a guru. I'll tell you what he's a peer to me, but he's my spiritual advisor. I love Diane beyond measure.

And because we can be equal, see, and that's why I share with you today, if you're new, please, please shed the term retread. Please read the book and see if it's in there. I haven't found it yet. Maybe I'm missing something. Retread is a shaming negative term.

It's going to keep you different, not only from the outside world, non alcoholic world, but my god, you're not even going to fit in here except with other retreads. And then all you retreads, we expect it to be retreads and I'll go and drink. Shed that, shed it, get rid of it. You are an alcoholic And you have a decision to make today. If you want to stay clean and sober, grab this thing.

If you want to do the dance, then just putts, putts around the meetings and don't quite really get a sponsor and don't work the steps for God's sake. I'm serious. In my recovery, I've had many sorrows, but more joys. Because on the end of great sorrow, I have found great joy, incredible joy because I stuck it out. Because I spit out my higher power, who I call God at times, who I call the great spirit, it depends, whatever, it's mine, I'm connected with.

God rests right in here for me. And I see God in all of you outside and see it. I've had experience in recovery of going to school. I would say back to school, but I barely got out of high school. So I didn't really go back to college, I never went and just barely got out of high school.

So in recovery, this person who was so broken, who truly, I don't know that any of you knew me then. TJ, maybe you saw him in. I mean, you know when you see the people that, you go, oh, for God's sake. I mean, you do in your head, you know, and you just go, oh, that poor thing. You get on it, it, that poor thing, she's just like that, that was me.

It was like all I could do in a day. If I did a noon meeting, I wasn't gonna take a shower. And if I showered, it was frightening and exhausting. And then brushing my teeth also, it was a big day. Now it might you might think, oh, that can't be real, real who I was.

I got poured into the AA meetings and I was able to go to school. That process of a 2 year junior college, I went for 7 years. But one day at a time, I got 2 degrees. 1, AA degree in speech communication, and then an AA associate degree in nursing. My passion, something I knew in my heart when I was 15 years old I wanted to do but that would be impossible because I had to work.

I couldn't go to school. I am now a nurse for the past going on into my 8th year at Stanford University. I did not find it necessary when I filled out the paperwork and they said, have you ever been a patient here before? I'm not going to tell them yes in your psych ward as a matter of fact. Too much information.

You know, they're not looking for that, you know, so many years later. And yet at the same time, I'm open about that on my unit because I work on a unit where quite often we have people coming in for other diagnoses, but they withdraw from alcohol, unknowns to many. And so I have an opportunity to quietly draw the drapes and talk to someone at some time depending, whatever. So and many of my people I work with know. I'm blessed beyond measure.

I have a wealth of friends that they know. I go on and on. I tend to get off into the you know, they go there goes Deb, bring it in the landing. That's what they tell me, you know. Like, oh, I love you.

Do you know how much I and you know what? I don't know what you think. It's my truth. It's I am. It's how I feel.

Sometimes I'm just so rocketed. I'm so blown away. You know what I mean? Get beyond all the personalities in the bowl. And, like, I like, standing up here, you have an opportunity.

I all of you in some capacity. And the ones I don't, I will after today just by laying eyes on you. You know, we are more similar than we are unlike, truly, if we would just let go of all that other stuff. I have had, 6 years with the most beautiful human being I have ever met, my soulmate. 3 years ago in June, we had a wedding, my wedding.

You know, everybody else calls whatever it is for them. For me, it was my wedding. I'd never been married, thought, not for me. I'm never gonna do it. And when and then I even kinda thought, well, what do I call this?

You know, is it a is it a commitment ceremony? It's like, no, you know what? This is my wedding. And we had it. And it was beautiful.

Oh, my God. And I'll tell you something, the energy in that room to have recovering people, to have family flown out from Canada, from my 86 year old aunt from Canada, came down and she's on the boogie dancing there on the dance floor and we had gay and straight, we had I couldn't have enough invitations for people from work, because we didn't it wasn't huge, so it was limited. Every nurse from work wanted to come. I had people from work, I had straight couples, gay couple, I, I, I had it all and Elaine wasn't there. Sometimes I forget, you know.

It's like, I'm trying to put a plug in for the relationship and there I go and I, self centeredness still to the extreme. It was the most beautiful day of my life. And the harmony and the incredible, my brother walked me down the aisle. That brother that I never wanted to see again, I adore him. He He saved my life.

He was an angel. He was one of the angels placed in my life in 1986, 15 years ago, this month, and took me a bit to get sober. But that was my bottom and that was my process. If you're new or old, stay. We need you.

I need you. There's a thing that I particularly like and it is, I ask God for all things that I might enjoy life. God gave me life that I might enjoy all things. The point of sobriety is life. You have a decision to make today and each day whether or not you want to live.

Each day, I choose sobriety, I choose recovery. I ask myself in mild ways, not right upright, but in some form from my waking moment, even while I'm going to make coffee, I acknowledge the day. I acknowledge that I'm sober and I choose sobriety. I choose life. And as long as I'm consciously aware of that, I'll stay, I have no doubt.

See, I don't say God willing, I'll have 16 years September 1, it's if I'm willing. I don't have a God that I have to worry about if he's willing or not. He, she, whichever. Find your higher power, it rests inside you. It's yours.

Ask someone for help for you to discover it and take this journey with us. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. You may not feel that way today and especially if you're new, but those that is what will happen. I make promises to my sponsors and you ask any of them yet if it hasn't come true. If they do a few things, I guarantee you I don't have a time limit on that, but just hang around, it will happen.

Thank you so much for letting me share. And let's have fun this afternoon with the play. Thanks. Thank you.