The Georgia State Convention in Athens, GA

Tonight's speaker, as I was coming into, registration And maybe I shouldn't share this. No. And I better not share this because it's it's. Okay. This is kind of x rated.

It's kind of x rated. Okay. Alright. I'm gonna share it. And, may god have mercy on me.

Now if this speaker jumps on me or someone out there from Chicago, then I'm gonna they can't find some names or something. I don't know. They can't find some names or something. I don't know. So I asked Brian.

I say, where's, where's the speaker? She's right up there at the registration desk. So, a guy comes up and says, what's going on? And she says, there was a problem. I guess they weren't preregistered early enough or whatever.

And, he said, well, you know, I got mine. She said, you're sleeping with the speaker. But but now Richard is her husband, so and it's okay. And I just I thought it was so cute. You know, I really thought it was cute.

But anyway, this young lady seems to be quite nice. Now I told you, if she comes over here and attacks me, I want some help. But, she seems quite nice, and and she's from Chicago, Illinois. And, we kinda have a little common bond because I grew up in Detroit, and snow and ice and wind and cold weather is in those areas. So, thank god for Athens, Georgia.

I I never knew it existed. So without any more from me, I give you Kelly. Hello, everybody. My name is Kelly Landry and I'm an alcoholic. And, I believe I have to have 3 things active in my life today to feel comfortable on my own skin.

And the first one of those is a sobriety date. My sobriety date is January 6, 1996. And the second one is a home group. My home group is the Chicago Fox Hall Group. We meet on Wednesday nights in Chicago, Illinois on Hermitage and Armitage.

If you're ever in town, we're an open speaker meeting, please please please come and see us. We'd love to have you. The third thing is a sponsor. My sponsor's name is Polly P. I'm actively sponsored today, which is I haven't always been actively sponsored.

She knows where I am tonight, which is a big deal. As a matter of fact, she recommended me to speak here this evening. This is my first time. Thank you. Her my my Spencer Polly and her husband I mean, her son, James, recommended me to do this.

And I'll tell you what, there's nothing like being recommended for some for something that is this is a real huge honor and a privilege. I'm not sure if I've ever felt this proud. Just I feel it's remarkable. And I'd like to thank Dan and the committee for asking me. I know I was last minute, but this has really, really been a big deal for me.

Huge. And I'd like to thank Carrie and Rick. They picked Dawn and I up for the airport today, and they were wonderful and great, and they've been amazing hosts, and I feel very grateful for that. And, I'd like to thank God because, I'm very afraid to fly. And, when I got to the airport, I flew with Dawn C, and she's gonna be the Allen on speaker tomorrow.

And I'll tell you what, I was like, what flight? The whole time we talked and it was just it was amazing. And the whole flight was booked and she told me to tell this story, so I will. We weren't sitting in the same row and the whole flight was booked and there was one empty seat and it was in her row. So I was able to sit with Dawn and it's just, you know, it's amazing how God works in my life today.

So with saying all that, I'll start telling you what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. My sponsor told me to be honest. So I'm gonna try my best to do that. It's not always so easy for me. I, I'm 25 years old.

I got sober at 18. I grew up I was born in Chicago, Illinois when I was 2. My parents, who were married at the time, moved to Fort Lauderdale. I spent 15 years there. We lived My parents got divorced right away as soon as they moved down there.

I think I was 3 when my parents divorced, and it was just me and my mom. And we lived in a trailer park that was 3 blocks long and 3 blocks wide. It was, for lack of a better way to say it, white trash. There was a lot of confederate flags, a lot of pickup trucks, a lot of people barefoot. It was very it was like if you think about white trash, There's some people that can relate to that here.

I'm sorry. But I'm one of you guys. So, it was, I'm sorry. It was it was surrounded by the projects. It was not in a very good neighborhood.

I told you it was my first time. Note to self, keep that out when in Georgia. Okay. So it was surrounded by the projects, and, the trailer park was. And, I went to school.

That's where I went to school. It's right outside of the projects. Right outside of the trailer park, there was a school and, I was the This is very important to my story. When I'm a Now that I'm sober and I'm able to look back over my life, what was going on for me in the trailer park was it was me and my mom. She was very, addicted to drugs and alcohol.

It was just me and her. I was an only child. She was, not able to work, not able to hold down a job. She was very, there was a lot of dealing of drugs going on, a lot of sexual activity. And, so like any child, I think, in that situation, I didn't wanna be in the house.

And what was going on outside of the trailer was I was the leader of the pack in the trailer park. The tree house was in my yard. I was the boss. I'm very bossy and not a lot has changed. And, I was already at, like, 4, 5, 6, 7 years old controlling my environment.

I was already calling the shots. And, you know, that was what was going on the outside. And then what was going on in school is I was the only white person in all of my grades up till 4th grade. Everybody else was African American. And I just I thought because of that, that's why I felt like I couldn't fit in.

That's what I thought. I thought if you were the only white kid in an all black school, you would feel like you didn't belong too. So what I did differently than I think maybe a non alcoholic would have is, by the time I was in 4th grade, I had convinced anybody who would listen to me that I was a quarter black. That's insane when you're telling that to people at 7. And, so that was my story, and I was willing to stick to that.

I'm sure that I believed that a little bit. I at, in 5th grade, I changed schools. I went to a school that for people that were accelerated in math, and it was a magnet school called Nova, and, everybody there was Jewish. So by the time I was in 8th grade, I was a quarter black and half Jewish. I was totally I was totally confused about who I was.

I was, like, just confused. And, 8th grade, I think, 12 years old. It was right about the time 11, 12, it's, like, all kinda unclear, is when I started stealing, roaches out of my mom's ashtray. Do you guys know what roaches are? I knew it.

So I started stealing them out of the ashtray, and what I would do is I would steal them all week, and on the weekend, I would unroll them and then I'd roll up a joint. I'm aware this is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but I got sober at 18, and drugs are a part of my story. And I'll keep them real short, real short. Sorry if there's, you know, old timers in the room, and I offend you. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. So, what hap so my, you know, my first drink was actually a joint and I smoked it. And And what happened to me, it, was absolutely amazing. I was okay that I was white.

It was okay after I smoked that joint. It was okay that I had never been baptized a Christian and we didn't practice religion. That was okay too. It was okay what I was seeing my mom do to herself sexually inside of that trailer and hearing and watching. That was okay.

It was okay what was being done to me. Nothing really mattered. I didn't feel alone anymore. What I felt like was that this is the solution for me. And it's really important that I know that today because I think there's some people maybe that drugs and alcohol were problematic for them.

They were not problematic for me. They were my solution. It was hard for me to live without drugs and alcohol. That was unbearable. I was restless, irritable, and discontent.

I never I can I cannot remember ever not being restless, irritable, and discontent? We're talking 4 or 5 I felt like that. When I started doing drugs and alcohol, I felt fine. I felt normal. I felt like I can function in society.

I could go out for cheerleading. I could play soccer. I could do things that I wanted to do, that I knew I could do, and and feel like I was equal to the people I was doing them with. And, so that's what started. I started with pot.

Right after that, I started drinking. What happened to me when I drank is I developed the phenomenon of craving. I could not have one beer. I could not do it. I could not have I wanted to.

Sometimes I didn't feel like going out and getting smashed, but I could not. I have I am an alcoholic, and I developed the phenomena of craving when I put alcohol into my system. And, so that's what happened. And then, basically so that was, like, 12. I got sober at 18.

I'll tell you some facts about those 6 years. I, when I was 12, I left home. My mom could not support us anymore. She actually ended up doing crack, so, which is horrible, you know. And so my mom was gone, I was on my own, I lived in an efficiency from 12 to 17a half.

It was about 8 by 10. It had a college sized refrigerator, a single mattress on the floor with no sheets. It had mildew car carpeting. It had a bathroom with a stand up, shower. The floor was so rotten.

In Florida, the houses are up on bricks because there's a lot of flooding, and the floor was rotten out. So you literally had to, like, balance yourself to go to the bathroom. And I didn't go to school. I dropped out, I followed the Grateful Dead around. I hate that part.

But I did do that. And, I was dirty and smelly. And when I was 14, I had my first felony. I had 5 before the by the time I was 18, I spent a year in the juvenile penitentiary from 16 to 17 for just stupid stuff. I was not a smart, clever drug addict.

I was just out of it. And, life was for those 6 years that I spent in Florida using, I had absolutely no guidance. By the time I left Florida, I had absolutely, spiritually, which I didn't understand at the time, nothing left. I was just like a hollow soul walking around. And, what happened to me was that I fell down.

I joined Southern Comfort, which is, like, my favorite, and I fell down and I broke my nose on Mexican tile floor. It was the day before Christmas, 1994. And I was 17 with a broken nose. I was looked at myself in the mirror and I just thought, like, this is what your life is. You can't read, you can't write, you have no family, you have no place to live, you can't stop doing drugs and drinking.

And I just I don't know. But I had one of those, like it was like my first mini spiritual awakening, and basically what my head said was, you need to call your grandparents who live in Chicago and ask for help. I don't know where it came from because, like, the idea that I had a problem had never ever, ever crossed my mind. It had never crossed my mind. And I called them on Christmas Eve 1994, and I said to my grandparents who did not know the way that I lived, as far as I was concerned, they didn't know the way my mom had lived all these years.

They they, like, have a little bit of money and a nice house in the suburbs in Chicago. And I said, I'm dying, is what I said. How I knew that, I don't know. I mean, I know because I was, like, really sick, but I called them, they said, we'll send you a ticket. They sent me a ticket.

I moved to Chicago on January 12, 1995. My mother, as a matter of fact, picked me up from the airport. She had been living in Chicago for 8 months, and she was pregnant, and she was fat. And I you know a crackhead is sober when they start gaining weight, you know? So seeing my mom when she when I got off the plane, seeing how she was heavy, just was like a made me it was like a warm feeling inside for me, because I had a feeling like, if my mom can do it, because she was obviously getting better, because she wasn't skinny.

You know? If my mom could do it, maybe so could I. It just like was a thought. You know, I have a million thoughts. I can barely catch them.

And, that was just like a thought that ran through my head. I went straight into Elmhurst Hospital. I was, and this is the condition that I was in when I got here. I was £94. I was malnourished and dehydrated.

I had acute bladder, kidney, and urinary tract infection. I had scabies, which is a sexually transmitted disease from head to toe. It's like body life, so it was always itching. And long dreadlocks with bugs on them. I was really sick, you know, really, like, ill, not only mentally I was that's another story.

But physically, I was really sick at 17 years old. And I went to the hospital, and they said, you know, You have a problem with drugs and alcohol. And I was like I mean, nobody where I came from ever got sober, as far as I know. Nobody ever said alcoholic. I mean, you just drank and smoked crack and that was what you did.

I mean, it was like you I don't ever remember anybody saying, Yeah, you know, I need to go to an AA meeting. I I don't remember anybody ever talking like that ever or suggesting that somebody else might have a problem. I mean, you just didn't even talk about, like, where, you know, where I was using it. And I basically heard them say When the doctor said, You need to quit doing drugs and alcohol, basically what I heard is, You need to quit doing drugs. I thought I'm 17 years old.

I don't have a problem with alcohol. I barely drink. If there's other drugs around, alcohol was, like, second. I didn't I didn't care about it. So what I did is I got out of that treatment center and my mom was pregnant, had a little apartment in Villa Park, and I moved in with her.

It was a really huge change. It was the first time I lived with her in 5 years. And, I moved in there and I I was like, I'm not gonna use drugs anymore. I'm gonna do something with my life. I started taking GED classes at a local college, and then you're at the local college and you see somebody with dreadlocks and you think, oh, man.

I really wanna be sober, but there's a guy with dreadlocks. You know, and the next thing I know, I was like hanging out with this guy with the poncho and the dreadlocks, and the next thing you know, I'm drunk. And then whatever happened to trying to get my life together, I have no idea, but I didn't finish those GED classes. And what I ended up doing was getting a fake ID, Illinois fake ID. And, so I got a fake ID and I drank in the local bars in Villa Park.

It's not a nice neighborhood. It's, I was used to the kind of neighborhood it was, you know, very trashes. And so there was like 2 bars. There was Friends and Company and then there was VP Sports Bar. So basically, I went to Friends and Company and then I went to VP Sports Bar and then I went back to Friends and Company and then I went to VP Sports Bar and at 17 years old, that was where my life was.

And I I was able to get a job at a local diner and do waitressing because that was all I was gonna be at the rate that was what my mom was when she was able to work and that was all I was gonna be, was a waitress who could not even work an 8 hour shift without drinking and, I I couldn't. So This is funny because I'm in Georgia. I always tell this story and nobody ever knows what I'm talking about. I'm in a bar, I guess, and I meet a guy who's traveling from California. He says he's moving to Tybee Island, Georgia.

Tybee Island. Everybody's always like, where's that? But you guys know where that is. Right? And I guess I said I wanted to go with them.

I guess that's what happened because I woke up there, like, 2 days later. I really did. I did. I did. And I lived there.

I worked at I worked at the Ore House. It's a restaurant. The Ore with an o house. Okay? Nobody ever believes that that's the name of it, but that is the name of it.

That's where I worked. I drank there. There's a bar in every corner there. It's awesome. That's the best place in the whole world if you're at your bottom.

I mean, it was awesome. It was really awesome there. And after 3 months, this guy was like, Kathy, Carrie, Kelly, whatever your name is, you gotta go home. And because I was, like, you know, really bad. I mean, I was like one of those suicidal drunks.

I never went a full month without trying to kill myself. I was I tried to drown myself. I tried to cut myself. I tried to crash I crashed cars. Well, I kept crashing cars in sobriety for attention too, but we'll talk about that later.

I just really didn't wanna be alive and I'm Thank you, you know, God for not actually me succeeding any of those times I tried because my life is amazing today. So I left. It was Labor Day weekend. I went back to Illinois. I got a job at that same restaurant, Copper Kitchen, and, I remember a woman coming in.

This is so funny. I used to see her at the bar and she would, like, she was like she would flash her boobs if somebody would buy her beer, and she was like it doesn't matter what her name is, but she would do, like, these weird things. And I saw her in the restaurant with this older gentleman and she I was listening because I have elephant ears and she was saying, my life is so good now. And I hadn't seen her in a bar in a while and she looked kinda a little bit more heavy and she looked and she was like, my life is so good. I love the 12 steps.

And I was like, what is she talking about? What is wrong with her? And it was like that was in, like, the end of September. And and then I drank, and I tried some controlled drinking, thank God, in October where I would go play bingo. And I would say, if I win, I'll go to the bar.

If I don't win, I'll go home. But I just always went to the bar. You know, I never so that's my proof that my controlled drinking didn't work because I went to the bar anyways. Either I went broke because I bought, like because you don't just buy, like, if you're an alcoholic, like, a couple bingo cards. You have, like, a whole table full of bingo cards and you're like you know, if you've ever played bingo, you get really crazy with it.

And, because I don't do anything normal, nothing in moderation. You know? So, my controlled drinking didn't work and in the end of October, I'll tell you what happened to me. I went out, I worked Monday through Thursday. So basically, Thursday night at the restaurant when I got off at 8 o'clock, I pretty much drank from 8 o'clock on Thursday night right around till Monday morning when I needed to start at 11, and that's what it was like for me.

Now, I drank in between Monday through Thursday, but from Thursday till till Monday morning, I just I pretty much drank. And I drank on Manheim, it's a street in Chicago where the bars are open 247. They actually close for maybe an hour or 2, and you just sat in the parking lot. And, that's where I drank. My life was disgusting.

I was 18. I was bringing men home that were 5, 6 times my age. I mean, not 6. That would be a 120. But oh, I mean, really.

I exaggerate too. Honest. Honest. Honest. Honest.

Oh, guys that were my mother's age. You know? And I'm always putting my foot in my mouth. So my life was just it was really, really bad. I was doing all these things and it was just I would wake up and I lived right by this train station in these apartments with my mom and I would go across the street.

When I woke up, I would go across the street and I would get a little 5th of Southern Comfort, a little 5th of Amaretto because in the end that's all I could afford, and that would start my morning. I would have this 5th of Amaretto that I bought from the White Hen, which is like 711. And, that's how I would start in the morning, every day. And, you know, like 15 minutes before I was walking across the tracks, I was telling myself I'm never going to do this again. I'm because I would wake up with tattoos.

I have 5 tattoos. One of them I remember getting, and that was I have a big AA symbol on my back that I got at 60 days sober. Don't do it. But I knew you know what? I I've never relapsed and I knew from the time I came here that I needed to be here.

So I guess I thought, you know, I was gonna need to be here whether I was or not. You know? Screw it. Put the AA symbol on there. And so there was a lot of lot of consequences for my drinking, you know, like tattoos.

And so I was working in this restaurant and this is when the miracle happened. AA members would come in for fellowship, and if you next time you're in a meeting and you think about not going to the restaurant for fellowship, just go, because you never know whose life you're going to change from just being you, you know? And the AA members would come and they would ask for me. Why? I don't know.

But I was like £95, long hair, smelled like boobs I'm boobs. Smelled like booze. I had a fit this Southern Comfort in my pocket. My my uniform was too big. I really reeked.

I'm sure some of them that were newly sober saw me out, and I didn't remember them. And the wait the waitresses in the restaurant would say, oh, no. Here come those AAs. Nobody liked to wait on the AAs, in case you guys don't know that. And I would be like I would be like, oh, no.

Here come those AAs too. But really, I didn't know what an AA was. I had no idea. I had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. But what I did know is there was men and women, young and old, gay or straight, black and white.

There was, like, a really a melting pot of people, people that normally would not mix. Right? That's what was there at the table, and they were so nice to me. But there was this one guy, Eugene Peay, and he was so rude. He was like, you're gonna die before you're 21.

And I'd be like, great. You know? Who cares? Thank you. You know?

But he was so mean. He was so mean. And on December 17, 1995, 11 months after I moved to Chicago, he framed me, that guy. He set me up. He came back on a Monday night, one minute before my shift was over, with 2 of the cutest newcomer guys I've ever seen in my life.

Still, to this day, they were the hottest men in Alcoholics Anonymous. I I was just like, they sat down. They said, Kelly, will you sit down with us? And I was like, you know what I mean? Yes.

Yes. I will. They were like, do you wanna come to an AA meeting with me us tonight? I'm like, AA, BA, BB. Wherever you guys are going, let's go.

Come on. I mean, my higher higher power knew what I needed to get here. You know? Because I was really lonely. Were there any lonely women in here at the end?

I mean, I was so lonely. I was like, anything, please. And, I'll pay you. You know? It was really bad.

So, I went to my 1st AA meeting, and thank you, everybody that's been here longer than, you know, 6 years 10 months, thank you for staying and, and making this available for me because when I got here, I mean, I was I crawled through those doors and it was a small meeting. It was a First Step meeting. There was all men all over the age of 35, which was ancient when you're 18. And they all had just they were just drinkers, and they were from this small suburb. And I had absolutely nothing on the outside in common with these gentlemen.

Nothing. And I don't really remember anything they said, to tell you the truth, about their story or about alcoholism. What I do remember is, we're gonna love you until you learn to love yourself, which is, like, great. 13 men. I'm like, oh, hey.

And and they said, keep coming back. And I heard that, keep coming back. It it had been a long time since anybody had asked me to come back. I was like, okay. And here's the most amazing thing.

So I drank at Friends and Company, and I drank at VP Sports Bar, and in the middle of those two bars was a Nona Center East, and that was the club that I got sober in. And, so what I would do is I would go to friends, and I would go to AA meeting, and then I would go to BG Sports Bar for 14 days or 17 days from my Friday date is January 6th and they they 12 stepped me on December 17th. So for that period of days, I went to a meeting every day and I went to a meeting every day wasted because that's how I needed to be to walk into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am never, never mad when there's a wet drunk that walks into my home group. I'm like, you know what?

There's a seat next to me empty. Or here's a seat, not really next to me, but, No. Because Becca sits there, and she's here, and, you know, she knows the truth, so I don't want to lie. So, I came every day, and on January 5th, I heard a guy say, Pontiac Joe, he was speaking, it was a Saturday night speaker at this club. We had a steak, Saturday night steak dinner, and that's where I learned to cook, as a matter of fact.

He said, and I swear he was looking at me. Did you ever feel like that, where the speaker's, like, looking at me? Maybe it's just my self centeredness, but I swore he was, like, looking right at me, and he said, I don't know, but I'm sure you guys were saying this, but, like, I didn't really get you have to not drink to be an AA. Like, I got that you can have a better life, but, like, I miss don't drink. So I was always drunk, and he said that, and I was like, don't drink.

And I kinda, like, looked around like, are all these people not drinking? Jeez. Jeez. And then he said, if you don't wanna drink, which I didn't, I really did not wanna drink, he said, go home, put your keys under your bed at night and while you're down there, say thanks. And when you need to get your keys to leave in the morning and you're down there on your knees getting your keys, say please.

And I did that, and I haven't had a drink since. I haven't thank you. Thank you. I, it hasn't been an easy almost 7 years for me, and that's what I'm gonna spend. I know you guys probably wanna get out here, go dance into the open like night.

That's where I'm gonna be. But I'll tell you a little bit what it's like, what it was what it's been like for me, from 18 to 25. Once again, thank you to the people that have been here longer than me. This is an amazing place to grow up. I can't imagine a better place to grow up than in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It has just been awesome. My sponsor, when she speaks poly, she always says, And great events have come to pass, and that's what I'm going to spend the next 15 or so minutes talking about, some of the great events that have happened in my life and some of the not so great things that have happened. When I first got sober, I was 18 and I was crazy, and, my mom had that baby. And right after my mom had that baby, she went back to doing drugs to smoke and crack. So I got sober in this house for a year, a little over a year, with a mom who was drinking box wine and smoking crack and literally, like, blowing it at me.

And, I had this 6 month old brother and he has, his name is Tommy and he has Down syndrome and he's autistic, and he was really a handful. And here was this baby and here was my mom and all these men she had come in and out. So I took this baby and I went to meetings and, what the reason I'm telling you what it was like for me is when I was really new is because I have a privilege and an honor of working with a lot of women, And a lot of times you hear, like, I can't get sober because I'm around it. You've got to change your people, places, or things. I don't know anything about that except for that.

If you want this program, it's here. It's not for the people that need it because a lot more people than the people in this room need it in Georgia. It's for the people that want it, and I wanted it. I wanted this program. And even though that was my environment, I was able, because of you guys, to stay sober.

So I got sober in this little club in Villa Park. Everybody was much older than me. I played dominoes. The older gentlemen stayed there with me overnights and the nights that I thought if I went home, I would use. We'd play dice, we'd play cards, we'd play dominoes.

They just kept me busy. They kind of, like, took me into their wing, these old guys, and it was just great. And at 34 days sober, I did the best thing that I think you can do if you're a young person. I went to a young people's convention and, it was like 500 young guys. I'm sure there was girls there too.

But I was like I mean, I had for 34 days, I had been around, you know, 90 year olds as far as I was concerned. And they were like young men and they were sober and they were enthusiastic by me and, like, they were enthusiastic about AA, and I hooked up with these young people. And the reason I'm telling you this is because you know what? Hooking up with them didn't get me a sponsor. It didn't my honesty date is way different than my sobriety date.

It didn't get me honest. It didn't keep me faithful. But you know what it did? It kept me busy. And I joined these committees and I got a service commitment.

I wouldn't be sober. I got a service commitment on a city that was bidding for a regional convention. It's called Glurkeypod. It's no longer around. Great Lakes Regional Convention.

And I in 1996, I got on their bid committee. They were bidding to bring this convention to their town. And I was the hospitality chair because it was what they gave the newcomers, I guess. Sorry if Tommy's in here. Are you in here?

He's the hospitality chair. Right? Sorry. But that's what they gave me. I'm not sure.

Sorry. There I go again. So that's what I did. And like I said, I was a wreck. I didn't do anything right except for I showed up for that commitment.

I showed up for that lousy committee meetings where everybody was smoking, everybody was arguing, everybody was talking and arguing about money, and I didn't know what was going on except for that. If I wasn't there, when they went to Michigan to bid on this convention, nobody would put the hospitality room together. No, I know that's not true. Somebody else would have done it. But I felt like I needed to continue to go AA meetings because in March now this was in, you know, February when we went to or in April, when we went to Michigan to bid on this conference, I needed to be there.

And it kept me involved. That commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous kept me involved long enough for you guys to wrap your arms around me. Because in the beginning, I was like, tough girl. I was like, I pull my cigarettes out with my bare feet. I don't hug me.

You know, I was like very, like, if you put a mean face on, people won't come up to you, Kelly. You know, I was like, really, I was just really, really afraid. And you guys were the longer so then after that, we actually I think we got the convention that year or maybe the next year, but then I I was on the host committee, And that commitment kept me sober. And basically, what service commitment? And then I became an alternate GSR, which was just an an amazing thing.

And I started learning about Chicago AA general service, which is probably boring to a lot of people in here, but it was something about me that just it was just really amazing. 1, because when I got sober, I didn't know how to read. And being involved in general service, you I actually had a service sponsor that was willing to sit down with me and help me read the literature about the traditions, about the concepts. I had somebody I wasn't reading about the steps at this point in my sobriety, but I was learning about the traditions and the concepts. And it was it was it was just it was a way to lock me into Alcoholics anonymous until the miracle happened.

And what happened to me was I have 4 years of sobriety and, 20, I think it was 22 at the time, I had a job that I had been in for, about three and a half years. I was making about double my age, maybe a little bit more than that. I had gotten my GED, and I had scored, like, in the top 10% or something of anybody who's ever taken it. I'd gone to 2 years of college. My mom was sober, I had a relationship with her.

I had an amazing relationship with my brother. I had, like, 8 sponsies following me around that I was bossing around. And, I had a boyfriend, I had an apartment, like, I had all this stuff. And you know what I said? I got this stuff.

That's what I thought. Look at all the stuff I got. Look at who I am. Look at what I did. And so I started I heard somebody say, like, something about humility and something about prayer, and so I prayed for humility.

And my car was stolen by a newcomer, brand new car. I had no insurance because when you're me, you don't need car insurance. And, I lost my position at my firm. We got bought out by another company. That boyfriend, sweet little boyfriend broke up with me.

Those sponsees all of a sudden didn't want what I had. I needed to change apartments. Like, these things started I said at the time, they were ripped from me. Oh, I lost that scholarship to that college because when my car got stolen, I was so sad I got a C and I lost my I lost everything. So what I was at, at about 4 years of sobriety, I was a blubbering idiot.

And when I was at meetings, new people would come up to me and say, it's going to be okay. They're like, I'm 40 years sober. What do you mean? But they thought I was new because I was a blubbering idiot. I was absolutely devastated that God took all this stuff from me.

All the things that I got, right, all the stuff that I had worked so hard for to get were all gone, and I was just I was nothing. And what that forced me to do is it forced me to take the bus to work, which is it was so humiliating for me. But when I was on the bus and when I was walking to the bus stop, I was praying. I was praying. Pray, praying?

I was praying. I was actually willing to start a relationship with my higher power. I was willing. Even though I didn't I wasn't even sure at that time that I believed, I was willing to start because I was in so much pain. I was so humiliated.

And I got this amazing sponsor, her name was Lisa. She was just like, step, step. She was really kind of mean sometimes. She was like, step, step, step, step, step, and she started slowly, slowly taking me through the steps, which I had dabbled in before, but I I actually had written for inventories. A lot of them, I put lies on.

I was just unable to be honest. I can't believe I haven't drank. It's just amazing. It's just it's unbelievable. She started talking about the steps.

So what I started doing, I started following and this is this is where my life really started to change. I started to follow my sponsor around because she was going through a divorce. She had just lost her husband, she had just lost her mom, and she had watched her mom take her last breath. My sponsor was really desperate and willing. And there's something magical about having a sponsor who is she was 12 years sober at that time.

She was really desperate and willing. There's something magical about that and she was following her sponsor around TJ. So we were all it started out there was, like, 6 of us and then all of a sudden we were just following each other around and the next thing you know, the group was, like, 40 people. And my sponsor was asked to speak at, a meeting in Oak Lawn, Illinois and it's called Oak Lawn Big Book Group. And in, Chicago, we have a lot of different AAs.

I'm sure there's a lot of different AAs here, but this AAs was AAs that I did not like. It was AAs where people dress nice, when the women were asked to speak, they were in a pantsuit or, you know, a skirt. The men, when they were asked to speak, they wore ties. And, it was, I mean, I wore sweatpants, t shirts with no bras to AA meetings at 4 years sober. I had no self worth.

That's not funny. Yeah. I had no dignity, no self respect, no self worth, no self esteem. I was just, but I had done it all, you know. And, I went to this meeting and of course, I was like, oh, God.

But I had this, like, love for Alcoholics Anonymous that's always been in my heart. And, I went there, and this was like about two and a half years ago, almost 3 years, and I I went to this meeting, my sponsor was speaking at it. Now, I was only at this meeting because I was desperate enough to follow my sponsor around. And I was in the 3rd row, I was with 2 of the women that I sponsor, and, I saw this man sitting in the front row that when, an older gentleman, an old older man and somebody with more sobriety time than him came up, this this gentleman, stood up and let this guy sit in his seat and I thought, Man, that's really nice. Like, in the kind of AA I went to, people weren't doing that, and, I kind of took a liking to that guy.

And Rich, can you stand up? That's Rich. That's my husband. That's the one that's sleeping with the speaker. Just him today.

Can you believe that? I saw him and I saw his respect and his love for Alcoholics Anonymous and I thought, I want what he has, literally, like, spiritually too. And I saw him there, and I saw him, you know, a few nights later at a meeting. And then I saw him at an AA dance, and, he was kind enough to ask me if I wanted a ride home and then walk me to my door, and I I actually because of Alcoholics Anonymous and the people in this room and willingness that God gave me, I actually had a man ask me out on a date. That is amazing.

Maybe you'll has a lot of women had that happen? I had never had that happen. I was not the type of girl, even in Alcoholics Anonymous, that people asked out. That's not who I was. Because you know what?