Florida Roundup in Miami Beach, FL

I'm an alcoholic in my name Pasha

hi everyone

a little story hi if I can like get rid of the clutter because I'm frightened to death

after that wonderful Italian extravaganza

it would have been a long time here

I went to the bathroom

okay

and one in the bathroom I'm like what are we going to continue to look out and see all the faces and I'm gonna get scared and my mouth to go trying to feel like I've been doing cotton and

what am I gonna do to relax

one thing they're trying to take my splint

it down real fast

excuse me and then we'll move it into question and

it is about

when you have a crowding what to do thank you so common

I think

he looked at me I look at her and we're both waiting

my mother allowed her ample

what's going on I don't I don't know what's going on with it with PJ

you're looking at each other and

my lover knew what she was saying I don't know what you think I was looking for suggestion

okay

and how my life went

our modern lifestyle

I finally got my my skin clean

I'm not quite as well as clean as you but I can take it

I grew up in an alcoholic home

my father died when I was seventeen yeah we drink there though

yeah

he did a year in this program and I carry with me down in my big book

I'm not that big but the one at home this is the one I travel with

I'm also a proud mother

I'm also as a result of the process of recovery of Alcoholics Anonymous I'm a nurse

I'm a proud lesbian

and we're co parent two wonderful boys five eight years old

what my job done a year later

I think it's because I have a god that

I was able to tap into due to you all

I'm living in a dream

don't ever call those genes that you had when you were small child

because they do come true

I remember in the death of hiding from my father used to

well

his to do things to me in my free

and during the day I would be scared I was going to class it would

and I hide and I'd rock back and forth

and I say if only I could get to Vermont everything would be OK

because I knew god with their

I didn't know that god was with me

the card in with me

the card is

the great spirit within me the light that shines that you cannot

the like the times that I think you're right thank god

I live in Vermont today

I was nine years sober when I finally moved there

my mother is the one who I could say twelve step into Allen on

this is an unknown Armenians that finally got me a

I don't have a long drinking history I have a long held history

and nothing unlike any other what you've all gone through

the difference is

that is my history that's all but the feeling the same I lived in a prison within my own mind

and I didn't have the key to get out

and I think somebody

get the key

I read all kinds of books

and I searched all kinds of places but I didn't know whether he was

I didn't know how to get out

my mother told me to go down on

because my father was an alcoholic

and it took me six months but I finally after six months one on one Allentown swing

I went to my first meeting

when I was seven months over an airy member my first a a meeting

mmhm I had a few

Yushin

and in one of those states I attended an a a meeting because I want to understand my father's alcoholism

I was the perfect social drinker for many years I

the drink one and a half drink

because my father always had only a couple of years and he was passed out in the living room floor or the kitchen floor or the bathroom floor

or wherever but he only had to

a couple minutes to write

and so I would only take a drink and a half

with an Intel I introduce myself or I was introduced or somebody introduced me to drugs that I lost my capacity in my ability to

hold out from controlling my drinking

and inside of a year and a half

I was unable to

I was unable to be a person

I had given my life over to whoever would take it responsibility for it and when I came into the room today and I had

one died in my life and he was

shorter than I was

and he told me what to wear

he was my landlord he was my boss

the card in my car

and he gave me drugs

and I did it myself

the body has been a wonderful

painless journey

the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my life

what I think here

it's my opinion in my experience and my strength and my hope

and if you don't find what I think in the first one hundred and sixty four pages of the book forget about it because it's my life

how I learned

to heal myself

in this program through what you told me but by reading this book

the tech talk about non this

this is undoubtedly outside of the Bible the only other thing in the world and change in history

that's a fact

tell me everything I need to know about the only living

and when I forget that there are god out there for me

it's here for me

so when I'm nervous when I'm scared or I'm insecure and I don't know that I can take you with me I take my book because it reminds me of where I am and who I am or where I'm going and where I stand

and I don't ever have to go back there again

the amount of lessons that I've learned in sobriety

there's a less

yes

that I have today's meeting

but I would have never had that had I not had you

and for that I am responsible to be here so that I can become a you know the next me that come through the door

today I have a life

as a result of being sober I am a nurse they actually gave me the keys to lock box

three years sober and I was pregnant and the relationship that I had been in I tried it again and we decided to part

because the responsibility of a child was just too much and so she went her way and I went mine and instead of making a career for myself I decided to have a child

and I didn't know it then but I know it now only in reflection looking back hindsight is a wonderful gift

I realized that god was doing for me what I can do for myself

thank god with the media ample opportunity to

surrender

to be teachable to learn

to be a mother

I have this wonderful child

in

and it's not with me here but he's been here several times over and several people know him here and he misses you already said hello

he's eight now

it's been eight years

eight fight for years

the kids in alcoholic

it's in the genes

god has given me America look at on a daily basis in my own child

if you're here that I can reflect and see what I need to change my own

that was a little pointer that lovely little finger

when I started doing that I know that I need to take a look at myself

it's been great times and great laughs and great growth in great pain

what happened

what I

I wanted something more out of life

but I wasn't willing to do the work

when I came here he told me that you were going to hand me on a platter like I wanted it

yeah I gave myself away to ever would have me and now

now I don't have anything I didn't know who I was I don't know where I was going and what I wanted to find out what if I want somebody I felt like the show that was walking around

without anything inside

and that and I wanted some I wanted to be somebody I wanted to grow up I want to be an adult because I had an adult body and

I wasn't that person

hearing is really bad

because I wanted to share the great thing that's ever happened to me in my life the great thing is never happened to me in my life

I'm sober

that's a good thing that's ever happened to me why would I want to talk to you about it

you and and I know the expectation because I know why I come round up to round up to get that sent me are my comes around to hear those words that that kind of thing to me that I can't hear anywhere else I come around the

have the love that I feel in the room I come around that you know that the twelfth that's really work in other people's life and no work in mine too and now I'm the one up here trying to

share my experience strength and hope with you

I'm feeling really is

and I had somebody say that it's really okay to be frightened

and it's really okay to share

I want to be the person with great words of wisdom

and although I have to share with you is what I did and what I did with the staff

when I got here that I need to get a sponsor they tell me when I got here that I had to go to a halfway house you people didn't tell me that but I got extra help I was really kind of cookie I went to treatment because I thought it was an Allen on person

well I have that I have the disease codependent you're right

at the end of the activities I became an alcoholic will win can't be anywhere you join them and that's what I did

and when I went to treatment could come at about the halfway house like packed luggage it with matching

and I put my makeup on

because I didn't want anyone to know

and they look like they're going to boarding school

and I applied to the graduate health north Palm Beach

and they refused to take me

I'm one of those alcoholic that really doesn't have a colorful past I'm not you know I don't have any do you live I've never done time in prison going into Friday when I went to play baseball

I I have like a year and a half using and abusing because my hell was

before that

and

I have enough time here to qualify

to be here

so

when I went to a private this halfway house I thought what do you mean you can take me

you know I don't have a prison record you know

what's wrong with me they said I needed a more structured environment

thank

I needed a more structured than they could offer me so they sent me a stepping stone to fort Lauderdale

have you ever been done I mean like ten years ago eleven years ago twelve years ago

well it's not the pretty think that it is today and it's not very pretty today

but it was my home

and some treatment well I had been for six weeks very comfortable and it was like a week before Christmas and they said I had to go right away fort Lauderdale because otherwise they could hold my dead for me

and I was really upset about this because well

I didn't want to make any changes very fast

and they wanted me to go right away and it was going to be Christmas and well obviously they didn't understand who I was

and I was scared and they should just honor that let me say where what

well they didn't and they drove down the drove me down they drove me to fort Lauderdale and drop me off on the front step with my suitcases and when I got there just a couple nights before that my dad had burnt

literally I didn't have a bed to sleep in when I got there I think on the couch and when I was sleeping on the couch

I laid on the couch and I could hear the train go by

and I would I would

and how I could get onto the train and get out of this place that because as I was leaving and laying on the couch and it would rain every once in awhile when they did the roof leak it would hit me like repair on the forehead and I think this is what I left

this is what I left campus for

a more structured environment a bed that I had to going beyond

and it was the best thing I ever did

nothing I ever did I didn't have structure my life I don't know how to take care of myself I know how to take care of you I think they're very well and that is giving me the opportunity to take that character defect and turn it on and be a very good nurse

but I hear myself when I got here

and I have a hard time with it today

but they tell me when to get up and they tell me when to go to bed you tell me what meetings to go to and they tell me what to do and I get it

I did it because I thought it was an alcoholic

but I did it because I lived in a prisoner in my own head and I wanted to get out and they said that this is one way to get out but they said while doing it I couldn't drink and I thought well and they said do it per year and if at the end of the year you want to go ahead and I said okay I could do that

in the meantime I found out that I was an alcoholic and that this is what I need to be and that

thank god that you said that little kids have Armand I had that for many years

that's how I got through

the help that I got through for many years

god with my friend got held my hand

and then I let go I thank god one indication but today I know I let go

and what happened during that year's I found god again a client just once every once in a while

in the second someone dies in a hug

in a meeting hearing someone speak

I remembered what somewhere in the back of my mind that there was a god out there

and maybe just maybe I could find it again that peace within

I decided that it was time to do that that all twelve of them

and then I felt like ****

and I think when it doesn't make sense to me

well at that time I would be your house over and I needed to do a little bit time in the

well I need extra help

and I had a chemical imbalance for a while and big big back and I did it again and I felt better

and

I thank my sponsor

and I continued to

well

I continue to be myself I continue to do what I'm told to do

but I argued a lot

and I have a lot of questions and I said how come my big thing was why

why don't you

everything

I have three right now

you have to get on my

I mean I never took the first step that was on and the fact that it was on fort Lauderdale beach I think it happened how with my sponsor

at the calls and then I'll turn the ten twenty thirty and it was her friend and the person she sponsors who is also in the halfway house we took flashlight the big buckling down on the beach there what we help down without with the big because to do I didn't know what I was doing I would read the third death prayer

I knew what I was doing I did it because I was told to do it and many years later I over doing it over and over again I found out that that's the only car I need to say today

I get up in the morning and the third step prayer

it's amazing to me how when I let god take care of things

I don't have to do it anymore

when I first got here I was a lot like our modern

I thought I would god only I didn't use that term I have all the answers

the only follow my directions your life would be fine

but nobody would listen

in

and then I find that

they run out of applications for the guy that killed

and I thought

all the time I didn't realize that I was playing god I didn't realize that I was passing judgment I didn't realize anything south right I didn't realize I was trying to organize the world around me so that I would feel OK

you think I'm kidding

I'm very well I have the thing about perfectionism I can tell you what it is and I'll get to that in a minute but

when I'm in when I'm insecure everything has to line up in a row because I have to be three steps ahead of you to make sure that I'm okay

and then three steps ahead of you I know where you're going so I know where I can be to protect myself

I don't have to do that anymore because when things are bad they're perfectly bad

when things are good the perfectly good I just didn't know perfect looks like this

he

perfect

I am god

the line perfect

help me to take the great there with in because that's where you shall find the answers

I always thought that I had to have a great big white light come down on me like like bill Wilson did and moved and have the saying and the thunder roar and

he got

well I do thank god when I look out in and I see everyone sitting here even the ones walking out

how do they walk out

there

follow someone at the counter

there it's good to be here it's good to be sober because I forget that's the priority I think that that that's why I am here

I forget all too often so god always gives me something

in my life for me down enough

so that I can remind myself

or you can remind me

or something online me

who I am

today I am a graceful

woman

lesbian mother Kopernik alcoholic love being sober

not all the time now

because I'm human and I felt like everyone else

when I get on that bandwagon man

I'm going

and it's your fault

and if you would only follow the script everything would be OK

but damn it I don't know what it must be the mail system

email

that's why you're not laughing isn't

yeah I'm sure of it

you didn't get an email did you

I did my my copy came

and the

when when I think that that there and all the technical silent you wonder

I think what I'll let you experience what I experienced when that happened

I think what he's doing

I'm reading you experience the committee in your head

you know the ones that say oh god

how long is this going to one

with my own

gloom and doom

a great workshop today

the committee in my head

and I just introduce you to your

and if I

listen to them I'm in deep ****

I love them from my life and got myself into a lot of trouble

what I found out that the only thing that I'm responsible for

is providing refreshments

that

thank

one

thanks for sharing keep coming back and I let them go on

that's what alcoholism is

talk to me

it tells me I'm not a good person

it tells me you're not a good person

it tells me that it's your fault that my life **** when I think that **** you know when I come to find out that it's not

it's my perception

and when I change my perception or I took time out long enough to be quiet it's a whole new outlook on things people change their minds and their attitudes can change the way they behave it's amazing

my only my attitude that I need to take care of

but I would have never known that had I not

work that

comments Bonser

work with others

I have this new I like to call them rose button well

I'm in this new

one thing that I'm working with and

we've been focusing on the most is the next best thing

how can you get the next best thing

that's what got me through a lot of things

get me through right now the next best thing

because when I am concerned with yesterday

or tomorrow

I'm looking right now

what I'm concerned with what's going on out there instead of what's going on in here I'm missing the greatest moment of my life they can never be captured again

once it's gone it's gone

once she's gone she's gone

once he's gone he's gone and I forgot to tell

okay

what's so important for me about basic

R. I. P. the only character of Alcoholics Anonymous any one person in this room or out of these rooms that any one person will see

yeah I am responsible

I'm not always going to have this book to carry around with me to prove that I'm a member of the

who I am

I have to work with that he comes that would that be the best

and pass on the for the next generation

it's important to understand that what we're dealing here with what I'm dealing here with life and death

and I know you will understand how precious life is

for all the data that we've been facing

the moment that we have together are so short and so few

that it's time to reach out and touch your neighbor

can you recount your neighbor

you can never capture again

you can never get back

thank

I think that wearing your wallet happen

I always drove by those houses when I went out there and I'd be in the car and I'd be like I don't want to be here I want to be in that house over there that health has nice windows and I like the lights on in that house

hello I liked the video I want to be anywhere else

I wanted to be in any issues but mine

you know my father told me when I first got sober then when my when I find that that might be instead of three sizes too small I was getting sober

I think a lot of guidance in

it took me nine years

right before I bought a size seven I've been trying to get my feet into fixes for all my life

cookie

what

precious

sure

the

I have a dear friend when we look round that began I was one of the original committee members and it was a really exciting time for me I was in a very important committee member I was just one of them

that's what this program is giving me I'm able to be yeah one of them instead of a part of

feeling apart from

I've been a team member

and

and god rest his soul he's not with us today

and I

I was pregnant with my son and I think very plainly and I was living in it and well has anyone ever heard of Dr Kennedy over there on the Presbyterian church on

on federal highway

my sponsor that's fine he

call them the the not the Christian

that's when I was living

and in the house with a sponsored

and I would sneak out and go to get a meeting

and it was wonderful because I thirty meeting and

came in Jonathan would come over and connect me and and rub my tummy

and

and now my son is there anything

and that's real important for me because they were real important for my sobriety Jim was there and helped me come out when I got sober and like a lot of first for me but the one thing he taught me what not to miss the now the moment he taught me to stand up and say I count he taught me to say that it's okay I don't have to explain to you who I am and where I'm going it's okay for me to be who I am in my hand right now

and I didn't know that I didn't have that I I didn't know that that was my right as a human being I didn't know that that was just my right for breathing

I think I have a right to three

I didn't know a lot of things when I got here I thought I knew everything no longer around here the more I find out the less I know

that's why I come to round up

that's why I listen

that's why I'm grateful that you're here

you hear from me

I need to

I need everyone a few first long if you can be here

every day every hour you know that the six o'clock meeting this morning

and I heard the most wonderful thing from the person I least likely expected it from

and it showed me that I could hear exactly what I need

exactly when I need to hear it only with patient enough to listen

I'm not a weak nation of colistin and I think that's why I have this wonderful brace on my leg

got me down about three months ago with the thirty first of December when I was trying to push my car out of the ditch to get to work so I could be the hero you know everyone it was a bad weather and we had just had an ice storm and I was really working on my work relations and

that's another thing that's giving me this program for giving me I bring new life into the world

I'm a labor and delivery nurse me yes the lifting and high standard catch those baby

and I'm the first one discussion before they're even draw

and I get to love them

can I get hold on and you know what

no other human being gets to do that for me

and they'll always know the field of law

yes during the past fifteen them they may never know my name

they won't have to

but they will know the

and that's how I heal the child within me

I'm trying to work

I got kids in the backseat and driving up the hill yeah I'm almost at the top of the hill at six o'clock in the morning and it's a four month so it's dark

driving up the hill and the wheels are in in in in in in the like a cliff on one side and then on the other

it's like wide enough for a car and a half

not to

and all the sudden we're like I thank you I'm sorry but the card like rolling backwards

the kids start Screamin

they

the class and I think

maybe about a foot on the brake which was not a good idea

and we went into the kitchen so trying to get the car out

I tore my ACL which is all the things that you need together

and work so waiting for me to get there

that's only three months now

but in the meantime

but I found out that I closed down

you know I thought a lot of time in bed because they can get out

I can walk

and I started crying

and I started writing

and after reading after realizing

how much I have

it would sell my gift to you if I could get the one

not that I can but I hope that you'll listen

it's time to take a deep breath

and when you can hear

those are the only ones that can

and I

you make me the problem itself

I think people

you can bring

when you get into the brain you get more blood to the brain when you get more blood to the brain you calm down

when you come down you can listen

when you listen you can hear god

that's what I'm here for to listen to the god within you

and hopefully you can hear the god within me

and together we make a universe

thank you very much for asking me from committee thank you very much for giving me the time to share my experience strength and hope

a witness funny but

my life and you give it back to me and for that I'm eternally grateful thanks for my throat