The 8th Chicago Roundup

hi everyone my name is Valerie and I'm an alcoholic

anybody want to trade

you know I told my sponsor earlier this year that I wanted to work on not being so invisible in front of groups of people but this is not what I had in mind

but I guess if you ask for help guide provides situations where you can get that home

a little nervous merry asked me to speak about four months ago or three months ago and when she first asked me to call me like on a Thursday night and

asked me if I would speak and I said I had to think about it for a couple days you know I just

I had a moment of self doubt I just didn't think that I could do it and I called you back the next day and said I would do it because I've taken so much from the round up it's given me so much I haven't been here eight years but I've been here seven years and

there's just no way that I could say no to it she did ask me to

Cher what it was like for me and what happened and what it's like now and I'll try to follow that as I was thinking about my lead I kept trying to like write notes and I just I mean I all I could come up with was an outline because I have to speak from my heart I just can't sit down and and put it on paper

so I'll start with my family background and did not dynamic that that was in yeah I always want to say I came from a normal family but I'm just kidding that's a joke I came from a dysfunctional family my father was the alcoholic in my family

his alcoholism was displayed in the form of rage

not violence but emotional rage I just understood that about five years ago

I had two brothers and a sister

my sister died when I was seven and she was fifteen and that's when my father's I'll go with alcoholism begin to escalate

he always blames himself for that situation and it was an unexpected death and there was nothing he could do about it but

he had a weakness himself and he always blames himself and that's when his alcoholism just took off and I've come to learn through the program that you know when you're in a dysfunctional family it doesn't matter if it's only one person it affects everybody

my family grew up with a lot of tragedies we were close family but we always had a lot of unexpected deaths and accidents and the way that we dealt with that was to keep everything inside

the way that

my family's idea grief was

to be strong and being strong meant don't show how you feel

it was kind of like just keep yourself together and we never talked about a lot of things and I just you know as a child I mean I never sit in I never knew who I was or what I wanted or

anything

I don't know what it was about me as a kid that didn't fit in with the other kids in school and

I do know though at the age of seven that I had a strong attraction to women even though I knew nothing about relationships or nothing about being gay

but I also know that I knew not to talk about it

and I don't know where I got that from but I just knew that it wasn't something that was okay to talk about

so

I said I have two brothers and a sister and and grew up in that family my younger brother was the baby and my older brother was very successful and much older than me and then there was me and I was kind of like the lost child

the way that I

learn to fit in

was through athletics I was

in a natural athlete and that was the only place where I had some peace so that's what I used to vent any of my emotion or to be accepted by other people

during you know growing up in my family with my father's raged the way that I handled it was

if I could just be quiet things will be better if I could just be invisible things would be better and so that's how I learned how to stuff my feelings are really young and

so I didn't get into using alcohol and so I had my first drink when I was eighteen

and I thought

alcohol taste so bad who could ever drink the stuff

and I and I didn't touch it again for a year until I was nineteen when I my nineteenth birthday birthday there just changed a lot back or you could drink at nineteen so I thought I was a hot shot and I started drinking again and I didn't stop

you know even though that first drink didn't taste very good

I like the feeling that I got after a couple and it was the first time that I've ever had that feeling a feeling of self esteem the feeling that I was attractive that I was talking to that I was sociable that's what it did for me the first time that I really started to drink

so I went on you know nineteen I went on to college and you know drinking in college is pretty popular so I fit right in and I had this big refrigerator no food I'll be here you know people would always come to my room because they knew that I had planning

so I you know I did that for two years and

my my junior year in college

I came home from semester break

and that's when I found out that

my mom was still

and

we didn't know what was wrong with her

when I was in semester break so she ended up being in the in the hospital and that's when I really started to

Frank the most

we ended up being in Minnesota at Mayo Clinic for

six months and

it's probably the only time that I'll ever say this but during that period alcohol saved my life my mom was in the hospital and I stayed in a hotel that whole time and would be there every day and and being around people that are really sick and terminally ill it was just really hard and because I had left school in the middle of the semester like no one knew where I went I just didn't have any contact with people so there there wasn't anyone that I had there for support and I would go home in the evening with all this emotion and no place to get it out so alcohol became my friend to survive that situation

that's like one of the first times that I really remember using it to get

help you know to just have some place to vent my so

so six months later we came home from that and then I was surprised she was terminally ill and I was a primary care giver

and they said that you wouldn't live for a year and she did die four months later

and the reason that I talk about that situation is because

now I can look back on it and say that I was much stronger than I ever gave myself credit for

it was an extremely difficult situation said to this day I think it's probably the most difficult thing that I've ever gone to

and I also think that I probably should have some professional help after that situation was over

what made it so difficult is like I said in my family we all stuff their feelings and here I was a primary care giver and my brother's emotionally just couldn't be there for me they just just didn't have it of course I resented bad and had a lot of anger and

and then after that situation was over and I wanted to talk about it no one wanted to listen to it and so I started to feel ashamed about the pain that I had gone through about the grieving process I mean I was just so shames like this is not something that you talk about with other people

today I know that and grieving it's a natural process and dealing with death and it's nothing to be ashamed of

so after that happened I managed to go back to college and continue drinking

and while I was at school anon was probably the first person to mention to me that I drank too much

and the reason that you mentioned that to me is because I lived on the third floor they lived on the nuns lived on the second floor and other students lived on the first first fourth floor

and one day I walked upstairs and I could feel the base of my stereo in the floor and it was just driving the nuns crazy and they said you know maybe you think you have a problem here because every time I would drink I would describe the stereo up and so that was my first subtle message that I might have a problem with alcohol

I went on

to finish college and got a job two weeks after I was out

but my wife didn't have any direction there wasn't anything that really meant anything to me

I was just hanging out in bars and

in my mind I thought well as long as I drink out side of my home it's not a problem but if I start to drink at home then maybe it's a problem talk about the Nile

so I played those little head games for about seven years and I think

having a job having a nice place to live having some money in the bank all the outside stuff

help me to stand and I'll because I can always find a way to rationalize it

and today I mean inside I was miserable you know and today the outside stuff doesn't mean anything to me is how I feel on the inside in my relationship with god

so I don't know how I got to a a the first time I think I mean I don't know where I heard of a a but

in my head during that time that I was drinking I always thought that I can stop whenever I want I just don't want to stop right now that was the way that that was my thinking

so I got tired of feeling sick and tired and being miserable and

one morning

I got up and it was a day that I I couldn't get to work because

I was just too hung over and

I called A. A. and to this day I guess my only explanation this is that god

had me to do that

I can't say that in all my drunken stupor I always did say god please help me

and finally that help came and the first time I went to a a I think it was in eighty three or eighty four I'm not sure

but I guess at that time I wasn't really

quite ready yet I did call someone someone called me back I did go to a meeting a few meetings and

they would say no don't drink and go to meetings well I would drink and then or go to meetings and then drink that makes perfect sense to me because I just wasn't ready to get

I think they call it the revolving door something like that

so that's what I did for a couple months and then I would stay dry for a couple of months and then I would drink some more and I would go there and other people would sit and talk about their feelings and when it came to me I didn't have anything to say you know I would bury my feeling so deep that actually when someone would physically touch me I couldn't feel it that's how buried my feelings were

so you know I

continue to do that and I would like I said every couple months I would go out and drinking and I would stay dry for a little bit and finally I got a few more of the yet that they gave me but they said that I would get if I kept drinking

so my last strong

I don't know I went out like on a Friday night and came home on a Sunday I think

and somehow I ended up at a party at someone's house with like fourteen gay women and one straight man

I ended up in bed with the straight man I don't know how I did

that was my first real sign that I had no control over alcohol

so then I got a clue and

that was my last drink and

no offense I do have one straight friend here tonight it's okay

so when I went back to that meeting I had told them that I had been honest with them and that I have been coming to meetings off and on and continuing to drink

and at this time I was desperate

I was willing to go to any length to get sober

through that whole situation

I ended up being pregnant from this person who I don't even know his name I was very ashamed all my friends are all my drinking friends that were in my life for gay and I didn't think that there is any way that I could tell them about this and they would understand please I did have one friend who was gay but she was I told her about it but she was off in her own alcoholism and couldn't really be there for me

but I knew driving home that day on my last strong

that this was enough

and I did get an abortion and I had made the appointment even before I knew for sure because I it was just a feeling that I had inside of me is like that rude awakening that they talk about but that's what it was for me

and like I said I did have a lot of fish shame and guilt

and I took care of it myself and

the way that I kind of dealt with it was

to just go on as normal I mean I have the abortion that day and I went to work that afternoon and then the next day playing the softball game which was really down

but I just wanted to get on with my life

so I guess over in nineteen eighty six with a bunch of old white men

some of those who had more than twelve steps in your program

and

I joke about that but

they gave me all the help that I needed

they gave me everything that I needed I needed the basics they were hard core a a members I mean they really knew the steps and that's what I needed and I was willing I mean I I would do everything short of a thirteen stuff I would do everything

to feel better

at that time I had a difficult relationship with god I always believed in god but

I always thought of it as the spirit outside of me that wasn't on my side

and today is

today in the spirit that's within me

and always on my side and always there for me and I can rely on it anytime I want sometimes it's the last thing I think of when I'm going through a crisis but I always get there eventually

well the last seven years is just I've grown so much is I I can't even begin to explain it

today I know that recovery is an inside job

I never knew that I was going to get the love and the care that I've gotten in this program it was something that I had never seen before that I could live my life without alcohol and without all the fear and paranoia and everything that goes with it

I didn't know that I could have relationships with other people healthy relationships with other people

at that time

I didn't get along with my family that well because after my mom's death

you know my name make some breaks a lot of people apart and after my mom's death there was a lot of dissension about money and what to do with it and all of that

so I just kind of took my stuff and moved after that and today I have a relationship with my family it's been no when I came in today in the first time I said you know I'm not making amends anybody's anything they owe me that's how I found

and I've made amends to every single person that I can think of that I have harmed you know when I have a good relationship with my brother today both my brothers and

no I always used to try to tell them how much I've changed when I first got a I was so proud because I wasn't drinking and I start to feel better and I'm starting to look better and smile and and be happy and I would keep telling them that I changed and they would just have no reaction to it

seven years later

without saying anything they know that I've changed because of my behavior

so I you know I don't have to tell them that I've change they can see it

I was really touched by something that

my brother and said to me a couple months ago during Easter I was out of town and he wanted me to have Easter dinner with some

and I couldn't do it and

the next week he called me up and said well we really missed two eight Easter dinner and that's like a big thing because it used to be that's okay Val don't go out you would come to our house we can really you know it's it's really okay if you don't come

so that's the difference and it's those little things that will touch me it's not that that's not the big things that are visible to other people

so

I had notes just in case I forgot

I guess one thing that I can say that I'm grateful for is that I never struggled with being gay

you when you play the all American lesbian sport of softball you're bound to meet another lesbian so

how you came out and it was just like a natural process it just didn't you know there is no big drama in it at all

my personal opinion on that is that I have a right to be who I am

I have the right to love and I have the right to be loved

and all I can think of is you know there's too many of us in this world and in this room to have been unintentionally created by god there's just there's just no other explanation I have for that

I didn't think I'd be this nervous second telling everybody if things

so they did the first time I've gotten drunk again

my

partner couldn't be here tonight and she's never heard me give a leave and

she's telling me that I told her that's okay you get a lead every time we have an argument

and I said time I was supposed to talk up here for thirty minutes and then she said thirty minutes wouldn't be enough time for me

so I don't have much else to say except there there is one thing that kind of sums up how I feel that I wrote

honestly it really isn't about me so much is it is it is about you showing me that I can live my life in a sober way

and I I guess I just want to say thank you for showing me that I can live my life without alcohol one day at a time

that I could live to life based on the twelve steps

that I could show you all of me and not be abandoned

so that I could love and be loved

that I could learn new behaviors in my adult life instead of using what I learned to survive as a child

that I could make better choices and decisions for myself

and then I could trust in god in the process of recovery

for me recovery is a lifelong journey of spiritual growth and when it ends I want to have lived my life in a sober way

there is a difference between being sober and living in recovery

I'm grateful to be sober I'm grateful to be alive

thank you for listening enjoy the play in the rest of the roundup Goebbels