The Men with Men Group's Open AA Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

personally I really want to think I wanna thank you for having me here I've had a wonderful time it's been wonderful to me don't you guys tend to not remember anybody's name

but I'm sure by the end of the week I will know many of you pretty well and hopefully some of you you better I went was when I think market for carting me around and explaining things to me

but

I want to start and I want to ask god to speak for me tonight when asked to get involved with my talk

I do that for one reason because you guys can come here to listen to me talk you know said life

and he'd be all about the wonderful things that I do and how is everybody else's fault

and how I didn't drink that bad it was just a mistake or it was an outgrowth or is a phase and that's not that's not things that everybody needs here's my but what I guess when you're all here to he hear about is how do I not during the daytime and apply the principles of the program to my life and how did one day that I wake up and I knew that was gonna be the day that I was going to drink again

and yeah I don't know why I don't drink

I don't know why on September sixth nineteen ninety four I woke up crawled out of the basement

and I've been drinking so he always really hung over I was doing some other stuff too had lots of fun that night

crawled out of the basement which of course were somebody else's because I I don't have a place to live at the time

so I crawled out of the basement and I walked into the bright sunlight of course you know it's always right on those mornings

and I got hit with this intense

strobe light of John

I remember it like my goal weight I remember holding my head in my hands and just saying

you know

those people in AA were really nice

you know they weren't those jerks I thought they were

and maybe I should go back there

you know and I don't know why from that day to now I haven't drank no I believe that it's divine intervention and I believe that god stepped into my life that day and I listened no got to step into my like many times before that day but there was always something inside of me that

I thought that someday somehow would be different

or that I would be immune to alcohol

or that wanted to be like other people I so desperately wanted to be like other people I didn't want to be different I didn't want to have a disease that may be different than other people

you know and so all of those things kept me from listening to god and that morning those things didn't matter because I was dying and I knew it

but

you know I'm gonna start where you know every story starts which is in the beginning thank you to the David Copperfield which is you know I was born

or I can I'll tell you a little bit about how I got to get over on that day first of all I'm from New Jersey and if anybody knows anything about new Jersey

well it would you see the movies and TV is true we talked twenty

we have big hair we curse a lot

in thirty there's pollution traffic

and those are the good things

you know it's funny I was reading one I was doing a report again school night and I read that there is like ninety three toxic waste dumps in New Jersey and I thought well that's that's that's less than I thought there were

so this is where I grew up but I grew up in I was one of five kids and I'm the youngest and my parents are surprisingly normal you know

by you know if you look at me you really think my parents were you know one was moonbeam and the other one was you know spike or something but my parents my father is a at teamsters truck driver my mother's a secretary I mean how white bread normal could you be I mean you look at the outside of my house that I grew up in and it's a little yellow house and got a nice little bay window in a beautiful portion wicker furniture and one but we have a dog so it doesn't really have any grass on it

and it looks like a normal house but when you went inside it was a completely different story yes because I look normal to people you know well I didn't like it no I don't put my life look normal you know you look at my parents house you look at my family like a five brothers and sisters we all you know are

my only educated on

my only successful married children I mean you Madison street you would think she could get my kids away from her

what do you think I could get my kids with her but you know so we all looked we presented a pretty normal life but my life or my childhood wasn't normal and it I'm not an alcoholic because of it and the reason why I talk about this is there's a lot of us coming to A. I. we've got stories everybody's got a story I mean everybody has a computer he's kind he's a really nice family

what all of this coming in my experience we all come in today and we all have a story we all have private personal pain in securities things that we keep close to the vest you know and it's been my experience that I'm

that it wasn't those things that made me an alcoholic but maybe it was some of those things that contributed to my image ability

and today you know because I live a sober life and because I live in a basis where I I apply the principles of the program to my life and I have to I've you using introspection and I have to look at my motives and I have to trust I have to do all those things all of these things and I think that really don't have much to do with me being an alcoholic I have to pay attention to today because those are the ones are gonna bite me in the **** and bring me back to boot

so this horrible childhood that I had getting didn't make me an alcoholic but it did make me kind of crazy

I have

yeah I have three brothers and sisters who might may or may not have to have a substance abuse problem so you could take that in any kind of code you want

I have one sister who's not an alcoholic not a drug addict nothing and she drinks I talked to one day and I did understand I've never understood like the average temperature drinker you know those times I I used to think label doesn't everybody drink like me I mean what

I just didn't understand it and one day I was talking to my sister and she was saying what you care you know you're twenty three years old you haven't drank and you know five six years maybe it was a phase

and what do you do when you drink as much as morning so what do you do when you drink just one I have a glass of wine just as I get a little tired and if I have to I really got to go to sleep and I said what was the morning when I drink

when I drink I don't bother with the glass

I don't even take it out of the bag

and you know in in in in in the basically what's stopping me from drinking is running out of money

you kicking me out

taking the boys away from me or I passed out but then I wake up I drink again

it was actually an outside force tested

happen upon me to stop me from drinking

once I start so I went to her she will care maybe it wasn't really what I wanna do you drink but you know I'm the youngest of five my parents are pretty normal there's about it there's a ten year age difference between me and my sister friend who's the second youngest so I was like menopause like my mom really thought I was notified I mean she was like forty years old she went to the doctor and she's like well the changes come early yeah big change

you're having a baby no my dad was thrilled I mean from what I hear this is a family legend that he went to work and he had like a spring in his step

yeah I still got it forty three

but I'm still I grew up you know and and my brothers and sisters were a lot older than me but they had you know these chemical dependency problems

so I saw a lot of drinking and using in my childhood by my you know my brothers and sisters I mean I have a distinct memory of watching my sister trip on a vomit she passed out of course everybody knows that you go face down and you might let your nose but you're not going to jump on your mom

but if you fall backwards you might die so my sister she came home one night and she forgot the rule

she fell backwards onto her bed was kinda lay in there like this and

I remember my mom coming in and check in because we shared a room because that's really smart no there's no doubt

I got two left in their eighteen I'm not buying a new house having you know having a little kid would just make her live with her sister my sister still lives at home she's thirty five I moved out so I shared a room with my older sister

and my brother never left either until until we got married and you know but I'm still you know I shared a room with my sister and she said she was passed out and my mom like came and I was like five and she came in and she she's on my sister and my sister was choking

so she screams and wake me up

and only only know is I see like everyone come running in my mind shaking my sister screaming and of course I five five nine what's going on so I think she's hurting my sister so I'm running defender and I gonna get knocked over and not everyone screaming and my sister finally she like wakes up out of the uber and she started she you know she started my mom because you know my mom shaking her but she didn't realize that my mom was like saving her life

so this is what I saw on a regular basis as a kid

so

the amazing thing the reason I share this is it never once did I think drinking bad

can you do that I thought I'm going to be an alcoholic

show

I can wear black clothes

and I could pass out wherever I want I don't have to go to school

you know

this is what I I mean I I I like my older brothers and sisters so that was my sister and my brother shot heroin

so and then my other brother but he moved out he went to the airport like they kind of got rid

your junk but you can go so this is what I saw throughout childhood so

you know my parents being perfectly normal but only as normal as you can get that genetic lot though but as normally you can get but like I start drinking and I saw this I mean alcoholic drinking and I never

I never like I said I to myself yet I want to do that and it seems perfectly normal to me and I'm

you know having you know a junkie brother in a drunken sister didn't necessarily help me in school because my sister got thrown out of the junior high school in high school which I had the distinction of doing so getting thrown out of the junior high school high school and my school I've been thrown out of some of the best schools in the state of New Jersey

private schools and everything I mean they would even take our money they just said you have to go we don't want to just go away so you know they they didn't necessarily help into the cops would come to my house a lot you know because there is always somebody getting arrested for doing something my mom was one of the top so my brother because he was breaking windows are fighting with my dad or my brother wouldn't be getting arrested for possession of a number of things in there it always be like huge violent fights screaming yelling and all kinds of things so

I went to school and I thought everybody else's family was one

so I go to my friend's house and when my friends dads and moms were talking calmly in their brothers and sisters like we're helping them with their homework instead of beating the hell out of them I thought

something is wrong with my family

you know what I can I have a family like that like why can't I have like a like a mom makes cookies and a brother who doesn't beat me up this would be good you know so it really fed my sense of insecurity you know I walked around thinking that no one knew who I was no one could ever possibly understanding no one could now I mean they were secret you didn't tell people what happened in your house you didn't tell people I remember like sometimes before I was little when I was little before I knew I would let like little details about my life in my inner family life slip

and I can see the horrified looks on my friend's face is like

what do you what do you mean there's heightened you know you found you know you know like bottles on your sister's bed or you know or you can't go in the house because your brother is going to beat you up what do you mean you know or when I bring a friend home and and and my brother would curse at us and chase me at house with a stick

you know and and so

I I learned to hide and live very young

I learned not to let people know who I am I learned the rules you don't tell anybody who you are who you are you're lying

your life just like if I could tell the truth if you ask me what color my shirt was I would tell you was blue I mean it was green was green but just lying so ingrained in me was so natural to lie and you would think well I can't tell the difference between blue and green you know and I mean it was so convincing was so part of my nature was just hide no matter what you do hide never let people see

you know and I'm and I can remember being extremely insecure at such a young age and I would lie about the littlest things I just little things just because I because I'm going to power I want you to like me I don't want to know who I was you know when I started so young like five six years old that you know by the time I got old enough to start drinking which was about eight

you know I I I had developed many of the character and characteristics of an alcoholic no I I don't believe and I hear a lot of people talk about the spirit Malley

a lot of people talking saying that you know I was born in alcoholic that was born with spirituality and I don't believe that

I believe that somewhere along the line something inside of me got broken but I do not believe I did my higher power the god that I believe and I don't believe could ever make me be born with that part of me missing was he there was something missing inside of me I don't know how it happened just like I don't know how that one day I woke up and I just said I'm not going to drink today

and I don't know what happened where nothing happened inside of me we're

just as integral piece of meat just

got thrown away or got broken off or just lost kind of lost in the mail I don't know why that integral part of my soul my spirit just kind of disappeared but I do know what happened because I know that I was never good enough and I was never like you and you're right I knew that if you knew me you were gonna hate me you know so

I was like that five

to just think about that for about two seconds

at with every passing year I got a little worse you know some of the time I picked up alcohol

I had already had like this deep deep emotional spiritual problems and for me alcohol became a solution to those problems it gave me relief that nothing else in the world ever given me

you know and I'm like to add because a lot of women I know

variances in their lives you know and I don't often talk about it but I feel that a I feel that I should you know throughout this time I also experienced you know not for might not remember my family but sexual abuse so between the physical emotional and sexual abuse by the time I reached thirteen I was truly certifiably insane

you know but a lot of women we get so when we find out that we have these things in our lives we have to deal with now we have to deal with physical abuse that the impact of that the sexual abuse date rape because you know when you're passed out sometimes

it has you know things happen that you that happened to me that I had no control over and they hurt me and they kept it for a really long time and then when I got sober and I didn't have alcohol to numb that

and reality hit I was a couple years clean and I thought oh my god

I have some major issues I have to deal with I am really screwed up like I thought I fix my alcohol problem turns out of crazy do

you know what the thing is is I'm not sure about this because a lot of women don't talk about it it's something that's hidden that it's but see the thing is there's a thing in the family afterwards and says that our our our

our past will become an asset

that the most painful aspect was dark secrets of our lives will become an asset in the carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's been my experience that these things this physical sexual and emotional abuse that I experience is a very young child has become the greatest asset I've ever had in my life

because it enables me to help other people

you know and also I can send you samples in the you can have horrific things happen to you and you can not drink and you can deal with them

and you can be saying Kanha

by looking

don't you know so so this actually started when I was five until I was twelve so

that was my childhood actually

so naturally when I found out the hall I thought abilities nice and the my first drink was actually

was given to me by family members I can remember the day

it was thanksgiving and I this was the first during that time he gave me not the first time that I took and I don't really count this is my first bank because the many gave it to me I didn't get out but I'll tell you it anyway because it's my first memory

I was like maybe four or five

and I was wearing a green jumper a little green dress it was thanksgiving and my mom gave me this this glass of wine and it was the most beautiful color of amber I had ever seen

and I held the glass in my hand I remember thinking I remember holding it like this like I'm so grown up

and I took it drank the wine back in I think my mom said

three year old four year old drink that wine a little quick

I remember I don't remember her ever giving me any alcohol again

but I mean I remember that I mean that was so clear to me that day I mean so it kind of says to me that I'm not somewhere along the lines I knew alcohol good you know I made that connection so you know my first thing when I was nine and wasn't all that interesting you know eight nine years old I think I think was blackberry brandy it was really gross I threw up yeah threw up nothing really huge about that you know and I guess yeah I guess you know like I guess I expected this you know I expected like

like I was gonna start drinking and I was gonna be like this completely different person they somehow is when America you know we think Europeans are much more sophisticated so somehow stimulate the sophisticated European woman you know at like eight or nine years old but on the whole point was this is that you know I started out and I drank it and I and I know that I felt differently and I know that I drank intermittent need be you know Intel I was about twelve thirteen years old but I didn't

it I know that my drinking took on a different nature

when I became a teenager met that point it was just kinda like I want to feel like a grown up in like a like drinking because I was doing something other people didn't know about and I was speaking and I had power and I feel older I do like my older brothers and sisters who I thought were the coolest you know you know and so that's kind of why I did it but I think is about seventh grade which is

think twelve or thirteen twelve twelve I'm not really good with math

I always think like one fourth grade I know its fourth grade but I'm not even nine and I remember in seventh grade was when not when my tracking became different and I think it would happen with this is I went for my elementary school you know and it was very very small and I went to like this did you know high school and just you know high school like a regional junior high school now means that all the all the seventh graders from all over our town went to the school

and I remember like the first day of school like I walked in and I thought it looked really good I had the eighties stuff I had on these leopard print plain jeans

and this big sweater you know those big sweaters and I think my hair was alive my parents never let me tease my hair because of this is of course the eighties I used to have big hair New Jersey it was a big here in the eighties but really big here in New Jersey the higher the better

you know my parents never let me tease my hair but I remember like speaking to the bus stop you know it's using my brain and you know being here and I I won't get into my junior high school and I look around and every girl in the school was prettier than me

she was thinner they were smarter

shoot

I'm insurable

you know and I and I think for me you know going going into an environment and just

feeling like nothing

like I just wasn't good enough and I know that everyone was better than me and that that you know just so lost that you know I I gravitated to the people that I always gravitate to and that people like me so I walked into the bathroom and there was a bunch of girls smoking in their

and I thought

I like these girls

you know and I started to talk to them and all of them were juvenile delinquents you know and I said

these girls so I'm I'm just here at starting another nation and

and I started hanging out with the girls who hung out in the girls bathroom and

you know at that point like I gave up on trying to get a good girl like all that all my life I tried to be I don't always try to be perfect I always try to be this good girl you know my parents wanted me I studied ballet my parents want to give me acting lessons and I was supposed to be like you know like one of those kids that like

like one like they give us the parents for their show biz kids are using these musicals and productions and the little girls of the bows in the dry season yes the job and I'm ranting but I wasn't wanted pretty like her but I was like one of those girls like you like tap dancing my little two to one level below my parents it was all the shows in the reviews and singing dancing lessons and you know and and I'd always like felt like I was on stage I had to be perfect you know and I walked into the girls bathroom and I said screw perfect

I'm not gonna do anything

I'm just gonna sit here and smoke and that's what I'm gonna do and you know and those girls invited me for a beer

after school and I found my friends I was popular with VR juvenile delinquent set of

feel feel middle school you know and that was that carry through through the rest of my life until today but in Alcoholics Anonymous would we have but the juvenile delinquency

yeah

some perfectly at home but I'm also like I said I think at that point I just said you know what I give up I'm not trying anymore I'm just going to hide in the girls bathroom so you know I'm very shortly I started teaching classes start doing homework you know stop caring starring Rick started wearing like Megadeth T. shirts

you know in the

exactly

you know became a burn out and that was that was good for me you know and I didn't want to be pretty anymore because I was always you know you always you always never pretty enough always to be prettier always have to make up and I just I can't you know we're you know dark you know black hair in my face black lipstick and Megadeth and I was perfectly at home you know and

and I kept on for a really long time and that that's why I became I became crazy carried

they literally that's what the communists will not get crazy Karen you know I was the girl who would set things on fire

I was the girl who who had no idea I threatened teachers trying to kill them trying to blow up the cars they believe me I was like you know like I know how to blow things up

you know you know Columbine hadn't happened either

I guess I thought that was gonna start with me but I'm I you know that's what I embrace being a bad girl you know and and I was really good at it but the problem was with this is that I still had this deep desire to be loved and accepted

so I was always at war with myself like I had this desire you had I had to be like that had to be accepted I want to love so desperately and I wanted to succeed so desperately in so many ways yet I will I had this image like I don't care

you know so I was in this constant state of pain

and insecurity and depression and a constant feeling of worthlessness

that I carry

you know and needless to say the one thing that helped me not to feel like that was the thing that made me unconscious because being unconscious you don't think about whether or not you're worth anything because you're not really thinking very much at all you know and if you're drinking made me cool it made me you know dangerous you know it made me that you know like I could be like that that special girl like I wanted to be Janis Joplin

I really did you know I remember reading I read no one gets out of here alive which is like the story of Jim Morrison right I remember watching the rose which of course is liberally borrowed from Janis Joplin's life and thinking

you know what I think I found my calling

disgusting throwing up dirty drunk yeah

you know when you know so I started writing dark poetry very badly

I was about eight grade I started carrying around like this notebook when I was always wearing dark poetry and I was very important and no one knew like just no one knew how important I was in one day like when I died so we was gonna find mine mine D. D. stronghold poetry and I become famous

I wasn't grandiose in the least so I'm

so I

yes so so you know I I yeah yeah I started that don't you know and what do you do when you when you're this jeep sensitive artist types

well you sit in your room

you with lots of candles all around and you drink

and that's what I did

so you know what I was thinking with the kids you know that you're not only for kids to fit in with the juvenile delinquent kids and I started you know by like thirteen just drinking in my room by myself right depressing poetry yeah and you know and I I was thinking about how I was in the slash my wrists

you know

so you know that was that's where I ended up I mean I started drinking in fourth grade no by ninth grade I was suicidal homicidal and suicidal

yes I'm for you know I think it was all over that thing you know I have depression you know all kinds of things and that's the point you know that you know I became sick and very sick very quickly it was almost like alcohol xcelerated like you know that little hole there something about that like that kind of fell out of my soul at some point was like alcohol like accelerated decline like it just made that like it like that whole grow you know and the more I grew the more I thought I needed to drink because I couldn't stand reality you know

sometimes in anger like all here and you know people say well you know I'm they just didn't want enough

never hear that

or they just didn't get on

or a you know they just weren't willing

you know I'm on a lot of people don't realize is something that I do and that that was beaten into me by my sponsored by the way not because I figured it out of my own was this is that you know if I don't get relief from god I will get relief from any method

any method I can find

you know and the bottom line is this as an alcoholic with my spirituality what I seek is relief relief from the emotional torment that I live with have if I do not have a higher power in my life no that higher power could be god it could be anything it could be both but there has to be a power greater than myself working in my life to relieve me from that pain see the thing is the amazing thing is that you know when I started drinking those nice that promises that we talk about you know starting to come through come true for me booze gave me when I could not do for myself the problem with is no problem with me is not that

so much so I have this allergy this is that once I start drinking I can't stop and have his mind that tells me that the same thing that's killing me

will make me better

and I'm kind of crazy huh I thought I was crazy you know

like I had this tool you know I I've heard I've heard this put two different ways and I think it's probably the greatest the greatest explanation I have for the alcoholic insanity you know and of course they're not mine one is that you know that alcohol was a broken tool and my insanity is that I kept thinking that it was it wasn't broken that somehow someday this broken tool was gonna fix my problem and the other insanity is this that or the other way I can explain this is that I had met you know an uncle who was my map for dealing with life Kerry drinks Kerry doesn't have to deal with the pain cared enough to deal with reality Kerry doesn't have to deal with you

you know but the problem here is that this map is so way out date what used to work or what used to get me from point a to point B.

you know no longer resembles

the path that I need to take but I keep thinking if I follow this map I'll find my way

you know and that's the way I related to alcohol yes so I drank and once I started drinking I couldn't stop and the only thing that stopped me with somebody else

running out of money getting kicked out or passing out

and I had this emotional state I felt like when I wasn't drinking I didn't have any skin ever feel like that no that feels like well you don't know where you went another people begin you're so sensitive

don't just don't even breathe near me man you know and and I'm to my emotional state when I'm not drinking

okay and I have this morning that tells me you know you just counting it all go away

just drink

so naturally at eighteen eighteen at thirteen I started showing up in a mental hospital

when you think like that you act like that when you're eight or nine by the time you're thirteen you're you're pretty sick

you know so when I was thirteen you know my parents noticed that I was a little crazy

and they started sending me dish right and of course I can tell the truth to shrink god forbid I tell them you know I drink a lot

no I wasn't going to run interfere with my my solution

you know it was everybody else's problem and everybody else the course may drink was because I didn't have a childhood because my brother was mean to me you know because you know it's because because this guy molested me because my dad beat me up that's why I drink you know and if you had my my future too and I can sometimes tell you

roller coaster to put cheers and think what a poor poor sweet little girl they had no idea that I had a knife in my purse

yes I figured if I can't convince them that that it's everybody else's fault and I could probably get out here with this thing you know they had no idea you know don't

so anyway so I started showing up and and and and we have seen in America adolescent rehabs adolescent rehabs are like they're really psych ward

he's a push on this walk ward like we have you know they don't they don't like what you hang out a place you know when you get to eat you know and go to meetings and go to groups and no so you're on a locked ward in a in a in a mental hospital and you have to go through three or four locked doors in order to get in there and when you get in there if there's even a lot during the week that you're in

and then there's like there's a rubber room with a mattress on the floor and four point restraints

see that's where I started to get sent

because that's what I do when I drink see I get a little crazy but actually I've found that I've been crazier when I'm not drinking

well I've done the most violent things over but I found that you know when I'm like that when I'm in that when I'm in the grips of alcohol I could do the craziest things I wanted things that I started doing was eating pills lots of them you know because I figured

I'm fourteen years old life sucks why bother living anymore I mean I figure I tasted life with violent scary people are mean I don't like anyone

bush is starting not to work

so I'm I'm just check out right now I figured it'd be like I don't like it maybe I'll be reincarnated to something better like you know a flower or something or you know at least you know I could be like a squirrel you know you know so I figured you know one I just checked out now

so I started to try to do that like you know I didn't do it all that well and it you know and

my parents kept finding me you know passed out near death on like the floor the better you know and my poor parents how to deal with you know having this daughter who just wanted to die

so

so what did I do so my mom decided because I started I started today drug dealers in the ghetto this was I figured I couldn't die by pills so I figured if I started going down into the ghetto in New Jersey and get a new Jersey is like something you've never seen before because trust me it's scary okay like bring down buildings drug you know just people being shot watch and on bad stuff happening and see I was like this little girl this little this little girl you know

you know went to prep school and stuff we start taking the bus

you know down to Saint Joe's in Paterson and started dating drug dealers and

my mom

my mom found out that I you know when I when picked me up at the house and she took one look at him and said

so

she brought me to back to the mental hospital which is carrier by the way there's this this mental hospital in in New Jersey and it's really nice I mean they have swimming pool and you can make ceramics envelopes

and you can hang out there and I really like it there so I tried to go there at least two two two two times a year

it was kind of like a vacation

so like my mom drove me drove me there and she said listen you're either going back into the word or you're going to go to your sister's house so I went to go live with my sister in Pennsylvania now my sister in Pennsylvania is much different than where I grew up in New Jersey so I grew up in New Jersey a suburb and we had like sidewalks and you know cars and people in my sister lived in the mountains and there were no sidewalks and you were twenty miles from anywhere to get milk

you're in the middle of nowhere and I was like fifteen starting drive

so I was stuck in the mountains and people like my hunting and had guns and they they they'd like they'd run over a deer and put in the back of her car