Carry This Message group in West Orange, NJ

At this time, I'd like to, introduce our speaker for the evening, and, that would be our very own Carrie c from Harrison, New Jersey. Hi. I'm Carrie. I'm an alcoholic. It's funny.

I I was writing a paper all day for school, so my brain is completely fried. And there's not enough caffeine in this world to make me think, in a linear manner. So it's gonna be an interesting interesting talk tonight. You know, let me start off by saying that my sobriety date is September 6, 1994. And obviously, this is my home group And, I do have a sponsor.

Her name is Debbie. And I think it's really important that when I talk, I let people know that because I do have a sobriety date, I do have a home group, and I do have a sponsor that I use. And that's important because, you know, when I, when I came into AA, you know, I came in when I 1st AA meeting I ever went to, I was about 13 years old. And most people told me Al Anon or Alatine was down the hall. And I was like, no.

No. No. I'm in here with you old people. But I I seriously began to come to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was about 16. I had already been in several institutions.

I had had, between 5 9 suicide attempts. I lost count after a while. I think that the highest possible estimate is 9. The lowest is 5. So somewhere in between.

And, so I had been institutionalized. Bless you. Was tired of living and, was a miserable bastard when I entered the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and actually sat down in a chair and began to listen. And the question is, well, how did I get that way? Alcoholism is not causal, and I love it when, one of my favorite speakers named Chris R.

Says that because it my alcoholism had absolutely nothing to do with my environmental situations. I don't know why I have alcoholism. I've yet to have anybody who to explain it in, in a way that makes sense to me. I mean, they can definitely explain them the medical aspect. They can explain explain, the biochemical aspect, but they can't explain the spiritual aspect.

And see, for me, my spirituality is, the thing that has been kicking my butt since I can remember. Now, I stopped drinking 10 years ago, but I can still get my butt kicked by my spirituality on a regular basis. So for me, as much as you can explain to me why I might have craving, I have yet to have a good explanation as to why, for whatever reason, my spirit seems to have these flaws in it. I love it that the big book the big book says that, when it talks about the 4th step, it says that we, we had character flaws, that there were flaws in our makeup, you know, And I like that idea, you know. I don't know how they got there.

I don't know why I was the way I was, but I just know that I am. So, you know, I had my first drink at 9. I hit started hitting rehabs when I was about 13, and I I got really, really bad by the time I was 16. I drank like I drank like an alcoholic, And I and I never really go into drinking stories. And the main reason why I don't do that is one, I have I have I have lots of funny ones.

Very interesting ones. Very horrific ones. But, you know, if you if you're sitting here and you're an alcoholic, you know what an alcoholic drinks like. And the best way that I heard it described was simply in the big book. It says that we have a craving, which says or an allergy, an abnormal reaction to alcohol, that when I put alcohol on my system I want more.

And that's it. And I used to I love it in Bill's story. He talks about how, how he woke up after a bender, and he he felt like he felt this impending sense of calamity that his nerves ride. You know? And I used to think that, like, oh, Bill had an anxiety problem.

No. Bill was experiencing craving. Bill's body was saying, more now. And see, that's what happens to me when I drink. Once once I put alcohol in my system, when something, usually an outside force such as running out of money, you taking the booze away from me, passing out, or getting locked up, one of those outside forces, stops my drinking or abbreviate there's a little halt on it there.

What happens to me is I become irritable, restless, and discontent, and I feel like there's rioting inside of me. I feel like, I don't have any skin, and I don't know where you end and I begin. You know, I just feel like I feel like, like I have no skin. There's nothing, you know, and I'm just a writhing set of nerves. And for me, alcohol took that away.

Alcohol made it so that I didn't feel that anymore. You know, and so that's why I drank, and that's why I drank at a young age, and that's why I drank the way that I did for as long as I did until, an outside force that I like to think that I like to call my higher power intervened in my life. So, you know, basically, I'll just tell you a little bit about, the year before I came into Alcoa's Anonymous because it's a very interesting year. Because one would have to wonder why at 16 would a bright young girl like myself enter Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason why was because I had been thrown out of my house by my mother to go live with my sister because I was dating drug dealers in Patterson, which never a really good thing when you're 15 years old.

I mean, it's really not good. I mean, actually, I wasn't even 15. I think I was 14. No. Actually, I was 13 when I started dating dating drug dealers.

Let me let me fix that. So I was 13 and I used to date drug dealers in Patterson and Newark and, when you're that young, you're, when I was that young, I was something of an idiot. Like, I thought they liked me. I thought that I was special. I thought that I was cool, that I had this older boy friend who had this money and, you know, they used to I didn't know, like, I I it wasn't till I got sober that I realized that I had been dating drug dealers, because they used to tell me they sold firecrackers outside on the street corner, and I believe them.

Like, I really thought they're selling firecrackers, like, you know, so but I thought I was so cool. Like, I these guys, these older guys liked me. And you know what, I and I had been drinking and I drank and I drank a lot with these guys, you know, and, I partied a lot. And what began to happen was simply that, well, I didn't realize that women were something of a commodity sometimes, and so what began to happen was that, I began to be put in some very difficult situations to get out of. I began to find myself in basements alone getting drunk or high with somebody and, who was not my boyfriend, and he would become rather aggressive with me.

And I'm like, well, you know, I'm Danny's girlfriend. You're not allowed to touch me like that. And he would just laugh at me, you know. And these things began to happen to me and I found that my drinking kept putting me in these situations, my desire to get drunk, my desire see, when you're 14 15 years old, you can't buy booze. So women and this made my experience, I will find somebody to buy booze for me, and and if that has to be an older man that I'm sleeping with, that's fine.

So, that's what I did. And so I had you know, I was dating these guys and, I kept getting put in really, really, really, really bad situations and coming out, with with very little of my mental health intact. And I began to become sicker and sicker. So my parents noticed this. They noticed that their bright young girl, who is in 9th grade, began to become withdrawn, was drinking all the time, would disappear in the middle of the night, would climb out our window, and would just go.

And I also became very violent because, I don't know about you, but sometimes when you're being violated in certain ways, you take it out on those around you because I felt powerless. So I would come home, and I was a royal, royal witch to my family. And so, I became violent and I became nasty, and I became a very nasty drunk. So my my mom, in her infinite wisdom, she brought me to Carrier and this is funny because this wasn't the first time I had, you know, been away, But I managed to talk myself talk my way out of getting, getting into carrier. Like, I explained to them that I was okay, that I was just having a hard time, that, you know, I was adjusting to being a young woman, and I was learning about my menstrual cycle, and that my, my drinking and my erratic behavior had to do with that.

And for whatever reason, the intake counselor was a moron because they let me go home. And my mom was like, no, no. So you talked your way out of that one, sweetie, but you're not talking your way out of another one. Oh, and by the way, my boy I was like, my boyfriend broke up with me and I'm very depressed. So I pulled out every stop that that, a manipulative little girl like myself would, you know, pull out everything.

And, and I talked my way out of going into, another hospital, and my mom was like, well, no. You know, see, we're gonna bring you up to Pennsylvania to live with your sister. And my sister lived in the Poconos. And this is not the Poconos of now, this is the Poconos of 15 years ago. What?

Trees? And that's it. No, you know, trees. No public transportation, no stores nearby, no quick checks, dude. Trees.

So I'm in the middle of the woods with no license, no money with my older sister and her 4 children, and no access to alcohol, except for the alcohol that I that was hers that I did drink within the first couple weeks of and she wasn't an alcoholic. She didn't get it. Like, she she didn't have a lot of alcohol around. She, one day, a couple years ago, I was driving down to, to Virginia with my sister. And she was like, you know, is this you know, aren't you done with alcoholics anonymous?

I mean, you've been doing this for, like, 8 years now. She's like, you know, aren't you done? And I'm like, wasn't it a phase? And I'm like and, you know, she's funny because she's a nurse and she's like she's pulling out all, like, the psychological things and, you know, you've been into counseling and this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, well, Maureen, that's my sister's name is Maureen.

And I said, well, Maureen, what happens to you when you drink? And she's like, well, I have a glass of wine and I get kinda tired. And I'm like, Maureen, 1 for 1, I don't bother with glasses because they're a waste of time. A paper bag in a bottle is good for me. 2, wine?

Why bother when I can drink drink Jack Daniel Daniels? It does the job quicker. 3, 1, what would be the point of that? I mean, I never I don't think that in my drinking, I ever considered drinking 1. And I think the main reason why is because I don't unless I was drinking out of a 711 Big Gulp, I don't think I drank out of a cup.

You know, just the idea of having a wine glass in my hand and pouring it out or, like, even measuring, like, you know, I've seen people, like, in the movies, and this is something I never did, when they say, you know, can I have a finger of gin? What the hell is a finger of gin? What? You know, like, give me, like, a big fat glass, pour it in, and let me guzzle it down with a straw, and I'm good. You know, this is the way that I drink.

This is the way that I related to alcohol. This is my this is what we call the alcoholic insanity. You know, the idea that I think differently about alcohol than the average person. And after I explained that to her, she said, it's probably a good thing that you're doing that alcohol. It's an honest thing.

You know? But, but yeah. So, I got sent to live with this sister, the teetotaler, the one who just didn't get it. You know, and I have, I'm one of 5 kids. And my parents, the poor souls that they are, I mean, my parents are nonalcoholics.

They're wonderful people. They got dealt a really, really bad hand. They had 5 kids, 4 of us have had some sort of dependency, some sort of chemical dependency. I'm not gonna tell you that my brothers and sisters are alcoholics and addicts. Some of them have graced the doors of this fellowship, but I could tell you that we all, at some point or another, had lost control of our consumption of of alcohol and or drugs.

So with that said, my poor parents I'm the youngest, so they they knew what to do with me by the time I started to do my thing, which I was pissed at. Like, that came up on inventory. I mean, for years, I was like, but John, you know, my brother John did heroin for 10 years. You didn't send him away. Like, why did I have to go to rehab?

Why did you mess with my drinking? Why did you kick me out of the house? Why did I get sent to the woods? Why? I mean, I didn't do it half as long as John.

You know, I didn't get that. I thought she was mean to me. I thought they singled me out. You know, and, you know, obviously, my sponsor said, you know, you'd be dead if she didn't do that. Do you care?

And I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, they didn't single me out. They cared enough to kick my butt. So anyway, so my parents kicked my butt and sent me up to Pennsylvania to live with my sister.

And I lived there for about a year and half and I couldn't drink the way that I had been drinking before I went. And I also had all kinds of psychological damage because of the things that I had been doing before, before I left. And so I spent about a year in my room with, bottles when I can get them, pills when I could get them, and I slept, and I hid, and I was terrified of going out of the house. I would walk in the night, you know, miles to get booze, but I wouldn't talk to anybody. And, and in that year, my aunt died.

And, my aunt was very important to me because while, while, you know, while I was growing up, you know, my brothers and sisters are all a lot older than me. I was sort of an accident. Actually, I was what my mom thought was men early menopause. My mom was 40 when she had me. My dad was, like, 43 or 44.

So my brothers and sisters are all a lot older than me. So when I was growing up, like, really, really young, they were going through their, issues. So we had a very, very hectic, very crazy household. I mean, it wasn't, you know, a cop car, fist fight, somebody going to the hospital, somebody OD ing. I can remember, being woken up, like, in the middle of the night because my sister was choking on her vomit because she passed out.

You know, she came home drunk because she passed out in her clothes. And I learned, by the way, if I'm gonna pass out, I'll try to pitch forward after that, because she would fall asleep. And this is not this is not a rare occasion that my sister would fall asleep. She'd vomit and start to choke on it, and my mom would have to drag her out of bed and turn her over and try to you know, I I believe that, you know, she tried, you know, she had to try to save her life because she was choking. She was dying.

You know, so ODs, choking on your vomit, police cars, blood, these were things that were pretty status quo in the Cosgrove household. And mind you, we're the only Cosgroves that did that. We have actually hilarious is that my sisters just came back from Ireland. And, and, almost every other branch of the Cosgrove family is very successful. I have an uncle who's, I believe is a dean at Fordham University at the law school.

I have, lots of lawyers and doctors and professionals and, you know, our branch of the Cosgroves became the professional drug addicts and alcoholics. We became professional criminals, professional junkies, and professional trunks, myself included. So this was, you know so my parents were typical middle class. I grew up in Bloomfield. My dad drove a truck.

My mother was a secretary. I never wanted for anything. I never had any material deprivation, I had security, I grew up Irish Catholic, I had religion, I went to, you know, I went to church every Sunday, I went to church once during the week, I confessed every 2 weeks. Very religious family. You know, so, you know, one would think with all of that structure in place, like, how could, you know, how could little me get out of control?

And that's why I'm telling you that it's not in it's not environmental. You know, it can't be because I had so many things going for me yet I managed to become so very sick very quickly. So, Yeah. So, you know, so I got to so I with all this going on, I was explaining, I had this aunt who was my mom's, spinster sister, and she was the one who, when my brother would be, beating the hell out of my dad or my brother and sister would be fighting or when the cops were there or when some of the horrors that I I, you know, were going on in my household at the time, were going on, my aunt would be the one to pull me out. She would be the one to say, Carrie, let's go for a walk.

She would, Carrie, let's go go to the store. Carrie, Carrie, let's go to the park. You know, my parents were dealing with, you know, with 3 raging alcoholics and drug addicts or whatever they were, and they didn't really have a lot of time for me and my aunt was the one who did. And so, here I am, I get in trouble, I get kicked out of the house, I get into a fight with my mother where I actually hit her, and I get banished to Pennsylvania, and, and my aunt dies within 4 to 5 months of me leaving, and I never got to say goodbye. And so, I'm locked in my room with limited access to alcohol and just me.

Can you imagine what that year was like? Oh, my god. That's where all the suicide attempts happened except for 1. Only one happened in New Jersey. I tried to die on a systematic basis.

I mean, I tried everything I possibly could. You know, I carved up my ankles and my wrist trying to get the vein. You know, I I learned the right way to slice your wrist by the way because you can't do it this way if you're gonna cut deep enough. You have to do your ankle and your wrist. But see, I tried so hard to kill myself that I learned that through trial and error.

And my sister, thank God she's a nurse, had to save my life more than once. So, which I have since made amendments for, by the way, to her and her children. So this this this was the year before I came into dialogues anonymous. So although I was locked because I was locked up in the woods, I actually did well in school for once in my life because I had nowhere to go. You know, like, if you're in the woods and you got nowhere to go, and you're bored, you gotta go to school, like, there's nothing else to do.

You can, like, light a fire in the backyard and hang out by it. But, like, you know, if you actually get tired of watching cartoons, if, you you know and my sister didn't have cable, so there was no way I would stay at home. You know, I had watched all the videos, like, a 1000 times. I mean, it just I just had to get out of the house. So I actually showed up to school, and the amazing thing is I actually have a brain.

So I when I'm present in school, regardless of whether or not I do my homework, I actually do very well. So I managed to do very well that year. And, after my last suicide attempt temp would was that summer the the summer that I turned 16, my parents were like, okay. We'll we'll we'll take you back and you can come live with us again. And I got into this really good private school.

And, it's sort of notorious. It's called Mount Saint Dominic's, but it's known as Mount Saint Mattress. And so I got into this private school, and and I, I did you know, I thought to myself, I said, okay. Let's see. Let's take stock of my life.

I can't die because that doesn't seem to be working out for me. Drinking don't seem to be that good. Men suck. I don't my parent my family doesn't want me at home, but then they're afraid that I'm going to kill myself and actually succeed, so they want me there so they could watch me. I've been in more psych wards than I can count, including not even not the cushy ones with Carrier, like, my favorite.

I love carrier because I got pool, horseback riding, I can make lots of crafts. I came home with, like, with, like, all kinds of slippers and belts and, you know but, so so I ended up also in, like, some of the nice hospital psych wards, which, are never fun. Yeah. Because, you know, I I've woken up on a psych ward after, a drinking bout and a suicide attempt or and or, depends if I got sometimes I get very violent when drinking and, I'd have to be subdued and brought to the ward And, I'd wake up with people who, were, you know, you know, they'd go down go down on the street and they'd get all the homeless people and they would bring them into the hospital, and I'd be sitting there in my little scrubs and my slippers, you know, shaking off the drinking, which I thought, like, when I wake up in the morning and I'd be like a mess and I'd wanna vomit in my head and in my head my hands would shake. I swore.

I'm like, it's this stress. My life is so damn stressful. I mean, I gotta get up, I gotta go to school. So, I I you know, it must be anxiety. Like, I never put it together so yeah.

So I'd wake up in the in the psych wards that, you know, that were for the indigent, you know, and, you know, because they had nowhere else to put me. And, so I got sent back to New Jersey and I said, okay. So this is what's going on in my life. Why, you know, why don't you turn a new leaf? Okay?

What if you're a good little girl? You know, like what if you put on your little Catholic schoolgirl uniform and, you go to school and you, you don't dye your hair blue anymore and you pretend to be normal, and you pretend that you're good, maybe maybe, like, this will work. And so, I lasted about a month and a half before I started getting drunk again. I had picked up a boyfriend, and, I picked up this boyfriend who didn't know that I had this this drinking problem, had no idea what I had been doing for the past 3 years. And so, I picked him up, loved him to death, then broke up with him because he was gonna dump me because he'd find out what a slap, horrible drunk I was.

And then, went to school, set a fire, and then ate a bottle of pills. And then there went my next trip to Fair Oaks. And, when I was in Fair Oaks, I I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And this is what this is what I'm talking about. This is why at 16 that I came into Alcoholics Anonymous because you can't live like I lived.

You can't drink the way I drank. You can't feel the way that I feel and survive. You just can't do it. So I I ended up going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and, and I liked what they said. You know, I there were, you know, some young people came in and they were all bright and they, you know, they they smiled and, you know, they didn't smell.

They had washed their hair. You know, I had the same, you know, zip hooded jacket that I had worn for, like, 3 years with, like, you know, anarchy symbols on it. You know, that, like, it had holes and safety pins and they made me take these safety pins out, by the way, in the hospital. So it's like gaping holes and there's this bright beautiful young people, you know, and I'm like, oh, just a hey thing. Maybe, you know, then I could be a good girl.

And, so when I got out, I started going to meetings. And, the one thing that, I wasn't all that keen on was see, I believe that my alcoholism had to do with my girl with my experiences. I thought it had to do with my my child and I thought it had to do with because I had a a heroin addict brother or that my parents didn't love me enough or I didn't get enough attention. So, I spent all my time blaming everybody else around me for why I was so screwed up, that I wasn't able to take responsibility for who I was. And And so when I came to AA, I didn't I didn't hear what was being said.

I heard, I'm an alcoholic, so it's okay. I could just do what I want because I'm sick. So I did, and I ended up drinking. And, you know, and, I found a lot of young people who were like me, and we went out drinking together. I found that, you know, you can find people to relapse with in Alcoholics Anonymous and tear up the town.

And I did that. I was one of those people, like, you know, I love when my my will talk about, the people who would, like, they call them hooks, you know, who'll come in and they're like looking for somebody to relapse with and that was me. You know, I, you know, I would do that. I would look for somebody who was in the verge of relapse and I'd be like, come on, come drink with me. We'll come back tomorrow.

And, obviously, it didn't go that well for me. So then, I ended up getting arrested by my my mother had me arrested. I fought 6 Bluefield, police officers in my parents' living room one day after I had run away and I had come home to steal from her. And, she said, you know, you either go to rehab again or you can't come back. So then I broke in a second time or tried to, I should say.

She's really smart. My mother's a very smart woman. And so she had me arrested by 6 police officers, and I fought them. I mean, I kicked them in the balls. I bit them.

I oh, my god. I was like a I was feral. I was feral. And so, you know, they handcuffed me, put me in the back of the car, and brought me to the police station, and then I I actually got a police escort to my last rehab. They walked me they walked me up to the goddamn ward.

There was no just drop you off at the door. It was I I went into the intake room like this. Okay? And, I actually I was happy to get the handcuffs off. You know?

And, you know, because I have the little room everybody I don't know if anybody's gonna rehab, but you have to have a little room where you have to go talk and tell them about, like, why you're coming here, and, you know, I ended up on, like, fire, escape suicide and violence precaution with 5 minute checks, you know, because that's how sick I was. You know? Like, I couldn't pee alone. You know? So, I ended up and after I came out of there, I ended up going back to AA.

And I actually stayed in Alcoholics Anonymous for about a year and a half, but the one thing I didn't do was the steps. I, I got a boyfriend, I got a coffee commitment, I went to a lot of dances. I did 90 dances in 90 days. I didn't touch the steps. My higher power was a rock.

It was. I had this, like, beautiful amethyst rocks. My first sponsor gave this to me. It was a beautiful amethyst rock, and I said, you know, I'm not really doing this God thing. In fact, I hate God because God did this to me.

God made my life suck. God's the one who gave me this horrible deck, and now I can't drink and I gotta go to AA with you people. I hate God with the fire of a 1000 suns, man. I hate God. And she was like, well, do you like rocks?

I'm like, I'm like, they could be pretty. So she gave me a rock. From my celebration, she gave me a rock. It was beautiful too until I sold it for drugs. I did.

So anyway, so I had this rock. My higher power is a rock. You know, so how long do you think I could stay sober doing that? I mean, I'm actually surprised that I stayed sober as long as I did. If you think about it, about a year and a half, I stayed sober like that?

Oh, my god. But I did some damage. So, I relapsed because I turned back to what I do all the time, which is use men. I ended up, finding, what what I call my my mark. I found an older guy who would take care of me, and I ran away from home, and I lived in his house.

I was 17 years old, so it was very illegal. I put him in some very, very difficult circumstances. I took took his money and pretty much used him until he got tired of me and threw me out. And then I had nowhere to go, and I met my husband. And I met him, he was 3 days off drunk, and, I had about a year and a half.

So I was clean when I was doing this. That's why I tell you the spirituality will kick the hell out of you, will kick the hell out of me, and I do the sickest things when I'm drinking when I'm sober than when I'm drinking. I'm sicker, sober, if I don't treat my spirituality. So, I, so I met my husband. We relapse together, and 4 months later, I came back to AA.

And, that is my experience with alcohol, and that's why I'm here. That's why I got sober at 18, you know, because alcohol kicked the hell out of me. And the thing is is that and this is my experience. The night that I relapsed, I hadn't drank in a year and a half, and I was going out to get a drink. And I said, I'm gonna come back tomorrow.

Time doesn't mean everything. Everybody says that if the earlier you you know, if you get up early in the morning, then you're sober the longest. Right? So I just get up really early the next day and I'll go to AA because only this 24 counts. And, that was my intention when I went out to drink and I and I drank for 4 months because I don't get done with alcohol, alcohol gets done with me.

I don't get to choose when I stop drinking. And what happened to me is I lost everything that I had. I lost I lost my job, I lost my apartment, I quit high school, and I, I ended up living in other people's basements and, carrying my clothes around in a garbage bag. And I, well, actually, no, I I left my garbage bags, many of them, over other people's houses, and I would go back to take a shower, and take my clothes, and then leave. And I can't, you know, that was the way I lived.

And, and I, I crawled out of that basement on, September 6th. And, I you know, the night before, I had gone to an AA meeting. I don't tell this story often, but I'll tell you guys it. I've gone I hadn't gone to an AA meeting. I had gone to a park, town hall park in Kearney, which is right next to an AA meeting on a Monday night at 7 o'clock, and I'd gone there to meet my ride to go into the city.

I had a bottle of Bacardi in the back my back pocket. You know, Bacardi bottles fit really good back there. I used to carry 1 in my back pocket, put a bottle of Bacardi in my back pocket, and I had a ride to the city at $200. And I managed to, like, I said, I'll meet you at Town Hall Park, not thinking that there was an AA meeting there at 7 o'clock that night. And so I'm at Town Hall Park, and there's all these AA people standing outside that I knew because I had been in AA.

And one of these guys, his name is Billy, pulled me aside and he said, you know, you can come downstairs, you know, we we're not gonna judge you, You know? You can come down here anytime. You know that. We'll take you back. And I was like, Billy, listen.

I got $200. I got a bottle of booze and a ride to this ride to the city. Do you really think I'm gonna come down there tonight? And the next day, I woke up and I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. Had that man not said that to me that night, I don't know if I would have come back because I think I would have been so afraid of what I thought you people were thinking about me.

I don't think I could've I don't think I would've had the courage to come back. So I did. God came in, smacked me upside the head, and I came back to Al Hawkes Anonymous. So that's my first step. You know, the utter unmanageability, the powerlessness over alcohol, the craving, the mental obsession, the insanity of alcoholism, the idea that I'll just drink one night and it'll be okay, or that I can, I can manage my life, I'll just give AA my drinking, or that God doesn't have to have anything to do with my my getting better because I don't like God anyway, and he doesn't like me?

You know, that's what I brought into Alcoholics Anonymous when I came back. And, I was very lucky, you know, because I did meet people who helped me helped me with the steps. They sat down with me with the big book. They explained to me what my problem was. They know I said I was an alcoholic for years.

I didn't know what the disease meant. I didn't have the disease concept. I didn't understand the elements of alcoholic addiction. I didn't get it. I just knew that I drank and bad things happened.

That was my explanation as to why I came into AA. I had no idea that I had this subtle insanity. I had no idea that I had this mental that I had this craving, and I had no idea that I had this spiritual malady that had been kicking the hell out of me my whole life. So, you know, when somebody explained that to me for the first time, I was like, so that's what's wrong with me. You know, Billy, when you, Billy, buddy, when you're talking about that, you know, it's like, so that's what's wrong with me, the absolute relief that I'm not defective, that I have something that I can put a finger put my finger on and say, that's what's wrong with me.

You know, it was it was such a relief, but I didn't hear about that till I was 2 years sober. I had 2 years of alcoholic insanity dry, stark raving sober. And it was extraordinarily painful. So when I did hear the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, when I did hear about the 12 steps, I I tore into them like there was no end because I was desperate. You know, when Bill talks about the desperation and the drowning man, he's not kidding.

So, you know, when I and I it's funny because I like to I like to talk about the second step, but, you know, I feel like when I talk about the first step, I feel like going right into 3rd 4th. And the reason why is because when I when I, decided that I was gonna do this whole 12 steps thing, I didn't really understand the whole concept that there was gonna be a God that was gonna give me power and direction. I didn't understand that lack of power is my dilemma. I just knew that I was broken and there was something that could possibly fix me. Please do it now before I die.

You know, and it was after I had completed the steps that I really understood the implication of the leap of faith that I took. And it wasn't a leap of faith of virtue, it was a leap of faith of pain, of absolute desperation and pain. You know? And so I love it, like, the second step has so many beautiful things that, for me, only really made sense after I'd experienced them. And that's why I like to call the second step as the God experiment.

Because really all it is is saying, alright God, I can't, you can. My ideas did not work, the God idea did. You know? And then afterwards, I was able to have once I had that experience with God, once I had the healing that I had with the 12 steps, I can go back and say, you know what God? You did really good for me with all this stuff, you can have it all.

Just take it all. Just take it, please, because I can't do it. You know? But for me, it wasn't like I walked into the steps and said, okay, God. You can take all the care.

You know, you want you could take my alcoholism, you could take my relationships with men, you could take my relationship with my children, you could take my financial relationships, you could take my relationships with strangers and everybody else who are out, me my family, and just take it all, God, because I just wanna be better. I was like, that wasn't how it worked for me. It was it was for me, it was a process of having that experience, feeling that awakening, and saying, if this is good, then more is better. And I love that, you know, I hear and sometimes I hear meetings that people say that this is a disease of more. Well, it is because I have the disease of more when it comes to Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, for me, and this is for me. I'm a result oriented gal. You know? And, Jay Jay, pointed out something to me in a vision for you that I loved. He talked about there's this line that says that, talks about 12 step work.

And it says that when we first do 12 step work and paraphrasing, of course, when we first do 12 step work, you know, we do it because we wanna stay sober. And then after a while, it's not because we wanna stay sober, but because we like what we get from it. We like the spiritual release and we like the, you know, like, there's there's this feeling that happens within you when you carry the message of alcoholics and that's when you're not thinking about yourself for 5 minutes, you know. And that we, after a certain point, we get hooked on that. I did.

I got hooked on that. And I am hooked on it right now. I am hooked on helping others because for 1 you know, for that 5 minutes that I'm talking to you, I'm not thinking about me. And that was part of my problem. So, you know, so I made, you know I admitted that there was the possibility that there was a God out there that didn't hate me.

That was about as far as I was willing to go when it comes to the second step, and I was willing to see what what the steps had to offer. That was as far as I went. You know, and later on, I got much deeper. And then, you know, I made it you know, I love I love the 3rd step prayer. You know, I made a decision to turn my you know, it's the 3rd step is obviously made a decision to turn my will, my life, for the care of God as I understand Him.

But the 3rd step prayer is absolutely beautiful. And if you break it down, if you really look at that prayer, it's amazing. You know, you know, it says, God, I'm you know, I ask that you build with me and do with me as thou will. So I'm asking God to build with me and do with me. I'm not saying god fix me right now because right now, the 3rd step, I don't even know what's broken.

I know I'm broken, but I don't really know what. And at this point, I'm just saying, god, build with me. So I'm saying, god, okay. I've been drinking, and I'm out of and I've been acting out in self, and I'm outside the realm of your creation. I haven't been contributing to your world one bit.

So now I'm making I'm asking you to put me in play. Put me on the chessboard, God. Build with me and do with me as thou will. And then I'm saying, relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may better do thy will. I'm not asking God to relieve me of the bondage of self so I feel better.

I'm asking god to relieve me of the bondage of self so that I can serve god, so I can do your will. You know. You know, take away my difficulties. So, take away my difficulties, take away my sticking points. That victory over them will bear witness to those I would help with thy power, thy love, and thy way of life.