The Northern Plains Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Fargo, ND

And, our main speaker tonight is a woman who I've seen come into the program and change a great deal. And today, I can honestly say that, she's one of my favorite ladies in Alcoholics Anonymous, Jackie. Hi. My name is Jacqueline Rasted, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Jacqueline.

That's so awesome. I am sober today due to God, good sponsorship, and the program of alcoholics anonymous since January 7, 2003. Alright. Well, thank you Kenny for asking me to speak and then re accommodating me to speak because there's a little confusion with that tonight. So, thanks a lot for that and God it's such an honor and a privilege just to to be asked to do anything in my home group or in alcoholics anonymous in general.

So I'm really happy to be up here tonight and, share with you my experience, strength and hope and, what it was like what happened and what it's like now. So, I guess I'll start at the beginning. I was born and raised in Minot, North Dakota. It's it's a good town. Had a a totally normal family upbringing.

You know, 2 parents, 1 brother, you know, just we didn't have a white picket fence, but we do now. So, so that's that's what it was like. And it was a completely normal childhood, but I always felt sort of like I was a little bit different, from my family that I was sort of, the black sheep of the family, if you will. Just that I didn't fit in and that, you know, there was something different about me. And, nobody ever called me self centered when I was growing up, but they always said Jack is very self conscious and I was and I still am incredibly self conscious.

You know if, if you're driving behind me, I'm looking in the rear view to see if you're watching me sing along with the radio. And, and I do that a lot. My car is Madison Square Garden. But, so yeah. And I'm it it was a really good childhood, but I just always felt different.

And, I always tried to do different things to fit in with different social groups. I I tried being a cheerleader. I tried being a metalhead. I tried being a theater geek, tried being a punk rocker, tried being a speech geek, on and on and on. I just, you know, I'd I'd get the music, I'd get the clothes, I'd get the friends.

But, I was always felt like I was on the outside and that was completely my perception. I mean, people didn't shun me and accepted me with open arms, but I just always felt shunned and unaccepted. And, like, if I could just be a little bit cooler, if I could just hang out with those girls, if I could just have that boy friend, if I could just afford that new CD or those new designer jeans, then I'd be okay. But because I don't have this outside external condition, I'm not okay. And, when I was 18, I got drunk for the first time.

Bacardi with a boyfriend, nothing spectacular. But and it was then that I just sort of got into to, the identity of a a fun girl, if you will. And, and I it's from the Andy Griffith show. But, and yeah. And that that became my new, way that I identified myself and way that I wanted other people to see me.

And, my focus in life and I was in college at the time, and, I was always really good at maintaining the surface. I always kept a good relationship with my parents, always got decent grades in school, you know, but, that was it was like I was living a double life, really. And, and I did the things that I had to do to keep the surface intact. And, on the other side, I just lived how I wanted to live and partied like I wanted to party because at first, it was just fun. And drinking was cool, and I got to hang out with cool people and get into deep conversations and and, you know, do fun stuff.

And it was it was fun to get drunk, and it was it was fun to be able to talk to boys and, to be able to feel pretty. And that's what alcohol did for me was, it didn't just get me drunk. It made me feel okay. When I was drunk, I could talk to people. You know, when I was drunk, I could I was an expert on whatever you were talking about.

And I would let you know when I wasn't too shy to let you know like I normally was when I was sober. And I felt pretty I didn't feel like I had to lose £10 when I was drunk because everybody wanted me. And if you didn't then then screw you and I'll just go talk to somebody else. And so yeah. That's it's what alcohol did for me.

And, and I loved it and I ran with it. And, my drinking really took off, probably about three and a half, four years ago when I moved to Fargo. Before then, I drank maybe once a month, twice a month, something like that. But it it had just been a party thing and it was just a fun thing. And, it was when I moved to Fargo that I really, really started to to get into it and it became sort of a way of life for me.

And, what happened was I moved to Fargo. I didn't know anybody. There was a liquor store 2 blocks away, and I drank every night for 6 months and didn't think there was anything strange about that. And, and it be you know, that. And, and it be you know, it's like I said before, it became my identity.

It became who I was, and it became the only way that I could feel okay and the only way that I could relate to people. And so I I did it every night, and I sort of developed this philosophy of life that everybody else can get by sober. And everybody else feels good when they're sober. And everybody else can have friends when they're sober and relate to people when they're sober. And and do all those things that that normal people do throughout the day and in life.

But but I only feel okay when I'm drunk. And I only feel okay with this chemical in my body. So people are just gonna have to live with me being drunk and if they can't then oh well you know because and and I thought that was okay because I thought people probably drank as much as I did and just nobody talked about it. Mhmm. And I thought that, you know, most people when they had a bad day would come right home from work and get drunk.

And that's and, it was funny actually, like, because after it was I I would get little inklings that I might have a problem. And so I would I was a big Internet user. And, I'd look up alcoholism on the Internet, and I'd find that, 20 questions quiz or whatever. Stupid question. What if you want to get drunk and there's nobody else around.

And I was like that that shouldn't stop you from getting drunk so I don't understand understand why they put that question on that quiz. But I think I understand now. And and that that was how I drank, most of the time was I drank alone because I thought if you went to the bar alone, you looked like an alcoholic. And, and so but I had, I'd make up little rules to try to control my drinking or to try to hide my drinking. And, one of those is that I'd never go to the same liquor store 2 times in a row.

I had a circuit of about 5 of them around town. It didn't matter if it was all the way across town because I could afford gas. And so I would I would drive across town and I would drive to these 5 different liquor stores rotating so that none of the cashiers would know me and know how often I was going in to buy my box of Franzia blush. Or or occasionally, Karkov vodka. I I drank the good stuff.

And so and if I remember one time, one of the cashiers at a liquor store recognized me, and it had been, like, 3 weeks since I'd been in there. So I thought I was clear, but he recognized me. He's like, oh, I remember you. How are you doing? I never went back there again.

Because because god forbid somebody know how much I'm drinking. Because I think deep down, I knew that it wasn't normal what I was doing. But because it was the only way that I felt okay, I had to do it. You know, I didn't like like the big book says, I had lost the power of choice. I had to do it because that was how I lived.

And, and what happened was about a couple years ago, I decided I wanted to try to get sober. And so I decided I'm gonna quit drinking. And I thought that I had a lot of willpower and that if I could just muster up my willpower to to do this thing and to quit drinking, that I could do it. And so, you know, what do I do? The second night that I'm trying to stay sober, I go out to the bar and drink 6 diet Cokes.

And I'm sitting there and I'm sweating bullets, and I'm telling everybody, oh, I don't drink anymore. And and, you know, that was the thing. I just thought if I could muster my willpower over this thing, and I stayed sober for 2 whole weeks, which is which is a miracle. But but I was doing it through sheer willpower and, you know, I was the whole time I'm sitting there, I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna drink.

I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna drink. Then finally, it's like, screw it. I have to drink.

Because, you know, it just it got bad enough. I got uncomfortable enough. You know, it got lonely enough that that I had to call upon my best friend and my best friend was alcohol. And, but alcohol became one of those friends that you keep wanting to hang out with even though they screw you over. You know, you you keep wanting to hang out with them even though they, they, you know, turn people away from you.

And even though you can't have any other friends if you hang out with alcohol. No. Alcohol was it was the only friend that even though it screwed me over, it was always there. Whenever I called upon it, it was there. And and for it took me about a year.

I I kept trying trying to quit drinking and telling myself I have to get this thing under control. And I would go through phases where I would try to moderate it, and I would only let myself have, say, 3 drinks or something. And then I would, you know, stop and I would just, you know, hate life for the rest of the night, or I would tell myself that I have to to quit cold turkey. And so I would stop for a few days, and I'd make it anywhere from from 12 hours to a few weeks, but it always came back to having to feel okay again. And I could not I couldn't.

I was powerless over alcohol. Crazy thing, you know. When when in doubt, go to the steps. And so so I decided to try AA. And, that was about a year and a month ago.

And, I came to my first AA meeting. And, I was shaking like a leaf. And, it was at the clubhouse here in Fargo. And, I didn't I thought there was gonna be, like, a table of people that were out front that would tell me where to go and get me signed up and get me my membership card and and show me the secret handshake and you know, give me assign me a sponsor. I thought that that was how that worked and everything and I didn't.

I walked in there. There was some people about 20 or 30 years older than me walking around with coffee. Nobody said hi to me. Nobody talked to to me. I finally walked up to a woman who I thought looked like she might be nice and said, where's the meeting?

And she said, oh, are you here for the first time? And I said, yeah. And I was really nervous, really shaky, sort of like I am right now. And, and she's like, oh, well, it's up on the 3rd floor. And she was nice enough to take me up to the 3rd floor and I'm grateful for that.

But nobody talked to me that whole meeting. Nobody reached out to me and I thought so this is AA. This is me and a bunch of 40 50 year old people that I can't hang out with. They're sober, but they're not but I gave it a chance because I did relate to some of the things they said. And I went back to another meeting and there were some young people there.

But, my 3rd meeting, I talked to a woman and she offered to be my temporary sponsor and started telling me things I didn't want here. Like, I was probably gonna have to get rid of most of my old friends. I was probably gonna have to change where I hung out. I might have to do what she said. And, you know, I wasn't ready to hear that.

So I thought, well, you know, this is great, but I don't wanna follow rules so I can just you know this last week of sobriety hasn't been an epic struggle. So maybe I'll be okay And so I went back out and I made it another week sober, and then I got drunk again. And, it was I've, you know, I picked up right where I left off with with no reprieve. And okay. And, I went back out and what happened was I hit a bottom.

And I'm not gonna go into, the circumstances of my bottom because everyone's bottom is different. I'll just tell you what it felt like. I felt like there was nothing left in me that, was capable of love. There was nothing left in me that anyone could possibly like or love. And, there was just nothing left in me capable of any positive human emotion left at all.

I felt evil. I felt mean. I felt lonely. I felt sad. I felt disgusting and disgusted at who I was and at how I treated people.

And just at at what my life had become because I was in the same situation again. The same the same shame coming over me all all over again. The same, you know, swearing up and down that I'm gonna control at this time and that it's gonna be okay this time and I'm not gonna do that again this time And there I was, and I did it all again. And it was exactly the same as it had been before. And there was nothing left that felt like it was worth living.

I never attempted suicide when I was drinking, but there was a lot of times I sat there and calculated how long I could be dead before, somebody would find me. And, you know, I'd I'd sit there and I'd think it out and I think, well, I only have big classes at school this week, so the professors won't notice that I'm gone. My parents only email me probably 2 or 3 times a week, and they don't really notice if I don't reply that often. Nobody calls me anymore. I don't have a boyfriend, and I don't have any close friends, so I bet I could be dead for 7 days before they'd check.

And, you know, I'd I'd come up with these theories and it would depend on, like, once I got a job after I graduated from high school, I was like, well, now I could probably only be dead for 2 or 3 days before they'd find me. But, you know, it was like that, and it wasn't just one time. It was over and over again, you know, many, many times I'd sit and calculate how long I could be away from the planet and nobody would notice or care. And, so anyway, what happened after I I hit my bottom was, I decided to try Alcoholics Anonymous again and it was sort of a fluke. I was looking at some papers that were sitting across the room and I saw one that was sticking up and I got up to go look at it and it turned out to be a meeting list that I've gotten at my first meeting And, I noticed that the northern plains group was that night, and I remembered meeting someone from this group.

And I thought, well, I can go there. I'll know one person. And knowing one person was a lot for me because I didn't have a whole lot of friends at the time. And so I came here and what happened is I was welcomed with open arms and I saw a room full of, you know, however many people there are, 152 100 people, you know, that were my age and that were excited and that were enthusiastic about life and enthusiastic about being sober and that introduced themselves to me and that invited me out to coffee. And it was just amazing and overwhelming and and I didn't believe it all at first.

I thought that maybe it was a big conspiracy and I thought that maybe you all still really drank, and just didn't talk about it. And and I found out I was wrong. And, after a few weeks, I got a sponsor and I got into this thing. And, we got into the big book and started working the steps. And, what happened was real simple.

As a result of of working the steps, I got connected with God. I had a spiritual experience. And, the result of that spiritual experience is that that obsession to drink, was relieved, was removed from me. And, God's the only one that can do that. It says right in how it works.

No human power could relieve our alcoholism, but God couldn't would if he were sought. The steps give us a way to seek God and a way to have that obsession removed to feel okay living life every day and not have to get drunk and that's a miracle. That's no less than a miracle in my eyes. And I'm so thankful that I have it. Sobriety hasn't been perfect.

I've grown a lot. I've learned a lot. One of the things I learned was that I can't, put conditions on my sobriety. I was probably about 6 or 7 months sober, and I was having a a horrible time picking up the phone. My phone weighs about £900.

And and it's really hard to to get the numbers to dial and to to talk to people even if I know that they'll be there on the other end of the line. And I was having a horrible time just, you know, I had a lot of of surface level friends in Alcoholics Anonymous, but, you know, there was no real deep friendships that I had with people. And and my sponsor kept encouraging me to call girls, call girls, hang out with girls, make coffee dates with girls, blah blah blah, girls, girls, girls. And so and I was, you know, I was sitting there. I was treating it like it was this Odyssean struggle for me to to make friends with girls, and that it was just so hard for me to make friends because I'm shy.

Shy is just another word for self centered, and it almost sounds humble, so we like it. And, so I, you know, and I I was treating it like this struggle. And, you you know, in my head, the the phrase was, well, you know, I wanna be friends with these girls. But if these girls don't like me, then I have nowhere else to go. And I thought about that and I turned it around a little bit, and I realized that it was my ego talking and it was my ego saying, well, if these people don't like you, you can go drink again.

And, there was this huge gaping hole in my sobriety that had just sort of creeped up on me without my knowledge. And once I saw it that way, I realized that, you know, maybe my sobriety couldn't be conditional on my friendships, but I had to stay sober. And maybe if I had some friends in Alcoholics Anonymous that I could call on when when things got bad, then it would be a little easier. And I saw the fellowship for what it was, just people that I could be friends with, not people that my sobriety had to depend on. And I started making close friends in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I started being able to open up to people after that.

And it was it was a real growth experience for me and sorry. My throat is really dry. But, yeah, and I I learned about the that my sobriety has to be unconditional too. When I drank it was I drank, when I was rich, and I had lots of money to spend on beer, and I found ways to drink when I had no money at all. And, I drank when I was on a date with mister and I drank to get through dates with guys who were not mister wonderful.

And, you know, I I drink no matter if I was living in Washington, DC, in Fargo, in Minot, wherever I was, you know, it it didn't matter. I drank. And so, what that taught me was that it doesn't matter. I have to stay sober. Because I can't say I'll be able to stay sober.

Sober. Because I can't say I'll be able to stay sober as long as I have a good job. Because what if my company decides to up and move to Minneapolis? You know, I can't stay. I'll only I can't say that I'll only stay sober as long as I have a great boyfriend because what if that relationship has to end and I have no control over it?

And I can't say only stay sober as long as my family is okay, because what if a pipe freezes and bursts and cause tens of 1,000 of dollars worth of damage in my parents' home destroying family heirlooms and you know, causing them to have to go live in a hotel and there's not a damn thing that I can do about it. You know? My my sobriety can't depend on those things. It can't be in as long as sobriety. I have to be able to surrender unconditionally.

And what I get in exchange for that unconditional surrender is an unconditional release from alcoholism. I get a freaking miracle. I'm sorry if my I'm trying to say, you know, I'm trying to keep it PG. You know, I get unconditional surrender and or release. Yeah.

And I get unconditional love from so many of the people in this room who don't care if I screw up, who who don't care if I skip out on a move, even though I should not be half measuring it at this point in sobriety. And and who love me unconditionally and accept me warts and all, Japanese punk rock music and all, who who accept me with open arms. And and, you know, and that's amazing because a little over a year ago at this time, I had no friends. Not really. Maybe 1 or 2 people that I could call to go out drinking with, but I had no close friends.

And and now I have a room full of people that I can call my friends, and and I have released from alcoholism. I thought I haven't thought about having a drink in a long, long time, and that's a miracle because I used to not be able to go more than a few hours without thinking about having a drink. And, if I can say anything for the newcomer, I'd say welcome. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're an alcoholic, we have a few simple steps you can take so you never have to drink again and that's very powerful.

Get a copy of the big book get a sponsor. Get into this thing and jump into it with both feet because you can have a miracle too. And that's all I got.