ORCNA V in Ottawa, Ontario

Gina from New York. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Get up. Wake up.

My name is Gina. I'm an addict. It'll take me a minute to calm down, so you just have to bear with me. But god is good, and I am better than blessed. I've been clean all day today in Narcotics Anonymous.

I want to say hi to the interpreters. How are you doing? And I have to do that because it feels very strange that somebody else is going to be telling my story. You know. And somebody else is going to be talking about my feelings.

So I say hi and get to know you. And I'll try to keep my language down. You know, and that's that's really intimidating for me to speak on Sunday morning. You know, I I really hate the moniker, the spiritual speaker. Yeah.

Does anyone who knows me knows that my language isn't always exemplary? My honesty tends to be a little brutal. And the thing about it is that everything that happens in Narcotics Anonymous is spiritual and this is no more spiritual than any other meeting. I am no more spiritual Our meetings are all spiritual. I get real intimidating.

It's been about 3 years now that I've had a lot friends up in Canada and that I've been coming up here pretty regularly. And it's so wonderful. Every time I step off the plane somewhere, there's always someone that I know from Toronto, Montreal, Guelph, Ottawa, all different areas. And what I always get is welcome home and this is my home. Anywhere I go in Narcotics Anonymous is my home.

It's really a wonderful feeling to know that I can go anywhere and I can be in a room full of people and I may not know you all but you are my family today. You know, you are not my friends, you are my family. I have a family of origin and they're very ill and I love them very much. I believe that my parents did the best that they could, but I don't believe that that's an excuse today. They did a shitty job.

But having a miserable childhood is not an excuse for being a miserable adult. And you are my family of choice. And wherever I go, you are there, even when I wish you weren't. You know, the times that I'm inside my head and I want to just isolate and sit up by myself and be ill and be sick in my own head, you call. You come over uninvited.

And I love you so much for that. You do for me on a daily basis what I can't do for myself. And you've given me the ability to have the miracle, and the miracle is the ability to live within my own skin. And anyone who's heard me share, and I know lot of you have heard me share at different places knows that I never talk about using. We all know how to do that.

If you really want to know about using, try to catch me afterwards. I don't believe that Narcotics Anonymous meetings are about talking about using and trading war stories. We all know how to do that. I come in here not because I didn't know how to use. I come in here because I don't know how to live without using.

And I come in here to learn that and I learn that from you. And the way that I do that is by talking about my feelings. And that was a real hard thing for me to do because I never knew what I felt. I never felt anything. I lived my whole life trying to achieve that feeling of being numb, that feeling of evenness.

And somewhere along the line, I missed out on what the other people learned, which is that life goes up, life goes down and it goes like this and I tried so hard to keep it like this and to live on a straight line and that never worked. But I kept chasing that feeling. I kept chasing that feeling of numbness, something to take away the pain. But I don't talk about the war stories. The truth is that most of what I remember about using is really a lie.

It's not true. Most of the story that I remember is not true. I lived in a very grandiose world that I made up, where I pretended to be somebody that I wasn't, where I made up stories that never happened and I repeated them to myself for so many years over such a long period of time that I'm still not sure on some of them if they really happened or not. But I know that the first feeling I can get in touch with is that I didn't belong and I knew it and I knew that you knew it. There was always something different about me and I don't know what it was.

But somehow you knew how to fit in and I didn't. Somehow you knew how to be a part of life and I didn't. And the way that I describe it is that I always felt like there was this little instruction booklet you got when you were born and they didn't give me a copy. I tried so hard to fit in and I knew that it didn't work, so I gave up and I gave up very early. I was about 7 or 8 years old when I started using my first drug, which was fantasy.

And I used fantasy for a long time before I used a chemical. And I tried to believe that I was somebody that you would like because I never thought that I stood for anything on my own. I never thought that I had enough. So I tried to be someone that I thought that you would like. And when people met me, I was always convinced that if you liked me, it was because you really didn't know me.

And once you got to know me, you weren't going to like me. So I pushed people away and I isolated and I stayed by myself because I didn't wanna handle the feelings of rejection of having you as a friend because I knew you would leave. I picked up my first chemical around my 11th birthday and I actually picked up 2 chemicals at that point. I not only picked up drugs, I picked up men. And men are a very big part of my story and relationships are a very big part of my story.

And I wanted that feeling for so long. I just wanted somebody to love me, and I didn't know how to have it. I could lay down with a strange man and I could give up my body when all I wanted was those 2 minutes of being held, but I didn't know how to ask somebody to hug me. When I started using, I knew from the first time I used that I was an addict. And I wasn't hooked physically, but I knew that that feeling that I got was something that I liked and I wanted and I was going to continue to do that.

And the next 10 years of my life took me to places I never thought I was going to go. It took me with people I never thought I was going to be with and had me doing things that I never thought I would do. I picked up and I ended up in the gutter. I ended up with my first thoughts of suicide at 12. I used to call people just to talk to them.

I used to dial wrong numbers. I used to dial random wrong numbers and just try to start conversations with people. I know what I used to do is I used to take my phone number and I'd take another area code. Like, I dial my phone number in Los Angeles and I tell the person, you know, I have your phone number in New York. And I just try to start to talk to them because I was so lonely.

And it was funny being lonely because I was always surrounded by all of these people. I always had a whole ton of people around me and I didn't have a friend in the world. I had a bunch of using buddies. They used me. I used them.

And that's the relationship that we had. I was blessed to be 12 Steps in October of 1982 and it took me 6 months to hear the message that I was given. I didn't get cleaned until April 25, 1983. But that addict gave me that message that there was another way of life and I wasn't ready to listen. I was only 20 years old.

I didn't feel I had used for long enough. I also never thought that drugs were my problem. You know, I didn't have a problem with drugs. My problem was you, my problem was the guys I was with, my problems was the jobs I had, the problems was I had not enough money where I lived. I never saw drugs as the problem.

I learned as a child in school that the planets revolved around the sun and I knew that that was wrong. They revolved around me. I was the center of the universe. I knew everything. I had all the answers.

And my problem is that you just wouldn't accept that. And if you would do what I told you and you did what I wanted, we'd be fine. But I never got my way. When I finally reached that point that no chemicals I used, no combinations I made up, nothing worked anymore. I couldn't take away the pain of being alive.

Our literature talks about that point of desperation that we reach and I was at that point of desperation. Nothing worked. And without my drugs, I didn't know what I was going to do because I was going to have to live with the pain and that was not an option for me. So I took his suggestion and I walked into a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. And it just amazes me how far we've come in New York.

In 1983, in April, we had 2 meetings in Manhattan and the Greater New York Region today has over 1500 meetings. And I've had the privilege of being in New York from the beginning and watching it grow. But I walked into that meeting and I saw a bunch of people and I basically looked like this. I had a little straight job and I walked into a meeting after work and I'm wearing a little skirt and dress and sneakers like we do in New York. We go to work in all our dress clothes and tennis shoes.

And I walk into this meeting and there's a bunch of bikers and they look at me and they say, the church is upstairs. And luckily, there was a woman in there who understood our 3rd tradition and that's real important for me to remember that I don't have a right to tell anybody that they don't belong here because they look differently or they act differently or they think differently. The only requirement is the desire to stop using. And I and no one else in here has the right to tell anyone they don't belong because they're not the same. They told me, sit down.

And I looked around and women started coming up to me and giving me their phone number. And I shared this a lot. I had a real woman problem. We had nothing in common, ladies, sorry. And I was one of the guys and I didn't like women.

You were bitchy and catty. You were jealous. You were competitive. And if I turned my back, you'd steal my man in a minute. I did all those things and that's what I was about, so I don't know why I thought you might be different.

And I was so self centered at the time that when all these women started coming up giving me their phone numbers, I had this figured out. You were all gay and you were after me and there was no way I was getting involved with you. For some reason, I stayed in that meeting And I listened to all of you talk about all of the craziness that went on inside of my head that I never dared tell anybody. And despite the fear and despite the discomfort, I had a real peaceful feeling because I knew for the first time in my life that I had come home and I found what I'd always been looking for and looking for in the place I was never going to find it out on the streets in active addiction. But I found it in here.

And in 1983, when NA was new in New York, it basically was a special interest group that stood for Needles Anonymous. And I was one of the only addicts in there who was not an IV user. And I didn't want you to think that I didn't belong because I wasn't an IV user, so I lied about it. And we didn't have any steps. We didn't have any traditions.

I mean, we had these nice lampshades and we hung them on the wall, but we really had no idea what they meant. And all we talked about was using in worse stories. So I learned real quickly how to prep a shot so that I could talk about it with you. And I came across really sounding like I knew what I was talking about that I really was an IV user. I want to tell you, it was a lot harder to get honest about it than it was to lie about it.

But I had to get honest about that at some point that I had never shot dope. But I wanted to stay. And I wanted to stay and I really didn't want to work it the way you talked about. I always knew how to do things better. I always had my way.

This was good for you and I had a way that was better for me. So you talked to me about getting a sponsor. Now I'm very intelligent. I have a college education. I don't need to ask any questions.

I can figure lots of stuff out by myself. So I knew what a sponsor was. A sponsor was like when you wanted to join the union, you needed somebody in the union to sponsor you to get in. So when you asked me if I had a sponsor, I didn't want to say no that I walked in here on my own. So I said, yes, I do.

And I didn't. And I want to tell you that it took me almost 5 months of listening to you before I figured out what a sponsor was so I could go get one. I don't suggest to anybody that you do that. There really aren't any dumb questions in Narcotics Anonymous. The only dumb question is the one that you don't ask and it just might kill you.

So So I started coming to meetings and we didn't have the luxury that we do today. I can go to meetings in New York from 7 o'clock in the morning until 3, 4 o'clock in the morning around the clock, every day, 7 days a week and that's a blessing. But we didn't have 7 Narcotics Anonymous meetings back then. And if you wanted to make a meeting every day in your 1st 90 days, you had to go to other places. And I'm very grateful today that I don't have to do that.

I don't tell anybody else where to get their recovery. I don't tell anybody else how to work their program, But I don't go any place else other than Narcotics Anonymous. This is my home. And I don't have to be a lot of things. I am very simply an addict.

So anyway, I came into program and basically I was abstinent. And I'm very grateful that that was the one slogan that I did put into my life and I did get and that was don't use no matter what. I didn't hear a whole lot else. I looked at the steps and I looked at the traditions and I figured I could figure these out by myself. So I ran down the list and I had already done about half of them on my own.

There were some that I was never going to do and a couple just didn't apply to me. So I went on with my program. I thought I had myself pretty much up to being ready to write my 4th step. I had about 90 days clean. And And I got into this relationship.

Now I'm going to be brutally honest with you. It was a 1 night stand. I had 4.5 months and he had 87 days. And somewhere around 3 o'clock in the morning, I started planning our wedding. And you know how we are about that?

You know, it was our first night together and I had the band picked out. I had the location, what kind of table cloths I wanted, who was coming. And I got up and I left him in the next morning and I never saw him again. I picked this person because of the stature that they had in life. They were a public figure.

He made a lot of money. And I never felt good enough about myself to think that I was going to amount for anything on my own and I always looked for a man to validate me. I always wanted to be taken care of. And when I never heard from him again, it was the first time I had felt rejection clean and I couldn't deal with it. And I made a conscious decision to relapse, That recovery was just not worth it.

For whatever reason, I called another addict and I told them that I was planning to use and they suggested to me that I pray. I have to tell you, I wasn't real big on praying. I wasn't big on God. When I was using, I was always looking for some place to belong. I always was convinced that there was some pigeonhole somewhere that I belonged into.

So I searched for it for a really long time and I got involved in all these different religions and I never stayed in any one for too long. But I meditated and I tried Buddhism and I tried born again Christianity. And I want to tell you that I'm not Christian to begin with. I'm Jewish. So how I got born again, I don't know.

But I have a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. I grew up very confused. And I and I looked for a place to belong. So basically, I wanted a god who gave me what I wanted. That was what I wanted from god.

I mean, I used to pray, god, if you love me, you'll let that ring's trucks, backdoors open and all the money will fall out. God, if you love me, I'll win the lottery. I never bought tickets. And the foxhole praying, which was really the only time I ever prayed. And that was when I got into those situations time and time again that I wasn't convinced I was going to get out of a life.

If you please get me out of this one, if you please make the room stop spinning, You know, I swear I'll never do this again, and I never meant it. So when you talk to me about God, I had a real big problem with God. I had decided at some point that I wasn't sure that there was a God. If there was, He had forsaken me. I knew where I was going.

That was a done deal. And it really didn't matter. And I took the suggestion thanks, sweetie and I don't know why, but I did. And I asked for the obsession and compulsion to be lifted, and it was, and I didn't use. Last month, I celebrated 9 years clean.

And relapse is definitely not a requirement. A lot of what you're going to hear me say this morning, by the way, I need to say this, it's my opinion. And if it offends you, I apologize. But, you know, I really need to get across and let everyone understand that I am not up here representing Narcotics Anonymous. I don't speak for NA as a whole.

If there's something you don't like what I say, it's me. What I was saying is that relapse is not a requirement, we're told. And one of the problems that I do have and this is opinion is that I hear people come and they raise their hand and say, I'm back one day, and somebody pats them on the back and says, Oh, that's okay. No, it is not okay. We love you.

We love you. Please keep coming. Please come back. But this is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs and it is not okay to use and it's not okay for us to tell people it's okay. What I did learn through this experience is that this was not my program.

This is the program of Narcotics Anonymous. And in order for me to work this program, I needed to be guided by somebody who knew how to work this program. I needed a sponsor and I needed to be guided through the program. And to me, the program is real simple. It's the 12 steps and the 12 traditions and that's all it is.

But I had to be taught that by a sponsor because the steps are not left up to my interpretation. I'm a very sick person. I need someone else to tell me what this debt means. This isn't GINA's program. So I got a sponsor.

And I want to tell you that when I first started looking for a sponsor, I started looking for a man. I had a real big problem with you ladies. And there's a man in New York who has 13 years clean now and he's still a really good friend of mine and he said to me, Gina, if you want to learn about men's problems, go ask a man. If you want to learn how to be a woman, you're going to have to learn from another woman. And guys, I love you, but I don't sponsor you.

And I won't sponsor you. And I firmly believe that I have to learn how to be a woman from other women. And I got a sponsor and she's my sponsor today. And I love you, Fran. I don't know where you are, but I love you anyway.

Sorry, my sponsor and I have this thing. We dog each other when we both speak. And I know eventually she'll hear the tape, so I have to feed her ego that I mentioned her name and Mentioned her name, gave her a little dig. But I do love her. And she is my sponsor for one reason, and it's real simple.

She's the best sponsor in the whole world. If you don't think your sponsor is the best sponsor in the whole world, I suggest you get a new one. And she took me through the steps and we started on the first step. And the first step is still real important to me. And what she taught me is that we have a first step like no other fellowship because we don't talk about any specific substance.

We don't talk about any specific chemicals. I'm not powerless over any one thing. You talk to me about a disease called addiction. And what I learned today is that what Dot was saying last night, I am the problem and I'm addicted to a whole lot more things than drugs. I'm addicted to money, I'm addicted to men, I'm addicted food, people pleasing, relationships.

I'm addicted to anything that makes me feel differently than the way I do now. And that doesn't mean making myself feel good if I'm feeling bad because if I'm feeling good, I fuck it up. Being on a pink cloud is real dangerous for me. I'll go find some way to sabotage it. The first step talked to me about my life being unmanageable.

And I have to tell you that sometimes today my life is still unmanageable, but it isn't unbearable and that's a big change. And what you taught me in my first step is that it's the only thing I have to do in here perfectly. If I don't use, I give myself a shot at another day no matter what else I've done. And don't use no matter what, it still holds true. When we got on to the second step, it came to what I was talking about before.

I had a real problem with a power greater than me. There was nothing greater than me. I talked to you about anything. I could fix anything. I could do anything.

And that was the image that I projected and that was a big mask for me. It was a real self defense mechanism. A lot of people always talk to me about being real confident and self assured on the outside and that was such a defense mechanism to try to hide from you how terrified I was and how inadequate I felt. I came to look at the coincidences in my life and I say that in quotes, coincidence that I was still alive, that I was still breathing, that I could walk, that I could talk, that my body still worked because I had bucked the odds for a lot of years and I came to understand that something greater than me had kept me here, that there was a purpose. And I have to share this with you.

Sandy and I were coming up and from Montreal to Ottawa, you get on a plane about yo big with a little propeller. And I hate those things. I was sitting by the window as we're descending into Ottawa and all of a sudden equipment drops. I realize you see the little wheels on the landing gear coming down. I said, oh, shit.

It's like being on the roller coaster and I've got my head back and I'm turning green and Sandy said to me, don't worry, God's bringing you up here to speak. He'll kill you on the way home. So so if you if you see me in a meeting tomorrow renouncing my US citizenship, A power greater than myself to me has changed. And as I continue on in recovery and I continue to work the steps, they gather different meanings for me. And I don't believe that a power greater than myself is necessarily God.

God is my highest higher power. But a power greater than myself is anybody who can help me and I don't believe that it has anything to do with the 3rd step. I don't think we waste 2 steps on the same thing. When I'm in legal trouble, I go to lawyers. They are a power greater than me.

When I have medical problems, I go to doctors. And when I have living problems, I go to other recovering addicts. My sponsor is a power greater than myself. And she is not my higher power, but she is a power greater than me because that woman can take me when I am a lunatic and in 5 minutes, she has me calm. And I don't know what she says or how she does it, but she does for me what I can't do for myself.

I moved on to the 3rd step. I don't want to do a 3rd step. I don't want to turn anything over. It was like giving up control. And the analogy that I was given was that when you left your kids with the babysitter, you didn't turn them over to the babysitter and say, here, here's my kids, go take them.

You left the phone number of where you were going to be and here's the emergency number, there's the telephone, here's how to get in touch with the police. And then you left them over to the babysitter's care. You did the footwork, you trusted that you had done all that you had done and all that you could do and then you entrusted them to the care. And that was what I was told that the third step was about, was continuing to do the footwork and trusting in God's care, in taking my will in my life. And my own personal third step prayer is, God, please help me stay out of my own way today.

But I had a real hard time turning things over and I didn't understand what you meant by turn them over, like how do I get them out of my head? What do you mean turn it over, let it go? So what I did was I started to make brown paper bags and I would write Godbag on them. And I would take down whatever was bothering me and I'd write it on a piece of paper and I'd stick it in the bag and I'd say, all right God, now it's yours. You deal with it.

And that was the way that I could physically turn it over. It was tangible, I could feel it. Turning things over though required action on my part and it required footwork. You know, I hear people in meetings sometimes say, I'm not working, but I turned it over. You know, god is not going to jump down in front of me and hand me a job.

If I'm out on the street homeless, God is not going to have an apartment building appear before my eyes. The footwork on my part is the continuance of working with vigilance in my program and in trusting that in God's care all will be well. And I made that decision and I make that decision on a daily basis, sometimes a 100 times a day because I take my will back a lot. And we talk about progress, not perfection. And sometimes when I'm really getting down on myself because I am my own worst critic and I am my own worst enemy, all I can ask myself is the last time this situation happened, how long did it take to let go?

And even if it was 2 months, if I did it this time in 1 month 29 days, I did better. We talk about insanity in the second step. We talk about the insanity of repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. I learned a real new definition this year. Real insanity is doing something when you know full well in advance what the outcome is going to be and you do it anyway.

And I need to give myself a break for being human. And it is about doing better, but it isn't about getting down on myself because it's so easy to look at what I'm not doing rather than what I am doing. And what I was told is that mountain climbers never look up to the top. They never look at how far they have to go. They always look down and see how far they've come.

And I need to continue to look back and see how far I've come, not how far I have to go. The journey still continues and the promise is freedom and hope. I am so sick that I wanted to do my 4th step. I really looked forward to it. And the reason why I looked forward to it is because nobody else wanted to do it.

And I always had to be the one to do the dare, do the challenge, go one step a little further. So, I really wanted to write this 4th step. And I was handed the little 4 Step Inventory Guide of 1983. Remember that one, Gary? Yes.

And that was a really wonderful 4 Step Guide. I am sorry that the literature committee changed it. They had a whole section in there on sexual relationships with a lot of very detailed items that you had to write on. And I looked at it and I said, no way in hell am I ever sharing this with anybody. I wanted to do a 4th step, but we could stop there.

And I did not have the trust in another human being even at that point in my life. And I wrote this 4th step and I threw it in the drawer and I didn't tell my sponsor I was finished. And finally, the pain of sitting with it got so bad that I had to approach her and tell her that I was done and do a 5th step. And I think it's really important for those of us who have done 4 steps to get up here and talk about them that they're really no big deal. We hear 4th step and it just strikes terror into people.

God, it's a 4th Step meeting. I don't want to do a 4th Step. It really is no big deal. And we make this 4th Step out to be something so miraculous that your life is going to absolutely change once you've written this 4th step. I mean, it gets to the point that no matter what's bothering you, you come into a meeting and share it and somebody says, did you do a 4th step on it?

What I learned through the 4th step and subsequently in sharing it with the 5th was that I could begin the process of letting go of my past. It did not let go of all of my past. I did not walk away from my 5th step feeling totally free like I had dropped a bag of garbage. And I was so disappointed. I heard all these people sharing about this.

God, I felt like a weight was lifted off of me and, you know, I had left all my past behind. I didn't feel any of that. And I felt really disappointed like I had done something wrong. And what I was taught was that I began the process of letting go and this was going to be a lifelong process like recovery was going to be a lifelong process, that I incorporated these steps into my life and I continue to work them on a daily basis that I would continue to let go of more and more as I continued. But this wasn't like the steps done, move on.

And the steps to me are cumulative. They're not consecutive. I didn't work 1 and 1 went down and I went on to 2. When I went to 2, I incorporated 12. When I went to 3, it was 123.

And when I finished the 12 steps, I now had the 12 steps in my life to work all 12. And I continue to work all 12 in my life and by sponsoring people and I believe very strongly in getting a sponsor who has 12 steps, not 4, not 6, 12. My responsibility as a sponsor is to pass on my experience, strength and hope and I can't pass on what I ain't got. I did learn something wonderful through that 5th step and that was that I finally learned to entirely trust another human being. And there is nothing today that I can't tell my sponsor.

There's no apprehension. And most of what I told her, including some things that I swore that I would never tell another living human being that I would take to the grave, I've gotten up and shared at conventions. And that process of trust continues and it continues to roll and the first time we share something, it seems so hard and you want to kick yourself afterwards. Why did I let that secret go? Why did I tell somebody?

Why did I make myself so vulnerable? You can't hurt me with what I've given you. And I've come up here and I've shared some really painful stuff. I've shared some really sick stuff. And you can't use that against me.

I've given it to you and you can't do anything with it. It's mine. Now it's yours. But there are some things today that I choose to only tell my sponsor and not everybody in here is about the same thing and I need to tell you that. When I first came into recovery, I thought that this was wonderful and it was about getting honest and I sat in meetings and I talked about being a prostitute and running around and I got some responses that I really was not looking for.

And there are some things that I choose not to share in open meetings. And that's not what an open meeting is for. That's what my sponsor and my support group are for. I believe that the 6 and 7 steps are the hardest steps that we work in here. And I believe that there's a real difference between them.

I hear a lot of times we get into 6 and 7 step meetings and somebody says, well, I did them together and I don't understand that. This is 12 step program, not an 11 step program. How do you work 6 and 7 together? The 6 step taught me about the willingness and the acceptance to accept who I am today. And that's really hard for me because I like to be in denial about my character defects.

And I love how the steps run together. I did not have character defects when I came here. 6 and 7 were 2 of those steps that I was talking about that didn't apply to me. I had to work the previous 5 steps And it was through sharing a 5th step and looking at my patterns that my sponsor could point out my character defects that I could understand what they were and where I needed work. But I had to do those previous 5 steps to get there.

And what I was taught is that the steps, the preparatory for the next one and if you're having problems with the step, you probably need to go back and work the one before it. The favorite analogy I use is about lying. I hate to get up here and tell you I'm a liar, but that's the truth. I'm a liar and I'm a bullshit artist and I'm a con. And as long as I stand up here and tell you that I'm an honest person, I'm never going to get better with my lying because I'm in denial about it.

In order for me to work on my character defects, I need to admit them. This is how I am. It's not how I want to be. But this is how I am today and I need to accept that. And only when I've admitted and acknowledged and accepted them can I move on to a 7 step in your mouth and that is that no one can take inventory like the 2 of us?

And if I sit in the back of a meeting, I am sitting in inventory row, and I do not pay attention to anything going on in the meeting because I'm too busy watching who's talking to who and why is that one sitting there doing her nails. And wasn't he with her last week? Why is he with her now? And I I really hate it about myself. I really try to mind my business.

And the only way that I can mind my business is to sit up front. And if I sit in the front row, I don't know what's going on behind me, I mind my business and I don't talk about you. And to this day, if you walk into a meeting, you will see me sitting in the front row. That is how I work my 6th step. I pray and I ask God to please remove it And I need to remember that the 7th Step talks about God removing the character defect.

I don't remove it. It's up to him and it's in his time and that is not a cop out for me to behave any way I want. I am responsible today for my behavior. But what I can do is sit upfront and I need to talk to you about how to work other character defects in my life that are not being removed as quickly as I would like them to be. The fact that they are not removed is not an excuse to act out on them.

I made an 8 step list and I wanted to make amends as soon as I got into recovery. And I understand today why 8 is number 8 and why 9 is number 9 and they're not 12. And I needed to look at my own character defects to understand the part that I played in hurting people before I could go and make amends. And amends are not about saying I'm sorry, they're about changing your behaviour. I always said I was sorry.

Always, my whole life, I was the sorriest mother you ever met. I apologize for living. I apologize for breathing. I apologize for being. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm always sorry. And I was never sorry because I always did it again. And what I was taught is that amends were not about just saying I'm sorry. They were about changing my behavior.

The hardest amends I had to make was with my dad. I had a lot of resentment towards him. It was easy to make the amends with the people with whom the emotional attachment didn't matter. My father left when I was 4 years old and I searched my whole life through other men to get what I wanted from him that I never got. And it was real hard for me to be forgiving and to ask him to forgive me.

And what I needed to accept in him that I was not going to get the father that I wanted. You know, I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and Father Knows Best. I never had that. I grew up in a single parent household with a 23 year old mother who was a hippie. The bills never got paid.

The electricity was always getting shut off. We had Spaghetti Oats for dinner, and we were always running out of toilet paper. And my mom just couldn't get it together. She couldn't get the shopping done. She couldn't get the bills paid.

And I realize today how sick she is. And I don't want to say dysfunctional. I'm getting real tired of the word dysfunctional. Did anybody ever see a functional family? On TV, I saw functional families.

I never saw one in real life. And that's why I always wanted to move to Mr. Brady's house. But nobody I knew had a functional family. And we make up these big $3 words for things.

And I am where I am today and I need to understand how I got here because of what I had in the past, but I've got to stop blaming her for the way I behave today. And with my dad, the thing that I needed to understand was that he's never going to be the father that I want. He's not capable of being the dad that I need. And my family of origin is who they are and that is why today you are my family of choice. And you give me what I need.

I take a 10 step on a daily basis. And to continue to take personal inventory, I need to do that with you. And I talk a lot about the we of the Fellowship and how important it still is to me to have you. You know, I'd love to come up here and tell you with 9 years clean, I can do all these things. The truth is, without you, I can't wipe my own butt.

And I learned that about 6 months ago when I know you know, any gossip is wonderful. And I come up here and there's a lot of people I haven't seen in a year. I heard you're having a hard time. You know, and it's true. And I appreciate that because I get a lot of calls when I'm having hard time.