The Our Primary Purpose confernence in London, UK

You're at Sarah Dave. Leave me alone. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic. Welcome back.

It now gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our next speaker, Barbara Kaye. Thank you very much. My name's Barbara, and I'm an alcoholic. Hello. It's a privilege and an honor to be asked to share here today.

Although I didn't think that just 2 minutes ago sitting there, I thought, John, carry on. It's, it is it's a lovely room, you know, and to see it so full of people recovering alcoholics, it is it is absolutely amazing. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about myself so that you know, the route I took to get to Alcoholics Anonymous. Like I said, my name is Barbara. I'm an alcoholic, and I'm a little bit over pensionable age.

I'm divorced with 4 children and 4 grand children, and my sobriety date was, the end of November 1986. And I don't say that for any other reason than it's the truth, you know. And and that that doesn't qualify me to be any more sober than anybody else in this room. In fact, I feel less so. My knees are absolutely shaking, and I'm not holding on to this, for any other reason than for support.

Anyway, to get on with it, when I discovered alcohol, it was like the lights had gone on in the world for me. It was the answer or seemed to be then to all of my problems. It, it it changed the way I felt immediately. So I know today and hindsight is a wonderful gift and a lot of what I say is with hindsight. Because before the before I drank, I felt, I was not comfortable.

I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. I've read in the big book that, it's described as irritable, restless, and discontented. And my mother said I was the most discontented child she'd ever met. And, you know, and I know how that feels. I was not a happy person.

I couldn't mix with people. I couldn't talk to people. I didn't get on with people at school. Worse still, I didn't get on with people in my family. And I said in these rooms for a long time after I came here that I came from an unhappy childhood.

I didn't. I didn't. I was the unhappy person in that family. My brothers and my sister and my mother were perfectly happy. I was the unhappy person.

But like I said, when I discovered alcohol, it was it was just like the lights had gone on and I thought, this is the this is the answer. This is what has been missing, and proceeded to drink. And I drank for 26 and a half years, and it's I was what I'd call an opportunist drunk in the beginning. We didn't have a lot of money. I was married at the time and I would drink whenever we went to parties.

I know today and I can say in all honesty that I never went out and took a drink, and I never took a drink without getting drunk. Every time I drank, I got drunk. Every time I drank, I got into trouble. And my drinking went on like that for quite a long time. And I'm not gonna bore you with all the bits in between because, a lot of it was done in blackout so I would be making it up if I did.

I I I can't remember. What I do remember is, I was a binge drinker for a while and at the end of my drinking, I was a daily drinker. All the time, my eyes were open. My mouth was open too with drink going down my throat. And in the middle of all of this was a family trying to grow up and live a life.

I had no, no concept of, that what I was doing was was wrong. I hadn't even heard of the word alcoholism. I didn't know there was anything wrong. I needed to drink because it took away all of those feelings that I spoke about before. It enabled me, I thought, to deal with life.

I didn't do life very well without drink, and therefore, it, you know, I it enabled me to do all of that. And, you know, I I didn't know anything about emotional harm that I did to my family, any of that stuff. I've learned all of that since I came into this fellowship. And, at the end of my drinking, the the best way I can describe the end of my drinking to you is to compare it to today. And, today, when I woke up, I woke up.

I didn't come to. Today, I knew that the ceiling I was looking at was instantly mine. The person that I was in bed with was the same person that I went to bed with last night. Better than that, my bed was dry. You know?

I didn't have to rush to the bath room to retch down the toilet. I didn't have to reach for the, small amount of alcohol that I may well have left from the night before to get me going that morning, this morning. I was able to get out of bed. And what I did, I got on my knees, and I asked for help. And I asked for help because asked for help.

And I asked for help because over the last couple of days, I haven't been physically well. And I don't do physical pain very I don't do emotional. I don't do any pain very well. And this morning, I really had to get off my pity pot to get here because I felt so sorry for myself, you know. And, you know, but I did the usual things that I do every morning now.

I got on my knees. I asked for help. And you know what? I feel so much better. You know.

Even my knees are stopping shaking. It's only a little bit now. And, and I got in the shower and I got some clean clothes out. And I got in my car and drove to a friend's house who then drove me here. And they they are very simple things that people out there do every day of their lives, but they are the things that I could not do at the end of my drinking.

I I was, falling down drunk. And, somebody in my family suggested that I try AA. And I thought, what the hell are you for? I'm not somebody that had gone to AA, and I knew, that alcoholics went there. And he was a man as well, so it certainly didn't apply to me.

Anyway and, I I decided that I would go to a couple of meetings because it seemed like a good idea. The family might talk to me again. You see, throughout my drinking, there were lots of rows in my family, lots of silences too, and I really don't know which I hated the most, and neither of them were very pleasant. So the answer to that was to get drunk again. But, anyway, so I I decided because they thought it was a good idea that I would go to AA as well.

And, and I went to a couple of meetings, and, I listened to a couple of people doing chairs and, you know, they'd been in prison and they'd been in treatment centers and they'd been, lost their licenses. And I'd never done any of those things, so I really thought that, you know, it was quite hard for me to understand that I qualified to be in this fellowship. And, so, you know, because I've never done those sorts of things, and and I missed the bit where they said to me, listen for the similarities. I missed that bit completely. You know, when somebody said they wet the bed, I missed that bit.

You know, it was the lost I've never lost my license. I've never been in prison, you know, at least of all a mental hospital, you know, and and that was what I did. And, you know, I I looked at the scrolls behind me on the wall that said the 12 steps, and, you know, I thought, god, that must be alright for you lot. But, you know, I'm special and I'm different, and I don't need any of that because I hadn't done all of these things that, I heard people talking about. And, I went along for a few months just putting my backside on a chair at a meeting, having a cup of coffee, plonking my dirty cup down, and walking back out again and getting a lift home.

And, you know, I know today that I was, suffering with untreated alcoholism, you know, because, thank God, I was lucky enough, one evening to be in a room, at a meeting when a lady, after I'd shared, and God knows what I shared. It must have been a load of rubbish because she took me outside straight away and read me my fortune, really. And, after she'd done that, she offered to be my sponsor. And, you know, I'd heard all this about sponsorship. Get yourself a sponsor.

Do the program, you know, and and but I didn't want to do any. I didn't want any of the hard work that I knew it would be. And, you know, she she said, that she would be my sponsor and she would help me through the steps of this program. And, do you know, my mouth went yes and my head was going, don't do that. Don't do that.

You know, but it was too late because it and that's why I say thank God today because, you know, I do thank God for that, that lady being in that room that night. And, yeah, the first thing she said to me was, would I be willing to get on my knees and ask a power greater than myself to help me stay sober? And I said, like, what? And she said, I don't care. Just do it.

I don't care what it is. Just do it anyway. And I and she gave me some other things. You know, she asked me to read the just for today card, to make a gratitude list, and I hadn't got I phoned her up one day, and I said, I I haven't a clue what to put on here. And she said, well, you're breathing, so start with that.

And I did. I did. I didn't know what to put. And, you know, she, she said she'd take me through the through the steps, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they I laid out in the big book because that was the only way she knew how to do it. And, you know, she was she was, I was quite in awe of this woman, you know, and I used to think up ways to get her off my back when I hadn't sort of, if I was late phoning or if, I hadn't sort of done what I was supposed to have done.

And I'd phone her up, and I've I've already spoken about self pity, and I do suffer with that sometimes. And, I used to phone her up and say, oh, I feel really dreadful today. I think I'll have a drink. And do you know what the bitch said to me? Go on then.

You know, and I thought, how could you be so heartless? But she was to get off the pity pot. And, you know, and she and so she started to take me through the 12 steps. And, you know, she she taught me so much, and, you know, I know you all know about the 12 steps, but, there's just 1 or 2 little, experiences that I had that I've remembered, actually, when you were having your question and answer session. I was sat at the back listening and shaking, but listening mostly.

And, you know, she taught me that the first 3 steps would take care of my the first step would take care of my physical illness, because I'm powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable. Step 2 would take care of my mental illness that I'd absolutely denied I had. And step 3 would take care of my spiritual malady, you know. I just wanna step back to the second half of the first step because, this might give you some idea of of what I was like, and and probably still can be like if I don't work at it. The second half of that step says my life is unmanageable, and it took me a while to get hold of that.

I could I could, with her, see the the powerlessness I had over alcohol, but the unmanageability, I couldn't. You know, because when I came into this fellowship, I had a house, nice house. I had a husband. I had 4 children. Wife.

My children didn't talk to me. My house was an absolute pigsty. The 2 cars, one was rusting and one we couldn't afford to tax because I drank so much. The caravan, the wheels had fallen off, and the boat had sunk. But my life was not unmanageable.

Thank you, thank you. You know, so so that was a great lesson, sort that out. She had to help me sort out a lot of what was fact and fantasy in my life because I I I didn't know. Because I didn't do life, I fantasized a lot and I was drunk in blackout half the time, so I really hadn't got a clue. And, she told me one day, she said, Barbara, everybody builds fairy castles in the sky.

You need to move out, you know, And and that was when I sort of came to grips with honesty and, self honesty, really. And, yeah. So that was, that was that. And after I'd done step 3 with her, I I went on. She showed me how to do step 4.

And that was a great revelation to me because, you know, I had always always blamed everybody else. And my finger was always pointing out it was always you, you, you, or that, that, that, and, you know, the reason I drank. And and what step 4 did for me and, ultimately, step 5, it made me point the finger in, you know, and look at myself, you know. And some of what I saw, I didn't like. And that was okay.

That was okay because she told me I could change, and it was a program of action, you know. And and it tells us in the big book, doesn't it? You know, we launched into a vigorous program of action, and, you know, that was, that was good. You know, step 6 and 7, defects of character. My god.

I didn't know I had any. You know, I I I really didn't. I really was in that castle in the sky, and, you know, and and she told me what they were. In fact, she wrote them down for me, so I wouldn't forget. And, you know, she and she showed me what I could do, you know, to get rid of them, you know, and I had to find some humility, you know.

I hadn't got a clue what it was. And I was so frightened to ask because I heard somebody at a meeting say, if you talk about humility, you haven't got it. And I thought, god, I can't open my mouth about that one because I think I'm not humble, you know. But I knew all about humiliation, you know, and I had to learn about humility. And I heard it described once, and and this sits with me very well, is that we don't think less of ourselves.

We think of ourselves less, you know, and that's a definition of humility that I quite like. So, yeah. So, you know, we we went through this program. She showed me how to make amends, and I had a few of those, you know, and and a few that I didn't really wanna do, you know. But after I'd seen my defects of character and after I'd done step 8 and seen, you know, or looked at how the other person, would have felt had they been treated that way, you know, I just wanted to get it over with, you know, and I I did get on with that quite quickly, you know, and I started with Easy People, my mother, and, you know, and and while I was doing step 4, she showed me how to do step 10 and, you know, and I still do that today.

You know, I've still got a sponsor today. It's not the same one that took me through the program. Sadly, she died. And, but, you know, I still have a sponsor today. Again, you were talking about sponsorship after somebody's recovered from alcohol.

Yeah. I I absolutely, need to talk to my sponsor. I want to talk to my sponsor today. You know, I I have the responsibility of sponsoring other people, and sometimes I don't know what to do. I'm I don't know if there's a statement, isn't it?

I don't know everything. You know, so I have to ask advice. I have to make sure that what I'm doing is right. If she doesn't know, then I have to go back to the big book. You know, if it's it's not in there, I don't do it.

You know? And, you know, today, my life is absolutely transformed, absolutely from, an everyday falling down drunk. You know, I've got a partner today, and I have a 5050 relationship with him. I never could do that before. When I was married, it was always 20, 80, 70, 30, me being the lesser.

And, you know, I've got a job that I enjoy today. I was unemployable when I came here. I lost my job through being drunk at work. Oh, yeah. That was another bit of unmanageability.

You know, I couldn't manage to drink at work and stay sober. And, you know, I I just told everybody you know, today, because I put in the action of this program, or I try to. I don't do it perfectly every day, and I really wouldn't want to, you know, because, nobody can be perfect and, but I put in the effort and I put in the action, you know. And, you know, life happens, But I've got the support of this fellowship. I've got the support of people in it.

I've got, the program that I work, you know, when I get on my knees and ask for help. And I say thank you when I get on my knees again this evening. And, you know, it's it is a program of action, and for me, that is service as well in this fellowship. I have to do service. And one of the greatest bits of service I can do, comes back to the theme of this convention, which is our primary purpose, which is tradition 5, you know, and, I do work on the helpline.

I'm a responder on the helpline, and that's why I can't come here tomorrow because I'm on the helpline tomorrow, which I think is, I enjoy doing it. I love doing it. I couldn't start doing that until, a couple of years ago because, I had an illness that kept me off work for 9 months, and I, you know, had a word with my sponsor who suggested that I might try and do a bit of service because it's only by thinking of others that I forget about myself, And, you know, and I do some 12 step work. You know, to me, that is, a wonderful piece of service. You know, it, I started doing 12 step work when I was about a year sober, and, I used to take hostages.

And, you know, if I got hostages and, you know, if I got somebody to 12 step, nobody at a meeting was gonna talk to her. She was mine, and I was gonna get us sober. And until I I had a great lesson, in my 1st year of sobriety, I didn't drive. We hadn't saved up enough money to get the cars back on the road by then, so I used to get buses to meetings and, I'd arranged to meet this woman at the bus stop. I came through the town, and, it was of an evening, and we were gonna go on to the next town.

And I said to her, I'll be sitting at the back of the bus, you know, make sure you get on all the rest of it, gave her instructions. And this day she got on the bus and she stood where the driver is and she said, I'm not an alcoholic, Barbara, I'm not coming tonight. So I I I didn't do that anymore. It taught me a great lesson. It taught me a great lesson as as as I've learned a lot of lessons.

And, you know, I I heard somebody, in the question and answer session talking about, not being a doctor, not being a a lawyer, you know, and that was another great thing my sponsor taught me, you know, because I when I first got sober, I thought, you know, everything was gonna be wonderful and I was gonna be rich and I was gonna have this handsome man, I was gonna have this lovely car with this lovely house and, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And, you know, she taught me that AA is not, a financial adviser, a doctor, a lawyer, a marriage guidance counselor. You know, some individuals might think they are, but that's not what the rooms of AA are for. And, you know, she she taught me that, which which was, which was great. And, you know, I'd I'm really struggling now to think of what else to say, but, you know, in my 2 home groups, the chair is for 20 minutes, and I don't often get to do the chair there.

So, most of the other groups I go to, it's 20 minutes. And, you know, if you share, you share for 5 minutes, and you shut up like that. You know, so I think I've done really well-to-do 25. And I'm gonna leave it there, and thank you very much, and God bless you all.