The Northern Plains Group Second Anniversary Celebration in Fargo, ND

Hi, everybody. My name is Nancy Morris, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Nancy. Hi. And, through the grace of God and good sponsorship and great Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, I've been sober since May 23, 1971.

I I was thinking this afternoon that, I really don't wanna talk because I get in my own way up here. So I really ask God to, I I always say I'll stand up there and open my mouth, and I hope the words will come out. Because I think if I do it, I let my ego and other things get in the way. Chad, thanks for inviting me to speak, at your 2nd anniversary, and I truly feel it is a privilege because you are a fantastic group, and I feel really proud to be here tonight. I've had a great day so far.

Eric and Heather have taken good care of me, and I love the slideshow. I love the, panel this afternoon. Joanne and Carla and Wayne, and I just was so touched when they were talking and looking around at all of us and when the slideshow was on and just thinking that we're all really you know, we're a bunch of misfits and we should probably be locked up in mental institution somewhere. And, I mean, you know, here we come from Minneapolis. We have a fake foot with us.

We're planting everywhere. Lisa's got a remote fart thing with her. So but, no. Other than that, I mean, we're just really people who were so lost before we found Alcoholics Anonymous. And, what a miracle that is, for us and it's a miracle that we're all here.

And as my sponsor always says, some of us will stay and some won't stay. I think it's, when I think of how long I've been here, it's absolutely amazing to me. Because I can remember when I was brand new, I can remember how I felt. I'm sure you feel that way tonight with 6 days. And, my sister got sober a year ago, and, I had been in the program for 29 years, and she, you know, just didn't couldn't do it until she was ready to do it.

And my sister went to group therapy for at least 15 years, and she went, for 2 things that I know of. She wanted to get married and she wanted to change jobs. So she went to group therapy for 15 years and talked about the same problems and kept and wasn't married and had the same job for many of those years. And I'm, sober now in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm on my 3rd husband and, I've had probably 20 jobs and careers and things because we get in here and we just live life.

And, I never thought that that would happen to me. I felt very stuck when I was new. And, my sister got sober last May, on May 21st, and, she came I met her in lost back to the town where she lives and went and found meetings there. And I have a lot of faith in Alcoholics Anonymous because when I first found out that she had a drinking problem and she really was in very bad shape, I thought I had to run out there immediately. And and, I just kinda sat back for a little while and prayed about it and asked God to help her and to guide me.

And, and it came together, you know, a few weeks after, we first talked. And, she went back to the town where she lives in California and found meetings right away and found people like you. And, she she sent me an email and she said, I just can't tell you how good it feels to be in a room full of people for the first time in my life that I know they know how I feel. And, that's what we do for each other. I know how you feel tonight because I've been there.

And I never thought I mean, I don't know what I thought, if I was gonna make it or not make it. Of many times along the way, I didn't didn't have hope. I would get into ruts and along the way and say, what's the use? And, nothing's happening. And and I'm just thinking nothing was changing and and, what's the point of all this?

And I've come close to taking a drink from time to time, and that thought still passes through my mind. And, I mean, I am an alcoholic, and I guess it passes through other people's minds too because I've had friends who've gone out and had a drink after 30 years. Recently, a friend of mine went out after, I think, 32 years. And when I came into my group, she was the woman that we all looked up to. And we all she sponsored many women.

And I don't know what happened in her case, but, I know that I have to stick very, very close to this, to you, to my home group, to, I have to have people I'm accountable to. I have a sponsor. I've had the same sponsor for about 28 years, and I still call on a weekly basis and I have people I sponsor. I think that's a gift that God gave me and put in my life and I have a lot of people I sponsor and I've come to realize I need them and God knows I need them. I get home by myself in my apartment and it doesn't take very long for my head to start going.

And thinking about how old I am now and all the opportunities I missed, and check the flap under my arms, and and I I mean, you know what? It just starts, you know. And, I'm very, very busy and active and involved, and I don't know that it was by my doing. I did not come in here and say, I found it. I'm gonna do everything you asked me to do, and, you know, I resisted at times and, and did things to get attention at times.

I'm gonna stay away from the meeting tonight and see if people call me. Well, you know, it's a funny thing because I did that and people didn't call. And because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. And, I mean, if I'm sick or something and or something's happened, people are gonna call me. But in that case, I mean, I remember that.

I wanted attention. To know if people cared about me. That's what I wanted all my life, but I never knew that. I never knew anything until I came here and got sober. I just, you know, a lot of you have met Archie and Christine and Jacqueline and Gordon here.

They're from Scotland. Land. And, we met them last July at the International Convention in Minneapolis. We met them. Alcoholics from Air Scotland.

And, we hung out with them for a couple weeks and they went back and we email and we phone and and I went to visit them. I went to their home and I went to their home group meetings, their meetings in January. And this is their second trip back since July. They just can't stay away. And I didn't even know they were coming this time.

I, just came in. I'm a flight attendant. I came in from a trip on Monday, and Joanne was gonna come over and we were gonna go eat dinner. And, so she came over, knocked on my door, and I wasn't dressed, but I didn't mind it because it was Joanne. I was half dressed, and I flung the door open and they're all there.

Surprise. Surprise. So it was one of those moments. I I stood there and I thought, well, I'm they came all the way from Scotland to surprise me. I'm standing here with my red bra on and, I feel like running away and hiding, but they're here to surprise me.

So I'll surprise them, too. So it's like but, you know, we just, you know, how can you meet people from another country and become, you know, instant friends and love and we love them and they love us. And, Gordon, lives in Scotland too. He's been in in the Twin Cities now for about a month. He, he just wanted to come to the to America and experience Alcoholics Anonymous in in the in in some place else besides where he was.

And, and, you know, there are just there are people in this room that I just, you know, I they're in my life because God put them in my life. And they're the greatest gifts that I've ever been given. Truly, they are. Growing up, I wanted things and I mean early in my sobriety, I wanted things like cars and a nicer house and a good job and nice clothes and some more money and things like that. And I and I spent a lot of time in envying people who had those things.

And along the way, I've had different things. And, truly, I treasure the people that most of them I've saw I've seen them come into Alcoholics Anonymous. I've watched them walk through the doors and get sober. And I've watched their lives change. And I watch them start sponsoring people.

And there isn't anything in the world that can take that away from me. There just isn't anything. And, Joanne and I have known each other since she got sober from the very beginning. And, Lisa where are you Lisa? Back there?

And Sue with her baby, little Molly back there. I mean, Molly. That's, Lisa's little daughters, Molly and Luke. And, Sue has Lucy with her, her little baby Lucy. But, you know, I saw those girls, these women, I call them girls.

They're women. They're all women. And, but, you know, we've been through an awful lot. I mean, Joanne was talking today about things she's gone through, and I know one time she said she had just been through so many things one after the other, and she said, well, the only the only bad thing or the worst thing that could happen or it couldn't get any worse unless the IRS came after me or something. And sure enough, you know, they they did big time, you know, and it had to do with the wreckage of her past and the marriage and everything, but we survived these things.

We can survive anything. And Lisa and Sue became really good friends when, you know, it's really important to have women friends. And they became really good friends in Alcoholics Anonymous because, you know, they had boyfriend problems and, and they and, they just got a place together. And, and it it was really out of survival. And, and, they they and so they became friends and they have that bond, you know.

And we didn't know each other. I mean, we just we didn't know each other and, but we can I can meet an alcoholic anywhere in the alcoholic anywhere in the world and feel an instant love and caring and bond with them? And so just quickly, you know, I I'll tell you that I, I I drank. It seems like pretty much most of my life when I was a young teenager, I started drinking. I have 5 brothers and a mother and a father and a sister.

My 5 brothers are all sober. None of them drink alcohol. And my sister, as I said, got sober last year. My father died of this disease. My mother's still alive.

She's a professional martyr and she's, truly she is. And, you know, there I just came to accept that about her one day and, she complained about my father's drinking constantly, and then my father died of this disease. And, she the next person, she met a man that I had known in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings who just was in and out, in and out, getting hit by cars and buses and trains, and he'd come in beat up and burned up. And and my mother, you know, called me one day. Guess what?

I met this man. His name is such and such. Well, it was this man that I knew in Alcoholics Anonymous. She didn't go to AA. She met him out there somewhere driving down the street.

It's like she has radar for that kind of thing. Complaints about it, but has radar for it. And so she was with that man for a long time as long as he continue to drink and have problems. And then he stayed sober and he and so she had to, you know, go find somebody else. And that's just the way that she is, and that's the way she'll stay.

And so, my family was really pretty chaotic growing up, and my neighbors actually the the neighbors told the kids told me that they put their house up for sale because of my family, and they were moving because of us. Because there was just too much going on all the time with all those boys and just a lot of chaos and nonsense going on. And and, so I grew up in that family, but that's not why I'm alcoholic. And, Archie and I drove up here together today, and we were talking about that sort of thing about, you know, maybe I can look back in my life and and find a reason that maybe, contributes to my my insecurity or my in for inferiority, But it has nothing to do with why I'm an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic because I am.

That's all there is to it. And I accept that. And, actually, today, I'm glad about it. And you probably don't feel that way today that you're glad, because we're hurting when we come in here. And, in the in the beginning when I got sober and went to my very first meeting, and all the alcoholics were happy to have this newcomer throwing up around them.

And they're saying, we're so lucky we're chosen by God. Alcoholics are such lucky people. Yay. Hallelujah. And, I didn't feel like that that night and I don't think I felt like that for a long time.

But today I am because I have a way of life and I have tools in front of me. And I have learned this is what a lot that we were talking about today, that I cannot blame anybody for anything that I'm feeling or doing anymore. I cannot blame anybody else, and there's quite a freedom in that. For years, I blamed people for for the way I felt and, and for things that happened to me. But I don't anymore and I'm responsible for my self and that's a good feeling.

And, you know, I'm still working on myself and I will be sober 30 years later on this month. I continually have to work on myself and work the steps and and do writing and mail it to my sponsor and pray and do whatever and work with people and go to my meetings and do just I have to stick to the basics of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's really pretty simple and that's never changed. But I, you know, so I grew up in this family and I just drank. And I had consequences from my drinking.

Some serious consequences and some not serious consequences. And, of course, at the time, I never you know, I didn't say that happened because I was drinking, but and a lot of things, you know, didn't happen because I was drunk. A lot of things that happened in my life happened because I'm an alcoholic and I have this disease of alcoholism and it makes me act a certain way or I act a certain way because of it. Because I have this deep sense of inferiority. And I want everyone to like me and I'll do whatever it takes for you to like me.

And that gets me in trouble because I do things I don't wanna do. And, the I had a, I got pregnant when I was 15 years old and I had never been on a date in my life and I didn't have a boyfriend. And, and I I tell this story because I think it's pretty indicative of just the way that I felt my whole life until I came here, and even for for long after I got here because we don't walk in these doors and get better. We work at getting better and it takes time. But, you know, so I'm this 15 year old kid just wanting everybody to like me and doing anything that it will take.

And, and and I used to love to ride horses at this stable that was near my house, and I'd go up there all the time and hang out and ride the horses. And there was a man up there who was a lot older than I was and he was really a transient when I look back on on him. He was just kind of a transient traveling through living in this little shack in this stable, and he dared me to sneak out of my house in the middle of the night. But you can't do it. I said, well, I bet I can and I had to do it.

I absolutely had to do it. There was no question and I did it. And I ended up getting pregnant the first time I had sex in my life. Now, you know, to me that just that shows the the the ism of of my disease. And also, I can look back on that in the way that I was, and and that's the way I was for my whole life.

And I can just thank God that I found this program that I don't have to live like that anymore. I've found things to do in alcoholic snums. For example, speaking, you know, I never I mean, I used to hide if if this was my regular meeting when I was new, I would be right behind that pillar right there. It's a because we had call up meetings. I was terrified of getting to the podium.

I would be behind the pillar. I would be hiding. I never wanted to do this. It scared me. But the group that I got sober in told me that I had to walk through my fears and I had to do things like that, and I was not allowed to sit back there and say no.

And they made me go up. We were just simply not allowed to say no. If I said no, I just would never go back to that meeting again, and I wanted their approval. And, you know, a lot of things that I did in the beginning were it's, you know, motives don't matter. I heard that a lot.

They just don't matter. I did things for your approval and, you know, it kept me coming back. But the funny thing about, you know, not wanting to get called on to come up to the podium, I would hide and I would come in late. I would do whatever. And then in my mind, I'd say, nobody ever calls on me.

You know, it's just like, it's a it it was kind of a crazy way to think, but that's that's how we are, I think. But so I, you know, I went through my life drinking or or, you know, acting the way that I acted. I had a lot of trouble in high school because I acted the way that I did. I, people would dare me to do things and I did them, and so I couldn't graduate with the class. And and I never went to a prom or anything like that.

I just didn't do it. And, I was, my life was pretty messed up back then. And, and I I didn't pay attention in school. I didn't really learn anything. I could pass my test to somebody else when the teacher wasn't looking.

I'd somebody else would fill in my test for me. And, you know, I wasn't interested. I wasn't I was very self obsessed and so I just didn't have anything left over to be interested in that. And I really didn't have any guidance and nobody, you know, and I used to bemoan that fact. If only they had, you know, helped me along in school and sent me to college, things would have been different.

They would not have been different. I'm an alcoholic. So, but anyway, I, you know, was doing my thing way back then, and I got I got married the first time, because a man asked me to marry him. And really, it's as simple as that. And, he's a very nice man and he's sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we have 3 children together.

But, I could, you know, I did not wanna hear the word no. I cannot stand rejection. To this day. I cannot stand rejection. But I'm willing to, you know, say things to people where you might say no.

And I know I'll survive it now. But I couldn't stand to hear the word no. So, if somebody asked me to marry them, well, I just had to marry them. Because I don't wanna say no to them. I don't wanna hurt them.

And so, we got married and we had 3 kids, and that's what I was trying to do when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was trying to take care of those kids. I have twin boys and another son who's 2 years younger. So I have these 3 wild little boys running around and I was drinking. And it was at this time in my life that I was really able to or for the first time, could could look at my drinking and see that it was a problem because I didn't have people to run around with and and, say, well, they drink more than I do.

And I was in this house living in a house with my husband and my 3 kids, and it just my drinking just got worse and worse. I tried not to drink every day. I really it was always on my mind. I'm not gonna take a drink today. And as soon as my husband would leave, I'd fight it off for another hour or 2, and then I would find a reason in my mind why I could just take one drink.

And every day, I said, okay. I'm just gonna have one drink, and I'd go have it. And then I don't think I ever realized until I got sober that I had another one and then another one and then another one. I had a drink to take my kids to the doctor. I had a drink to go to baby showers.

I had a drink to go play try to fit in in the community and take the kids to their little groups and play tennis and things like that. And and I remember, you know, women would go, somebody's been drinking and I would just feel so ashamed, you know, and didn't think any I I didn't know anything about alcoholism. And back in 1971, there wasn't a lot of talk about it, about treatment centers in this disease like there is today, and I just felt so alone and I didn't know what to do about it. And I didn't know I was an alcoholic and I just couldn't quit drinking. And I started having physical problems and was hospitalized and but nobody ever said you're an alcoholic.

It was different. It was just strange things were happening to my body. And when I got here, I was being treated for diabetes and I was being treated for a thyroid problem. I I don't have those today at all. They just went away after I got sober and I I got healthy again.

But I started having a lot of physical problems and and was spending time in the hospital and and trying to take care of these kids and I wasn't doing a good job. And it really came down to it, you know, it wasn't on a daily basis, but quite often I locked them in their bedroom. I I put a lock on the outside of the bedroom door because I could not chase these kids around the neighborhood, and I couldn't not drink, and I didn't want people to smell it. And that was the most important thing to me. And I put a lock on their bedroom door, and I would sit in in my backyard.

We backed up to a mountain. We lived on a cul de sac, and more often than not, I was sitting on that mountain with a great big green bottle of wine, spinata wine usually. It was a dollar 65 for a half gallon or red mountain wine, and it didn't really matter. You know, I couldn't afford anything more and it didn't matter. I just needed what it did for me, and I was sitting up on that mountain drinking my wine crying most days, and the kids were locked in the bedroom, and and then I would just try to get it together.

And one time I went in and one of them had pulled a very heavy dresser over on himself, and his head was cut open and, he had to be rushed to the hospital. Another time I wasn't watching them in the backyard. 1 of them drank charcoal lighter and he had to be rushed to the hospital. And I always, you know, just got out of it. And my my husband tried to I mean, he knew there was a problem.

He'd marked the bottles, but I marked the bottles with new marks. He never knew which mark was his mark. And and, one time I drank all the vodka, and I filled the bottle with water until I could get it replaced. I was busy. All I did with this is what I was busy with all the time.

Replaced. I was busy. All I did with this is what I was busy with all the time, was this kind of thing and and figuring out how to drink and not get caught. And and, but I drank all of the vodka and the bottle was filled with water. And we had unexpected company come to our house that night.

And my husband, they drank vodka, so they had water and tonic. And, they didn't seem to know the difference, and they all just sat in the living room drinking their water and tonic. And and, you know, I was just I was just sitting there thought I thinking I was caught and that was it, and my life was over. I didn't know about the solution. I didn't know what my problem was.

I really thought if anybody found out what was going on in my life, they were probably going to put me in a mental hospital, and I would probably spend the rest of my life there. There were there was a, Camarillo State Hospital, mental hospital very near to my house. And I used to put the boys in the car and drive over there, and I'd be crying, and I'd park at the end of the driveway. And I'd wanna go in there and get help. I just wanted to go in there and ask somebody, please help me.

And I just wouldn't do it. I'd go back home. So eventually, I found Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe that, you know, God's grace intervened in my life because I didn't really know anything about it. And and, the last day, actually, this was in January because I drank once after I came in and that was the my sobriety date now.

But in January of 1971, we had people over watching the Super Bowl. I made Bloody Marys. I stayed at the Punch Bowl, made bloody Mary's, gave them their drinks, drank. And all day long, I did that. And, the the the last man leaving our house was by himself, and I just walked out the door with him and got in his car just to be silly because I always did silly things and he drove away, and I thought he would just drive, bring me back and he went somewhere else.

We went somewhere else and we drank for a few hours and my husband didn't know where I went, and and I didn't do that. I didn't normally just leave like that. And, I called my husband and I asked him to come get me, and was really mad and he got someone to watch the kids and he came and got me and all the way home, he was saying, you would not do the things that you did if you didn't drink so much. You wouldn't act the way that you did if you didn't drink so much. It was the first time that he was that he said that to me.

And I knew that it was over and I knew I could not quit drinking. So that night, I made up my mind to leave my family. I felt bad for the kids. I think the twins were only 3 years old. My other son was 1 year old.

And I, felt like such a terrible wife and a terrible mother, and I didn't want to burden them with that and I decided to leave them. We only had one car. I didn't wanna take the car. I just wanted to get out of their lives. So I called this old boyfriend of mine that I had in high school.

Now it's like 10 years later, but he's alive in my mind, you know, that kind of thing. And it's like, you can call, hi, it's me. And actually, I had had a brief encounter with him. Was it, you know, something else I had done when I was drunk? And and and and I just did things that I didn't really wanna do when I was drunk, and then I would wake up in the morning and just have that terrible remorse full feeling in my mind.

Try and trying, like, to shake it away. I don't wanna remember what I did. But, my husband came in the room and he said, I don't care where you go, but you can't run away from it. And, I suppose it was just that moment of clarity for me. Not consciously really, but it just happened.

And, I don't even know what happened. I hung the phone and I picked it I picked it up again and I called my brother-in-law at the time who is he was and still is a Catholic priest And I thought that he would pray for me. That was I mean, something just made me I thought because he was Catholic, he had more influence than I did and he could pray for me. He lived in Pennsylvania and I was living in California. And, I got him on the phone.

He he just happened to be home. You know, it was just I looked back and it was all meant to be, and it was just that moment. And and, he I I finally was able to say to the first person ever, I can't quit drinking. And, when did it what what are in a way, a relief, but how scared I was because I didn't know what that meant was gonna happen. I did not know what was gonna happen now that I had made that admission.

And, he told me he's the one that told me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, and we did find a meeting that night. It was getting kinda late, but, you know, it all happened as it was supposed to. My husband got the neighbor to watch the kids. I was really heavy, then I drank a lot of beer and wine, and my hair was long, and it was dyed all different colors, and it was very brittle and crackly, and it would just kinda break off. And my face was red, and I was real heavy.

And, and I and and my husband said he was gonna take me to this meeting. And, and I guess something inside of me really wanted help. I know it did. And, I didn't know where I was going, but I went upstairs and, I wasn't really dressing up then. I didn't think much of myself, and I just wore cut off Levi's and a t shirt all the time.

And I was always peeking out the drapes in my house, my living room, looking at the ladies outside my neighbors, like, what are they talking about? What are they doing? Why are they dressed like that? And I just, you know, looking back, I never fit in at all. And, and, you know, I still feel like that sometimes today, but I think we all do from time to time.

We just do, and that's why we're all here together. But, I so I went upstairs and I wanted to dress nicer, and I put on my tight per orange polyester pantsuit. And it zipped up the back of the neck, and it was really tight. And so my face was red already, and now it made it redder. And I was just bulging out of this thing and, with this crackly, you know, hair that would break off.

And and I went to we we set off. We finally found this AA meeting and it was just a few minutes before it was over, which we didn't know at the time. But we went in and and, on the way there, I started thinking about what is happening. I said, where are we going? And how you how can these people help me quit drinking?

I can't quit drinking. Take me home. I wanna go. I'll go tomorrow. Please take me home.

And then he would drive faster. And, so we got to this meeting and I we we went in the back door and sat down. And and, the minute the meeting was over, which was only about 5 minutes after I got there, everybody in that room came to me because, obviously, I was a newcomer. I thought I looked nice. They could tell that I was a newcomer.

And then if they weren't, quite sure yet, I threw up. I started throwing up all over the floor. So I'm back there, because I had been drinking all day. So, that that was my very first Alcoholics anonymous meeting, and that was the night when I I went out to the parking lot right away because I I was throwing up in their meeting and I went I ran outside to the parking lot. I think I just wanted to get away from them and they all came outside.

There were all, like, 30 of them and they all came outside to the parking lot. It's like, we have a newcomer here and we're all gonna enjoy it and they all stood around me and they were really, like, holding hands and singing and laughing and happy. And and, that was so that was my very first cell colleagues anonymous meeting. I I went home that night, and, they wanted me to stay. The ladies wanted me to stay there with them, but I was afraid, and I did not wanna stay there with them.

I didn't know what they were going to do. And, so I had my husband take me home. I'd, and, the next day I was sitting in my living room and they came, they came to my house. He told them where we lived and these ladies came over to my house. And, and they sat in my living room and these were women that I had never met in my life.

And they sat in my living room and they talked to me about this disease. And they shared things with me, that, feelings they had and their stories. Mostly their stories because, you know, you're not really into feelings, in the beginning that beginning that much. And they shared their experience with me and I couldn't believe it because nobody in my life had ever done that. And I think I felt closer to them, to those women that were sitting in my living room that day, the very first day that I'm those women that were sitting in my living room that day.

The very first day that I met them, then I did to most people that friends that I had in my life that I had known for a long time. And so that was my beginning and, we did go to a meeting that night and and I remember when they said newcomers, you know, anybody in your first 30 days, please raise your hand and how, you know, because of my self obsession and all and just all the other things that were going on and how I just felt like it was a big meeting, and and I it was so hard to put my hand up and because I thought every single person in that room was just staring at me, you know. You were all, like, really paying attention to me. And, but it was hard to put my hand up, and I was so I just felt so ashamed of what I was. And, and, of course, you know, just by sticking around here and little by little, you know, I grew to be more comfortable in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And that was in January, as I said, and I did love it, and I loved being sober. And women gave me their phone numbers, and I didn't know how to talk to people. I didn't really know. It was too hard for me to think of, dialing this number and calling this lady who had her her name written down here. And and I would just sit there and think, well, what is she gonna say?

And what am I gonna say? And it was just too hard for me to do that. And that's why we talk about, I think, Joanne talked about it today about, getting new people's come and make them come and make them stay. I used to think that I could do that when I was newly sober then after a while, and I started feeling better and and fitting in. You know, I used to just bring strays home to my house, you know.

I'd tell I mean, there was a man who couldn't stay sober and, and I thought, oh, if I bring him home to my house and he could just stay, you know, with my husband, myself, my children, and be a part of our family. He'd feel really good and then he'd stay sober. He'd be happy. So I bring this man home from Alcoholics Anonymous to my husband. Here I brought this man's gonna live with us now.

Seriously. And, and I've had people over the years. I brought, women to my house to live with me, and I've read them the big book, and I've played them tapes. And I thought they'll stay sober, and they stay stay sober as long as I'm taking care of them in my house, and feeding them, and reading to them, and doing this stuff, and then nobody's gonna get this unless unless they want it. And if we want it, we're going to get it under any circumstances.

Really, we just are. And so, but anyway, I would sit there with these phone numbers and I just I wasn't making connections at the time. I loved not drinking. I loved the fact that I didn't have to get up and start fighting that urge to drink. It really was removed when I came here, and and that felt really good.

And I loved going to the meetings. There were just a couple of meetings out there where I lived at the time, and I just couldn't wait to go to the meetings. But people weren't calling me and and, you know, I mean, I it's not their fault or anything, but I just, I I hadn't made the connection. Nobody had come to me and said, let me be your sponsor, interim sponsor, temporary sponsor, whatever. And I know you do that here, and I know you're really good about it.

And I think that's really important because as newcomers, we're scared to death. And I don't know how to walk up to somebody and ask them to be my sponsor when I'm new. I don't know how to do that. It scares me. As I said before, they might say no, and I can't stand that.

And, that hurts too much. And and all my life, I just felt like I was a bother to people. And and then you might say yes, but you don't really want to. So I'm not gonna burden you with all of this. So I really it is important that we reach out.

And, and I know the women here are trying to do that, the girls night, and and do different things together and make that connection and, you know, be there for each other and welcome newcomers. And and I just think that's very, very important. So I did end up drinking in, you know, one more time. It was my last, hopefully, half gallon of of spinata wine, and I ended up, face down on this blue shag carpeting in my den, in my throw up one last time. I hope that was it.

But that, you know, that's I just I just had to drink, things built up. You know, I had feelings build up inside that I wasn't talking to anybody about because I didn't know what I was supposed to talk about. It took a long time after I got here to figure that out, what I was supposed to talk about. I thought maybe a sponsor was there if if you had a death in your family or something, and they could help you through that. But to talk about these things, the hurt feelings and and resentments and things, you know, I couldn't even identify them at the time because I think we all build up defense mechanisms along the way.

I did anyway, and I just thought I was so tough. And I had these 5 brothers, and I had to fight with them all the time, and I would fight with other people, and I swore and called people names, and I would just leave and say, I don't care. And I didn't even know that I cared, you know, because I would just say, I don't care, and and I would swear at somebody and leave. And and so, you know, it took I mean, it's really it it is difficult when we get sober because that stuff comes flooding in. You know, on one hand, I was very happy to be sober.

I was thrilled. I was thrilled with what I found people like you. But on the other hand, all these feelings that I was having and these thoughts, it was just overwhelming to me. And, I spent time sitting in this closet in my house with a gun and wishing that I could just, kill myself because, I had never, felt this way. It was very intense.

I didn't like feeling that way. I didn't like what I started thinking and feeling. But then I, you know, my poor husband, my first husband, Joe come home. He'd be, you know, he what'd you do today, honey? So I sat in the closet with a gun in my mouth.

And, you know, really, but this group that I was in in California is a great group, And, I am so grateful that they did not give me, attention for my negativity or my did they didn't give me, you know, negative attention, whatever it's called. I did a lot of things to try to to get their attention. And, I, and so I think my husband, you know, he he knew the people in the in my meetings. And I think he called somebody and said, what should I do? She's, sitting in the closet with a gun.

And they said, we'll take the gun away from her and leave her alone. And you know what? That's what happened. And, so you kinda get tired of it after a while. And, I know one time I remember I threw my furniture all over the living room.

Just started just threw my furniture around, knocked it upside down, and broke things. And then I called my sponsor, and I said, I just threw my furniture all over the place and broke things. And he said, well, pick it up. And he hung up on me. And and you know what?