The S.I.O.G.A. group's 44th anniversary in Monroe, NY

Our guest speaker and, have a round of applause. Hi. I'm Carrie. I'm an alcoholic. I really wanna thank you for having me here.

It's always an honor to speak at a group anniversary. And it's always wonderful. I mean, I I was I was overwrought by hearing the list of anniversaries in this area. I mean, it's wonderful to hear, you know. It tells me that AA is working here, and you guys are doing your job, and that's a beautiful thing.

I you know, I'm gonna start off with giving you my sobriety date. My sobriety date is September 6, 1994. I'm by the grace of God, I just celebrated 13 years of sobriety. I'm 31 years old, and I have 3 kids. I'd say, you know, I I every time I get up to the podium, every time I go to a meeting, you know, I don't think about what I'm gonna talk about.

I mean, I just I just ask God to put the words in my mouth and help me to say whatever it is, whatever message that you guys need to hear, and help me to be, you know, a vessel for that. You know, so I I never really know what's gonna come out. And sometimes, you know, I get up here and I have a 1,000 ideas, and sometimes I stand here for about 5 minutes and I grasp at straws. But what I love most about doing this, about getting the opportunity to speak, the opportunity to come to different places, is to meet to meet different people, and to hear different stories, and to to to see you know, where I go to meetings, and I go I live in New Jersey. I live in Washington Township, which is a little town in between a bunch of farms.

They still exist in New Jersey. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that I'm in the garden state, is a garden state, or was called a garden state for a reason. It's a little less garden. But I live in this little town. And there's like, you know, there's a, you know, a halfway house right outside of town, and there's a lot of newcomers, and it's really neat.

You know? But it's very homogeneous. You know, I know all those people and I know their story. And it's wonderful to hear them, it's wonderful to be there with them, and it's wonderful to share with them, but it's always awesome to come somewhere else and see so many different faces. You know, I'll just start at the beginning and try to keep it until 8:15.

I'm one of 5 children. I grew up in Bloomfield, New Jersey. My parents are wonderful people. You know, I'd love to tell you, you know, when I first came to AA, I had a horror story about my family, because I believed that it was their fault that I was an alcoholic. You know, I thought that alcoholism was causal, you know, like, as in you screwed me up and now I drink.

I didn't really understand the nature of alcoholism, as in, you know, I'm powerless, that I have a physical, mental, and spiritual, you know, components to this disease, and that it's not, it doesn't matter the things that happened to me in my life, that I am who I am because I am who I am. You know? And I kinda stopped trying to figure that out. I also kinda stopped trying to blame people. Because once I start blaming other people, once I say that, you know, it was my 4th grade teacher, or it was my parents, or it was my brother, they didn't get loved enough.

You know, once I start blaming you, you know, eventually, I'm gonna have to blame myself. Because that's the way blame works. When I judge you, those same judgments boomerang on me. And so the problem is is when I'm looking for causes or people to blame or things or situations to say, that's it. That's the thing that screwed me up.

And if I could fix that, then it'll all be alright. Then what happens when I fall short tomorrow and I snap and I get cranky in traffic? Or when, you know, I say say the wrong thing or I don't show up in the way that I know that I'm supposed to, then I have to beat the crap out of myself for that because I'm responsible for my alcoholism because I'm blaming other people for it. Because that's the weird thing about judgment is that it's a boomerang. And And I'm sure your mom always told you that if you point your finger out, you know, 3 are pointing back at you.

And that's a real true spiritual acumen. It's an absolute truth. You know, so when I came to AA, I had a laundry list of why I was an alcoholic and how messed up my family was and how terrible my parents were. And I would tell these stories, and I would have you weeping in the aisles. You know, you'd be thinking, that poor girl, all she needed was just a little love.

You know? And now 13 years later, having done a tremendous amount of step work and having great sponsorship, you know, and having made amends to my family, I'm standing here telling you the exact opposite, which is my parents were wonderful people, and they made mistakes. Yes. Like everybody. Like, I screw up my kids all the time.

And I'm pretty sure that they're gonna end up in therapy. You know? And I tell them, I'm like, dude, write it down, bring it to your therapist. You know? I'm gonna pay for it just like college.

I think that's the right parent you know, passage for parents paying for college and paying for therapy. You know? I mean, just the way things are. So I've kinda accepted that. But so the idea here is this, is that, you know, I came here and I had all kinds of reasons for why I was the way I was.

And then, you know, I did I did some work. And what I found out was that, you know, I'm a typical human being. I do the same stupid stuff that most human beings do. The difference is is that my life is dependent upon me living on a spiritual basis and other people isn't. They don't have that contingency.

They don't have that need for honesty and unselfishness the way that I need it. My life is dependent upon living that way. And when I don't live that way, I feel it. And see, you know, I read somewhere that alcoholics were extremely sensitive. I mean, it says that in our literature, says it in the step book, it says it in AA Comes of Age, it says it in the, in the big book.

Talks about alcoholics being sensitive. It says, you know, it talks about, you know, unreasoning prejudice. You know, I mean, there's a lot of adjectives for us, and none of them are good. You know, I don't hear him saying, what a wonderful guy. You know?

What a sweet girl. It's mostly bastard. You know? But, you know, so, you know, I have this spirituality, and I had it as long as I can remember. You know, and I had this spirituality in a family who have the same, where several of the members of my family have the same disease I have.

So, you know, we kind of fed off each other, and there was a lot of stuff that went down. There was a lot of unhappiness. But the thing is, is this, is that I was very lucky because I had brothers and sisters who came before me in the annals of alcoholics anonymous, so that when I started to really hit the bottle and my parents noticed that there was something weird about their like 13 year old that, you know, taking the bus down to Patterson and dating drug dealers wasn't the thing that, you know, normal 13 year olds did. You know? These were not normal actions.

You know? Like, when you go to your 13 year old's room and, like, she climbed out the window and you don't know where she is and your purse is missing. You know, these were the things that I did, but my family was terrible. Don't you know? And when I think about it, like, my mom showered with her purse for 5 years.

They had locks on the inside of their bedroom doors. And it wasn't to, you know, to keep me out when they were in there. They were scared of me. And this is what I did to my family, but it was their fault that I was an alcoholic. Thank God for good sponsorship.

I tell you that much. So anyway, so I had some brothers and sisters who came before me. And because of that, my parents, they saw the writing on the wall very early on. So I mean, I was introduced to AA, I mean, for someone I was 13 years old. And when my brother, you know, was struggling with with his own, you know, ism, you know, he used to come to meetings and he would take me with him because he didn't wanna go alone.

You know, so I would, you know, do whatever the other side was doing. I'd drink and then I'd go to a meeting and I'd sit there drunk and inebriated and think it was the funniest thing. And you guys were so hilarious. It was like days of our lives and I thought it was great. You know?

And I was like, thank god I don't need this crap. You know? Couple years later, I kinda did. But I mean, so I was lucky to be introduced to this stuff early on. You know, my sister went to rehab when I was 8.

She brought home this book called One Day at a Time. It's Hazleton literature. And, I thought that it was the book to the show with Bonnie Carter and Schneider, One Day at a Time. Look, I didn't really get it. But I mean, so like, what I'm saying to you is that I knew that there was a solution.

I knew that it was there. I didn't want the solution. I certainly didn't wanna be like, you know, an alcoholic. I didn't wanna be an alcoholic. I didn't wanna come here and I didn't want this help.

But I knew it was there. And that and that made my life a lot easier later on. Because when when I did come to realize that there was something wrong with me, And when I did want to stop, I did have a place to go, and I was familiar enough with it. And I had enough my my cousin brought me to my first meeting. Well, my first real meeting.

When I say it's my first meeting, it's the first meeting I went because I went for me, not because I was eating donuts and, you know, and my brother promised me $10 afterwards, and I can go buy booze with it. You know? But I When I First time I went for me, my cousin brought me. So, I mean, I knew that there was a solution. You know, I knew what alcoholism was.

I knew what it looked like. But somehow, I convinced myself that it didn't count for me because I had all these reasons. You know, because my brother was an alcoholic, and my other brother was an alcoholic, and my sister was an alcoholic, you know. Those, you know, that it's their fault, and I drink that way because I have to deal with them. You know?

And then it was like, well, my parents are paranoid because they're all alcoholic, so afraid I'm going to be. So they're going to throw me in rehab real early just to make sure. You know? But what happened with me was that I said to myself I wasn't going to be like them. I remember being like 9 or 10.

I mean, I had my first drink when I was like 9. You know, I was just checking it out. You know? And I remember drinking and it was just, like, whatever. It was a glass of wine.

It wasn't a big deal. Like, it was real warm. I remember it being warm. Like, and I remember that warmth and it was like, there's nothing like it. And I know it was a cold day.

And it was that warmth that, like, going down my esophagus that was just so beautiful. And, you know, and nothing happened. Like, I didn't die. The world didn't explode. And that was the thing.

It's like, I thought that, like, you know, alcohol, evil, you know, very bad. And all alcoholics are evil and very bad. You know? And then, you know, I tested the water, and I didn't, you know, I didn't turn into, you know, doctor Jekyll, or Mr. Hyde.

I'm sorry. I didn't explode. I didn't, you know, start worshiping Satan. So, you know, this must be okay. You know, and I was one of these kids.

I mean, like, I was afraid of everything. I was, sometimes I talk to my husband and I start telling him like the crazy thoughts I had, you know, like the paranoia and the fears and the, I mean, just struck with terror every moment of the day. I mean, and that's not an exaggeration. That was my life, You know? I mean, I was afraid of everything.

I was afraid of my eyeballs popping out. I used to have terrible nightmares that someone was going to bash me in the head and my eyeball was going to fall out. This was I was 8 years old. This is what I thought. Living in my head was like living in poltergeist.

I mean, like, I was a scary little kid and I was afraid of everything. And I that into the world. You know, so then you take that kid at 8 with all these fears, and you give him something that just turns the volume down just ever so slightly, something that just gives you a little relief. And it's I'm obviously going to be attracted to that because I had this churning inside of me. I had this absolute terror.

And when I was driving here, I'm I was really worried that I was gonna be late, you know? And I'm driving, and I'm in traffic, and I'm trying not to die on 287, you know? And I'm, you know, I'm not, I mean, I'm a soccer mom, I don't commute, you know, like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm not like somebody who's used to going 65 and pouring rain, you know? So it was a little weird. And I'm and I'm getting here and I'm just saying, god, you know, I know that I know that I'm gonna get there when I'm supposed to get there.

And if I'm not supposed to speak tonight and they're supposed to have somebody else, then that was your plan, man. Maybe I'm just supposed to listen tonight. You know, and obviously, I got here on time, but the point was, was this, is that I had this absolute terror in my gut every moment of the day. You know, and having had an experience with these steps, and having lived this program, and had my alcoholism, you know, having been placed in a position of neutrality, safe, and protective regarding alcohol, having God removed a good portion of my fears, and having tools to deal with whatever's left behind. I can drive here in the pouring rain, in the dark, inexperienced, and know that I'm going to be okay.

You know, and that for me, for somebody with the amount of fear and terror, you know, that I used to have, It's a normal human being's reaction to these sorts of things. You know, and this is the thing that amazes me. It's not that I'm like this spiritual giant. I don't, you know, I don't I have yet to be to, you know, to Tibet, you know. I'm not, you know, I'm not a huge guru.

I mean, you know, I do what I do, and I do the steps, and I follow the principles of the program. And I do apply these spiritual principles in my life to the best of my ability, but I'm certainly not, you know, anywhere near where I'd like to be today. But the thing is is this, is that this program has taken somebody who was so very broken and made her whole again. Normal. I'm not perfect.

I don't walk on water, but I function in society. And that's a lot to ask for for an alcoholic like me. I mean, you know, I hit my first, you know, handful of rehabs, my first handful of meetings. I came here. I used to come to meetings.

When I was 15, I used to come to meetings, and I used to make up lies to go to discussion meetings. Like, I'd watch, like, Days of Our Lives or something or 90210. And I'd watch this stuff, and then I'd, like, make up something. And whatever happened to Brendan Dylan that day, I'd go and share it at a meeting and then laugh at your reaction. Like, they believed me.

I mean, I was an evil little thing. You know? I was terrible. You know? And I used to do these things.

I mean, this is this is this is how the depth of my spiritual sickness. You know, that I would deceive people who wanted to help me simply because I wanted to feel superior to them, because I was so very afraid. You know, so the first time I really came to AA for anything like, you know, for my drinking problem was after my mom had had me arrested. I'd run away a bunch of times. My parents were pretty strict.

They're pretty tough. They did what they did, and they took real good care of me considering how evil I was. And trust me, it was bad. You know, I was the type of kid that if you put her in the room, they would just kick the front door open. Like, I didn't even sneak out anymore.

I would just leave and tell them to screw. And then if you locked me out, I'd kick the door in. You know? And it got to the point where my parents, like, they didn't even have a frame on their front door anymore. You know?

Like, the door just kinda hung, didn't actually close anymore because I had kicked it open so many times. And this is what they live with, and this is what my disease brought me to, Because I had an inability to control my my emotions, and nothing was gonna get between me and the bottle. Nothing. Not my mother, not my brother, not my father. I remember one time, my father caught me drinking at, like, 2 o'clock in the morning.

I was in the basement. I was this was after, like, umpteenth rehab. And before I was arrested, but right around that time. And, like, I remember him catching me drinking in the basement. And this is like 2 o'clock in the morning.

You know, I'm 16 years old, and I'm home alone at 2 o'clock drinking in the basement. You know, this is the way that my alcoholism progressed, right away. Like it wasn't social. It wasn't about having fun. It was about surviving.

It was about turning down the volume of the insanity in my head. You know? And so my my father finds me doing this. And of course, I hide the beer and he knows and he saw how many I've been drinking, and he flips out. So I tell him to screw, and so then he kinda kicks my butt.

You know, he doesn't kinda, he does. And I deserved it. You know? And so I go in the next day, and I had a I had a psychiatrist appointment. Right?

And I go in, and I had like choke marks on my neck, a black eye. My dad really, he's a big Irish man, and he kicked my butt. And I go in there, and I'm like, my dad beat me up, but I didn't tell them why, that I had been drinking. I had just stolen money. I had just gotten out of like, they just paid for another rehab.

My brother was dying from a from a heroin addiction. All this was going on. I don't tell them this. And then I told them that he can, you know, go do whatever he was you know, he can go screw himself, and stomped out of the house, you know, with their money after being caught drinking in the basement at 2 o'clock in the morning. And I'll tell her this.

You know, so my I tell you know, I'm like, my dad beat me up. You know? And my, you know, my therapist took me out of my parent or tried to take me out of my parents' custody. I'd run away again. And this is where I end up back at home after all of this, and my mom calls the cops on me because she catches me robbing her once again.

And so the way that I handle that situation is I fight. You know, I'm not gonna leave. I have money, and I have to go buy alcohol. I have an agenda, and you're not gonna get between me and the bottle. And Bloomfield police officers aren't gonna get between me and the bottle.

Nothing's gonna stop me from getting to what I need to get to because the bottle is my higher power at this point. You know, so, I ended up fighting 6 Bloomfield police officers in my parents' living room, and I got a police escort to rehab. My favorite rehab, by the way, is Carrier Foundation in Jersey. It's great. You get to swim, you get to make moccasins.

And I was there like a lot of times. In fact, like, I had like a frequent flyer thing going on for a while there, It's a beautiful place. So I get this police escort to this rehab. I go in there. I'm in there for a while.

I come out. I go to AA. Within, say, 6 to 9 months, I already convinced myself that you know, others AA was about alcohol alcohol, so, you know, other substance didn't count. So non conference abuse approved substances were okay because this was Alcoholics Anonymous. So I celebrate a year sober while I'm indulging in non conference approved substances.

And I see nothing wrong with this. And then shortly thereafter, I get drunk again and we wonder why. And so this is me when in my cups. This is what it looks like. And then, you know, very shortly thereafter, about, I met my husband and we were drinking together, and I lost everything that I had gotten in the few little bit of time that I spent in AA, AA, not drinking and using non conference approved substances.

And I ended up being homeless. I dropped out of high school. My parents weren't speaking to me. It got to the point where like my parents would see me on the street and they would just drive by. They would see their, you know, 16, 7 now I'm 17.

Their 17 year old daughter down in East Orange, which I don't know if you really bad, like Newark. Where's the Newark actually, this area? Down in East Orange, obviously up to no good by burnt out buildings, and they would drive by because they knew there was no point in talking to me, that I was just going to try to get money out of them. I mean, I can't imagine getting to that point with my daughter. You know, and that stuff wasn't my bottom.

That stuff didn't affect me. You know, it's my theory that alcoholics are much like cockroaches, man. It doesn't, nothing phases us. Nothing fazes me. My husband and I, we work with a lot of newcomers and we always talk about the bottom.

Everybody talks about the bottom. The bottom, he's gotta hit bottom. You know, maybe this will be the thing that'll make him hit bottom. You know, my bottom or when I got sober, when when god came into my life and said, Carrie, you don't have to do this anymore. And the grace of God came into my life, and he didn't even know that it had happened.

All I knew was that I needed to come back here, and I had to stop what I was doing. It wasn't a good and for all thing. I didn't even know about good and for all. All I knew was I had to stop. And that day wasn't any worse than any other day I had.

It certainly wasn't being worse than getting the crap kicked out of me by 6 Bloomfield police officers in my parents' living room. It definitely wasn't worse than that. It wasn't worse than overdosing and dying. You know, at one point, I overdosed and died. You know?

And I woke up 3 days later with, you know, a tube down my throat. You know, certainly wasn't worse than that. You know, it certainly wasn't worse than having seeing my mother on Park Avenue in East Orange, seeing her car, seeing her look at me, her eyes fill with tears, and she drives on by because she knows there's no point. And it was shortly thereafter, I just, I had, it was my husband's birthday and we decided that we were going to drink our paycheck. And we went into the city and we did what we did.

And we woke up the next morning and we crashed out because we were too drunk to get to where we were staying because we're homeless. So we're staying on people's couches. We're too drunk to get there. So we decided to sleep in his ex girlfriend's basement. Well, I knew the door was unlocked.

So we're, you know, I crawl out of my boyfriend at the time's ex girlfriend's basement. I had just been robbed by the biggest junkie in the town of Kearney. I had no money, nothing. And I I remember just thinking to myself like, AA kit has gotta be better than this. And I walked to a meeting on autopilot.

I didn't even think about it. It wasn't even a conscious decision on my part. It was just a moment of willingness, and then bam, I went. You know? And for me, I stayed in AA for 2 years with you know, I I I went into a little bit of my drunkard log and there's a reason for it.

Because you heard what I did between me and my bottle. You know, when I had alcohol in my system and when alcohol was dictating my actions, right, and it sounds pretty crazy, but it's kind of understandable being an alcoholic. Don't separate me from my god, very simply. You know? But then you take alcohol out of me, and I got this other thing going on here.

I have this spirituality that is crazy insane. And it gets worse when I don't drink. Like a lot of people I used to hear people talk about this, like, I came to AA and everything got better. And for me, that wasn't my experience. I came to AA and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

I was crazier 2 years sober than I ever was drinking. I mean, I was paranoid, insane. I got to the point towards towards, like, by my 2nd year of sobriety, I was living out in Staten Island, and I could not get up in a meeting and get a cup of coffee because you would see me and you would think at me and I would be paralyzed. My hands would shake like I was detoxing. I would spill the coffee all over myself walking back, and I would have to walk like this.

And everybody everybody thought I was new. I mean, I had 2 years, and everybody thought I had, like, 3 seconds. And I'm walking back to my, don't spill the coffee. Don't spill the coffee. You know, I don't know if you guys have ever heard a speaker named Earl Hightower.

He's wonderful and he talks about this, he talks about the newcomer and about, you know, don't steal the money. You know, and I was like that at 2 years sober. I had spiraled out of control. My spiritual sickness was doing push ups. And the second I put down alcohol, it just overtook my life.

And it I hit such a bottom. I hit such a place, such as place of desperation at 2 years sober that I had never experienced before, you know? And I was lucky at the time that I had, I was in an area where there was a meeting there that actually talked about the steps. And I didn't know what an alcoholic was. I didn't know what I was.

I just knew that I was here and I said that I was an alcoholic. It was there that somebody taught me that, you know, that I had a physical allergy or that I had a mental obsession or a spirituality. I didn't know why I couldn't get up in the meeting and get a cup of coffee. I just knew what couldn't. I didn't know.

I thought it was completely insane. I mean, I was, but I thought that it was some sort of congenital insanity. It didn't I didn't understand that it that was the nature of alcoholism. I didn't understand that terror, that that that that this fear, anxiety, you know, all your people thinking at me having thinking at other people and the complete insanity that go went on in my head, the committee that ruled my life. Like, I didn't understand that that was part of alcoholism.

I thought alcoholism was about me and the drink, and what I found out is that it wasn't. Alcoholism was about me, you, and God. Because that's where the real problem with the way that I see life lies. I mean, the big book says that our, you know, that lack of power was our dilemma, saying lack of power is my real problem. You know, that alcohol is a problem.

The way that I think about alcohol saying that alcohol is the solution to my problems is definitely a problem. But the real source of my problem, when you take all of those other causes and conditions away, when you take all that away, the real source of my problem is that I lack the power to live up to the beliefs and ideals that I know to be right. That I might know how I'm supposed to behave. I might know how I'm supposed to live my life. I might know all of these things, but I cannot apply them.

I can't. I'm powerless over them. And that powerlessness over myself is what manifests as alcoholism for me. I mean, that's the way that I was taught to understand this. And it sounds a little weird, but if you think about it, why do we do a 4 step?

Why are we doing a 5th step? Why do we do 6, 7, 8, 9? If we're not looking at how we as alcoholics and me as an alcoholic, how I'm powerless over my actions, how I'm powerless over myself, and I need the divine guidance in my life, access to that power in order for me to just function. I mean, that's what I learned from doing that work. That's what my sponsor taught me.

But I didn't know these things. I just thought I was a complete mess. And I didn't understand, and I blamed myself, and I felt absolute shame because I thought that I should be different because I had some time, or what I thought to be time at the time. You know? And it was in that meeting in Staten Island where somebody taught me about these things and taught me that as an alcoholic with the disease that I have, that you take away alcohol, the only relief that I ever had, and I get worse, not better.

You know, so I'm 2 years sober, and all this is going on in my head. I can't function. I have a little girl. I had gotten pregnant within a couple weeks of getting sober. We weren't sure.

We were very happy that she was born in June rather than May, because it had it been May, then my daughter would have, I would have been imbibing in non conference approved substances, at the time, and lots of conference approved substances. You know? So, the fact is that I was very, very, very lucky that my daughter I conceived her when I was detoxing rather than when I was drinking. So here I am, you know, 19, 20 years old. I have a little girl.

I have my husband's just as crazy as I am. And, we're trying to figure out how to just be sober, and how not to kill each other and ourselves. And we can't drink, and I don't know what to do. And like I said, it was like, it was in that meeting when somebody explained it to me. Somebody explained to me that, you know, that there's steps in this book this book and that this is a program of action.

That it's not a program of sitting on my butt and drinking coffee, that I'm not gonna get this by osmosis. I'm gonna get it through experience. And that I need to sit down with somebody who has the experience, and they need to teach me that it's something that I don't absorb. It's not something I think about. It's something I do.

You know? And that never occurred to me before. I mean, I read the books and I've read I've gone to everything. I, you know, I had every self help book that you could possibly think of, and they didn't work because I wasn't treating the right problem. You know, and when when someone sat down and read these stupid this this simple little book, and it is real simple, and this program is real simple.

The 4 step is real simple. I've seen really complicated spiritual exercises. If you put this 4 step and the 5th step and the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, if you look if you look at them on their face, they're really simple things to do compared to all the other stuff out there. I mean, think about 10 years of psychoanalysis, you know, a couple days worth of work. I mean, it's nuts how how very simple this program is.

You know, it doesn't take medication. It doesn't take, you know, all those other things, and I don't have opinions on those. I think everybody needs them, but I'm just saying that on its face, this program, just just following these directions, it's so simple. And I had no idea how easy it was going to be. I I mean, I when I first looked at it, my when my sponsor sat down with me, and I and I thought of all these things, I mean, not lie?

Don't cheat on your taxes? I mean, these were like things that were confounding me. How do you not do that? How do you live your life of service to other people? How do you, you know, you know, the big book tells me that my constant thought of others and how I can meet their needs, my life is dependent upon this as a as an ex problem drinker.

So how do I fit myself to be a maximum service to God and to others? How do I do these things? I mean, like, I can't even buy bread. You know? And I'm supposed to you know, like, getting toilet paper in the supermarket when I was 2 years sober was insane, because people would know that I used toilet paper.

I mean, they knew I had a butt, but, you know, God forbid I used toilet paper. Paper. What would they think? You know, I mean, like, this is how insane it was. You know, so so, you know, I mean, when I think about these things sometimes, I'm like, oh my god, thank god.

Thank god for this program. But I mean, so you take this simple, simple program, these simple, simple steps, and you apply them with sponsorship, and just someone sitting down and explaining this stuff to me. And because I didn't understand it, And the book, you know, it was for me, it was like an academic exercise. You know, and when my sponsor broke it down with me and she shared with me, and, you know, and I took my 2nd step, and I realized, for me, the second step wasn't so much about, you know, about, you know, believing that God was gonna restore me to sanity, but but willingness to continue with this work. And the idea that my ideas didn't work and that your ideas and God's ideas did.

And that, you know, there's this thing there, and everybody talks about it, and it's one of my favorite lines in the book. It says, you know, it talks about the second step proposition. It's that God is either everything or God is nothing. What is our choice to be? And I take that as in God has to be everything in my life.

And it doesn't mean that I like I said, I'm not a holy roller or anything like that. It just means that I have to apply spiritual principles, these truths that I know to be true, to my life, to the best of my ability, and that I can't pick where it's gonna apply. Like, I can't say, well, you know, I'll apply it to my alcoholism and drinking. I'll apply it a little bit to my marriage, but I still kinda wanna control that because my husband doesn't do everything I want him to do. And I'll I'll I'll you know, a little bit financially, but mostly, I wanna control that because I want stuff.

You know, I want $300 pair of jeans. But he can have my relationship with my parents. See, and for me, the real crux of the second step is that God has to be everything to me. And that means he has to be involved in every area of my life so that when I go into the 3rd step and I'm making that decision, when I'm making that pact with God, when I'm saying, God, I believe that you will fix me. I believe that you relieve me of my difficulties, that you will you will work through me, but you're not gonna work through me so I feel better because my whole life was about making me feel better.

God is gonna work through me, not for my comfort, but to show the power of this program. So when I went into this program, my sponsor explained to me that my third step had nothing to do with me, or my comfort had everything to do with me being of service to God so that I can show the power of his love, the power of this way of life. Think about that for a minute. That's an awesome thing. But, you know, a lot of times for me, everything, this steps of this program is about me sharing my problems and feeling better.

And what I found out when my sponsor explained to me when I did this work, it wasn't about me feeling better. Because when I did a 4 step, I realized that everything I did in my life was for my comfort, to relieve me of my fear, to control you so I can be comfortable. So I lied and manipulated, stole, did all kinds of things. You know, I my you know, and I love this and I don't have time tonight. And I usually like to make people uncomfortable and talk about sex inventories when I speak.

I love it. I mean, I did a conference in, in in in Denmark, you know, a couple months ago. And and I love it because I got to talk about the 4 step. But I was thinking the the bad up cleaner, the bad up, clean up, sorry. Speaker, that was it.

Yeah, that's it. So like, so the person before me talked a lot about 4 step and resentment, and I love talking about that. But I love to talk about the sex inventory, because the sex inventory is a manifestation of every of everything that goes on in my fear and resentment inventory. If you want like everything, every possible character defect that I could possibly have, and you wanna see it in action at once, look at my relationship with my husband. Honestly.

You know, and it's just my experience. So I love to but, you know, I don't have time tonight, and I'm not gonna I know you guys are probably hungry. But, you know, but, you know, so my I learned all these things, and I found out that my life was ruined by fear. And I found out that I made people my higher power. I found out that I wanted people to give me security.

I wanted them to give me, you know, financial security. I wanted them to make me feel good. I wanted them to make me feel good about myself. I wanted them to see me in a certain way. And when they didn't feel and when they didn't do those things because you guys are not God, and you can't give me everything that I want, you can't make me feel good all the time.

And when you failed to do that, I was threatened. I became fearful and resentful. And I found this out. And what I found out was that I had to seek a power greater than myself, a power greater than you. Whether that was a collective us, but a power greater than you or me as an individual.

And, you know, it was through this program, through this book, through sponsorship, through, you know, years of just coming into meetings and being open to what people had to say that really changed that for me, you know. And for me, it's been a beautiful journey. The reconciliation of the 9 step and being able to go back to those poor parents that I did all those things to and make amends and really heal and actually have a good relationship with them, have a fantastic relationship with them. You know, last week, I brought my brother to rehab. My 46 year old brother who I found my brother, my husband found wandering drunk in Boonton with no shoes and bloody feet, And we found him, and we brought him to detox, and we sort of tricked him into rehab.

And whether it takes or it doesn't take, I know that I did my part as a sister. You know? And and for me, the great the prog the grace of this program was to be able to sit there with my brother while he was telling me all this crazy alcoholic ramblings that it's not his fault that he's an alcoholic. He's not really an alcoholic. It's all these things in his life, and he wouldn't do drink the way he does if people didn't do what they did, which of course, I don't I know it's crap because I used to say it.

But instead of arguing with him, having the love in my heart to be able to just listen to him, because there's no point in talking to him right now, he's drunk off his butt, he's not hearing me, to just be an ear and say, well, that's very nice, Jimmy, but I still think you need to go to detox, you know, and not fight with him. And it was God's grace. It was this program. It was these principles that taught me to do that. To love him enough to not have to to beat him over the head with things, but to know what's right for him and not have to be right.