The Primary Purpose Group in Nassau County, NY

I just want to say a couple words about our next speaker before she comes up. You know, when I started to come around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I really struggled for a long time to find a strong woman, you know, and, and there's a real shortage of women in a, a, you know, the death rate for women and Alcoholics Anonymous is much higher than the men. There's not a lot of us. So whenever I see a woman, you know, who is in this work and strong, I am so very grateful

that they carry this message, you know, to those of us who are still suffering, you know, and Tara's been somebody who has has helped me tremendously and been a great part of my journey and is is a is a tough gal that carries this message. And I'm really, really grateful. From the Jaywalkers group in Freeport. Tara.

Hi everybody. My name is Tara and I'm an alcoholic.

Hi, I want to thank the group for inviting me to speak. And what that one of my friends who could probably get up here and tell my story, who's known me for 20 years and knows my story as good as me. And she showed up tonight anyway.

Thank you

actually kill my friends. I didn't see that.

My story I'm going to tell you a little bit about what it was like growing up and a little bit about what not to do in AI. Probably a lot more about what not to do in a than what to do in AI has been my journey. I I did not grow up in an alcoholic home. I did not see alcoholism. I grew up in a very nice home in Massapequa to loving parents

who gave me a great life. And

you know, I know that there are people in here who didn't come from, from that type of place. And that's not what makes an alcoholic. You know, where you come from isn't what makes an alcoholic. I believe I was born an alcoholic. I believe I was born with this disease. I had this attitude from early on that I, I just know now today is part of my alcoholism, which was, you know, I had this great life

in my home, but at school I didn't have a great life. Kids are cruel. And I was the tallest kid in school.

I had no hair on my head, like a baby fuzz that a baby's born with. So I was eight, and I had black teeth, really black teeth from medication I was given from being very sick as an infant. And every day on the bus, I got told you're ugly. You look like a boy. Why don't you brush your teeth? And I would walk through the door at the end of school after being tortured and pushed around and, you know, just totally ridiculed and ostracized. And I walked through the door and my mom would say, you know, so how was school today, honey?

And I'd say fine,

that's not normal. I was in so much pain, such an early age, and I had this attitude of never let anybody see that they can get to you. Just don't let them see that they get to you. I never even cried in the privacy of my room. And this one, for a long time, I never shared it with my family. One day on the bus or somewhere around 4th grade, it was, you know, the usual, my books being thrown around. But somebody stuck gum in my head.

And while I remember seeing red and the next thing I know I came to and a couple of kids have like bloody noses and everybody was backed up away from me like she's crazy

and they never picked on me again.

You might think mission accomplished, but I got to tell you, getting picked on was better than being invisible.

It was horrible. I never got invited to a party. I never got invited to play. Oh you know the kids house after school. I was alone on the playground. I thank God for books because reading and books and music are the two things that gave me any kind of joy. But books was my biggest gate and I read every waking moment that I was awake, even with my little flashlight under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. I wanted my world to go away and I just escaped into books. I still have books today.

So this continued until

twelve 7th grade.

I was in gym class, size of water and a squad and the most popular girl in school, the Cheolita, the petite one that all the boys love, played the flute. You know, Miss popularity turned around to me and said, do you want to come over my house after school? A bunch of kids are coming over and we're going to drink beer and smoke pot. And I say this every time because it's the truth. If she would have said a couple of us are going to go rob a bank after school and we need to look out.

You want to be it, Odin, like I'm there, I'm there, I'm there, you know, and I have this, I call it the pick me, choose me, want me that I still suffer from today going back from then, You know, pick me, choose me, want me. Doesn't matter what it's for. Just pick me, choose me, want me, and I will gladly sign up. So

I went over this girl's house,

not having a clue what I was in for. I mean, I never even started by drunk smoking pot. Like hello, what I have. No, I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I really didn't care. I really didn't care. And I have to say that I really believe that alcohol saved my life.

I really believe it. I don't say that to be dramatic it I believe it saved my life because I honestly believe I would have been a teenage suicide if I did not find the relief that came from I'll never forget that day as long as I live. It was an instantaneous, Oh my God, this is what's been missing from my life, my whole life. And

my life got so much better from that point on. I mean, it really did. I had friends.

I started selling pot. You become very popular when you start selling pot. I'm hanging out with all the cool kids now. I mean, I got a boyfriend

that I would like from you look like a boy to having a boyfriend. I was like, I had arrived, you know, when Bill talks about I had arrived, you have no idea I had arrived and I was loving my life and there were consequences right from the gecko, you know, not major ones, but I went from being a straight A student to being a straight X student. I mean, that's a pretty, you know, drastic change. I was no longer interested in grades or school. It was let's hang out and I hang out. Hung out at like the sump and the golf course and stuff. Like

that's why I did all my drinking. And so anyway, my first boyfriend, I ended up marrying him

and I, I only say that he was my first boyfriend that I met at 15. I married him when he was 18 and I was 19. And the significance to that little marriage was not the insanity of getting married at that age, because I look at kids that age now and I'm like, it should be illegal to get married to you at least 30. You know, I'm like 18. How could anybody let us do this? Not that everybody in my family didn't try and talk us out of it,

but

the significance to that is that I taught him cheating on me. Not like I imagined it because I do imagine things, but I caught him cheating on me like a couple of months before this big extravagant wedding. And I married him anyway.

And it makes me sad to say that, you know, at 19 and, you know, thinking I had arrived, believing, you know, I had it all going on. My real core belief was that if I didn't marry him, my wife was over and there wasn't anybody else that was going to want me. So just suck it up and this is as good as it's going to get. So that's how my marriage started off

and I moved to Long Beach across the street from 2 bars, the digs being one of them. I don't know if I bet you know the digs, but I love the digs. And so I started going to bars for the first time in my life because I had been drinking at Somps, you know, and

4th and the Beats and the golf course, the woods. I had never been in a bar.

Well, I found the digs and it's not any, you know, I didn't go to the pretty clubs. So, you know, there was like Channel 8, you know, that stuff going on then. But that was for the beautiful people. Thank you very much. I didn't fit in there. I didn't belong there. You would never see me get dressed up and go clubbing. I mean, that just was not made. But throw some sawdust on the floor, put a jukebox in the corner, have it stink, be dark, you know, dirty and dark enough. Like, this is where I belong

and I loved it. And what I discovered at the digs at 4:00 in the morning was that a lot of guys thought that you were attractive,

wanted to get to know you better. And it was like, and what the hell did I marry this city it for? You know? So Needless to say, I proceeded to destroy that marriage because now I found the ball life and

and I took off and took off and running with that. And

you know, as a woman alcoholic, I started to cross a lot of my own personal lines that I had set up for myself. You know, I would never do that, you know, things that would judge other people thought I would never do that. All of a sudden I'm doing it and justifying it and then drawing another line in the sand and crossing that one. And as a woman, there was a lot of shame attached to a lot of the things that I did in public. As a married woman, alcoholism brought me to a place of being an unfaithful wife very much in the public eye in a very small painting place town. I'm not proud of that.

So anyway, that marriage ended and boy, was I thinking I was having the time of my life because now there was nobody to watch me. Nobody couldn't control me. I had my own apartment in Long Beach and I knew when it was ladies night all over the island, every night of the week, I drank the fray. And as far as I was concerned, as long as I was hitting that train and getting to work in the morning three days out of five of the week, I was good. You know, it was, I would miss, you know, Mondays. But then it started being Fridays and Mondays, you know, and

I, you know, I took advantage and

of a job and got paid for hours that I just wasn't there and wasn't responsible. You know, these are just results of, of my alcoholism. I used to get on the train to go to work. They had smoking cars back then. I would just sit there and smoke on the train, get high on the train, you know, go out for liquid lunch, come back bombed, stumble off the train. I mean,

I don't know when I crossed whatever line it was, but I do not went to a point where it was something that I decided to do. Like

I want to go out and have fun to it no longer became a choice and it stopped being fun. And that's when it that's when it started getting a little scary, you know, because I was saying, I'm not going to do this tonight and I would end up doing it, you know, and I started losing control over what I was doing and it got, it got pretty crazy.

I I couldn't do the most simplest things without having something in me. You know, it got to the point, like, forget about the supermarket. Like I think if somebody else said a story about supermarket, like I go to the supermarket because I needed food and like the lights were too bright and there were too many people. And I'm just like, I would abandoned my car, you know, like, all right, I tried it.

You know, who needs food? You know, it would just be like like, like little things like that, you know, with like overwhelming to me. And I knew it was kind of getting a little crazy when I had a drink to go across the street to drink, but just to get out of the house to go across the street to drink. I had a drink, you know, so it stopped being fun and

I I started getting suicidal. It really wasn't fun. I tried to convince myself I was having fun, but it wasn't. And I was praying to God. I really didn't think I believed in every night. Just please don't let me wake up tomorrow. Yeah, just please just let this be over. Like, I was OK with that. I was really OK with that. And, you know, I don't know if anybody else had this feeling of waking up in the morning, opening your eyes and just being like, oh, my God, I have to do this again. Like, it was just the worst feeling in the world. Like it was just, it was just too hard. Life was just too hard.

So I was in another bar in Long Beach, the Sandbar, and feeling very hopeless and very dramatic and very lifestyle. And you guys are a bunch of idiots. And you know, some guy just happened to pull up the bar still next to me. And I built him in on my tails a while when he said, oh, no, it wasn't. I'm going to prove to you different. Life can be great. Well, I married him six months later and

you know, here we go again.

But luckily,

uh, he ended up in a rehab and this was my sober dates, August 24th, 1986. So back then I didn't know anybody who went into rehab. I didn't know about rehabs. I didn't know about AI, didn't know anything about any of this stuff. But he went to a rehab in Minnesota and I was three months pregnant at the time. And I went out there for family week to learn about alcoholism and how it could be a supportive wife and, you know, help him with his problem because clearly he had a problem.

And

they recommended I go to Al Anon. And I came home and I went to Al Anon meetings and umm,

it wasn't getting it. You know, I wasn't I wasn't really identifying. So I like to say that, you know, people say you really have to want this to get it. And I don't believe you have to want it to get the gift of recovery. I really don't believe a lot of us want it that get it. You know, I believe you have to want it to keep it, but I believe we have to want it to get it. And God will use whatever he can use to get us here. And for me, I did not even think that was an alcoholic. I had no clue I had a problem. But my biggest problem

then and probably for the rest of my life will always be my insecurity and my jealousy based on just my life experience. You know, and what got me into my first AA meeting was I was going to check out the women who were going to steal my husband away from me.

Now, when I told my story for the first two or three,

three years in a A, it went something like this. And being that I wanted to be a supportive wife, I came to learn more about alcoholism so I could help my husband better. Total lie, but I believed it. It wasn't till I put it up a little bit. I'm like, I'm so full of crap. I came here because I want to check out the women. I was totally threatened because they're going to understand him in a way I possibly can because I don't know anything about what he's going through. I don't have an alcohol problem.

So Needless to say, you know, I go around the room and we would share and I would, you know, they call on me and I'd say hi, my name is Tara. I'm a concerned person.

The rehab, that's what you are. You are a concerned person. And I never said I was an alcoholic for a long time. And then I started like really liking the meetings. Like I was hearing people talking about stuff that was in my head, you know, like people actually were talking about things and people talking about actually not drinking. And I saw, you know, people having fun and making friends and doing things and I liked it. So I asked the group if they would take a group conscious to see if I could come to the close day a meetings, even though I wasn't an alcoholic like you people,

but I really felt better when I came to the meeting. So would it be alright with you if I kind of sat in on the closed meetings? I know it's kinda like a secret society on those days, but would you end it like honey, he has a meeting with go to any meeting you want any day of the week. I'm sure they'll love to have you. I'm like, you're sure it's not? I don't want to be the exception to the rule, you know. I know I don't really vote. And they're like just come, just come, just come.

And that began my journey, you know, and, and what happened to me and, and I think it happens for a lot of us, if we're lucky, is one day you hear your story.

You hear your story from beginning to end. And I was at a meeting in Oceanside and this girl and I was really known. This girl got up and she is telling my story. I mean, everything, even though reading the books, like everything. And I called up my husband and I was like, you got to be kidding me. You told this girl my whole story. I was so angry. I'm like, how dare you? How dare you? He was like, what are you talking about? You know, And then I got it. I'm like, wait a minute, If she has a problem, I knew she was sick.

She had a problem. I'm like, like, Oh my God, maybe like I really belong here. And that was like my aha moment, like, Oh my God, maybe I really belong here and trust me, I was delusional for I can't even tell you how many years and I I totally delusional. You know, they don't talk about us being in denial in the big book. They talk about us being delusional denial. I kind of know what's going on. I just don't want to look at it. I don't want to own up to it, but I know it's in this. I'm going to delusional. You have a clue. And I was clueless but a very, very long time.

And I have to say that I absolutely, with all my heart and soul,

love the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. With all my heart and soul, you will never hear me bash the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because if Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous save my life,

you know, they kept saying, let us love you and so you can learn to love yourself.

Myself esteem was so low. I mean, I remember when I came into a meeting and somebody said hi, Tara, the fact that they remembered my name, that I wasn't invisible. But when I share something and two days later I'd see somebody to me. Had that worked out with your mom? Like people paid attention when people said how you doing today? They actually hung around to listen. You know, I was like, what a concept

it really the people. And I have

friends that I have been friends with for over 20 years, lifelong friends. But you'll never hear me bash Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. But if you're trying to survive, you're an alcoholic like I am, and you're trying to survive on the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you don't come in here and alcohol does not bring you to your knees, I pray that your alcoholism does

to get you to the point where you're desperate to work the program of recovery that's outlined and not just find friends.

I so needed you. I so needed the friends. I, I'm so needed a family. I needed you people to love me and care about me. But

what I learned in the big book is that we're beyond human aid, and I was putting all my faith in you. And guess what? You're all humans, Everyone of you.

I'm beyond human aid. I don't care how many of you are in the room unless you're an alien is something. I mean, you know, collectively it's still a bunch of humans, you know, and I found out that I was really beyond human aid. You know, I, I really got that like when I truly got like how sick I was. And I can tell you that my life was a train wreck in a, a this is my journey. You told me to get a sponsor. I got a sponsor. You told me to go to meetings every day. I went to meetings every day.

You told me to get a commitment. I got a commitment. You told me I had to sponsor people. Well, that was kind of scary, but I was sponsoring people, you know, I was doing the best I can. I was loving on people the way people loved on me. You know, I was give you all the love I had to give, but I was not giving you the cure for alcoholism. I did all those things. I went on retreats, I went on international conventions. I mean, I did, I went on soba club meds. I, I, I managed to sell the nightclub. I mean, I was throwing myself in a a like you can't imagine, and I wasn't.

I said everything, but I, I and what happened is I became suicidal doing all that, doing all that. First time I became suicidal, my friends prima scoop me up, took me to doctor and he's like, yeah, you need medication. I'm like, OK, you know, I didn't need medication. I need a program of recovery. You know,

the second time I became suicidal, it was really, really bad. And it was really bad. I'll never forget it.

I had a newborn baby

and she was probably the only thing that sparked any sort of feeling of love in my heart at that time. I was so far removed. I was so sick and my alcoholism and so far removed from anything good at that point. And my plan was we had a, a tiled bathroom with a glass shower door and I was going to kill myself in the bathroom because it would be easy to clean up,

no mess, shoot myself in the bathroom, go down the drain, wash it down. My daughter,

we have a new mom within two weeks. I was convinced of that because remember, the Gelson secure pot did not go away. And, you know, then this thought dawned on me and I know it was God today. There's not a doubt in my mind. This thought came to me that if I use my husband's police revolver to kill myself, it was supposed to be locked up and secured and he might lose his job and he wouldn't be able to take care of my daughter. And I couldn't have that. So what I do? I went to a meeting where I probably sounded like a spiritual giant the day before, mind you, and she had

that. Only I was like switching

and what do people do? You scoop me up and love me again. Just scoop me up and you love me. And he kept an eye on me and you babysat me. And I needed all that love and I needed all that love and you know that love, but that love was not fixing me. It just wasn't fixing me. I self destructed in so many areas without picking up a drink in my life. I almost lost my house to foreclosure. I mean, I wasn't paying my electric bill and my electric was getting shut off, but I was buying a $300.00 pocketbook and tell you about it. What a deal.

My friends were looking at me like I was insane because I was,

I mean, I had a baby at home and my electricity is getting shut off because I needed something to fill that hole. I had this hole in my soul that I tried to fill with food. I was 100 lbs overweight. I tried to fill with things. I just get this. It'll be better if I just get that. It'll be better. I just get straight A's. I'll be OK. No matter what it was, it wasn't working. And what I've come to learn is that hole I have in my soul is a God shaped hole and only God can fill it. There's nothing else out there

that can fill that hole, and I would die with that hole if I live to be 110 if I did not fill it up with God.

So I continued that insanity and suffering from untreated alcoholism still involved for 19 years

at DS17

was a pretty major turning point in my life. I had been married for 20 years to that man who went away to rehab. He was 17 years old. But I was 17 years sober, had a nine year old daughter at the time. And I got to say, we went through a lot of rocky times, the two of us in our relationship with, you know,

one alcoholic, but another one together. If you don't have God in the middle, good luck. That's all I gotta say. Good luck to you.

Don't even bother saying I do if he ain't in the middle as far as I'm do you understand a chance and how so And everything I say, by the way, is my opinion is not the opinion of AI don't even represent this group or my Home group. It's my opinion. Let me just precious of that at the beginning. But anyway, we had gotten to a point, I don't know how, but we got into a point where things were really gelling for the two of us. After going to a really rocky point. You know, he got just gotten promoted to detective. I had just gone back to school and got my teaching license and was really enjoying that.

We decided to renovate our home because our home look like it was a disaster because it reflected on marriage. There was number caring in our marriage and our home reflected that. So we made a commitment to each other. We were going to in this for the long haul.

It doesn't happen to us anymore.

So anyway, was at work, back to school, night in inner city school, trying to give back to the community, loving life. And he went swimming during a hurricane and drowned. So like like that, everything was very different. And the significance of that story isn't even that I didn't drink for me because God just protected me

so much. You know, when I was in the emergency room on the floor, like in this fetal position with this guttural moaning coming out of me, I never felt closer to God in my life. It's like I was in the most pain I was ever in, and I just felt God holding me. And I heard it. You going to be okay, Tara? You can get through this. You know, I'm going to be here for you. A A is going to be here for you. You're going to be all right. And I believed it.

But the significance of the story is really to me

that you don't have to go through anything alone in AI. Nothing,

you know, when I first got sober and they said you don't have to go through anything alone in AI was like whatever, I'm alone, I'm alone, I do everything alone. I don't depend on anybody. Got pivot. You depend on anybody because if you have expectations, you gotta be disappointed. You know, that was how I came in here and thank you.

But what happened was, you know, I remember sharing when I was newly sober that I had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles. And how do you do that sober? I mean, back in the day, No, no, you don't understand. But all you young people here who get to go take a number and sit on a bench and be comfortable and go out and have a cigarette, come back in and check in on it. It wasn't like that. 29. You waited on the line for three hours. You got up to the window and they said, sorry, you should be

that long. OK. So there was no way I was doing this Soba. There's just no way. I mean, let's just pack it in right now. And I remember these two women like that. I didn't even know said, honey, you know, like we're not working today. We'll go to motor vehicles with you. And I was like, who are these people? But they went and I stayed sober. And the significance of that is that, you know, I've always had a sponsor in my life. I've had, I had a sponsor,

but pretty close to 20 years

and I have women in my life that I like family. And what was significant about going through that experience for me was I couldn't go to the bar without having a drink. I couldn't go food chatting without having a drink. I couldn't get on the train to go to work without having a drink. But yet I had to go find my 9 year old daughter

and tell her that her dad died without a drink. But not only did I not have to do that alone, but what's really significant about not doing that particular thing alone was that my sponsor was with me, who my daughter called JAMA 'cause she grew up knowing this woman her whole life. And the Rampedes was there. And those two women loved us enough to bear witness to that pain. To sit there and bear witness to that,

those are the kind of relationships you get in here.

I don't know too many people who could do that.

So let's just say I went a little bit off the deep end. I didn't drink, you know, I was just out of my mind and you don't know you're out of your mind to come out the other side. So it was very painful for the people in my life to witness. I think my biggest regret of my life, I'm 49 years old. I haven't drank in 20 something years. And my biggest regret of my life is not being there for my daughter after her dad died.

Iran. I mean, I ran to meetings. I ran to meetings constantly, but I ran. I ran away from her because her pain and my pain were too much.

And if I could do anything over in my life,

that would be a different mom for her.

I I've made amends to her so many times that she's like, mom, you got to forgive yourself because I've already forgiven you. Like, you need to get over this. I don't know. You know,

they say we won't regret the pastor wish to shut the door on it. I regret that so much so much.

She loves to parents for a couple years and so you know, has a God will use like whatever to get you to where you need to be. Well, he used this experience in a big way for me because I had not been alone since I was 15. I went from one marriage the day my divorce papers came. Three days later I married my second husband. I was married for 20. I had never been alone since I was 15, and I needed to, like, fill that hole and like, get a family. And I was on a mission.

Why was I on a mission? So meanwhile, it's like, you know, now you got to start dating. Well, I wouldn't wish that on anybody ever.

Like what's. Oh, God, I did not. I was not fun. I didn't like it, but I was still on a mission and it was it was horrible. I mean, I had a broken picker, You know, if I picked you, it was doomed to. I mean, it's just I was not in my right mind. It was like, you know, and my good friend used to play. God, please remove this man from her life.

There she is.

And I got and I'd be like, hey man, what do you think of him? And she'd be like on, Oh, God,

you know, she got two sentences out of him. And she'd be like, oh, you know, the woman switching. And I'm like, you know, I'm like, he's a life grand.

Anybody who cared about me at that time, Oh my God, I can only imagine, you know, I can only imagine the pain, you know, of, of watching me and and experiencing what my daughter went through during that. But

it brought me to a really good place because I ended up in a relationship with somebody who I cared about very much and I still care about very much today. He's a good guy.

The only thing about this relationship was that he was a

he smoked crack a lot.

I'm like the next

say this, you know, that's. Yeah. Well, that's what it was. He's a really nice guy. And I really mean that. I mean, I love him. I love him. I love him, love him to death. I still love him to death. And this relationship saved my life because what ended up happening was I wanted to from a woman who never had alcohol in her house for all these years. You know, my daughter was never around anybody drinking her whole life to. Now I have somebody cooking crack in my bedroom, smoking crack in my car.

My daughter's like, what's wrong with him?

And this is 19 years so bad. I say that turned very loosely. And So what ended up happening was he said something to me that saved my life. And he said to me, you know, TA, I would never want you to lose your sobriety. But every once in a while, I think it what it would be like if we got high together and every hair on my body stood up

and I was like,

Oh my God, I'm going to die. And I was this close, this close, this close.

I had met a woman at a Fellowship of the Spirit conference. She lived in Virginia. And I knew I was gonna die. I called my friend, my best friend, Michelle Texas. And I'm like, I told her where she had listened to the drama of everything, you know? And she's like, you need to call her now. Get on the House phone while I'm on the cell phone. Call her now and say you need help. Call her now. Call her now. And I call this woman. And I said I need help. I'm going to die.

And I told him my predicament. And her response to me was, well, have you ever gone through the Big Book?

I've been to any Big Book meetings. Yeah, I go to Big Book meetings. I didn't know what she was talking about. So I was like, yeah, you know. So she goes, no, have you ever, like, read the 1st 164 pages of Big Book? I'm like, I'm sure I have. Over the past 19 years, I've gotten through the 1st 164 pages one way or another, you know, like, I didn't get it. And she goes, Tara,

she goes, you need, we need to do this work together. And I'm going to do this work together. And this woman, I'll be forever grateful from Virginia. She had me call her every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 6:00 in the morning before she started her day, her busy, busy day, she got up at 6:00 in the morning and read to me for an hour until we got through that book and

and we didn't study it. You know, I did a big look experience being here. So this is not a study. I'm not here to study the book. I want to experience the book because you can know every single word in there. You can quote a chapter and verse and you can go out that door and drink because until you've experienced what that book has to offer, it's just a book, you know, And I will be forever grateful to this woman. I had an experience.

I truly understood that I was mentally ill.

Oh my God. And it's, that was not fun. I knew I was crazy before, you know, OK, I'm a little nuts, you know, make some bad choices, some really bad choices sometimes. But I got like, Oh my God, I am mentally different than normal people, you know, I am mentally different. And when I got that, that I was really beyond humanity because I kept thinking, if I find the right therapist, they'll fix me. If I find the right sponsor, she'll fix me. Like it was always, if I found this right person, if I found the right church, you know, I was going around

this check would work for a while and go this church for a while. Like I had to find the perfect thing, the perfect person. And there is no perfect person. You know, the way I like to look at beyond human aid, very simply because I'm a visual person, is, you know, if you're a parent or if you have a niece or nephew and you know, you're crossing the highway with this little kid that you love more than anything in the world and a bus is coming, man. You are throwing that kid out of the way and you are throwing yourself under the bus for that kid without thinking

about it. Instinct, love that kid would do. Would die for that kid

die for that kid. But when that same kid says mommy, please don't drink tonight my please don't show up at school drop mommy, please don't embarrass me tonight the alcohol wins if that human power cannot keep somebody sober. I don't believe that there's human power that can you know so when I got that it was like, oh wow, all right, I got to find this power now I had to leave then God at this point, you know, I had believed in God. I had, I had come a long way in my spiritual journey, but you

believe in God, but not trust God. And that's where I was at. I believe in the existence of God, but I didn't trust God with much of anything, you know, and but when I got to this point, when I realized that I had this physical allergy, I knew if I picked up, I was gone. And I'm going to tell my quick little story about the physical allergy that I got like immediately.

This is so funny. I used to go to this place with my sponsor, who had 13 years at the time when I was newly soba and my and my other her friend and

we want this place the Left Bank and I Left Bank salad and the three of us would show up and get this out. Now it was a terrific salad. It had peanuts and raisins and cheese and lettuce. What else is in the name of apples, apples And it came with this honey mustard dressing, but they would drizzle, you know, a little drizzle on top of the salad. So three, that's one and order this. And we were like, this is the best damn salad I've ever had in my life. Well, now we were getting our own individual salad dressing on the side and then by,

I don't know, two weeks into it, we were getting our own gravy boat pictures each of honey mustard dressing on the side. And when they wouldn't go out to lunch with me, I was getting it to go with six things of honey mustard dressing on the side.

Miriam shows up at the table, blows the whole deal and says, you guys know, like, that's made with beer, right?

And I was like,

I didn't, that did

not click until I went through the work with this woman and she talked about the physical allergy, that our body is different and it actually craves it. I was pouring that salad dressing, taking a few bites. Ooh, there's room for more pouring. For more, I mean

gravy boats. Can you imagine three women signal with gravy boats on dressing?

Physical allergy. I got it. Get it? I didn't know there was beer in there, but my body knew there was beer in there. My body said give me more of that dressing. I'm surprised I wasn't drinking it straight up.

I probably would have gotten there because I believe in the progression of this disease as well, You know, Forget the mouthwash in the Listerine, go for the Left Bank salad dressing. It's really tasty.

So I got that pot when we went through the book and that mental, oh, the mental, Oh my God, a sick mind can heal sick mind. Okay, so I can't fix myself and not one human being can fix me. Oh my God, that was the worst, most devastating bit of news. If you don't feel horrible when you find that out about yourself, you haven't found it out about yourself, trust me, because it's just devastating. It's like, Oh my God, Oh my God.

Oh my God. Exactly. You know, So then I had to fly this power greater than myself. So what I thought was the worst relationship was really not, you know, God knew just what I needed to get me to my knees to be willing to do anything. Because when I called this woman Bow, I literally said I will do anything you tell me to or I know I'm going to die. I'll do anything. I'll do anything you say.