The Crown Valley Speaker Meeting in Laguna Niguel, CA

OK, we're good. Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm an alcoholic

and my sobriety date is August 30th, 1999 and my Home group is Irvine Easy does It, Monday Night Book study and

I. Those are two things that I hold very dear to me, and the power that I have today is the power of God.

Gosh, where do I start? I'll start at the beginning.

My first drink was when I was 12 years old and my dad was an alcoholic, had a lot of alcohol around the house and I, I snuck it and drank it and got drunk and didn't remember anything. And the next day I woke up and wanted to do it again.

I didn't become a daily drinker until I was about 17. I, I worked with a girl. We work, we, we, I had graduated from high school and we worked the night shift and her mom was really cool. Her mom bought a, bought us alcohol. So we would work the night shift and get off work and go to her house and drink all night. And then I would drive home and pass out at home

probably 8:00 in the morning and wake up because of my shift started at 4:00.

And I knew at that time that I couldn't remember how I got home. And I would try to try to, you know, remember getting in my car and I couldn't remember it. And those kinds of things began happening quite a lot to me. And I began to know in my heart there was something wrong with me, but I was not ready to stop drinking. I was too young. I didn't have this thing. I really didn't even know any Alcoholics other than

one of my friends, Dad. I had heard he's in a A and of course, in my mind it was, you know, my image was he walked around in a raincoat and he had a little bottle under his coat and he made his way to AA. I didn't have any clue what Alcoholics Anonymous was about. A

and I didn't. I didn't, never thought for once that I needed to be there. I just thought the way I'm drinking is not normal. I had friends start telling me that, you know, my drinking was out of control or you should you should watch it. You should not drink so much. And I would say yeah, yeah, yeah. But I I was not a progressive drinker. I always drank to get drunk. In fact, when I was, you know, a teenager, that's what we did. Want to go get drunk tonight? That's what we did. We didn't,

we didn't say let's go have a glass of wine or two. So I don't, I don't have that experience in my

umm, in, in my past, I, I don't ever remember being a social breaker. I remember wanting to be a social drinker, wanting to be able to drink like a lady. But I was never able to do that. So I kept drinking with this girlfriend and we met a couple of guys and we planned our weddings 2 weeks apart from one another. And this man that I met,

I passed out on our first date.

Uh, and that begin, you know, I mean, and he didn't think there was anything weird with it. So, you know, I, he was a good man. He didn't know anything about alcoholism and, and I didn't know that was what I suffered from, You know, I just thought I drank too much at this party. I went in the bathroom, I curled up on the floor and, you know, they couldn't find me for three hours. And that was a an MO for me.

So I, I had two kids. I didn't stop drinking. I had two kids.

I tried to be a mom. I I couldn't be a mom. I did the best I could to be a mom, but I was I was drinking around the clock. No, I take that back, not around the clock. I was drinking. I would start drinking in the late afternoon and then pass out every night. But I did not drink around the clock. And I,

it began to get really bad with him. He, he knew I had a problem. He was one that just stuck his head in the sand

and I just kept drinking and he didn't have what he needed to say. You know, he didn't have the courage or whatever to say. What in the hell are you doing? Get some help. And

that went on for a pretty long time till till I actually came into this program in 1990. And I called central office in Orange County because I couldn't stop drinking. And I asked them what should I do? And it was a Gruffalo lady on the phone and she said, honey, get yourself to a meeting. Can you get yourself to a noon meeting? And you know, I mean, my heart was just bumping and I'm thinking I didn't even know what this is about. I just know I need help.

I did not go to a meeting right away with with that woman. I got scared. I told her I would meet her there and I and I didn't drive there, but that was my first thought what was to go there

to meet her. And eventually, OK, I'm getting a little twisted, but in 1990 I went to my first meeting

and, umm, it was a good meeting and there were a lot of, there was a lot of recovery and someone gave me her number and I called her and she was a big book person. She, she, she took me through the book and I, the only thing I can say is that I don't believe that I had hit my bottom when I was working with her. I, I still had

ideas in the back of my head that somehow I was going to be able to drink again. If I did this thing really, really good,

I was going to be able to fix myself. And I was a really good student. So I did everything she said. But I, I can, I can look back now and say, you know, there were times when she was really, really trying to talk me into this, times when she was, you know, come on, Kelly, you've got to do this and you've got to do that. And I was like, I was doing the bare minimum to stay involved, but I had not surrendered.

I, she took me through all of the steps

and the 12th step I balked at, I said, I'm not going to do it. I, I am a busy person. I had started school. I, I don't have time for this. I'm, I've got two kids. I'm back in school. I don't have time for this. And that was always, that was my mantra. And so I, I ball did that. I wish she had said what Angie had said,

you know, in her pitch, you know, I wish she had just said, you know, call me when you're ready because you're not ready. But she didn't say that to me. She she hung in there with me and God loved her, You know, she to me today she's a dear friend of mine. But I in 1995 I went to my brothers wedding out of the country and I was with my daughter who knew I didn't drink, my 12 year old daughter. And

they pushed a drink my way and I pushed it back. And we did that three times.

And the fourth time I picked up the drink and I was in a foreign country.

I, I didn't speak the language. I was not housed. I, they had put me in this little condo, me and my daughter in a condo of a relative. And I went, I went out at night in this strange, you know, almost communist country. They had, they had their freedom, but it was still very common, communistic, trying to find some kind of a bottle. And I bought, I bought stuff that I, I couldn't tell you what it was. I couldn't read what it was. I'm just pointing and I'm sneaking it back in and don't I don't want my daughter to know that I

stop drinking and and I'm doing the same thing. I'm drinking all night and passing out at night and trying to get myself together the next morning to, you know, first of all, go to my brothers wedding and,

and I remember my parents were there and I remember going to dinner with them and I, they didn't know I had, was drinking and my dad, I said to my dad, you know, I think I'll have a glass of wine with dinner. And you know, it was, it was like, Are you sure? Are you sure? I thought you, you know, and I, no, I'll have it. So the rest of the trip was a bomb. I can't remember any of it. I, you know, I was drunk at my brother's wedding. I was drunk at the party. I was, I was drunk. My, you know, my, my daughter just just got

with me.

And from 1995 until 1999, I tried the hardest that I could to stay here. I, I took so many 30 day chips in that four year period. I, I went to meetings, I'd get a sponsor. I, you know, and I, I worked these steps anyway, they told me to, I'd meet, we'd meet at the beach and we'd burn candles and we'd, we'd do so many. I was looking for the solution and, and all of these people were, you know, they were trying to help me.

I at that time, when I came back, I was going to discussion meetings and I was listening to all of the problems and I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker.

And what I did was I called eventually I called that woman back that had taken me through the book. And her first question to me was, are you willing to go to any lengths? And I said, I'll do anything. You know, and I, I've heard it said before, this is an original thought. You know, I'll, I'll stand in the corner and two nails if that's what you want me to do, because I got to get out of this pain. I can't stop drinking.

And she said, you have to, you have to go through these steps quickly and you have to start sponsoring

and otherwise I'm not going to sponsor you. And I'm scared. I, I can't stop. And I've been trying and I had, I can't tell you how many lovely people sponsored me in those four years. I had a lot of sponsors and they would call me. I actually just called a woman that I used to sponsor recently. I called her just to, you know, make an outreach to her and she never called me back. And I was talking to my husband about that just the other day. And I said, you know, when people were calling me, when I was out there drinking those four years,

I never called anybody back.

You know, it's just like, leave me alone. You know, right now I'm drinking. I may want you next, you know, next Tuesday when I decide to come back. But I don't want to hear what you have to say. I isolated a lot. I was rude to people. I didn't care. I didn't care.

And

you know, I, I had AI did a lot of naughty things. You know, I was, I, I was a thief. I was

didn't care about people's feelings. I would say I would show up for something and I didn't show up and I would, or I'd make some excuse. I was always standing people up and I, I was real uncomfortable with the human being that I had become. And, you know, I, I drank a lot to to

cover up that, that pain of being, you know, the person that I had become. So with Sandy, I, I got started again in the book, you know, step one. And just like again, like Angie so eloquently quoted our book, you know, I was taught that, you know, I, I am not a stupid, weak will moral degenerate. I have a disease and that disease has a component in that. One of the components of that disease is that I

physically different from my fellows. That allergy is that once I take that glass of wine that I want so desperately to take and be glamorous and be sociable and not think about wine and think about the conversation, that once I take it, it's it's sets off in me a craving that I am unable to stop. All I'm thinking about from that sip of wine forward is where's the next wine? We'd go to a nice dinner party and somebody,

one bottle of wine, there's four people. And I'm like, Oh my God, you know, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? You know, and, and, and you know, I try to drink it really fast so that maybe they'll drink, you know, it's, it's insanity. I did the I did the drink, you know, steak, the drink in my bathroom, under my bathroom sink before we go out so that at least I've got enough going on that I won't be out of my skin

when we're sitting there at this dinner party where I'm trying to act normal with alcohol.

I can't do it. I can't, I can't stop. Once that that pilot light is turned up in me, it's, you know, all bets are off. And I'm going to drink and I'm going to get drunk and I'm going to pass out and I'm going to be sick in the morning and I'm going to say I'm going to swear off. I am never going to do this again. This nonsense has to stop. I'm going to pull myself up on my bootstraps and I'm convinced that I'm not going to do it again. And by 4:00 in the afternoon, I am, you know, on my way to buy some wine.

You know, I was him. I was a wino. I would, I started off drinking really nice wines. I ended up drinking wine in boxes because boxes were easy for me to hide. I would stack them in my laundry room. I'd stack them up in my, you know, I had them all over hidden. Oh my God, I'll never forget the time I had a bottle of wine, one of the big old jugs, and I was giving a baby shower for my sister-in-law And I had the next morning. Well, I, I didn't remember that I was putzing around cleaning, doing all this stuff, and I had

hidden this big bottle of wine behind the drapes. Well, then, you know, I mean, it was half full, you know, somebody decides the next day to open the drapes and here's this bottle. It was just like, you know, and, and you know, it's funny now, and I can say it was funny, but I'm like mortified that, you know, you know, and what's this Kelly? Oh God, I have no idea. You know, I don't, I, I've never had the answer for why, why they would say why, you know,

or, or I remember staying up at night to watch the, the final episode of MASH and my husband had gone to bed and I didn't know what I, I couldn't tell you today what the final episode of MASH was. But the first thing he asked me that morning was, well, So what happened? And I'm like, I have no flipping clue what happened, you know? And then the stories you have to hurry and try to figure out to make it. Or the time I ordered

a Christmas decoration for the centerpiece

and then it came and it was on the table and we were on our way out to the services and, and then they were ringing the doorbell bringing the other one that I ordered that I didn't remember that I ordered the first one. So those were just some of the things. But, you know, I that that allergy sets in and I can't stop. And then the mental obsession begins that Doctor Silkworth also describes. And my mind won't let me stop. So I'm just a snowball. I'm just a snowball.

Then when I stop drinking for even 15 hours, 8 hours, whatever it is, my mind is what's going to kill me. My mind romances and dances and says, yeah, but I'm looking for that sense of ease and comfort one more time. I don't remember the pain and suffering that of, of the last, you know, day or the week. I all I remember is I'm uncomfortable and I need to be comfortable. So I, I pick up the drink and unless I can treat

that that allergy by not drinking, you know, well, you know, the deal is if my only problem were a physical problem, if you took away my wine, I'd be fine. I wouldn't be here. Why would I be here? If it was just put the plug in the jug, I wouldn't be here. I'm not igniting anything. But but when I'm away from the wine, then my head starts and I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not anything enough. And I obviously don't have a God in my life. Obviously there's no

God in Kelly's life when I'm in the middle of this. And what I get taught with Sandy when I began to go through these steps is that I need to find a God in my life. You know, I need to understand that my problem is that I'm powerless over alcohol, that once I put it in my system, all bets are off. I will never be able to stop. So I've got to treat the mental obsession. And the way I treat the mental obsession is with a 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the, and the whole problem is a spiritual malady. I, I, I went around hurting people,

lying, cheating, you know, I, I'm a stealer. I stole a lot of stuff. I stole. I was a shoplifter, but I would call it a 5 finger discount. This was real fun to do, but I was a stealer and I didn't want to, you know, tell the truth about that. I would, I worked for people that and I stole for them and they never knew it. They thought I was this really sweet gal and and I'm a thief, you know, so those things are real uncomfortable when I acknowledge that that's what I did,

you know, so I need a fix and I need God to help me. And so when I remember the third step, I remember taking it with my sponsor. I remember hitting my knees. We said the third step prayer in and she and it was awesome. And I gives me chills right now. And she said, we have just made a contract with God. We have just made a contract with God, Kelly, and you're the one as a human that will break it, but God will never break it. God will always be there for you, but you've got to go to God and you've got to know that God is

director and you know it. It says in our book, you know, it's going to get clouded. It's going to get clouded by pomp, by circumstance, by everything that's going on in my life. I've got to quiet down so that I can so that I can be what God would have me be. I've got to quiet down, which is where, you know, my prayer and meditation does come in. I've got to quiet down when I rush to a freaking meeting. I've got to quiet down and say, you know what?

Help me be a service. Help me say something useful to somebody here in this meeting

because after all, like Angie again said, you know, our primary purpose for being here, the whole reason that I'm here and that you're here is so that we can help somebody who's still suffering from alcoholism. And, and, you know, I'm excited about this program and I know it works and I know why it didn't work when I did it before

because I did half measures here and half measures there. But since I got back here and I've been willing to do whatever has been asked of me, my life has just incrementally gotten better. And that's the promise of this work. And you know, so we did that third step and we

barreled into, you know, we launched, you know, she said, you know, like a rocket ship, like we're going after this thing and you don't need to be dwelling in this four step. She says of doing 4 steps, like doing surgery on yourself without benefit of anesthesia. We want to get in there, get out, excavate the crap and move on. And it's effect finding

fact facing it's not a I'm going to wallow in this because I'm this pile. I'm this guilt. What you know, pour me. I'm so bad that the intent of every one of these 12 steps is good. It's awesome. It's to heal us. It's to make us better human beings so that we can, you know, be skyrocketing into the 4th dimension today. I I know that I'm the luckiest woman

here. No, I don't. I don't mean that about you guys. I just mean for me, for where I came from. I'm so lucky

that that I don't have to live the way I lived anymore, that I have a solution and that I wake up every day and my life isn't perfect. It's not perfect, but I have a peace in my heart. And when I get in a in a place of being agitated, I know exactly what to do. I study the book a lot. I study the book. I also love the 12:00 and 12:00. I think that it has helped me to.

Fine tune some of the the concepts that are in the book

in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't need the 12 and 12 in order to work my program of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I use it today to enhance my program. And so I just I barreled through the steps with Sandy and and by the time I was two months sober, I was sponsoring and and I was scared to death and I didn't think I had anything to share to anybody. And and I just kept getting told, you know what, you got more than that person that has one day. So just why don't you try getting out

yourself and try being helpful to somebody else. And I got to tell you, I hated that woman. It was like a love hate. She was like, she was very direct and told she just right in there and, and said, you know, said things that were I thought they were unkind. You know, I get off the phone and go, I can't believe what she just said to me. And then 5 minutes later, I'd say, man, it was exactly what I needed to hear

because all my life, you know, it was like there, there, there, there. Everything's going to be OK. No, it's not going to be OK. It's not going to be OK until I clean up what's in here

and I've got a sure shot to the God of my understanding. And when I got junk that I haven't done the work on stuff that's in my inventory, I am, I am at great risk of drinking again. I have at great risk. I know there was a a vulnerable time. There was an amend that I had not made. And it was to a man that I had stolen from that he did not know that I had stolen from him. And I thought he'll never know, you know, he doesn't even know. Why do I have to? And I kept dancing with the devil. You know,

this obsession was coming in my mind. And, and let me just say, I've had lots of sponsors in the this program today. I'm not with that same woman, although I dearly love her. I'm with someone else. So I, I consider them all spiritual teachers. And one of my spiritual teachers said, if you're calling me and telling me that you're doing absolutely everything that you should be doing and you have cleaned up all of the wreckage of your past and you are feeling the way you are feeling, you are the first person I have ever met who has been that way.

Because what I know to be true is that if you do the work as outlined in this book, this this issue we're talking about is a non issue. And I again got very indignant and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but you know, yeah, but is like something that would I'll tell you what It's it's the mating call. Yeah, but it's the mating call of the self-centered blankety blink. I can. I'm not going to say it on the

never mind. It's a joke that, you know, it's gone around eight. Yeah, but it's a really dangerous thing.

Yeah, but you don't understand. I am different, OK. I gotta not use that. I gotta not say I'm different. I gotta say, yeah, I identify absolutely with the disease that you guys have. I have this disease. And I'm willing to, you know, follow the solution that's in this book. And so when when that woman said to me, what is it that you're not looking at? What are you not willing? In the back of my man? I've known that for 15 years that I had not called that man.

I had not made any attempt to make an amends to him. And I became willing. It's like I don't want to drink again. I I am done. I don't want to drink again. What do I have to do? I wrote out the amends. I got all ready. I called this man and I, he said, who? Who are you? He's like 7580. Wait, what? You know, he didn't even, he might have been feeble. I don't know. He didn't know who I was. And I said I'd like to make an appointment to come over. You're not coming over here. You know, he was

like, he didn't want to have anything to do with me. And what I said was, you know, is there is there any charity that I might donate in, in, you know, for your family or any honor that I might bestow because I did steal from you. And he said, yeah, you can. So he asked me to his daughter had lupus. And he said if you would, if you would donate to the Lupus Foundation, I would be most obliged. And you can forget about the harm you caused me. You know, I mean, he was he was sane enough to be able to say that. And every year I get the little

from Lupus Foundation, I wrote my $200.00 check and every year I donate to the Lupus Foundation. And that's what I call for myself clean living. I think that, you know, I make direct demands whenever possible. I pay back those people that I owe and for those people that I stole from that the stores are no longer in existence and I have nowhere to go. I try to step out and pay and help, you know, help a young girl who doesn't have something or, you know, I, I put it back into the universe so that,

umm, so that what I'm doing is good and right and what I believe God would have me do.

So I, I probably got lost somewhere in this, but I love this program and this program has made, I got married in this program to a man who works this program. It's the most phenomenal thing in the world to share, truly share this program with another human being. You know, there's a line in the book in, in one of the chapters, I think it might be family afterward, or it might be to the wives where it says, you know, gosh, this is getting a little heated. Perhaps we should talk about this later.

And that is like a family joke in our house when I'm getting pissed off at him or he's getting pissed off at me. We pause

because we're both agitated and we say, you know, this is getting a little heated. Let's talk about this later. I'm telling you, it's in it's it's a miracle program. It's like a sav that gets put all over every relationship. When I got here, I did not know how to form a true relationship with another human being. It was all about what you were going to do for me, what I could get from you or, you know, it was, it was all about me. Truly it was. And I do have an outgoing personality, but I did have a motive.

And my motive was always self-serving. It was always self seeking. And today it's not always that way. You know, I have healed through this program. You know, I, I can, I know that where I'll go is, is getting better and better and better. I want to tell you I have two awesome kids. The kids that saw me drink that, the kids that didn't want to bring anybody home because mom was always, you know, drunk online.

I was screaming. I was or I was morbidly depressing, crying all the time.

And, you know, I got my life together. I helped them finish school. They're both self supporting through their own contributions, which I'm very proud of. And, and we have wonderful relationships today. And, and I am not the same woman that I was, you know, when, when they saw me drinking. I'm not the same woman. And my kids, neither one right now have a problem with alcohol, but they, my daughter Katie has sent a couple of different people to call me. You should call my mom. You should call my mom. She might be able

help you. And you know, it's like it's for fun and for free. This program is for fun and for free. And I look forward to every opportunity that I have to carry the message to somebody because I don't want anybody to suffer like I suffered. You know I came here and I got hope

clearly when I heard the message by God hope you know when and I want everyone who comes to AAI want the hand to be there. A congratulations to all the people that took chips here tonight, man, it's just amazing and I feel like you know a lot of you guys I'm I'm talking to my kids, you know, and I I'm so happy you guys got here when you got here, you know, because you don't have to go to the the depths. You know, it, it, it tells us in our book, you know, that we can, we can raise that bottom, you know, for if we're honest with ourselves and we

know how bad it is and we tell the truth and we reach out our hand to somebody who knows this book and can walk you through it is a recipe for, for amazing health. And you know, and I, it's a God-given program And, and God is, you know, has been my, I, I know that I wouldn't have this if I didn't have a relationship with a God in my understanding. And I know also that the God of my understanding isn't even the God of my husband's understanding or anything. You know, he, he wishes I would go back to my, my

umm, faith of my childhood. And that's not it for me. But you know, it's OK. We, we celebrate life together. I'm a good employee today. I give my employer a dime for his nickel and I try to be a service in any way that I can. And, you know, I got laid off last year, got bumped down,

you know, not doing what I want to do. And I just get up every morning and I say thank you for the job. There's a lot of people out there that don't have jobs, you know, point me in the direction to be helpful. Point me in the direction and my God has done that for me. So if you haven't caught it, catch it kept the catch the enthusiasm that's here in Alcoholics Anonymous. Find it. I only go to book studies. I that's that's where I find the message. It's a pure clean message. And, and if you're in a meeting, and I was taught this early on, if you're

meeting and you don't like the way it's going and you're sulking and you're, you don't like it, put your hand up and share some solution. People aren't coming to these meetings to hear you talk about anybody talk about all their promise or coming here because they're broken and they need a solution. So that's for that. I am responsible. And so I really appreciate your asking me to be here and thank you very much. And let's end.