The 16th Marijuana Anonymous World Convention in Portland, OR

My name is Susan and I'm a pothead in recovery.

And I heard that, you know, most of the time I'm in a meeting and I say my name, I never hear you say hi, Susan. It just, it just I'm, I'm thinking about what I'm going to say. So I want to take a moment to just look out and be here and not be thinking about what I'm going to say, Although I do want to say some stuff. But you know, I thought this morning there's three shares. There's the one you think about ahead of time, the one you say and then the one later that you all the stuff you forgot. And Paul reminded me this morning to just accept

I'm not going to say everything I want to say. So it's like, OK, so I'll say I'm trying. You know, if I'm lucky, I won't remember what I said because that means I'm channeling. And I'm hopeful for that. And I wanted to start by saying that I've learned in recovery. I mean, they said this early on that if you have a judgment about someone, that it's something inside of you. And I was like, oh, God, that's not good news, you know, and,

and one of the things that people would do when they chair, if they got up in a speaker meeting and they said, well, I was born. And I go, Oh, my God, this is going to, you know,

but that's how I'm going to start because

because I was born,

born in Brooklyn. And when I was four, we moved to San Diego. And about 10 years ago, I found out, you know, how that happened. And what we did is a year, the year before we moved. So when I was three, my aunt and uncle and their four boys fled to San Diego. And so we followed him. It's my dad's only sister. And we grew up with that family. And I found and he was a lifelong gambler. And I found out when I was

living with an act of gambler, my parents told me the story that my uncle was going to be killed

by bookies in New York City. And that's why he led, he went to San Diego. And now today they probably could find you in San Diego. But back in 1958, they didn't have computers. So we went to San Diego and I got to grow up there. And that was really great. And the other piece about that story is that I had these 4 male cousins. Three of them did inappropriate stuff with me sexually over the but one of them really, you know, was the worst. The other two were just practice kissing on me when I was little,

but the when I was four and five, the cousin who was the oldest,

he was 10 years older than me. He molested me several times. One time I always remembered

and, and it was our secret. And that's what I grew up with. I grew up knowing that there was this thing that I'd done with my cousin, even though I was 5 and it was bad and I couldn't tell anybody. And so the first time I got drunk, it got lifted from me. So that's why I mentioned that because it's such a significant part of the story for me. And and then when I was clean two or three years, I remembered, oh, there were a couple other things he did when we were living with him when we first got to San Diego

that were less invasive, but still, you know, creepy, creepy and hurt and all that kind of stuff. So when I was 14 is when I had my first drink and I was at a keg party and I was drinking beer and I was like, this stuff tastes like pee. This is awful, but give me some more because

because I was an alcoholic from the first time I drank. I drank to get drunk and I did. I mean, all through high school. And I'm pretty allergic to alcohol. I have horrible hangovers. I throw up. I'm the girl laying on the ground, you know, in the parties. And you know, at the keg parties, there'd be like so many people you couldn't move. But I just go to the keg, get my drink, walk away. I don't know why I would walk away, drink it and then go back, you know, and the smart people would just stay at the keg. So

then when I was 15 and, and, and the thing I wanted, I thought of this last night,

the first time I heard about marijuana, I heard I was in 8th grade. It was 1968 and I didn't, wasn't called marijuana. I hadn't heard of marijuana. I heard that there was this one bad kid in school who was of course, the cutest kid in school. And he smoked grass. And I was like, long grass. That's all I could think of. He's smoking grass. I wonder what that does. And so I get to, but then, you know, a year later it's 1969 and everything's exploding and all of my circle of friends are smoking pot, but my dad's a cop.

And so I figure I know that if I smoke pot, I'm going to be shooting heroin and I hate needles, so I better not smoke pot. So I didn't for a whole year. And actually near the end of 10th grade and the 1st 10 years of my sobriety, I would have told you I started smoking pot when I was 16. But then when I was 10, I went, wait a minute, it was April and I get turned 16 in August. I was actually 15 when I started smoking pot and my friends were so excited. And we're going to go see Rod Stewart that night.

Now, it is not the Rod Stewart of Moon River. It was the Rod Stewart of the Small Faces with a whiskey bottle in his hand on the stage

and in the San Diego Sports Arena. And so they bought up an ounce a lid and

for all you older people

and, and the dealer, he rolled it up all day. So we had 60 joints. So we're sitting down in front of the stage

watching Rod Stewart and every joint came through me. So I didn't feel like I got stoned. I was certainly like in an altered state. But I, you know, I didn't know what what I was doing.

And the next morning I wake up and there is resin on my thumb because of 60 joints going back and forth across my and I'm like, Oh my God, my daddy's going to see and he's going to know I'm smoking pot. Never again did I ever smoke 60 joints or get resin on my thumb like that. So, and the first few years I just smoked with those friends like

usually on the weekends. But you know, my friend, best friend Nan, her parents worked, which was cool. So we hung out there all the time. And I never bought it, you know, the first couple years and I was so happy to find pot because it was instant. It didn't make me throw up, it didn't give me hangovers. And and so it was like I was home, you know, I was so happy to farm pot. I still got drunk plenty because when it was available.

And so jump ahead a couple years.

I'm involved with, let's see, my dad maybe take typing in shorthand in high school. It's the biggest fight we ever had and I was really good at it. I got like the award for shorthand in high school, the only word I ever got in my life. So the beginning of high school, girls couldn't wear pants except on Fridays and you couldn't wear jeans. By the end of high school, it was 1970. I was wearing the most ripped up jeans you could ever see today. And it was the day they gave out awards. So my shorthand teacher who did not really like me, she liked that other girl who was, you know, the kiss ass.

I got the award and I had to go down in my all ripped up jeans. You know, I remember that really well. So

then, and I got out of high school early 'cause I couldn't wait to grow up. And I left a year early, which I really am sorry about now, because you're an adult forever, your only kid for a little line. And I let. So I went to junior college. I took more typing in shorthand because I was so good at it. And the teacher was a feminist. And the next next year, she taught the first women's studies class in at that junior college down in San Diego.

And I took it. And I'm telling you this. I've never told this part of my story before, but it's part of my story. And because of what I'd gone through when I was little and I found feminism is like, OK, men are the problem. Women are the answer. And and you know, and I was an incest survivor, so I got involved in starting a rape hotline and teaching self-defense, being in a consciousness raising group. I am someone cliche after another, you know.

And so I was in this consciousness raising group and

we, oh, they took me to this meeting and all of a sudden I'm the chair of all the rate prices centers in California. I'm 20 years old and we took a road and so organized a conference, my first conference when I was 20 and it was in the Bay Area, but I live in San Diego. So we took a road trip and the woman who was in charge smoked every minute she was awake. So guess what? I did that road trip and when I got back, I was, I was an addict. When I got back from that road trip, I was smoking every day, all day. And I was 20

by the time I was 2122. Well, actually it was. It was less than three years of smoking every day. I knew I had a problem. I knew I was an addict. I knew I couldn't live without pot. And but I'd never heard anything about. There was no answer, you know, there was just, and everybody I knew smoke like me. Oh, and this is the other. Sorry I thought of the other day. I thought of this in years. I tried to be a dope dealer,

so my friend Norma and I bought a pound pot and everybody knew we had it. And after a month the pop, the pound was gone and we sold one ounce.

Yeah.

So we tried it again.

It was nice having a lot of pot, you know, and that time we sold no ounces.

So I quit. I quit my career as a drug dealer quite early. I just, I'm always amazed at people when they come and they talk about Dylan pot, you know, it's like, wow, I could never do that. So I'm an addict. So that the reason I'm talking about the whole famous thing is that I came like this lesbian separatist had nothing to do with men. Men were the problem. And I found this woman who didn't smoke pot. So my main attraction was she didn't smoke pot and everybody else I knew. And we got in a relationship and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

And it's sort of, it's not embarrassing anymore, but it's, it's just sad. She ended up, she isolated me from everybody for the first year. And that's the end of the first year started hitting me and I and I, we were at the Michigan Women's Music Festival with everything we owned in the step van. And I had nowhere to go or I thought I had nowhere to go today. I would know. Leave all your shit and just walk away, you know? But then I didn't know that and I was stuck with her and I knew she was just like my father. She was a rageaholic. She's the only person I've been in a relationship with,

a romantic relationship, who's not an addict or an alcoholic.

So when it ended four years later, two people said you should go to Al Anon. I was like, never heard of that, you know, didn't know what it was. And if I'd gone, it wouldn't have been relevant because she was the only person I'd ever been with who wasn't an alcoholic or an addict. But that was my bottom. That was 1981. And I found somebody who helped me get out of that, who smoked like I did. It was like, oh, good, you know, I was back smoking pot, smoked more than me even. And that was kind of unusual because I was always,

people said, haven't you had enough? Like there's no such thing, you know, there's no such thing as enough. Just give me some more.

OK, so then what? So,

and you know, when I became the lesbian separatist, it wasn't because I was attracted, I fell in love with a woman. It was because it was a political decision. So after that relationship ended, I found myself attracted to men and not women. And I've been with men ever since. But I, you know, it's a sort of like my friend Judy once said, once a lesbian, always a lesbian sort of in, in part of my heart. But I am pretty straight now. But I don't think straight all the time. So

anyway, well, that's true of all of us.

That's why we're here.

So then what? So I'm smoking every day, all day again. And I'm and I'm not getting high. It's like this isn't fun anymore. It wasn't fun anymore. And I could not not smoke. And I would, you know, smoke something and then I'd, I'd like 10 minutes later go, did I smoke something? And I'd have to go look. Oh yeah, there's a Roach. I guess I did give me some more. But I wasn't getting high. And

I was starting to hang out. I was starting to meet people who didn't smoke like I did. So I wasn't. Not everybody around my world knew that I smoked like that.

And

let me tell you, I'm going to go back when I'm 16. This, this is how I drank.

David Cecil and I met in 4th grade, his best, his niece, his cousin was my best friend. And we always liked each other at the wrong time. You know, he liked me. I had some boyfriend and I liked him and he had some girlfriend. We were just little kids, but sixteen. We finally get to go out. He's got this like 57 Chevy truck and it's all, you know, sweet and painted and nice. And we go to the Ace, drive in and back up,

and he hands me a bottle of red wine. And you know, my job was to get drunk and loose, you know? So he's fixing up the truck and he's putting up pillows and blankets and everything. And that's all I remember. And the next day I walk over to see him and he's hosing off his truck and we never went out again.

I never got the details, but I can imagine, you know, it wasn't pretty. Never drank red wine again.

Couldn't, you know, And then at 19, I got so drunk on vodka, I never drank vodka again. You know, it's one of those things. So pot, Oh, thank God for pot. So as I needed it, you know, I needed it to get through the pain that I had felt that I didn't have any other way to cope with. And like Carol talks about, I didn't get an instruction manual for how to live my life

and, and drugs and alcohol helped me get through life and not kill myself. And when I was in that relationship that I did think of killing myself because I didn't know that I had choices. I lost that. So I'm raising a daughter now and I tell her all the time that she always has a choice. She always can walk away from something that's not working. And you know, when I was a kid with my father raging all the time and he was an alcoholic, he is an alcoholic. I couldn't walk away,

you know, I had nowhere to go. So I sort of carried that over until I got older. So. OK, So what happened? Let's see, February of 86, I told somebody. I must have told somebody I have a problem. I want to quit. I don't remember the conversation. I don't know who it was, but someone told me about NA. So February of 86, I went to an NA meeting in Oakland. It was kind of scary. And I'm 32 years old and

I smoke pot and I'm in and this woman is taking a cake

and she's a heroin addict that stood on the corner 82nd Ave. selling her body to for drugs. And I was like, well, I don't relate to this at all, but they're really friendly. They were so friendly. And you know, I don't know about the cake and I didn't understand it. And I said, well, I don't really belong here. But I went home and I didn't smoke for like 10 weeks. It was great. I'll just do it by myself. But then I got drunk and I got stoned and I did that another 10 weeks. And then

the Stevie Ray Vaughn concert,

August 5th, 1986. And I was drinking all this beer and I went in the bathroom and someone handed me a joint. And now it's 86. People aren't sharing joint, you know, pot with people they don't know. But she did. It was big joint. And I took the biggest hit I could possibly take because I knew I was only going to get one. And I got so nauseous. And I guess I'd never been really drunk and then stoned, at least not in a blackout. I've done in a blackout. But it was awful and

that was the last time I got drunk, so I knew I was going to see my brother. And that's what we do. My brother and sister and I are all marijuana addicts, and

they're not in recovery. So

a week before that concert, my friend Lori took me to my first Al Anon meeting. It's like, oh, you go to Al Anon. I heard of that place. I'm supposed to go to that place. Let me go with you. So I go to this Al Anon meeting up these dark stairs, and here are the steps. Here are the traditions, here are the gods, something like God. You know, I am a recovering Catholic. I don't want anything to do with God. I want spirituality. That's what I'm seeking through pot. And I got my meditation bench. I've never used but

God, so, but I, I was just so impressed by people sharing how they really felt and I would relate to everybody in that room. And I was like, wow, I was, I was shocked. I was sort of surprised. And I made and I went, I kept, I never stopped going. I've still never stopped going. And so, which is a helpful part of my story. So that was like, you know, the end of July, July 29th,

and I'm smoking. And so I start smoking again August 5th and I see my brother at the end of the month and I realize I smoke a hell of a lot more pot than he does.

And I get home and I'm smoking. I'm going to Alan on him smoking. I'm like can't really work these steps if I'm getting stoned every day. Doesn't really it's I don't think it's going to work. So I go to my second NA meeting and it's the Berkeley young people candlelight meeting on University Ave. and it's way different, you know, and it was and and I for I don't know, the 1st 18 years of my recovery, I said and I really got the idea of fellowship at that second meeting. Well, I did because I was going to Al Anon. So I understood fellowship, you know, and, but I understood what I got

meeting was they were helping each other stay clean and I needed help. I obviously could not do it by myself and I needed help. And I was finally willing and ready for some help. And because I don't know about you, but I thought needing help was not was a sign of weakness. I've come to believe asking for help takes a hell of a lot of strength and courage. And any time I can do it, you know, it's not weak at all.

And I wasn't buying pot anymore. I hadn't been. I've been trying not to buy pot. I mean, this is what I did. I wouldn't buy it. So I go hang out with people who had it

or every time I said I was going to quit, I just smoked more

faster so I could get rid of it, flushing it down the toilet. How can you possibly have ever done that? You know, like never. I would never. I just smoke it more, you know, and then I'd be like deliriously stupid. So never flushed it. I would just smoke it faster so that that was what I did and bury it away from my like, why would you do that? You know, I would be afraid to hide it. I would never forget where I hit it. So even though I forget everything else.

So I go to that second meeting and I have some pot. I have an ounce of pot in my trunk for my friend Don

pot anymore but I bought some for my friend Don. It's October 8th, 1986 and I go home and I pinch a little bit and I smoke my last time. So I woke up the next day, October 9th, and I haven't gotten stoned since. And that is my Spidey day. So that's really cool.

So,

so 23 amazing. Like I can't believe it, years

and

So what am I doing? So I think, OK, I'm in this place

that I believe I need to get better, so I'm OK. I believe I need to be perfect to be lovable. I'm really hard on myself. I have no self esteem. If I had self esteem, I wouldn't be smoking pot all day every day. And I come in and so I want to work these steps right away and I want to graduate and I want that serenity they're talking about that I know if I do these steps, I'm going to get it and I'm going to keep it forever.

And I believe this, you know, so I don't get a sponsor right away. I am the recovering Catholic. So I I start doing my four step by myself because I think confession, you know, where I know confession works. So and then I finally get a sponsor. It's taken me. I don't know, I got an Al Anon sponsor first. And she says, Oh, we're going to start with step one. And I'm like, Oh shit, you know, you're throwing off my timeline. And

so we go back to step one. And I don't remember, you know, back in those days, people didn't really write out steps 1-2 and three,

in my experience. Now people do quite often. So we, you know, we talked about 1-2 and three. And so the God thing, well, let me go back to that because it was like it. And but everybody who had a higher power, they were happy people, you know, and I wanted what they had. And so I acted as if I had a higher power, which I alluded to this morning. So I had this meditation bench that I bought that I'd never used, that I would like get stone to get meditate, would never ever use it. So I got out the meditation bench. I made a little altar.

Lit a candle and I'd sit on the meditation bench and pray to the drywall because that's there was nothing to connect with when I started, but I was going to act as if. So I had these prayers I'd learned here. You know, we said the Lord's Prayer and Al Anon and I had the third step prayer. I had the serenity prayer. So OK, have some prayers and I'll do this. And, and I don't know how long it took. I don't know if it was weeks or months. I don't think it was too many months, maybe one or two.

One day

I felt the presence of some undefinable love. That's really what it is. But some kind of power greater than myself that I could tap into, that I could say help and it would help me. And it was like it was the best thing ever. It was so much better than getting high. And I knew that's what kept me clean the first couple years. I knew that if I smoked pot, I would lose that, and I didn't want to lose that. You know, you hear about the sunlight of the spirit.

I had this cloud of smoke blocking me from the sunlight of the spirit for all my life until then. And and that feeling of connection, that feeling of I'm not alone anymore. I don't have to go through life alone. Oh my God. And I mean, I knew the group was my higher power was a power greater than myself that you could stay clean and we could help each other. I knew the group. So I used the group as my higher power, but to have something that I could pray to. So then I spent the first four years of my recovery trying to figure out what it was

and, and luckily I went, I took my Home group of a, a had a Jesuit priest and he would talk about things like

fire, your old idea of God. So I did like the, you know, the God in the sky that was monitoring my thoughts and going to send me to venial hell or, you know, purgatory or wherever. After I died, I got rid of that God and I thought about and I was told I could create the, you know, the the higher power of my own understanding and thought, what do I want? Well, I want something completely loving and non judgmental because I was so judgmental. My family is so judgment. It's like no judgments. I don't have to ask for forgiveness of my higher power because I'm never judged.

I have to ask forgiveness of myself

and something that was there for me supporting me all the time, whether I remembered it or not. And that's what I developed. And so I had my first idea of a third step was 2 oak trees and a hammock. And I laid in the hammock and I surrendered. I'll tell you, it was wonderful. You know, when you surrender, it's so incredible. And I really thought, though I'm still in that magical thinking place. Oh great, I got serenity. I'm going to have it forever. Oh boy, I did it. And

then I wake up the next day and I got to do it again. It's like, oh, it didn't stay. It doesn't, you know? And until that point, the word discipline was always just like ugly word still is an ugly word. But I started developing discipline by doing certain things every day. And early on they said go to 90 meetings and 90 days. And I just laughed. It's like I'm too busy for that now. I spent way more than one hour a day smoking pot and thinking about pot and playing when I was going to get

and going over somebody's house to get smoke it, but I didn't do that. Now here I am going to NA and I get my Al Anon sponsor. She said she really should go to a because they got better recovery. So I find this Berkeley Fellowship Sunday morning step study, go into that and

work in the steps with my sponsor. I get to do my first fourth step. I don't write any assets down because there's nothing good about me. And but I share all this stuff and she sees all these amazing patterns about how hard I am. I didn't come in knowing I was hard on myself. I had to learn that

by working with you and, and being, you know, being shown who I was. I didn't know who I was. I had no way to self reflect and change things before the 12 steps of of these programs. I read lots of self help books, but nothing ever changed. And so here I was and I really believe there's a lot of magic in the 12 steps. They've transformed me and they continue to transform me. I continue to learn new stuff. More will be revealed. So

let's see,

I'm going to look. Oh, I didn't tell you my track story. OK, I got to tell you my track story. I hadn't thought of this in years and years, but this kind of encapsulates how I live my life until probably close to 10 years recovery. And that was if I made a mistake, I had to really be hyper vigilant. So I never make it again because making mistakes is not OK if you make mistakes. And I only figured this out in the last four months.

Yeah, because I'm a slow learner that,

I mean, a relatively new relationship. And when he got mad at me one day, I was, like, freaked out because if he's mad at me, he doesn't love me anymore and he's going to, he's going to take away all of his love for me. And I realized that's what happened in my family. If my dad got mad or my mom got mad, they did take away the love. And so you couldn't do anything wrong because you'd lose love. So you have to be, you know, doing everything right all the time. And so I'm five years old. I'm writing this enormous tricycle. At least it seems enormous,

my memory and I don't want to get, I have to go the bathroom, but I don't want to get off the trike and I pee my pants. So I go in the house, I clean up and I put a wad of toilet paper in my underwear so that if it happens again, I'm ready. That's how I've lived my life, you know, like overcompensating for this mistake in case you never, I never have peed my pants again, even when I was drinking. So

thank God I didn't put fro the paper on my pants every day. But, you know, that's how I think.

That's how I thought till I got here, you know, that I had to try to figure out because what I learned is you never make this famous. Well, you do make the same mistake twice, but you're always making new ones, you know, so you can't plan for everything. You just have to let go and let God. And OK, so that's actually when I first started, and I was talking this morning in the meditation workshop that when I was wanting to graduate really quick, I knew I could do a bunch of the steps right away. So I didn't have to wait for a sponsor to work these damn steps. So I could do, you know, 1-2 and three and I could do 10 and 11

and I'm meditating and I finally feel something. And what I did a lot and I still do sometimes to stop my mind as I'll say, let go and let God over and over in breath, out, breath, just let go, let God just. So that's my suggestion about meditation because I know it's hard for so many of us. And I've gone in and out of it and now I'm in a relationship with someone who sits every day for like 30 or 40 minutes. Like, I guess I better get back to my practice.

So.

All right, so where am I? So I don't know. Let me look at my notes.

Oh, and the other thing I didn't say about meditation that helped me meditate is they say, you know, prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening. And I don't know, I was four or five years sober and I thought, you know, met it that I that to honor my higher power. If I take the time to meditate, that I'm honoring my higher power. I'm I'm giving my higher power some space because I'm talking all the time to my higher power. I'm never listening. Like to honor my higher power. I need to stop and let them come through. You know it love come through me

even if I never stop thinking during meditation, I'm more apt to hear my intuitive God self voice during the rest of the day if I take the time to sit. And so that's another motivating thing that I use to help me sit. So

recovery and oh gosh, my daughter. So I'm four years sober and I move. I got married and in fact we met when I was seven months in the program and he had seven days.

He'd had about seven months, but he'd relapsed the week before. But you know, So what? I'm in the Berkeley Fellowship, he's on the smoking side, I'm on the non-smoking side. So we're looking at each other

and I'll never get involved with a smoker, but you know, chemistry happens. So, umm, we got involved and we were together for seven years and we'll tell all the details of that. But we moved to Portland in when I had four years sober and I'd never wanted to have kids. I thought having kids wasn't a politically correct thing to do because the planets overpopulated and all that stuff. So from the time I was about 14, I thought I'm not going to have kids.

Well, those hormones watch out, ladies. They do kick in and they're like, have a kid, have a kid. And I moved to Portland. It's like this family town, you know, so

get pregnant like that. And I have this and I just, I love being pregnant. It was fabulous. I'm singing to my unborn child every day. I'm praying all the time and it's great. And she comes three weeks early and she's born not breathing after 36 hours of intensive labor. I am an Amazon. So

she's born not breathing. They revive her. They take her out of the room and I can't move for five hours because I've just been doing this thing for 36 hours and I'm bleeding and I'm, you know, they had to tear me open. So

I don't know if she's gonna live or die. That's kind of what it was the first couple days. And I knew somebody where I worked who had a son with CP and cerebral palsy and I, and I called him and, you know, just reached out for help and I met the hospital every day. And she has to stay in the hospital 2 weeks. And I remember the second day I'm in the hot tub, they had these hot tubs for the, you know, women who had kids. And I'm wailing away in the hot time. The nurse comes and says you're scaring the other mothers,

Michael, sorry. So

I have this kid and

she they said the next day she might have cerebral palsy. Well, I don't even know what cerebral palsy is. Thank you very much. Not my kid. And we go home and

taking care of her. And she does probably look funny if you've had a kid, but I've never had a kid, you know. So the way she moves is I'm ignoring it. Anyway, four months we go back to the hospital because every kid who's been in the hospital goes back for a visit. But they know, you know, So I, I got, I walk in the doctors. Oh, yeah, she has cerebral palsy. And I'm like,

devastated. Like, can't you tell me a little bit before you just drop the bomb? And I didn't hear anything else, she said. And except call United Cerebral Palsy. So I am, I'm devastated. It's the worst day of my life. And I go home and I do wail, actually. And it's July, I believe the 17th, 1992. And it's so it's summer in Portland and the windows are open.

Happens and I'm in my bedroom

in the back of the house. The woman across the street of the front of the house heard me, started doing my yard work for me. I didn't know why she was doing my yard work. I found out months later when my mother came and visited, she told me that. So I am dealing with this, having this child with a physical disability and I don't know what it means. Like is she going to walk? Is she going to?

I'm not prepared. I don't know anything about it and luckily I but I know how to get support. I know that I need support.

I know from being here with you that I can't do it alone and I don't have to do it alone. So I call United Cerebral Palsy the next day and I talked to this woman and she has a son with cerebral palsy. So she like knows and he's 12 and she's been through this and, and she became my anchor for that. But what happened to me spiritually is that I wasn't saying my first four years, God never gives you more than you can handle. So I was like, oh, good. Oh, good. Well fuck, this was more than I could handle so fuck God.

Sorry, I guess I shouldn't do that. OK, so

I'm trying to clean up my mouth. My daughter's, you know, like mom. So OK, so I did. I was like, I believed God wouldn't give me more than I could handle and it was more than I could handle. So what am I going to do? Who's there for me? And, and I what one of the things that helped was reading when bad things happen to good people. Well, I don't think there's bad people, but the premise of the book is really wonderful and and it was,

I don't remember. Well, life happens and that's why you need God. That's what I came to out of that was like, I can't believe

because I believed God tested me before that. I believe that things that happened that were hard, Oh, God's testing me. So I'll learn some lessons. So I'll be a better person and I will face adversity better and you know, I'll be this better person. And I don't believe. I can't believe that because things that are too hard. It's like God's not given me this or giving Michael cancer. It doesn't work like that. Life happens, you know, cells change and

doctors make mistakes, which is what happened with my daughter. And,

and, and you know, so I went through bargaining and I went through, I mean, took years, a couple years to get to that place of like, OK, life happens.

And that's why I need my higher power and to not believe that I was being punished for something that I'd done in the past.

Although I did find myself a year and a half ago, I watched the movie The Secret Life of Bees, and I'm driving home crying so hard. The grief of the world is flowing through me. And I'm thinking, okay, my daughter is 17. She is has a nine in 10 chance of being sexually molested in her lifetime

as a woman with a disability. And I'm bargaining with God, OK? I've gone through all that shit. Please don't. Please let that be enough for her. You know, I'm still bargaining. So I have this daughter and it turns out I'm a really good mom. And big surprise, I was like, really me? I'm so impatient every day. See that? This is why I got the CP kid. I prayed for patience every day.

So don't pray for patients.

But you know, in the, in the big picture, she's the greatest blessing. So when when her birthday comes around, it's like the hardest day of my life and the most blessed day of my life. She has taught me more patience, more compassion, more empathy than I would ever have learned any other way. And she is really healthy and funny and social and

amazing, as many of you know.

And she never stops talking. Now, you know, when she was little, I said, if she ever, you know, she, I'll never say she talks too much.

I, I don't say it to her too much, but I'll say enough of the planning. You know, here I am in meditation, noticing my planning mind. And that's what my daughter does. She'll be an event planner when she's an adult. She already is. So that was, that was huge. You know, switching my spirituality around was really important. And when people say, you know, God never gives you more than you can handle, like, oh, no, no. And I try and talk to him after the meeting. Like really,

really.

So.

And you know what? I heard somebody say that, you know, we talk about life purpose and I know my life purpose. My life purpose is to be of service. I've learned that here. And I've learned that being her mom, I never feel, I still sometimes often feel like I'm not doing enough. And I go, wait a minute. OK, I'm in service like all over the place. I have hardly ever stopped being of service to Ma. Oh, I wanted to tell you what happened. I didn't even tell you that piece. So here I am, like four or five months sober. I'm going to a A I'm not taking ships. I'm not raising my hand

speaking because I don't belong here. I'm not an alcoholic. I mean, I haven't drank since high school really. So I'm going to these meetings. I'm going to Al Anon, but I don't really belong. And then Harry stands up after the meeting at the Berkeley Fellowship Sunday morning and says we started this program, marijuana Anonymous. And I was on him so quick after that. You know, he waited till the end because you're not supposed to make non ma related announcements. Thank God he did. And they were starting the second, the man down in house meeting had started like two weeks before that. And the Wednesday meeting was starting that

Wednesday and I could go and share the meeting because I had four months. I was an old timer. So I got to cheer my first MA meeting and I was home and I was so home that I was home everywhere. And it was so, so important. So, you know, when somebody said the other day, you know, Carol was talking about that, about how grateful we are for MA or different people talking about that, because I know what it's like to not have it. It was horrid. And I didn't belong and I didn't, you know, So I got to get, we didn't have chips, right?