The Anchor Club in Cheyenne, WY

Hi, my name is Amy. I'm an alcoholic. And before I get started, for the people that are kind of in my group and some of the girls that I sponsor around their milestones, I, I give them their marbles back. And you know, Aaron just celebrated one year and I wanted to give him one of his marbles back. And you know, I've seen a great girl in this case.

Thank you.

It's been nice to watch the little bit of growth that I've gotten to see in this kid over the past few months.

So I'm going to start out with a couple of things out of the big book. I'm going to start on page 29.

We had a long drive down here.

You know, I'm glad that the big Book tells us how to get up here and tell our story. It says our story is disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now. You know, I got schooled by one of the big speakers that said that, you know, most of us say what it's like now. And I'm supposed to get up here and talk about what I'm like now and talk about how I've established a relationship with my higher power. And I hope to do that for you guys tonight.

My childhood was tumultuous at best. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother was a religious fanatic. So I was in church all the time. And, you know, there was a lot of fighting, a lot of chaos going on in my home. And I don't think that either one of those things made me an alcoholic. But when I was 14, my dad died from cirrhosis of the liver. And so from that day on, I always said, I'm never going to drink because I don't want to end up like my dad. My dad was very violent

and I met this guy when I was 14, the day my dad didn't went into the hospital and

umm, I decided that I was going to go hang out with this guy for a while and ended up getting in a bunch of trouble being out after curfew and you know, you and all this stuff sober, but just being out, just being crazy, wanting to get away from my mom. And I can remember from the time that I was little just hating my mother. I was probably 7 the first time that I can remember back to just not wanting to be around her. I would have done anything to get away from her.

When I was 15 I got pregnant with my first daughter and I got married. My mom signed papers for me to go and get married and

and the judge signed papers as well. When I was 16, I had my first daughter. When I was 17, I got divorced because I married that guy at 15. And when I was 18, I started drinking and it wasn't an easy thing for me to start drinking. When I was 17, I was hanging out in Colorado Springs. I was hanging out with a bunch of guys from the military. So it was me and a bunch of guys coming out from B Street Gate and

my friend at the time, he said Amy is OK. Don't even worry about your dad being an alcoholic

all protect you and famous last words. You know for me that he came up to me and and he said I'm going to go out and get 4 Jack Daniels Lynchburg lemonade. You'll be just fine. I'll watch you. We'll stay in the house. You can have two, I'll have two. And from the very first time that I drank, I was a

a blackout drinker. I drank my 2 Jack Daniels Lynchburg Lemonades and he's sipping on his first one. I take his second one and I slam that one down

and send him back to the liquor store for more. And in the meantime, I find some guy that I have no idea where. I find this guy and I'm in the shower with him and my boyfriend comes in and says, Amy, if you ever drink again, I'm going to leave you. And I'm like, what did I do? I didn't remember any of it. I get up, there's or I'm covered in puke. I'm laying in the bathtub. He's laying on the floor next to me. There's puke all over my house. And I'm like, OK, I'm never going to do this again. I felt horrible. I'm sure I had alcohol poisoning

and you know, it wasn't enough for me. It stopped me for a month and then the next time I drank, I was a blackout drinker every single time. You know, I think that there were a couple times in those periods where if there wasn't enough alcohol, I wouldn't drink or I could take a couple of drinks and then drink more when I got home. But I was getting myself into more and more trouble. I was in school, I was studying for pre Med. I had this little daughter. I was divorced. I was on my own

and I had an apartment, like all the stuff was going really great. But on those weekends I would start partying and I would start partying on Friday night and who knows when it would end. Pretty soon I started missing classes and all kinds of other crazy stuff was happening. And you know, one weekend I had gone to Maryland to meet the parents, which was like my biggest nightmare. I never wanted to meet the parents of anybody. As some guy said, I love you and I care about you. I knew that that was going to complicate the way that I was drinking.

And so, you know, I told this guy I was like, oh, I don't know if I want to meet your parents. But I decided to go and flew out to Maryland and don't remember anything of the trip. I remember him dropping me off in Washington and vaguely remember being in Virginia and ending up back at my apartment. And my friend had punched a hole in the wall of my apartment. And I was like, oh, really? So I kicked a hole in the wall of my apartment big enough to walk through. And I don't know where that anger came from.

You know, I've been building up the finger for a really long time. And I took a baseball bat to everything in my apartment. And people were calling the police and calling, you know, different doctors and trying to figure out what they were going to do with me. And I ended up in the hospital a couple times that weekend. And next thing you know, I'm, I'm on a mission to have the biggest and best party of all time. And I tell my friends, OK, I'm going to buy all the liquor. And I'm probably,

this is right before

my 20th birthday when this happens. And so this is January 1st of 1995. And then I go to the, I go to Burger King and I order one of everything on the menu because I always wanted to do that. I don't think any of the food got eaten, but that's what I did. And I went down and got a whole car full of Bacardi freezers and who knows what else. And you know, I decided that I was going to pay for everybody to go to Las Vegas. So I'm telling my friends, get ready, we're going to Las Vegas. I'm paying for everybody. I just

this credit card in the mail, no big deal, I'll pay it off a little bit at a time. And we end up at the airport and they kicked out because they're all too drunk to get on a plane. So I go back home and I'm at my house and I'm just sitting there going, how am I going to get to Vegas? I don't know where the obsession to go to Vegas came from, but that was the mission. And I'm like, OK, time for a road trip. And somewhere in between the airport and my apartment, I had lost all of my friends that were in the car with me,

and I decided that I was going to drive to Vegas on my own. I had this little hoopty party mobile, the Chevy Chevette with the windshield that I had tried to kick out earlier that day and all the cigarette burns on the headliner and seats. And, you know, it was the party mobile. So I get in there and I decide that I'm going to drive myself. And I get dressed up in my wedding dress and my Doc Martens and put my hair up on top of my head and take off downtown Colorado Springs and

vaguely remember a cop like standing behind my car and I'm like, oh, he'll move. And he did, luckily. And I, you know, for a really long time, I thought that I was on a high speed chase downtown Colorado Springs. And a couple of years ago when I got all the police reports, I found out that it was a low speed cheese. I was doing 35 to 40 miles an hour dodging in and out of traffic downtown Colorado Springs in like a 30 mile an hour zone. So it really wasn't beating

bad, but I could see these cop cars behind me with their lights on and I'm like, oh great, my own personal escort to Las Vegas. They they are going to take me there and I just keep on going. I go to get on to the on ramp of I-25 and Bijou and I don't know if my car sold out or what happened from the police reports, they're they're like three different versions, but I don't really remember a lot of it. I know that the police report says that I slammed my car into reverse and

and then to all the cop cars that were behind me and then just jumped out of the car. Like here I am, you know, and of course, me being the drunk that I am for a lot of years, I told that story that I got arrested in the middle of I-25 was not on ramp because I really wanted like the helicopters and the SWAT team to come out, you know, on, on their little lines and pluck me out of the the picture right there. But that's not what happened. And I ended up getting arrested and

and my wedding dress and they put the handcuffs behind me. And you know, I've been arrested before, but I didn't really remember having the handcuffs behind me. And what I remembered it was that it was really uncomfortable. So I decided to rip the wedding dress off. I'm in the back seat of this cop car and put the handcuffs around the front of me and

start kicking the window and screaming profanities at the officers and they opened the door and

I got maced. Now I'm in the middle of the on ramp naked with only my Doc Martens on and all the news cameras are there.

There's more cops that I've come in the meantime. Then they're amazing me and who knows what else they're doing, but I'm fighting and they're fighting and they end up pod tying me and throwing me in the back seat of the car on my stomach. And you know, the next thing I remember after that is waking up in a hospital bed with my hand handcuffed to the to the bed, charcoal down the front of my hospital gown and the officer standing at the door going

here in big trouble.

I had no clue what I had done. I saw blood on my clothes that we were sitting,

you know, my wedding dress and everything that was sitting next to the bed. And I'm in a paper gown at this time. And they tell me that I have first degree salt on two police officers and eluding the the police and a bunch of other charges and that I was going to jail. And when they took me to El Paso County Jail, everybody already knew who I was when I got there because they saw me on news and I thought I was on primetime news, you know, like

night time, 7:00. No, this was 3:00 in the afternoon.

So, you know, just like these crazy little things that I found out and, you know, doing all this, these police reports and all this stuff to get into prison and jail work. And, you know, while I was sitting in in jail, I, I got out on APR bond because I really hadn't been in any trouble before. I had been arrested one time before, and I ended up going to my neighbor's house and getting rearrested the very next day and spending the next 65 days in solitary confinement.

And that time I lost everything I had on this planet. I lost custody of my daughter. I lost everything I had in my apartment. I lost my scholarship for school. And you know, every day I'm sitting in that jail cell and everybody there is going, oh, let let us help you get your daughter back and let us help you do this and let us help you do that. And all I'm doing is thinking about who can I get to come down here and bring me a bottle of Bacardi 151 so I can drink.

And, you know, I remember everyday crossing that, that day off on the calendar, thinking about killing myself and drinking. That's all I thought about those whole 65 days. And

I remember going to one AA meeting probably the first day that I was there and right before I got locked down and got kicked out of that AA meeting and you know, for being crazy and dancing on the table. And you know, Lynn, after that it was just like downhill. They, they locked me in a rubber room and put a duct tape to helmet on my head. They didn't know what to do with me. I was crazy and they let me out and I did find the person that would bring me that bottle of Bacardi 151 and and I got drunk before I left that parking lot. I don't remember what I did that day or where

or what I did, but I can tell you that I didn't try to get pesky of my daughter back. And there was a part of me that was like freedom, you know, this is freedom. I never really got to be a kid. I was taking care of my brothers and sisters growing up and I never really got to have a childhood. And so I stayed drunk every day for the next, you know, year and a half. That was my pursuit. That's all I wanted to do. I just, I just wanted to stay. And I remember being at this guy's house one night and

when he said, Amy, let's, let's have one last

hurrah before you get help because I'm at this time, I'm like, I'm so desperate. I'm suicidal. I'm like thinking about killing myself on a real regular basis. And I tell him, I think, I, I think I need to get help and I, and I don't know what to do. And I, I think I'm just going to check myself in somewhere and tell him that I'm psychotic and maybe they can put me on some medication or something. Just lock me up, lock me away from myself. And, you know, I called my mom and my mom said, Amy, did you ever think about going to drug and alcohol rehab?

And I said, for what? I don't have a problem. I'm depressed. And, you know, I remember that night having my friends go out and buy all of this alcohol and that there was no amount of alcohol in this planet that could have gotten me drunk enough to escape that misery that night. And I remember not feeling drunk that whole that whole night. And that was more scary to me than that time in jail or that time, you know, finding out what I had done the night before, ending up in another state or another country or,

you know, all the different places that I had woken up from, all these crazy things that I had done that was more devastating to me. And you know, when I called my mom and she said, Amy, if you go to rehab, we'll help you get your daughter back.

That's probably the only thing that she could have said to me to get me to go to treatment. I was 21 years old. I pretty much wrecked my life. I, I was on intense probation. I was calling for a color every single day.

I got arrested again right before that for aggravated motor vehicle theft. And I was looking at prison time for all the time that they had deferred from for the probation. And I was scared to death and didn't know what to do. And my aunt said, move to South Dakota. And I was like, yeah, that's perfect. You know, if I moved to South Dakota, there won't be the same people there. It'll be perfect. So I moved to South Dakota and it was no different in South Dakota than it was in Colorado.

And within a few months, I moved back to Colorado, miserable and depressed. And I

and my mom said, once again, I'll help you go to treatment and I'll help you get your daughter back. And so I did. And she said, oh, I found this place, it's a six week program. So if you go in there, you know, you graduate in six weeks and everything will be great. And I walk in the front door of this place and they go, Oh no, sorry, it's a six month program. And I walk right back out the front door. I was like, I'm not doing 6 months. That's ridiculous. I don't need six months of treatment. I barely drank for three years.

I really didn't even do anything. And, you know, but I didn't hear anybody else telling the same stories that I was telling. So I was going to tell my crazy stories and let everybody else know how psychotic I was. So I went into treatment and, you know, I remember being in there and being scared to death and, and not really doing anything that they were talking about. It was a Christian treatment center. And, you know, they want to teach you how to be a soldier for the Salvation Army. And that was their goal. And my goal was just not to feel the same way that I was feeling anymore.

And I didn't know how to get out of that. I, I did all these workbooks that they had in there and, you know, started working these like half Christian, half big book steps. I guess. I don't really know what it was, but, you know, so I, I went through all these workbooks and I had this, this boyfriend at the time that, you know, we were doing all kinds of crazy stuff on the outside and he wasn't showing up for our weekend visits. And, you know, he'd be too drunk to come pick me up. And he was the love my life. Like he was going to fix me when I got out. We're going to get married,

we're going to have this whole brand new life together.

And, you know, while I was in treatment, I, the last couple months that I was there, I got pregnant with my second daughter.

Not too long after I got pregnant, I told him that I was pregnant. And when we got out, you know, we're going to have a brand new life together. And he said, you know what? I don't want to have kids. And, you know, I remember being in treatment, they told me to write down the five things that I thought that I would drink over. And that was one of the things that I thought I would drink over is losing him or, you know, losing my other daughter or, you know, like, I don't even know what else is on my list.

And so I, you know, this was right after I graduated from treatment and I'm out and I'm

living with my sponsor that I had met while I was in Salvation Army. And her sponsor said, I didn't tell you to let her live with you. And here I am. I'm living with her. And my friend calls me the friend that I was living with before I went into treatment. And he said, you know, Amy, you just got done with six months of treatment. A glass of wine would be good for the baby. I was like, yeah, lots of wine would be good for the baby. I heard that everywhere. I just got out of all this treatment. I know everything that there is to know about alcoholism. And I really thought with everything in me, that I could go

that night to that bar and listen to some live music and have one glass of wine to take the edge off. And I remember them pouring that pink liquid into that glass. And I remember saying to myself that I was only going to have one because I had to do it for this unborn baby inside of me. And I don't remember anything about that night after that, that one drink. And I drank myself into a blackout and ended up in a hotel room with some dude I didn't know. And I was.

When I woke up the next day, you know, I just started to cry. I picked my clothes up off the floor

and walked out of that room. I had no idea where I was or where my car was. And I said, really, Amy, this is this is how you're going to live your life. This is how you're going to, this is how you're going to end up. You're going to lose another baby as a result of your drinking. And

I'd remembered my counselor in Salvation Army telling me that if I went up to Vitality, that these people, these old guys at Vitality,

would wrap their arms around me and that they would love me until I could love myself. And I'd been up there a few times, but I didn't really like it. I was like, oh, my God, I'm 21. I'm gonna have to do this for the rest of my life, these old people and smoky rooms. And, you know, like, it's not what I'm used to and it's not what I want to do. And

you know, I remembered her being the first person ever that got through to me, the first person ever that

cared about me and believed in me. And while I was in treatment, she knew. I don't know, I don't know what it was that she knew, but she knew I was going to make it. And I walked up to vitality that day and and I immediately picked up my six month chip because, you know, I didn't want anybody to know that I drank and I just everybody knew I got out of treatment. So,

you know, and I hid that drunk for the next nine years of my sobriety. Umm,

I remember going to that lady's birthday and her name is Terry, and I went to her birthday one night. She was celebrating like 2025 years sober and I walked into her birthday and she's like, what's wrong? And I said, you know, I never told you this. And you know, I got the opportunity to tell her that day what I had done. And I was sure that if I told all these people that I was so close to that I drank myself into a blackout while I was pregnant.

That they wouldn't like me anymore that they'd kick me out

and see ahead given me my nine year chip. And you know, I pulled that nine year chip out of my my purse and and I gave it back to her and they told her that I didn't want to celebrate it fraudulent date anymore.

And

that was the day that I changed my sobriety date. And my sobriety date is 11/18 of 1996.

That day is the day that changed my sobriety forever. That was the day that I finally got to be honest. It was the day where I felt like God, you know, kind of like dropped the ladder out of the sky and let it down on me so that I could actually feel that connection that everybody had talked about. I was like, Oh, my God,

like this was a total, total different deal.

And, you know, it's struggling in the program. I had struggled with sponsors throughout all those years. And you know, that counselor from Salvation Army and I asked her for those first nine years to be my sponsor, and she always said no. And I couldn't understand why she always said no to me. And, you know, finally after I changed my sobriety date, she said yes. And, you know, I sat down with her and

the thing that I found out is that I could be honest with her about that thing, but I couldn't be honest with her about a lot of the other things that I was doing in my sobriety. And,

you know, doing those things in my sobriety, I was like, well, at least when I was drunk, I could justify a lot of the things that I was doing because I could say, well, I was drunk.

But doing some of this stuff sober was really painful. And I felt like I had to be secretive. And, you know, so here I am, I'm 10 years sober and and I'm secretive and I'm not telling anybody everything. And I'm going to meetings and I'm fatally fine. And I'm living on the crumbs of what Alcoholics Anonymous has to offer. And, you know, have this little man and at vitality that I've just, you know, loved my first ten years and he loved me. And, you know, he was like a dad to me. He, when I was four years sober,

gave me away when I got married.

And he was gentle and he was kind and he always had a smile for me. And, and he was the person that I could look up to, but I couldn't be honest with him either. And, you know, throughout those first ten years, he was teaching me about the sets in a, a, without teaching me about the steps in a, A, you know, giving me these little, these little tiny tidbits of what this program had to offer. Because growing up in a religious home like I did and being religiously abused, I didn't want anything to do with the, with the God thing. And so there are a lot of steps

that I will definitely wasn't going to do. And you know, that third step was one of the biggest ones. And the second step, I didn't see that until way later down the line because I didn't want anybody telling me that I was crazy and I wasn't going to tell anybody all my secrets. And there were some things that I was going to take to the grave and I could tell you. That's the story there he told you tonight. It was not a story I was telling people in meetings. I was not telling anybody any of that stuff that happened. And I had a lot of old timers coming up to me saying,

well, we drank more than you even spilled on your tie. And,

you know, telling me that I was too young to be an alcoholic and I was 22 and I knew my life was over if I started drinking again. And, you know, I really believe that part in the book that talks about the grace of God, you know, that the grace of God did keep me sober. Fear and the grace of God are the two things that really kept me sober for all those years. And doing a little bit of the work here and there, an old timer would approach me and say, Amy, you need to do a fourth and 5th step. We're going to die. And I'm like, really, really that dramatic.

Do we really have to be that dramatic about it? And you know, I would sit down and I would write a four step. And, you know, for a really long time I used old four step that I had written. I don't even know when I wrote it or if I even footstep it with anybody. But it was an old fifth step that I didn't want to add to because I wasn't going to tell anybody all that stuff I was doing while I was sober. And there were a lot of things that I just like, oh, I don't really need to put that on there. I don't need to put that on there. And so I was using this old inventory with everybody that would pressure me into

doing a fist step. And you know, what I can tell you is that it gave me a little bit of relief for a little while. And it was, you know, kind of like all those pleasure speaking things that I was doing in sobriety, like looking for men and, and using sugar and using processes and all kinds of other things that I was using in order to make myself feel better. All these pleasure things, all these things outside of myself. I needed people validating me. I needed people telling me what I could do. And you know how great I was and,

umm, you know what I realized after doing that last fifth step? You know, this lady came to me one day and I was at a meeting at Salvation Army and she said, Amy, have you ever done a fourth and 5th step? And I was probably

five years sober when I did my first 4th and 5th step. And she said, you know, you need to do this right now. And I said, what you're, I'm going to say hi to me. I haven't seen you in, you know, four years since you graduated from Salvation Army. You're just going to tell me that I have to be at your house on Saturday with this, this step done. I didn't even ask her. I didn't ask her to help me. And you know, that Lady saved my life that night. And I, I remember leaving her house feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders. And she was a very kind woman.

She was very spiritual. And and she helped me walk through some things that I wasn't able to tell anybody else. You know, I was able to get honest with that woman that night. And I was able to tell her some of the things that I was doing in my sobriety that were blocking me off from the sunlight of the spirit. And she said, OK, Amy, now when you get home, you need to do this hour of meditation. I'm like meditation, like I've never done meditation. How do you do meditation? And what does it look like? And she goes, you'll figure it out. Pull down your

from the shelf and look at that. Look at that page that talks about this. And on my drive home from her house to my house was exactly one hour.

And I just started talking to this thing that I didn't believe in in the car and saying, I don't know what I just did. You know, I, I feel exhausted. And this rainstorm came, and you know, this rainstorm that came, it just felt like it washed away all that stuff that I've been carrying around for so many years.

And that was really the first experience that I ever had with meditation.

And, you know, I didn't do it the way that I would do it today, but it was the only way that I knew how. And, you know, I got home and the next day I went to Vitality, and everybody out there said, God, Amy, you look different, like your eyes are shinier. And I'm like, yeah, the grass is greener and the sun shines brighter. And I don't know what, Everybody's nicer to me. And they were like, everybody else around you hasn't changed. You've changed. And, you know, that that took effect for a little while and it, you know, soon wore

often, you know, for those years that I was doing piece meal, Alcoholics Anonymous, I lived on the crumbs of what this program has to offer. And at 10 years sober, that little old man that I loved so much that gave me away when I got married at four years sober died. And, you know, I didn't really realize that I had made him my higher power of somebody Sitting in the chair next to him. I was like, you were going to move because as my chair and I had to be next to him. It didn't matter if he talked to me or, you know, if he even looked my direction, but I needed to be near him. And

when he died, I was devastated.

And, you know, by this time, I have a third daughter. And, you know, I have my first daughter back in my life. And I'm married. And I have, you know, this really nice house and I have this really nice car. And it didn't matter. I was so empty inside. And, you know, I wanted to kill myself more than anything. And I'm driving to meetings and I'm thinking about killing myself. And I'm thinking about running into oncoming traffic. And I can't think of a different way to live my life. And I'm like, God, from the outside. Everybody would want what I have.

They would want this life. And how could I kill myself knowing that I have these three little girls that need me?

And I couldn't think about anything else. And one day I was, you know,

I was at home and I ended up getting this really bad headache. And I went to the doctor and they gave me a muscle relaxer and it made it worse. And I ended up back in the emergency room and found out that I had stress induced meningitis from not eating, not sleeping and crying for, you know, a month.

And so after that, you know, after I got better from meningitis, took like six weeks to get better from that. And, you know, luckily I didn't get hooked on all the pain pills that they put me on during, during that whole period of time. I went back up to vitality and I'm sitting at a noon meeting and I'm still thinking about killing myself. And, and I don't know that there's any relief for it. I'm like, I, I guess it's just, you know, like I'm just doomed for the rest of my life. I'm just going to think about killing myself. And that's just my lot in life.

And

you know, I'm bawling my eyes out at this noon meeting. And my friend elbows me in the side and he said, Amy, go ask that girl to be your sponsor. She has a similar story to you. And I'm like, yeah, right. Nobody has a similar story to me. You know, I'm unique. Nobody understands me. Nobody even knows. And you know, she caught me out of the corner of her eye. She was like surrounded by all these girls. And I'm like, she don't have time for me. And she said, Amy, do you need a shock? And I said yes. And you know, I sat in her car with her for the next 5 hours and I talked and cried and she

and she said, Amy, on Saturday, you're going to come over to my house and we're going to read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you're going to do the steps and it's going to give you relief. And I'm like, whatever that is a boring book. That is one boring book. I'm not reading that book. And you know, after that, that five hours sitting in her car that day, I was a Wednesday at noon. I came over to her house on Saturday and I sat down with her for the next three hours and I read out of the big book. And I never seen it the way that she made it seem. She,

she brought it to life and she lit that book up for me. And she, she read every single word out of that book and changed where it said God to higher power so that I could hear it. And, you know, walking through this, walking through that book with her and getting to the preface and her going, okay, when you get to the preface, we've got these three questions that are at the bottom of the preface. You highlight those three questions and start reading those stories in the back of the book. And your job is to look for the similarities, not the differences. She goes, Amy, you've been terminally unique

whole 10 years. And and she goes, you know, you've made Jim your higher power. And I didn't realize it till the day that she told me that, that I had made Jim my higher power. And she said, that's OK, Amy, it's OK for him to be your higher power. And you know what? I sat in her office many a day crying about that little old man that I love so much, so dearly. And, you know, whenever he would hold my hands, he would instantly warm them. And and she said, OK, now you've got, you know, part of this first step down. I want you to start telling me about your drinking

and I'm like, why? She's like drilling me about how much I drink, what I thought about before and you know what was going on inside me after I drink. And I'm like, what are you doing? You don't believe me that I'm an alcoholic. And she goes, well, I'm not taking you through this desk unless I'm convinced because it says I'm working with others. Being convinced, then we commence with the stats and, and I was like, oh, so if you're trying to be convinced that I am an alcoholic, then I might be able to convince you that I'm not.

And so, you know, I told her these stories and she's like, Oh no, I don't need any convincing that you're not. When she proceeded with the steps with me and she told me that I got to pick my own conception of a higher power. And that was very foreign to me because I was brought up very religious. I was brought up in church. You know, you had to believe a certain way. There's only one right way. And those are all these old beliefs that I had and I was, you know, not going to think that this lady could just come in and just change everything just like that. You know, I've been struggling with this God thing the whole time and

I wouldn't say God at the beginning of the meetings and I would walk out of somebody would say Lord or Savior or,

you know, if they would quote a scripture verse, I would definitely be out of the room and into the bathroom. And she said, Amy, I just want you to try it. I want you to try writing down all the things that you would want in a higher power. And so this is the list that I wrote and I've I've added lots to it since then. But I said warm fuzzies. You know that that goosebump feeling that you get on your arms whenever somebody says something that really relates to you.

It's creative and it's loving and it's quick to forget.

It's patient, it's forgiving. So that must have been pretty important if I put it twice.

It's comforting, It's intuition. It's that gut feeling. It's blacky smile. It's present. It's accepting. It's not punishing. It's compassionate. It's not judgmental. It's kind. It's truth. It's overwhelming gratitude. He has my back. It's power, It's peace. It's happiness. It's sense of direction. It's Jim. It's Grandma,

it's Blackie, it's my dad, and it's just as much as a feeling for a friend,

like it says on page 55 of the book. And ultimately it's love. And so I started out with this conception of my higher power and, and she said, Amy, that's fine, you know, because when I, when I first started, when I first started writing that it was just like Jim and my grandma and warm fuzzies and you know, the forgiving part and that was about it. And you know, I, I came to all the rest of this after working the process of the steps. And, you know, I got to step three and

we were in our office and she said I told her when we first started working together. I'm never going to get on my knees. I can guarantee you that.

And she said, Amy, Are you ready to save the third step prayer?

And she said, will you get on your knees with me in my office?

And is it OK for me to say the word God?

And I got done on my knees and I held her hands in front of me and I got on my knees in her office. And for the first time in my life, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace that came over me. And I felt like for the first time that everything was going to be OK no matter what happened. And I was like trying to think of imagine all these horrible things that could happen. And it still didn't touch that piece that I had inside of me. You know, I did the four step with her and and she taught me a different way to do it than I had done it before,

because she taught me right out of the big book. And she also brought out the grouch in the brainstorm and had me right there on all my actions that I took an anger and look at what a monster I become as a result of one thing that somebody else does. And you know, that showed me like this whole big huge lie that I was believing about myself and how much I had been surviving instead of living in my sobriety. And you know, I got to 5th step that with her and and she was the first person on this planet that knew everything about me. You know, before I did like little pieces of the puzzle here

and here and here and I was scared to death these people would get into the same room and put this puzzle together and be able to see who I really was. And, you know, this woman put that puzzle together and and she absolutely saved my life by work in the process of the steps with me. And she spent five hours a week with me and sometimes more. And

you know, she, she showed me how to do six and seven. And she showed me that, you know, those character defects aren't something that are just going to fly off your back and you're going to be pure snow. That, you know, these are things that you have to be aware of. These are things that are going to come up in your life and that, that you're going to have to look at these things over and over. And that you might have to use that God box that you, that you made in step three and start putting some of those things in the God box. Because I was still really struggling with this whole prayer thing and the meditation and,