The topic of Step 1 at the Fellowship of the Spirit convention in Copper Mountain, CO

My name is Rob. I'm an alcoholic.

I had a problem with alcohol from a very young age. The problem being there was not enough and when there was not enough time in the day to drink,

I was

told I had a problem. I was told by the courts, my parents. My first rehab I was in I was 16 years old and a nice cushy place in Pasadena, CA

but I didn't see it for what it was. It took me 20 years to realize after many trips to institutions, jail,

you name it. I've been to been to jail multiple times, probably a dozen or so. Been in the hospital behind it.

I have

no you know the story.

Umm,

20 years later, after my first rehab at 36 years old, I decided on my own to get help and checked myself into a rehab

and I did what they said and

got myself a sponsor. And the way I went through the steps with the sponsor was kind of off the wall, which is exactly what that was.

And, and I'm here to tell you, it almost took me out and almost killed me. If I had drank again or used I would have probably have not made it back here.

The magic started for me when I met a gentleman. I had my eye on him. I probably a year before I asked for help

and and he took me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous where I found out what my problem really is. I could not stop drinking once I took the first drink. For me that was very early in the morning. I related to the stories in the book,

especially the guy with the milk and whiskey, only mine was coffee and whiskey. And I would take a shooter in with me to work and two hours later, first break, I'd be at the lick getting my first 12 pack of the day.

And that's

how my life went for a very long time.

You can imagine the unmanaged,

unmanageability, big word

that came behind that I couldn't hold a job for two years. That was my Max two years. My employers were tired of me and some of those were family.

I could not

function and interpersonal relationships,

and especially without alcohol.

I did not know who I was, what I am, and I had a hard problem relating to people you know.

The powerlessness of the first drink was in many areas of my life,

not only in drinking,

and it took me to some very dark, dark places.

And when I got into the big book,

I could relate right away

to some of the stories in there.

I had no idea what the phenomenon of craving or the mental obsession was until I sat across from another man and was spelled out to me.

The book talks about the true from the false, and that's exactly where I was for a very long time. I thought I was the life of the party. I was the guy 10 feet from the keg at all times.

Always had backup liquor, always drank before I went to a function just so I can drink more at the function. This to me wasn't alcoholism. This to me was having a good time.

I wonder how many times I could say.

So unmanageability was

for me landing in jail. I used to split rent. I used to be late. We pay half, one in my current month and another half in the next month. That would get me a $50 fine.

I had a tab at my liquor store and I was broke before I got paid.

I

don't know how I paid my power bills all the time. I would remember one time going for five months without paying it

and I've, you know, seeked out money another way to pay for things.

By going through the book, I regained some power

and that for me is God. And without God, I don't have any power whatsoever.

I've been sober for a little over six years now. March 22nd, 2007 is my sobriety date.

That does not go to say that powerless and unmanageability is not in my life today. I'm right in the thick of it.

Today I got some big news.

November 4th,

2012 Last year that I have a 20 year old daughter

and you could imagine

range of emotions that I couldn't control. Behind that

this 20 year old girl wanted to meet me.

She's been asking about me since her 15th birthday, March 20th,

2007.

It's two days before I sobered up

and I wrestle with this.

Where the powerlessness shows up as I wrestle is from God all the time. And if I don't keep God at the forefront and I don't communicate with my sponsor and I don't see you people in the rooms, God's out the window and I get into selfishness and self centeredness.

And what that looks like for me is, is I work 70 hours a week and I'll seek out work

and I will

go to the gym instead of maybe hitting a meeting looking for the new guy to help out.

My life is unmanageable behind that because I can't sort out my feelings. If I'm not talking to you, if I'm not dealing with my sponsor, if I'm not ten stepping on it every day, I'm holding all that stuff

in.

You know, if you know anyone or if you have this experience,

all of a sudden you have a daughter or a son way down the road. Please talk to me

because I'm, I'm hopeless and helpless behind this.

And by not talking to my sponsor about it being unmanageable in my own life and being powerlessness and holding on to it, not letting God in, not working steps around it,

like, you know, in a very dark, unhappy place.

And I know the way out and I can't get there.

I can,

you know, thank God that I am

here this weekend because I need this. I need this program. I need to know how to figure out how to sort this out

and I know when I'm in selfishness and self centeredness and I'm powerless and unmanageable that that's Robb will there is no God is with Elvis and they're they've they left the building.

It is good to be among family here at the Fellowship of the Spirit.

Thank you.

Right our our next panelist is Dallas J from the Solid Foundation's group in Denver, Co.

Thank you.

I, I just recently saw celebrated my 11th year in Al Anon. And as part of that celebration, I went to my Home group and I said we're going to talk about the first step because that's where I am all the time. That's that's where I am now.

I've been through the 12 steps, I've been through the 12 steps in Al Anon using a blue book that I won't talk about. And I've been through it in a a using the big book. And thank God for the Big Book

because that helped me so much to get through and to get to the base of what I was really worried and taking what was eating my lunch, what was killing me, I came.

The blessing of the Big Book was what helped me get through it. I'm here to talk about being powerless

almost.

Well, 45 years ago, a little over 45 years ago, I married a young lady as beautiful and I was very happy and I guess she wasn't

and

whatever, but

life goes on, you know? But overtime she drank more and more and more and more and I did what I could to keep up with her. And finally I realized I can't drink with this woman. I cannot do this now. It took almost 20 years to do that. So I quit drinking. One day I said I'm not going to drink anymore. I can't do this. I, I pass out. I don't do things right. I

one Christmas I went to a friend's house and came out of the friend's house

and passed out in the snow bank

and somebody came and took me home.

But she was fine. She was doing OK, you know, and I was doing OK. And there was number problems in our life,

but so I quit drinking mostly at her. You know, you got to stop drinking and look how I can do all right. No control issues with me at all. But to make it to keep going on. That was the way my life I, I lived. I wanted to control what was going on around me. I had no problems that couldn't be solved if you guys would straighten up your behavior.

I was, you know, in that situation. I was always there.

I was always there. My first sponsor. God bless him. He helped me realize that my problem wasn't me, wasn't them, it was me. Sorry, I'm going to say that again. The problem wasn't them, it was me.

It was in here and in here and it was my desire to make sure that everybody

conformed

and did the things the way they should be done because I knew the way they should do everything.

I don't really care what it was you were doing. I had an opinion about it and I would share it with you whether you wanted it or not. And that wasn't always well received.

You know, sometimes people said shut up, you'll, you know, and other things. But it's a family conference. The whole idea that I'm trying to say is that

when I came in,

I was on my knees. I was down, I was out. I had done everything I could. I stopped drinking at her. I stopped smoking at her. I stopped doing everything except getting crazier and crazier and crazier. I would get up in the morning and I would brush my teeth and I would start thinking about the people I was mad at

while brushing my teeth. And so I have some receding gums, probably because,

yeah, I'm trying to wipe them out with a toothbrush. I So that went on. I get in my car and

thank God we didn't live on a street where I had to back out into traffic because I never would have gotten out safely because damn it, I'm coming. You know,

I drive downtown in Denver and I get on Spear Blvd. And

damn, everybody was going so damn slow,

you know, and I really thought the speed limit there was 78, you know, I don't know why 78, but it seemed reasonable to me, especially at rush hour. But will not go into that either. I don't know how I didn't get killed, murdered or

create so many accidents that, you know, I couldn't. I didn't make it. I had troubles at work,

wasn't particularly good employee because my resentment, my anger came out too often.

I I became very habitual, a liar about everything that was going on in my life. I had the perfect life, I

to hear me tell it. But I'd get home and she'd be drunk.

That's not my problem. My problem was the way I responded to it. And then I'd go on and pretend the next day that everything was just fine.

Without getting into too many details,

I'm a slow learner and it 35 years into the marriage I decided I've had enough.

And part of that was that we had gone. I had taken her to the hospital, to the emergency room

one day and she got mad at them and would not stay.

And we went home and she started throwing up blood the next day and we went back to the hospital and they said you have a severely perforated ulcer. You are.

You dumped all your gastric contents into your abdomen,

your septic, and you may die.

And they didn't say that to her because she was passed out, but they said that to me.

So I went nuts. I'm an absolutely crazy. I was

bouncing off walls. I came out of talking to the doctor and I just. The only thing I can pray was that she'd make it through the night while I did that. And I've got 2 minutes, so I'll make it short.

But

the social worker said there's a, there's an A A and an Al Anon meeting on York Street just a few blocks away. Go. It was a Sunday morning and that's the first meeting I went to. And I came out of that meeting and I was going, wow, these people have had things go bad for them. We had a

intervention did not go well

and I finally said I cannot change her, I cannot change anything going on. I have to be able to live with myself

and that's where it comes down to admitting you are powerless over alcohol.

My life was unmanageable.

That didn't mean I didn't have a job. That didn't mean that I, you know, wasn't paying the bills. That didn't mean that I lived in a fairly nice house. What it did mean

was that I was, as I've said in my Home group many times, alternately homicidal and suicide.

And if I couldn't kill them, I was going to kill me. And thank God for waiting periods on guns, because I probably would have used one. But the truth is, this is where the action is. This is where my life has begun. It has begun here in Al Anon. It has become begun with the 12 steps. It's begun with that realization that I'm screwed up.

There's a word I usually use, but I that I am messed up and that I cannot, you know, I can't do it. I just can't do it. I am defeated and I am defeated now, and sometimes less defeated than others, but I still am powerless over anything other than my own effort to be in recovery.

And after 11 years, it's better than it was,

and it'll be better after 12, and I'm sure it'll be better after 20 if I make it. Thank you.

All right. And our next participant is Joni G from the Attitude Adjustment Group in Denver, Co.

Can we put this?

Hi, my name is Joanie, I'm a short alcoholic.

Going to break stuff. I got duped into speaking because he's like, oh, there's not going to be that many people here. You'll be OK.

And I was like, can I bring Jeffrey up? And he's like, I'd rather you didn't. I'll be celebrating 6 months next week.

Thank you.

So this is my first time speaking in front of so many people.

But so, you know, I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather and my mom went to Al Anon so she, you know, we so we kind of grew up in in a setting knowing a little bit about alcoholism, but not a whole lot. And the term functioning alcoholic was used a lot. And that resonated a ton with me because I, the powerlessness and unmanaged ability were two terms I thought I knew,

because I thought I had both of those under wraps because I was doing well, I looked good, had the job, things were good. I mean, terminology meant everything to me. Challenge me and words with friends, I dare you. So it was just, it was really important because I, I knew what that meant. And I, I, I think powerlessness only took effect once my health started declining.

And then it kind of became, you know, I'm not, I can't, I don't have any power over how much I can drink to maintain my drunkenness. So I don't, do

you know, AB and Z or I don't know how much I can drink, you know, after I got pancreatitis. So should I just drink wine now? So I lost that, lost the power to, to manipulate quantities and what I was drinking and how I could drink and who I could drink with. And so that was powerlessness to me and unmanageability that didn't even exist because I had a great car, I had a great job, I had a great loft. And the worst, my health declined

the more

I went to great lengths to, to look better and to get better things and material things became very important to me. And it was just all about looking good. I felt just I, I was eroding on the inside, but I needed to look good. And I did that for a very long time. So I was your functioning alcoholic. I used to, you know, I told my sponsor I would have died before my family had intervention because, you know,

I, I went to great lengths to make sure that I, I, I talked fine, I looked fine, everything was just fine.

So I got to sit down with somebody who was like, it's all in the way that you think. It's the way it's what you think about those words. Those words are not what you think they mean. So a £400 book that's 150 years old, we got to sit down with that every day and go through those words and redefine the way I thought about them and deconstruct what powerlessness meant and what unmanageability meant and what it meant to me.

And just being able to shed a completely different light on that.

You know, the way that I wasn't managing my health, you know, going, I hadn't been in detox, hadn't had a DUI, you know, hadn't had any of those tangible repercussions of alcohol. But I'd had pancreatitis and, you know, brushing my teeth was a chore because I was always throwing up and I couldn't keep food down. And I was not managing my health at all.

And powerlessness to the point where

alcohol had affected every facet of my life. It affected who I chose to be around. It affected, you know, to the, to the extent of going to the grocery store, shopping for the foods that I knew I'd be able to eat when I was hungover. Well, that, you know, I could never eat that. So I have to pick macaroni and cheese. Alright. You know, it affected every aspect of my life. If you know, if I needed to drive somewhere, then I would not go to family functions.

So it, it, I wasn't aware until

I went through the book and started reconstructing how, how those words meant to me that I was able to see. I mean, I, my life was completely unmanageable. Every facet of it. You know, I wasn't managing my business as a real estate agent. I wasn't, I did not have repeat clientele. But I mean, once the deal is done, they're like, she's freaking crazy. She was like Mia for most of it. We almost didn't close. Like the deal closed for me. Check was in the bank. We're good to go,

you know, but I didn't have that. Nobody wanted to work with me and my family did not want to have anything to do with me. I was not managing those relationships with people. My nieces were growing up and didn't have a clue, you know, I mean, if, if I couldn't drink, if, if it got to the point where people knew that I was going to be drunk by the time I got there, then I just wouldn't show up. So, you know, towards the end, I just wasn't, I, I didn't even see my family

and I, I surrounded myself around people that drink like I did. And

when I, for I don't know what brought me to the point that I, I mean, my health was just as a point where I physically couldn't drink. I mean, I couldn't drink. I could not drink. If I drank, I was sick. If I didn't drink, I was sick. I give up. Like, I don't know what to do. So I'd reach that point. And one of my really, really good friends, he had a lot of health issues. I mean, we were pretty, pretty much tit for tat. I mean, we, we had very much the same type of alcoholic story, same types of consequences on the inside,

you know, going to great lengths to keep the facade looking good. And I was ready. For whatever reason, I have no idea,

but I was ready. And I called up my aunt who was an active alcoholic who thinks she's cured from alcoholism.

And I said, I, I don't know what to do. I'm, I'm just, I'm stuck. Can I go over to your house? And I just need to sleep for a couple days and I need to go to a meeting. And so I went to a, a that that one night and my friend came with me the next day and he was like, yeah, I love this, this is great. We're going to do it. And he never came back.

And so, you know, I met a wonderful sponsor who, you know, getting sober I feel was pretty easy because I, I feel like I physically could not put alcohol in my body anymore. That wasn't the solution for anything anymore. And so now I had to learn to live sober. And that was, that was the hardest part because like I was telling you, it was deconstructing everything I knew,

everything I knew about why I drank or what the alcohol really does to me.

Umm, and that's, and that's what's so amazing about having a sponsor.

She gets to iron this stuff out for me. Just, you know, very, very simple things that come up about, you know, just, I'm used to, to dodging things. And that was a huge part of my alcoholic past is it's just not dealing with it, not dealing with it. They called me the big party planner, 'cause I would create these elaborate parties with my family and then I was too drunk to go. I was like, no, we're there. And so it, it became

so, so you know, it, it, it's amazing to me that now I have somebody that can just help me kind of figure out the sobriety stuff, you know, just dealing with being a self-employed person and I have a lot of time on my hands and figuring out that I need to get that still slots filled. We need to, we need to get this going and not be hanging out at home. I have an office now and working towards accountability for that

and I get to learn new words like frothy and that's 46 points

by the way.

So just being open is basically what it is being open to. So to work in, to work in that through and not thinking, you know all the answers. Thanks,

all right. And our next participant is Carla L from the Healing Hearts group in Ragley, LA.

Anybody in here have been nervous?

Who

I just celebrated two years in Al Anon. I'm so grateful, so very grateful.

I guess all my problems are not of controlledness and unmanageability. Started on many many many years ago and I was married to

a drinking husband

in things just progressively got worse year after year after year. And what was bad was I liked him better drinking than I did when he wasn't.

And

by any way, so that's a whole nother subject. But anyway, it it just after 98 and 98 I got divorced, found myself alone

and I think I have a little bit of a control issue too. So I said OK, I'll just get another relationship. So I jumped on in there and got me another relationship.

When it got a little too comfortable, I was out. I get me another one.

I was out, got me another one and I was out again. And somebody asked me said, Carla, why don't you stay in a relationship more than. And when they said that, I realized every relationship got to a certain point where there was months or years or a situation or whatever. And then

I had to get out. It was getting, you know, I, I couldn't handle it. It was too scary. And,

you know, I couldn't, I couldn't think about getting into that kind of situation again. And

so through the years it got easier

to just stay alone

and. And in 2003, I

I got a phone call from my brother and he says I'd like you to come up to Colorado

for a day and conference. I'm chairing

everyone. Hey, it sounds fantastic. I'll be there. I had no idea what I was walking into.

Amir, Amir Every year I I kept coming back and I kept asking questions. I kept talking to people. I go home and I would think about

things people shared

in that state. No, I'm not Alan Owen. I don't need to be an Al Anon.

And then the next year, I'd come back and I'd cry and he'd cry all weekend.

And I go home with my kids and say, mom, and you're such a big baby,

can you help it?

So

about three years ago, my kids, they're grown, decided we're going to give Mama the push shove she needs.

So behind my back,

they put me a profile on eHarmony.

They picked out Mama's prettiest picture and everything, and my daughter decided, oh, nobody knows Mama better than me, I can do her profile. So she did,

and a week later they all come over to my house and they said, Mama, we got us.

They said we put you in New Harmony and there's twelve men want to talk to you.

I totally, totally came unhinged on my children.

I told them off. I told them I was going to be. They didn't have no rights. And

I sat at my table for an hour and a half and just cried.

And that was that was the defining point. That was a moment anew. Everything about my life was unmanageable

and I was like, OK, I need help,

you know? And I told her kids, I said I appreciate that y'all want to help me, but that's not my answer.

Another man in my life is not the answer, you know,

And, but I, I, I went from that moment on and I came back again to this conference and I asked some serious, serious questions with some serious people.

And some wonderful people were there for me and they gave me some names and they gave me a phone number to go home and call.

And that was two years ago

in no looking back. I'm not 100%, but I don't expect to be, you know. But I am progressing. I have days now that I can actually say could there possibly be a man in my life without me crying about it?

And

I am so very grateful for this opportunity.

Wow,

if anybody would have ever told me

they come in 10 years ago

would bring me a new spot today.

I love everyone of y'all. I don't know y'all but I love y'all

and I'm so grateful y'all are here. Thank you.

I'd like to say thank you to each of our panelists, and for those that are unfamiliar, there's a microphone out there. If anyone from the audience cares to share a brief experience with the First Step, feel free to step up to the microphone.

We still have 20 minutes so

get thrown in the river. My name is Mickey. I'm an alcoholic.

I want to thank you very much

for your shares. And the reason I jumped up here is because I would sit in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when I first got sober. And I had a loaded automatic pistol in my top drawer at home. And I thought, you know, if

and I understand alcohol will kill me. But when I put the plug in the jug, I was dying. And I didn't understand what was wrong with me. And I thought, damn, what Anonymous do I go to

to get help? I'm dying. And I got a loaded gun in my drawer and I had it in there for the first three years I was sober. And finally I grabbed my sponsor and I said, George, can you tell me something? Do I think the things I think and do the things I do because I'm alcoholic? And he said yes. And I said, can I recover from the way I live? And he said yes.

And I'll tell you, it was like somebody struck chains off me. I was 30 years old.

I've been drinking since I was four years old. I got sober at 27. I thought, damn, this life is going to be such a burden because I got to plug in the jug and I am as dry as the Sahara Desert. Thank you God, I'm not taking a thing away from that. That stuff will kill me. But I couldn't get well

and I found out that if if I was to share with you what I truly believe to be a very good description of the disease of alcoholism, the disease of alcoholism. Just look at the bedevilments on page 52 and it doesn't say some of us have this. It says if you got this, you're going to take the ride. And we all have it now. To get well from that

is worth the price of admission. And I love you. Thank you so much for letting me share.

Hi, my name is Corey Long. We're very grateful member of Al Anon. I got here on my two-month wedding anniversary. I'd waited almost 36 years to meet. And Mary, the perfect man. He was a raging alcoholic when I did it, but there was nothing wrong with me. Alanon's a really hard place to get to when there's nothing wrong with you. It's really hard to stay when they say if you do, you're going to change.

For the first six months in the program, I did not think I had a problem.

My husbands first sponsor gave him a little sticker that he put on the bathroom mirror that said you were looking at the problem. And every morning and every night I thought, God, that is so good for Kent and it and it took about six months for it to for me to go. I went, I went to meetings every single day because that's what they told my husband to do in a A and

he came back after four days in treatment and said I've got to go to if they send an A A me and said I gotta go to an AAA meeting every day for the first year. And I thought, what am I going to do? I've been married two months. And he said, well, you should do an Allen on what I do in a A and that began the process of my husband sponsoring me and Al Anon. And if you're thinking about doing it, I would not recommend it highly. But what it did was it got me down on meetings. I went to an Al Anon meeting every day for almost a year. I think we missed maybe six meetings that first year. And even though there was nothing wrong with,

I was hearing about the disease of alcoholism, I was hearing about the family disease of alcoholism. We were going to an open a a speaker meeting every Saturday night for date night and I was hearing people talk about the disease of alcoholism. And I couldn't hear anything from him because he lied to me so badly about him.

I could hear it from everybody else. And I didn't know when I got here, I was going to be rocketed into this 4th dimension they talk about. I didn't know that there was anything wrong with me. And when I started cluing in that there was something wrong with me. I'm so grateful there was a program that allowed me to recover.

From the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that I found myself in and I don't even drink. And when I was willing to admit that my life was unmanageable, I could start looking at the powerlessness, but I couldn't look at the powerlessness as long as I tried to manage stuff. And as I took about a probably nine months for me to get a sponsor, and when I got that sponsor and I started working those steps and she was able to point to me that the unmanageability was not the fact that I had a job. I

had a house, that I had insurance, that we had a car, that I'd gotten Kent a job. That was not the unmanageability. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You picked up on that. I got him the job. I managed really well. I just managed everything outside of myself and did not manage anything inside of myself. And she got me to be able to look at. I was going to bed at 5:45 every night with a migraine headache. What I told you, it was my job. It's the family disease of alcoholism.

I couldn't face anybody in my family. I somebody on the panel. I looked really good on the outside,

but you didn't want to come anywhere close to the inside. That was the unmanageability. I could not, I could not manage how are we feeling or what I was doing. And thank God she took me to the second-half of the first step so I could then look at the powerlessness in the first, in the first step. So I'm really, really grateful to be here. We came up from Alabama, so the South is well represented.

This is our family. This, this is our fellowship. This is the fellowship we crave and we're grateful to be here. Thanks very much for letting me share.

No more first step experiences. All these people. No first steps,

especially.

My name is Art and I'm an alcoholic.

My psychiatrist sent me to A and I had seven years of nominal sobriety. Nominal. I had about 2 ounces of wine over that seven years, about 3 drops at a time.

A long story, but seven years and and I'm having trouble figuring out this first step stuff because I quit drinking. I was taking credit for it and I couldn't understand just what what is this powerlessness stuff.

And I really needed,

I needed to look back at exactly what had happened to me. The fact is that it's seven years. I had alienated my family. When I walked into a room, my oldest son would get up and walk out immediately. My family had found out it was easier to live without me around when I got a job 100 miles away and told me that

I should have been able to see these signs, right? But but I've got, I've got a plan and I got things under control. So I come into a A and, and this wonderful thing happened to me right before I came into, right before I talked to my, my psychiatrist, my, my second son had his first communion and we have this book of family prayers. And it suggests that here's this prayer, put out a, put out a piece of bread and some wine, say this prayer and you're good, right? So we do that

and prayers done and nobody wants the wine.

Now a normal person could pour that back in a bottle or pour it down the sink, but I don't know, I'm an alcoholic and I don't know that that you can do that stuff. So I figured we're having a meal. I can have that. It's only 1/2 an ounce of wine. And, and I'm, I'm not halfway through that 1/4 ounce of wine for a guy my size. And I start to get that euphoria. 7 years without a drink and, and euphoria starts to come. And the next thought is how can I get rid of the in-laws so I can start drinking?

Keep drinking.

The next thing that happened was I got this horrible thirst, like worse than I'd ever had before, and I had to get up and go to the sink and have about a quart of water to put that thirst down.

And what happened next was that I got I got nauseated. My body couldn't tolerate alcohol anymore.

Without that lesson, I wouldn't have understood. It still took some other things. We're sitting in a club. My sponsor is reading that part in the book where it says, try control drinking, right? And I'm still a little, little uncertain. Am I really? Do I belong here or not? And he finally says, and we don't recommend this for everybody, but it worked great for me. You look out the window and there's this Bar and Grill. And he says, let's go over to the Starlight. I'll buy the first picture

and deep down,

and I still feel this today

after 10 years, deep down I had this fear

because I knew that wasn't a good idea

and I knew right where it would take me.

Seven years separated from a drink. And I don't want to do that. I just know it's not a good idea. And that that that cemented it. The rest of the book really put that foundation under me so I could go through with the rest of this stuff and not come up with another plan, which is the way I deal with unmanageability. I got a plan, man. And I'm great at at at substitute plans when my first one fails. Got a million of them. Thanks.

I

my name is Jill. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody.

So

I recently reread for the millionth time Bill WS essay on emotional sobriety

and

you know when I got here, I I came so willingly.

I just came and I stayed

and I understood

somewhat that I couldn't,

couldn't drink

and why. However,

I got sober, and I'm only telling you this because it's got to be part of what I'm going to talk about next. I got sober in 1988.

In 2005, I woke up one morning and I was playing spades on the computer and I thought, why am I doing this?

I think I want to drink and I think I want to die.

And when I started taking a look at that, you know, what had happened for me was,

umm, I really didn't know that I was powerless in my life, was unmanageable. I had been given 17 years of grace and it was up

and I hadn't really done any work. I wasn't

really helping anybody because I didn't have anything anybody wanted.

And so

I don't know why God kept me sober, you know, that day. But I had to get busy. I had to get busy

and I did. People, particular people, were put in my life to show me what happens between the blank page that says I know nothing and page 164.

And so, you know, for me, I really feel like my first step happened then.

I mean, I hadn't, I had been protected for a long time. I hadn't didn't have a liquid problem,

I thought, until that day came when I woke up and I hadn't done anything

except, you know, gotomeetings fellowship. Have fun.

Me, Me, me, me, me.

And I had to get to work.

And so, you know, for me, the unmanageability and the powerlessness, that first step, it's like I got to keep it green every day.

And I have to know that, you know, maybe I need to count to 5 before I open my mouth. Maybe I need to like walk through a doorway and say that will not mine be done? Because without these little reminders, I I get running off and I forget how powerless I am over booze and things get really unmanageable.

I'm grateful to be here and grateful to be sober.