The Spirtual progress rather than spiritual perfection convention in Oslo, Norway

Hello,

my name is Sigram and I'm an alcoholic.

I want to welcome the newcomer especially. It's really good to be with you and and thank you for flying me over here. I want to tell you about

the moment where I got the invitation. It's a very important moment in my life where I got the invitation to come here to speak. I was at the meeting a, a meeting in Iceland and I was sitting at the meeting and I was thinking about

I was going to move to Basil and I was thinking do I need to connect to AA in Basi? Maybe I'm OK not to be a a person in Basel. Maybe I can start the new in Basel. Maybe I'm doing OK. I don't need this AA meetings anymore. And I get a phone call from Elizabeth

and that's my higher power.

That's my higher power today. This is how he speaks to me. It's, oh, you have a, you have a job to do. You have a job to do as an, a, a person to, to talk about your experience of this program. So it's really an answer to me at that point of time. I need a, a, a, a needs me. And that's my life. That's my foundation. But regularly I get this. Do I need it

still? So my sobriety date is the 26th of December 1999.

I was

I'm I'm different from some people in a a I've never gone to therapy.

I quit on my own will so to say but I had been doing the steps in al Anon so I'm a double winner.

I had been living with alcoholic for a long time, raised in an alcoholic family and I had been battling this illness of alcoholism. I had read the book many times as a as a Al Anon read this book trying to find a solution how to make my husband or not husband but not married quit.

How can I make him quit? I was trying to find the solution and because of my step working in Al Anon, I had somewhat of a relationship to a higher power. I cannot even explain to you what it was. It's like a mist. I was drinking, I was using morphine and I was doing Alan meetings and 12 step work.

That's really,

you know, and thanks to a a members in al Anon rooms, I found my way to a a later. But this moment of

spiritual awakening, my first moment of clarity, I was completely drunk on 26th of December, I had a party. There was a lot of noise going on, a lot of fighting, lots of alcoholism

and I was pulled into the bedroom of my daughter and holding her in my arms and I'm giving her some water to drink. And in this moment of time something happened and to me it was a life altering moment

but so simple. It was just this voice within me saying you can never grow spiritually if you don't stop using. And that was it. And in in my case, it was

forever. I made this decision at that point. I will never drink again. I will never use morphine again. It was really clear at that moment.

The next day I woke up and I'm like, and I don't really, the next two years I don't really remember. And it would have been really good for me to go to therapy. It would have been so good for me to know about alcoholism. I did not. I didn't know what was wrong with me for two years. I just wanted to die, really wanted to die. And to me this is really clear. You know, I'm an alcoholic and I drink

to rest.

That's really clear to me. Two years I wasn't drinking, but I felt worse than ever, completely stripped of every longing to breathe. And I, I look at it as a bit of a it's like a field. Everyone knows what a field is. It's a big, big field.

And when I'm a child, it's a field of possibilities. Anything is possible. No dream is is too big. Anything is possible. And this field of mind, it was like the the, the soil, the ground, the earth was dusty. I took it up and it just there was no growth in that field anymore.

I was, I had taken myself into a box,

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I was stuck into this field and there was nothing. There was no air. And every day I would walk my life and he was like,

every night I would go into the shower and I'd just please, I, I, please don't let me wake up.

But I couldn't take my life, couldn't do it.

And I think yesterday in the panel I shared an experience that is really important to me. That is the first experience I feel myself not alone in this world. 5-6 years old, laying in the snow. I'm just laying there, a child. It's naive thinking, but I remember this feeling of looking at the stars and I connect.

I am one with everything and this,

this feeling of everything that's beyond good and evil,

this love of nature, this love of the big, big nature and being a part of it. And this is a feeling I, I have to carry. And when I was about 15 years old, I mean, I was a prosperous student. I was the head of every society they had in school. I was the person that was socially active. I was good at everything, everything really. I was 10, HD student.

I was soccer champion, I was a dancer, I was a guitar player. I did everything but every single thing I did, I felt alone. I always felt not in my skin, lonely, fearful. Always. So at 15, it was snowing

at a party. Someone brings Jack panels to me for the first time.

And I look at this bottle and, you know, I'm coming from an alcoholic family. I know what alcoholism is. Look at this bottle. Maybe. Yeah. And it's, you know, totally remember this

snow, like big, big, you know, piles of snow all around that had the 2nd in this bottle and I'm just just totally went for it. And this feeling of you know,

you know. And I remember the next moment I'm lying in the snow,

you know, and this is like a connection to my childhood experience. I'm lying with snow, but this time I'm falling inside. I'm not connecting. I'm disconnecting. And I'm just,

but you know, it was a break. It was a break from this mind, total break. And what happened. That's what I did. I have Diaries from that time.

I don't remember, but I have Diaries. It's a lot to to have to have Diaries to read about how you were feeling when you were struggling alcoholism at 16 years old. I was still I was already struggling. I was already riding in my I'm not going to do this tomorrow. I'm not going to do this next weekend and then next page. Oh, maybe it's OK to do it if I do it differently. I had a list. Tequila.

Don't do that, because then you go sexually crazy.

Light wine, I get headaches. Beer, I throw up. You know, have a list. So what to avoid? So it was Jack Daniels I could use. That was my drug of choice, Yeah.

Then around 16 years old, I have an operation on my back and I get to know morphine.

Morphine is totally my drug of choice. You know, what morphine does to me is this, I wake up, I don't go this sleeping situation. I wake up and I get this feeling of I can do anything. And this, this is like, don't want to talk about it anymore. Yeah, don't like talking about this. And this is like a it's like a another person, another life

and so painful

that, you know, stripped of my dreams, stripped of my field of possibilities and

these two years that I was sober without a solution.

That's my worst time, ma'am. I always have to talk about that again. That's my moments of breaking out.

That's my moment of waking up in fear, going to sleep in fear. And how does that present itself in my everyday life? Somebody is right, you know, driving behind me and they cut me.

You're cutting me. I follow the car. I stop at the next light. I rip up the door open. I said you cut me. That's me

not getting the service I want at a restaurant,

in the bank, on the phone. That's me sober, two years sober. I was in my bedroom with my second child going like this. My thought this is totally something I always want to share. My thought was how can I make her stop crying? My next thought was

throw her in the wall.

That was my situation. Two years sober. Two years sober. I was thinking about throwing my child in the wall. I wouldn't do it, but I was thinking it

and at that moment

my baby fell asleep. I went into the living room. I picked up this book once again because I thought he was the problem.

My alcoholic was the problem

and I opened the book. I just randomly opened the book and that's my higher power and I read this. I want to read it

now and then. A serious drinker being dry at the moment says I don't miss it at all. Feel better, work better, having a better time. As ex problem drinkers we smile at such selling. We know our friend is like a boy. This is where I read. I know I am like a girl whistling in the dark. To keep up my spirit,

I fool myself inwardly. I would give everything to take a half a dozen drinks and get away with them.

I will present presently try the old game again, for I'm not happy about my sobriety. I cannot picture life without alcohol. Someday I will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then I will know loneliness such as few do. I will be at the jumping off place. I am at the jumping off place. I will wish for the end

and I'm

I'm an alcoholic.

I have untreated alcoholism and I was so lucky that I lived in a, a building really first floor, there was a home with sponsorship, active sponsorship going on in and out Alanon's Alcoholics all day long. 2nd floor, there was a a a person 12 step person. Third floor next to me, there was a, a, a person. So I was like in the in the Hall of Fame

fame, you know, So it was really easy for me to just, I walked downstairs with the book and I knocked on the door and, and this friend of mine opens the door. She looks at me and says finally,

do you want me to get you a sponsor? Because I was an al Anon. I knew everything about this and my first reaction was no, I can do it.

And and she looked at me and she said I'm calling anyway. And she called my first sponsor. That's how I got my first sponsor. I would have never had

the courage to ask somebody to sponsor me. So that's my tactic today. Also, Ioffer people to sponsor them. I don't wait all the time. Sometimes I look at somebody and I go because I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the step and the next week I was working the steps and

this is the field, you know, the field of destruction. I'm standing on the field of destruction and all of a sudden I start to realize I'm completely powerless. I'm completely unmanageable. How how am I that you know? No, it's like Ruben said before he he had had everything and to control his life was OK. I mean, my life was OK on the outside. On the inside it was a field of destruction.

But I had to get to know this first step. I had to do some exercises to get to know my mind. I had to look at how

I couldn't control my thinking processes, how I couldn't control my communication with the other, how I couldn't control my everyday routine, sleeping, eating, exercising, taking care of myself.

And this thinking. You know how to control my thinking? Always judging myself, always judging the other, never on the same level. Life was horrible. Fear controlled by fear all the time, and I had to really go into this. What's the difference between

not managing my life? You know this one matter, English powerlessness. Powerlessness. What's the difference between powerlessness

and not being in control?

I had to really find out.

And that was a breakthrough moment for me, realizing that I had some chance to change a lot of things myself,

but I didn't have the power to do it. And then there was all the things I couldn't change and would never be able to change. And then it's like, oh, how, what's the next step? And it's so logical. It's in the book. And it's like, cling, I'm six years old. I'm lying in the snow. And this feeling of togetherness,

that was my higher power

reconnecting to this feeling

all this I had really good sponsor who said don't complicate higher power, please don't complicate it. And she even said fake it till you make it. Just do it. And I started to do the the third step prayer

first with her and then I did it. And sometimes I do it every day. I've done it for every day now for almost two years.

Sometimes I have periods where I don't do it,

but it's always progress. It's exercise. Then we had the 4th step

and in my 4th step it was I came from really, I had two homes.

One home was really violent. The other home was really loving and caring. So I had a split personality within myself raised in both good and bad. I had lots of issues, sexual abuse. I had lots of things that had happened in my past. Lots of things happened like that I was carrying and and this moment in the snow where I'm drinking and I can't get out. That's a little bit the heaviness of my past.

That's, you know, I can't, you know, the the moment of 6 year old I, I stand up and I'm upright and I'm trusting and I'm loving and everything is possible

at this moment of the first ring. That's the moment in my 4th step. It's too much. How can I get rid of this? How can I take the steps of being

a humble human being? With all this past? I had done so many things that were like and in my first step, I didn't share everything. There were things that I would never share. There were hurts that I would never share

and I carried it. And it wasn't until I got another sponsor that I had the courage to to say everything.

And

yeah, my biggest step was really my biggest 9th step was really I had to take the chance of losing everything to come clean. I could really lose everything. My, my, my

man worth.

It's a difficult word. Manner, Elizabeth.

Reputation somehow. But yeah, a little bit more than reputation. Like, yeah, but lose my family, lose my dignity

and I, I had to pray for it and my sponsor wasn't so sure what to what to do about it. She said, Wait, just let's see if God shows you the way. Two years later,

I met this person that I had harmed, really harmed, really, really hard

walking with my children. And it was the right moment

and I went up to them and I admitted to my fault.

Just I own this. It's it's not possible to I'm sorry. It's just not possible. I said I own it. Is there anything you want me to do to correct this? And he wanted me to do. He wanted me to make phone calls. He wanted me to talk to his father, his mother, his ex-girlfriend. At the point he there was a lot of things I had to do. And I take the step the morning after is this moment of the book where you walk

and you have a new connection to life. You've been lifted so higher.

Because you don't. I'm not laying in the snow anymore with this heavy burden, and I cannot stand up anymore. This was the moment I could stand up again,

relieved from the fear of the past.

Another thing, when I was working the steps, 6:00 and 7:00,

it's like,

you know, take away my faults. Take away my faults. And I was so sincere that the sky opens and there was a sunray right into my window. And it was like, oh, and the next morning I woke up and I'm like, I'm free. I don't have any defects of character. I'm a new person.

Three hours later,

the man on the floor beneath me, a little bit too noisy for my child sleeping in the bed. Music. Boom boom boom boom.

I walk downstairs, I knock and he opens the door and like what the fuck are you thinking? And at that moment, I'm like,

what happened? You were gonna take it away from me. And I really thought it took me 6 months to realize what it means to be humble before God. When I'm humble, I'm saying show me. Show me my defects of character. I need to learn about them. I need to see what I have to change. And then I need to make exercises.

I'm the one that has to be in the bank wanting to snap at the person because they're really rude. And at that moment I have to find something positive to say that to that person. I have to do it. And it has to has to be true. It has to be real, something positive. I'm standing in the line, somebody cuts the line in the in the supermarket and I'm like, and then do you want to go?

I step away. That's that way. I do it. I have to practice the way to change my my defects of characters

and it's one day at a time and I'm still still doing it. I had a moment of breaking the last the last official

snapping. Do you have this? Do you know what I mean when I say snapping?

So I'm in the car eight years ago, My girl's in the back.

I had spent a lot of money to give them some life presents, some soil and plants to, you know, make grow when it was a beautiful day. And they are fighting over the plants. They are fighting over what I had just given them. They are not, you know, they are not so appreciative. And, you know, this fighting starts to get a little bit noisy. And the car is my field of losing it, you know, snapping. And this moment, it's the last moment

really snaps. 8 years ago, I turned around and I at my children

8 1/2 years sobriety, I turn around and I totally lose it so that I had to pull over, get out of the car and I'm like this

like a child

and I had to go back home, go through the suffering of being the worst mother.

I'm really a bad mother. And then, you know, calling the sponsor, telling her

about the experience, she's saying, reconnect to God. What's the what, what, what has the program taught you to do? So I have to sit down with my children, apologize, I'm sorry. And I had this moment where my daughter comes and she said, oh, mom, sometimes it's OK that you do this because then I know how it is to be human. You are not perfect.

Think about that.

But you know, it really was the last time.

Now it's more of

a,

you know, doing the dishes like this,

closing the cupboards,

you know, but it's not this and it's more like a, you know, now I'm, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, girls. I'm a little bit like off track. I'm starting my period, you know, something like that. But it's exercise, total exercise. And I had to really work on this. I had to work on it. And the only way for me to work on this is to have humor so important in my work as

I recovered alcoholic this and then I start to look at it.

How can you not laugh? You know, this is like or the face, this case that sometimes and I think about the face and I'm like, Oh my God, I'll tell this, you know, but I have to have humor. I have to have humor to to be able to to live one day at a time.

The nine steps I really had to this like this was the only ninth step that I really took practically. The others I had to change. There was I had, you know, in my Alanon work, I told so many people, I'm sorry. It was just totally there was no way for people to to hear I'm sorry for from me again. So I had to really change the way I

talk to people really change.

And that's what I tried to do every day. So we're up to the 10th step. My favorite promise, favorite promise in the a book is the 10th step promise. And that's a place that's a promise that has come true in my life today. I realized it maybe nine months ago. I didn't realize it till then. So I'm going to write read this. This is so this is the place for the newcomer you were. Hopefully we'll do

steps that I've gone into, but when you're at the place where you're just about starting to take your mind steps, you're just about starting to admit to who you really were and have the hope to who you really want to become or reconnecting to who you were as a child,

then this promise comes. You're starting to live this program one day at a time. One day at a time. This thought brings us to Step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes

as we go along. And then I'll jump to.

Yes, and we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even Afghan.

This is an amazing promise. Think about it. Sitting here, I remember being like this. Two years sobriety, fighting everything, my own breath. And here's a promise

Ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol.

You don't have to fight anymore, for by this time sanity will have returned.

We will seldom be interested in liquor if we are tempted. Really important. You will be tempted,

but if we are tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically. That's my experience.

All of a sudden I'm here

totally react sanely around alcohol.

We will see that our new attitude towards liquor has give, has been given us without any thought or effort on our part.

Think about it, no effort. This has happened.

So the effort, that's no effort.

That's the steps. This is a promise. When we are two step 10, we are living step 10, we are waking up every morning. The book talks about, you know, it's step 11, prayer and meditation. I, I tell you how, how my mornings look because I'm totally not perfect. I'm so not perfect,

so you know, I could do this in Icelandic, but but because this is my morning prayer, so the third step prayer I I explained to you how I go through the third step prayer.

It's sometimes it's not like this, but most of the time it's like this struggle. So God Ioffer myself to be to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. No fucking way. Why? Why should I do something that you will, you know, then you could just take away everything I like. You could take away everything I like.

That's the first, really. It's a struggle for me in doing this prayer, being conscious about how my thought process are. This is how I think.

And then it comes.

Take away my difficulties. Yeah, take away my difficulties. Then I get in. I'm willing for the God of my understanding to take away my difficulties. I totally want that. Who doesn't want that? No difficulties, please. That victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. Of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. There are reconnect to the other.

There are no longer I am us

there. I'm pointed into the direction of

US Ness. We have a word in Icelandic that means present with that, and if you translate it to exactly, it's us

now, like being present in US, present in US. We've stopped here and now.

So this prayer, first it's like challenging me. Let go of your will. Anything can happen. I'm in your hands. And it's like, Oh no. And then it's like I take away your difficulties, OK, I'm ready to listen to that. And then it's like, OK, let's be us present. Let's be in us, not in you. Eco, eco, eco.

And then the last May I do thy will always.

So every morning I wake up with two forces in my head, the darkness and the lightness. And my challenge before was to be all likeness and getting rid of the darkness, fighting the darkness, really fighting the darkness. But now it's not that way. Now it's the balance, the in between. That's what I wish for. I want to be in between.

I want to be a person that that it's OK that sometimes I'm just

have a shitty day, you know?

But it's also really good to remember the six year old lying and

totally trusting

everything is possible. And with the 12th step,

I mean, there's a whole chapter on the 12th step. And I could tell you, you know, my first experience of, of going on my knees was because of service, because I couldn't pour coffee for people. I just couldn't do it. I was just too afraid to do it. I couldn't do like normal service. So I would clean the toilets

after meetings and I was on my knees and I I totally had a spiritual awakening on my needs. Cleaning the toilet,

totally present, totally thankful for cleaning the toilets of other Alcoholics.

Think about it. And it was so easy after that cleaning of toilets to go on my knees and just do my prayers. It's humility. I'm just totally willing to do what I have to do to be sober. I did the childcare. I did lots of lots of responsibilities within a A

I was a Mecca sponsor, 10 sponsors and I'm alone with three children, you know,

so balloting home and a a I told about it yesterday. My, my eldest daughter said, Mom, please can you be my sponsor?

So I had to really learn again about the balance. And there's also a talk about it in the book that an alcoholic is not really doing well if he's not doing this program within its own home. So I had to really go, you know, I had to reconsider my sponsoring. And now I have always won

sponsee that in is active working the steps. The other ones drift away and become friends.

My family is within a a because I did service. That's the gift of service is is friendships, family.

My children are children's friends. With my friends, it's a family,

my sponsor. I've had four sponsors and I called my sponsor once twice a week. I meet her every other week

and this is with 15 years of sobriety. I'm still doing this. I wouldn't stop doing it. I go to three meetings a week, sometimes up to 10 meetings a week. And usually that's when I'm

really want to, you know, contribute, be there for the newcomer.

Umm, yeah,

so higher power

appendix is 2.

The first thing I do with Ponzi's, the first meeting I had with sponsors,

that's how I was taught to do it and I do it. We read this Appendices to Spiritual experience, and there is a quote.

I've actually learned that it's not by Herbert Spencer. It's something totally not right, but it doesn't matter. It's a fantastic quote. So there is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance.

That principle is contact prior to investigation.

That means

jetting something before trying it.

So to the newcomer year,

try it. You know,

I think really we have nothing to lose really. And another thing I want to share, because there's a lot of probably double winners in here.

The father of my children is still out there.

We've been divorced for six years

and

he's a really low,

what you call it,

really taken by alcoholism. Really.

I have not ever.

Because of the program, because of this book, because of the chapter to families, to to wives, I've learned something. I have never talked badly about my ex to my children, ever. And what has that given us that has given my children freedom to love him as he is?

Because he's an alcoholic like me, like us,

he's not been responsible in their in their life.

You know,

I've been alone doing this, but there is no hate,

there is no grudge,

there is a friendship. And this is the most important gift the AA program has given my family

because

it's totally How can I explain this? I don't have to fight.

I can let go

and I can I can be strong enough, upright enough to carry this responsibility because he's sick.

So to the to the ones that are fighting this kind of situation, the book has answers. You know, it is a language of old times, submitted language somehow. But if we take it into New Times, it's all about love. It's about love, respect, letting go, trusting and being there, you know, and we also have no codependency in this relationship. He will come and he's maybe

high and he's sitting there.

The girls need to see him and he's high and they are strange. And they're like, why is he so strange? And I want to say, you know, your father is under the influence of drugs. That's why he's like that. Do you have any questions? Do you want to ask him about this?

It's honest relationship,

they totally know what alcoholism is about and there is no hiding. There is no height in that means there is No Fear. And he can answer them

like you can. And it's what a gift.

So now we're on the field of possibilities. Yeah,

You know,

13 years ago I was in the field of destruction. I could not breathe. I didn't want to live. I had no wishes. Today I'm standing on this field of possibilities. You know, anything is possible roots down there and I'm just

and it's like, oh, where do you want to take me next? There's this God, you know, where do you want to take me next? And sometimes I wake up and it's like I have to, but I wanted to go there and God always has a better plan. Always, always. And I mean, when I started this program, I was a home working mom. I had a business, but I didn't really like this business. And it was like,

and now I'm like, OK, when I was six years old like this, now I had a dream. I wanted to be an artist.

I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to learn things. That's happening,

so you know the program has given me the strength to do anything.

Along with three children, I graduated with my PhD from art school.

I've traveled the world. I've done my bucket list. I had the bucket list. I want to fly. I want to sail. I want to dive. I want to. Yeah, I did it all two years I took for this. Still going to three to five meetings a week.

No matter where I'm in the world, I go to strap three to five meetings a week,

talk to my sponsor, and that's how it's possible to make my dreams come true. I get a power that's greater than myself, a power that can do for me that what I cannot do myself.

And it's really not a program of confinement. That's what I thought for a long time. I will be restricted in this community of the a, a program. You know, it's like I have to go to meetings, I have to do this. But it's really, it's really freedom.

The program really supports freedom and I can do whatever I want to do.

And now it's like nothing, nothing can really stop me except for my own ego that could stop me. My fear. My fear.

Yeah. So I really think I've said enough. And thank you for inviting me.

Thank you.