The Friday night newcomers meeting in Southampton, UK

Hi everyone. My name's Michelle and I'm an addict and I'm a frightened addict. Whenever I sit up here, I look out to a room of addicts that are sitting and smiling back at me. I do like to see you smiling by the way. I get this real kind of feeling of, wow, I'm in the middle of this and this is amazing mixed with this massive amount of fear, like, oh shit, I need to say something profound

and it really gets me every time.

So that passage that that Jane just read has always been a really important passage to me. I'm sure everyone in here has got a big book and reads a big book and it's, you know, it's obviously really important. Anyone that hasn't read the stories, I'd advise you to, I'd encourage you to. There's some really great Nuggets of information of people's stories that have been before us hidden back there. It's a really great thing that often

we just miss.

When you hear my story, if it's not exactly like yours, don't worry, you know, because my story is not exactly like anyone's. And you know, if you don't relate to what I have to say, that's all right. Keep coming to these meetings. Keep listening to other people because you will find somebody that has the same story as you. I can guarantee it. Because if you end up sat in one of these seats in one of these hot rooms on a summer's night,

then trust me, you've all been to the same sort of places, you know? And if I don't share your stuff,

I'm sorry, but the solution will be the same and and the outcome of working these steps to the best of your ability will be the same as I've got. I can almost guarantee it. I've I've seen it happen so many times. So I sit up here today,

3863 days sober.

Get on that.

And I say that because I'm, I'm not boasting. Please believe me. I'm not boasting when I say that. I say that because I sit here knowing that of my own power, I cannot make 24 hours, not one day. I don't know how to travel from one side of town to another without smoking a crack pipe. That's my truth. You know, I don't know how to do it.

So with that amount of sobriety time, it amazes me. It astounds me, it excites me,

it's awesome. It just is.

I'm so scared I'm shaking.

So if you're not a mathematician like me, you know that's 10 1/2 years I've been sitting around doing this stuff, and I'm no less invigorated by it than I was in my first year. I'm still as excited about working this program, about where my life takes me, the spiritual principles that I've learned, and the joy I get as a result of working these 12 steps as I was in the beginning. You know, anyone that's new,

it's just about to start this journey or is at the beginning and justice learning it. I am almost envious of you because the journey that you're about to go through, it's so exciting. It really is a wild ride that it talks about in that passage. You know, you're going to have your UPS, you can have your downs, but it's going to be an amazing, exciting, growing, wonderful journey for you. Please believe me, you know.

So my story is that

I come from a

great home. You may be able to tell from my twang. I'm kind of a country girl, you know. I'm not an inner city girl or anything. I come from out in the sticks. There weren't many heroin and crack addicts where I come from.

Yeah, I was a bit. I was a bit of a shock to me, I got to tell you, let alone those around me. They weren't sure what to make of me or what to do with me. And I kind of, I really did tear through the lives of others, and I didn't care who they were. You know, if I didn't like you, I got to say it was easy.

Obviously it didn't matter if I hurt you then to me,

but it wasn't only people that I didn't like that hurt. You know, often the people that were closest to me got hurt the most. They were the ones that I could take advantage of easiest. They were the ones that forgive and forgot the quickest. They were the ones that would cover my ass for me life may pay the money back that I'd stolen from my granddad, make excuses when I didn't turn up at my family funerals. You know, they were the ones that when I was clucking and had no money that I could go and get them up in the middle of night and get them to

the score. And you know, all that stuff, that stuff that we do to those closest to us. You know, I, I can excel in that sort of stuff. The closer you are to me, the more I'm going to hurt you. And I need to tell you now, if you ever see me using again, which I pray to God you never do and I work really hard not to, but my advice would be don't get involved with me, especially you fellas, you know, stay away. I'm, I'm so much trouble when I'm using.

I kind of,

you know, I've always been,

I'm not a stupid girl, you know, I can look after myself. I can, I can blag my way through life. I can make you think that you like me and I'm a likable person when I'm really not. I can, I can get jobs. I can blag my way through any interview and get a job and, and work and, you know, I have ways of looking after myself.

I'm using. However, my favorite, my favorite way of looking after myself when I'm using is to get someone else to look after me. You know, I, I don't really want to sell my goods because I'd rather sell yours. I don't want to go to prison. So I'm going to make you do the I'm more of a troublemaker than a trouble participator. It turns out when I, when I look at my behaviour,

you know, and am I using takes me and I'm sure you

to some dark places, you know, although I'd rather get you a lot to do stuff for me, I do end up doing things I don't want to do. You know, often when I, when I started using,

I had all that inner discomfort when I, when I thought of it then I thought no one liked me that I struggled to fit in all the normal stuff that you hear people say when they're sat up here, you know, if only enough now. Facebook's an amazing thing being in contact with people that I did grow up with. Turns out I wasn't even what I thought I was then, let alone what I am now. You know?

I actually was all right, it turns out, and nobody has a clue why I felt the way I did. And I have no clue either,

but I I had this discomfort for no apparent reason within me. And I found that use him, whether that be drink or drugs, you know, I'll take anything is the truth of it made me feel different. You know, if I was

I often say that drink and drugs made me feel like I was tall with blonde hair and long legs and blue eyes. And as you can see, I sit here, you know, a little over 5 foot with dark hair and my legs ain't long. You know, I didn't really have this, that sort of stuff. But that's what drink and drugs gave me. It gave me a constant that I didn't know was possible. And when I moved on to kind of my favorite drug, so the crack and the heroin, truth is I didn't really care what I had or what you thought of me, you know, I

comfort wear. Yeah. Fuck you. I'm all right. I am what I am, you know, and

are used from a long time, from an early age. I have many opportunities in that time I could have bettered my life could have been someone or something, you know, I had, I had various opportunities and some great jobs, some great lives, different things. And

none of them were ever going to compete with my drink or drug use. You know, I had, I had childhood sweethearts that we were going to spend our life together. And he gave me the ultimate. I mean, we'd been together years. He I tried gay with him for the first time and I tried it because he wanted to, you know, and it was like he wanted to try. I needed to support him in it. We tried it, I liked it, He didn't.

I've been together years and at that point he gave me the ultimatum. It's me. All the drugs.

There was no competition. You know, it wasn't one of the, you know, when you come into recovery and someone tells you what you need to do to get well, you have to think, oh,

is it worth living in this misery or shall I get well? And you have to actually think about whether it's worth it, right? None of that happened when it came to my lifelong soul mate ultimatum. It's like, yeah, see, yeah, I'm off to school.

And that was kind of how it was for me. I would choose

drink and drugs over anything and everything, you know, truly there's. I can't think of a single time when I chose anything other than drink or drugs.

It took me to the dark places where I lost my morals, I lost my friends,

I lost some of my family, some of my family

through nothing that I did or deserved stuck with me, you know, and I'm very grateful for that. It still amazes me now that they did.

Life got dark. I started hitting treatment centers

within a few years and my my first treatment centre that I went to when you did your life story. So when you sat and did your first shower about how awful life was for you, they kind of they handed you a book at that point of what they thought you needed, whether it was this the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or another book from another fellowship. And and because I spoke more about cracking heroin in my share, what they gave me was this other book. And in my opinion, it was at that moment then that I didn't get

the solution, you know, so it's given this, this other book, I can't remember if I read it. I'm not sure if, you know, I was that interested at time or whatever. I don't know. What ended up happening was I chose myself a new fella because that fella was going to fix me. I was, I was missing drugs. Someone needed to fix me. And it was going to be a it's going to be a guy. Me and him walked off into the sunset

for a couple of hours and

we then found ourselves as if by magic down on the Saint Pauls frontline in Bristol scoring crack cocaine thinking how the fuck has this happened again? Because when I walked out of that door, sticking my fingers up to the treatment center, it was all going to be great. I was not going to use again. Believe me when I meant what I said, you know I wasn't leaving there planning on using. I was planning on leaving with this young

blonde lad who looked like he had a good life ahead of him who was going to look after me and we were going to get semi detached house. That is what I thought when I walked out of that treatment center.

I don't know how it happened. I truly don't know how it happened. What I know is that over a period of years, I did that another seven times, each time finding myself a new fella to look after me, Each time sticking my fingers up to that treatment center, saying I'm not using this time. You know, because I believed, I believe the lie that it was actually the drugs that were causing my problem. I thought, I've been detoxed. I no longer physically need these drugs.

I can leave here. I never use again.

I was wrong. If anyone's in this room thinking that you're wrong too, probably

when I,

when I finally stopped,

it was December 2004. I've just been through what was to be my last detox. I have my new fella with me obviously and my mum. I phoned my mum, said I'm all right mum, I've left with this guy, we're going to be OK, we're not going to use

my mum, said Michelle for fuck sake. I'm not sure she you. This is what I heard. Michelle for fuck's sake, why are you doing this again? This is like your 7th time of doing it. Why is this happening again? I'm coming to get you.

So she came and got me, dragged me out of this bed, took me home and tried to keep me safe until I had to go to my primary treatment, which was a few days ahead. I couldn't, I couldn't stay sober, obviously. So I was drinking. I'd phoned somebody up, they posted me some gear. The wait for postal gear is just horrific, isn't it? That's just the worst thing.

So I had, I had that and as it turns out, that was my last user. I went into, you know, I did, I did what I had to do and I ended up in Bournemouth.

Now, I don't know what was different at that point. It wasn't me. I was not a different person when I hit that treatment center. I was the same old scuttler that had hit every other treatment center. Now, what happened to me is that the people that were sat in that sick room at the same time as me had been there a little bit longer. I'd heard people talking about this book, had been to Cocaine Anonymous meetings,

and they were doing this. They were doing what they had heard told to them today.

Now, I really wanted them to like me is the bottom line of it, so I pretended I was interested in this too. So I sat in little groups of them and listened to them reading this shit and talking about God and talking about spiritual principles on fucking hell. They better be good after I'm putting all this effort into making them think that I'm into this so that they like me.

What happened was, even though I didn't even think I wanted this, by reading this,

by doing this as if I meant to, as if I knew what I was doing, by just pretending, this program got its claws into me and changed me. It changed my life into such a in such a way, and it improved it so much just by pretending

that it became really obvious to me. Imagine what could happen if I act

actually put some real effort into this. You know it, It was amazing.

My life through doing these 12 steps

is awesome. Today. I'm not a scattler. I gotta tell you, I put on such a good show to try and make these guys like me that I've now married one of them. We've been married eight years. We're very happy. We have, we have a child. Our life's amazing you know, so the plan worked out as well.

I have a great life. Thank you. I have 5 minutes as well.

You know, I really work this program like my life depends on it because I've learned that it does. You know, I, my life as I know it certainly

depends upon it. My happiness depends on it. You know what, what for me started almost as an experiment, you know, whether that be safe, the program, the whole recovery thing started as an experiment for me. What it's turned into is an experience and an experience that you do not want to miss.

I've been around 10 years. Like I said, I still enjoy doing this. I still meet up with women

on a monthly basis and do traditions meetings. I still sponsor women and I enjoy it. I'm still still very nervous. I'm still sponsored. I still do service and I've always done those things. I continue to work and rework these steps. I do my inventory, I do my spiritual readings. I do all that stuff, you know, I still do meetings. I still have a Home group

and it's not because

it's not because I'm frightened of using anymore.

I'm frightened of losing their amazing life and the happiness and the inner contentment that I have, you know,

because I purely enjoy doing it. You know, this is, this is a wonderful ride. I don't know how many of you are at the beginning or doubting us or even further on and, and are struggling at the moment and life's down for you now. It's not always amazing. I've had a time recently which has been awkward and you know, all I do is I think where am I mentally, physically and spiritually? What am I doing for myself to better myself in those areas today?

My work on that and it gets better from that moment.

You know,

if you're here, do everything you can to do this to the best of your ability. If it doesn't work for you, it's cool. There's a crack out down the road. I'm sure we all know where there's one. You know you are welcome at any point to go in there and try your luck again. What I can tell you is the easiest, softer option is right here. And if you're interested in doing this, look around the room. There's people recovered. Ask one of them to show you how they did it. It's as simple as that and I wish you well on your journey.

Thank you.