The topic of "How the programme helps with relationships" at DAA 1th anniversary convention in Oxford, UK

I enjoy public speaking as much as I like stubbing my toe, and I don't like that echo either. But thank you very much for asking me to share and thank you, Oxford. Putting this on, I think it's a really great opportunity for different regions of DA to meet up and share our experience.

I'm really nervous.

I'm really glad today that I know what I suffer from

and that's not always been the case.

My experience in recovery has been I cleaned up when I was 20 in 1994 and I managed to get about 13 years clean.

I worked the steps up until about step 8 and what I focused more on was building a life.

You know, getting all those trappings that come with being clean,

providing some different parent in for my son, getting educated.

And I suppose what I know today is, is that I don't use because of external circumstances, like my biggest defective character is my own alcoholic mind. And it's my own alcoholic mind that will get me started.

And there'll be a reason why I'm kind of like sharing this experience.

So yeah, that's what I focused on and,

and my thinking started to change and my internal manageability started to

become quite prevalent, quite unbearable. Carlos spoke about being dry drunk, but I didn't realise that I was dry drunk. I felt stressed. My gratitude went out the window

and I got this false sense of entitlement of what recovery should look like.

And there is also changes in my attitude and my thinking and that I started to believe that I would never use drugs again and and This is why I continue to work the steps is because of the blank spot and that peculiar mental twist. So my experience was I ended up picking up because I needed that relief from myself. I can't do life. I can't do life without spiritual program,

you know? I'm like a wasp in a jam jar, like I'm always in collision.

And so I ended up picking up painkillers

and

those two pills took me out for nine years. Like that's how I insane I am. And I think as well, you know, for me it was a really, really torturous and I and I suffered a lot. And I think when we're talking about relationships and we're talking about the steps, you know, my mum probably

got to the place where she thought her daughter would never have a problem with drugs again.

You know, my son had no experience. He was three when I cleaned up. He had no experience of me being a user addict. And I did more damage and I proved more harm and amends in that nine year period than what I ever did when I was using heroin because I had more to lose. And,

you know, I had to learn all those ideas that I thought I knew about recovery and what the solution was.

So I had to get to that place where I just didn't know. And you know, and and thankfully, by the grace of God, drugs brought me to that place where

I would rather die in the news again. And if I used I was going to die anyway. So I was in that conundrum, but I reached the place where I just didn't know where the steps would work for me. And I'm so glad I'm in a fellowship that is not drug specific because I experienced and I think we all good for it. Don't we like minimizing the denial like it's only it's only pills.

I'm not doing anything.

It's not going to hire me. But I was more sick,

more sick using those pills and I use fatally. Do you know what I mean? Like I would always be making promises and I guess, you know, for the people around me in my relationships, you know, my mum would be in the hope and the despair when I used to go, you know, because it was so obvious what I was doing.

I was in the mindset that I'm not really hurting anybody

and like I said, it took me 9 years and this sounds mad but I'm so grateful to know being in a fellowship with a sponsorship was readily available. All I needed to do was go up to the table and ask for someone to help me. And I'm only sitting here today giving someone cared enough about their own life to work their steps

to help me save my own life. Because that's what I'm up against today.

Like I'm able to see

that when I use,

I don't know when it's going to stop. I can't stop myself from starting. So I need this program in order to stay clean. And I don't do much different today than what my sponsor give me to do when I first cleaned up again. Like there isn't much difference. Do you know what I mean? The most important relationship I need to cultivate is with the power greater than myself

because for me, I know human power does not keep me clean.

And I know today lack of power is my problem. And I know that because you'd think I have to have having thirteen years clean, I would be able to have a little pep talk with myself and go, you can do today you had 13 years, but it goes like that. It was like it didn't even it didn't even happen. I can remember certain things that I've done when I was cleaning for that period of time,

but it was almost like it it never happened.

And, you know, my relationships, you know, in terms of working the steps, I mean the ripple effect of me working the steps, you know, as I had a pronounced effect, not only revolutionized my life, it's revolutionized the people who love me. Because, you know, no man is an island. And

I'm in a pretty unusual situation that I share my Home group with my son,

which is pretty mental when I think about it. And he's a lovely lad,

but it's mental because I've never thought that I would be having conversations like

he'll say to me, don't interrupt me when I'm speaking to that newcomer. And I think, all right, all right. And I'll go stop giving away the just for the day cards. They're not free, you know, and, and, and we're quite close in age. It's like 17 years between us

and we're really close and, you know, our relationship is, is just looked so different. You know, I, I cleaned up this time,

I don't know, like 4-4 odd years ago, he was still using and I've had the experience of being a mother as an addict. And that's really painful, you know, because the person that I love most is my own child. And you can't give, give anyone that one. Like you cannot give it.

And the best advice I was given was stay out of it. Don't talk about the steps of him. Just let him find his own way. And, and luckily this, this fellowship has met him where he needs to be at and it's met me where I've needed to be at. Like it can meet you wherever you are, whether you're on a script, using clean, untreated, treated.

You know, like

probably haven't got enough time to convey

like how passionate I am about the 12 step program. Like

and it and it's held me as well. Like in the last couple of weeks, like I suspected my dad I'd alcoholic dementia and and even though I suspected that,

there was still that hope that it wouldn't be that diagnosis.

And and that's a bit of pill to swallow that, you know, our loved ones

are not fortunate enough to access recovery. I mean, he had a year sober once and then he he's just spent the last 40 years spreeing,

you know, and thank God today I don't need to spree because that's what I did in those nine years was I was desperately

trying to get back

any sort of recovery and it and it just didn't happen. There wasn't that surrender within me. And today, you know, I don't have to live my life feeling, feeling remorseful and guilty. And why do I keep doing this? You know, because

that is the buffering feature of alcoholism, is the utter inability to leave it alone. And today my disease has been arrested through the 12 steps I've been asked to stop. So I'll leave it there. Thank you for listening.