The Brentwood Beginners Workshop in Los Angeles, CA

Now, let's welcome tonight's speaker, Kathleen W

Hi, My name is Kathleen and I'm an alcoholic.

I want to first of all, thank Danny for asking me to speak because I feel like it's a big honor to speak and a, and I'll tell you why, because when I first got here, I frankly wanted nothing to do with staying here for a very long time. I wanted to get the heat off. I wanted to not get dumped by my

actress, by my agents. They were gonna drop me and I wanted to get the I had a DUI and I didn't do what they had required regarding picking up the trash and going to the alcohol class. And it just felt like everything just kept mounting on me. Anyway, here I am new covers to almost I'll be 20-3 in December 16th on December 16th. And I find that incredible because

I'm not like a Joyner person. I'm not. I've never been,

nor did I ever plan on staying here when I first got here, I just wanted that freaking court card signed to get the heat off. So anyway, let me just tell you about what happened to me.

I'm born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA and I come from surf culture and my family. I'm the youngest of five. They're all beach people. They're. And I came out freckled and I was a drama dork. And

my family, they talk like this and they're just very casual. And it's just everything's cool. And

my sister used to tell me, God, Kathy, you think too much. Oh my God, just chill out.

And that's the truth. I do, I think too much. That's part of it, you know? And I'm not saying that turned me into an alcoholic. I'm just saying that was something that that's just true for me. Now

23, I'm going to skip a little bit, but 23 years later, I had a bunch of sponses and I worked this program on a daily basis so that I can have a daily reprieve from alcoholism because, you know, my mom died from alcohol

being an alcoholic. And, and I feel so incredibly grateful today for my sobriety.

That's really why I do it. Otherwise, I'm actually afraid to drink like the life that I have today.

My I got this nice husband, I got these three kids and I feel like if I took a drink, it would just be gone. I really, that's, that's something for me now what I do in the morning, I roll out of bed, I hit my knees and I pray and I do like the third step prayer. I kind of do a mix between the third step and the 7th step, but basically I have to screw my head on straight in the morning

or I am

cruel to I yell to my at my children. I gotta have my coffee. I gotta screw my head on straight. So

I pray and I pray hard so bring God into the mix. Anyway, then I, I go, I get my coffee, I go to my computer and I read a, a stuff so that I pull a little bit out of it and I, I, I e-mail it to my sponses. So to so I think it was the other day I was reading and I came across this and I thought, man, that I relate so much to that. I want to, so I'm going to read it to you guys.

This is Bill Nelson. This is from the language of the heart and he said

as a child I had some pretty heaven heavy emotional shocks. There was a deep family disturbance. I was physically awkward and the like. Of course other kids have such emotional handicaps and emerge emerge unscathed, but I didn't. Eventually I was oversensitive and therefore over scared.

Anyhow, I developed a positive phobia that I wasn't like other youngsters and never could be. At first this threw me into depression and thence into the isolation of retreat. But these child miseries, all of them generated by fear, became so unbearable that I turned highly aggressive, thinking I never could belong and vowing I'd never settle for any second rate status.

I felt simply I had to dominate in everything I chose, everything I chose to do work or play. As this attractive formula for the good life began to succeed according to my then specifications of success, I became deliriously happy. But when an undertaking occasionally did fail, I was filled with a resentment and depression that could be cured only by the next triumph.

Very early, therefore, I came to value everything in terms of victory

or defeat, all or nothing. The only satisfaction I knew was to win. All right, so I'm going to open my little talk here with that because boy do I relate to that. And the thing that I found as a kid was I, I like to sing and act right? So

that is what I filled my confidence bucket with, like singing and acting. Yay for you

and whenever anything threatened that I felt like dying.

And when I discovered alcohol,

I didn't feel like dying so much. I forgot. I forgot that that was the rule that I played. Those were the rules that I played with. And I, I guess I was like, I just kind of started out this, you know, I'm the youngest of five kids and my brother was a big pot dealer and surfers and partying. My my childhood kind of looked like the opening scene of Jaws without the shark.

And we just hung out on the beach and it was very mellow, but we got wasted. And so I learned

to arm myself with a cigarette and a drink in, in junior high school. And that's how I learned to shut that voice down that when I wasn't winning, just to get that cigarette and that cocktail. So as I grew up, I, I both, I pursued the drinking and I pursued the acting,

uh, like my life depended upon which it did. And it seemed to me in high school anyway that, that I was able to kind of coordinate the two. And I would do the play and then I would go party and be terribly ashamed of myself because I got blackouts. I believe that if I were not a blackout alcoholic, I wouldn't be standing before you. Blackouts scare the crap out of me because I also wasn't a quiet blackout.

The guy who passed out in their house as a giant loudmouth? I say with Christmas tree lights on my head. I apparently hit people. I had no morals whatsoever. Nobody was safe. They used to call me Killjoy in Nashville,

so I was probably delightful to party with anyway.

So that's that's what happened to me and eventually I crashed my car in California and decided California was the problem. I packed up my Jeep Grand Wagoneer and I drove to Austin, TX, thinking that that was where the real people were. And people in California just don't understand me, man. Nobody's real. They're all fake. That was one of my my big party lines.

Only the land in Austin, TX and find that I was again surrounded by losers. That's what I would say I'm it's not me. I'm I'm just a loser magnet. That's what I tell people

and eventually I crashed and burned in Austin. Decided Austin was the problem, and by crashed, crashing and burning it just mean I start out with a bunch of friends and I burn each and everyone until they all go away.

That's just how I rolled. And then it was Austin that was a problem. I'm going to go to Nashville. So I go to Nashville

and in Nashville was where I met my professionals. I say

I met, let's see, I, I met, I hung out with a group of people that would wake up in the morning, we'd go to the bar and we'd start drinking and we'd drink all day and into the night. Then we pursue what I call for me, cocaine, the antidote to blackouts. I, I decided, you know, trying to figure it out and it just makes me drink more and not act like such an idiot,

you know, And that was, I'm sure again, that was where they originated the name Killjoy for my, my nickname.

And I, I started to, to eventually go through my old pattern, which is I have a bunch of friends. And then I slowly alienate each and everyone until finally I had this tiny little crew left. And I wake up one morning in Nashville, probably around the crack of one in the afternoon.

And I come into the living room, there's a bunch of guys sitting there and I see a dude, he's got a big Gold Cup and a bottle of vodka. And he's pouring the vodka into the big gulp cup, long stringy hair, tattooed sleeves. And and I look at him, I'm like,

what a loser. You're drinking vodka out of a big Gold Cup at 1:00 in the afternoon. So gross. You know, I'm like barely from the whole night before. And he looked at me. He's got a stringy hair and he like, poofs it out, you know, And he's like, man, least I ain't doing heroin. And I look back at him and I'm like,

he's perfect for me. I love him. I love this dude.

So I love a good bad boy. Like a lot of us grew up Alex and

so I marry this guy.

I married him. I sent out marriage announcements. Good news, bad news. Bad news is I'm not single anymore. Good news, I'm married, you know, and I was wearing like a red suede mini dress, miners all different colors and,

and I was, I was fully like, it was working for me. I thought in my mind until like I, I got an acting job. I come back, dude is completely strung out. He's pawned everything I owned.

Wow, this wasn't my best decision. And I whisk him away to Cumberland Heights, you know, to, to I got to get him sober and, and then he busts out in like 2 weeks and I feel like I'm in a movie of the week, like we're going to bake this thing.

We had to have been quite a sight. So I don't want any normal alcoholic would do I decide that Nashville was a problem and I need to bring him back to LA where there is no heroin. And

within a week, probably, I don't know, like maybe two weeks, we hadn't been here for very long. And I'm doing my makeup in the bathroom and I hear like a like a thump in the living room. And I come out, he's rolled up into the bookcase. So I get that feeling that we get if you're ever around this type of thing. And I, I, I question my instincts. I'm thinking maybe he's just playing with the cat behind the books. And

then I like roll over his shoulder

like a full on seizure and foam at the mouth. I called 911 and whoever that operator was did mouth to mouth. And I watched the life come back in his face like this. And then the cops come and he gets up and he's like, man, what did you do, you know? And I'm like, Oh my God,

cops come, we take him to the hospital, Cedar Sinai. I tell them he's epileptic and

we get epilepsy medicine and we come back to our little house on Dick St. and the limousine pulls up and and it's time for me to go do a movie in New Jersey. So I get in the limousine. I decided I'm never, I'm not going to drink anymore. I'm going to be one of the sparkly eyed freak sober people I saw at some of those court card meetings. And

the driver rolls down the window. He's like, you know, there's beer back there.

And I'd say to myself, you know what, I'm just, I'm just going to have one. I'm just going to have one in here.

I drink the beer. I had this like obsessive compulsive drinking thing where in a six pack was difficult and I guess they're not in a six pack. They were lined up in them. I I don't know, I lost count on my beers and the limo. I get on the airplane lost count on my Jack and sodas and I have swizzle sticks down my my Jean jacket. I get to New Jersey, I guess, you know, meet actress me hit mark, you know that just kind of wheel you around back in the good thing there was no like, well, who cares anyway,

So she got like those. This isn't it doesn't.

So I have they take me to the hotel. I I guess, who knows, I guess there was a meeting in the bar and that's I'm in a blackout at this point. Anyway, I blow it and they fire me from this movie. They say I was a loose cannon the next day and I got my three months of clothes walking through the hotel and I'm done. I can't I can't do it anymore. I can't. I don't want to be like my mom, who, you know, my whole family, when I called them and said

the movie, I don't know why they said just just don't drive. You can drink as much as you want, just don't drive. That's your problem.

But you know what? My mom,

she, she died, she was 68 when she died. And, you know, when I was going through her stuff, I found all of these newspaper clippings about how she used to play the saxophone, about how she was like nominated for Cherry Queen in Beaumont. She's from Beaumont by Redlands, and

I learned a lot about my mother after she had died.

I didn't know she won awards for saxophone, that she was in all these jazz bands. I didn't know this right, But it was alcohol. Alcohol killed it. I know my mom as the woman who makes dinner and passes out at, you know, in her in her dinner plate. That's that's the lady I know. I didn't know what said I never saxophone player. I didn't know that.

Anyway, it's these kinds of things that I said to myself, like,

wow, alcohol, just it, it stole the light from her. She was like the girl, like she we'd lift our feet up when she'd vacuum. You know, it's because she disliked her. She was so hungover in the next day, you know, she made perfect breakfasts and vacuum and, you know, and and I grew up to say, man, I'm never going to be like you.

And there I was, you know, fired from this movie sitting in my house on Dick St. My junkie husband, he's got underwear on his head with his hair out the legs, you know, he's smoking out of a hollowed out pen.

And I'm sitting there and I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to go out like my mom.

I'm going to, I'm just going to do the a, a thing for a year. I'm just going to do it for a year. I'll do the stupid steps for a year. That's it. And then I go drink. So I call central office and I call central office. Nobody forced me and no intervention. I call central office. They said go down to the log cabin. I go down to the log cabin. They said talk about the last five days. I remember

and I raised my hand and I said, I'm Kathleen and somebody's like,

who are you? I'm Kathleen, who are you? I'm an alcoholic and I remember when they say like I'm an alcoholic, tears just cry because to me being an alcoholic meant that I that I was a loser, that I was like my mom. I was like my brother, big coke addict. I was like my sister. She was a big drunk that made an ass of herself all the time. We called her Kitty due to caucus or

and I just I didn't want to be that.

And

so I just cry. I couldn't believe I felt like the party was over. So if you're new and you walk in here and you're feeling like the party is over, I relate. That's what I felt like. But I also knew that these sparkly eyed freaks knew how not to drink. And I didn't know anybody who knew how not to drink. So I decided to just do what they said. And, and I saw another person I worked with, really nice girl. And she's like, I tell her, you know, I was like, listen, I got to warn you,

I will do the 12 steps and I will stay here for a year. But I'm not gonna go to Italy and not have a glass of wine. I'm not gonna go to island and not drink beer. And so I have every intention of drinking and you're not doing a little blow now and then. I want to do that. Never had a hot buttered rum, you know, and it and I was telling all this and she said

and I she said that is great. Just do the 12 steps. Just do them

do what I I say. I was like, all right then. So I start, I start, I start. She has like 90 meetings and 90 days, call them people in a A every day.

Great, I can do that. So I'm going to 90 meetings in 90 days and I see our friend Jessica.

And now I got a trudging buddy. She's a friend of mine and she's funny, funny. Now she and I are going, she's doing the same thing. She So we're going to 90 meetings and we're starting to find Now here's the thing. When I got here, I thought it was like brainwashing, right? I was the guy. Oh, he's just brainwashing. But if the if you go to 90 meetings in 90 days, what you're going to find is you're going to find the meetings that you like. It's not brainwashing. It's kind of just like common sense.

It's like we go to a meeting. We don't like that. So the next week we didn't go to that meeting. We went to another meeting. Anyway, what, what I ended up, what I ended up doing was like created 7 meetings a week

with people I enjoy, with people I relate to.

All right. So now I've now I've got these nice meetings and I'm raising my hand as a newcomer getting chips kind of like the applause that'll admit that never hurt this, you know, narcissists like it and I'm enjoying it. And then I start, I discovered like the Tuesday night whatever meeting, and now I see cute boys. And now something's awakening in me.

Like, Oh my God,

I'm alive. I like boys. What is that on my couch at home? You know, those homeboy was not sober. And

so then I start going to double winners meetings and start figuring out what I'm going to do with my junky husband.

And, and then I get

like the third step and I got my, my sponsors, like you do this third step prayer for two weeks every morning, every night. And then we're going to get together. So I do this third step prayer. It is meaningless to me. At the time. It was like, whatever this archaic language, I thou die, whatever, love, love, power, God, you know, but I did it. And that's what I, that's what I asked of my sponsors. Just do it. Just like, who cares? Just do it because for whatever reason,

I'm telling you, I still sober and I never could stay sober more than about 3 days and then I'd be drunk. Like I'd start January 1st then by January 3rd I feel sweaty, crappy. So I'm drunk till February. You know, like I never could quit anything. I was just saying like I have never done anything for 23 years, not marriage, nothing. You know, I've never

and sobriety is something that I, I,

I just this whole mentality of Skype. Bill Wilson, he writes for people like us. If you told me I'd never drink again, I'd drink. If you told me I don't have to drink today.

I I didn't drink today. I didn't drink today,

so I'm doing these steps. I get down on my knees at my sponsor's house. She holds my hand. It feels so embarrassing and awkward, and

I say to her, Ioffer myself to thee to build with me, to do with me as thou wilt, and when I get to relieve me of the bondage of self. This is just my story. I realized

self, the bondage of self. I realized the gravity of what I was saying. I,

I had been so bound up with self loathing my whole life. Like I, I don't when I was looking through all those pictures at my dead mother's house, little my baby pictures, I had exed out my face on, on all of them with a sharpie because I thought I was ugly. I thought I was unlovable and that I was ugly. And I, you know, on the few pictures that I've managed to see, I wasn't ugly. I was just a little kid.

I wasn't ugly,

I wasn't unbelievable,

and it wasn't until I came to a A that I found out these things about myself

relieve me of the bondage of self.

And I meant it

weeping. And she's like, wow, that really got to you. And I felt like that was for me bit of a a bit of a spiritual awakening for me.

Then she taught me how to do the 4th step.

I had always been a life happens to person. My friend said that when I was drinking, she used to ask me, Hey Kath, how do you how you doing? And then wince, 'cause I'd like fire off like and then and then I don't know that, you know,

but we do this four step and we discover causes and conditions.

Or as we say in Studio City, we discover my part,

right? My part. What did I? If I'm pointing at you, three fingers back at me, I know if you're new, she's like, Oh my bloody blood. Three fingers back at me. I totally get that. But when you start doing this inventory, which seemed like crazy at the time, but I just muscled through it, my sponsor kept saying it doesn't have to be perfect, Just do it 'cause we do this stuff all the time

and it's going to be your first. You're not going to do 1 four step and be like, I

get it because it's not part of a daily reprieve. Daily reprieve means we work these steps every single day, every day. Why? Because it increases the odds that I'm not going to drink today. And I still know excellent people that seemingly work great programs and I'm stunned when they relapse. Like it still happens.

It's not a natural state for me to be sober. I have to treat my alcoholism.

I grew up watching people. The minute they felt the feeling, I felt nervous, drunk. That's what I grew up. That's what I know. That's what I know. Take a pill. And now the minute I get uncomfortable, I'm like, Jesus, I got to go to a meeting. Shoot, I I like, you know what happens to me. I had this experience recently. I got in a fight with my friend. I have a complicated friend and I got in a fight with her. I'm so mad. I felt like I nailed her.

And then I'm lying in bed and it's one of them. I can't sleep. I can't sleep flat, the covers off. I go bad over to my stuff. I start doing my inventory and I get around to drink my chamomile tea.

Get to my part,

because the truth is, if I accept people for who they are, I know people. I know my friends. If I remember who they are and I accept them for who they are, then my like thinking, my diatribe, my yelling at them with the pointed finger for 5 minutes, one minute.

Never have I yelled even at anyone with a pointed finger, no matter how well I construct my

my peace. Did they say to me in response What? You got a point?

Got a point there, sister. Anyway, I worked these steps. I worked them. And when I don't work them because everything is an ebb and flow, I start yelling at my kids. I start feeling like Hollywood is unfair, which like, when is the fair? I start thinking that it's over for me. Like I the way my mind works when I don't work. This program is excruciating.

All I got to do is wake up in the morning, pray, make, reach out to my sponsees, go to a meeting, and when a resentment crops up, do my inventory at the end of the day, Thank God for another good one. Another graceful day, stacking it up, and the next thing I know, I got this marriage to not the junkie he ended up. He lived happily ever after. It's a good story. He's sober. Yay Craig, but

my I got a nice Jewish boy husband. I got 18, A 14 and a nine year old kid,

all healthy, awful of love, all drive me nuts, but that good kind of nuts, you know? And I got an actual house with a picket fence and I got a net so that when life doesn't work out my way, I go right back to what I know, which is just the training that I've learned in here in a a. So if you're new, I just close with this. You have a shot at having like,

people not ashamed of you, not disappointed in you, happy to hang out with you.

These are things that are that we take for granted in a a that is such a gift. And I know if you're new, you know, like, man, I don't know if I'll ever get that.

I'm telling you, I would not keep coming back to these meetings for 23 years if I didn't feel like I got this cool life. Thank you.

All right. So I guess is there some I read or no, I guess we ask questions.

OK, So if anybody's got their. Yeah, right there. Perfect.

Hi,

She's asking me how I ended up putting together time after like, you know, trying to stay sober for a day, then get in two days and then it's getting a day again and then three days. And then, you know,

well, it took a while.

My answer is it took a while for me to accept that alcohol was a problem because I kept getting

record deals and I got Mike like acting jobs, like just that. That's part of my story. And I feel like that was part of the thing that kept me drinking because I remember, you know, early on I had a boyfriend kidnapped me when I was 18. What can you even kidnap me? But he took me to an A a meeting instead of taking me out to dinner.

But don't recommend because I was pissed.

And so it took me a while because I felt like I don't have a problem. You have a problem. I don't have a problem. I, I drink, I get drunk. So what, you know, it's like me on a roller coaster. I get on and I have this great time and then I get off the roller coaster. You, you stay on the roller coaster. Just go around and around and around and around. I don't know,

saying that very thing to a chick at the a meeting that he took me into. She was so cool, like long nails and, you know, tough, tough chick. And she's like, man, I hope you keep coming back.

Anyways, I like, I have this hard time accepting that I was an alcoholic, which is the bottom line with when you for me, when I would drink. And then I decide, OK, that was a terrible Bender,

not gonna drink today. Nope, I'm not gonna drink today. And then preceding every, every beer or for me, vodka was my thing, were the words. I'll just have one.

I'm not that it's just a beer, just a couple of beers. Who cares? I'll just have one drink. My one drink was me stumbling down on Santa Monica Blvd. ending up at Trunks, coming back to my my little house with the message like beeping 20 messages because I had asked people to be my housekeeper, which I didn't have at the time. So like

I never knew where that drink was going to take me.

So to me, it wasn't until I made that call to a central office, I made the call I was done. Hopefully, you know, that I surrendered and started to stack up those days. So I guess my that's the long answer. The short answer is I wasn't willing to admit to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. And until I was willing to admit that, I was doomed to.

So I hope that helps. I don't know. Shirt right there.

How are you able to tolerate that Michael was being?

How was I able to tolerate my alcoholic husband?

It was hard, I have to tell you, because first of all, it helped that he was very respectful about, as I said, I can't have booze in the house or I'll drink it. That was the first thing I took out, all the booze in the house. But he was a junkie, like he was a drug addict. So that kind of helped. He wasn't drinking because I think that would be difficult, but

what ultimately how I was able to tolerate it was I started to immerse myself more and more in a A

and picking and, and leaning like my,

I felt like my, I was being filled up socially like the fellowship was working to. I wasn't depending upon him to fill my heart so much. I was depending upon I it, it shifted and I became more invested in the friendships I was making in the fellowship. So I was actually laughing more with the, you know, going out for coffee with the people in a A

I was finding kind of a kind of joy that I hadn't known in this drunken sort of miserable. We, we had a very sick relationship, my ex and I and, and so the dichotomy was huge. And it and it my, I ended up going to double winners of meetings and working at double winners program, which, you know, some people call it all a Nazi or whatever, but

I ended up working a kind of classic party line with my husband, which was by February 14th, I hope you get a 30 day chip and you're going to have to move out. Was I set that boundary? Every time I wanted to ask him, did you go to him? Did you meet? Did you go to a meeting? Did you meet me? Did you then maybe every time I wanted to do that, I called my sponsor

and she's like, hang in there, you know, but he's going to die. I know what he's I just like. And it used to kill me that I felt like he would think that I didn't think he was loaded. I always knew when he was loaded.

And anyway, I just slowly started to work this kind of Al Anon program so that when February 14th came around and he was loaded on the couch with no sobriety, it wasn't a fight. There was no fight. He knew what the deal was. I hadn't nagged him any at any point throughout that process

and I was like, dude, you're so not clean so you'd have to move. And he, I remember him saying, don't make permanent solutions to temporary problems.

He was smart, right? That was good. I was like, that's good, but you gotta move out, you know. And The thing is that we anticipate, you know, these giant fights. But I had been working a program with God in the mix, praying for him one day at a time for I'd given him 60 days to get a 30 day check.

And each day I knew that day was coming. And I see it and I see that, you know, I never asked them if he was clean or sober. I never dragged him to a meeting. He'd see me going to the meeting. My sponsor is like, it's not your responsibility. It's between him and his God. He has his own higher power. And I remember saying, because I had a BMW at the time and I remember her saying he's going to die in your BMW just as fast as he's going to die in the gutter in the street. And I, that's really true. Anyway, I kicked the guy out of the house

and within two weeks he calls me. He's like guess where I am brought in hospital and he's been sober ever since. So, you know, no matter I'd put him in through three treatment centers, you know, Nashville, Betty Ford and another one in Nashville. It never worked. It wasn't until for him he admitted to his innermost self that he he wanted to wanted this program. And what's beautiful. The dude has a great life today. He's got two kids, he's great wife. He, you know, loves

like we like I it works this program if you if you just swan dive into it, but you got to be ready to do it. If you don't want it, you know what do they say? They'll refund you your misery, But it's really hard because here's the bottom line. I know people great people who refuse to work the steps and they go out and they die. It's

awful and I wish that it was a rare thing,

but it's happened a lot, way more than I would ever have dreamed, you know, coming in here. That's another reason I like we hang on to each other. Somebody, you know, they're they're the guy in my meeting is his dad used to bring him to the meeting. Oh, he's such a great dude. And he died. He died on the operating table for a not a very like a pretty, not a major heart. It was a heart operation, but no one expected him to die

and we hung onto this dude. We were heartbroken about his dad dying and so we knew. Like it gets precarious. Death is the front lines

because you can say like how, how is there a God? You know, I used to say with my mom, you know, she, you know, people talk about the God's path, right? Well, why did my mom have such a terrible path? You know, how can that, you know, stand in Children's Hospital and talk about God's path? You know, that's what what I'd say to my

sponsored, but when you start thinking about God for me, when I started thinking about God as being the magic of love between myself and my friends and the creativity and the smile, laughing my kids when they're laughing and things are beautiful. It was it. Boy did I go off on a date.

Love a a OK anybody else question? Sure, right there.

Pardon me?

Oh, I say don't be too picky because nobody's perfect, you know what I mean? And I and like, if somebody doesn't work for you, find another one. I also sponsor with really loose arms. If it doesn't work, if somebody doesn't hear my message, then find someone who's messaging here.

I don't fire anybody, you know, but I also feel like I have like my own sort of thing where I find out how committed somebody is to the program because I you know, I feel like it's important that we don't like

that we don't cosign people's.

I don't want to get into a mean mommy bad teenage girl thing that can happen with I think female sponsors and sponsees. I don't like getting into that dynamic. And when I when I get into that, I'm not being a service, I'm not being a service. So I feel like for me, when they say like a temporary sponsors and you look and you see the people raising their hands, just pick one. They did the steps. They're all, you know, we all kind of do them. Like there's variations, but it's the same old thing,

it seems, you know, And then if you feel like it's not and somebody's giving you something that you feel like is not like doesn't sound like a a or it's not in the big book, then find somebody else. But I think people, I had somebody come up to me and they say, I want to get your number. I'd love for you to sponsor me. I said, sure, of course, you got to call me every day for seven days. And then we'll start, we'll start talking about the book. That's what I do, right? And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm asking three other people and then I'm going to pick and I'm like.

You know,

auditioning like you go with those other two guys or whatever because I don't want, you know, like what? I'm not going to audition to be a sponsor.

You had a whole life, you know, auditions. I ain't going to do it in this room. This is sacred.

So, you know, for me, I think people get into like a trap of being too picky. Just pick someone. That would be my answer to that right there.

Thank you very much. Talk about, you know, Donald Bush bet his life for kids and everything else. What are you doing a weekly basis? Are you talking about the magic finding that Tuesday night meeting and then at 7th days in a row? What are you still doing now to to stay close and give back to the program?

He's saying, what do I do now to stay close and to give back to the program? Well, I go to regular meetings on regular meeting days and I'm a part of the Not Saints group. It's a woman's group in Studio City. I sponsor about 8 girls, give or take. There's a couple of them that you know how we do lose arms, I say.

I wake up every morning, I pray, I send off my emails to my girls. I usually start my day with a meeting. I go to 9:00 on Monday, 9:00 Moorpark.

Then Friday I go to Colfax, Saturday I go to the Not Saints group, and Sunday I go to the Palisades speaker meeting. So those are my, those are the meetings that I regularly hit. And then if I got a Tuesday opening, I go to the Tuesday Not Saints group. Wednesday opening, I go to the Wednesday Moore Park at 8730 and Thursday there's a women's meeting, Not Saints group at 1:00 at Dickens and Tyrone. So these are my, these are the meetings that I go to regular meetings, regular meeting days,

sponsor people. I think that's for me, one of the main, at 17 years of sobriety, I was making beer bread from the recipe at the Trader Joe's. I'm making beer bread. I'm good on my sobriety. I'm speaking I'm I'm I'm the treasurer, which I love because I never like to trust me with the money

feel. I love a a right and I got the sunlight of the spirit. I'm making beer, bread, stirring. I go in the garage, get to get one of my husbands, a normie and I get one of his beers and it's hot outside and I and I hear that sound the bubbles and I'm like this, here's the bowl, here's the beer. And I'm like, no one would know,

could have one snap, one set of. So that's how tricky, cunning, baffling and powerful this disease is. Pour the beer into my beer bread and dump the rest out into the sink. And was kind of dramatic and ceremonious about it because I chose not to. But it was such an amazing moment because that's how easy it is. Nothing was wrong. I wasn't going to drink over anything. Just

that sound

and the smell, right? I always tell my husband when he drinks beer, I'm like, you smell like 7th grade, you know?

But that's how, that's why I feel like it's, that's why we're still here. And some of my sponsors are like, I remember I had this friend of mine up in Laurel Canyon. He's an alcoholic. And sometimes I just thought he asked me about a A. And he's like, man, you go to that thing for 20 years. You must be the Grand Poobah by now.

But we're not. There is no grand Poobah. We just come one day at a time like you know what I mean? Because

there's been great people I've known that you like, you're surprised their hand goes up at newcomers. Like we can't judge those people. I can't judge those people. I can't. It could happen just in a with a flick of the wrist done out starting on day one. You know, that's how tricky it is. That's how why I hang on to this thing so tightly. I don't want it. I don't want my kids to have a drunk mom. It broke my heart watching my mom drinking to see how it

for her. What might her life be like if she had come to a A? I'm sure a lot of us are sitting there thinking that with our alcoholic parents. You know, this is a family disease. I come from a long line of tantrums really

right there,

right. How do I talk to my kids about my sobriety and meetings? Well, I'm not the greatest parent in the world, so just know that I don't have a lot. I'm working on boundaries and it's a struggle. I never had any kind of affront with my kids that I, you know, like I know some people like break the news to their kids when they're in junior high. My kids were being dragged the A a meetings really early