The topic of Sex & Relationships in Recovery at the 2022 Annual National Conference of Drug Addicts Anonymous in Milwaukee, WI

Do you all hear me? Oh my God, I said y'all, it's all you see, Southern people are changing my accent and it's only been I'm I'm a registered chameleon, you know, just like a lot of addicts. And so people's accents rub off on me very quickly. My name is Mikey P and I am a recovered drug addict. I am from Madison, WI. My Home group is the spiritually lit meeting of Drug Addicts Anonymous.

And if you are in Madison, we meet at the

East Side Alano Club Monday nights at 7:00 PM. We also have a Wednesday at noon. So if you find yourself in need of a a great here we are. We have our representatives there, our GSR from that particular spiritual gangsters, I think is what it's called.

Yeah. And I guess I'm up here to talk about sex and relationships.

The what I learn about sex relationships mainly comes from my experience as a sponsor. You know, after my sponsees have about a year,

their phone calls and 10 steps become almost exclusively sex and relationships. You know, and you get better and better at kind of being God's, you know,

conduit of information when you know, you get a lot of these phone calls. My personal experience with sex and relationships,

you know, on page 62, selfishness, self-centeredness that we think is the root of our problems, right? Driven by 100 forms of fear. Stop right there, you know, because that could that could be it for me right there. I mean that that is the root of all of my issues.

And when it came to me, I am a straight male, so the opposite sex absolutely afraid of them. 100% right. They we have fight or flight. We also have freeze, you know, and that's me freeze 100%. I can't talk to him. I can't look at him. You know, most people you say like, hey, could you tell her that I like her? I got to have like four or five people

to get to that point. I'm absolutely, 100% frightened.

And when I found drugs and alcohol, it boosted all my confidence so I could let them talk to me,

you know that. But that's as far as I could go. I, I really wanted alcohol to make me that guy that she's attractive. I'm gonna go and talk to her. I have all this. I still didn't have that kind of courage, you know, I still just had that kind of paralyzing fear. But it helped out, you know, at least in those types of relationships. So that kind of led to

it was if I was going to be in a relationship, it's because somebody else initiated it. You know, somebody else found me, attract, somebody else found I had something to offer, and so they'd ask me out. That was great. Oh, wonderful,

because at that point I could turn on the charm a little bit. I could have a little bit more confidence, but I couldn't break that barrier to ask out the person that I wanted to ask out. And it led to a lot of relationships with very strong women, you know, and I love strong women, absolutely. I still do to this day. But there's

as we all know, there's, there's, there's strength and then there's, you know, underneath that there's a whole lot, a lot of other levels of communication that don't don't always work out very well. But I

I basically kind of just was dragged along through a bunch of relationships. You know, my first marriage, pretty much the same thing.

She had to make the first move and then we were together and it was great. And she said, you know, I think we're in love. And I'm like, yeah, that's right, we are.

And, you know, and that was a different story. I lived overseas and, you know, it was a matter of it was a marriage of convenience and it that was the greatest divorce

ever. You know, if you're going to have one of those divorces, we were like, you know, out to dinner and she's like, I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy. They have the rings off that night. We divided up our shit. And then I had a new apartment. And of course, I thought to myself, now I can go out and, you know,

sew my, you know, wild oats. I can finally be that guy I wanted to be. And

ten years of alcohol and drug use did make me a very pleasing person to be around.

I didn't date very much at that time and I was at my lowest point. And I like to share from the podium that I I was a very low bottom, a drunk and and drug user, drug dealer. I was living on people's couches. I was still a musician, but I lost my day job and so all I'm doing is gigs and I'm living in the studio and I'm living on other people's couches because I got people looking for me. Drug dealers are looking for me. I'm at my lowest point, but at a certain point

somebody came into my life and decided that we are going to be in love. I got a new, I got a new wife, right? So she came into my life, started following me around and at that point, like I'm a, I'm a cocaine crack guy, right? So if you showed me a room full of beautiful women and a room full of coke going to the coke, you know what I mean? If you guys want to come over here, I'm going to be doing some drugs, but that's going to be my primary, my primary issue there.

But The thing is,

she kept coming around, you know, and still it was coming to showing up to my shows and, and we said, but I was absolutely petrified. I was petrified of her. I was petrified of where I was in my life. But she said, you know, hey, we're going to hang out. And I'm like, OK, great. And about a year and a half later, she said we should get married. I'm like, absolutely we should. And you're going to need to propose. I'm like, I am, I'm going to, you know, And she goes, this is the ring that I want. And it was really, it was just very much like that.

And I had a ready made family, you know, and because of her support, I had a car and then I got a job

and then I got, you know, an apartment in Madison and we had a house out in Faroqua. And for the first part of our relationship, I'm still drunk and and doing a lot of drugs, but eventually I sober up. And

my father was the supreme father, phenomenal man. You know, I would say that any parents, you know, your job is, you know, especially as a father is to show your son how to treat your wife and to show your daughter how she should deserve to be treated, right. And that was my father. He was showed my mother a ton of respect. I was just watching him be a father and

a husband. I just knew what to do.

OK, so I'm in this relationship I didn't ask for, but now I know how to be a father. So I turned it on. You know what I mean? And I was a great stepfather. I'm still in contact with you, my ex stepchildren,

and I did the best I could, you know, But after six years of being clean,

praying for God's will for me, praying for the truth, praying for honesty in my life, it started bubbling up. You know, all of a sudden I'm uncomfortable. I'm in this relationship and I'm doing, you know, people would ask me, what are you doing this weekend? I'm like, I don't know, ask my wife and I have no clue. I don't have that kind of control.

And I'm getting sicker and sicker. And it just, it dawned on me one morning in meditation and prayer is it's time to tell the truth. I got to tell you the truth, you know, And that was one of the hardest things I had to go through. So I had to say, look,

I'm not in love with you. I love you, but I'm not in love with you and we need to get a divorce. And it was acrimonious to say the least. It was very difficult and

I just use that as a line. You know, I love you, but we fell out of love or something like that. You know,

I still wanted to get let off the hook for the truth. And so I went to my sponsor and we did an inventory on it.

And I explained to him I was never really in love with her. But you know, she came into my life and I and I had an opportunity to be a good father and a good parent and everything. And and I took it and, you know, but now I got to get out of it. And he goes, OK, so you're basically a low bottom drug dealer that decided to use a whole family to get exactly what you wanted and get a free ride. Is that right?

Well, no, but I mean, maybe, maybe, you know, But yeah, that was the truth of the matter, you know? And I didn't want to tell her that truth. And in in fact, I probably shouldn't have a because she just wanted to know the truth, wanted to know the truth. And I succumbed. And I said, yeah, according to my sponsor, I'm a dirtbag who decided to take advantage of you for the past nine years. And

that was a terrible thing, you know, for her to hear because it broke her heart, absolutely broke her heart.

And I felt terrible. I had the worst remorse, the most

grief, everything that you go through through a divorce. And I asked my sponsor said, how long am I going to feel this way? He goes, well, there's a spiritual, how long were you together? I was about nine years. Well, the spiritual axiom is that you're probably going to feel crappy for the amount of time that you made other people feel crappy. I'm like, I can't feel this way for 9 freaking years. But, you know, and I didn't, you know, it hasn't been nine years since the divorce,

but at that time I finally had an opportunity to say, OK, I'm not going to get into a relationship until I can ask somebody out, OK, I have to have that courage, you know, and the program gave me that courage where I could actually initiate relationships and I wasn't good at it. I don't know how to my great grand sponsor said dating is like anything else, you got to practice, get out there, do it. I start asking people out, you know, it may work out, it may not work out. And so I started doing that. You know, I get on the,

the, you know, the sites, you know, the Match and Bumble and the Hinge and the, and all of these things and, you know, and I would meet people and, you know, and ask him out and would be right or would be wrong. I wouldn't. Yeah, I would. I almost know almost right away. You know, you get that first date and it's wonderful you're having a good time. But a little bit later, I know got to get that feeling inside, the same kind of feeling I had when I knew I had to leave

that relationship. And it was like, well, what kind of fear is this? Is you're in the wrong place,

you know, and I got good at saying, hey, you know, I had a great time with you, but you know, I need to go because that's another very difficult part about relationships is telling other people it's time to move on, you know,

and so I started going through this. I had a relationship in a a which was great. It was a great relationship for as long as it lasted. And

that had to end too, you know, And I just, I, I kept asking my sponsor. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where

I'm going to find anybody. And he goes, don't worry, God's got something for you. You know, I get, I know it, Mike. I just know he's got somebody for you. And I waited, you know, and I, I, I, I, I kept practicing the dating, you know, and at one point I just said, look, I'm done. I'm off the sites, I'm off of everything. And, and what I was really looking for was somebody in the program or somebody at the gym, right? And of course, I know that these are the two craziest places to find people. Where the craziest people?

But that's only because I'm crazy and, you know, I assume everybody else is, too.

But then I was introduced to somebody, my coach and best friend at the gym, workout partner. He said, I know this person who works out in the morning, and I think you guys would get along. I said, all right, I'll give it a shot, you know, and yeah, it was fantastic. I found somebody that God put into my life that I didn't have to ask for. I mean, I made the phone call. Of course I had to do that. You know, I'd already made that pact with myself. But all of a sudden, this person comes into my life

and we're in this in this zone. Like I don't want to get beyond the book. I don't want to get beyond what we have to share from this. But you know, I read a lot of spiritual texts and there was somebody that brought me into love. If you can, love is a space. That's where I was brought. And together we are in love, right? And so I found somebody from the gym. Guess what she does for a living?

She's a spiritual grief counselor,

Hospice. OK, so all we do is we sit around, we talk about food, we talk about lifting and we talk about spirituality. It's fantastic, you know, and, and, and I also had an opportunity to spend time with her because it had to go slow, you know, couldn't go fast. You know, she has her family. I have my family and we're going slow. And I had a chance to fall in love with her heart first before I, I, I fell in love with the outsides, you know, and all that kind of stuff that came with it. But I got to fall in love with her heart 1st. And that is my experience. That's my personal experience

with sex and relationships. I was gonna dig into the book and just quote it like, you know, well, this is what it says, you know, But I decided just to tell you kind of my experience with with sex and relationships, you know, and I'll pass that Xbox.

Thank you, Mikey. That's great. Next I will ask Allie to come up and share her experience.

I

thank you. Hi, I'm Allie. I'm a drug addict. God, you guys, if I'm being honest, I was asked to do this on Monday and the the type A inside of me, right? Like I created this whole outline. I want to control every aspect of how this is going to come out of my mouth because this honestly is, is one of the hardest pieces in my life right now.

And I'll I'll get there. But so if I start shopping at some point, like it's, yeah, that's where we're at today.

So just a little bit about me, right? Like, I started, you know, drinking, smoking when I was like 12 years old. I'm shooting dope at 14, smoking crack. You know, like my brother. I feel that I have never like, had my own identity, right? I can feel my voice shaking. This is incredible,

right? Like I, I was like a super tomboy growing up, like riding dirt bike, snowboarding, like skateboarding. So like I thrived with men my, you know, throughout my entire existence, basically,

um, and growing up, you know, like I've endured a lot of traumatic events, you know, everything you don't want to happen to a child, right? Like those things have happened to me and, and again, right, like I'll, I'll work my way into that. I so fast forwarding a lot of years, right? Like the first time I came into any type is 12 step program. I heard, you know, all of this 12 step stuff. I, I, I took this one piece that somebody said, right, like

take what you want, leave the rest, you know, so like me being a little thought demon that I am, I, I took the men with me and like, I held these men hostage. Unfortunately, you know what, like, that's just my truth, you know, and I did that for years and it kept me super, super sick in whatever type of fellowship I was working. I've done the a, a, the HA, the NA, right, working my way into DA, all of these different, all of these different programs, right.

So I left the steps and I left the principals and what I looked like right, Like I ran from my problems. I've always run like that's the best way that I can cope with my life. You know, very,

very, like verbally aggressive, right? Very verbally abusive towards anybody that's just trying to show me an ounce of love. Like I am incapable of receiving love from anybody, including my own family. You know, I'm untrustworthy, I'm selfish. I take, I take anything that comes into my path.

You know, I lie a lot, you know, even in sobriety, I've caught myself and quite a few lies, you know, by omission, whatever that looks like, you know, and, and destroying all relationships, you know, whether that's work, romantic relationships, my family, my friends. But like I, I approached relationships, how I do my drugs, right, like more and like I need to feel better. And that's what that looked like for me. So you know, I heard when I was in Iowa and I paw, I heard rich Bee say water seeks its own level,

right, and for me to to identify right that like I'm literally insane. I'm attracting all of these insane men, you know, and like I that's exactly where I thrive. So so I used a lot of these behaviors and sex to like fill this God shape hole that I had within myself.

And I love, I love that we can talk about crack, we can talk about heroin. Like it's so exciting to me because I just relate with Stevie so much, right? Like

nothing brought me to my knees faster than heroin and crack did you know, like listening to somebody's four step, that's an alcoholic. Like we are not the same, you know, So

it was

a long, treacherous journey. You know, I've been in and out of these programs for a long time, like I said. And so I got sober off off of those two substances. When, when was this, this is back in like 20. I don't know, everything's such a blur in my life. So, so back in 2014, last time I went to treatment, you know, I got sober off of that. And I, I considered myself an alcoholic at the age of 16, you know, and I didn't understand the depth and weight that it, that it held to call myself an alcoholic. I thought it was hilarious,

you know, I thought it was so funny. It really wasn't because I didn't I didn't want to be here with any of you, you know, like I didn't take time to get to know anybody in the program, nor did I care. I didn't care if you weren't serving me like I wasn't here for that. So fast forwarding a little bit more, right, I got sober in 2017. So did I say my sobriety day? I don't even know. All right, perfect. Thank you for keeping me accountable here. So April 10th of 2017,

I am actively sponsored my sponsor Tina H was here last night with her husband. And like she's everything I aspire to be, you know, like she's just such a great human being and like she's super sassy and like that's me to my core, you know, and she's an alpha female. So like initially, right, Like she,

my mom heard her speak at some, you know, Al Anon AA jam and my moms, like you should ask her to be your sponsor and like absolutely not absolute fucking lutely not all I told myself I wasn't going to swear and I'm really sorry.

No, right, she terrified me like another woman of that power. I don't want anything to do with that because I was scared, right, Like I've been abused by women my entire life and like never will I ever let a woman that fucking close to me ever again. So Needless to say, I hit a lot of spiritual bottoms. You know, I went through two sponsors in two years, work the steps in like 2 weeks and, and CA and a A and all of these things. And,

you know, I found myself

asking Tina to be my sponsor. And since since that day, like every step that I've taken with her, I've had a spiritual experience, you know, and I can only hope to do that with the woman that I sponsor today. So write this, this theme that's in the book of, of, you know, we're doing all these inventories, riding these old ideas. And like how we do that is looking at our resentments, fear, sex. And this the same and sound ideal in what plays into my sex life, you know, is resentment and fear. You know, and you you just hit the the nail on the head with that.

I the 1st, the 1st like year was a little rocky with Tina, right? Like I'm posting my ass on Instagram. I'm doing all of these things, you know, and my silver sisters are busting me out to Tina and she's holding me accountable, right? That's her job is to do that. And she wasn't very kind about it. And she's like, listen, like who I see and like who you're presenting as, right? Like this doesn't align. She's like your head and your heart like they do not align.

So thus started a whole another treacherous journey of of healing right from the from the inside out.

And if anything that is sold, you know, like in any type of 12 step program, like DA, a, a, a whatever, you know, like we sell spiritual awakenings here. You know, when I bought into it and I got that as a result of working all 12 steps. So I've gotten to God build all of these skills and you know, I was still

being quite disastrous in my sex relations. So I was dating this newcomer kid, you know, when I was newly sober

and then fast forwarding a little bit, right? I was at one of my sponsors weddings and crossed paths with this guy that I've been in a relationship with for 4 1/2 years now. And you know, building that trust, like you were talking about, right? Like falling in love with somebody's heart in their mind, Like that's important to me. Like today, it's not really like the physical attraction, right? Like that's always important. But like, to fall in love with somebody's mind, like there's nothing more powerful than that.

And we did that right? Like I got the opportunity to work the steps love myself before I got into this relationship

and creating that same and sound ideal, right? Like how I want to show up in a relationship, like how I would ideally like a partner to show up in a relationship and ask God to help me to live up to that, you know, because I'm not very great at living up to that. Like I'm here for for excitement fun, right? We talked about this straight pepper diet. We were having a reckless conversation over Qdoba earlier. You guys, let me tell you. Yeah, like that to me, that's me. I don't want to tell you on the details on that, but yeah, right. The women that are in my life today are just like me and I love it. I love it

so spicy,

So, so right, Like Bill, Bill has this, this concept that's that's kind of warm through the books, right? If we don't continue to grow together, you know, like we're growing apart.

And I think it's important that like as my God, right? Like when Tina walked me to the hand of God, like I haven't looked back since that day and my ideals are continuously evolving. Like my God is continuously evolving. And like today I'm in a super tough position, right? Like I have a lot of unhealed trauma and like I can present super well to the world. Nobody has a clue of what actually happens internally. I let about two people into my life and that's Tina,

maybe one of my silver sisters. Like I literally do not trust women and I still have a problem with it today. But it's getting better, you know? It's getting better.

So where was I going with that? Oh, yeah. So this relationship, right. Like I'm supposed to be, I was supposed to be getting married in September

and in May, right? I, my, my family was like, yo, we need to know what's happening so we can book flights, right? And the next day, and this was on my birthday. So this is back in April

following day, I had a conversation with my fiance and I was like, listen, like I think we need to postpone this wedding, right? And mutual agreement, right? There's a lot of, I thought it was going to go so left field. It didn't, right? When we bring God, when we bring these traditions, you know, of like unity, God being the ultimate leader, like a mutual desire to make this work, beautiful things happen. And it's so incredible, right? Like we were on the same page with that. And then two days ago, right? Like I barely had the time to tell my sponsor about this before I'm spewing my heart

you. But I had a conversation with him the other day and that looked like, hey, like I'm doing extensive trauma work right now. And like, I can't be present in this relationship. And like, it takes a lot of courage for me to admit that, right? Because like, I can do everything on my own, you know? Like I don't need anybody's money. I don't need your love. I don't need your affection. I don't need any of it. I can take care of myself,

but that's not the reality today, right? Like it doesn't serve me in DAA. It doesn't serve me anywhere in my life.

Like I need each and everyone of you to like help carry me through this process when I can't carry myself.

So you know, like I'm in this hard state of like I had the conversation like, hey, I think I need to move out, right? And like take time apart so like I can actually work on myself and another, right? Like God is super present and he's like, I completely understand that decision, you know? And like, I felt so loved and so supported in that. And like,

I had a lot of fear because there's a lot of people, right, that are close with my fiance in the room

and they know he's such a great person and like, it really melts my heart.

Felt like I can't be there for it,

but I think the beauty, right? I called my sober sister on the way here and I was like listen, don't make my eyes sweaty. I'm not trying to do this today.

And she's like, there's probably somebody in that room that needs to hear what you have to say, right? And there's so much hope that like, as long as I continue to practice these principles in all of my affairs, right? And like page 19 is this great line,

a much more important demonstration of our principals lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs.

You know, and as long as all of these principles are laid out perfectly for us, you know, like honesty with myself, you know, like this hope, faith, courage, integrity, all of these things and having this brotherly love, right for another human being. I, I think there's, there's so much help in knowing that like I can carry through this with so much grace, You know, like we don't have to fight about it. We don't have to like do anything reckless. Like we serve at the same Home group, right? I started this young people's group

up in Madison after hearing Stevie and my sponsor in January and like I have so many great Home group members here supporting me. I love you guys,

God and, and we serve and like we serve together, right? So I, I told him, listen, I don't want you to go anywhere. Like I want you to continue to show up and serve, right? And like we get to do that together. And I'm really excited to like continue to be there to support him on his journey. And

God, I think, I think it's important also to talk about right this, these relationships that I have not only

romantic relationships, but like, Oh my God, two minutes. Jesus, Lord. So right, like with, with my family, you guys like right, I, I have a lot of women that have a hard time with their families. And like my mother was terrified of me, terrified of me for years. And I would show up to her work and threaten her every single day. If not, I'm threatening my own life, you know, showing up to her job and like she would sleep with her money on her. My dad would do the same thing, right? Or my dad would fall asleep in my room waiting for me to get home and that army crawl across the floor,

umm, grab money out of his wallet and I would disappear. Like this is how I showed up for my family, you know, and, and stole a Peace of Mind from them for for over a decade, you know, and today, like my mom's my biggest fan, like she knows everything that's going on in my life and in my relationship today. And like, I'm so loved and so supported and like God shows me so much grace. And the best piece of that is right is like I get to continue to to be of service, you know, with all of these, all of these beautiful wild women that I sponsor you guys.

Like that's the bright spot in my life. And like I'm on page 70. You know, it tells us when these things are troublesome, like we throw ourselves harder into working with other Alcoholics or drug addicts, whatever that looks like. So new to me. So I apologize if I use alcoholic a lot.

So right, like I I continue to serve on all of these young people committees, like the Home group level, like at the area level, like and I'm teaching all my girls to do the same thing. You know, when I couldn't be more proud. And again, like the best pieces about this is like we don't

we don't have to be perfect. I don't pretend to be perfect to the woman that I sponsor, you know, so I don't have to be perfect to walk somebody to the hand of God nor to take them through the 12 staff. So I'm extremely grateful to be here. Thank you.

Thank you Allie very much. I Next we are going to have Martha up to share her experience on sex and relationships.

I

hi, my name is Martha. I'm an addict. I'm from New Orleans, LA. My Home group is a DEA group of New Orleans. If you're ever down there on a Thursday, pop on in we'd love to have you. I also know that God has a sense of humor because I tried to do the right thing and I told the person that called me to speak that I did not want to pick my topic, that I was open to anything. And he was like, good sex and relationships. And I was like, thanks God.

The only two things I know to share from the podium are my experience in the literature of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

So to know where I got that experience, you have to know a little bit about where I came from. Growing up, my parents compared me to a baby deer. I was all knees and elbows and big eyes and awkward and just a skinny, like, gangly awkward thing. And I remained that way for quite some time in big hair, too. Lots of hair. And something happened around the age that I turned 18 or 19. I stopped being so awkward

and I really discovered boys. I was going to say men, but boys at that age, and I'll be very honest about something. If you're not too bad on the eyes and you're a little funny and you like to party, the South is very kind to you,

especially if you're a girl. And I had a great time. I had dates to football games. I got invited to a lot of like VIP things that I was probably like, this is so much fun. I don't need college. I don't need, you know, I'll just do this.

And I did do that.

Umm. And it's, it's funny because what happened is unbeknownst to me, I started harnessing these God-given sex powers and it tells us in this book that, you know, they're God-given and they're never to be loathed. But I didn't know that. I didn't know this was happening to me. And you know that that easy like bad of the eyelashes and flip of the hair and

and stuff that we just developed over time. And then and I just become manipulative in nature.

My sex instincts go hand in hand with my active drug addiction. And while it was super fun for a while and super easy to wrangle for a while, just like my drug use, I stopped having a choice. And at the end of my active addiction, sex was no longer a choice. It was about survival and it was the only currency I had.

It's the only way I knew how to feed myself or to get a roof over my head or to stay high. And that is the truth. And that is what it looks like for me. So I, you know,

I'm not the arbiter of anyone sex like sex conduct. I do not tell Fonsees not to date in the first year. It doesn't say that in the literature. I am there to hold their hand when things don't go well. In 2018 I was about seven months sober and I got into a relationship and you know, you can't see it at the time. It's all in reflection. But I'm not living by these spiritual principles. And this man becomes more important than recovery. And it is the most life changing relationship of my life because it quite literally

almost killed me. And I rode that back into homelessness and back into violent horrible behavior. And let me make this very clear, it is not that man's fault. I make my own choices. I am selfish and self-centered. And if it makes me feel good, I will do it, you know? And I was incapable of being honest with women about about my sex inventory and about how I felt about men and

past trauma and all of those things, you know, so I do that and then I gets over again. And So what happens? We take a sex inventory, right? And

I guess I'm a little bit sober and I have these, you know, I have the sex inventory. And some of them are obvious to me now that I'm sober. Like, don't have sex for drugs. Like, those are obvious behaviors that need to be changed.

Some of them are not so obvious. My first job in sobriety this time was I was a cake decorator at a Food Lion in Charleston, SC. And that's right, nothing like a frozen cake. And

I was unprepared for when they hired a new manager and he walked in and he was older, and

he was a little awkward, and his eyes went kind of two different ways. And I realized if I paid some attention to him, he gave me the schedule I wanted. And it was quickly pointed out to me, my sponsor was like, me, and you have all your nights free. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do.

That's me manipulating. Again, it's not about sex. It's about how I use being a female. Like, I have relationships with other women that are gay. And I know that some of my actions in the past have been inappropriate because I can still manipulate them just as easily.

So what happens? I have this sex inventory. I have to start changing this behavior. And I don't, I don't know how to do that without good sponsorship. You know, if I did not have women that came before me, I would not know that it's not OK to flirt with your boss to get the schedule you wanted.

And, and it's weird how things start to change. I had a guy at a meeting one time make a comment about the yoga pants I was wearing and it's stuff I'm so unaware of. And so I started wearing sweats. You know, not because it's wrong to wear yoga pants, but because

do you know, I can take these little actions to not affect other people.

So what happens is they start doing this. Got this sex inventory, been sober a little bit.

And my sponsor last summer, we did some sex ideals and she said I want you, you know, you write down like like my new friend pointed out, you know, we tried to live up to these. We grow towards these ideals. And then she had me, you know, build a man, build-a-bear,

write my ideals for this man. And I did, and she put them side by side. And she said, who are you to ask God for this when you are most certainly not this

bro. My soul hurt, but I wasn't because I didn't know. I hadn't lived in spiritual principles long enough. I was still, you know, like my friend Andrew said, I'm always making amends. I still had a lot of sweets to grow. This past fall

it was suggested to me by a very dear friend of mine that I should start journaling. Not every night, but just when it occurs to me about the man I would have God send me. And this was not like build a man. This is not like I want him 6-2 and chiseled, you know, which is not not even my type. But start writing about this man. And I did. When I would think about it, I would write that I wanted him to be kind

and I wanted him to love his family and I wanted him to be God centered and I wanted him to love my kid when the time came. And what happened is God did not deliver this man in a nice little bow on my door. What happened is I became the woman I was writing about.

I have become,

and while we do not do this perfectly,

I have become more kind and I have become more patient and I have become more willing to grow.

This is the part I'm dreading. I currently am in a relationship. I can't even look over there

and the first three months of that relationship were awful for me and not because he is wonderful because I was filled with so much self-centered fear. Crippling alcohol at the fabric of my life is shot through with it fear. And I was such a victim in the biggest fear for any

any woman or man that is listening. Let me tell you that this fear needs to be worked through because it is not true. My biggest fear was how could you want to be with someone who's been so used and so broken? Why would he ever want that?

And I quickly find out it is none of my business. And so I held on to this fear for about 3 months. And finally I went to my sponsor, as you should, I should have done three months earlier. And I said, I'm terrified. I said, I said I can't do this. I'm I'm anxious all the time. I'm just, I'm not good enough for this man. And, and she said, have you talked to God about it?

No.

And So what happened? It says in meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. And here's the kicker. The right answer will come if we wanted.

And from that day forward, I started inviting God into my relationship. I invited him on my dates. I invited Him. I want to invite Him everywhere, but

I invited him most places, you know, before I made phone calls and before I responded to text. And I'm sure He will tell you there are days like yesterday that you can tell from my text messages. I had not invited God into that relationship.

But I do it to the best of my ability. And let me tell you, where God is present, there is no room for fear.

And

who

it's it was like a light bulb went off on my head. And it's so funny because I know this from working with other women and from doing outreach and from being an Alcoholics Anonymous and Drug Addicts Anonymous for so long. But I promise you this, your partner should not drain you. Your partner should not take from you. It should not hurt to love someone. And so

when I invite God into my relationship, what it looks like for me is what can I do for this man? What can I add to his life, not what can I take from him? And the more I think, should I ask more questions? Can I listen better? Do I need to just be with him today? The more time I spend thinking about what I can add to his life, the less time there is for self-centered selfish fear thinking what am I not getting out of this relationship? And in turn when I become a better girlfriend, I'm a better mother. When I'm a better mother, I'm a better girlfriend. When I'm a better daughter.