The Primary Purpose convention in Oslo, Norway

We are so very happy that Jennifer D has taken the long trip from Wilmington in the US to come and share with us tonight.

We heartily welcome our main speaker, Jennifer Dee.

Good evening. I'm Jennifer and I'm an alcoholic.

Give me a minute.

My sobriety dates January 12th of 1992. I have a sponsor and I actively sponsor women.

Should I say my Home group? My home group's the Midtime group in Wilmington, NC.

I would not be sober today if it weren't for those three things. Had to get a sobriety date first. It's not a requirement for membership, but it does help, right?

And my Home group is a group of people. A lot of times I hear, at least in the United States, people say things like I have the best Home group in the whole world. I do not say that. Sometimes I don't even like the people that are in that meeting. But those people save my life on a regular basis. And it's because I'm there every week, day in, day out, they see me. And when I walk into that meeting and my eyes aren't right,

they know and they say, are you OK? That's what I needed in my life. It gives me the opportunity to be of service by being active in a Home group. And my sponsor is,

she's been with me. We've been together a long time and I've had a lot of different sponsors as well. And those women give of their time freely to me. I was a train wreck when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and

they took time out of their lives when they could have been with their children, when they could have been doing other things. They took time to be with me.

I have the privilege today of doing that with other women because I assure you, when my phone rings and I see it's one of them, I don't always want to answer the phone.

I just don't.

But The thing is, is I was taught in Alcoholics Anonymous that's not an option. You don't screen our phone calls. And I can't tell you how many times women have come to me, some that I don't sponsor, and said, you know what? I was suicidal. And I'm so glad you answered your phone.

So when we talk about our common welfare, you know, I was taught in Alcoholics Anonymous by giants,

like I feel blessed beyond measure. The people who came before me gave me the gifts of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm super emotional tonight, which I'm usually not emotional. I'm not a crier and I don't get emotional, but

I'm in your way right now.

30 years ago, if you told me I'd be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in Norway with a bunch of drugs, I would have told you you're crazy.

I feel blessed beyond measure, like my cup runneth over on on bad days, right? The problems I have today are luxurious problems. I shouldn't be alive and I shouldn't be here with you people.

Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me everything. I know. Like a lot of times when I speak. I got sober really young.

I got sober right before my 15th birthday so my life has been an Alcoholics Anonymous.

I can tell you my brain is still alcoholic as ever,

right? I'm crazy,

but I have a life beyond measure because of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and who came into the rooms and Alcoholics Anonymous on January 12th of 1992 is not the person who stands here today. And the only reason that I'm here and able to be the human being that I'm able to be is because of a, a, a God that I do not understand

and people who took a lot of time, right. And so we talk about this concept and idea of our Commonwealth air. And, and to me, it comes down to like what I received when I got here

and what I received when I got here was a message that kept me coming back. I received hope. And without hope, the alcoholic cannot continue to come back.

I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to do a, a everybody does it different, right? Like some people, they do worksheets, Some people, they're rigid and they're in the boat beaten and people up with it, you know, like there's just so many ways to do Alcoholics Anonymous. To me, when it comes down to our common welfare, it's what it's how we greet that new person.

And since I've been here, I have been graded with so much love and grace and I've had so much fun. I want to take my Norton, my new Norwegian friends home with me. I keep inviting come to my house. You can stay in my house. So anybody who wants to come to the United States and Wilmington, NC, I have an extra bedroom overflow can go to my dear friend Angie that came here with me.

You know, and like I have friends that she has a daughter, she has a 10 year old daughter

and husband and a big wife.

And she said time out of her life to come here with me,

who I was when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, as I took this girl to a party

and nobody there liked the girl. And my brother passed around a hat and people were throwing money in it. And my friend came up to me, who I brought to the party to ask me a question. And when I turned around, I knocked her, I knocked her out. I hit her so hard that she flew across the room and and split open her eye. And that was one of my big events. I couldn't find that girl once I got sober and

the amends that I made to that girl, it was crazy

because it wasn't about me being able to make the amends. What happened in that conversation is she received freedom

and the freedom was we shouldn't understand what she did all those years. She was wondering what did I do? Why was she so upset with me? And it had nothing to do with her, right? And when I made those amend, you know, she just cried. And she said, I'm just so glad I didn't do anything. That girl later invited me to her house

to meet her daughter. This was like 1520 years later. It was very inconvenient for me to stop by her house in Louisiana. I go in from Texas to North Carolina, but she invited me and I got to stop and like

have like pie whatever we did right? We just hung out and she told me about our life.

I can tell you who and what I am is if you did something like that to me, I'd slice your tires and burn your house down. You know, like that's the type of human being I am at my core. And so I'm going to share with you in a general way. And I think it's important that we share in a general way because my experience is not like everybody in this room, right?

But but for me, when I went to meetings in the beginning, it was so important for me to understand and identify. And there was lots of things I didn't identify with you people when I got here.

99% of it I didn't identify because y'all were sober. I wasn't. Y'all were really old too and I wasn't.

I know everybody's old when you're 14, but

you know so so it was really important for me to understand it. Here are the emotions and and to be like, do I belong here or not? And, and I did right, like I did identify,

but I, I grew up in Texas right outside of the Dallas area. And I have an older brother,

a younger half sister. I don't talk about her a lot because we just didn't grow up together. My brother and I, we were sick as these. He's a year older than me

and I didn't have any friends growing up.

I felt very insecure as a kid and I hated my red hair. I know everybody will be like, Oh my God, you have beautiful hair. I believe I have beautiful hair today. I love my hair and of the things about me, I will always say, God, my hair looks great. I love my hair. I was blessed with great hair. I did not think that when I was 3456, I used to wrap my little fingers and rip it out of my head

because I hated it. And that was the exterior thing that made me think that. That's why I was different.

It was about my hair.

But the bottom line is if I had dyed my hair blonde, they had let me do that. They didn't. But had that happen, I still would have had that feeling and then I would have been really lost. You know, I just thought that was the thing that separated me. So it just felt like weird. I had the curly red hair and I just felt awkward all the time growing up until my brother was like my, I was a tomboy. I did everything that he did. Him and his friends would beat me up. I mean,

I like,

I was just a tomboy and I ran around with him. My mom was an alcoholic, active alcoholic growing up, so she was never around. She was my idol. Of course she was my idol. She was a bartender at a little Irish pub and when she would walk in, everybody be like Barb's here, you know, like she was the party girl. And my memories as a child

with my mom, our good times is my mom would get drunk and then we would go to the like they have these malls and they have these fountains with water

that they're there for display. But what we would do is we would go dance in them because mom's drunk. And we just thought it was so much fun. Like mom was so much fun, right? So I loved being with mom, but mom would never show up. Mom would forget that she was supposed to pick us up. Mom wouldn't show up to school. So we were living with my father and stepmother and my stepmother is

certifiable. Like she has multiple personality disorder. I don't know what her problem is, that she was very abusive and very just insane.

Like living with a crazy person. At one minute everything would be OK, in the next minute we'd be getting beatings or whatever would happen. There was just a lot of terrible abuse that happened in that house, and my father was never around because he was drinking and doing his thing.

All of these things, man, Even in sobriety, I thought like they're the root of the problem. What I know today is that all that stuff did was got me primed and ready for my first drink. It has nothing to do with my alcoholism. If I'd grown up in a perfect, picture perfect home, I was still who I was. And whatever alcohol gets into this girl's body, something shifts.

And that result would have been the same.

And so when we were eight years old, my brother and I ran away. And that's how bad it was living in the house. I think about those things now like I have nephews and I've watched them grow up and,

and there's a sadness to that, you know, of thinking about

what it was like as a kid and seeing these little boys and being like, God, I can't believe that's what I was doing when I was eight. But we run away and, and inevitably we end up going to live with my grandparents. But there was a short period of time that I was with my mom. And during that time is when I had my first drink. I was eight years old. My mom got upset with the guy that she was with. We got in the car and my job was always to cheer mom up. And I had these silly things I would do to make her laugh.

And she went and she got a six pack and she handed me a beer.

Now, I was super excited about this because I also in that early age time period, no matter where I was at, I wanted to be somewhere else. I would see kids on TV getting kidnapped and I'm like, why doesn't anybody kidnap me? Right? Like it didn't matter where it was. I just wanted my situation to change. And so the place, if you asked me when I was a kid, where do you want to go? It was Bentley's all day long. That was the bar that my mom ran. And it was like dinging nasty dark. You'd walk across

and your feet would stick as you'd walk, right? Like gross, not like urine. It was super nasty. I loved that place. And my aspiration was to be a bartender. And, and so I knew that everybody went there to drink and everybody seemed so happy. And, and so when she handed me that beer, I was like, I've arrived. I'm 8 years old. My head barely clears the the window in the car and I'm holding the beer up because I want everybody to see that I have arrived, right? Like I was so excited about this. Now

I wasn't I didn't get like totally drunk. I remember we went to Bentley's that night. That's about all I remember. But it was my first drink and the first time I got drunk was with my brother. He had a friend over again, I was super weird and awkward but I thought his friend was cute. And we, I don't even know why we were looking for liquor, but we found a bottle of liquor. My grandparents did not drink. The only reason that they had that bottle was in case grandma got sick, grandpa would make her a hot toddy.

So we got the stool. I remember everything about that night. And that was something that I also loved later when I was drinking was like, it was the pre party to the party to the party after, right? Like it was the adrenaline rush. I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. I liked all of that. If I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, I was an adrenaline junkie. I loved that stuff, you know. And so I remember getting the stool and climbing up there, grabbing that bottle whiskey. There was also some orange triple SEC. I couldn't eat oranges for years.

Even into sobriety I could. If it was orange flavor, forget it. Orange juice, Nothing. So up we went, and I don't know how we knew how to play quarters, but we just inherently knew how to play quarters and off we went.

That first shot of whiskey, when it hit the back of my throat, it was like fire and I felt that burn all the way down my esophagus. And when it hit the pit of my stomach, everything went warm and cozy and I felt like I could breathe for the first time in my life.

I'm just one of those people. If I like something, give me more. And that night, what ended up happening? They dared me $20. I couldn't finish off the drink. And, you know, I turned it up and,

you know, to say I had alcohol poisoning, I was 10, right? I hadn't eaten anything. And I essentially drank close to a festive liquor. I was, I became violently I'll, I was very, very sick. But the magic happened. I mean, I loved the feeling of that, but what I loved more

as I remember laying on the couch and everything was spinning and it happened so fast.

Everything was spinning and my brother was saying these terrible things to me, and I could hear him in my ears, but I didn't hear him in my heart.

That was the power of alcohol for me. It didn't matter what you thought about me. It didn't matter who you were.

People that I loved the most could think the worst things about me, and I was perfectly content and OK,

that was powerful and that became my higher power. That became my everything. And it wasn't like this conscious thought, like I've solved the world's problems, but that is 100% how I felt.

And so like what happened that night and, and I talked about this night in description because every drink from that time until the time I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, this was a resemblance. And this is what I call partying. OK, I proceeded to punch the boy that I had a crush on. I left my DNA all over the house. I fell down the stairs myself. I wet my pants. And that was a party, right? Like The thing is, it didn't matter what kind of

or whatever because what happened is I felt like a human being.

I felt like I mattered and I felt OK in my own skin.

I had never felt that way before in my life. And alcohol gave me this ability to just be OK

and to feel like a normal person. I had never felt that way. And so, you know, I didn't become a daily drinker at the age of 10. But I will tell you that night they called two places because I had I had alcohol poisoning, I was vomiting blood. I was very sick. They called two places. They called alcoholic synonymous, which I always find hysterical. And then they called my uncle and my uncle was the cool guy that had a Harley-Davidson, always had a beer in his hand. They knew he would know what to do with me.

Now I'll go ahead and I'm going to Fast forward a little bit so that you understand the impact of of that man because I sometimes I forget to tell it. When I got sober, I was about six months sober

and what happened for me is when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was at zero. I didn't have any pride, I didn't have any self esteem. Everything was gone. I was at 0. So I started doing these things. What happened for me is that about 90 days in 60 days, 90 days, my ego return.

And what that looks like for this alcoholic is you're not that bad. You're not like them.

You haven't ever gotten a DUI. What about when you get married? I start all of these reservations start running around in my head

and I didn't really share these openly. What these, some of them I did like the, you know, I mean, get a DUI. I did share that because they informed me I didn't have a car or driver's license and that was important to get one of those. And, but, but a lot of those like what about my wedding? Stuff like that? I didn't talk about that stuff. I didn't realize it was a reservation. I didn't really understand any of that. But I was six months sober and I came home and these reservations had started popping up here and there because life got good quick, right? Remove alcohol from my life and

destruction that I was living in. My life started to get better. But at six months over, I came home and everybody was at the house and my aunt and uncle had gotten in a huge fight and they got in a fight about his drinking. And when she came out of the bedroom, the phone book was opened up to treatment centers.

And

after about a week, he, she, he shouldn't hear anything. So she sent people looking for him. And they found him behind the house. And he shot himself with a shotgun. And everybody was coming over to tell me that he had died. And they were sitting around the table and they were talking about whether or not he was going to go to heaven or hell because he had committed this mortal sin, Which I think is really interesting because my family never went to church. I don't know where they become like, you know,

on that topic, but the clearest thought came to my head.

And that thought was he didn't kill himself. He died of alcoholism.

Because when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that night is when he pulled the trigger. I knew how he felt because that's how I felt on January 11th of 1992 when I was completely alone and I couldn't figure out how to kill myself because I wanted to make sure I could never come back again.

My alcoholism, no matter what. I may not at 14 have cirrhosis of the liver or have 10 DUI's or have all of these things, but I will always get to a place that it makes sense for me to take my own life no matter what. That's what alcoholism looks like for this alcoholic.

And so, you know, I don't ever want to forget sharing that because it was such a huge part of my first step in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because even though I was coming to these meetings, I was doing the deal, you know, I was doing all this stuff. I was hanging out with you people to my innermost self. That is when I understood my alcoholism.

And so, and the last thing I said to my uncle, the last time I saw him was I said you should come to a meeting with me. He was on his bike and he had a beer in his hand and he was riding off.

And so like, again, I didn't become an alcoholic at like 10, right? But I can tell you I knew the solution to my life and I am defiant by nature. It's over a while. Let me tell you. If you told me to do something, I'm going to do the exact opposite, to let you know that I can do it and do it better that way, right? Like that's just by nature who I am. And so add to the fact that I have no principles in my life, No nothing,

and alcohol is my master. I did whatever I needed to

to get what I needed to. I never had an issue getting alcohol, being underage it, it just wasn't an issue for me. I lived in a big metropolitan city. We just sit outside the liquor store and give somebody money to go in and buy us liquor. It just wasn't an issue. I like to stock up, get half gallon jugs of vodka. And that's essentially what my life became, is figuring out what party where we were going to go. And I can tell you that it started out wanting to be social.

But the bottom line is what my drinking looks like because I end up alone

and I drank a lime. I drank first thing in the morning till the last time before I close my eyes and I pass out

all day every day as often as I can.

Umm, my first rehab was when I was in 3rd when I was 13

and I just thought they were being so dramatic, right? Like I didn't understand why my why they wouldn't leave me alone because if they understood me, they would just let me be.

And what I learned in that rehab is drugs are bad. Just say no. Because in my mind I could understand that. Like drugs are illegal. There was a whole campaign in the United States. Just say no Nancy Reagan. Like it was a big thing. So like that made sense to me. I don't know where in my mind that I thought somehow it was legal for a 13 year old to be drinking their face off every single day, but it was different, right? There's different rules for Alcoholics, right? Like there's always a different exception for myself and

the rules don't apply to me. And so

that's what I thought if I thought that they were crazy. Now, by this time, I'm thirteen years old. I have an 18 year old boyfriend, which, you know, the family was really excited about that too. But we were in love, right? And we were going to get married and he was, you know, Oh my God, he was a total loser. But like at the time, you know, right, Like I just think this guy's great. And I was obsessed and,

and I'm I'm hanging out with people who are 10/15/20 years older than me. And, and what progressed into happening prior to me coming to alcoholic synonymous is these people.

I referred to them as my friends. I now refer to them as pedophiles because that's what they were, right? Because what my drinking looks like is that I have no moral compass whatsoever. It doesn't matter what kind of upbringing that I had,

not that the first eight years were great, but my grandparents were some of the most wonderful human being. Like they lived by principles that we like have to work at every day, right? Like they just naturally were good human beings and and they taught me to work hard. They taught me all of these things that stuff. I didn't. I just thought, why does he ask me how my day is? This is a man that it wasn't his responsibility to care for me. I was so selfish and self-centered that he asked me how my day was and I would get so mad and I would

to the back of the house and playing the door right. Like I hated him and I hated everybody. And, and what my drinking turned into was just this place that essentially most of my drinking happened alone. I became isolated to an extent that, you know, I took that physically as well. I shaved half my head. Combat boots, you know, like blacklist black eyes. I didn't look like this when I came Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was an unlovely creature, as I like to say,

but that's just where it took me, right? And, and I think about those things because I see young girls sometimes come to Alcoholics Anonymous and it's rare, you know, to see like a 14 or 15 year old. But when it, when it happens, I look at them and I think you're a child. But I was living my life like a 30 year old woman. I was drinking daily. I had bleeding ulcers. I was emaciated because I didn't eat food. I didn't need food. I had vodka, you know, and that the stronger the alcohol, the better. Everclear was a big thing

in Texas. And so again, it wasn't about the taste, it was about what's going to get me wherever I need to go as fast as I can get there because I don't like the way that I feel. And alcohol gave me the ability and, and had it continued to work for me, I would not be here. I'd be drinking my face off, you know, I loved that feeling. But the end for me is that alcohol no longer worked. And I felt like I was going to come out of my skin. I felt like a raw nerve every

day of my life and no matter how much I drank, I couldn't get drunk and I could not get to that place that I felt OK.

I felt angry, irritable, breathless, discontent, like I just wanted to set everything on fire.

And by this time, I'm also a very violent human being. Like, if I was sober, I was violent. If I was drunk, I was going to drink myself. So like, stupid drunk that like, I wouldn't engage with you, but if I was sober and you hurt my feelings, I'd beat you up. That was just how I responded.

And at this time too, like my brother, who Helm and I were like thick as seeds. We didn't run around together. He just thought I was, you know, he still looks at me like I'm still that same person, but

which is kind of funny. But he also likes to drink a lot. So,

you know, I just, I just got to this place of complete isolation. I didn't have friends, I didn't connect with anybody in my family. And, and, and that's what the end was like, because I got to this place of desperation. And I remember sitting in my room that night and, and, and for me, the ultimate desperation is if I'm willing to pray. And that's true today, right? Like I call my sponsor and she's like, what did you pray about it? I'm like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, You know, like can we talk about the 20 other things that we

to resolve this problem? I don't like my solution to be prayer. I never have even today, don't like it. I know that it's the truth. I know that my higher power is the thing that connects me and gets me the ability to be who and what I am, but I still don't want it to be my solution. And on January 11th of 1992, when I was sitting there, I was so desperate that I prayed,

but my prayer was not for help. I didn't want help. I knew that the world would be better off. And I can tell you that today, based upon the way I lived my life, the things that I did to the human beings in my life, the world would have been better off with how I lived my life. For me to be gone, that was the truth.

It wasn't like this overindulgent, self pitying thing. It was the truth. I was a terrible human.

Thankfully I believe my higher power did not want that

because what happened is is at some point in time I passed out because I couldn't figure out I'd cut my wrist before. I'd taken bottles of pills before,

and I think a lot of that was a very dramatic thing that I did, too. This was different and I've never felt to this date in my sobriety the way that I felt that night.

But the next morning, apparently I woke up and I got a phone call from this girl who I'd been in rehab with, and her name was Abby. And Abby was the first girlfriend I've ever met. Like, we met in rehab and rehab was super fun. Like it was just a bunch of derelicts like me, you know, like we just got in trouble or whatever. And we ran around and I met this girl and we connected and it was the first girlfriend I'd ever really had. And so when we got out of rehab, she was trying to do this sober thing. And I was like,

you know,

not me. And she would carry these little chips around and and I was a nice friend. And what I would do is I would set up shot glasses and I'd fill them up with water for that was a good friend. I like in Bill's story when he talked about that. And so

three months prior to me receiving that phone call, she said, I'm not going to continue to watch you kill yourself.

And not once did I think to myself, maybe I should not drink. I didn't think I was an alcoholic. On January 12th of 1992, when I walked into that meeting of Alcohol Anonymous, I didn't think that I was an alcoholic. I thought there was something broken within me and that there was something apparently wrong with me as a human being.

Alcohol was not the problem and I would have defended that till the day that I died, right? Because it was my only solution that I'd ever experienced.

But I was like, bye, Abby. I didn't again, I didn't think, don't drink or like change some things. Control your drinking. Bye

all of y'all who have tried controlling your drinking. I'm sorry that seems real painful to me. Right. It was not my experience every time I drank. I drank to get drunk and that is a big reason why I thought I was not an alcoholic. I'm not powerless. I meant to get drunk.

Like that was my solution. You know, every time I meant to get drunk, when I got sober, I remember I went to this, I was in this wedding and I and I had this thought that I would look really pretty with a glass of champagne. And, you know, 'cause everybody was having champagne and we had these Vera Wang gowns. It was like, you know, very hoity toity and and I see these girls and they have their glasses champagnes and I was like, I would look really pretty with a glass of champagne,

you know, and so I do what I'm supposed to and I pick up the phone and I tell my sponsor and and she said, huh, why? Why do you think you what would a glass of champagne do for you? I would like nothing.

I didn't want a glass of champagne. I wanted to change the way that I felt. And that's not a glass of champagne. Because what would happen? That Vera Wang dress would have been tied around my waist and I would have been hitting on the groom. You know, because it would have been a bottle of vodka. It wouldn't have been a glass of champagne. But my alcoholism likes to dress it up really pretty.

Not ever have I thought a glass of anything sounds good.

I want to feel better.

And that's just what my alcoholism looks like. And so January 12th, she called me and she, she asked me how I'm doing and asked me if I wanted to go to a meeting. No, right. I did not want to go to a meeting. But something inside me was like, go. I was so miserable. And This is why I believe that pitiful and comprehensible demoralization, that space that I had to get to, that pain that I had to get to, had to be a place

that was so lonely and empty, that might ego was gone

and my pride was gone.

Everything was gone. Otherwise, I'm not willing because if I don't have a if I have a plan, I don't need you.

But when I'm no longer have a plan and my cards are at 0,

have a little bit more willingness.

So I went to that meeting and I walked into the Back Basics group in Arlington, TX and it was a bunch of like 900 year old people and they had been sober since. God old as dirt, right? Like me, very charming that I was half my head shaved. Combat boots. Like I couldn't say a sentence without using the F word at least four or five times. Now, outside of a meeting you might find that still to be true, but in a meeting I can actually go the full time.

But I was an unlovely human being. And

I walk into this meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was not greeted with I spilt more than you drank and you don't belong here. I wasn't treated like I was a kid. What I was treated with was respect

and I was at a place of my wife that I didn't have any for myself,

much less things that I deserved it. They didn't tell me like the copies over there. They got me a cup of coffee and they brought it over to me.

What I experienced that night is what I believe our common welfare becomes about. Is that that newcomers important?

Our first impression on that new alcoholic is so important.

I didn't keep coming back because I thought I was an alcoholic and I needed help. I received loving kindness and hope in a moment of kindness from people I've never met before.

And there was something endearing enough about that that it kept me coming back. I hadn't gone through the steps. I hadn't identified my alcoholism. I hadn't admitted to my innermost self. I didn't even think I needed to be there. I cried the entire meeting. And at the end they gave me their phone numbers and they said, we don't care if it's three or 4:00 in the morning. If you need help you call us.

This is so weird

because there's a price for everything in the world that I was living in. I knew because I paid it.

And I kept thinking like these old men are going to ask for something. They keep telling me they love me, you know, like I just knew, like something was up. Again. My experience is, is that those old men were nothing but my biggest cheerleaders. Respectful

and they took me under their wings and they showed me Alcoholics Anonymous by the way they they lived their lives. I'll forever be grateful. I know some people haven't had that experience, but that's what my experience was.

That's the experience that I try to pass on as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous today is to remember

what I say here tonight in my talk. You know, my egos, like I want to be like great, and I want to be funny and all of these things. I had a sponsor that said, you know what, Jennifer, your job is to get up and share your experience, strength and hope you're not there to entertain people. We don't entertain and Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, granted, I guess there's some people that are super entertaining. Sometimes I can.

My job is to ask my higher power to come into my heart and share whatever messages that needs to be spoken.

I don't remember one thing that I heard in my first meeting of alcoholic knowledge.

You know what? I remember

how they treated me.

I was not lovable. And they loved me.

They loved me just because I was a broken human. They clapped for me when I got my chip. Only an Alcoholic's Anonymous are we like at our worst? And we're all like, that's great, right? Like what is this that we're a part of? But I can tell you that the rest of my sobriety was just like that. I have Giants and Alcoholics Anonymous that has built me up year after year after year. And I'm sober a really long time, and I still have

that are my biggest cheerleaders.

I never had a dad that was like the kind of dad that in my mind I envisioned that we're supposed to have.

I never had a mom until about

on our 12 years ago. My mom's 1918 years at 19 years, 19 years sober and

or maybe she's 18 years over. We were talking about this earlier. She's been sober a little bit.

She was sober a while before she learned how to be a mom.

12 years ago my mom started showing up

but I can tell you do you know how many men and women have come into this Alcoholics life

and changed my life and loved me like I was their own child? God gives me what I need,

right? It may not be in the form that I always thought that it was supposed to be in when I bought my first house. I remember buying my first house and I just thought, I'm so excited and I wouldn't allow myself to get excited until I had those keys and I was sitting outside that house. I had a migraine the entire week. I wouldn't start packing. My realtor called me and was like, have you started back? And I'm like, Nope, because I can't get excited about something that might not happen, right?

I hit the keys and I'm sitting there. No one in my family even really acknowledged that,

right? But my A, a people, they were sending plants. They bought me a grill. They were like, doing all of these things. So my experiences is that, you know, the way that I viewed relationships, the way that I saw things was from the selfish, self-centered place. I was so angry for years at my father. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was seven years sober and I was still laying in bed

fantasizing. Like I would get so excited fantasizing about beating my stepmother with my bare hands,

right? And I would just think, I can't wait till my dad's on his deathbed

because I want him to be alone and feel the loneliness that I felt in the rejection that I felt to my innermost self. 100% I felt that way.

Who I am today is the only child that my that talks to my father.

I call him on a regular basis

because what happened through the process of the transition that happened in the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, it happened over the course of, you know, 30 years, right? I was seven years sober, having homicidal thoughts about people still right where there is great pain. My experiences is it takes a lot of work. I wrote a lot of inventory over a lot of years to get to a place that I was willing to pray for. Willingness

to have understanding

because I have plenty of reasons to be justifiably anger about things that happened as a child, right?

Justifiable anger does not work for me, though,

because I'm the one who's gonna die from it. It tells me in my literature. It doesn't say like getting in a relationship your first year is going to be the death of you. It doesn't say like it doesn't say any of that. What it says is resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more Alcoholics than anything else.

And I was resentful because of resentment is a reoccurring emotion. And when you're laying in bed having homicidal thoughts about somebody, I'm just going to say there's probably a resentment there, right?

And, and so like I had to do a lot of work. I say that to say that I

it didn't happen overnight for me and I'm not in a place like things will come up today. And I'm like, I thought I worked through that, right. But like whether it's like I've been dishonest about stupid things lately, like what is that about, right? My alcoholism is alive and well. I can't stay sober today on what I did yesterday for my recovery.