AA Speaker – Sharon C. – Bend, OR – 2020
Sharon C. shares nearly 45 years sober, from homeless in Los Angeles to spiritual awakening in AA. A story of hitting bottom, family amends, and finding purpose in recovery.
Sharon C. from Bend, Oregon has nearly 45 years sober—a journey that began with a spiritual awakening in the back of a Volkswagen in 1975 after she was beaten and left on the side of a road in Los Angeles. In this AA speaker tape, she walks through decades of running from her Iowa roots, living on the fringes, and how two women in early recovery literally picked her up and brought her to a church basement where everything changed.
Sharon C., an AA speaker with nearly 45 years of sobriety, describes her bottom in Los Angeles and the spiritual experience that led her into recovery on August 20, 1975. She discusses the critical role of her sponsors, the amends process with her estranged father over many years, and how staying sober allowed her to become an example to her family—including helping a man from her hometown who would later sponsor another family member. The talk covers how service work, sponsorship, and consistent spiritual practice transformed her defiance into purpose, and how the ripple effects of living sober continue to touch others decades later.
Episode Summary
Sharon C. opens with gratitude for nearly 45 years of sobriety, a life she counts day by day. But she wasn’t always in the rooms. She grew up in Iowa as the rebellious one in her family—the seeker looking for something bigger than her father could offer. When she discovered alcohol, it connected her to that something. She was addicted from her first drink.
Over the next two decades, Sharon slid everything important to her across the bar: her dignity, her family’s love, her relationship with God, her passion for life. She lived in communes, worked carnivals, panhandled, and was kicked out of communities because her defiance and her drinking stood out. The turning point came in April 1975 when she hit a bottom that left no escape route. She was unemployable, homeless in Los Angeles, and sleeping in garages with drinkers like herself.
On July 27th, she went to Palm Springs on the back of a Harley with people she didn’t know. They beat her, broke her jaw in three places, smashed her nose, and left her on the side of the road. That’s when she heard a voice—deep within her, telling her to get up and live. She crawled to where someone found her and called an ambulance.
In the hospital, recovering from surgery with her jaw wired, a man named Maurice came to her bedside. He was dating a woman named Chris who had been in the bar where Sharon worked, the one with the Big Book. He offered her his couch. A few days later, when his patience wore thin and he told her to leave, Sharon called her mother. Her mother said to go to the Salvation Army. But Sharon found a phone number on the table—Chris’s number. She called. Chris, who was still drinking that day, gave Sharon the number of a five-year sober member.
Two beautiful women picked her up on August 20, 1975, put her in a Volkswagen where she couldn’t get out, and drove her to a church basement. She heard someone talk about waiting for a spaceship to land—the “spaceship people” she’d always been looking for. A man named Maurice put the Big Book in front of her and wrote her sobriety date: August 20, 1975.
The early days were brutal. She couldn’t talk for three months. She slept on floors. But her sponsors—both of them—saw she was worth saving and gave her a shot. One sponsor told her: “Get a sponsor, your life gets better.” That’s how simple it was.
Over the decades, Sharon rebuilt her relationship with her father through the amends process. She sent him a check with a note for four years and ten months until he called and said he didn’t want the money anymore, only the notes. Her father had read the Big Book, run a calculator tape, and discovered the total she owed. He had also, without her knowing, told the town drunk—a man named John—about Alcoholics Anonymous. Years later, Sharon learned that John got sober, sponsored his niece, who now has two years because Sharon happened to speak at a meeting on a rainy night when she didn’t want to go.
She talks about her marriage to Casey, which lasted 24 years until he died of melanoma. The men in AA surrounded him at meetings and talked about golf instead of his illness—giving him normalcy when he needed it most. Now she takes his ashes around the world, bungy jumping in New Zealand, spreading him in glaciers in Alaska.
Sharon’s message is simple: There’s always a solution. Stay in the game. You have no idea whose life you’re touching or where the ripples will go. Every once in a while, if you stay sober, you get to see the veil lift and watch the ripple hit the shore.
Notable Quotes
The age of Miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that.
I’m a Survivor. My defiance will keep me alive. That’s the beauty of being as defiant as I was.
When I lifted my head up, I heard a voice deep down within me. It said: get up, I want to live.
Don’t tell me Zoom’s not working. We had 143 girls and 24 newcomers. It’s working good.
There’s always a solution. I’ve never heard anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous say we don’t stay sober through that—you got to leave. There’s an answer, a solution for everything here. You just stay through it.
Broken open hearts heal bigger.
Spiritual Awakening
Sponsorship
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Family & Relationships
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Hitting Bottom
- Spiritual Awakening
- Sponsorship
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Family & Relationships
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe whether you join us in the morning or at night there’s nothing better than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker thank you Joel my name is Sharon I’m an alcoholic and it’s good to be here sitting down I’ve been out with my dog and it’s hot today and she didn’t she wanted to come in before me today so that’s a good walk with my dog anyway it’s good to see everybody here um I think today I have 16,4 32 days so it’s like I I like to count my days right now because I remember every single day that I woke up sober I remember every single one of those days and that’s an awesome thing that we wake up sober um and I know I wna I want to welcome was it C Karina or Katherina and um yeah Katherina and Randy congrats on 30 days stay with us um I just love that the age of Miracles is still with us and I’m just going to read this little paragraph it may seem incredible that these men are to become happy respected and useful once more how can they rise out of such misery bad repute and hopelessness the Practical answer is that since these things have happened among us they can happen with you should you wish them Above All Else and be willing to make use of our experience we are sure they will come the age of Miracles is still with us our own recovery proves that and I uhh I love that um I constantly find new things in in the book alcoholic synonymous I think because of they say any spiritual book will continue to grow with you and that is very very true in my experience and as my friend Sandy Beach said that the big book it is not the treasure it is the treasure map so if you have that book in your hand and you have a guide because you know if we go out there looking for treasure you know we’re gonna have to have a guide because you know you can’t go climb a mountain you’ve never seen before without a guide or something a map uh you know so I’m so grateful to have had guides in my life the last last uh gosh almost 45 years um so yeah it’s amazing um I’ve been a little bit nostalgic because I think that happens at every U milestone in life whether it’s a a birth a death a a great joy a great sadness I think that um Milestones as my sponsor clients he says he’s been my sponsor the last 35 of my almost 45 years he said there’re just signposts on the road telling you you’re on the right path so it doesn’t do matter if you have two days four days 30 days 50 years we’re on the right path if you’re seeing those signposts and that’s a good thing um so I yes I I grew up in Iowa and it was my first resentment and I couldn’t wait to get out of there I was a seeker and I was I was seeking I don’t know what I was seeking something bigger than me that’s it you know I think I was seeking something bigger than me I used to think I was uh seeking you know Gandhi’s teachings and and seeking um you know the mother ship where is it um you know I was seeking those things but I was seeking something bigger than me because I knew whatever I had my father couldn’t fix it and he’s got four children and everybody everybody but me kind of followed the yellow brick road to what you’re supposed to do in life and I was the one that I was the re rebellious one the defiant one um I didn’t start out that way but that’s where it started after I started drinking I I had a change of Personality really um and started to do things like skip school find the booze steal the booze whatever it was I loved it I loved what alcohol did for me it connected me to you it connected me to to whatever the that I needed to be connected to whether it was you whether it was you know something in the sky something you know way out there I felt connected and alcohol could do that for me and a you know in a room alone it made me feel connected so I was connected to alcohol from the beginning and they say that one out of 10 people have that adverse Obsession which I had to write down for my first step I had to write down how I could only have one drink if there were some times my sponsor had me write that down and there were some times um but as I went along my uh my defiant way in in in my life I began to have to you know slide across the bar my dad’s love slide across the bar my art Talent slide across the bar uh my dignity slide across the bar the you know the love my family slide across the bar my loving God slide across the bar my passion for life slide across the bar everything important to me because any time there was a fork in the road I took alcohol and that’s where that’s what I got kicked out of places that people um were living on the edge like a commune that that in Huntington Beach that ended up uh panhandling for a living and I was a terrible panhandler and I’m a drinker and they’re not they’re not drinkers so of course I stood out so of course when I drank that bong line they got mad at me took me on a picnic and and left me on a mountain um of course I was going to have some uh physical problems as I you know I had a gallbladder not working I had pancreatitis in the end of my drinking um I I got I got asked to leave the organic well I left before the organic people came up came back I ended up at an organic community in northern Wisconsin where somebody said let me take care of you and it was not taking care of me it was working if you’re on organic Community you’re working but they all went off and did Primal therapy and I you know I was already kind of you know persona non gratus around any of those people um because I told them what I thought about them and uh when I get drunk I I’m rebellious and I’ll kick their banjo and take off their hoot and Nanny records you guys are boring um so they went off to do Primal therapy and I we had 50 head of organic sheep which I got drunk and screamed at and that was my Primal and and I I went to harvest the my crop back in the woods Maui woi seeds one seed at a time uh lot of organic sheep dung on it short growing season tall beautiful crop and so I thought I’m G to harvest that before they come back and getting out of town and that was that was a place where my mother thought maybe Sharon will make it because she knew the guy I was with she we had grown up together and she thought okay maybe she’ll make it I mean I remember gave them um like maple syrup we had made if you’ve ever made maple syrup it’s a lot of work it’s a lot of work and we had get and I had made some logos and so everybody that holiday got maple syrup we had made and you know it was just uh they she thought okay well maybe this will work so when I harvested my crop and and didn’t make the money because I forgot the crop back on the farm um and I joined the carnival because it was there that was my way out of town and I called my mother from Arkansas and she said I said Mom I’m in Arkansas now and I I joined a a carnival called mad Armstrong shows and she was really quiet really quiet it’s not a day you want to hear your daughter call say hey Mom I’m with the carnival now so I’m not hurting anyone but me please don’t cry I’m not hurting anyone but me I’m writing a book mother I’m writing a book but that was the time I saw that my mom kind of just she couldn’t believe my life anymore my mom stuck with me all the way my dad and I you could cut the tension with a knife after after I was in in my 19th year of life because I always I always had to argue with him about anything anything and one day my father asked me H how are you you look weird I he he was a weird but you look not good tell me what’s going on okay Dad sit down and I told Dad things that dads don’t need to know about their daughters so I saw my father Look Away set his jaw so that he wouldn’t say anything and that’s the way my dad and I lived for eight years never rode in the same car never had breakfast at the same table and um you know if I called home and he answered the phone went right to Mom so now my mother is crying and she’s not buying it and she had to literally go back up to that farm in northern Wisconsin from Eastern Iowa which is a 5H hour trip to get her things back that she had given me for possibly making a life for myself like some of her antique furniture and things like that she she gave to me she used in that non-insulated Schoolhouse that we were living in cold you it’ be minus 30 and we have to stoke a fire to get warm if you want to have tea or you know boil anything you got a Stoke of fire it was oh what am I doing here and I am the Drinker that stands out so after the carnival um call with Mom it was like don’t even call home anymore so I felt very separated from my family by King alcohol but it was a fork in the road and I took it I took it because I could still count on alcohol working in my life and uh eventually the carnival um uh said to get rid of me too so I didn’t even fit in with the cars which are all off the grid they’re all off the grid and um you know because I had this little shooting gallery and I didn’t want to give away teddy bears even though those little 12y old boys you know they had their BB guns and they shot down the appropriate amount of targets to win a teddy bear and I would say no you didn’t and they say yes we did no you didn’t you know and i’ pop that Target up and i’ they’d say well we’re gonna tell our dads go ahead go whine I’m drinking tequila I am not nice and so the dads would come and then there’d be some argument and then it would be bigger and then all the other Carneys you know that was the code we had to help each other so they would come and then I would mace somebody because I I hitchhiked a lot so I always had mace in one of my boots and uh then we get closed down matt would have to peel off some of his money in his pocket and buy our way out of town and the second time it happened it was in Louisiana and that’s where the owner of the show that’s where he wintered that’s his home base that’s where he knows all of all of the cops all around I don’t even know what they call them we call them the parish finest because it was Parish by Parish by Parish down there so Matt said to those guys go get that little girl she’s staying at this Motel she’s trouble I don’t want her in in the carnival anymore I’ll get my stuff back but she’s got stuff in that room and you can find it here and here and here and they came in at 8 am one morning which of course I’m not awake and uh pushed the door open and that was me going off to baloa Louisiana lock up talk about a big bug oh my God they could drag your shoes across the floor at night you know somebody was like making a wagon and trying to train them to pull a little wag I mean it was insane and I had actual DTS there I mean I people I had auditories I had things that happened from time to time but this was actual DTS with things that you on the TV talking to me that wasn’t it was in the lobby and I could see it and they were talking to me and and people had pointed heads and and I’m like anxiety r and so I took a piece of glass I found and made little Cuts all over my face and arms because they came in at night in this big pen of women and and took one out one at a time and then brought them back at at daylight it was a crazy place but they left me alone because she they said she’s crazy and I would just like with my blood I would go and they did leave me alone I’m a Survivor my Defiance will keep me alive that’s the beauty of being as defined as I was when I ran with these people that really didn’t care for human life you know they didn’t care cared about themselves and the carnival never came back and so I they cuffed me one day I was there maybe a week and a half threw me in this room drove me somewhere threw me in this office building and there was my father who had gotten on a plane in Iowa nobody in my family is alcoholic nobody in my family’s been to jail nobody in my fames um caused so much heartache and broken hearts so I’m so grateful we got to the amends process in the beginning of my sobriety I’m so grateful I think I think I had 3 five years with my mom sober and 24 years with my no 20 yeah 24 years with my dad sober so we had a lot of time to mend the fences but um I didn’t know that then but I just remember how I felt that day um he tried to buy they said they were letting me go and he wrote a big check to this baale bondsman and the lawyer and the judge so it was kangaroo court and they sent me back to jail and they didn’t let me out and my dad went home to Iowa and thought they let me out and that’s he was just doing the patriarchal thing because that’s my dad but I talked to my dad when I was 20 years sober about that day and he said all you said the whole time they asked you anything was I’m not guilty and it’s not my fault and I totally believe that I am building a case I am the victim I am the victim and I’m good at building a case and so I found the French Court of New Orleans when they finally let me out and that’s where I drank hard and heavy and my blackouts were getting longer and my blackouts were um I I said to myself I remember saying to myself after I woke up in Florida swimming with dolphins I thought they were sharks I had started drinking in a bar in the French Quarter and I and I was with these people I didn’t know who were really mad at me and they I finally someone said well you know you drove the wrong way in the freeway we were all screaming and you wouldn’t get off and I was like oh I was kind of shocked with that one I didn’t I didn’t remember any of it so I thought to myself I better take better care of myself in my blackouts it’s not like oh my God you’re drinking too much you burned down your life you’re sick with this pancreatitis that comes your gallbladder has been removed um you’re starting to lose jobs in the French Quarter which which is hard to do when you’re working at a local bar and um so in 1975 from April to when I get sober on August 20th it’s it’s when my alcoholism really took me down and um because I was always looking for another way I was always looking for the easier softer way somehow but now um in April I’m unemployable I got asked to leave my very sedy sorry little bar in the French Quarter because I have a bad attitude and my alcoholic friends aren’t drinking with me anymore because they don’t want to because I was hitting bottom before they were they told me two of my friends are sober and they said yes you were hitting bottom way before we did and I um found myself trying to get out of town I ended up at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood where um I saw the big book alcoholic synonymous second edition big white letters on that navy blue and it’s it was she was passed out by the book and coming to and to many people were signing something which I think it was her Court card but I’m drinking in there and feeling sorry for her she’s got to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and the bartender called her a taxi she took her book she wobbled out the door and fell into a cabin and we I had my Jose quvo nice and neat no lime no salt big rock glass that’s the way I drank my tequila and we all gave her a toast as she fell out the door good for you Chris go to an and um I was going to not be able to get a job I was I was asked to leave um after I don’t know just a short shift because I couldn’t remember where the glasses where the drinks on my tray went and the owner came over and had to help me as I stood in the middle of the floor and he said we’ll pay you for tonight please don’t come back and I got to tell you I was bloated um I was wearing this red doiki and I had a Panama Hat on so you wouldn’t look in my eyes I had all my possessions that I cared about which was not much in a backpack and I had a book by Baba ramas called be here now which meant to me wasn’t a big spiritual search it was I can do what I want when I want to do it and that’s the way I live no more dogs no more boyfriends no more calling home my mother didn’t know where I was and I was unemployable and I had no place to live and somebody was kind to me and I lived in one place for a while until I locked him out of the kitchen and threw food all over the walls because I don’t even know I’m doing this I don’t even know that I’m at the end of my drinking and um I I ended up back in New Orleans for a brief period and met somebody going to Hawaii and I said let’s go because it seemed to me I couldn’t even get my job back anywhere in the French Quarter and it seemed to me all my friends didn’t want to hang with me anymore and it it was true so there I am again stuck at Barney Beery and um I me this girl who um I stay in touch with her through a friend of mine who’s sober I I stay in touch about her um and she’s the last picture I saw of her oh man she doesn’t look anything like the person I remember who was rough when I met her and she’s still her her her brother died and um I don’t know how she’s alive but that’s that’s what scares me if I would go out I don’t know if I die right away but I might look just like just like my friend and live a long time in pain and Agony and be too chicken to jump off a 44 floor building and um so that’s a reminder but I met her and we partied together I had no place to live and I’d sleep in a garage with cs where there somebody always provided the vka in the freezer and that’s we’d all get up and hit on that vodka now my mother thinks I’m back in the fren quarter somewhere my mother has no idea that I’m homeless in Los Angeles and it’s not a friendly City to be homeless in but most of the people that took me in were drinkers like me and um on um July 27th my friend and I met some guys at the bar and we went out to Palm Springs on Harley’s and I think they just needed a little extra weight it was very windy going through the desert we left at like 3 in the morning or something and so they needed a little extra weight so I was about you know I weigh 140 but I was like 175 pounds I was very bloated and very sick and very toxic and um I unbathed water hurt I don’t know about you but showers hurt and U that was that was what was getting ready to come du to alcoholics synonymous but it took one final thing for me to slide across the bar and that was my life because at some point this girl left me in the are I’m so grateful for this moment in my life I’m sorry it’s like a it’s like this this emotion of gratitude for my bottom which got me here and I hope to goodness sakes you’ve hit a bottom if you’re new and there’s going to be other emotional and spiritual Bottoms in sobriety too which to me signify growth if you stay that the hallway the hallway is crowded with people between what was and what could be and and going back that way going back where you came in doesn’t guarantee anything but to me if I stay one day at a time in whatever hallway I’m in the door opens on a new beautiful view I didn’t even imagine so my last drinking bout I ended up in a car she left me in a car with people we didn’t know they took me somewhere they broke my jaw in three places they smashed my nose they basically drugg me around on the cement the doctor said you were very lucky that another bone in your face didn’t break because my cheekbones were just so sore I couldn’t even touch them for six months and uh they rolled me off the side of the road and that’s when I had my spiritual experience because I lifted my head up even though I had a concussion I lifted my head up because I heard the carar slam and I thought they’re coming back and I thought who cares but what I heard was a voice deep down with that that fact deep down within us I Heard a Voice I believe that’s where it came from it said get up I want to live and I guess I did and I guess I ended up somewhere where I someone called the ambulance and I was in um the hospital being prepped for surgery to put my JW back on and set my nose and I was the victim because the police were there and this was you know my name was after the word victim that I wrote and it was like oh my God finally somebody knows what I am I mean really it’s like you know Barry maob but I was thinking if I could have smiled and said thank you for that I would have and I was in the hospital for two weeks and they just morphed me up it was like and they I saw the chart one day it said addictive personality because they weren’t coming fast enough I never was a morphing girl or a heroin girl or you know a Reds girl or any of that I’m up and running and you know people that were face down going with’s party you know was like okay have your party on the floor I’m out of here you know it’s just the way I was and and so but but that morphine they kept giving me and then they didn’t come in time and so I addicted personality on my chart but I got no cards I had no friendly Direction I had nothing I didn’t know where I was going to do and this man who was actually dating the girl with the big book in the bar who had heard about what had happened to me because my friend came back to uh Barney and said well this happened to Shar and you know and um so she knew what happened so I think she sent her boyfriend out to get me because I had nowhere to go she was in and out of AA until she died a wet brain at 31 years old her name was Chris and he came and got me and said I know you don’t have a place to go you can sleep on my couch and I was grateful for it and then on August 20th he was buying me cheap bread wine and and have to unscrew the top and stick a straw on that cheap gallon of wine and stick a straw through the wires on my face where the tooth had been kicked out so I could suck on the wine I’m just sucking on wine there is no more let’s go start over Phoenix has drive-thru liquor stores it’s on a grid northsouth East West I thought well I could always go to Phoenix because I could find my way around and go through drive-thru liquor stores I thought that was fabulous i’ had never seen them before but I was bone tired and he said to me Sharon you got to leave you depressing me and so I called my mom I had nobody else to call and I talked like this and my mother said Sharon we can’t help you anymore go to the Salvation Army and if my mother would have sent $20 you’d have another speaker nor Alp talked a lot when I was new and he talked about seconds and inches seconds and inches seconds and inches that we are the lucky ones to be here and if that $20 bill would have come in the mail to where I was staying I would not be here because what I did was pick up a phone number which was on the table with the telephone we used to have these phones and the telephone book it could have been slid under the telephone book and I wouldn’t have called her but that girl Chris’s number was there I don’t know she’s dating this guy I just know she was always nice to me so I called her and I think about the seconds and inches of that phone number being there looking at me and she said Sharon I can’t help you I heard what happened to you but this girl Suzanne can because she was drinking that day so she gave me a five years sober member Alcoholics Anonymous to call I don’t know that I’m calling a member of AA I just need help so what happened was she sent over two beautiful girls to get me she knew what liquor sore I was living above she knew where to tell me to sit she knew she just like knew she said put your drink put your joint down I thought where is she how does she know this you know she read my mail got my attention I went out and sat on the steps L up to the apartment where we live with that lior store and this car pulls up with these shiny beautiful faces and I was like no their hair is shiny they’re shiny the car is shiny but I was so tired they literally just each picked me up by one arm and took me and put me in the back of the Volkswagen where I couldn’t get out and all I remember was they talked incessantly about themselves trying to you know share their experience strength and hope with me but I don’t hear anything I just think when are they gon to ask me about me I’ve got this newspaper clipping in my pocket I don’t know where they’re going I just think I’m getting a place to stay I don’t know their members of AA I am not tracking on that and we go to a church and I go oh a church me and God had a big fight one fingered pie sign when I left that Catholic church and gave it to the priest and I just thought God stay on your side of the world I’ll stay on my side of the world and uh I thought okay I gotta play the game because I need a place to stay so I’m sitting there people looking at me like or shaking my hand and saying welcome I thought well this is weird and and you look tired take your pack off and stay with us how does he know I’m tired I was a mess when I came here and the guy of the podium I thought was the preacher and he he rang my bell he said he always waited for the spaceship to land and say you can come home now bill and I thought oh my God I’m with spaceship people finally finally that’s what connected me that’s what woke up a little Ember a life in there so I was like oh spaceship people and then this guy came up to me and put put a big book down in front of me Alcoholics Anonymous oh man is that where I am okay you know they’re nice to me I don’t know what I’m doing and uh he wrote in my book my sobriety date he got my name out of me I couldn’t talk the first three months and as a I was in AA so let me tell you everybody talk to me they’re going to talk to people who can’t we like to talk I mean if you can’t talk back oh you’re a you’re just a willing person in this conversation to be a good listener and I learned a lot by listening to you guys but morce salow who was a Hollywood writer he wrote about Marilyn Monroe and all kinds of people he met all the stars he was a great guy he was a smart man and he wrote in my big book Echo Park LA California August 20th 1975 and my name Sharon and it’s in pencil it’s in pencil I love it I can barely read it now I don’t know I’m gonna have to put something over it to read Maurice to keep Maurice’s writing in there because he’s at the big meeting in this sky and that’s what started and their sponsor had said don’t send her up until those liquor store lights turn off because I I I’m still in touch with both of them today they’re still Silber one went out but she’s back and they remind me all the time of how I was when they picked me up and how we sat in that car and an August unwashed detoxing sitting in the back of a Volkswagen can’t get out just sitting there trying to breathe and listen to them who were sharing with me things I didn’t understand and as soon as the liquor ster lights turned off their sponsors said they could send me back upstairs to sleep one more night and then they moved me out and I slept on floors and I I I was not able to go to a recovery house they had one Recovery House in West LA for women and they wouldn’t take them because I my physical appearance they couldn’t feed me I couldn’t feed me my mother finally sent me a blender so I could eat through the straw my God and then a spy got a sponsor because they wouldn’t leave me alone and sponsor said you know you can come sleep on my couch I was like oh my god get a sponsor your life gets better that’s how simple it was for me in the beginning you know but you saw that I was worth saving and you gave me a shot and Chuck C talks about that he said everybody gets a shot everybody gets Grace everybody gets compassion love is a thousand to nothing it’s not a thousand to one it’s a thousand and nothing we do this for fun and for free and uh you know if you’re knew there’s there’s a couple of fairly new that 10 people’s lives have gotten better the moment you come in and sit down with us that they know you’re okay so um now you know one of my big Awakenings in my my life sober has been man it wasn’t even about me from the beginning it takes a long time to get there though I be awake and then to understand even my coming day a was healing for my parents my mother used to to say when I would call home at the holiday because the family knew the family on both sides knew something was wrong with me because I would have fits I would come drunk I would have to drive alone I would sit with the children at the C tables instead of the big table at Thanksgiving well I actually put me there so I was like all right and I just was not cooperative and I didn’t engage with my family so when they found out I was doing better and I would call it the holidays and my mother would be with one family or the other family but I’d have to call both and tell her Merry Christmas and she would get off the phone and my brother said all of the ants would come around and Grandpa would come around go how’s she doing and my mother would say in a whisper she’s an AA she didn’t know what AA was but she knew it was Anonymous so she knew to whisper it I was going to be the example for Alcoholics Anonymous to my my family which is a ripple if you think about what the example is that we give whether it’s you know pausing and not reacting getting in your car and driving to you know call your sponsor somewhere and coming back and helping the family do the dishes or helping the family wrap presents or you know volunteer to go get food um be just a good daughter a good family member boy that pause button made a big difference because I could have blown it with my family there was one time in the van that my dad picked me up it was my sister’s wedding my younger sister’s wedding I flew in from California I was tired it was a Night Flight they’re picking me up and Cedar Rapids Iowa at like 7 AM and when I connected in Chicago I found a place to sit to do my morning meditation thank you God because that’s what I need every morning I need to find my pause button again I need to find my compassion that can’t I can’t discriminate compassion I can’t have that kind of compassion that well you get it you don’t get it get it you because that’s coming from me and I want to come from intuitive thought and a higher source so I had found my little spot to meditate and so my dad picked me up everybody’s in the car and we’re going driving down Cedar River Road it’s a beautiful place I grew up in a beautiful part of the world and my dad’s driving my sister’s in the front seat and they’re talking finance and it’s like always with the Mena always with the brilliant one always you and her talking about your business okay and then I listen to my younger sister who’s getting married in the backseat with my mom and they’re talking about fashion and what she’s going to buy for the the you know the bridesmaid and all of her people standing up for her the gifts and I thought I just got off a plan of California you’re not going to ask me what’s what’s hip fashionista here mom sister but no they didn’t ask and then my brother this was the big one sitting with the brother-in-law in the second seat talking about fishing and and he’s a commercial fisherman in Alaska to this day but my brother is talking to him and I almost said come on Miles I taught you how to put a worm on a hook because we live by a river I taught you how to fish and then I’m realizing that I’m having this sobbing cathartic in the middle of the van making noise slobbering making noise and my dad stops the van turns around that looks at me and he said are you okay oh they’re all here all of them I I got to pull out my my case list I’ve got I’ve got this this you know soap box that’s just I can put it right down and get ready but what I had was a voice from that pause button it said get out of the van so my dad gave me some water I got out of the van they’re back to their conversations like I just didn’t have this big uphe and I stood outside of the van and I was like I felt like I was in a different Zone and I looked at the the sun and the Beautiful Morning Sun and there was a beautiful corn field there and it had the Sun was shining and there’s like a layer of Life above the corn field I mean you can listen to corn grow it is just the most beautiful thing to lay in a cornfield and hear it grow I’ve done third steps in cornfield as they’ve been it’s been fabulous but I saw the life I saw the clouds I saw the beauty and I said it’s okay to be from Iowa it’s okay to be part of that family and I got back in the van and I kept my mouth shut and I kept my mouth shut so much because I you know at I went home and made my mans after my inventory very cursory with my dad he just wanted me to be happy my mom and I were fine I at five years I got another sponsor my dad walked me down the aisle at two and a half years and and we went to a meeting and you took him to the literature table so my father’s a reader and he read the big book and he got books stacked by his chair that’s the way my dad is he’s you maybe has the TV on but he’s reading he’s always reading and that’s my older sister just like Dad always reading that’s why they were smart I think so I thought well they’re reading I’m not going to read I was reading the classics in s do that I said I’m not reading that funny so my dad read it and he ran a calculator tape because he saw there in the book most alcoholics s money and the amends part and my sponsor had said to me uh you know what it’s time to call your dad and pay him back the money you owe him I was five years sober and I went okay he doesn’t need it so I called him and he gave me a total he answered the phone gave me the total I like my mouth hung open it was so high I called my sponsor back she laughed and my mother told me after my father my father was killed in 99 on a freak accident on his land he was gone in a second but um my my mother told me some things about my dad after we was gone because she knows I’m defiant if she would have said your father read that in the book went out to the office took out your dossier put every receipt everything in there I had forgotten about the car I took that’s what made it so high everything in there he ran the calculator tape he put it on page 78 where most alcoholics owe money circled it and read and my mother said he told me if I call and ask there it is and he’s not home but he was home and he gave it to me and it was like oh my God it’s so high laughed and then I called him back because we talked about my better job and payment terms I said he accepted she said okay then you’re not going to be late with that check bill and Bob are watching you what so I always sent that check on time because Bill and Bob are watching me and then she said because I have been loved by the Giants and alcoholic synonymous many aren’t here many aren’t here anymore okay so she’s even up there now but um she said are you willing to grow through this with your dad which meant to me something more she wants because she knew the experience strength and hope she had she could she could show me a new view that I didn’t think was possible it says in the book my little designs and plans my little it also said she she showed me remember at the beginning we agreed that we go for to any links for victory over alcohol uh we agreed uh okay I don’t remember but you know they pull these things out at the right time so I said okay what do you want and she said put a note about your life with that check do not send the cold hard cash alone in an envelope and D be late because Bill and Bob are watching so she checked on me if I wrote the note yes it was hard it was very hard but somewhere in those four and 10 months of my dad getting a consistent check and a consistent note and letter something started to heal and after four years and about 10 months my dad called me the day after Christmas he said Merry Christmas daughter I don’t want your money anymore no more it’s done but don’t stop sending me your notes and the healing was there because are you willing to grow through this with your dad my sponsors have always given me truth with kindness truth with a solution that’s the kindness you’re not going to tell me that I’m I’m a defiant you know loner or whatever it is but you’re going to give me the solution to that and that’s I’ve never heard anyone in Alcoholics synonymous say we don’t stay sober through that you got to leave there’s an answer a solution for everything here you just stay through it I get through the hallway and um yeah so my mother also told me that did you know your father 12ep the town drunk I said no and I think I could have blown it that day in the van right I could have blown it so that he would have said alcoholic annonymous doesn’t work what he said to this guy John who was the town drunk came to my dad because people came to my dad and he said nope it’s not your wife’s fault you’re not getting a divorce John you’re an alcoholic Alcoholics Anonymous has helped my daughter maybe it’ll help you and gave him the book and this was after my dad was gone had no idea and I spoke about it because it was on my heart at a meeting north of north of La I didn’t want to go that night I was tired I didn’t want to have a carpool I was grumpy but I have smart feet and if I say yes to something my feet show up first before my head can catch up and so I went that night it was raining and it took me forever and I started out the talk with what my mother had told me about the town drunk and my dad and after the meeting this girl came up to me and she said hi can I talk to you and I said sure and she said you recognize me and I said kind of but not really and she said her name was I said oh my God I used to babysit you in Lisbon Iowa I smok pot of you okay I like I wouldn’t drink when I Babys SAT but I smoked poot and she said yeah but I gotta tell you something you know you talked about my uncle John I said that’s your uncle a town drunk and she said yeah that’s my uncle John and he’s still sober and two years ago I went home to a family reunion and my uncle jug 12 stepp me and I have two years could have blown it that day in in the van it’s so important to be a good example because I have no idea who’s watching no idea where the ripples are going to go but every once in a while every once in a while if you stay in the game you get to touch the veil and see the Ripple hit the shore but everything’s for fun and for free a thousand and nothing and um I’m just about done but I want to tell you about um my Casey my husband left me for a newcomer that was terrible Clancy became my sponsor then because my sponsor had 21 days off of a plane smoking pot in Paris France and so he was louder than my head thank God and he he didn’t let me throw hot coffee on the new couple he didn’t let me become a victim and stay betrayed I was very pissed off at all of you and one night this lady came and looked at me and looked at the newcomer and I wouldn’t move my legs for her to get in the aisle because I’m I’m pissed off at all of you and my uh my first sponsor’s husband wrote In my book Sharon humility is what is left after the pain has been removed from humiliation I was like oh thank you okay I did my inventory again I I stayed on my side of the street I didn’t I didn’t make my son hate them I bit my tongue off practically and then one year one month and 14 days later after healing from that I met my man Casey and we were together 24 years 24 years and we did AA and our house was full of AA and um we had a lot of fun together and he had a diagnosis of malignant melanoma and they gave us seven months and he got two years and two months and I want to thank the men in AA because you took him to the treatments he didn’t want me to go to those treatments he didn’t want me to see somebody that was in there last week is never coming back because he has an expiration date he knows it and then at the meetings people would want to talk to them about their cancer or the grain at Martha who went to Lords and here’s some Lords water and he said Sharon I’m just here for an AA meeting and I can’t get one so I talked to somebody I knew and the next week at every meeting my husband was at you men sat around him and you talked about Golf and you talked about your day thank you thank you Alcoholics Anonymous there’s always a solution I got to hold him on his last moments and it was beautiful M and I miss him every day and I’m taking his ashes all over the world I know get over that right I think broken Open Hearts heal bigger you know I bungy jumped with him in New Zealand he’s in this beautiful Glacier in Alaska he loves I got a a a pilot friend to take me there when we turned that corner and I saw that Glacier he got in the plane with me I am open to being the best Sharon I can be today I am open to intuitive thought I am open to helping all these beautiful women and that asked me to sponsor them and look at the in the line meeting we had 124 no 143 girls and we had 24 newcomers don’t tell me zoom’s not working it’s working good I’m sitting here with my loving God today and you’re sitting there with your loving God today and I just want to thank you for being with me on this ride thank you thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time have a great day