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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 of this out of here. Thank you, Eva.

That was a fine introduction. I appreciate that. I'm going to bend this down just a little bit.

Okay. Before I even get started, I want to thank Eva for inviting me to come here today. It's always an honor and a privilege to be asked to speak any time and it's very humbling and it's a privilege for me to be of service to God this way and to stand up here and look out at all you women.

The site is just absolutely beautiful. All of you look so pretty with your dresses on and the food was awesome and the fellowship that we have going on in this room. this is wonderful and there's so much estrogen in here and the energy is just really good and you know and there was a time in my life when I couldn't stand women and right now today in this moment there's no other place that I'd rather be than be right here with all of my sisters in recovery.

So I'm I'm honored to be here. I truly am. Uh as she said I have a home group uh Woodville Saturday night.

I also have Gibsonburg Wednesday night. I have two home groups and I purposely situated them about three or four days apart from each other and I'm pretty consistent with my attendance. I have a sobriety date.

It's October the 17th, 1993. So, if you're doing the math, I'm coming up on 17 years. And I don't say that to brag.

I say that that's for God. That's not anything I did. It's what you guys taught me and and going down the trail that the path that you guys already blazed before me because I couldn't have done this on my own.

There's no way. I'm really active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I also have a sponsor.

Her name is Constance. She spends six months in California and six months in Ohio. So part of the year our relationship is long distance, but we both have Verizon, so it's free.

So it works out pretty good. And so I I always say, hey, if your sponsor is long distance, it's okay as long as it's not truly long distance, right? Uh I want to give you a little background history about myself.

I always have believed um that I'm an alcoholic. I think that I was born an alcoholic. I think it was just a matter of adding the liquid elixir for me.

Uh my father did tell me uh sometime before he passed away, he did mention to me that during my mother's pregnancy with me, she consumed large amounts of alcohol. And so the reason that I say I think I was born an alcoholic because I don't remember the first time I took a drink, but I clearly remember the first time that I got drunk. And the first time that I got drunk, I blacked out.

So I don't know if you know as much about alcoholism as I do, but only alcoholic drinkers black out. Social drinkers don't do that. And I did that the very first time that I consumed alcohol.

So I do believe that I've I've been an alcoholic just waiting to happen. My drinking career would begin at age 16 and it would span uh actually a little over a decade. I took my last drink when I was 28 years old.

And somewhere in the big book it does say that female drinkers often cross the line and become an alcoholic drinker much sooner than men do. Oftentimes within two years and I believe the book the big book is correct. That was my situation.

And that's what happened to me. By age 18, I was a full-blown alcoholic. And so from age 18 to age 28, I drank alcoholically.

And I was wreaking havoc in the lives of everyone who came in my path. I was like that tornado that Bill Wilson's talking about in the big book. That was me.

That's what I did. And my story is really sad. My story is really tragic.

And I'm just going to give you the heads up that prison is a big part of my story. And the reason I talk so much about prison is because prison is where I found God. Prison is where I work the steps.

Prison is where I got honest about what really happened. And prison is where I laid a foundation that would um change the rest of my life. And so I'm going to talk a lot about prison and and what I did.

I want to give you just a brief background history. You know, I don't go into the whole childhood thing. And the reason I don't do that because I don't think it's that important.

I came from a dysfunctional home. Didn't we all? As my sponsor would say, get over it.

You know, get over it. Suck it up. And uh and I have I have got over it.

And I'm not going to get into all that stuff. Uh but very briefly um grew up in a single parent home with an older sister. It was just the two of us and she basically raised me.

My mother was a practicing alcoholic. She attended bar. So when I was coming in from school she was leaving for work and during the middle of the night while I was sleeping she was coming in.

And so basically my sister raised me and as a young teenager there wasn't any rules or structure. I was never grounded. There wasn't any discipline.

I just kind of roam the streets. I did whatever I wanted to do. And at sometime around the age 15 or 16, I was introduced to alcohol.

And I hear so many times up here at the podium people say, "Well, I always felt like I was the square peg trying to squeeze into a round hole." You know, I always felt like I was different. I was the odd man out. There was something different about me.

And I felt that way, too. And sometime I think at age 16 when the very first time I took a drink, I was like, "Wow, that feeling went away." When I consumed alcohol, I became very relaxed and very comfortable and I could share and every my whole attitude and outlook changed and I was like, "Wow, this is my new best friend." I really liked the way that alcohol made me feel. But somewhere along the way, it turned on me and it became my enemy.

It wasn't my friend anymore. And it would take many years for that to catch up with me, for me to get that. uh in 19 uh I think it was 1982 I was uh in my between the summer of my junior and senior year in high school.

I had met this 32 year old man. I was 16 years old. I had met this 32 year old man and he was a very big drug dealer in the area where I lived and he had a lot of money.

He traveled a lot. He went to Florida and Texas a lot. I was very intrigued by this man and very attracted not so much to him as I was to his money and what I thought was his influence.

And at this time in my life, um, you know, I'm coming into my, um, I'm 16 years old, so I'm coming into a little bit of womanhood and my my looks are beginning to develop. My body's beginning to develop. And back in the day, I was really cute, and I used my good looks to manipulate men.

You know, my thing was to sit on the bar stool and soak in that attention from men. I've heard people come up here and say, "Well, I would hide the vodka in the toilet tank." You know, I never got that. I never understood how somebody could drink it.

And I know some of us have done that, and that's fine, but that wasn't my way. I had to be out there in public, had to be on the bar stool getting the attention from the men. Uh, and the bottom line was I didn't have any self-esteem.

So, I was getting it from these unhealthy sources, which would be other men in bars. And so, anyway, I'm a young girl. I'm entering my senior year in high school.

I move in with this 32-year-old man. And to his credit, I do want to say that during my senior year in high school, he made me get up and he made me go to school. And I wouldn't have a high school diploma today if it weren't for him.

And I know that something motivated him and that was to stay out of jail, right? because he was 32 years old and I was 16. But and at that time it used to really make me angry that he would come in there because I'd be up drinking half the night till 2:00 or three in the morning and then he'd come in and wake me up and tell me, you get your butt up, you get dressed and you go to school.

But as I look back on that, I think, you know what, that's probably the best thing he could have done for me because as a result, I have a high school diploma and I if I would have stayed home with my mother, I don't I don't know how that would have panned itself out. I don't know. So, shortly after high school, um it would have been in the summer of 1982.

My drinking's really beginning to take off now. Um my birthday's in September, was just before I turned 18. I'm drinking Friday night.

I'm drinking Saturday night. Now I'm drinking on Wednesday to break up the middle of the week. Uh and alcohol is becoming a very, very dear friend of mine.

And the blackouts are becoming more frequent now. There's mornings when I wake up and I have to look out the window. Is the car out there?

What did I do last night? or the phone might ring and I might think to myself, "Oh god, who is that?" Because I couldn't remember what I did last night. So maybe somebody's going to call me to, you know, to yell at me or to make sure I'm okay or, you know, it just got to be this really vicious cycle.

My whole lifestyle was becoming this very vicious cycle. And I was only 18 years old. So shortly after high school, I got pregnant by this man, this 32-y old man, and I had a little boy.

And at that time in my life, I couldn't parent a tissue box. I hadn't even been parented myself. I had no business trying to parent a child.

didn't know the first thing about it. And my mother by that time was in her mid-40s. So every weekend I'm dropping this baby off with her or I'm taking off for Florida and leaving that baby with her for a week.

And I think by the time he was about four years old, he was pretty much living with her. Uh because, you know, I what I had to do was way more important than parent a child, right? It was all about me.

And I think women, all of us being in here, women, some of us can probably relate to what we've done to our kids. And and as I look back on all the things that I've done, that's right up there in the top couple, two or three, you know, it's right there. God, I wish I'd have done that different.

I wish I would have been a better mother. I wish I would have parented my children the way that I wish I would have been parented, but I didn't have the skills. I didn't know how.

So, after this child's born, my alcoholism is really starting to take off at this time. And uh I'm drinking constantly. Now, I'm moving into the space where I don't really start to like women.

I never really had any friends to begin with. All my friends were men. As I told you earlier, I have an older sister and she wasn't a threat to me.

I could hang out with my sister and drink and party. And she by this time, she's about the only female uh in my inner circle that I'm hanging out with. And I'm going to fast forward the tape.

I'm going to take us um down the road. We're going to go to April of 1993. I'm 28 years old.

I've been drinking for 12 years. It's a Friday night. I'm sitting on a bar stool outside of Genanoa, Ohio.

I'm with my sister. It's about midnight. I'm intoxicated.

She's intoxicated. By this time, I had left that man. Actually, he left me.

I didn't leave him. And uh he moved into a barn in Fremont. He must have been desperate to get away from me because he actually moved into a barn.

But um you know, and I I'm a manipulator. I had my little hooks in him. Like when he left, I'm unemployable.

I don't have any skills. I've never worked before. I never earned a dime.

And I think I was maybe 25 or 26 when he left. And so I threatened him. I said, "You're going to give me I don't know whatever it was, $1,000." on the first of the month every month and you're going to continue to pay these bills and you're going to support me.

I'm going to turn you in for child support. Well, he was a drug dealer and he had a lot of money and he could not um provide where his source of income came from and he knew I had him over the barrel. Like I had my little hook in him, you know, I always had a hook in somebody and uh so he conceded to my demand or whatever it was.

So, I'm living high on the hog in this farmhouse off this 30. By this time, I think he's in his mid30s, maybe later 30s. And uh getting a free ride once a month, every month.

Here he comes with this watt of cash. And that's how sick I was, you know, and I look back on that. I think, God, why?

You know, what a sense of entitlement. You know, I had this sense of entitlement the size of Texas. So, I don't want to go back to that night.

It's Friday night. It's April 1993. I'm with my sister.

Um dating this guy named Tony. He's 26 years old. I'm 28 years old.

He's supposed to meet us at this bar. He finally shows up about midnight and he wants to move to another location. He wants to move to a bar in Elmore called the PI, I think.

I don't remember. And uh both of us had our cars there. So, I was following him.

I was following him down State Route 51. We were going to loop by my farmhouse and drop off his his Camaro and hop in my Buick. And I was about a mile from my farmhouse.

I was almost there. I entered into a curve on State Route 51. It's not even a sharp curve.

I've driven that road a thousand times. You could easily drive this curve at 55 miles an hour. I'm arguing with my sister.

By this time is something pretty common between the two of us. Every time we drank, we fought. And I'm arguing with my sister.

I took my eyes off the road. I looked directly into her eyes. I went into the curve and never turned my wheels.

And as a result, I struck an oncoming vehicle. And I killed a 14-year-old boy that was in the backseat of that car. That's what I did.

And for me, the gig was up. And I didn't understand the gravity. I was in so much pain and so much trouble and so much everything was me, me, me.

Oh my god, look what I did. I've totaled out my car. I'm going to lose my farmhouse.

I'm going to Mary'sville. My life is over. Me, me, me.

Poor me. And during the six months that I was out on bond waiting to get sentenced and go to way to prison, I would continue to drink, right? Because my excuse is, guess what?

If you had my problems, you'd drink, too, right? So, I would continue to drink during that six-month window of time and continue to spiral downward. And I wasn't in touch with my feelings.

I was so detached from what was actually happening in my life. And alcohol now, it's not even it's like an enemy. But I didn't have anywhere else to turn but to the bottle.

I didn't even have a friend. Didn't even have a friend. So, in the fall of 1993, in October, Judge Paul Moon of the Ottawa County Common Police Court in Port Clinton, Ohio, sentenced me to four to 10 years in prison.

He could have gave me a 5 to 10. So, to be quite honest with you, I was relieved that he didn't max me out because I certainly expected it. They put me in an orange jumpsuit in a sheriff's car, drove me down to Mary'sville, and dropped me off.

And there I was in this maximum security prison for women with 2,000 women. And I'm just devastated. I'm so numb.

I can't even cry. I can't even feel my feelings. They have me in admissions.

I think I was in there for about a week while they process you into population. And admissions is kind of like you see on TV. It's a little box.

You're just a little room with a bunk and a sink and a toilet and there you are. you're just in there like 23 hours a day waiting for your bed in population. But I didn't know what prison was like.

So I thought like that's what I was going to be doing for like four or 10 year four to 10 years. And so I finally got out into population. And uh you know Covergirl has always been a really big part to my package.

So when I got out into population, my thing was okay, first of all, I'm not going to speak to anybody. I'm different than you. I'm better than you.

You know, I had this badge that said inmate camp 32480. I had to wear it everywhere I went. And I was in total denial about where I was at and what I had done.

So my hair and my makeup become very very important. Right? Because the thought process behind that was if I could just fix up the outside, I could fool you and you would think I was okay on the inside.

You know, I would iron my little uniform. It had the little creases, you know, and all all that facade, that mask that I wore, you know, and I fooled the staff down there. I had them fooled.

They all thought she's just this nice girl from the country. Like, if you only knew, you know, during that 12- year window of time, I failed to tell you how many men I slept with, and when they would fall asleep with their Levis's next to my bed, I robbed them. I did all sorts of stuff.

I mean, I could go on just about the criminal acts that I committed during that 12-year drinking career, right? So, I'm at this uh this maximum security prison for women, and it didn't take long. They moved me to a pre-release center in Cleveland, Ohio, the Northeast Pre-release Center.

And at that time, I know they've since changed the rules, but at that time, if you were uh within four years of going home or going to the Ohio Pro board, you could be housed there. Even if you committed murder, it didn't matter. You could be housed right there in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

It's their best kept secret. It's right by Jacob's Field. You know, in the Cleveland Browns, when they get a touchdown, if your room faces Lake Erie, you can watch the fireworks go off.

I was like, "Wow, man. This is pretty cool." You know, by then my ego, you know, my ego is really the size of Texas at this point, and I'm in total denial about what's going on, what I had done. But I wasn't stupid.

I thought, I'm here for an alcohol-related crime. Maybe I should go to some AA meetings, right? Because it was all about me.

And I thought, if I go to some AA meetings and get this recorded in the docket, by the time I get to my first parole hearing, the pro board might see that and smile on me and cut me a break and send me home because it's all about me, right? Right? I'm still running the same game.

The only thing that's changed is that I'm not consuming alcohol. So, I think when you take an alcoholic and you place them in an environment like that, you know, I'm still untreated. I'm an untreated alcoholic without alcohol.

That's bad. So, I'm going to these AA meetings uh not because I want to get well, but because I want to go home. So, and you know, and I believe today doesn't matter what brings us here.

Whether it's an employer, a spouse, um a loved one, a judge, doesn't matter how we get in here. It matters what happens after we get here. How many of us came in the room skipping and whistling and singing, just so happy to be here, and I want to share what I got, right?

We're dragging in here with our head hanging down. Oh my god, I can't believe I got to do this. This really sucks.

Right? So, that's the space that I was in, but I didn't care. I was in prison.

So, I just want to get these slip sign. My first pearl hearing is coming up in the spring of 1996. In order to get to it, I only had to serve two years and four months.

So, I get to this first parole hearing and in the months that led into that, there were other inmates there obviously for vehicular homicide. So, I was watching their cases very closely. I wanted to see what the Ohio Pro board was doing to them to help gauge what they might be doing to me.

So, in February of 96, this girl named Cat um she was from Sanduski, Ohio. She was doing a 5 to 10 for vehicular homicide. Her sons was worse than mine.

In fact, she'd been there longer than me. She'd already been to the pro board once and they gave her two years. I think she had served about three years.

Went to the high pro board. They gave her two more years. Told her to come back.

And during that two years, she wasn't a troublemaker. She didn't go to the hole. She didn't get in any trouble.

We just all thought for sure she was going home. She goes to her Ohio Pro board and comes out crying. She said, "Oh my god, they just gave me the whole 10 years day for day." In fact, she was on her way back to Mary'sville because she wasn't even eligible to be housed there.

So they put her in an orange jumpsuit, loaded her in a white van and drove her back to Mary'sville and we were like, "Wow, that's not right." So then about a month later, this girl named Denise from Cleveland, Ohio was there for vehicular homicide and she was only doing a 2 to 10 and she was a really nice girl. She didn't get into any trouble. In fact, her victims were not contesting her release.

She goes to the Ohio Pro board and guess what? They gave her the whole 10 years day for day. They stripped her of all the good days she had earned.

and they put her in an orange jumpsuit in a white van and drove her back to Mary'sville. I got scared. I said, "Oh my god." I called my mom.

I said, "Mom, something's not right. They're giving all these vehicular homicides the whole 10 years." She said, "Oh, no. Don't worry about it.

You don't know their situation. Maybe more than one person was killed. Maybe they had multiple prior DUIs or other criminal background stuff.

You don't know. You'll be fine." Right? So, I get to the Ohio Pro Board in May of 1996.

And guess what? I'm not special. I think I'm special, but I'm not.

They give me the whole 10 years day for days, stripped me of every good day I'd already earned, and put me in orange jumpsuit and drove me back to Mary'sville and dropped me off. And there I was a second time back in Mary'sville sitting in admissions in that little box waiting to get my bed out in population. And I couldn't even cry.

I was so detached from my feelings. I couldn't even cry. I couldn't believe this how arrogant I still am.

I couldn't believe that they did that to me. Don't they know who I am? Right.

It's that ego, that sick mentality, you know, and at this point, I think I had served, I don't know, two two years and four months. So, they assign me a bed back in population. I get back out there and uh actually what I did, I had all the staff members fooled down there.

They all thought that she's just this nice, sweet girl from the country, right? So, they gave me a job working up in the wardens area. And you know, and the bottom line is I had a high school diploma.

And if you have that in prison, that thing is like gold. You will not sling them off or flip a soyber. They will find a real job for you.

And I had a high school diploma and I also was a great manipulator. And so they thought that I was a pretty good girl. And they gave me a job working in the count office up by the wardens area.

So there I was. I had my own little office, a computer, a typewriter, and working with all the white shirts. And got very friendly and chummy with all the big wigs that were employed there.

and they all liked me and and that was part of the game, right? Don't ever lock me up. Don't ever put me in the whole I'm Terry Camp, right?

So anyway, uh I had inmate runners. There were five runners that were assigned to me. They would run documents that I would prepare out into the institution.

And one day, this was about five years into my incarceration, I had uh some bed moves that I had typed up and I couldn't find Lieutenant Wmer anywhere. So I had walked into the Thai office. This lady that worked in there, her name was Miss Floyd.

She was really cool. I just love this woman. She was an employee of the state of Ohio.

She was not an inmate. And I said to her, "I cannot find Lieutenant Wmer anywhere. Would you sign these documents so I can get them run?" And she said, "Sure, step on in here." So I stepped into her air conditioned office.

And uh we were talking and she said to me, "Terry, there's a really good program over at Recovery Services called Hearts and I think you'd be a great candidate for that. Have you ever thought about treatment?" Now, you know, I'm like five years into my incarceration. I'm halfway to the 10-year mark.

And I said to her, "You know what, Miss Floyd? They just gave me the whole 10 years day for day. I'm I'm not doing the victim's awareness, the AA, the parenting.

I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm doing 10 years day for day and I'm going home." And then she said the magic words that my ego just loved to hear. She said to me, "Terry, there's a two-year waiting list to get into that program.

I can pick up the phone. I can make a phone call and I can get you in the next group. I said,"Well, sign me up, right?

I'm so important. I am moving to the top of a two-year waiting list. Somebody finally recognized who I am." Jeez, thank you, God.

It's about time. So, she makes the call and I get put into the next group, which took about, I don't know, four or six weeks, whatever that when the next group started up. And I tell you what, I had no idea what I had signed myself up for.

This was an intense behavior modification program. I didn't know anything about it. All I knew I was moving to the top of a two-year waiting list and my ego got so attached to that like I didn't even care what it was.

I just thought finally someone recognizes, right? So anyway, I get reassigned to this program and what they had to do was reassign my job. Now I I don't work at the lieutenants area anymore, the warden's area.

I am a student in the hearts program. I have to report there every day, Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 4:00. And the program takes about four months to get through it.

There's 14 inmates that are in it. one um state employee who's licensed uh uh counselor and then there's another inmate that kind of sits in that's already been through the program and they're called a peer leader. So I get in this group and it didn't take me long to figure out what I had done, how terribly I had screwed up.

Um about two weeks into it, we we returned from lunch. It was on a Wednesday. I'll never forget it.

This girl that sat across from me was there. She had killed one of her children. That was the rumor that I had heard out in the yard and uh in prison.

uh anything to do with harming a child or like rape or death or anything to do with a child. If the if you're there for that, you do not discuss that because you're going to get dogged really bad. So, the girls that had committed those kinds of crimes would never talk about their crime obviously because they didn't want to get dogged.

And this girl that was in this group when we came back from lunch that day, um I the rumor I'd heard in the yard was that she had killed her daughter. And uh we come back from lunch and we get situated around the table and the counselor looks at this girl and she says to her, "Why don't you tell the group what you did to your daughter and I know I fell out of the chair?" I said, "Oh my god, this going to get deep." And this girl told this story and of course the story has no place in AA but it was quite gruesome and quite disgusting. And uh the way the program was set up, when you share, when you're done sharing, you receive feedback.

And while you receive your feedback, your feet are flat on the floor, your hands are flat on the table, and you do not speak. Your feedback could go on for two hours, however long it goes on. During the feedback process, you do not speak.

So when this girl got her feedback, these other 13 inmates, they just leeched into her, man. They just tore her up for two hours. They tore this woman up.

And I remember thinking to myself, "Your turn is coming. There's going to be a day when they're going to ask you about what you did and you're going to be in the hot seat." But I didn't care because I liked a good challenge, right? And these girls were dropping out of this program like flies because so many rules like they couldn't have a woman, you know?

And half of them had a girlfriend out in the yard on the bench waiting for them, which I didn't have a woman, so that wasn't a problem. I had enough issues. I didn't need that.

I didn't need to go to prison and turn gay. Uh, and I don't have anything against gay people. That just ain't me.

So, uh, anyway, they're dropping out of the group like flies. And, uh, we come back from group one day. It's on a Friday.

We're about 3 weeks into the program. 1:00 in the afternoon, we return from lunch. We get situated around the table.

The counselor directs her attention to me and she says to me, "Terry, why don't you tell the group that story about the night you wrecked your car?" I said, ' Okay. Now, remember, I'm 5 years into my incarceration. I do not discuss this.

These these details are privy only to me. I have not told this to anybody. I have not spoke it.

I've never spoke my victim's name. So, I'm sitting there and it's kind of like this video inside my head starts to play. There's this old memory tape that comes down off the shelf and it starts to roll and I'm sitting back in my mind uh where my disease and my ego live.

We're all up there together and I begin to tell the story and as as sad as it was um I was very detached. There wasn't any feeling involved in it, right? And uh when I got done telling the story, which was all a bunch of crap.

I mean, I just told the way the events occurred. Um, I had to put my hands flat on the table, my feet flat on the floor, and get my feedback. And I probably went on for maybe 30 or 40 minutes.

My little mascara was smeared. You know, I tried to act like I was putting my feelings into it, but I couldn't because uh I wasn't connected to my feelings. And so when I got my feedback, my feedback went something like this.

If I didn't know any better, I would think you were the victim. And you make me sick. You take no responsibility for what you did.

You are so detached from reality. You just don't get it, do you? It went on for two hours.

These women tore me up. It was like I had built this wall between me and humanity. And I'd spent several years constructing this wall block after block after block because I thought the world was a harsh, scary place.

And everybody was out to get me, right? So I had built this wall between me and humanity that I was hiding behind, right? Because everybody was out to get me and I thought I would be safe behind my wall.

But the truth of the matter is behind the wall I was blocked off from everybody else, from humanity and the sunlight of the spirit. But I didn't get that. I had placed myself in this dark space.

So these women in the course of that afternoon had axes and chisels and picks and hammers and every comment they made, they were banging at that wall and banging at that wall. And for one moment, I just had one moment of clarity. At some point in that afternoon, like a beam of light just kind of drove right through that wall and pierced me, you know, and I can't tell you at what moment.

I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I know I kept staring at that clock. I couldn't get out of that room fast enough. And at 4:00, I stood up and I grabbed my book and I started I wanted to leave and that counselor looked at me and she said, "Not so fast." She said, "When you get back to your room," she said, "I want you to wash that makeup off.

I'm placing you on makeup restriction. I don't want to see any more makeup on you for the next two weeks." And secondly, I want you to write a letter to your victim. You write a letter and you bring that letter to group Monday.

And I'm all crying to tears. I said, I don't know what to say. She said, 'I don't care what you say and I'm not going to tell you what to write.

You bring a letter to your victim to group on Monday morning. I said, okay. So, I went back to my room on that Friday afternoon at 4:00.

I should say my cell. Let's just keep it real. So, I go back to my cell that afternoon and I picked up a pen and a paper and I started to write and those words just flowed off that pen.

I didn't even have to put much thought into it. And I was writing things like, you know, you will never get a driver's license and you will never graduate from high school and you will never procreate. I have taken all these things away from you and so much more.

Right? Something was shifting inside my mind. It was like my soul was sliced wide open.

My feelings were raw. And I don't know if you've ever been in that space, but in that space, you can get a lot of work done. People are like teaags.

They work better in hot water. And buddy, I was in some serious hot water. So over the course of that weekend, I didn't even know that step one was infiltrating my life.

I was surrendering. I was getting honest about what really happened. And it's hard to put it into context or put it into words because it's like an emotional growth.

It was something that was happening to me on the inside. And it was a direct result of what happened in that program on Friday afternoon. So Monday morning rolls around and I do feel different.

I'm seeing things different. Things are changing inside me. Something is shifting inside my mind.

I go back to group on Monday morning and I've got my letter. We get situated around the table. We say the serenity prayer and she looks at me, the counselor does.

And I said, I've got my letter. She said, "That's good." I said, "Well, I want to read it." She said, "Not so fast." And I said, "Uh, she she looks at me and she says, "Before we read the letter, we're going to go back to group on Friday. We're going to revisit Friday afternoon.

I want you to tell the group the story about that night you wrecked your car. And I want you to tell it honestly. And just for a split second, I thought I was going to die.

I thought, man, I can't possibly go through this again. But then I thought, you know what? Screw it.

I'm just going to tell the story. I'm just going to put it off there because you know what the bottom line is? All that stuff.

I'm a stuffer. I've been stuffing stuff and stuffing it down and stuffing it down and something that's painful, emotional, whatever, anger, just name something. I stuff it down.

Stuff it down. And all that stuff from all those years over the course of that weekend started coming up and coming up and it was right here in my throat and I was choking on my own crud. I needed to have an emotional vomit right there.

It was a do or die. So this time I told the story, right? But this time although the story was a saying, the story was different because the story was from their perspective and what I did to them.

It wasn't all about me me. It was about this woman running up and down the street top speed screaming hysterically because her son was bleeding to death in the backseat of that car and there was nothing she could do to save his life and I killed him. That's what it was about.

That's getting responsible. That's owning it. And that's what I did on that morning.

I had an emotional vomit right there on the table. Said, "Here it is. It's out of me.

what you do with it's on you. I got it out of me. But I got honest.

That was the most important thing. I needed to get honest. So when I got done telling that story, I put my hands on the table to get my feedback.

And that counselor looked at me and she said, "No, we're not going to do that yet." She said, "I want you to read that letter." I said, "All right." So I read my letter. And when I got done reading that letter, I looked up and there were 13 inmates sitting around that table in a circle balling their eyes out. We were all connected.

All of us were connected. And on that morning, my feedback from those women after I got done reading that letter went something like this. Terry, I don't know what has happened.

It's only been three days. Something has shifted. Something has changed.

I felt your pain. I felt the horror of what happened in the road that night because you shared that with me. And I can't tell you what it felt like for me that morning when I got that feedback from those girls.

He's getting emotional. Every time I go there, it's it touches my heart just like it's touching your heart. So the feedback I got from those girls that morning, it was we we were all connected and I knew something had changed.

I knew like I could never go back. My life would never be the same from that day forward. All my life it's been gimme gimme gimme.

What can I get for me? And aa you taught me it's not gimme gimme gimme. It's what can I do for you?

How can I serve you? And that's what was happening that morning. In that program, it wasn't all about me.

It was about giving back because not only was I healing, but I was promoting healing in other people. That's what it's about. So, as that program continued to progress, I continued to progress and grow and talk about other issues that affected other areas of my life, like why I had never been in a healthy relationship.

And I won't get into that now because it has no place in AA, but I got a lot of work done during the four months that I was in that program. And when the end of that program came around, they was ready to resign my reassign my position. They had already called up the wardens area.

They had saved my job. They called me in the office and they said, "You know what? We got to do the paperwork to send you out of here." And we've talked amongst ourselves and you know, we'd be honored if you'd come and work for recovery services.

Thought, "Wow, man. 2,000 inmates in that prison. Only eight of them are employed for recovery services.

And those eight are handpicked by recovery services." And they asked me, I said, "You know what? My ego doesn't need me working up at the wardens area. My soul and my disease needs me over here." So, I took that job at recovery services.

And part of my job duty was every day, Monday through Friday, at 1:00 when we returned from lunch, I had to set up a meeting. It might have been a big book one day at 12:00 and 12 the next. I had to set up the tables and the chairs and get the books out and make that meeting happen.

So, I was going to a meeting every day at 1:00. And then in the evenings every weekn night, they had outside speakers coming in from the free world because there was 2,000 inmates in this facility. So they had a lot of open meetings with outside guests coming in.

So I was going to those every night on the week nights. And I did that twice a went to two meetings a day, five days a week for over three years. That's a lot of recovery.

And that's what I needed. You know, I've heard people say, "Well, I don't want to go today because they'll brainwash me." I said, "Well, guess what? I need brainwash.

My brain needed a thorough cleaning. I needed that. That was what I needed.

So, you know, the the next three years that I would spend at at Mary'sville, I got so active in recovery services. I dove into the big book. I dove into the 12 and 12.

I got really enthusiastic about recovery, you know. I I I didn't want to live like that anymore because I found something in this program that I wanted, you know, and and I dove into spirituality. Like, you guys told me I had to find a God greater than myself.

I've never had that before. The only thing I ever knew about God was the Old Testament God, you know, and he's mad all the time. He's turning folks into pillars of salt.

He's flooding the earth, you know, and he's keeping score and he's going to get you. And I didn't want no part of that God. And that's the only God I knew about.

I didn't want any part of it. And what was so awesome about AA and what you guys taught me is I didn't have to have that God. I could get a God of my understanding that worked for me.

So, I started reading books on spirituality. You know, I read Conversations with God and um uh Maryanne Williamson uh Return to Love. I got uh really active with uh what was that?

Oh, PBS Wayne, Dr. Wayne Dyer. I used to watch all his specials and it really helped me develop a concept of a God greater than myself, but that I could understand and that worked for me.

And I had a sponsor. It was another inmate. She was the peer leader that sat in on that group that I told you about.

And she told me um one day, she said, "Terry, I want you to pray every single morning when you get up." And I said, "Pray?" I go like what am I supposed to say? And so she said to me, just pray every morning. Ask God to direct direct your thoughts, your words, and your deeds.

I thought, well, okay, I can do that. So, I did that for a couple of weeks and I remember I met back up with her out the yard. I said, she like, you know, I've been doing that for like two weeks and I I got to tell you, it just feels really awkward.

It just it doesn't feel right. She said, I understand that. She said, keep doing it because it's sooner or later it's going to feel right and you're going to develop a relationship.

And I did. I that began to unfold in my life and so many other good things started to happen for me about three and a half years into this recovery part of my incarceration. I think I had been u maybe eight years incarcerated.

I had done every program there and then I started doing the other programs of victims awareness and the parenting and and I'm sitting out in the yard talking to inmates. I'm sponsoring inmates. I'm giving away what I had found in AA.

And I had decided uh because Mary'sville was so far away from home that I wanted to go back to the pre-release center. When I went into the Thai office, that Miss Floyd I told you about that got me. She made that phone call and moved me up to the front of a two-year waiting list.

I walked into her office. I said, "You know what, Miss Floyd?" I said, "I I think I'm ready to go back to the pre-release center and finish my last two years there." She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah, I've discussed this with my family. It's a much shorter drive.

We're all about this." And that was on a Monday and they called my name Thursday morning and they told me to pack my bags that I was going to Cleveland. And I finished my last two years there and the pre-release center at Cleveland. Now I now I'm back with a different attitude.

Even the staff, the people that were employed there that knew me from like three or four years before that saw me come back were like, "Wow, like who are you?" And I, you know, and when you're changing and growing, you don't notice it so much in yourself as other people do, especially if a considerable amount of time, three or four years passes before they see you again. And they saw that change in me. And so I got really active in recovery services at the Northeast Pre-Release Center.

The recovery services department was a small office about the size of my bathroom. Uh it was a onewoman show. Her name was Miss Daniels.

And she was uh she did her best. She was trying to service 650 inmates. And so I would go down there and volunteer and buy uh free time.

She had all these books and she had a lot of literature and CDs and and cassette tapes and she had the Joe and Charlie tapes. And so I would check those out and you know I'd sit and listen to Joe and Charlie. And the big book that I had during my incarceration, I actually have today.

And it's just littered with pink and blue and green and yellow and it looks like a big book is supposed to look. And uh I got that during my incarceration. And I used the Joe and Charlie tapes to um acclimate myself to that book and to learn about what was in that book.

And I really really grew a lot. And towards the end of my incarceration uh I was released. My day came around.

It was October the 19th, 2003. It was in the fall. All the leaves were turning.

It was a Sunday morning. My family was out in the parking lot and uh I can't tell you the feeling that I had on that day. I wish I could bottle it because I'd be a millionaire.

Just the gratitude, the amount, the depth of gratitude that I felt. Um I walked out that gate that day, that morning at 8 8 a.m. And I knew like I had stayed sober in a controlled environment.

I had just lived sober 10 years, but I had never lived sober in society as an adult woman. I had never done that. And so that was kind of scary for me.

And and I I had to ask myself some questions like, you know, was I honest? Did I mean what I said? Did I lay a strong foundation?

Did I get enough work done? Is there something left undone that I need to be doing? You know, so that was on a Sunday and I went to a meeting that night on Sunday night.

Went to the Gibson group on Wednesday. Made that my home group. got a sponsor that night.

Got really active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have not looked back. I've continued to look forward and to work the program.

I'm very active in AA. Just a couple of years ago, a buddy of mine and I brought the Woodville Saturday night meeting back. There used to be one there many years ago.

We brought it back. It's a different format. It's a different location, but it's Saturday nights at uh 7 p.m.

It's as Bill sees it. And we pull in 40 people on Saturday nights. And that's what that's about.

Um, I want to talk a little bit about what it's like today because, um, if you remember, I told you I was a full-blown alcoholic. I was unemployed. I was getting my money from a drug dealer and I was just a really, really sick woman.

All about me, me, me, me, me me. And today, I have a really, really good life. It's a direct result of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I want to briefly touch on that. When I came home from prison, um, I didn't have any skills. I didn't, uh, didn't really have a plan for the future, but I had a faith in God, and I knew that he was going to put me in the right place at the right time.

I just knew that. and I didn't have a driver's license. So, I took a job uh scanning groceries at the local grocery store at Dells in Woodville and I wasn't making a whole lot of money, but I was reacquainting myself with my community.

And that was something that was important to me because they all knew me and I did not have a good reputation. And initially, there were some eyebrows that were raised when, you know, people would come in to buy their gallon of milk and there I was to scan it. And uh it didn't take long for me to to gain their trust back and to show them that I mean business and I really have changed.

And uh and bad things can good things can come from things that are bad. And that what had happened in my life. And so about four months after I had come home, I started dating a guy named Eric that I had gone to um high school with.

And uh the lady named Lou, someone I had known from years before that, came in and said, "The eye doctor across the street is looking for someone to um help his brother. he um had polio and they just need someone to file files and make phone calls and answer the phone and I thought well gosh I could do that and I had talked to Eric about that and and then I was scared. I thought oh god you know I did 10 years in prison like what doctor in their right mind would hire an expel on the you know especially the one that did all that kind of time and uh he kept proddding me and proddding me and finally about a month later I walked in there went in there one afternoon and the doctor's brother the the gentleman that had the polio was the only person in there and he got up and shook my hand and I said my name is Terry.

I said, "My friend Lou sent me over here." She said that you guys might be hiring somebody. And he said, "Oh, yeah, yeah." He goes, "L yeah, I remember Lou told me about you." I said, "You know what? Before we get into this, I should probably tell you that, you know, I I was just released from prison four months ago, and I served 10 years." You know, I wanted to get it out there right away.

And he's like, "Oh, Jesus Christ. We already know about that. It's a small town." I was like, "Okay." He scared the crap out of me.

You know, like they knew. They already knew what I did. They knew where I had been, but they knew what I was doing today because at that point I'd been home for four months and people talk.

Woodville's a small town and people talk and they knew what I was doing and uh so they hired me. I got hired right away and I took that job and I initially started off doing simple stuff, you know, and and going to the meetings at night and keeping that strong foundation. And then I'm working two jobs.

I'm scanning groceries three or four days a week. I'm working for the doctor three or four days a week. and and during my employment with the doctor's brother, he trained me how to measure for bif focals and to teach people how to do their like I've never wore a contact lens.

I didn't know anything about it, but now I teach people how to put them in and take them out and how to care for them. And I learned so much from this 67 year old man. I just loved him to pieces.

And in 2006, he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 67 years old. He he'd been riddled with health issues his whole life.

And he had been diagnosed with cancer and left on a medical leave. uh was to be gone for six months and a couple months later he passed away. And after Bill died, um his his death really did change my life as far as my career goes because uh my employer, Dr.

Lob, the best eye doctor in Northwest Ohio. I snuck that in there. Um he approached me and said, "You know, Terry, I am 61 years old and if I sell this practice, a young doctor could come in here and say, you're not credentialed.

You need to move to the front desk and answer the phone." Because at this stage now, I'm running the office. I'm doing everything as well as placing orders and uh filling prescriptions. So, he encouraged me to go get my optitian license to take that stateboard test.

And so, I began to study for that and I worked really hard for about four months. And in the spring of 2007, I believe it was, I went down to Columbus, Ohio, and I took my state boards for my optitian license and I passed that. And I am a licensed optitian in the state of Ohio.

And I went on to get my national certification so I can practice optician in any of the 50 states. And that's a direct result of God working in my life. That's not me.

I'm not taking any credit for that. That's God. What put me at that eye doctor's four months after I was released?

What made me walk in there? See, I I really truly believe if you keep plugging away and doing the next right thing, the next right thing like steps in front of you like things will just kind of land right in front of you, land at your feet. And that's what's happened in my life.

And I have a really good life today. The the gentleman I told you that I went to high school, Erica, we started to date. Um it was a couple months after I got out.

The last thing I wanted to do was to get into a relationship or to be sexually active. Like I couldn't I never had a healthy relationship. What I needed to do was to get a strong foundation and to get a sponsor and to get into a groove and get a job and that was the important stuff immediately upon my release.

And after I got all those things in place, then I was able to start dating. See, I prioritized things. I've never done that before, but I began to do that because I I can think more clearly today.

So, I started dating that guy and and uh we got really really close right away. He came from one of those really normal like a beaver cleaver family. Like he just naturally knows the right thing to do whereas I got to pause and think about it.

Drives me crazy. And uh the nicest guy, the nicest guy you ever want to meet and we dated for a couple of years and eventually I had moved in with him and we got married in our backyard in July of 2006. We've been married for four years.

Uh my husband's a traveler. He loves to travel and he drags me all over the country. I've been to the Grand Canyon, Hawaii.

Uh can't tell you Las Vegas, California. Just in the seven short years that I've been home and I'm truly truly blessed. I'm not saying these things to brag.

I'm saying these things to tell you how good life can be if you keep plugging away at it. And very briefly, I want to touch on one thing. My my lead is changing.

My story um you know, every time I close and end my story, I kind of think to myself as I'm walking away from the microphone, to be continued. You know, I I just feel like that because I I am only in my mid-40s and I never know what God's going to put in front of me and things are changing for me. Some of you may recognize me from the TV or the local newspaper.

I've been all over the headlines um during the late winter and this past spring. Uh channel 13 in particular for some reason unknown to me. Got very very attached to me and became a huge thorn in my side.

I filed for my driver's license in February and uh there's a law on the books in the state of Ohio. If you're uh have a lifetime suspension, as I do, if 15 years pass and during the course of those 15 years, you don't have any infractions, um no moving violations, no kind of any legal infraction of any sort, you can file to have that reinstated. And uh I was apprehensive about doing it because I knew that the media was going to latch a hold of me as they did.

But at my husband's encouragement, you know, and in his defense, you know, I didn't just do it for me. I did it for my husband and my spons all the people that haul me around. It wasn't just a selfish motive because this is a burden on him, right?

So, I filed for my driver's license and they set a court hearing and I went to court at the end of April and that was a media fiasco and I I don't even want to get into what that was like, but uh the jury box was crammed with every newspaper, every TV channel, cameras. I don't think I've ever been so scared in all my life. Even back like 17 years ago when it initially happened, I didn't get that much immediate attention and I wasn't that scared.

I can't explain it. Maybe it's because today I'm connected to my feelings and I can feel my feelings and I'm truly sorry for what I did and I had to be in the same room as that woman and she's not she's in the exact same space that she was in 17 years ago. She hasn't budged an inch and that's fine because it's not for me to say if she should ever forgive me or how long her grieving process should be.

None of those things are for me to say I killed her only son. So, I had this hearing and she was there and she took the stand and it it was tough. It was it was hard for all parties involved and the judge didn't issue a decision um at the conclusion of the hearing.

He put me on ice for two weeks and then we came back two weeks later. Actually, he issued it he publicly online on their website and uh they're monitoring me for alcohol consumption for the next three years. As I stand here and talk to you right now, there's this giant contraption about this big on my ankle monitoring me for alcohol per the Ottawa County common police court and I have I'm coming up on 17 years of sobriety and when this thing that comes off my ankle I will switch to dropping urines which I thought was interesting because I'm not a drug addict and someone my sister-in-law who's a nurse said uh urine dropping is not checking for alcohol it's checking for drugs.

I said, "Oh, okay." So, I got to do that for three years, and I'm not a drug addict, but it's okay. I'll do whatever he wants. You know, it's like my friend in Cincinnati said, you know, Terry, are you willing to go to any length?

What are you willing to do? I'll do it if that's what it means because I'm not just doing it for me. I'm doing it for my husband and I'm doing it for everybody else.

And so, as I wind my story down this afternoon, um I just kind of want to leave on this note. Um I don't know how to go back and make that right. How do you go back after what I did and correct that and make an amends for that situation?

I feel like, you know, if I if I throw a a baseball and I break your window or if I throw a rock and break your window, making amends isn't just coming to you and apologizing and telling you, "I'm sorry I broke your window. I need to also replace the window I broke and stop throwing rocks." Right? >> Okay, I've apologized.

I've stopped throwing rocks, but guess what? The window I've broken can't be replaced. This is one of those situations.

There are some of these situations where we cannot make a true amends, a full amends. So my theory is I make an amends through right living by doing the next right thing. And every time someone asked me to share my experience, strength and hope, I move just a little bit closer to that.

Thank you very much. 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.