AA Speaker – Sigrún H. – Oslo, Norway – 2015
Sigrún H. from Iceland shares her AA speaker story: untreated alcoholism, a spiritual awakening while holding her daughter, and 15 years working the steps with a sponsor in recovery.
Sigrún H. from Iceland got sober on December 26, 1999, after a moment of clarity that changed everything—but the real work came after. In this AA speaker tape, she walks through two brutal years of sobriety without the program, the moment she finally found a sponsor, and how working the steps with intention transformed her from someone who wanted to die into someone living her childhood dreams. Her story spans spiritual awakening, character work, amends, and what it means to truly surrender to a power greater than herself.
Sigrún H., an Icelandic AA speaker with 15 years sober, shares her path from untreated alcoholism and a spiritual moment with her daughter to finding a sponsor and working all twelve steps with deliberate action. She discusses how Steps 1-3 taught her powerlessness versus unmanageability, how the Fourth and Fifth Steps forced her to face her past including sexual abuse, and how her Ninth Step amends—particularly one that took two years to complete—freed her from fear. She describes the promises of Step 10, daily Step 3 prayer work, and how service on her knees cleaning toilets became a spiritual experience that grounded her recovery.
Episode Summary
Sigrún H. has been sober since December 26, 1999, but her sobriety didn’t begin in AA. She was raised in an alcoholic family, living with an active alcoholic, and working a Twelve-Step program in Alanon before she ever took a drink herself. She read the Big Book as an Alanon member, trying to figure out how to fix her husband—not realizing she herself was an alcoholic. The turning point came on a chaotic Christmas morning when, holding her daughter and giving her water amid the noise and fighting, Sigrún heard an inner voice say: “You can never grow spiritually if you don’t stop using.” She never drank or used morphine again after that moment.
But sobriety without the program nearly killed her. For two years, Sigrún didn’t connect to AA—she just stayed dry. She felt worse than ever, trapped in what she describes as a field of destruction, going to bed each night praying not to wake up. She had no idea what was wrong with her. The breaking point came when she was alone with her infant daughter, overwhelmed and thinking about throwing the child against a wall. In desperation, she opened the Big Book at random and read about dry drunks—people white-knuckling through sobriety, fooling themselves, waiting for the jumping-off place. She recognized herself completely.
Sigrún lived in an AA building. She walked downstairs with the book, knocked on a neighbor’s door, and before she could even ask, the woman said, “Finally—do you want me to get you a sponsor?” That woman called her first sponsor immediately. Sigrún didn’t have the courage to ask on her own.
The First Step hit her hard. She had to learn the difference between powerlessness and simply not being in control. She couldn’t manage her thinking, her communication, her daily routine—she was ruled by fear and judgment, always trying to control everything. Realizing she had some power to change things but not the power to do it was a breakthrough.
For her Higher Power, she reconnected to a memory from age six: lying in the snow as a child, feeling at one with everything, connected to nature, safe. Her sponsor told her not to complicate it—just do the work. She started the Third Step prayer and has done it nearly every morning for almost two years, struggling through each line but showing up.
The Fourth Step was excavating. She came from two homes—one violent, one loving—and carried sexual abuse, split identities, and the weight of her past. She didn’t share everything in her first Fifth Step; there were things too painful. It wasn’t until she found another sponsor that she had the courage to confess it all.
Her Ninth Step became her breakthrough. There was one person she had deeply harmed, and making that amend meant risking everything—her reputation, her family, her dignity. She prayed for two years before she encountered this person while walking with her children. When the moment came, she owned her fault completely and asked what she could do to correct it. He asked her to make calls to his family, his ex-partner. She did it all. The morning after, reading the Big Book’s passage about being lifted to a higher plane, she realized she could finally stand up—relieved of the fear that had crushed her.
Steps 6 and 7 taught her about humility. She asked God to remove her defects and the sky seemed to open. But three hours later, a neighbor played loud music. She stormed downstairs and lost it. She realized then that character removal isn’t automatic—it’s an exercise. It took six months to understand that humility means asking God to show her defects so she can learn and practice changing them. It means finding something positive to say to a rude bank teller. It means stepping back in line when someone cuts in front of her. One day at a time.
Eight and a half years sober, she had one last major snap—yelling at her daughters in the car over plants they weren’t appreciating. She had to pull over, go home, apologize, and call her sponsor. Her daughter told her, “Mom, sometimes it’s okay that you do this because then I know how it is to be human. You are not perfect.” After that, the big explosions stopped. Now it’s just minor irritations—closing cupboards a certain way, starting her period. She uses humor to survive it.
Her relationship with her ex-husband, the father of her children, illustrates what the program has given her family. Though he remains active in alcoholism, Sigrún has never spoken badly about him to their daughters. She’s taught them what alcoholism is without hatred or grudge. When he shows up high, she tells them simply: “Your father is under the influence. Do you have questions?” No hiding. No fear. No codependency. It’s honest. It’s a gift born from working the program.
Today, standing on what she calls a field of possibilities, Sigrún lives out her childhood dream. At age six, lying in the snow, she wanted to be an artist, travel the world, learn things. She graduated with a PhD from art school. She’s traveled the globe. She’s completed her bucket list—flying, sailing, diving. She does three to five meetings a week no matter where in the world she is. She talks to her sponsor regularly. And none of it feels like confinement. The program, she says, supports freedom. The only thing that can stop her now is her own ego or fear. Working the steps with a sponsor gave her access to a power greater than herself—a power that can do what she cannot do alone.
Notable Quotes
You can never grow spiritually if you don’t stop using.
I’m completely powerless. I’m completely unmanageable. How am I that you know?
I’m like a girl whistling in the dark to keep up my spirit. I fool myself inwardly. I would give everything to take a half a dozen drinks and get away with them.
Cease fighting anything or anyone, even Afghanistan. This is an amazing promise. Sitting here I remember being like this two years sober, fighting everything, my own breath. And here’s a promise: cease fighting anything or anyone.
The program has given my family freedom because there is no hate, there is no grudge. There is a friendship. And this is the most important gift the AA program has given my family.
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
Spiritual Awakening
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
- Spiritual Awakening
People Also Search For
▶
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. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
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. >> Hello.
>> My name is Sigron and I'm an alcoholic. >> I want to welcome the newcomer especially. It's really good to be with you and and thank you for flying me over here.
I want to tell you about um the moment where I got the invitation. It's a very important moment in my life where I got the invitation to come here to speak. I was at a meeting, AA meeting in Iceland and I was sitting at the meeting and I was thinking about I was going to move to Basel and I was thinking do I need to connect to AA in Basel?
Maybe I'm okay not to be a AA person in Basel. Maybe I can start a new in Basel. Maybe I'm doing okay.
I don't need this AA meetings anymore. And I get a phone call from Elizabeth and that's my higher power. That's my higher power today.
This is how he speaks to me. It's oh, you have a you have a job to do. You have a job to do as an AA person to to talk about your experience of this program.
So it's really an answer to me at that point of time. I need AA. AA needs me and that's my life.
That's my foundation. But regularly I get this. Do I need it still?
So, my sobriety date is uh the 26th of December, 1999. Um I was um I'm I'm um different from some people in AA. I've never gone to therapy.
I quit on my own will so to say, but I had been doing the steps in Alanon. So, I'm a double winner. M um I had been living with a alcoholic for a long time raised in an alcoholic family and I had been battling this illness of alcoholism.
I had read the book many times as a as a alanon. Huh. Read this book trying to find a solution.
How to make my husband or not husband but um not married quit? How can I make him quit? I was trying to find the solution and uh because of my step working in Alanon, I had somewhat of a relationship to a higher power.
I cannot even explain to you what it was. It's like a mist. I was drinking.
I was using morphine and I was doing Alanon meetings and 12step work. That's really uh you know, and thanks to AA members in Alenon rooms, I found my way to AA later. But this moment of um spiritual awakening, my first moment of clarity, I was completely drunk on 26th of December.
I had a party. There was a lot of noise going on, lot of fighting, lot of alcoholism. and I was pulled into the bedroom of my daughter.
I'm holding her in my arms and I'm giving her some water to drink. And in this moment of time, something happened. And to me, it was a lifealtering moment, but so simple.
It was just this voice within me saying, "You can never grow spiritually if you don't stop using." And that was it. And in in my case, it was forever I made this decision at that point. I will never drink again.
I will never use morphine again. It was really clear at that moment. The next day I woke up and I'm like and I don't really the next two years I don't really remember and it would have been really good for me to go to therapy.
It would have been so good for me to know about alcoholism. I did not. I didn't know what was wrong with me for two years.
I just wanted to die. Really wanted to die. And to me, this is really clear.
You know, I'm an alcoholic and I drink to rest. That's really clear to me. Two years I wasn't drinking, but I felt worse than ever.
Completely stripped of every longing to breathe. And I I look at it as a bit of a it's like a field. Everyone knows what a field is.
It's a big big field. And when I'm a child, it's a field of possibilities. Anything is possible.
No dream is is too big. Anything is possible. And this field of mine, it it was like uh the the the soil, the ground, the earth was dusty.
I took it up and it just there was no growth in that field anymore. I was I had taken myself into a box. Boom boom boom boom boom.
And I was stuck into this field and there was nothing. There was no air. And every day I would walk my life and it was like every night I would go into the shower and I just please I I please don't let me wake up.
But I couldn't take my life. Couldn't do it. And I think yesterday I in the panel I shared an experience that is really important to me.
That is the first experience I feel myself not alone in this world. Five, six years old laying in the snow. I'm just laying there a child.
It's naive thinking, but I remember this feeling of looking at the stars and I connect. I am one with everything. And this this feeling of everything that's beyond good and evil.
This love of nature, this love of the big big nature and being a part of it. And this is a feeling I I have to carry. And when I was about 15 years old, I mean, I was a prosperous student.
I was the head of every uh society they had in school. I was the the person that was socially active. I was good at everything.
Everything really. I was 10 student. I was a soccer champion.
I was a dancer. I was a guitar player. I did everything.
But every single thing I did, I felt alone. I always felt not in my skin. lonely, fearful, always.
So at 15, it was snowing at a party. Someone brings Jack Daniels to me for the first time and I look at this bottle and you know, I'm coming from an alcoholic family. I know what alcoholism is.
I look at this bottle and maybe Yeah. And it's, you know, I totally remember this snow like big big, you know, piles of snow all around. I have this sack in this bottle and I'm just just I totally went for it and this feeling of you know, you know, and I remember the next moment I'm lying in the snow, you know, and this is like a connection to my child experience.
I'm lying in the snow, but this time I'm falling inside. I'm not connecting. I'm disconnecting.
And I'm just vroom vroom vroom. But you know it was a break. It was a break from this mind.
Total break. And what happened? That's what I um did.
I have diaries from that time. I don't remember but I have diaries. It's a lot to to have to have diaries to read about how you were feeling when you were struggling alcoholism.
At 16 years old, I was still I was already struggling. I was already writing in my diary. I I I'm not going to do this tomorrow.
I'm not going to do this next weekend. And then next page, oh, maybe it's okay to do it if I do it differently. I had a list.
Tequila. Don't do that because then you go sexually crazy. Uh light wine.
I get headaches. Beer. I throw up.
Uh, you know, I had a list. So, what to avoid? So, it was Jack Daniels I could use that was my drug of choice.
Yeah. Then around uh 16 years old, I have an operation on my back and I get to know morphine. Ah, morphine is totally my drug of choice.
You know what morphine does to me is this. I wake up. I don't go this sleeping situation.
I wake up and I get this feeling of I can do anything. And this this is like don't want to talk about it anymore. Yeah.
Don't like talking about this. And this is like a it's like a another person, another life and uh so painful that you know stripped of my dreams, stripped of my field of possibilities. And these two years that I was sober without a solution, that's my worst time.
Yeah, I always have to talk about that again. That's my moment of breaking out. That's my moment of waking up in fear, going to sleep in fear.
And how does that present itself in my everyday life? Somebody is right, you know, driving behind me and they cut me. Ah, you're cutting me.
I follow the car. I stop at the next light. I rip of the door open.
I said, "You cut me." That's me not getting the service I want at a restaurant in the bank on the phone. That's me sober. Two years sober.
I was in my bedroom with my second child going like this. My thought, this is totally something I always want to share. My thought was how can I make her stop crying?
My next thought was throw her in the wall. That was my situation. Two years sober.
Two years sober. I was thinking about throwing my child in the wall. I wouldn't do it, but I was thinking it.
And at that moment, um, my baby fell asleep. I went into the living room. I I picked up this book once again because I thought he was the problem.
My alcoholic was the problem. And I opened the book. I just randomly opened the book.
And that's my higher power. And I read this. I want to read it now.
Now and then a serious drinker being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better, work better, having a better time." As ex drinkers who smile at such sin. We know our friend is like a boy.
This is where I read. I know I am like a girl whistling in the dark to keep up my spirit. I fool myself inwardly.
I would give everything to take a half a dozen drinks and get away with them. I will pres presently try the old game again, for I am not happy about my sobriety. I cannot picture life without alcohol.
Someday I will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then I will know loneliness such as few do. I will be at the jumping off place.
I am at the jumping off place. I will wish for the end. And I'm I'm an alcoholic.
I have untreated alcoholism and I was so lucky that I lived in a AA building. Really first floor there was a home with sponsorship, active sponsorship going on in and out. Alanons, alcoholics all day long.
Second floor, there was a AA person, uh, st 12step person. Third floor, next to me, there was a AA person. So, I was like in the in the hall of fame, alcoholics fame, you know.
So, it was really easy for me to just I walked downstairs with the book and I knocked on the door and and uh this friend of mine opens the door. She looks at me and says, "Finally, do you want me to get you a sponsor?" Because I was an Alanon. I knew everything about this.
And my first reaction was, "No, I can do it." And and she looked at me and she said, "I'm calling anyway." And she called my first sponsor. That's how I got my first sponsor. I would have never had the courage to ask somebody to sponsor me.
So that's my tactic today. Also, I offer people to sponsor them. I don't wait all the time.
Sometimes I look at somebody and I go because I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the step. And the next week I was working the steps.
And this is the field, you know, the field of destruction. I'm standing on the field of destruction and all of a sudden I start to realize I'm completely powerless. I'm completely unmanageable.
How how am I that you know? No, it's like Reuben said before, he he had had everything under control. His life was okay.
I mean, my life was okay on the outside. On the inside, it was a field of destruction. But I had to get to know this first step.
I had to do some exercises to get to know my mind. I had to look at how I couldn't control my thinking processes, how I couldn't control my communication with the other, how I couldn't control my everyday routine, sleeping, eating, exercising, taking care of myself. And this thinking, you know, how to control my thinking, always judging myself, always judging the other, never on the same level.
Life was horrible. fear controlled by fear all the time and I had to really go into this what's the difference between uh not managing my life you you know this um van English >> powerlessness >> powerlessness powerlessness what's the difference between powerlessness and not being in control I had to really find out and that was a breakthrough moment for me realizing that I had some chance to change a lot of things myself, but I didn't have the power to do it. And then there was all the things I couldn't change and would never be able to change.
And then it's like, oh, how what's the next step? And it's so logical. It's in the book.
And it's like, I'm 6 years old. I'm lying in the snow. And this feeling of togetherness that was my higher power reconnecting to this feeling.
Um all this um I had a really good sponsor who said don't complicate higher power. Please don't complicate it. And she even said fake it till you make it.
Just do it. And I started to do the the third step prayer um first with her and then I did it and sometimes I do it every day. I've done it for every day now for almost two years.
Sometimes I I have periods where I don't do it but it's always u progress. It's exercise. Then we had the fourth step.
And in my fourth step, it was I came from a really um I had two homes. One home was really violent. The other home was really loving and caring.
So I had a split personality within myself, raised in both good and bad. I had lots of issues, sexual abuse. I had lots of things that had happened in my past.
Lots of things happened like that I I was carrying. and and this moment in the snow where I'm drinking and I can't get out. That's a little bit the heaviness of my past that, you know, I can't, you know, the the moment of six-year-old, I I stand up and I'm upright and I'm trusting and I'm loving and everything is possible.
But this moment of the first ring, that's the moment in my fourth step. It's too much. How can I get rid of this?
How can I take the steps of being a um humble human being with all this past? I had done so many things that were like and in my first fifth step I didn't share everything. There were things that I would never share.
There were hurts that I would never share and I carried it. And it wasn't until I got another sponsor that I had the courage to to say everything. And yeah, my biggest step was really my biggest nine step was really um I had to take the chance of losing everything to come clean.
I could really lose everything. My my my um manm It's a difficult word. Manor Elizabeth >> reputation >> reputation somehow but yeah a little bit more than reputation like yeah but uh lose my family lose my uh uh dignity um and I I had to pray for it and my sponsor wasn't so sure what to what to do about it.
She said wait just let's see if God shows you the way. Two years later, I met this person that I had harmed. Really harmed, really, really harmed.
Um, walking with my children and it was the right moment and I went up to them and I I admitted to my fault. Yeah. Just I own this.
It's It's not possible to I'm sorry. It's just not possible. I said, "I own it.
Is there anything you want me to do to correct this?" And he wanted me to do. He wanted me to make phone calls. He wanted me to uh talk to his father, his mother, his ex-girlfriend.
At the point he there was a lot of things I had to do. And I take the step. The morning after is this moment of the book where you walk and you have a new connection to life.
You've been lifted to a higher because you don't I I'm not laying in the snow anymore with this heavy burden and I cannot stand up anymore. This was the moment I could stand up again. Relieved from the fear of the past.
Another thing when I was working uh the steps six and seven it's like um you know take away my faults take away my faults and I was so sincere that the the sky opened and there was a sun ray into my window and it was like oh and the next morning I woke up and I'm like I'm free of character I'm a new person 3 hours Later, the man on the floor beneath me, a little bit too noisy for my child, sleeping in the bed. Music, boom, boom, boom, boom. I walk downstairs, I knock, and he opens the door.
I'm like, what the are you thinking? And at that moment, I'm like, what happened? You were going to take it away from me.
And I really thought, it took me 6 months to realize what it means to be humble before God. When I'm humble, I'm saying, "Show me. Show me my defects of character.
I need to learn about them. I need to see what I have to change. And then I need to make exercises.
I'm the one that has to be in the bank wanting to snap at the person because they're really rude." Yeah. And at that moment, I have to find something positive to say that to that person. I have to do it.
And it has to has to be true. It has to be real. something positive.
I'm standing in the line. Somebody cuts the line in the in the supermarket and I'm like and then do you want to go? I step away.
That's the way I do it. I have to practice the way to change my my uh defects of character and it's one day at a time and I'm still still doing it. I had a moment of uh breaking the last the last official um snapping.
Do you have this? Do you know what I mean when I say snapping? >> So, I'm in the car.
Eight years ago, my girls in the back. I had spent a lot of money to give them some nice presents, some soil and plants to, you know, make grow. And it was a beautiful day.
And they are fighting over the plants. They are fighting over what I had just given them. They are not, you know, they are not so appreciative.
And you know this fighting starts to get a little bit noisy and the car is my field of losing it you know snapping and it's the moment it's the last moment I really snapped eight years ago I turn around and I at my children um 8 and 1/2 years sobriety I turn around and I totally lose it so that I had to pull over get out of the car and I'm this like a child and I had to go back home go through the suffering of being the worst mother I'm really a bad mother and then you know calling the sponsor telling her about the experience she's saying reconnect to God what's the what what what has the program taught you to do so I have to sit down with my children apologize I'm Sorry. And I had this moment where my daughter comes and she said, "Well, mom, sometimes it's okay that you do this because then I know how it is to be human. You are not perfect.
Think about that." But, you know, it really was the last time. Now it's more of a, you know, doing the dishes like this closing the cupboards, you know, but it's not this. And it's more like a, you know, now I'm I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, girls. I'm a little bit like off track. I'm starting my period, you know, something like that.
But it's exercise. Total exercise. And I had to really work on this.
I had to work on it. And the only way for me to work on this is to have humor. So important in my work as an recovered alcoholic.
This and then I start to look at it. How can you not laugh? You know, this is like or the face this face that sometimes I >> and I think about the face and I'm like, "Oh my god, how talent is this?" you know, but I have to have humor.
I have to have humor to to be able to to live one day at a time. The ninth steps I really had to uh this like this was the only ninth step that I really took practically. The others I had to change.
There was I had you know in my Alanon work I told so many people I'm sorry. It was just totally there was no way for people to uh to hear I'm sorry for me again. So I had to really change the way I um talk to people.
Really change. And that's what I try to do um every day. So we're up to the 10th step.
My favorite promise favorite promise in the a book um is the 10th step promise. And that's a place that's a promise that has um come true in my life today. Uh I realized it maybe nine months ago.
I didn't realize it till then. So I'm going to write read this. This is so this is the place for the newcomer.
You are uh hopefully you will do these first steps that I've gone into. But when you're at the place where you're just about starting to take your nine steps, you're just about starting to admit to who you really were and have the hope to who you really want to become or reconnecting to who you were as a child. Then this promise comes.
You're starting to live this program one day at a time. One day at a time. This thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.
And then I'll jump to um Yes. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even Afgh. >> This is amazing promise.
Think about it. Sitting here I remember being like this two years soiety fighting everything my own breath. And here's a promise.
Cease fighting anything or anyone, even you don't have to fight anymore. For by this time, sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor.
If we are tempted, really important, you will be tempted. But if we are tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sainely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically.
That's my experience. All of a sudden I'm here totally react sly around alcohol. We will see that our new attitude towards liquor has g has been given us without any thought or effort on our part.
Think about it. No effort. this has happened.
So the effort that's no effort that's the steps this is a promise when we are to step 10 we are living step 10 we are waking up every morning the book talks about you know it's step 11 prayer and meditation I I tell you how how my mornings because I'm totally not perfect I'm so not perfect so you know I could do this in Icelandic But but um because this is my morning prayer. So the third step prayer, I I explain to you how I go through the third step prayer. It's uh sometimes it's not like this, but most of the time it's like this struggle.
So God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. No way. >> Why?
Why should I do something that you will? You know then you could just take away everything I like. You could take away everything I like.
That's the first really it's a struggle for me in doing this prayer being conscious about how my thought process are. This is how I think and then it comes take away my difficulties. Yes.
Take away my difficulties. Then I get in. >> I'm willing for the God of my understanding to take away my difficulties.
I totally want that. Who doesn't want that? No difficulties, please.
That victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. There I reconnect to the other. There I'm no longer I, I'm us.
There I'm pointed into the direction of uh usness. We have a word in Icelandic that means uh present v. And if you translate it to uh exactly it's us now like being present in us present in us vat here and now.
So this prayer first it's like challenging me let go of your will anything can happen. I'm in your hands and it's like oh no and then it's like I take away your difficulties okay I'm ready to listen to that and then it's like okay let's be us present let's be in us not in you eco ego eco and then the last may I do thy will always so every morning I wake up with two forces in my head the darkness and the lightness and my challenge uh before was to be all all lightness. Huh?
And getting rid of the darkness, fighting the darkness, really fighting the darkness. But now it's not that way. Now it's the balance, the in between.
That's what I wish for. I want to be in between. I want to be a person that that it's okay that sometimes I'm just have a shitty day, you know.
But it's also really good to remember this six-year-old lying and totally trusting everything is possible. And with the 12th step, I mean there's a whole chapter on the 12th step. And I could tell you, you know, my first experience of of um going on my knees was because of service because um I couldn't pour coffee for people.
I just couldn't do it. I was just too afraid to do it. I couldn't do like normal service.
So, I would clean the toilets >> after meetings. And I was on my knees and I I totally had a spiritual awakening on my knees cleaning the toilet. Totally present.
Totally thankful for cleaning the toilets of other alcoholics. Think about it. And it was so easy after that cleaning of toilets to go on my knees and just do my prayers.
It's humility. I'm just totally willing to do what I have to do to be sober. I did the child care.
I did uh um lots of lots of uh responsibilities with an AA. I was a mega sponsor 10 spons I'm alone with three children you know so balancing home and aa m I told about it yesterday my my eldest daughter said mom please can you be my sponsor so I had to really learn again about the balance and there's also I talk about it in the book that an alcoholic is not really doing well if he's not doing this program within its own home. So I had to really go, you know, I had to reconsider my sponsoring and now I have uh always one sponsy that is active working the steps.
The other ones drift away and become friends. Uh my family is with within AA because I did service. That's the gift of service is is friendships, family.
Um my children are children's friends with uh my AA friends. It's a family. Um my sponsor I've had four sponsors and I call my sponsor once twice a week.
I meet her every other week. And this is with 15 years of bright. I'm still doing this.
I wouldn't stop doing it. I go to three meetings a week. sometimes up to 10 meetings a week and usually that's when I'm really want to you know contribute be there for the newcomer um yeah so higher power appendexes too the first thing I do with sponses the first meeting I have with sponses that's how I was taught to do it and I do it.
We read this appendices through spiritual experience. And there's a quote I've actually learned that it's not by Herbert Spencer. It's something totally not right, but it doesn't matter.
It's a fantastic quote. So there is a principle which is a bar against all information which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contact prior to investigation.
That means judging something before trying it. So to the newcomer here, um, try it. You know, I think really we have nothing to lose really.
And another thing I want to share because there's a lot of probably uh double winners in here. Um, the father of my children is still out there. Huh.
We've been divorced for um six years and he's u really low um what do you call it really really taken by alcoholism really I have not ever because of the program because of this book because of the chapter to families to to wives I've learned something. I have never talked badly about my ex to my children ever. And what has that given us?
That has given my children freedom to love him as he is. Because he's an alcoholic like me, like us. Huh?
He's not been responsible in their in their life. You know, I've been alone doing this, but there is no hate. There is no grudge.
There is a friendship. And this is the most important gift the AI program has given my family because um it's totally how can I explain this? I don't have to fight.
I can let go and I can I can be strong enough upright enough to carry this responsibility because he's sick. So to the to the ones that are fighting this kind of uh situation the book has answers you know it is a language of old times submittive language somehow but if we take it into new times it's all about love. It's about love, respect, letting go, trusting, and being there, you know.
And we also have no codependency in this relationship. He will come and he's maybe high, and he's sitting there. The girls need to see him and he's high and they are strange and they're like, why is he so strange?
And I will just say, you know, your father is under the influence of drugs. That's why he's like that. Do you have any questions?
Do you want to ask him about this? >> It's honest relationship. They totally know what alcoholism is about.
And there is no hiding. There is no hiding. That means there is no fear and he can answer them like he can.
And it's a what a gift. So now we're on the field of possibilities. Yeah.
You know 13 years ago I was in the field of destruction. I could not breathe. I didn't want to live.
I had no wishes. Today I'm standing on this field of possibilities. You know anything is possible.
I shuck my roots down there and I'm just and it's like oh where do you want to take me next? There is this God, you know, where do you want to take me next? And sometimes I wake up and it's like poof, I have to ah but I wanted to go there.
And God always has a better plan. >> Always. Always.
And I mean, when I started this program, I was a homework mom. I had a business, but I didn't really like this business. And I was like, and now I'm like, okay.
Uh, when I was 6 years old, lying in the snow, I had a dream. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to travel the world.
I wanted to learn things. That's happening. So, you know, the program has given me the strength to do anything along with three children.
I graduated with my uh PhD from art school. I've traveled the world. I've done my bucket list.
I had the bucket list. I want to fly. I want to sail.
I want to dive. I want to you I did it all. Two years I took for this.
still going to three to five meetings a week. No matter where I'm in the world, I go to three to five meetings a week. Talk to my sponsor and that's how it's possible to make my dreams come true.
I get a power that's greater than myself a power that can do for me that I what I cannot do myself. And it's really not a program of confinement. That's what I thought for a long time.
I will be restricted in this community of the AA program you know it's like I have to go to meetings I have to do this and but it's really it's really freedom the program really supports freedom and I can do whatever I want to do and now it's like nothing nothing can really uh stop me except for my own ego that could stop me my fear my fear Yeah. So, I really think I've said enough and thank you for inviting me. 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.