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 adree podcast so if you’d like to help us remain self-supporting please visit our website at sober-remix than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker hi my name is Adele I’m gratefully clean and sober and my home groups are the Saturday morning Reflections group at STS Bearcat in in Sedona 8:00 a.m.

the women’s Crystalis group at noon at the Unity Church and the 7:30 a a.m. upon Awakening group at the Unity Church and if you’re in Sedona on the first Thursday of any month we have a women’s 11 stop group at our home just women and you are most invited um I too call a home group one that I regularly attend depend if I am physically able and one where I give service and I do the things that group does go to the hospitals go to the prisons get on the 12-step list you can get on the 12ep list wherever you are in sobriety they call you from central office all you have to have is a meeting guide and a car and mostly it’s to give people who call in that central office information and often it is to give a ride and um I’ve been very grateful to be doing that for a long time I describe myself as a grateful uh gratefully clean and sober because I am so grateful to be freed from the enslavement of alcohol and alcoholism that’s how they describe an addiction in the dictionary an enslavement to a substance or a behavior and that’s exactly what I was when I came to alcoholic synonymous I did not get freed from the enslavement of alcoholism till I’d been an alcoholic synonymous a good long time so I am so grateful to be free today and I’m here to give you a little different story story then will be given by other people each of us has is a unique expression of sobriety but we are not unique in how alcoholism works or what the solution is thank God the first thing that I need to tell you is that I ate to be with me and I drank to be with you and part of my story is that I am also recovering bulimic and what does that have to do with alcoholism nothing but it has to do with my story as a recovering alcoholic I my sobriety date is June 28th 1989 and I got struck abstinent on that date too today I have 26 years and 375 days of sobriety I was uh struck sober at that first meeting and by the grace of God I have not had to have a drink and I celebrated 20 years of being sober with food in November so that means that I came thank you I came into well first of all um yeah I came into Alcoholics Anonymous for 3 years out in the parking lot chewing my alcohol cuz I have a brewery right here and brushing off the crumbs and coming into meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and pretending Lying by Omission about what I was doing because that was getting in the way of my relationship with God and my relationship with you and my relationship with myself and my job and everything else and my favorite kind of lying is lying by Mission and so I felt like a fraud and a cheat and a liar and a thief because I was and I heard it so beautifully described how we feel like that fraud now what I had to do because both of these addictions were equally deadly is I had to go to another program alcoholic synonymous does not address those other addictions nor should it but there are other 12-step programs that do and I implore you if there is something that you’re doing right now that’s getting in the way of your relationship with yourself and your God and your other people and your job and all that kind of stuff you know it could be gambling it could be some medication that you’ve gotten on and you’re shopping doctors it could be porn all night whatever it is grab one of us we may not know someone who has that addiction but we know someone who does and even more important we know someone who doesn’t have to do that anymore and they will take you where you need to go it’s also about looking good on the outside as long as I look good on the outside it doesn’t matter what’s going on inside and that’s been a horrible addiction from which I’ve had to um recover from that that characteristic it’s not an addiction what it is is a character defense you know it’s a coping mechanism and I use that to sustain some false sense of self I I have about who I am or even more truthfully who I think I ought to be and it doesn’t work why doesn’t it work because we are So Thirsty we are so thirsty for God they have a wonderful word in Sanskrit netti netti it means not this not that we go about finding out what this Divine beloved God budha Jesus whatever you want to call it whatever is by process of elimin ation and we alcoholics tend to be a more enthusiastic crowd I’d like to follow the steps in my story I want to tell you a little bit about the home I came from perhaps I was like uh Jimmy just opened us up with such fire thank you so much and and you were so wonderful this morning you know I can only hope to do one tenth of the job you did uh for the good of Alcoholics Anonymous and thank you Barbara for everything you’ve done and Judy met us with flowers and Lisa and Van they’ve been so beautiful to us everyone has been so generous to us but perhaps I was like that son or daughter you had in a family where the alcoholic synonymous never came came into and the way I experience my growing up now I’m not saying this is what happened there is no objective truth out there it’s not like truth sits there out there and then there’s an us and you know me and a you when we talk about that truth as if it is there that’s not how it happens there’s no story without a perceiver and so I’m telling you a story that’s it what I did hasn’t changed since I got what got sober but how I see it sure as heck has and so I’m going to tell you how I perceived that my Mom married an alcoholic with seven children whose wife was in a mental institution due to alcoholism I was born with hypers sensitiveness I have learned thank goodness to to carry earplugs and conventions because I can hear everything except for the very high pitches that I perceive as incoming arrows I don’t know why just came out of the womb like that I experience the entire world like a personal assault I did not drink for the party I wasn’t one of those although I did party I had Opera length gloves and cigarette hold I know you can’t imagine that I figured God gave me this long arms for something so these long arms and I had bracelets up to here and boy I was I look like I was having fun but actually what I did from the time I was really young was I did whatever I could to quiet down everything it was too loud it was too cold it was too hot it was too bright and I just had to turn the volume down and I drank for this I don’t know about you but that’s what I was looking for in the alcohol anyone else want that mhm and so when I got to that house with all the now we had about a 14 square foot house there were nine children two parents we had peacocks in the basement and chickens we had a postage size I know that’s maybe not that that much for people out in this part of the country but we had a postage size back lawn we ran we raised English Mastiffs and Rottweilers Geral hamster parakeets all of these were in the house and I experienced this now remember just without any of this I’m by myself all the time and this is what happened and so I my first drug of choice was fantasy I would stick around long enough in school to get what was I was a a straight A student in this family I got the job of good girl not because I was so great but it was the only slot that was left my Step Brothers everyone was into drugs and alcohol so I got good girl girl and and what I did was I would just stick around long enough to go away and then I’d come back long enough to get whatever was going on in class and I’d go away and that’s how I survived I lived at school and in the library in a tree in the dark anywhere else but where I was I was never where I was for a long time after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in my house let’s just say the walls were blue in the in the house now this is the way it happened in my house I would say the walls are blue whack the walls are pink no the walls are blue whack the walls are paint uh Pink violence a lot of violence until I start saying the walls are pink and then I start believing the walls are pink this is called delusion I did not come to Alcoholics Anonymous in denial that took about 2 and a half years it was a step up delusion means there is something either true or false about which I actually understand the truth and I’m not admitting it that’s what denial is the delusion is that I believe the lie so when I came into alcoholic synonimous I had nothing but delusion here’s how it went I’m not hurting anyone by but myself I don’t drink Vodka took me two years two and a half years sober to admit oh I drank sweet Liquors and I cut the sweet with vodka total delusion I don’t I’m not drinking if it’s going in a blender and on and on it goes you know I don’t crave a drink I just have it the same time every day I wake up in the middle of the night sweating I I do not realize I’m in the Progressive stages of alcoholism everything tastes like battery acid to me so I put ice cubes and I get that same thing I grew up with watching my stepfather drink a gallon of Vin Ros you know how I got out of just screwing the top off so I wouldn’t be like him they had come out with boxes wine by then I drank a box of wine a day and that was just a staple I didn’t count anything else but I had this delusion so what happened was in the first step my sponsor had me write out what is it that comes in the way of your relationship with your other people your job your school your dreams and hopes your parents your family other human beings how has alcohol come in between you and that what has it had you do that made you feel ashamed and I don’t know another woman alcoholic who hasn’t had to do something to in order to keep drinking and using about which she feels dirty and ashamed and when I wrote that out I had the realize you actually make real what it is you’ve done you realize what you’ve done now do this with a pen and P and uh or a pencil pen or pencil but no erasing and paper and i’ I’ve never done inventory except that way it accesses the wrong side of the brain when you use a computer it just does and it’s very easy to type a lie but it’s really hard to write one and so I came to realize this now a delusion I would like to to describe a delusion a delusion is entirely self-referential has anyone here seen a movie called A Beautiful Mind you may have there’s a very famous physicist about which it is and in this movie he is going through the movie with you don’t even find out until well in the movie that he is seeing things he’s having experiences that no one else is seeing and people are trying to get through to him once they realize what’s happening and he is oblivious to this about halfway through the movie you see that his college roommate and the little niece of that college roommate are that are with him you realize they are only in his mind and at one point he’s going he’s rushing down the street in the rain and he realizes the little girl does not grow up and this is the crack in his delusion I’d like to suggest to everyone here that we must have a crack in our delusion in order for the light of Truth to come in in order for the light of sobriety to come in we can go down on Bourbon Street and and go yell at people who are sitting there and who are inside the self-referential delusion and it will do no good until we had that moment and that moment came for me in writing that first step and it came from coming into alcoholic synonymous where you embodied sobriety so loudly I couldn’t hear a word you were saying I could feel it though I did not come into AA because I wanted to stop drinking I came with my sponsor from another program and she was stalking somebody I caught alcoholism here it’s caught through the ears motives don’t matter I’ve already heard this so far came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity step two first of all I had Insanity in my family real Insanity my my father died of alcoholism it said chronic alcoholism on his death certificate which is you got to work real hard to get that one on there he was diagnosed as uh schizophrenic with homicidal Tendencies and manic depressive my my mother was consistently erratic I I was so scared and what what did I do in that childhood to get safe to feel safe control my environment and go right up into my head I went right up into my intellect to get any kind of safety so now they’re telling me to come to believe in a power greater than myself and they’re telling me to admit I’m insane I’m too afraid to admit that because I’m actually afraid if I admit that I’ll go crazy does anyone else have logic like that I’d like to suggest you that nobody comes into Alcoholics Anonymous an atheist or agnostic nobody my favorite definition of what our higher power is is what do we worship that is what do we spend our time our Attention our focus our whatever we have on and what to we turn to when we’re afraid that’s it baby I had lots of gods I had alcohol and drugs and men and food and work there’s one for you it’s the only Addiction in the world world where the sicker you get the more Applause you get so when I started drinking my first drinks I was 13 I had 10 bottles of beer 10 cans of beer and uh a bottle of Strawberry Hill now I know how old you are if you’re laughing about that and I was to have what I always had when I drank a black out more like a brown out that is I came to now and again during the evening I prayed for blackouts because I came to knowing exactly what I was doing doing and then I’d go back out again and that happened a few times and I made this decision at age 13 I am not going to drink until I get out of high school because you have no idea what I had invested in being good it was everything and once I put beverage alcohol into my body I could not predict what the outcome would be I couldn’t and I knew that I never consider drinking less I just didn’t drink until I graduated from high school and it was on I went away to college on that first day I was sick of being good I was sick I came went with my little Peter Pan collars and my stray days and the first day at Ohio State I found one woman who knew how to drink we shot Foster loggers 42 in beers and it was on Within six weeks I came home with purple hair I love I love this blue hair in the front you’re my kind of girl sweetheart just screaming you know the chairs in cheap Italian restaurants that purple it was 1976 and uh it was cut about an inch long and I came in all in black and my mother screamed she didn’t know what she did not know how to articulate what alcoholism had done to her child that’s what it did to me now I have an allergy to alcohol an allergy means I have an abnormal reaction to a substance or behavior there are two things that happen when I drink number one I flush which means I get real hot and so I have to take my clothes off and if you’re a six-foot woman with an upper body of a 12-year-old people are unlikely to forget you in town the second thing is I just want more I want more more more more that’s all I can think of more right now and so it was off now I got some that’s the end of what I’m going to tell you about my drinking it got progressively worse as it always does never better at 30 I came into Alcoholics Anonymous not because I thought I would die it was because I knew I would live for a long long time and that scared me dying did not scare me I just couldn’t seem to do it you’ll hear more of my story we are indestructible we alcoholics we’re darn hard to kill and so I came into the program and this beautiful sponsor you know I didn’t ask anyone to sponsor me for six months I do not recommend that I was simply too frightened I sat by the door because people were telling the truth and in my family when people told the truth things flew and people got beaten and I was scared to death people were telling so much truth and I went I I got sober in Los Angeles there were 5,000 meetings in Los Angeles today probably 3,500 then I made a Wide Circle if you have to do that bless you I did I did my first home group had 300 people at it that was as intimate as I could get and everyone really really you know they left me alone they let me do that by the time I was 9 months sober I got the sponsor in at six months by 9 months I had was in the middle of the ninth step and I was sponsoring 11 women you we were a piece of work please God will only send people who are as crazy as you are to sponsor them I’m so grateful I got into sponsorship I got into all those commitments all the commitments at the meetings I usually had to be the secretary I knew how to organ my my I was a college administrator I had a lot of employees I had my lipstick on straight when I came into alcoholics synonymous I wore 3in heels and I’m 6 feet without any shoes on and I had this I’m in charge look I was mystified but why no one asked me if they could help me they did however ask me for directions and to sponsor them I’ve had to recover from compulsive competency really it’s hard when you grow up with a character defense like always always having it perfect it’s really hard it took me 2 and a half years to get well enough to end up in a Psy wward where I had a nervous breakthrough I was I was really tightly wound step three made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood him I love that I must have read that 5,000 times and thought I was supposed to turn over my will in life over to God no care care is the provision of what is necessary for the health welfare and maintenance and protection of something or someone wow can’t you do that a little better and then I thought it was my life I was turning over do I beat my heart grow my hair animate myself no I didn’t I thought I was going to have to give up something give up I was a control freak why because I felt so unsafe in the world I had to try to control everything around me what I had to do is realize it wasn’t my will and my life it was God’s in the first place I had to give up only one thing the illusion that I had control isn’t that easier it was just an idea it was a illusion I had to turn over not a real thing I was so relieved the four step I had to write out I you now any other viros in the audience little Perfection thing so I couldn’t get the line straight enough on my for step and you know and I called my sponsor and she was like jesz a d just write it so I read the directions very carefully and I wrote my first four step from the time of the womb why because I had a story about what happened it’s not what actually happened ever I just had to get my story out there and find out where I was selfish and actually when I have people do the four step now I have them do it directly from the big book I give them a worksheet but we go through the big book and highlight it if they ever lose that they just walk open it up and get a pencil and a pad and I asked them to write down how that affect each one of those things not just whether it did cuz we want to get down to causes and conditions and she told me to write that those first three columns just get it all out and then the fourth column that’s where the peace is that’s where the recovery is say it does not say anywhere in our book what is my part in it I’ve heard that pared thousands of meetings it says how was I selfish self-centered dishonest and Afraid resent comes the word sent from in resent comes from the French word meaning to feel or the Latin word meaning to sense so I’m reing or rensing something that happened how can you do that for me how can you have a part in that certainly I was a player in a situation but I have no part in my resentments I have 100% and that’s where that’s where the freedom is baby because that means that you can’t ever take away my peace my joy My Love Ever by anything you do and that is miraculous I also include a fifth column in the ones I do with people now and that and what does this remind you of in childhood why because I’m pinning it on my childhood absolutely not but the things that I find I react to you know how they five minutes after you figure out what you were upset about you realize that 5 minutes before you just spewed it all over someone that kind of a thing that’s from something it’s reminding me something about my childhood when I’m feeling powerless and I’m reacting to it today so I better take a look at it because it’s taking a look at me my fears and harms and uh sex inventory I also did with that sponsor and I’ve done that many many times I go through every five years with a group the entire uh all 12 steps now and I have for the last 20 years and um and I go through the steps all of the time I live you know we’re living the steps but I do it in formal writing as well I need to I use the four-step column for step 10 now the depth of it depends upon the intensity of the resentment and I’m telling you right now a 10st step I can feel in my body as it needs to be done as soon as it happens your body will tell you right away if you done something wrong you know just hit you right in the gut your shoulders go up and O so you know we have builtin builtins we just have to start paying attention to them step six we’re entirely ready to have God remove of all these defects of character I realize again that they coping mechanisms and their character defenses and what I had to do is I had to get down to causes and conditions if I just try to give up the thing the selfishness self-centeredness what I find out is it’s like kind of saddling a fcking horse it’s just fine when you got the rains pulled but once you let those rains go boom that horse is off and until I got down to causes and conditions I could have no sustainable recovery in those areas and I’ve had to do some work now I want to tell you that I’ve sponsored all the way through and been very involved in alcoholic synonymous I found that loving myself came through the back door not the front door I tried to Love Myself by buying shoes on a credit card that was the best of my thinking and what I do is I love you and then I experience all this love inside and I start loving me I sit across from another woman who tells me her story and feels that’s who it is and all I see is a gorgeous beautiful being across from me and a piece of my story the piece of of that Falls away and out in me comes the light of what I really am through that process and finally I had to go in and do it with me too it’s just been the last couple years and I’ve really had to address this I tried everything not to we started before I forget I do want to say one thing the big book my sponsors have always gone through the big book with me that’s not not true but I have had the big I have had gone through the big book with my sponsores I have not always had sponsors that went through the big book but I have been trained to go through the big book please never call anybody who uses the big book with ference a step Nazi the Nazis killed 12 million people we heal and love people back to life here that’s what we do here we heal we and in the process we are healed but in Step six and seven I had to go in and really do some deep work maybe not everyone has to do that but at some point I did my husband and I started about 11 months ago started setting a timer and we set a timer every 20 minutes and I had to start saying to myself I love you I bless you I trust you which by the way I really didn’t when I started saying that which is why I had to start saying that please forgive me thank you for leading me back home I am always safe here and it’s been shortened and I started doing that every 10 minutes and I just drop into that silence and I bless May every being in the world feel the whole of God’s love surging through them and do you know something I feel that love and that good stuff and I also started healing inside in a way I had never started healing before I want to tell you a story about o wow steps 8 and N step eight please never make amends to anyone for what you’re thinking thinking that’s your problem not theirs that’s why we have sponsors we read our AEP list too and I was Tau to write a letter about what I would say my sponsor would review it and take out all the barbs you know those ones where I’m really telling you something because I want you to know what you’ve really done to me those kinds of things now it’s just I was completely wrong this was in no way a fault of yours I named specifically the thing I’ve done and then I pause at the very end and I say is there anything else you would be kind enough to share with me that’s probably the most important question because invariably there is there’s something I’ve forgotten because I was in a blackout step nine I had to pay back a lot of money a lot more than I would have ever stolen had I known there would come a time I’d have to pay it back you do not need to bring back all the money when you go but you need to bring something when you go to make to the amends do not wait until you have all the money to start paying back those financial amends I went to my boss I had stolen out of the petty cash someone else had gotten fired as far as I knew when I told him he was not happy he did not shake me oh I’m so glad you’re sober Adele he was really really really pissed and he threw me out of his office I sent a check for 2 and 1 half years at the end he wrote me one paragraph it said thank you for paying this back you have restored my faith in humanity you may be the only big book that anyone ever sees and you can pay it back $5 a month it’s consistency you’re talking to a girl that used to take six birth control pills in one day because I would forget alcoholic synonymous taught me consistency I know it’s really dangerous don’t do that step nine there were two two people on my fourth and fifth step list who I was willing to forgive I was willing but I couldn’t get freed about one was my stepfather and one was my natural father I want to talk about this for just a minute my my father as I’ve told you I’ve told you a little bit about his history I started getting raped and tortured at about 6 weeks old I’m not telling this for any purpose but for you to know that in God’s world nothing is unhealable nothing nothing nothing I did absolutely everything to get free from that I was physically hurt I’ve had 20 major surgeries sober those are one that’s when they bring out the power tools probably 50 or or so out patient procedures I’ve had eight strokes and I’m here to tell you about this I told you we’re hard to kill it’s a miracle and I know it and I knew that because what had happened to me I was broken and I was unhealable there was something about me that was so dirty that was so unhealable that I could never get free from that I tried everything I wrote inventories I went to groups I went to Specialists and therapists I went to my sponsor I did inventory after inventory I got on my knees I prayed I would be with my husband whom I absolutely adore I love I love you so much baby I did not learn this in alcohol in uh my life growing up I learned violence and retribution I did not learn love like this you taught this to me and you taught it to him and we learned it together through you I tried everything and I was sick 16 years sober 16 years number one by the time I started getting a sober about 9 months in I started getting sick I W I started walking with a cane when I was 9 months sober I was in and out of hospitals and in and out of intensive cares and I knew I was wounded I was just wounded I would have to punch my husband in the middle of make making love and I wasn’t never going to get free from this maybe I’d stay sober but I wouldn’t get free and I was 16 years sober and I was reaching for this for the faucet and the idea came out of nowhere he would never have heard his baby girl and I knew it was true I knew it and I thought in a rush came everything that I had done when I was drinking I hadn’t done what he’ done but I had heard people I had stolen their trust I had lied to them I had done all kinds of unspeakable things to them maybe not that but I’d done it my own and I had never done it to them they were just there I wasn’t acting at I was acting out I was doing exactly what he was doing he was looking for peace and he was badly mistaken about its source I believe that every one of us are looking for peace that’s all we’re doing and we are so confused I don’t think we’re sick I don’t think we’re broken we don’t come in here broken we come in here confused we’re spiritually sick what we do in alcoholic synonymous is we work these incredible 12 spiritual exercises and we get cleaned out and so the sunlight of the spirit which is always fully there can just beam right through us and help someone else it’s amazing we can start doing the the 12 step the minute we can come we walk in if you’re here three days you can show someone the meeting guide list you can tell them the meetings you’re going to you can help them absolutely this is not brain surgery we can start wherever we’re at the 10th step allows us to clean out so that we can experience the 11th step and the 12th step the second half of the 11th step is not extra credit I started with 3 minutes a day I was really crazy when I came in here I was bouncing ing bouncing vibrating I shook my leg compulsively for 16 years I counted people are there any counters here all right that that means that I would have had counted all of you at least 20 times if someone got up I’d have to start counting again someone comes in I have to count again someone gets up for coffee maybe 50 times a meeting it was such I felt so much in danger all the time that I had to keep this going 247 and guess what this is where I looked for God the finite intellect the intellect by definition is finite what we call our mind God is infinite we can’t go to a finite source to realize the infinite can we it’s like going to the hardware store for bananas it’s you’re not looking wrong you’re in the wrong store the 11th step charges us to shut up sit down in my case I had to have all my limbs stop moving and I had to sit down and and my sponsor said you only have to do this for three minutes and so I was on a day until it will grow into something else I’m so glad he told me that I was on 3 minutes for 11 years there is something to being stubborn and it has grown and I’ll tell you something as it grows the quality of my 12st step changes the nature of it changes my job in alcoholic synonymous is not to fix you you’re not broken my job is to see your wholeness and so that you can realize it too my job is to point you right here into yourself where that still Small Voice has been trying to speak to you and me and we got to get quiet enough to hear it each one of us will hear that voice deep down inside when and if we sit down and be quiet now all of you are going to tell me or maybe you’re thinking I can’t meditate my mind goes quick now you’re talking to someone who was moving all limbs at all time I carried a Mary Poppins purse that I would dig into in meetings I wore about six or seven charm bracelets that musically moved when I when I did I I carried quarters and River Rocks and everything else we’re all terrible at it when you take a puppy into your lap and you hold it and love on it do you care what it’s thinking God doesn’t care what we’re thinking he’s just so happy to have us there I really encourage you to work that 11th step that second half of the 11th step and your whole life will change mine has thank you thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message message until next time have a great day