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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.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. >> A lot of young recovery here, you know, and I'm going to turn uh uh my mouth over to her.

Let her do the talking cuz you're going to have a real good message. >> Oh, thanks, Clarence. >> Hi, everyone.

I'm an alcoholic and my name is Chris. >> Hi, Clarence. >> Um I I like that family of sponsorship.

Um, you know, it's me who's the grandma or the gal who led first and uh Cindy who led last week. And you know, I think that's important that we're carrying this message to other people. There's no graduating in Alcoholic Anonymous.

You don't get put the plug in the jug and go live your life. For people like us, you put the plug in the jug and you start to go crazy in the head. That's what alcoholism is.

If it was just about quitting drinking, of course we have to be cleared. Our bodies have to be cleared before we can treat the illness. But if it's just about quitting treatment, I mean quitting drinking, then treatment centers would throw out sober people.

Well, we know that that's not true. Treatment centers will get us off the streets long enough, but it's not going to get us sober. I think treatment is discovery that there is a solution and it's not the the crazy house permanently uh have to be locked up in the insane asylum or permanently catch a case that may give me a life sentence over something that I have no idea when I'm getting carded away in my mind I think you don't understand or when I when I'm sitting in the back of the police car.

I'm thinking, h how did it get this far? It always goes a little bit too far. It was never supposed to end start end end that way, you know.

Um, thank you for asking me to come and share my story. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, your new people. You don't have to live that way anymore.

What a freedom that is. Happy sweetest day. Every day that I don't take a drink is a sweet day for me.

We were saying that. I am telling you, you know what I mean? I woke up this morning and guess what?

I knew where my car was. I knew who that handsome man was laying next to me. I recognized the ceiling.

I didn't find the need to go lay on that cold tile floor and put my head on the porcelain just to feel a little better cuz that's the only thing that would soothe a hot hangover like I used to have. Thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not about me.

It's about you. If you get anything out of my message, it's from Alcoholics Anonymous. And I try not to water it down because I want it to be here for other people.

I try to keep it just the way it was given to me right from the big book. Anything you hear from me is not original. It was given to me.

I came in here, I had all the answers, just like most of us who come in here have all the answers. I've yet met an alcoholic who has not come into the rooms, who have tried absolutely every angle before we got here. We've tried relationships, jobs, we've tried moving from city to city.

We've tried cutting our hair, losing weight, all those things. And we could do those things for a while. But yet, that void was still there.

And that void is God. And that's why this is a spiritual program to get down to the root, the conditions, and causes of what's what our illness is all about. Anyways, my name is Chris.

I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Berea Wednesday Women Group. It's the first meeting I went to outside of a treatment center when I was released from Glen Bay back in 1986.

And fortunately, for the grace of God, today I'm not cocky and arrogant to think that I'm going to have it tomorrow, but today I've had I have 22 years of sobriety. >> I know alcoholics and honors, that's some good stuff. You know what I mean?

Um, you know, I had ideas back then, but I can tell you my ideas went out the window the day I came out of basketball practice and there was a girl standing outside with a bottle of Boon Farm. And uh, that's what that obviously usually that's usually our first drink in the late 60s, you know, Boon's Farm. You say that and people go like, "Oo, yeah.

Mention Ripple Boons Farm. People start getting excited around here." Anyways, that was my first drink and uh I passed out that night and I blacked out that night and you know it was back I was born and raised over in Skid Row was 25th and my sponsor said you had no place to go but up that's where most people end up and I that's where I started off and um I started off you know not wanting it that way. It was going to be different for me.

My life was going to be different. It wasn't going to be like my mother. You know, I I based ideas on what I seen in my immature uh ways.

I was only 11 years old. I assessed the situation of my childhood being the youngest of seven. Alcohol no stranger to my home.

My father uh left when I was younger. So, my mother was stuck with raising seven children. And you know, I give credit to that woman because I chose not to have any children.

It was a huge responsibility. and she really forfeited her whole life to try to, you know, just get a roof over our head and defeat us. And back then, women didn't have careers like we have now.

Thank God for women who suffered before us that said, you know, make it different for yourself this time. Don't do what I did. I mean, the best advice my mother ever gave me is she said, you know, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and you've been there to witness them all.

Whatever you do, try to learn from my mistakes. That's one of the things they say in AA is that a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. A smart man will learn from his other his own.

I don't have I've never smoked crack. I don't have to leave here to go smoke crack to think if I'm going to come back at 85 pounds. I'm going to believe what I've seen in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous of people who have done that.

That's wisdom. That's wisdom. I don't want to go back out there to see.

I'm not getting back in the ring with Mike Tyson. One year is enough. He's not going to take two.

You know what I mean? it. I gave alcohol everything I had.

Like I said, when I came here, I gave it the best fight I had. And it was going to be different for me. I was going to go to school.

I was going to get an education. I wasn't going to get married. I wasn't going to have children.

I was self-dependent, self-driven, self-reliant. Little did I know, what do we first hear when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous? We are selfish and self-centered.

And and I thought that was an asset. I mean, that's what I was running with. That was my platform for life.

No wonder I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't trust anybody. I didn't I didn't do anything for you unless there was something in it for me.

If I I did whatever I wanted to do. I was like a feather in the wind. If I wasn't allowed to go somewhere, I would just run away.

I mean, really, I I wasn't I consequences never scared me. I'm like a pitbull in an invisible fence when there's a cat walking on the other side. It's worth the jolt for me.

You know what I mean? And that's what alcohol I'm like. Well, if I get caught or if I get in trouble.

I mean, I'm not going to say that every time I drank I got in trouble, but every time I have been d drinking, alcohol has played a part in that. And um and that's the thing that I have to see is that there is a common denominator all the time that I'm in trouble. And now whether that's physical trouble, emotional trouble, financial trouble, uh trouble with the law, I mean there's all kinds of troubles that we get into.

Most of it by the time we get here is twisted relationships. We don't even know how to have a relationship with anyone anymore. I mean, no wonder there's so much emphasis on the inventory.

There's so much emphasis on the absolutes. Dale and I were was watching a a TV show today and the guy, it was called Cheaters. I don't know if anybody's watched that, you know, and the guy was supposed to be in recovery and his wife thought, you know, all along he hasn't been using, but I, you know, let's put a spy on him.

I think he's cheating on me. So, they catch him and sure enough, he's cheating. And she's talking to him on the phone and said, "Uh, you know, you have to be honest with somebody." And he says, "Yeah, that's one of those steps in the program.

I haven't gotten to that yet." I mean, we know that that's how it is. You know, we we, you know, we're so dishonest and I have to be dishonest. You know, when if I start drinking at 11 years old, I'm going to be honest.

I have to lie about it from the gate. I have to steal it to get it. I have to go into shady places to drink it.

I have to hang out with shady people to cover it up. And then I have to lie about where I've been and who I've been with. You know, I've already created a platform for my new lifestyle and I didn't even know it.

It became such a habit for me that I didn't even know. When I came to you, I was tired. 14 years later, I was absolutely tired.

and I gave it the best shot that I had. And so, uh, what happened is that day after the basketball game, Caroline come up to me and she said, "Come on, T." And, uh, next thing I know, I'm in a burned down, condemned house over on 32nd in Fulton. I came to the next day at a girl's house I had just met the night before.

That was going to be the story of my life. You know, a friend with something is a friend indeed, and a friend in need is a friend indeed, right? And so uh they they said the next day I tried that I tried to jump out of a second story window and I I have absolutely no recollection of it.

Now in an inventoried process through Alcoholics Anonymous I've learned that the illness in me was created way back then. I don't know if I was born an alcoholic. You know when I first got here I really wanted to know why I'm an alcoholic.

Like that was very important to me. the only thing that has made me survive, you're going to take away from me. Now, that's the thing that has has been killing me and I think it's keeping me alive.

But, you know, I do think for in my story and particularly I believe that alcohol kept me alive and gave me a reason to live when I wanted to die. And I love when Bill Wilson writes, you know, uh, his ups and downs and when he talks about when the stock market crashed and people were jumping from the towers of inferno, would I jump? No.

A bottle of gin or two and then the old fierce determination to win came back and I don't know if you guys can identify with that. Now that's back in 1930 something. 1939 the stock market crashed.

That was in 1930. in 1986 when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. That was as true to me then.

But in certain in different circumstances, I mean, I would be bad on my back. I'd be in a lot of trouble. Something happened and you know, before you know it, I I'm going to stop at the bar.

I'm just going to have one. And then that old fearless determination. I come I came up with a lie.

I came up with an excuse. I was able to get back into the gracious the graces of family members and friends and co-workers and only to tear the structure down one more time. Just as the book writes, that that's not unique to me.

That's been going on. These court slips are not new. You know, Ebie Thatcher was the guy who carried the message to Bill Wilson and he was on a court slip.

Oh, yeah. Eie Thatcher. I love his story.

I mean, you know, I sponsor a girl who was really into the history of AA. I am not. But when she tells it, I mean, I love it because she talks about like Roland Hazard.

And Roland Hazard was a drunk with lots of problems who was a very rich man. and his they needed to send him to a psychologist. They were going to send him to the best in the world which back then was Freud and uh Freud believed that everything was a sexual experience if you know that right.

But his he was book solid. So he sent him to Carl Young who studied under car under Freud. Now you know just think if he would have got to see Sigman and Freud we our steps might be read differently today.

You know what I mean? you know, sought through prayer and masturbation or something. You know what I mean?

Thank God it happened in the series of events that had happened, you know. Anyway, so Roland goes and you know, we hear the story is yes, I've seen miraculouses cases have recovered in cases like you they they are disguised in uh like spiritual experiences. And he was real doubtful to tell him about their spiritual experience cuz you know we get real excited when we start talking about people can understand.

I can tell you like I'm excited when I can tell you that I woke up 3 days later with somebody that I didn't even know who it was. I'm excited that I can tell you when you nod without judgment. You don't even like you pig wipe off your seat when you leave and get out of my office.

You know, you're just like, "Hey, you know what that happened to me one time?" You know, it's like what there is an identification and an uncanny understanding. And I hope I never get too well to know that that's what this is all about. This is an an an illness that is degrading.

It takes absolutely everything I have first. It will strip me of any integrity and morality and any dignity and any selfrespect. And it will strip you if you're attached to me.

whether by affection or by blood, you're going down with me before it finally takes my life. But yet, I think that it is the solution. I'll never forget my brother died in a car accident at 16 and uh I remember coming nay and somebody else had a car had a car accident and uh they said, "Oh man, thank God he was drinking.

He was limber. He might have died." You know what I mean? Now, my brother didn't have that kind of story.

He ended up dying in that car accident. Anyways, back to Roland. I love Roland and uh Ebie Thatcher.

So Roland uh you know he finds out about Ebie and Eby's drunk. He's the town drunk and everybody's on the mayor about getting Ebie some help and you know Ebie was painting his house. We should be able to identify with this.

He's drinking. He's painting his house and he got a little bit too much drink and you know if it's drinking or painting you maybe like one part of the house will get painted that day. and the a b a pigeon came along and crapped on the house and Ebie got mad, got a shotgun and started shooting.

And so the neighbor wouldn't call the mayor and come and get him. And anyways, Roland goes to Ebie and he goes to the mayor and the town's people are saying, "You got to get this guy. Last time he was drunk, he drove through somebody's kitchen window and ordered a cup of coffee while he was sitting in his car." And so, so we're I mean, this isn't new to us.

That's what I'm saying. We And the reason why I'm telling this story is because when I came here, I was so demoralized. I thought I Nobody has done this stuff, man.

There's histories, hundreds of years this has been going on. It's not new to me. I remember my sponsor says, "Lose your ego.

If there is a name for it, somebody's already done it." And guess what? They probably have done it better than you. You know, so anyways, that's how it happened.

And Roland goes to the jud the mayor and he says, "Why don't you put him under my care?" And so they start taking him to the Oxford movement. AA hadn't even come to terms yet, but it was the Oxford movement. And he gets sober enough he gets excited.

That's what happens, right? We get spiritually excited. Downward.

We come into the rooms of AA. I'm I'm lower than a what do they used to say? A slug's belly.

You know, I'm just like so down. I can't look at anybody in the eyes. Don't change your shoes.

I won't know who you are next week. And I I'm I'm hoping nobody's going to talk to me. I put on my best face, my best clothes, because then I look like I have it together and nobody's going to say anything.

And I sit in that chair and anytime you ask me how I'm doing, I'm fine. I'm fine. And inside I'm ready to implode.

There's there's things going on inside me that I couldn't I didn't know that that's what alcohol, untreated alcoholism was. There's people in the rooms today that have numerous years of alcohol of sobriety that are dying of untreated alcoholism because it's not just about putting the plug in the jug. Eie takes the me the message to Bill and the and the message he takes to Bill.

Bill's like, "Oh, great. Here we go." You know, he's thinking, "Yeah, Jesus freaks." You know, and he says, "Why don't you believe it? Choose your own power greater than yourself, creative intelligence, something greater than you." And you know that was the message that helped me in 1986 because I couldn't believe in a power greater than myself.

I couldn't believe in a god. Are you kidding me? If there was a god, where was he when I needed something?

I mean, my limited thinking. I could I had limited thinking. I was so narrowminded.

I couldn't see the sides. I couldn't see that there was this vast world going on around me that but for me it I was just doomed. I was so intense.

And what I was like, that's what the story says. What was I like? What happened?

And what do I do today to stay sober? What I was like, as I told you, I was a woman who was self-determined and self-driven. And when I picked up a drink, it started to rip everything from me.

Before you know it, I'm in and out of juvenile hall. I'm a runaway. I have tr I have truency.

I have a a a felony against me at six. By the time I'm not even 16 years old, I already have a felony. And you wonder, how did that happen?

You know, I didn't want it to be that way. It was going to be different for me. Remember, for me, it's going to be different.

But once I pick up a drink, all bets are off. You know, I love when the book says we're often intelligent, bright, uh, likable people. I mean, even tonight, the prayers that were going out for people.

Do cold-hearted people say prayers for other people? No. There's a sense of compassion and there's a sense of love.

But by the time I came to you, I was so wounded. What had happened? that I had built myself in my own little prison that you weren't going to touch me.

And when you're ra when you run the way that I ran, you have to be that way cuz you will be taken out one way or another. I remember my my first sponsor when I said, "God's never done anything for me." She said, "Oh, really? Where were you?

How come you weren't grown fountain slain in Greenwood playground when you would pass out on West 38th in Woodbine? You know, somebody could have easily raped me and killed me. But something, you know, she gave me she quoted a couple other things and then she would she gave me the poem footprints and said that there was one set of footprints and it was then that he carried me and that was a reason that would gave me a reason to believe.

But to get a little bit I got I got ahead of myself. What happened is, you know, I realized that there was a time in my life and we're all pretty bright. We're intelligent.

It wasn't going my way. And so uh something needed to happen. And one day I ended up I was failing out of school.

I go back to night school. I graduate from night school, go on to college, graduate from college, get myself a job at the Cleveland Hopkins airport. All my dreams that I had ever wanted have come true.

See, a punk like me. Huh? A punk like me.

Now, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I would think that you were going to give me a a a medal of courage. And if you seen if you heard my story and I rose above, you would think that that was amazing. Women like me end up in prison for life or death or we're dead or we're locked up in sane asylums taking meds and I don't know what my name is checked at the desk you know but alcoholics anonymous I am a free woman today and that's because of you.

It's because of the principles that are inherent in the 12 steps that once I start applying these steps in my life these principles start to take over my life without my assistance. All of a sudden, things that used to be okay are not okay. Things that used to be uh people that I used to want to hang around with, I don't want to hang around with them anymore.

I want to go in this direction. I mean, there's certain actions that I begin to take that are against my nature. And that's the essence of a spiritual experience.

That's what it is. The big book says it's not about if anybody is confused and you freak out when we talk about spirituality, don't loosen up your sphincter. It's okay.

What we're really talking about here is ideas and motives that used to drive me. Selfish, self-centered, get my new ones. Selflessness.

Help others. Pray to God for guidance. That's what we're talking about.

That's the essence. That's spirituality. This is not religious.

It doesn't tell us that you have to believe in anything. It just says that you can't believe in yourself anymore. Do the inventory.

I remember my sponsor says, "Check the evidence." You know, my other friend, he always says, "If you have a a if you have a team that's on a losing streak year after year, you fire the manager." I was the manager that needed to be fired. We needed a new director. Not that I bad was I a horrible director, but things have been much more smoother in my life since we've gotten a new manager in my life.

And when what happened to me is uh I I graduate from school, I'm working at the airport, I have arrived. You know the big ego, ego, ego, ego. Either either it's ego or it's God.

And when I'm in ego, I am operating in fear. And fear operates in the future. It's not even in the moment.

So I'm locked down in me. I can't step out of me. I've protected and built this wall around me emotionally that nobody was ever going to hurt me.

Number one, I'm blocked inside my own prison. No wonder when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and they say you need to ask for help, I freeze because I don't even know how to do that. I am so self.

It says selfishness and self-centerness. That is the root of our illness. And there's no way of getting rid of self without God's help.

Many of us have been moral have been moral and philosophically con we've had philosophical convictions. I remember I I mean if we go I bet you if I go through at least 50% of your homes while you were using you've had at least I'm going to minimize it one self-help book on the shelf. Who hasn't wanted to feel better?

And the minute I would read it I'm like well that's a good idea. Try that one tomorrow is obviously everything and nothing happens today right everything is going to be tomorrow. See what I do tomorrow.

I already blew it today. What we'll see what I do tomorrow is going to be different. And for the alcoholic the it's like ground all day.

If it ever gets different it gets worse. If it gets different I have done something a little bit beyond. Alcohol has See what I don't understand is that when I drink I go into a blackout.

I'm a blackout drinker. There is no controlling drinking when you're in a blackout. You have no idea.

Your body is moving. You're probably driving. You're talking to other people.

But you have absolutely no idea this is happening. Now, how can I control anything if I'm a blackout drinker? I know women that on Tuesdays, we carry the message in the prison on Tuesday nights.

And I'm going to tell you, there are women there who are nicer than I am and did less that are doing 10 15 years for vehicular homicide in prison because they they killed someone that night. What happened to me with my story is that I ended up my next thing, job didn't do it, education didn't do it. So, I thought if I would just get married, it would settle me down.

It would would give me a reason to go home at night. And that didn't happen neither. I married a guy who wasn't who was not an alcoholic.

And uh he he's But I will tell you the best thing that came out of that marriage was you. He brought me to you. My family, I don't come from a family that says, "Oh my god, she's drunk again.

Call Hazelden." I come from a family that says, you know, you better buy her car insurance. Somebody's going to get hurt. One time I fell off in the bushes.

They just left me there. They throw her a sandwich. She'll come home when she's dying.

If I f my mom I mean that's just the way we roll. My mom fell drunk in the snow. My sister's like calls from the porch.

You all right, mom? She's still talking. She's going to be okay.

She just left her in the snow until eventually starts rolling around and she goes out there and brings her in. You know, I mean that's the way. So I couldn't wait for my my family was not going to give me this information.

They loved me. It was my Did my family enable me? No.

Alanon. No. The problem is that my family didn't know what to do with me.

They didn't know. At 16, when the police came and got me for break and entering and I'm the youngest of seven children, I had brothers that was through the system. My mother was tired.

She worked hard to try to give us something. She spit in my face and she told him to keep me. And through those circumstances, I end up in Florida in some real uncircum un unloving and uncaring conditions for some time before I'm able to make it back to Cleveland.

Conditions no person should ever find them in. And you know what? It's not my mother's fault.

If I didn't pick up a drink, I would have never committed the crime. See, let's do the inventory. If I didn't pick up the drink, I would have never committed the crime.

I wouldn't have had the case against me. Therefore, it would have never happened. So I, you know, that's what's so deep about this inventory.

I hate people when I'm the person I should be hating. I'm I'm always trying to pin it on somebody else cuz somehow it makes me feel better when it's somebody else's fault. And I'll tell you, you told me victims don't get sober.

This is not a program of victims. This is a program of of recovering from victimization. If you've been victim, we've all been victims of king alcohol.

an alcohol called me the shots and put me in extreme circumstances in which I would have never been in had I not been drinking. But the real rule here is that I I'm an alcoholic and I'll go to any lengths to get a drink. And the question you ask me when I come here, am I willing to go to any lengths to get sober?

That's the question. There's no games here and it's really up to you. If you've ever sat in a room and said, "Man, if I had it all to do over again, this is your day." Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Kent, a friend of mine always talks about Alcoholics Anonymous is like the emergency room. We get to the emergency room, we have a big cut in our arm. We finally make it to the emergency room and we're holding oursel and the blood's going everywhere and a doctor comes out to help and you say, "No thanks.

I got it from here." That's like Alcoholics Anonymous. coming into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with an illness that is fatal and just sitting in a chair and saying, "No thanks. I got it from here.

It's an illness that's going to kill me. I need the proper direction. I cannot manifest the proper direction or I wouldn't have had to come to you for help." My husband ended up getting me a bed in the treatment center.

My last drunk, oddly enough, I could have shortened my drunk log and told you my first drunk I came to in a burned down condemned house. 14 years later I came to in a burned down condemned house. I came I and it was like a I I was going places.

I went from ghetto to ghetto heights. I came to over 140 at this time. And the really the big difference is that between the first one and the last one is I had burned that drum that my that was my mother's house and I burned it down as a direct result of my drinking the night the week before.

I hurt people that I don't mean to hurt. Things happen that I don't mean to happen. My mother worked all her life to get a house and here I am burning it down with sloppy sloppy smoking.

You know, am I care? Do I am I concerned about her? No.

Because I'm an alcoholic. I end up at the bar. I'm drinking again.

This time I get in the car. I'm not in a blackout yet. I'm living in Northton.

I'm on another three or four day run from my husband. We live together for seven years like this with these conditions in my home. He didn't know if I was dead or alive.

We worked together. My boss would say, "Where's Chris?" He he he he used to make excuses, but then somebody showed him that big book and he started to say, "I don't know where she's at." She left on Wednesday. She hasn't been home.

She left on Saturday, went grocery shopping. I haven't seen her. I don't know where she's at.

A guy in Alcohol, he worked with a man in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the guy at Alcoholics Anonymous was treating my illness before I even knew he was telling them about it. I used to think, how many time how many times did you guys find out once you found out people were telling you your business? I was insulted.

I'm thinking, why can't you just man up and take care of business in your own? You got to go talk to people outside the house. You know, that's what I'm thinking.

I'm so selfish. I'm so selfentered. And you know, I live a double lifestyle on the outside.

I have this world that I want everybody to believe just like the big book says. I go to work. I'm a college graduate.

I came from the from Skid Row. I'm pretty much unscarred. And then at night I'm like drinking and crazy and acting wild, but I don't want nobody to know that.

And my brother my my husband had brought those two worlds together for me. And you know, you know when they how many times we just hate how many times did we work hard to keep people certain people away from each other not to talk to each other because they'll find out the real truth. Living a lie.

You know I always call it living in the rearview mirror of life wondering what lie am I going to get caught at? Who's going to see me? Who seen me last night?

always having to cover up today what I did yesterday. Thank God today I am free. I don't live that life anymore.

I don't have to live in the rearview mirror of life anymore. I don't care. People know where I was last night and what I did last night.

I don't lie. I don't have to lie about what I'm doing. I don't have to pretend some that I'm somebody that I'm not.

People who have no esteem will try to build ourselves up. I was sponsoring a girl right out of prison. She got a you know by this time everything was gone.

And I I love this story because it just it really just kind of signifies alcoholism and our charact and our character defects and our low our low selfworth and self-loathing. And anyway, she's got no place left to go. This is probably like her fifth number at the time.

And she we she gets over in a a a homeless shelter. And I don't know why they gave her voicemail, but I called I called her. I said, "Hey, it's Chris.

I'm coming over to pick you up." And I got her voicemail. It said, "Hi, I've stepped away from my desk. Leave a message and I'll be right back." And I'm like, "You don't have A DESK.

YOU'RE IN A HOMELESS SHELTER. Let's get honest here." But you know what I mean? I can't let anybody know that about me.

You'll hate me. You won't even invite me in. Are you kidding?

This is Alcoholics Anonymous. Sometimes the sicker you are, the more we embrace you. Oh, yeah.

Come on. Wait till you find out about this one. We got to We're sponsoring this one.

She's mine. She's really sick. She's going to keep me sober for a long time.

You know what I mean? I get close to people like that where other people want to move away. Not an alcoholic synonymous.

You know, we live here because a lot of it all it is is we're trying to protect our ego. The thing that has been killing us all along. It's either ego or it's God.

That's what this is all about. Either I'm going to live with ego and fear or I'm going to live in love and God. And when I'm right with God, I'm right with you.

When I'm right with God, I can step out of me and feel you. I can come to you. I can listen to you.

I can be there for you. But when I'm wrapped up in me, getting mine, how I look, how I feel, what's it going to do? That's all ego.

There's room no growth in ego. I mean, we will just crash eventually. And that's the prayer.

We just hope that eventually we do crash where we start to do an inventory. You know, that's what the whole deal is because I will drink again. You told me the woman that came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, if she doesn't change, she will drink again.

Who is that woman? I end up with a bet at Glen Bay. And when you talked about the first step, I can identify with you.

When you talked about the second step, oh, please. Uh-uh. Nah, I ain't going for that.

Thought it was a cult. I thought, uh-uh, nope. I'm just going to do my time here.

That's what I felt like. I could have left at any time, but I would have lost my job and my husband. So, I stayed.

And so, uh, but what happened is that I got the prison back up again. I got back down inside of me. And I'd listen to you and I'd smile and I would act like I'm paying attention.

And, you know, I wasn't I was disregarding. I was doing my time to get out of there. I would say all the right things.

Counselor got me one day and he says, "You know, there's three places a drink like you can go. You can get locked up, sobered up, or covered up." I was a little cocky and I had my little thought about that. But I went to the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that night and I was sitting in the center in my little prison.

I was all hunkered down in me just trying to get through this lead so I can go back to the room and do what I want to do. And the guy starts telling his story and he was talking about the pressures of the day and he was saying how, you know, the house was in foreclosure, his wife was losing him, the children, he didn't have money for child support. How is he going to even put food in the refrigerator?

And the pressures were on him and he was about to lose his job. And I'm thinking, you know me, what does a new person think? Drink.

Drink. And I'm at the end of my chair, and I'm saying, drink. And he says, so I took a drink.

And when he took a drink, I went I relaxed with him cuz I know what it's like to have that pressure. It's like a It's like a pressure cooker. I just need a release.

And the only release I know is to take a drink. And he said, and he took a drink and I'm like, and he came to the next day and there was a bicycle attached to his front fender and so he can relax. Another family paid a price.

And at that moment when I exhaled for him, I came out of my prison. You jumped in my heart because I knew for the grace of God that should have been me. There's no reason why I didn't kill someone out there drinking the way I drank and driving the way I drove.

I was the one that woman who woke up the next day thinking, "God darn it, somebody hit my car again last night. I had no idea it was me." If you're in a blackout, you don't know you're in a blackout. I just thought, you know, I just thought I had this big black cloud that followed me around for 14 years.

And I did. It was alcoholism. It was untreated alcoholism.

So, if you can feel if you can identify with any of those feelings. And if you've ever felt that way, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a solution.

And the solution lies in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and not drinking. And I remember I went back to my cot that night and this is significant in my story and I hope I never forget it is that's where this power of the second stuff came to me is I remember laying on my cot and I thought of my older brother who'd been in prison most the time he'd ever most of his life and most of the times he stood before the judge he didn't even know why he was there blackout drinking and then I had a kid brother at the age of 16 who died in a car accident lost control and died of internal bleeding and he had been drinking and so I thought of that counselor locked up, sobered up, or covered up. And suddenly a thought occurred to me that there must be a power greater than myself that led me to the doors of the treatment center rather than to Mary'sville prison or death.

I took an MMPI test when I was there. I was surprised to see that I had a 95% anger rate. I'm like, you know, I think you got those tests messed up with somebody else.

I'm not angry. You know what I mean? But you know, when I tell you my next part of my story, you're going to think, "Oh, really?" Yeah.

I had no idea who I really was. I had absolutely no idea who I was, how I was feeling. I just Everything was a knee-jerk reaction for me.

I would just do it if I felt it. I did it. I never thought about it.

There was never any consequences. I could care less. I never thought about you.

The absolutes in my life, are you kidding me? There was no unselfishness, no honesty, no love, purity. Are you kidding me?

purity and thought for me that I was going to get mine, but I couldn't think about you and how it was going to affect you. And so I know from that point when I thought there I I remember I hit my knees from that cot and I remember thinking and this was my prayer. I know that you know that I don't know who you are but I don't want to live that way anymore.

Please help me. That was my beginning. I couldn't say God.

I couldn't say anything. That was my beginning because I had no knowledge. I had no but I had enough knowledge against me to know that it wasn't working for me and I didn't want to live that way but I didn't know how not to.

And the book says it even goes on to say that as soon as a man is willing to admit that there's a power greater than himself we emphatically assure him he is on his way. And that is my beginning. That is my beginning to you.

That is only a beginning because it's now it's going to follow up now that I have a beginning. I have an understand. Okay, I believe.

All right, you guys, you got me. I believe you. I believe your stories.

I believe this can work. But I better do something about it. You know, uh G.

Marcel used to always say, "You can sit in the garage all you want. You're never going to be a car. I can sit in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I can believe in you, but if I don't take some actions, I'm never going to get sober.

I'll stay dry." And as the big book says, the d so dry is restless, irritable, and discontent. Constant collision with other people. Can't seem to have a moment of peace.

Always irritated. Running into others. That's so dryy.

That is so dryy. Sobriety is quite the opposite of that. That's without a spiritual way of life.

That is putting the plug in the jug. There has to be something better than that. Even the book says, "Do you have a sufficient substitute?" And it says, "Yes, we have something m vast more exciting than that.

We have a fellowship among you where you will meet people like you and people that you have met." I don't know about you, when I came here with the my the first newcomer that I met, she I was a newcomer. She had a month sober. I'd never known anybody who was sober before.

She became my new best friend in Alcoholics Anonymous. I would go to the meeting just to see her. We would tell dirty jokes.

we would take your inventory. We'd say you're a bunch of fakes and a bunch of frauds. Nobody feels that way.

But yet, I kept coming to the meeting and eventually what happened as I was sitting in the emergency room long enough that I needed to take the actions and let you help me. And so I came out of the treatment center and I started coming to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Again, AA uh recovery was the treatment center was just the discovery.

AA is the recovery. AA is where I take the actions. AA is when my mind says, "I don't think so.

I'm gonna stay home and watch TV." Aa kicks in and says, "No, you're gonna take the action and go to the meeting." No, I think I'm gonna have a drink tonight. Why don't you go to the meeting first? And if you still feel like drinking, drink afterwards.

And I did that and I didn't drink. And there were times I'd get so emotional because you're talking about stuff I've never talked about. I mean, I started drinking at 11.

I quit growing emotionally at 11 years old. You'd start talking about healing and health and love and families reunited and I would just like cry. I would just cry for the first two years.

I even quit trying to hold the tears in. I would just let them float and then I would leave and I would go to the bar because I needed to have a sense of comfort. And all the way on the way to the bar because I didn't have a sponsor yet.

See, I didn't follow the program exactly the way it was laid out. I was sponsoring myself and my sponsor thought it was a good idea to go to the bar. So, we would go to the bar and on the way to the bar, I'd say, "God, please don't let me drink.

God, please don't let me drink." And I'd walk into the bar and the barmaid happened to be my mother. And she'd say, "Ah, T, please, no. Go home." I mean, even when the people were telling you, "You can't drink in their bar.

Come on." And I'd and I'd belly up to bar and I'd say, "I need a glass of w and I wanted wine so bad." And I'd get a glass of water. And I'd just come from a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there was a couple gals on the bar that I used to drink with, and they're still falling off their stool.

And, you know, another divorce and another kid not talking to them. And you know, I just come from a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where the woman was diagnosed with a brain tumor and all she could do is say the serenity prayer. And you know, even a deaf, dub, and blind person could could know which way do you want to go?

And it wasn't my choice. I believe, you know, maybe going to that meeting first kept me from taking that train. But I know that I didn't want to be the girl on the bar stool 20 years from now crying in my beer about somebody done me wrong song all over again.

There had to be something new. There had to be something more freeing. and I couldn't be a victim in life forever.

And so I came to you and I can't say that I got sober. I'm arrogant enough to believe that I got sober. You guys, those prayers that I don't I can't even re I can't even understand how I came to you.

I don't even know. This is not the script I would have wrote. But man, it's the best script that could have ever happened in my life.

And so we started to write an inventory. I finally got a sponsor, started to go to meetings. She stood she started to do an inventory.

Great. Now you believe and you want what we have in the third step, start writing your inventory. And so I started writing the inventory and I met a woman that I wouldn't invite into my house and it was me.

The first couple columns were very everybody knew I did an inventory in the bar. I'd start crying about how bad it was. Anybody do that?

Like I'm not going to tell anybody. I'd get a couple drinks in me and but here the difference was the fourth column. Where was I selfish just not as self-seeking and frightened?

And when I tell you that I was a woman that had a 95% anger rate in treatment, you know, my father came back into my life and you know what you said to me is I don't care what kind of mother she was to you, but what kind of daughter were you to her? This is where the freedom comes. And I was the kind of daughter to my mother that she'd come home drunk and I would I would stay up and I'd cook and I'd give her something to eat and I'd clean up after after she got sick and I put her to bed.

And it sounds like a very sad story, doesn't it? But I never finished the column that said I did that. So when she went when she passed out, I went in her purse and stole her money so I can get mine the next day.

I'm the woman who would roll her own mother. And then the worst part is I'm the woman that would help her look for her purse the next day. I'll steal your money and help you look for it.

That's the woman that's going to drink again. My father came back to my in our lives and I ra I had so much rage I actually was in the middle of trying to commit a murder. And the only reason why I gave him his oxygen bank is because I thought I'm not going over I'm not going to prison over this sob for the next 16 years.

He got the first 16 years. He's not going to get the second. And just oddly enough, I look back and how calm I was about that.

I found great pleasure in that. And so when the book said I had a 95% anger rate, oh yeah, I think so. If you're in the middle of killing somebody and you don't feel any remorse, I think there's a problem there.

No, I gave him back his oxygen. I went and got high and I was good with that. I was all right with that.

It wasn't until I came to you was I ever to do an inventory. That's the woman who's going to drink again. And that was the first amends that I made when I when I made my amends was to a dead person.

So if there's people in your life that you say there's no way I'm ever going to make be at peace with that, there's always ways to be at peace with it. Alcoholics Anonymous goes deep. The power of God goes deep.

I didn't go looking for God. God came, my sponsor says, God came crashing into my darkness. And it's only there.

I love when the book says we have to be pretty badly mangled before we admit defeat. I would never reach for God unless I was in trouble. Jackpot.

that please get me out of this and I won't do it again. You know, I'd always called on him and he always got me out, but I never followed up with the deal. You know, the deal in Alcoholics Anonymous, I love the third step deal.

And it says he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. And what that means now is that I'm living an inventoried life. God is taking care of it.

I'm I'm making the actions. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Like I go to work every day and I pay my bills every day and I try to participate in someone else's life.

I try to see what I can bring to the occasion rather than what I can get out of it. That's the deal. I do that and God's taking care of my life.

In the meantime, I am living at peace. Like I I can tell you this. I don't live in fear of the future.

I live right here in the moment with you. And I am in such peace. I'll never forget one day I'm sitting at I'll close with this.

I'm sitting at the river one day and there's such a sense of peace and there's the breeze that's flowing through the the wind and the sun is streaming and I thought, man, the last time I felt this good is I was on the run. I was in the park. I was getting high and I was in the moment for a second until I had to stop looking for the police and the rangers who were going to be behind me.

Today I get that feeling with you. You know, I love when the book says uh trust God, clean house, and help others. And God came to me through you.

I couldn't find God. He came to me through you. And as a result, I'm a changed woman just by listening to the sp to my sponsor and taking stuff to her.

I wouldn't make a decision without running it by my sponsor. I love alcoholic arithmetic. One in one is three.

One and one is three. When I'm with you, just oneon-one, there's God. There's three of us.

When I'm with my sponsor, there's God. Alcoholic Arithmetic, oneonone is three. It's a good deal.

Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. Thanks for having me. Close with the Lord's Prayer.

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.