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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Now, let's welcome tonight's speaker, Kathleen W.

Hi, my name is Kathleen and I'm an alcoholic. I want to first of all thank Danny for asking me to speak because I feel like it's a big honor to speak in AA. And I'll tell you why.

Because when I first got here, I frankly wanted nothing to do with staying here for a very long time. I wanted to get the heat off. I wanted to not get dumped by my uh I'm an actress by my agents.

They were going to drop me. and I wanted to get the I had a DUI and I didn't do what they had required regarding picking up the trash and going to the alcohol class and it just felt like everything just kept mounting on me. Anyway, here I am newcomers to almost I'll be 23 in December 16th on December 16th.

And I find that incredible because I'm not like a joiner person. I'm not I've never been nor did I ever plan on staying here when I first got here. I just wanted that freaking court card signed to get the heat off.

So anyway, let me just tell you about what happened to me. Um I'm born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. And uh I come from surf culture and my family, I'm the youngest of five.

They're all beach people. player. Um, and I came out freckled and I was a drama dork.

And uh, my family, they they talk like this and they're just very casual and it's just everything's cool. And uh, my sister used to tell me, "God, Kathy, you think too much. Oh my god, just relax." And that's the truth.

I do. I think too much. That's part of it, you know, and I I'm not saying that turned me into an alcoholic.

I'm just saying that was something that uh that's just true for me. Now to 23 I'm going to skip a little bit but 23 years later I had a bunch of sponses and I worked this program on a daily basis so that I can have a daily reprieve from alcoholism because you know my mom died from alcohol um being an alcoholic and um and uh I feel so incredibly grateful today for my sobriety. Um that's really why I do it.

Otherwise, I'm actually afraid to drink. Like the life that I have today, my I got this nice husband. I got these three kids.

And I feel like if I took a drink, it would just be gone. I really I that's that's something for me. Now, what I do in the morning, I roll out of bed, I hit my knees, and I pray.

And I do like the third step prayer. I kind of do a mix between the third step and the seventh step. But basically, I have to screw my head on straight in the morning or um I am cruel to I yell to my at my children.

I got to have my coffee. I got to screw my head on straight. So, I pray and I pray hard to bring God into the mix.

Anyway, then I I go I get my coffee. I go to my computer and I read uh AA stuff so that I pull a little bit out of it and I I I email it to my sponses. So to so I think it was the other day I was reading and I came across this and I thought man that I relate so much to that I want to so I'm going to read it to you guys.

This is Bill Nelson. This is from a language of the heart and he said as a child I had some pretty heaven heavy emotional shocks. There was a deep family disturbance.

I was physically awkward and the like. Of course, other kids have such emotional handicaps and emerge unscathed. But I didn't.

Eventually, I was oversensitive and therefore over scared. Anyhow, I developed a positive phobia that I wasn't like other youngsters and never could be. At first, this threw me into depression and then into the isolation of retreat.

But these child miseries, all of them generated by fear, became so unbearable that I turned highly aggressive. Thinking I never could belong and vowing I'd never settle for any second rate status. I felt simply I had to dominate in everything.

I chose everything I chose to do, work, or play. As this attractive formula for the good life began to succeed according to my then specifications of success, I became deliriously happy. But when an undertaking occasionally did fail, I was filled with a resentment and depression that could be cured only by the next triumph.

Very early. Therefore, I came to value everything in terms of victory or defeat. All or nothing.

The only satisfaction I knew was to win. All right. So, I'm going to open my little talk here with that cuz uh boy, do I relate to that.

And the thing that I found as a kid was uh I I like to sing and act, right? So that is what I filled my confidence bucket with like singing and acting. Yay for you.

And whenever anything threatened that, I felt like dying. And when I discovered alcohol, I didn't feel like dying so much. I forgot.

I forgot that that was the rule that I played. Those were the rules that I played with. And I um I guess I was like I just kind of started out this you know I'm the youngest of five kids and my brother was a big pot dealer and surfers and partying.

My my childhood kind of looked like the opening scene of Jaws without the shark. Um, and we just hung out on the beach and it was very mellow and but we got wasted. And so I learned to arm myself with a cigarette and a drink in in junior high school.

And that's how I learned to shut that voice down that when I wasn't winning, just to get that cigarette and that cocktail. So as I grew up, I I both I pursued the drinking and I pursued the acting uh like my life depended upon it, which it did. And it seemed to me in high school anyway, that that I was able to kind of coordinate the two.

And I would do the play, yay. And then I would go party and be terribly ashamed of myself cuz I got blackouts. I believe that if I were not a blackout alcoholic, I wouldn't be standing before you.

Blackouts scare the crap out of me because I also wasn't a quiet blackout. The guy who passed out in their house. I was a giant loudmouth.

I say with Christmas tree lights on my head. Uh I apparently hit people. I uh had no morals whatsoever.

Nobody was safe. that used to call me Killjoy in Nashville. So, I was probably delightful to party with.

Anyway, um so that's that that's what happened to me. And eventually, uh I crashed my car in California. I decided California was the problem.

I packed up my Jeep Grand Wagon and I drove to Austin, Texas, thinking that that was where the real people were. And people in California just don't understand me, man. Nobody's real.

They're all fake. That was one of my my uh big party lines. Only to land in Austin, Texas, and find that I was again surrounded by losers.

That's what I would say. I'm It's not me. I'm I'm just a loser magnet.

That's what I tell people. And uh eventually I uh crashed and burned in Austin. Decided Austin was the problem.

And by crash crashing and burning, I just mean I start out with a bunch of friends and I burn each and every one until they all go away. That's just how I rolled. And then it was Austin that was the problem.

I'm going to go to Nashville. So I go to Nashville. And in Nashville was where I met my professionals.

I say um I met um let's see I I hung out with a group of people that would wake up in the morning. We'd go to the bar and we'd start drinking and we drink all day and into the night. Then we pursue what I call for me cocaine the antidote to blackouts.

I I decided, you know, trying to figure it out and it just makes me drink more and not act like such an idiot, you know. And I was I'm sure again that was where they originated the name Killjoy for my my nickname. Um, and uh, I I started to to eventually go through my old pattern, which was I have a bunch of friends and then I slowly alienate each and everyone until finally I had this tiny little crew left.

And I wake up one morning in Nashville, probably around the crack of 1 in the afternoon, and I come into the living room, there's a bunch of guys sitting there, and I see a dude. He's got a big gulp cup and a bottle of vodka. And he's pouring the vodka into the big gulp cup.

Long stringy hair, tattooed sleeves, and and I look at him. I'm like, dude, what a loser. You're drinking vodka out of a big gulp cup at 1 in the afternoon.

It's so gross, you know? And I'm like barely from the whole night before. And he looked at me.

He's got this stringy hair and he like puffs it out, you know, and he's like, "Man, at least I ain't doing heroin." And I look back at him and I'm like, "He is perfect for me. I love him. I love this dude." So, uh, I love a good bad boy like a lot of us grew up.

And, um, so I marry this guy. I'm married. I sent out marriage announcements.

Good news, bad news. Bad news is I'm not single anymore. Good news, I'm married.

Woo! You know, and I was wearing like a red suede mini dress and my hair's all different colors and and I was I was fully like it was working for me, I thought, in my mind until like I I got an acting job. I come back, dude is completely strung out.

He's pawned everything I owned. Wow, this wasn't my best position. And uh I whisk him away to Cumberland Heights, you know, to to I got to get him sober.

And um and then he busts out in like two weeks and I feel like I'm in a movie of the week. Like we're going to beat this thing. You know, we had to have been quite a sight.

So, I do what any normal alcoholic would do. I decide that Nashville was a problem and I need to bring him back to LA where there is no heroin and within a week uh probably I don't know like maybe two weeks I we hadn't been here for very long and I'm doing my makeup in the bathroom and I hear like a like a thump in the living room and I come out and he's rolled up into the bookcase and I get that feeling that we get if you're ever around this type of thing. And I I I question my instincts.

I'm thinking maybe he's just playing with the cat behind the books. And then I like roll over his shoulder and he's in like a full-on seizure and foam at the mouth. I called 911.

Whoever that operator was, uh, I did mouth to mouth and I watched the life come back in his face like this. And uh then the cops come and he gets up and he's like, "My what did you do?" You know, and I'm like, "Oh my god, I got a baby. I got cops come.

We take him to the hospital of Cedar Sinai." I tell them he's epileptic and uh we get epilepsy medicine and we come back to our little house on Dick Street and a limousine pulls up and uh and it's time for me to go do a movie in New Jersey. So, uh, I get in the limousine. I decided I'm never I'm not going to drink anymore.

I'm going to be one of those sparkly eyed freak sober people I saw at some of those court card meetings. And uh the the driver rolls down the window. He's like, "Uh, you know, there's beer back there." And uh I say to myself, you know what?

I'm just I'm just going to have one. I'm just going to have one of yours. I drank the beer.

I had this like obsessive compulsive drinking thing where in a six-pack was difficult. And I guess they're not in a six-pack. They were lined up in the I I don't know.

I lost count of my beers in the limo. I get on the airplane. Lost count on my Jack and sodas and I have swizzle sticks down my my jean jacket.

I get to New Jersey. Uh, I guess you know, me actress, me hitmark, you know, they just kind of wheel you around back in the Good thing there was no like, well, who cares? Anyway, like those didn't it doesn't matter.

So, I uh they take me to the hotel. I I uh I guess who knows? Uh I guess there was a meeting in the bar and that's I'm in a blackout at this.

Anyway, I blow it and they fire me from this movie. They say I was a loose cannon the next day and uh I got my three months of clothes walking through the hotel and I'm done. I can't I can't do it anymore.

I can't I don't want to be like my mom who you know my whole family when I called them and said I got fired from the movie. I don't know why. They said just just don't drive.

You can drink as much as you want. Just don't drive. That's your problem.

But you know what? My mom, she she died. She was 68 when she died.

And you know, when I was going through her stuff, um I found all of these um newspaper clippings about how she used to play the saxophone, about how she was like, uh nominated for Cherry Queen in Bumont. She's from Bumont by Redlands. And uh I learned a lot about my mother after she had died.

I didn't know she won awards for saxophone that she was in all these jazz band. I didn't know this, right? But it was alcohol.

Alcohol killed it. I know my mom as a the woman who makes dinner and passes out at, you know, in her in her dinner plate. That's that's the lady I knew.

I didn't know a I never a saxophone player. I didn't know that. Anyway, it's these kinds of things that I said to myself like, "Wow, alcohol just it it stole the light from her." She was like the girl like she we'd lift our feet up when she'd vacuum, you know?

It's cuz she just like she was so hung over in the next day, you know, she made perfect breakfastes and vacuum and, you know, and and I grew up just saying, "Man, I'm never going to be like you." And there I was, you know, fired from this movie, sitting in my house on Dick Street with my junky husband. He's got underwear on his head with his hair out the legs, you know, he's smoking out of a hollowedout pen. Uh, and I'm sitting there and I was like, I don't want to I don't want to go out like my mom.

I'm going to I'm just going to do the AA thing for a year. I'm just going to do it for a year. I'll do the stupid steps for a year.

That's it. And then I go drink. So I call central office and I call central office.

Nobody forced me. No intervention. I call central office.

They said go down to the log cabin. I go down to the log cabin. They said talk about uh the last 5 days.

I remember. And uh I raised my hand and I said, "I'm Kathleen." And somebody's like, "Who who are you?" I'm Kathleen. Who are you?

I'm an alcoholic. And I remember when they say like I'm an alcoholic. Tears.

Just cry. Cuz to me being an alcoholic meant that I that I was a loser. That I was like my mom.

That I was like my brother, big coke addict. I was like my sister. She was a big drunk and made an ass of herself all the time.

We called her kitty dutakus or um and I just I didn't want to be that. And uh so I just c I couldn't believe I felt like the party was over. So if you're new and you walk in there and you you feeling like the party's over.

I relate. That's what I felt like. But I also knew that these sparkly eyed freaks knew how not to drink.

And I didn't know anybody who knew how not to drink. So I decided to just do what they said. And uh and I saw another person I worked with, really nice girl, and she's like I tell her, you know, I was like, "Listen, I got to warn you.

I will do the 12 steps, and I will stay here for a year, but I I'm not going to go to Italy and not have a glass of wine. I'm not going to go to Ireland and not drink beer." And uh so I have every intention of drinking and, you know, doing a little blow now and then. I I want to do that.

never had a hot buttered rum, you know, and it and I was telling her all this and she said uh and I she said that is great. Just do the 12 steps. Just do them.

Do what I had I say. I was like all right then. So I start I start I start.

She's like 90 meetings in 90 days. Call three people uh in AA every day. I'm like great I can do that.

So I'm going to 90 meetings in 90 days. and I see our friend Jessica and uh and now I got a trudging buddy. She's a friend of mine and she's funny funny.

Now she and I are going she's doing the same thing. She So we're going to 90 meetings and we're starting to find Now here's the thing. When I got here I thought it was like brainwashing, right?

I was the guy. Oh, AA is just brainwashing. But if they if you go to 90 meetings in 90 days, what you're going to find is you're going to find the meetings that you like.

It's not brainwashing. It's kind of just like common sense. It's like we go to a meeting, we don't like that.

So the next week, we didn't go to that meeting, we went to another meeting. Anyway, what what I ended up doing was I created seven meetings a week with people I enjoy, with people I relate to. All right.

So now I now I've got these nice meetings and I'm raising my hand as a newcomer getting chips. Kind of like the applause. Got to admit that never hurt this, you know, narcissist like it.

Uh, and uh, and I'm enjoying it. And then I start I discovered like the Tuesday night whatever meeting. And now I see cute boys.

And now uh, something's awakening in me. Like, oh my god, I'm I'm alive. I like boys.

What is that on my couch at home? You know, cuz homeboy was nuts over. And uh uh so then I start going to double winners meetings and start figuring out what I'm going to do with my junky husband.

And uh and then I get to like the third step and I and my my sponsor is like you do this third step prayer for two weeks every morning, every night and then we're going to get together. So I do this third step prayer. It is meaningless to me at the time.

It was like whatever this archaic language thy thou thy thy whatever love love power god you know but I did it and that's what I that's what I asked on my spons like who cares just do it cuz for whatever reason I'm telling you I stayed sober and I never could stay sober more than about 3 days and then I'd be drunk like I'd start January 1st then by January 3rd I feel sweaty crappy. So I'm drunk till February, you know, like I never could quit anything. I was just saying like I'm I have never done anything for 23 years.

Not married, nothing, you know. I've never And sobriety is something that I I I just this whole mentality. This guy Bill Wilson, he writes for people like us.

If you told me I'd never drink again, I'd drink. If you told me I don't have to drink today, I I didn't drink today. I didn't drink today.

So, I'm doing these steps. I get down on my knees at my sponsor's house. She holds my hand.

It feels so embarrassing and awkward. And I say to her, "I offer myself to thee to build with me, to do with me as thou wilt." And when I get to uh relieve me of the bondage of self, this is just my story. I realized self self, the bondage of self.

I realized the gravity of what I was saying. I I had been so bound up with self-loathing my whole life. Like I don't I don't when I was looking through all those pictures at my dead mother's house, little my baby pictures, I had xed out my face on on all of them with a Sharpie cuz I thought I was ugly.

I thought I was unlovable and that I was ugly. And I, you know, on the few pictures that I've managed to see, I wasn't ugly. I was just a little kid.

I wasn't ugly. I wasn't unlovable. And it wasn't until I came to AA that I found out these things about myself.

Relieved me of the bondage of self. And I meant it weeping. And she's like, "Wow, that really got to you." And I felt like that was for me bit of a a bit of a spiritual awakening for me.

Then she taught me how to do the fourth step. I had always been a life happens to person. My friend said that when I was drinking, she used to uh ask me, "Hey Kath, how do you how you doing?" and then wse cuz I'd like fire off like and then and then this and then this happened and I then I you know um but we do this fourth step and we discover causes and conditions or as we say in Studio City, we discover my part, right?

My part. What did I If I'm pointing at you, three fingers back at me. I know if you're new, she's like, "Oh my bloody blah." Three fingers back at me.

I totally get that. But uh when you start doing this inventory, which seemed like crazy at the time, but I just muscled through it. My sponsor kept saying, "It doesn't have to be perfect.

Just do it." Cuz we do this stuff all the time. It ain't going to be your first. You're not going to do one step and be like, "I get it." Because it's not part of a daily reprieve.

Daily reprieve means we work these steps every single day. Every day. Why?

Because it increases the odds that I'm not going to drink today. And I still know excellent people that seemingly work great programs. And I'm stunned when they uh relapse.

Like it still happens. It's not a natural state for me to be sober. I have to treat my alcoholism.

I grew up watching people the minute they felt the feeling or felt nervous drown. That's what I grew up. That's what I know.

That's what I know. Take a pill. And now the minute I get uncomfortable.

I'm like, Jesus, I got to go to a meeting. Shoot. I like you know what happens to me?

I had this experience recently. I got in a fight with my friend. I have a complicated friend.

And I got in a fight with her. I was so mad. I felt like I nailed it.

And then I'm lying in bed and it's 1:00 in the morning. I can't sleep. I can't sleep.

Flap the covers off. I go bad over to my stuff. I start doing my inventory.

I drink my chamomile tea. I get to my part. Cuz the truth is if I accept people for who they are, I know people I know my friends.

If I remember who they are and I accept them for who they are, then my like thinking my diet tribe, my yelling at them with a pointed finger for five minutes, one minute. Never have I yelled at anyone with a pointed finger, no matter how well I construct my my uh piece did they say to me in response, "Wow, you got a point. You got a point there, sister.

Anyway, I work these stubs. I work them. And when I don't work them, cuz everything is an eb and flow, I start yelling at my kids.

I start feeling like Hollywood is unfair, which like when has never been fair. I start thinking that uh it's over for me. Like it I the way my mind works when I don't work this program is excruciating.

All I got to do is wake up in the morning, pray, make reach out to my sponses, go to a meeting, and when a resentment crops up, do my inventory. At the end of the day, thank God for another good one, another graceful day, stacking it up, and the next thing I know, I got this marriage until not the junkie. He ended up, he lived happily ever after.

It's a good story. He's sober. Yay, great.

But, uh, my I got a nice Jewish boy husband. I got a 18, a 14, and a 9-year-old kid. All healthy, all full of love.

All drive me nuts, but that good kind of nuts, you know. And uh I got an actual house with a pick it fence. And I got a net so that when life doesn't work out my way, I go right back to what I know, which is just the training that I've learned in here in AAA.

So, if you're new, I just close with this. You have a shot at having like um people not ashamed of you, not disappointed in you, happy to hang out with you. These are things that are that we take for granted in AA.

That is such a gift. And I know if you're new, you know, like, man, I I don't know if I'll ever get that. I'm telling you, I would not keep coming back to these meetings for 23 years if I didn't feel like I got this cool life.

Thank you. >> All right. So, I guess is there some I read or no?

I guess we ask questions. Okay. So if anybody's got their Yeah.

Right there. Perfect. >> Hi.

>> And what happened? How did you eventually get out? She's asking me how I ended up putting together time after like really, you know, trying to stay sober for a day, then getting two days, and then getting a day again, and then 3 days, and then, you know, um well, it took a while.

My answer is it took a while for me to accept that alcohol was a problem because I kept getting uh record deals and uh I got uh my like acting jobs like it just that that's part of my story and I feel like that was part of the thing that kept me drinking because I remember you know early on I had a boyfriend kidnap me when I was 18. Well, he even kidnapped me, but he took me to an AA meeting instead of taking me out to dinner. I don't recommend cuz I was pissed.

Um, and so it took me a while cuz I felt like I don't have a problem. You have a problem. I don't have a problem.

I I drink. I get drunk. So what?

You know, it's like me on a roller coaster. I get on and I have this great time and then I get off the roller coaster. You You stay on the roller coaster.

Just go around and around and around and around. I remember saying that very thing to a chick at the AA meeting that he took me into. She was so cool.

Like long nails and you know tough tough chick and she like man I hope you keep coming back. Anyway, so I didn't like I had this hard time accepting that I was an alcoholic, which is the bottom line with when you for me when I would drink and then I decide, okay, that was a terrible bender. I'm not going to drink today.

Nope, I'm not going to drink today. And then preceding every every beer or for me, vodka was my thing were the words, I'll just have one. I'm not that.

It's just a beer. Just a couple of beers. Who cares?

I'll just have one drink. My one drink was me stumbling down on Santa Monica Boulevard, ending up at Trunks, coming back to my my uh uh little house with the message light beeping 20 messages because I had asked people to be my housekeeper, which I didn't have at the time. So, like I I never knew where that drink was going to take me.

So, to me, it wasn't until I made that call to uh central office. I made the call. I was done hopefully, you know, that I surrendered and started to stack up those days.

So, I guess my that's the long answer. The short answer is I wasn't willing to admit to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. And until I was willing to admit that, I was doomed to fail.

So I hope that helps. I don't know. Share it right there.

>> Okay. You said that your husband, >> how were you able to tolerate that while you were being Uh how was I able to tolerate my alcoholic husband? Uh it was hard I have to tell you because it first of all it helped that he was very respectful about as I said I can't have booze in the house or I'll drink it.

That was the first thing I took out all the booze in the house but he was a a junkie like he was a drug addict so that kind of helped. he wasn't drinking because I think that would be difficult. But what ultimately how I was able to tolerate it was I started to immerse myself more and more in AA and picking and and leaning like my uh I felt like my I was being filled up socially like the fellowship was working to I wasn't depending upon him to fill my heart so much.

I was depending upon I it it shifted and I became more invested in the friendships I was making in the fellowship. So I was actually laughing more with the you know going out for coffee with the people in AA. I was finding kind of a kind of joy that I hadn't known in this drunken um sort of miserable.

We we had a very sick relationship, my ex and I. Um, and so the dichotomy was huge and it and it my I ended up going to double winners meetings and working a double winners program which you know some people call it alanazi or whatever. But I ended up working a kind of classic party line with my husband, which was by February 14th.

Um, I hope you get a 30-day chip or you're going to have to move out. Was I set that boundary every time I wanted to ask him, "Did you go to did you meet? Did you go to a meeting?

Did you meet me? Did you hear me?" Every time I wanted to do that, I called my sponsor and she's like, "Hang in there." You know, but he's going to die. I know what he's I just like and it used to kill me that I felt like he would think that I didn't think he was loaded.

I always knew when he was loaded. And anyway, I just slowly started to work this kind of Allenon program so that when February 14th came around and he was loaded on the couch with no sobriety. It wasn't a fight.

There was no fight. He knew what the deal was. I hadn't nagged him anywhere at any point throughout that process.

And I was like, "Dude, you're so not clean, so you're going to have to move." And he I remember him saying, "Don't make permanent uh solutions to temporary problems." He was smart, right? That was good. I was like, "That's good, but you got to move out." You know, and the thing is that we anticipate, you know, these giant fights, but I had been working a program with God in the mix, praying for him one day at a time for I'd given him 60 days to get a 30-day chip.

And each day I knew that day was coming. And I'd see it and I'd see that, you know, I never asked them if he was clean or sober. I never dragged him to a meeting.

He'd see me going to the meeting. My sponsor is like, "It's not your responsibility. It's between him and his God.

He has his own higher power. And I remember her saying, cuz I had a BMW at the time, and I remember her saying, "He's going to die in your BMW just as fast as he's going to die in the gutter in the street." And and I that's really true. Anyway, I kicked the guy out of the house and uh within 2 weeks he calls me.

He's like, "Guess where I am? Brockman Hospital." And he's been sober ever since. So, you know, no m I'd put him in through three treatment centers, you know, Nashville, Betty Ford, and another one in Nashville.

It never worked. It wasn't until for him, he admitted to his innermost self that he he wanted to wanted this program. And what's beautiful, the dude has a great life today.

He's got two kids, he's great wife, he, you know, loves AA. like we like I it works this program if you if you just swan dive into it but you got to be ready to do it and if you don't want it you know what do they say they'll refund you your misery but it's really hard because here's the bottom line I know people great people who refuse to work the steps and they go out and they die it's awful and I wish that it was a rare thing but it It it's happened a lot way more than I would ever uh have dreamed, you know, coming in here. That's another reason I like we hang on to each other.

Somebody, you know, there the guy in my meeting is his his dad used to bring him to the meeting. Oh, he's such a great dude and he died. He died on the operating table for a not a very like a pretty not a major heart.

It was a heart operation, but no one expected him to die. And we held on to this dude. We were heartbroken about his dad dying.

And so we knew like it gets precarious. Death is the front lines cuz you can say like how how is there a God? You know, I used to say with my mom, you know, she you know, people talk about the God's path, right?

Well, why did my mom have such a terrible path? You know, how can there, you know, stand in children's hospital and talk about God's path? You know, that's what what I'd say to my sponsor.

But when you start thinking about God, for me, when I started thinking about God as being the magic of uh love between myself and my friends and the creativity and the smile, laughing kid, my kids when they're laughing and things are beautiful. It was it uh boy did I go off on a love a question? Sure.

Right there. >> What advice do you offer on finding a sponsor? >> Pardon me.

>> What advice can you offer about finding a sponsor? >> Oh, I say don't be too picky because nobody's perfect. You know what I mean?

And I and like if somebody doesn't work for you, find another one. I also sponsor with really loose arms. If it doesn't work, if somebody doesn't hear my message, then find someone whose message you hear.

I don't fire anybody, you know, but I also feel like I have like my own sort of thing where I find out how committed somebody is to the program because I uh you know, I feel like it's important that we don't like that we don't cosign people's uh I don't want to get into a mean mommy bad teenage girl thing that can happen with I think female sponsors and sponses. I don't like getting into that dynamic. And when I when I get into that, I'm not being of service.

I'm not being of service. So I feel like for me when they say like temporary sponsors and you look and you see the people raising their hands, just pick one. They did the steps.

They're all, you know, we all kind of do them like there's variations, but it's the same old theme. it seems, you know, and then if you feel like it's not and somebody's giving you something that you feel like is not like doesn't sound like aa or it's not in the big book, then find somebody else. But I think people I had somebody come up to me and they say, "I want to get your number.

I'd love for you to sponsor me." I said, "Sure, of course. You got to call me every day for seven days and then we'll start we'll start talking about the book." That's what I do, right? And she's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm asking three other people and then I'm going to pick." And I'm like, you know, I'm I'm not auditioning like you going with those other two guys or whatever cuz I don't want I you know like what I'm not going to audition to be a sponsor a whole life of you know auditions. I ain't going to do it in this room. This is sacred.

So you know for me I think people get into like a trap of being too picky. Just pick someone. That would be my answer to that right there.

>> Yeah. Thank you very much. Talk about, you know, you got all back kids and everything else.

What are you doing on a weekly basis? Uh you talked about the magic finding that Tuesday night meeting and and seven days in a row. What are you still doing now to to stay close and give back to the program?

>> He's saying what do I uh do now to stay close and to give back to the program? Well, I go to regular meetings on regular meeting days and I'm a part of the not saints group. It's a women's group in Studio City.

I sponsor about eight girls give or take. There's a couple of them that you know how we do. Loose arms I say.

Um I wake up every morning. I pray. I send off my emails to my girls.

Uh I usually start my day with a meeting. I go to 9:00 on Monday. 9:00 uh more park Tuesday then Friday I go to Kfax Saturday I go to the not saints group and Sunday I go to the palis aid speaker meeting so those are my those are the meetings that I regularly hit and then if I got a Tuesday opening I go to the Tuesday not saints group Wednesday opening I go to the Wednesday more park at at 8 uh 7:30 and Thursday there's a women's meeting not saints group at 1:00 at Dickens and Tyrone so these are I these are the meetings that I go to.

Regular meetings, regular meeting days, sponsor people. I think that's for me one of the main at 17 years of sobriety. I was making beer bread from the recipe at the Trader Joe's.

I'm making beer bread. I'm good in my sobriety. I'm speaking.

I'm I'm I'm the uh treasurer, which I love cuz I never like to trust me with the money. I'm feel I love aa, right? And I got the sunlight of the spirit.

I'm making beer bread, stirring. I go in the garage, get get one of my husbands, a normie, and I get one of his beers and it's hot outside and I I hear that sound the bubbles. And I'm like this.

Here's the bowl. Here's the beer. And I'm like, no one would know.

I could have one sip. One sip. So that's how tricky, cunning, baffling, and powerful this disease is.

Pour the beer into my beer bread and dump the rest out into the sink. that was kind of dramatic and ceremonious about it because I chose not to. But it was such an amazing moment because that's how easy it is.

Nothing was wrong. I wasn't going to drink over anything. Just that sound and the smell, right?

I always tell my husband when he drinks beer, I'm like, "You smell like seventh grade." you know, but that's how that's why I feel like it's that's why we're still here. And some of my sponsors are like I remember I had this friend of mine up in Laurel Canyon and he's an alcoholic and sometimes I just talk he asked me about AA and he's like, "Man, you go to that thing for 20 years, you must be the Grand Poo by now." I was like, "But we're not. There is no grand pooa.

We just come one day at a time." Like, you know what I I mean, cuz there's been great people I've known that you like you're surprised their hand goes up at newcomers. Like, we can't judge those people. I can't judge those people.

I can't. It could happen just in a with a flick of the wrist. Done.

Out. Starting on day one. You know, that's how tricky it is.

That's how why I hang on to this thing so tightly. I don't want it. I don't want my kids to have a drunk mom.

It broke my heart watching my mom drink and to see how it turned out for her. What might her life be like if she had come to AA? I'm sure a lot of us are sitting there thinking that with our alcoholic parents.

You know, this is a family disease. I come from a long line of town drunks. Anyway, right there.

>> How do you talk to your kids about your >> right? How do I talk to my kids about my sobriety and meeting? Well, I'm not the greatest parent in the world.

So, just know that I don't have a lot. I'm working on boundaries and it's a struggle. I never had any kind of a front with my kids that I, you know, like I know some people like break the news to their kids when they're in junior high.

my kids are being dragged to AA meetings really early and um so I tend to think that it's not I I when I can I don't like I didn't like to bring them they're old now I you know 18 14 and nine but uh they give me a cake every year cuz I'm proud of it I'm proud that I'm a sober mom and sometimes that is enough to keep me from drinking in a day and I'm so proud of that cuz I grew up with a drunk mom and it was a single-handedly the most tragic thing to me as a kid seeing her like that. She embarrassed me in the Girl Scouts and talked to me while I was on stage. Hi Kathy.

Hi. You know, my brother's like Har and just like oh my god. And everyone's laughing.

You know, I felt like I came from the drunky drug family, you know, and you know, I laugh about it now, but I had so much shame about it. And I look at my kids and, you know, they're like, "Mom, so and so thinks you're the cool mom." You know, like like it fills me. And I'm not just, you know, now they think I have teenagers.

They think I'm the biggest dork that ever lived. But, you know, but but that's how I do it. You know, I I remember I wanted this part.

I thought it was going to save me. Just like I read here, I thought this one part was going to save me. I wanted to be the Calamity Jane in the the show on HBO, right?

I wanted to be a cowgirl, right? And I didn't I wasn't even close on this part. I was so disappointed, but I knew that like I just like it's just disappointment.

It's just that's okay. So, I ended up on my front lawn with tears in my ears like, "Oh, I just really wanted this one." And my son comes out and he's like, "Oh, mommy, it's okay. It's okay." I was like, "Just really disappointed.

I'll be fine. I'm just disappointed." You know, I love you, mommy. I love you, mommy.

You know, so and then my I felt horrible. I'm like, I'm the worst mom in the world. You know, my calc and you know, my kid, he's 18 now.

He grew up to be such an awesome dude who like he's empathetic and he understands like I don't know what I you know outside I just I apparent this is who I am. I'm freaking proud of being an AA. I love it.

I love the people here. Wrap it up. I got the hook from Denny.

So that's it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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