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. >> I'm an alcoholic and my name's Pasha.

>> Hi. >> Hi everyone. Um, I have a little story to tell you so I can like get rid of the jitters cuz I'm frightened to death.

Um, after I finished that wonderful uh Italian extravaganza, it was the best food I've had in a long time here. Yeah. Yeah.

I was impressed. I went to the bathroom. Oh.

To pray. To pray. And while I'm in the bathroom, I'm like, what am I going to do?

Cuz I'm going to look out. I'm going to see all these faces and I'm going to get scared and my mouth's going to go dry. It's going to feel like I've been chewing cotton and oh god, what am I going to do to relax?

While I'm sitting there trying to fix my splint, someone else comes in. I pull my skirt down real fast and and she's, "Oh, excuse me and then she's real nervous and she's washing her hands and and she says, "Oh, do you got any ideas about oh um when you're up in front of a crowd and what to do um to make yourself calm?" And I said, "Um what?" She looks at me, I look at her, and we're both waiting. My lover starts to laugh her ass off.

She knows what's going on. I'm I'm dumb. I don't know what's going on.

It was It was PJ. The both of us were sitting there looking at each other. And Penny, my lover, knew what she was saying.

I didn't know what she was saying. I was looking for a suggestion. So was PJ.

And that's how my life went. I picked up where Arman left off. I finally scrubbed my my skin clean.

I'm not quite as well a queen as you, but I can fake it. I grew up in an alcoholic home. My father died when I was 17.

He only drank beer, though. Yeah, he did get a year in this program. And I carry his medallion in my big book.

Oh, not this big book. The one at home. This is the one I travel with.

I'm also a proud mother. I'm also, as a result of the 12 steps of recovery of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm a nurse. I'm a proud lesbian.

And we're co-parents to two wonderful boys, five and 8 years old. Well, my job's done. I'll see you later.

It's because I have a God that I was able to tap into through you all. I'm living in a dream. Don't ever lose hold of those dreams that you had when you were a small child because they do come true.

I remember in the depths of hiding from my father cuz he used to well he used to do things to me in my sleep and during the day I would be scared so I would go in the closet the other closet and I'd hide and I'd rock back and forth and I'd say if only I could get to Vermont everything would be okay because I knew God was there. I didn't know that God was with me, that God's always been with me. That God is the great spirit within me.

The light that shines that you see in my eyes, the light that shines that I see in your eyes, that's God. I live in Vermont today. I was nine years sober when I finally moved there.

My mother um is the one who I could say 12step me into Alanon. Oh, this isn't an Alenon meeting, is it? That finally got me to AA.

Um I don't have a long drinking history. I have a long hell history and nothing unlike any of what you've all gone through. Um the difference is that it's my history.

That's all. But the feelings are the same. I lived in a prison within my own mind and I didn't have the key to get out.

And I begged somebody to get the key. I read all kinds of books and I searched all kinds of places, but I didn't know where the key was. I didn't know how to get out.

My mother told me to go to Alanon because my father was an alcoholic. And it took me 6 months, but I finally after 6 months one-on-one Allan on counseling. I went to my first meeting when I was 7 months sober in AA.

I remembered my first AA meeting. Um, I had a few sits in institutions and in one of those sits, I attended an AA meeting because I wanted to understand my father's alcoholism. I was the perfect social drinker for many years.

I um would drink one and a half drinks because my father always had only a couple beers and he was passed out on the living room floor or the kitchen floor or the bathroom floor or wherever, but he only had two. A couple means two, right? And uh so I would only drink it a drink and a half.

wasn't until I introduced myself or I was introduced or somebody introduced me to uh drugs that I lost my capacity and my ability to um hold out from controlling my drinking. And inside of a year and a half, I was unable to I was unable to be a person. I had given my life over to whoever would take it responsibility for it.

And when I came into the rooms of AA, I had um one God in my life. He was um shorter than I was. And he told me what to wear.

He was my landlord. He was my boss. He was the co-signer to my car.

And he uh gave me drugs and I just gave him my soul. Sobriety hasn't been uh a wonderful uh painless journey, but it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. What I say here is my opinion and my experience and my strength and my hope.

And if you don't find what I say in the first 164 pages of the big book, forget about it because it's my life. How I learned to heal myself in this program through what you told me was by reading this book, the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is undoubtedly outside of the Bible, the only other text in the world unchanged in history.

That's a fact. This tells me everything I need to know about daily living. And when I forget that there are God out there for me, it's here for me.

So when I'm nervous or when I'm scared or I'm insecure and I don't know that I can take you with me, I take my book because it reminds me of where I am and who I am and where I'm going and where I've been. And I don't ever have to go back there again. the the amount of lessons that I've learned in sobriety.

There's a list. The greatest gift that I have today is me. But I wouldn't have never had that had I not had you.

And for that, I'm responsible to be here so that I can become a you for the next me that comes through the doors. Today I have a life. As a result of being sober, I am a nurse.

They actually gave me the keys to the narc. I was 3 years sober and I was pregnant and the relationship that I had been in, I tried it again and we decided to part because the responsibility of a child was just too much. And so she went her way and I went mine.

And instead of making a career for myself, I decided to have a child. And I didn't know it then, but I know it now only in reflection and looking back. Hindsight is a wonderful gift.

I realized that God was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself. that God was giving me the ample opportunity to surrender, to be teachable, to learn, and to be a mother. I have this wonderful child, Ian, and he's not with me here, but he's been here several times over, and several people know him here, and he misses you all, and he says hello.

He's eight now. It's been 8. Glorious years, eight frightful years, the kid's an alcoholic.

It's in the jeans. God has given me a mirror to look at on a daily basis in my own child. It's through his behavior that I can reflect and see what I need to change in my own.

That lovely little pointer, that lovely little finger. When I start doing that, I know that I need to take a look at myself. There's been great times and great laughs and great growth and great pains.

What happened was I I wanted something more out of life, but I wasn't willing to do the work. And when I came here, you told me that you weren't going to hand it to me on a platter like I wanted it. You see, I gave myself away to whoever would have me.

And now, now I didn't have anything. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I was going.

And what I wanted to find out was if I was somebody. I felt like this shell that was walking around without anything inside. And I and I wanted some I wanted to be somebody.

I wanted to grow up. I wanted to be an adult because I had an adult's body and I wasn't that person. This is scary.

God, this is really bad. You see, I came here because I wanted to share the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. The greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my life is that I'm sober.

That's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And why wouldn't I want to talk to you about it? But then I look out to you and and I know the expectations cuz I know why I come to Roundups.

I come to Roundups to get that spiritual shot in the arm. I come to Roundups to hear those words that God's trying to say to me that I can't hear anywhere else. I come to Roundups to have the love that I feel in the rooms.

I come to roundups to know that the 12 steps really work in other people's lives and they'll work in mine, too. And now I'm the one up here trying to share my experience, strength, and hope with you. It's a very frightening feeling.

It really is. And I had somebody say that it's really okay to be frightened and it's really okay to share. I wanted to be this person with great words of wisdom.

And all I have to share with you is is what I did. And what I did was the steps. They tell me when I got here that I needed to get a sponsor.

They tell me when I got here that I had to go to a halfway house. You people didn't tell me that, but I got extra help. I was really kind of a sick cookie.

Um, I went to treatment because I thought I was an Alanon person. Well, I have the I have the disease of codependency. You're right.

And at the end of that disease, I became the alcoholic. Well, when you can't beat them, you you join them. And that's what I did.

And when I went to treatment, they told me to go to the halfway house. So, I packed luggage. It was matching.

And I put my makeup on cuz I didn't want anyone to know. And I looked like I was going to boarding school. and I applied to the Gratitude House in West Palm Beach and um they refused to take me.

Now, you see, I'm one of those alcoholics that really doesn't have a colorful past. I'm not, you know, I don't have any DUIs. I've never done time in prison, only in sobriety when I went to play baseball.

Um I I have like a year and a half of using and abusing because my hell was before that. And uh I have enough time in here to qualify to be here. So when I went to apply to this halfway house, I thought, what do you mean you can't take me?

You know, I don't have a prison record. You know what's wrong with me? They said I needed a more structured environment that I needed something more structured than they could offer me.

So, they sent me to Stepping Stones in Fort Lauderdale. Have you ever been to Stepping Stones? I mean, like 10 years ago, 11 years ago, 12 years ago.

Well, it's not the pretty site that it is today. And it's not very pretty today, but it was my home. And they sent me from treatment where I had been for 6 weeks, very comfortable.

And it was like a week before Christmas. And they said I had to go right away to Fort Lauderdale cuz otherwise they couldn't hold my bed for me. And I was really upset about this because well, I didn't want to make any changes very fast and they wanted me to go right away and it was getting to be Christmas and well well obviously they didn't understand who I was and I was scared and they should just honor that and let me stay where I was.

Well, they didn't. And they drove me down. They drove me down.

They drove me to Fort Lauderdale and dropped me off on the front step with my suitcases. And when I got there, just a couple nights before that, my bed had burnt. Literally, I didn't have a bed to sleep in when I got there.

I had to sleep on the couch. And when I was sleeping on the couch, um, I laid on the couch and I could hear the train go by and I would I would plan how I could get onto this train and get out of this place that I because as I was sleeping and laying on the couch and it would rain every once in a while and when it did the roof leaked and it would hit me like right here on the forehead and I think this is what I left this is this is what I left Tampa for. a more structured environment, a bed that I had to go and be at.

And uh and it was the best thing I ever did. It It was the best thing I ever did. I didn't have structure in my life.

I didn't know how to take care of myself. I knew how to take care of you. I do that very well.

And God has given me the opportunity to take that character defect and turn an asset and be a very good nurse. But I didn't know how to take care of myself when I got here and I have a hard time with it today. But they told me when to get up and they told me when to go to bed and they told me what meetings to go to and they told me what steps to do.

And I did it. I did it not because I thought I was an alcoholic, but I did it because I lived in a prison in my own head and I wanted to get out. And they said that this was one way to get out.

But they said while I was doing this I couldn't drink. And I thought, well, and they said, do it for a year and if at the end of the year you wanted to drink, go ahead. And I said, okay, I could do that.

And in the meantime, I found out that I was an alcoholic and that this is where I needed to be. And that that God that you said that little kids have, Arman. I had that God for many years.

That's how I got through the hell that I got through for many years. God was my friend. God held my hand and then I let go.

I thought God went on vacation, but today I know I let go. And what happened during that year is I found God again. A glimpse, just a glimpse every once in a while, in the steps, in someone's eyes, in a hug, in a meeting, hearing someone speak, I remembered what somewhere in the back of my mind that there was a God out there.

And maybe, just maybe, I could find it again. That peace within. I decided that it was time to do the steps.

I did the steps, all 12 of them, and then I felt like And I said, "Wait a minute. This doesn't this doesn't make sense to me." Well, at that time I was a year and a half sober and I needed to do a little bit time in the um well, I needed extra help and I had a chemical imbalance for a while and they fixed that and I did the steps again and I felt better and I talked to my sponsor and I continued to um grow. I continued to be myself.

I continued to do what I was told to do. But I argued a lot and I asked a lot of questions. And I said, "How come?" My big thing was, "Why?

Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to call you every day? How come I have to do step three right now?

What do you mean I have to get on my knees? I remember the first time I ever took the first step. It was on the third step.

It was on um Fort Lauderdale Beach. I was in the halfway house. It was my sponsor and we we called them denial twins, but don't tell anybody.

And it was her friend and the person she sponsored who was also in the halfway house. And we took flashlights, the big book. We went down on the beach, stood there while we knelt down cuz that what the big book tells you to do.

I didn't know what I was doing and we read the third step prayer. I didn't know what I was doing. I just did it because I was told to do it.

And many years later, I overdoing it over and over again, I have found out that that's the only prayer I need to say today. I get up in the morning and I say the third step prayer. It's amazing to me how when I let God take care of things, I don't have to do it anymore.

You see, when I first got here, I was a lot like Arman. I thought I was God, only I didn't use that term. I just had all the answers.

And if you would only follow my directions, your life would be fine. But nobody would listen. Nobody would listen.

And then my sponsor said, "They've they've run out of applications for the God job because it's been filled. And I thought, hm, all this time, I didn't realize that I was playing God. I didn't realize that I was passing judgment.

I didn't realize I was being self-righteous. I didn't realize I was trying to organize the world around me so that I would feel okay. You see, I'm very rigid.

I'm very well, I have this thing about perfectionism. I've come to a new meaning of what perfect is, and I'll get to that in a minute. But when I'm scared and when I'm insecure, everything has to line up in a row because I have to be three steps ahead of you to make sure that I'm okay.

And as long as I'm three steps ahead of you, I know where you're going. So I know where I can be to protect myself. I don't have to do that anymore.

You see, because when things are bad, they're perfectly bad. And when things are good, they're perfectly good. I just didn't know perfect was like this.

You see, God is perfect. I am God. So, I am perfect.

You see, the big book tells me to seek the great spirit within because that's where you shall find the answers. I always thought that I had to have this great big white light come down on me like like Bill Wilson did and be moved and have the earth shake and feel thunder roar and see God. Well, I do see God when I look out and and I see everyone sitting here, even the ones walking out.

Why do they walk out? What is going on out there? Will somebody check for me?

It's so hard to follow someone that's so talented. It's good to be here. It's good to be here.

It's good to be sober because I forget that that's the priority. I forget that that's why I'm here. I forget all too often.

So God always gives me something in my life to slow me down enough so that I can remind myself or you can remind me or something can remind me who I am today. I am a grateful woman, lesbian, mother, co-parent, alcoholic who loves being sober. Not all the time, though, because I'm human and I have self-will just like everyone else.

And when I get on that bandwagon, man, I'm gone. And it's your fault. And if you would only follow the script, everything would be okay.

But damn it, I don't know what. It must be the mail system. Didn't you get it in the mail?

That's why you're not laughing, isn't it? Yeah, I'm sure of it. You didn't get in the mail, did you?

I did. Mine my copy came. And uh Don't you hate that when when a speech gets up there and all of a sudden it goes silent?

You wonder? I'll tell you what. I'll let you experience what I experienced when that happened.

You're saying, "What's she doing?" I'm letting you experience the committees in your head. You know, the ones that say, "Oh, God, how long is this going to go on? What step am I on?

>> Gloom and doom. Oh, wasn't that a great workshop today? Those are the committees in my head and I just introduced you to yours.

And if I listen to them, I'm in deep I listened to them for most of my life and got myself into a lot of trouble. What I found out is the only thing that I'm responsible for for is providing refreshments. That's it.

That's it. Cuz they're going to go on. Thanks for sharing.

Keep coming back. And I let them go on. That's what alcoholism is.

It talks to me. It tells me I'm not a good person. It tells me you're not a good person.

It tells me that it's your fault that my life's when I think it's And you know what? I come to find out that it's not. It's my perception.

And when I change my perception or I take time out long enough to be quiet, it's a whole new outlook on things. people change their minds and change their attitudes and change the way they behave. It's amazing when it's only my attitude that I need to take care of.

But I would have never known that had I not work the steps, call my sponsor, work with others. You know, I have this new I like to call them rose buds and well I'm this new sponsor that I'm working with and uh the thing that we've been focusing on the most is the next best thing. How basic can you get?

The next best thing. That's what got me through a lot of things. It's getting me through right now the next best thing.

Because when I'm so concerned with yesterday or tomorrow, I'm missing right now. When I'm so concerned with what's going on out there instead of what's going on in here, I'm missing the greatest moment of my life that can never be captured again. Once it's gone, it's gone.

Once she's gone, she's gone. Once he's gone, he's gone. And I forgot to say I love you.

And I forgot to say I love you. That's what's so important for me about basics. Basics are I may be the only textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous that any one person in these rooms or out of these rooms that any one person will see.

And for that I am responsible. I'm not always going to have this book to carry around with me to prove that I'm a member of AA. AA is who I am.

I have to work the steps, become the steps, live the steps, be the steps, and pass on the steps for the next generation. It's real important to understand that what we're dealing here with, what I'm dealing here with is life and death. And I know you all understand how precious life is for all the death that we've been seeing.

The moments that we have together are so short and so few that it's time to reach out and touch your neighbor. Can you reach out and touch your neighbor? Really touch your neighbor.

That's a moment you can never capture again. That's a feeling you can never get back. That's as basic as it gets.

Wearing your skin while it's happening. You see, I always drove by those houses when I was out there and I'd be in the car and I'd be like, I don't want to be here. I want to be in that house over there.

That house has nice windows and I like the lights on in that house. Oh, I like that house over there. I wanted to be anywhere else but me.

I wanted to be in anyone else's shoes but mine. You know, my sponsor told me when I first got sober that when my when I started buying shoes that fit my feet instead of three sizes too small, I was getting sober. I thought, well, that makes a lot of goddamn sense.

Why wouldn't I buy shoes that fit? Do you know it took me 9 years? 9 years of sobriety before I bought a size seven.

I've been trying to fit my feet into sixes for all my life. Can you imagine? I was a fit cookie.

It's so important. Life is so precious. It's It's so short.

It's now. It's now. I have a dear friend when when this roundup began.

I was one of the original committee members and it was a real exciting time for me. I wasn't a very important committee member. I was just one of them.

That's what this program has given me. I'm able to be just one of them instead of a part of feeling apart from. I've been a team member.

And um and God rest his soul. He's not with us today. And I remember I was pregnant with my son and I used to go to gay meetings and I was living in a in a well, has anyone ever heard of Dr.

Kennedy over there on the uh Presbyterian Church on on Federal Highway. My sponsor at that time, Eve, called him the the Nazi Christian. That's where I was living in in a house that they sponsored.

Um and I would sneak out and go to gaya meetings. And it was wonderful because I'd go to meetings and Jim and Jonathan would come over and sit next to me and and rub my tummy and um and now my son is their namesake and that's real important for me because they were real important for my sobriety. Jim was there and helping me come out when I got sober and Jim was a lot of first for me.

But the one thing he taught me was not to miss the now. Not to miss the moment. He taught me to stand up and say, "I count." He taught me to say that it's okay.

I don't have to explain to you who I am and where I'm going. It's okay for me to be who I am in my skin right now. And I didn't know that.

I didn't have that. I I didn't know that that was my right as a human being. I didn't know that that was just my right for breathing.

I didn't know I had a right to breathe. I didn't know a lot of things when I got here. I thought I knew everything.

And the longer I'm around here, the more I find out, the less I know. That's why I come to Roundups. That's why I sit and I listen.

That's why I'm grateful that you're here. You're here for me. I need you.

I need every one of you for as long as you can be here every day, every hour. You know, I was at the 6:00 meeting this morning and I heard the most wonderful thing from the person I least likely expected it from. And it showed me that I could hear exactly what I need, exactly when I need to hear it if I only was patient enough to listen.

I'm not always patient enough to listen. And I think that's why I have this wonderful brace on my leg. God slowed me down about oh 3 months ago.

It was uh the 31st of December when I was trying to push my car out of a ditch to get to work so I could be the hero. You know, everyone it was a bad weather and uh we had just had a nice storm and I was really working on my work relations and uh that's another thing God's given me, this program's given me. I bring new life into the world.

I'm a labor and delivery nurse. Me, yes, a lesbian. I stand there and catch those babies.

And I'm the first one to touch them before they're even dry off. And I get to love them. And I get to hold them.

And you know what? No other human being gets to do that but me. And they'll always know the feel of love.

No strings attached, just me and them. They may never know my name. They won't have to, but they will know love.

And that's how I heal the child within me. So, I'm trying to get to work and uh I got the kids in the back seat. I'm driving up the hill now.

I'm almost at the top of the hill. It's 6:00 in the morning and it's a Vermont so it's dark driving up the hill and the wheels are spinning and spinning and there's like a cliff on one side and a ditch on the other and it's like wide enough for a car and a half, not two. And all of a sudden, we're like I I I pressing the gas down as far as it'll go, but the car is like rolling backwards and everything's fine until the kids start screaming.

And then we start going toward the the cliff and I think maybe I better put on the brakes, which was not a good idea. And we went into the ditch. And so trying to get the car out, um I tore my ACL, which is all the things that hold your knee together.

And um work's still waiting for me to get there. That's only three months now. But in the meantime, what I found out is that I slowed down.

You know, I spent a lot of time in bed. That's cuz I couldn't get out. I couldn't walk.

And I started praying and I started writing and I started reading and I started realizing how much I had it would. And so my gift to you, if I could give you one, not that I can, but I hope that you'll listen, is to take time to take a deep breath. A nice one that you can hear, those are the only ones that count.

A nice You going to make me do this all by myself? Come on. A big deep breath.

It gets oxygen to the brain. When you get oxygen to the brain, you get more blood to the brain. And when you get more blood to the brain, you calm down.

When you calm down, you can listen. When you can listen, you can hear God. And that's what I'm here for, to listen to the God within you.

And hopefully you can hear the God within me. And together we make up the universe. Thank you very much for asking me from the committee.

Thank you very much for giving me the time to share my experience, strength, and hope. I wasn't as funny, but it's my life, and you gave it back to me. And for that I'm eternally grateful.

Thank you for my surprise. >> 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.