AA Speaker – Rósa Á. – Oslo, Norway – 2022
AA speaker Rósa Á. from Iceland shares her 20+ year recovery story: psychiatric hospitalization, 13 rehabs, hitting bottom, and finding surrender through the steps and her higher power.
Rósa Á. from Iceland got sober on September 16, 2001, after years of drinking, drug use, psychiatric hospitalization, and cycling through 13 rehabs without lasting sobriety. In this AA speaker tape, she walks through what finally worked: hitting true powerlessness, a genuine spiritual experience on her knees, and a sponsor who actually showed her how to work the steps instead of just “keep coming back.”
Rósa Á., an AA speaker from Iceland, shares 20+ years of sobriety after a chaotic bottom involving psychiatric diagnosis, multiple rehab attempts, and hard drug use. She describes hitting rock bottom in 2001, having a spiritual awakening when she finally admitted powerlessness, and working the steps with a sponsor for the first time with real guidance. Her talk covers surrender (Steps 1-3), step work, sponsorship, and carrying the message as the foundation of long-term sobriety.
Episode Summary
Rósa Á. starts with the snapshot that catches people off guard: youngest of seven kids, raised in a small Icelandic fishing village, good at school and sports, outgoing—not the stereotype of a future addict. But at 12 years old, when her parents divorced, when a history of childhood sexual abuse was being unconsciously managed through suppression, she found alcohol. It worked. It quieted something inside.
By 17, she was in her first rehab. By her early twenties, after trying mushrooms and LSD at boarding school, she lost connection with reality entirely. The LSD use triggered a psychotic break. She was locked in a psychiatric hospital for nine months, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, told she’d never work again, that she was broken. She went through 13 treatment centers in Iceland trying to get sober. She’d sit in AA meetings, hear nothing, and leave to get drunk. She went to meetings hundreds of times. Nothing changed.
The obsession to drink was absolute. She’d promise on the stars she’d never drink again. Three days later, she was drunk. No power. She tried to control it, white-knuckle it, white-knuckle it harder. Nothing worked.
In August 2001, she wrote down everything she wanted—a family, education, kids, travel—and knew she would never have any of it. She was done. By September, she was walking to a party at 4 a.m., drunk and broken, when a car pulled up. A voice—not her usual voices—told her to ask them to drive her home. She did. These men were working the 13th Step in AA (and yes, she’s aware of what that means), but they took her home and introduced her to women from AA the next day.
For the first time, sitting in a meeting after years of attendance, she *heard* it. “Yeah, I cannot stop drinking. I cannot. I don’t have the power. I am powerless.” Step One landed. Not as theory. As truth.
Three days sober, living with her mother in an apartment, watching a 9/11 concert on TV, she got on her knees. She didn’t plan it. The words came: “God, would you please send a lightning through the roof and kill me now or let me live and be sober?” That was her Step Two and Step Three. Her higher power showed up that night. She felt something in her heart. A friend called in the middle of the night, strung out on pills, and she found herself reading from the AA book to him—something she didn’t decide to do. It was her higher power working.
What followed was brutal and real. Two weeks sober, she had nowhere to live. Her father was dying in a hospital. She got pregnant, lost the baby. She was in chaos. But she was doing every single thing she was supposed to do: meetings, reading the Big Book with her sponsor, working the Fourth and Fifth Steps, making amends. She got to make an amends with her father before he died, held his hand when he passed. Her family, who hadn’t trusted her in years, started to see something change.
Years later, at 10 years sober, her sister told her something that shattered everything: their father had sexually abused her as a child. The memories flooded back. But by then, she had the program. She had the tools. She didn’t drink.
Over 20 years, she sponsored women constantly. She married (and later divorced) another person in recovery. She had children. She worked as a police officer. She built a life. And five years ago, when marriage fell apart and people told her she was going crazy again, she didn’t drink. She did the program harder than ever—on her knees for hours, calling her sponsor, going to therapy, asking for help. A doctor told her: “I don’t think you’re crazy. Someone’s just telling you you’re crazy.” Time off work, the program, her AA community, her higher power.
She moved to Norway on a whim (following a relationship that didn’t work out), and even there—unsure, far from home—she never doubted. She’s moving back to Iceland now, to be closer to her kids. Her ex-husband relapsed after 16 years sober, and it’s hard to watch. But she prays for him, deeply, and keeps doing her job: helping others, carrying the message, opening her door.
The through-line of her share is this: surrender works. Step work works. Sponsorship works. And her drug now is helping others—it gets her high, it fills her up, it keeps her sober.
Notable Quotes
I cannot stop drinking. I cannot. I don’t have the power. I am powerless. What do we do with that? We seek power.
God, would you please send a lightning through the roof and kill me now or let me live and be sober?
I have no control when it comes. Zero. You know, there are so many times I really, really, really didn’t want to drink again. I made promises. I was never going to drink again. Maybe it was 3 days I was drunk again.
My drug is to help others and carry the message. It gets me kind of high. It gives me God. It fills me up.
It’s not always what I want, but it’s always what I need.
If I stop doing it, I will drink again. I have seen it so many times that people get drunk again when they stop or they hang themselves or shoot themselves because they cannot live.
Step 2 – Higher Power
Step 3 – Surrender
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Step 5 – Admission
Sponsorship
Hitting Bottom
Spiritual Awakening
Relapse & Coming Back
Carrying the Message
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 2 – Higher Power
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Step 5 – Admission
- Sponsorship
- Hitting Bottom
- Spiritual Awakening
- Relapse & Coming Back
- Carrying the Message
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Hi, Rosa.
Alcohol. My name is Rosa. I'm an alcoholic.
It's beautiful to be here on this Sunday morning with you guys. And uh I was just thinking yesterday when Jennifer was talking and she got like 31 years sober and uh she was talking about I think she was talking about like relation and all the stuff that she's been like up to in the 31 years she's been sober and I'm at the crystal states now. I got my obsidian skull here, dragon skull.
So but I would get past that I think. But but I have it now for strength. But uh Oh wow.
It's my beautiful friends from Iceland. So many of us. It's not because you know we're so much more alcoholics than Norwegians.
It's just more acceptable to be an alcoholic and like everybody in Iceland knows what AA is and everybody like second every other person has gone to rehab and stuff like that. But uh because it's free of course and uh I'm going to tell you my story. Uh so where to begin?
What's sbriety date? Maybe let's start there. It's 16th of September 2001 and everybody remembers what happened on the 11th, right?
I had everything to do with that. Let's make that clear. I was really insane.
But I will come back to that. I am the youngest of seven siblings. My father had two two children before he met my mother.
And my mother had three children, all with a separate man before she met my dad. And together they had me and my older brother. So I'm my youngest.
So when I was growing up, uh I always had a broken bone. always there was uh a little bit of fighting, a little bit of like we used to live in this, you know, big buildings with big heavy doors and uh I was trying to chase my siblings and put my fingers and so I always had a broken something and I have this picture of me and I often look at it. I'm I'm not 3 years old.
Uh I have uh like my underwear on really hippie. It was 1980. Yeah, it was around 1980 81 when this picture was taken and uh I had recently cut my hair at that time.
So, it's all just the picture is it's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's me.
But I can look at that baby today. And I also had a cast on my leg from toes up to my like ass. I had a like yeah a big cast on my leg and uh I was not taken care of in the sense of my mother and father are not alcoholics.
My siblings are not alcoholics. My parents worked a lot. I kind of raised myself.
Well, I have a sister uh in the house. It was me, my brother, and my sister. The other ones were so like grown up.
They were just moved out of the house when I was a baby. But I wasn't taken care of in the sense of I needed care or I needed teaching. I needed like like children do as I raise my children today.
Uh but it was okay. I was like a happy wild child. I was really wild.
I probably would have gotten many diagnosis if I were a child today. I was up and over all over the place getting lost uh running away from home making fires in the mountains and you know smoking cigarettes in the in the in the later later years. Uh I was raised in a small sea village in the west of Iceland.
I think now there are like 250 people living there. So it's really small. Uh but at that time when I was growing up it was like 500 people.
A lot of uh uh people coming from both uh uh other countries to work in a fist factory. It was like blooming in alcohol. It was blooming in uh yeah work.
And everybody just showed up for work. And the weekends always everybody was like drunk. But my parents as I said they were not like drinking or I I hardly ever suh saw alcohol and I hardly ever saw them drinking.
But nevertheless I am an alcoholic and uh I started drinking when I was 12 12 years old. And just to make that clear that in this little town I was good at school. I was in sports.
I was really open. I loved giving speeches. I love to be in acting.
I was not like many alcoholics describe themselves at as being really in themselves and not finding themselves. I well, at least I thought I was really outgoing, outspoken, and uh probably often more outspoken than I should have been, but but uh when I started drinking, I just got more outgoing and more outspoken. And uh the first drink I took was at a concert in Reikavik.
And uh yeah, from that time I like the effects that it did to me. I like the uh yeah I I don't know because before that time I could talk to talk to boys. I was like, "Hey, you want to, you know, get in the closet or something?" But, but, uh, it really helped me in a sense of forgetting something I kind of really didn't know was was was there because as a child, I had been molested and I shut it off and shut it completely off completely off.
I didn't I loved my dad and uh my father uh and mother got a divorce around that time when I was 12 when I started drinking and my mother moved away and I wanted to stay in my hometown and live with my dad and uh he was sick. He had a lung disease and uh so I was kind of in the situation of being his caretaker. Uh and I remember and I and I always take this example of I didn't know that alcohol had like taken the power of me.
I had given my power to alcohol. Uh my dad asked me, I had been planning on a camping tour and with my friends and he said to me, "Could you please stay at home because I feel I'm getting sick. I need you.
But as much as I love my dad, of course I'm an alcoholic. I went camping and drank. So, uh, yeah, I'm going to try to because I only have an hour.
I can I can talk forever about me like Jennifer and and many others have talked about. I love talking about myself, but uh uh my older brothers also lived uh at some points in this town and uh they were smuggling in and uh like it's called lanti. It's like I I don't know if you have a word for it in Norway, do they?
Aarat. Yeah. So it was kind of clear from early on that I was drinking more than my buddies, my friends, my especially my my friends that were girls.
And uh my brother uh was who was three years older than me. He was really big and big. I drank like more of alcohol than he did when we were drinking.
So I have this physical allergy also that I always need more and more and more. I cannot just drink one. That's not an option because I really want to get on the table topless dancing, you know.
And uh it was really really fun all the time and my friends loved me because I was really out there. I was the you know the party animal. I went into boarding school when I was 16 and uh like 80% of the kids there smoked hashes and uh I had been writing some poetry and stuff and and when I started smoking c hashes I just oh my god this is wonderful I'm going to write some more poetry this is good and so I did and um Nine months later, I'm in my first rehab.
There was a strike from uh the a teacher strike in the school and I started working in this fist factory in in my old hometown and and I went like into another town, tried some mushrooms, some houses and just always drinking. It was like crazy. Yeah.
I was 17. I'm just a baby, you know. And uh and I was renting an apartment with my my friend and uh she was trying to get me to stop and making this really comments about coming home and the place was a mess because I had a party whole weekend and uh I was I had like many groups of friends.
There was this lady in this this town that nobody knew was smoking hashes, but she was really like into a big smuggling import like ring smuggling hashes into Iceland. It was just nobody knew that she was a part of this. Well, she was arrested like I think two years later or something, but nobody knew that I was smoking hesit.
And then I was smoking hesit with these guys, my best buddies. And then I was smoking sometimes has is trying to get my girlfriends to smoke with me and and and always the alcohol was always there because it had to be and u my friend knew uh and it's so amazing. She's she's a a she's a she's a codependent.
Her dad uh was an alcoholic. He was sober for 30 years and she found him two years ago. He had collapsed like relapsed and uh he shot his head off uh with uh uh he was a farmer and uh so if you're not doing this program that can happen sorry but yeah she was and and her sister was also had been sober for one or two years and uh I asked her at one point because I had tried to stop I really tried to stop a couple of times, you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to drink.
I'm just going to just going to do it. I'm not going to drink. Going to be a good girl.
And the longest phase was nine days. Was nine days. So she arranged for me, called her sister who got me into my first rehab at the age of 17.
So I went into this rehab and 17 like this, you know, just small town village girl coming into where the junkies and the drug dealers and all the big people from Reikavika and stuff like that. And I really could not see that I was one of them. But uh but somehow I realized I was supposed to be there.
It was uh like 10 days in this hospital unit and then 30 days in this country old school unit the uh the rehab and uh I didn't realize that I had any fault like faults. Yeah. I didn't see that I was I really did think I was excellent and in all ways like uh I fell in love with a man that was a drug dealer and he was 12 years older than me and he was missing some teeth and his hair were like getting a little bit thin but I was completely in love with him and I made a best friend.
She was uh the same age as me. She was uh had been, you know, a junkie for a couple of years and I was like, whoa, that's that's serious stuff. But I went after this rehab to AA because I was told to.
Nothing kind of happened in this rehab except that, you know, I, you know, I put the cork in the bottle and that was it. And there was no like chains inside of me. There was no like nothing.
Nothing kind of happened. And uh I was told to go to AA and I went back to my old hometown and I had to go like two towns away to get to an AA meeting and and it was just crap. Aa was just crap.
We just we had the staffs like on a you know on some paper on the wall and you know the traditions were there but nobody was doing nothing except talking about the how much they did fish that day at sea or their washing machine was broken or whatever their wife was pathetic and uh so that's what I did but I just talked about fun things like I was just driving everybody to the dance and I was in party, but I was sober, right? And I was just like still abusing myself with men. Like I couldn't stop that.
But so I was kind of basically I didn't change at all. Nothing changed except I didn't drink any longer. And uh it lasted 9 months.
Then I had moved to Reikavik. I was going to go to uh be the Gordon. Yeah.
What's that? College. English.
I don't know. And uh I went to live with my mom and I called this uh friend of mine that was with me in the rehab, the junkie, and uh asked if we could go to a meeting together because, you know, that's what I was supposed to do, right? In the back of my mind, there was this maybe I'm not going to that meeting with her.
Maybe we will get drunk together. Maybe I will try some new stuff I haven't tried before. But no, no, no, no.
I'm going to a meeting, right? But there was this there was this voice. There was this uh insanity, right?
this an insanity that kind of took over or something because I remember it being there, but I was going to not drink and I went to her house. She lived close by to my mom in Reikavik and we were just talking, catching up and stuff like that. And uh the meeting was supposed to start at 9:00 in the evening.
That's how we do it in Iceland. We always, you know, are up late. Uh but uh it passed 9 and she was like, "Oh we missed the meeting.
What should we do? What should we do?" So I relapsed and I tried some harder stuff. I tried some minutes for the first time and she just called a friend.
And it's amazing how I don't really know what kind of took over, you know? I I always when I was a child I always wanted to be an actress and the actress just came in like boom at that time. I just became like I was still sober but I was using hard drugs almost every day for almost a year.
I was just yeah I quit school because the only lesson I was still you know going to was history because I love history but uh that's not enough. I fl you know because I didn't show up for anything else. So I just started working.
Uh and uh it was a crazy right time. This is like a felt like I was the you know the queen of Raikavik. I went to all these clubs dressed in I don't know what.
It's just like plastic stuff or something like just showing off my body because I was doing, you know, harder stuff. So, I kind of got skinny and long hair and and it was just, oh my god, I really did feel like a queen for a long time. And I met the guy from the rehab and we, oh, are you still smuggling drugs?
Oh, yeah. Let's hook up. So, I moved in with him and uh but then he had to go to jail.
Uh that was kind of bad. Uh he was in jail for like 3 months or something. So, I just took regular trips to the jail smuggling drugs into the prison.
Never got caught because I'm a really good actress, right? I don't know nothing. And I always played this, you know.
No, no. I'm I'm just from Baloo. That's a really small town in the west.
I don't know nothing. I don't know these people in this party. I don't know nothing.
I I really did. I'm a good actress. Uh and uh then something crazy crazy happened that changed my life forever.
I did LSD and uh with my friend the junkie and I lost it. I lost connection. And it was one time.
It was one time. I started seeing things. I started hearing things.
I started thinking things like I were Jesus and stuff like that. I really got delusional. And of course my um my employee at that time I was working uh in a factory in Rekavik and he couldn't have me working there because I just cried like for hours or I laughed for hours.
I really couldn't do anything. I couldn't communicate with people. I just read your mind the whole time.
And this uh employee of mine, he knew my mom and uh they used to go to uh school together. And he called her and said, "I'm driving Rosa home." And I was at that time living in the apartment that my boyfriend had. And uh they my mom, my dad, and my brother, they came and picked me up.
And I I kind of don't really know what's what was going on. They drove me to the hospital and I was talking to this doctor and this nurse because my parents, they thought I was sober and nobody knew. I had been having this play on for almost a year.
And so I talked to the doctor and a nurse alone and I could tell them that I had been using hard drugs, this LSD. And uh they were like, "Okay." So in the tomorrow morning at 9:00, just be here. I didn't even bring a toothbrush because I didn't know they were gonna I didn't know I was just going to be there.
like I I just I I just showed up 9:00 in the morning the day after. It was the 1st of May 1997 and uh they took my independency away. They locked me in for 17 days like I couldn't meet anybody I knew.
And uh why am I crying now? Well, because of course I'm crying because it's not human humane to do this. And uh what it did what it uh it uh made the delusional mind of mine more delusional because uh I really then thought I was really really special and I thought they were growing black tulips from my urine.
Like it was just crazy. I kind of lost it. And uh uh yeah and I was there for and my mother she went like bunkers and talked to some really really big guy in the that runs the hospital thing and she was like this is not all right not meeting my daughter for 17 days and I couldn't smoke cigarettes or nothing.
It was crazy. uh and finally they ended up uh seeing me and I remember seeing these doctors and this stuff and I really couldn't communicate at all and at the level of being in the reality I could communicate about all kinds of other stuff that you were not aware of but uh yeah I ended up being there for total nine months at this hospital hospital unit uh the psycho wart and uh a lot of happens. I can tell you a lot of really really really really funny stories, sad stories, all kinds of My friend Baltimore, we met there and we were both Jesus at the time.
This is kind of fun because we also had Kesus, he he was also Jesus. He's he passed away. But yeah, and uh uh and they yeah, like I said, they took my independency away.
I was constantly running away, you know. I have these stories of because I shaved all my hair off and the the the medication that they give me. I like gained 30 kilos.
So, it was just crazy. And I couldn't be out in the sun because of the medication. They would burn my skin.
I was like really fiery red hat, you know, all shaped up and uh like having this really hot uh winter uh sweater and uh like a coat winter coat in the middle of the summer running away from the hospital. It was it was it was crazy. Uh but they always got me back or Yeah.
Well, I came back because I was like, "Oh, I need to sleep." And then I came back and this kind of went on for these nine months. And um then they decided to send me to asylum in the country where they have like really just old men been there for 40 years. Crazy old men.
And there there was this young lady like Yeah, it was not good man. And uh I had I had my like 19 year old birthday in the in the hospital unit and 20y old birthday in the asylum. And uh the next next years are like covered in all kinds of tries to get sober.
They finally let me out. Uh, I had like this card that I I would never be able to work again and uh I would just be crazy. That was just I got the diagnosis paranoid schizophrenic and u so I was paranoid schizophrenic trying to get sober all the time and I had like in total I had 13 rehabs but I'm including the times where I was put in like asylum hospitals so because that's kind of a rehab thing also And I I think I tried every rehab center in Iceland in four years, five years.
And I don't know how many times I went to an AA meeting trying to get sober. I don't know. That's, you know, hundreds of times.
So I'm going to go back to AA, sit down after the meeting, I'm going to get drunk. That was kind of normal. I didn't hear anything.
I didn't understand anything. Uh so back in the year 2001, I knew that I couldn't stop. I just had this crazy feeling inside.
I could not stop. I tried so many times. I got 14 months.
That my that was my longest time. I got 14 months. And I remember I remember the time when I started drinking again after these 14 months.
I had been in uh I just I thought it was cool just to be in English meetings. So I was going to English meetings and Friday nights in Rekavik and they always said, "Yeah, keep coming back. It works if you work it.
But nobody said me what to work or nothing. Okay, keep coming back. It works if you work it.
But I didn't know. And I remember when I started drinking after this 14 months that maybe, you know, my hair has grown back. I've, you know, been using some Herbal Life stuff, you know, losing some weight and uh maybe I can just drink I can just drink some red wine and stuff like that.
So, I tried and I just drank for three months like just heavy drinking. I met this bartender who became like my not boyfriend. We were just drinking together.
But and then some cute guy and came and said, you know, do you use anything other than alcohol? And I was like, what do you got? Okay, then I just use alcohol and you know, white stuff, not the cannabis stuff.
That's that's not good for me. And then it was it's just I have no no control. And this this this thought, this insanity, I have no control when it comes.
No, zero. You know, there are so many times I really, really, really didn't want to drink again. I made promises I was never going to drink again.
I remember standing looking at my brother and I said, "Non." And there were stars and I said, "I promise to the stars I'm never going to drink again." I don't know, maybe it was 3 days I was drunk again. I have no power. But, you know, inside I really want it.
I want it. I tried so many times all kinds of versions of it. Trying to control it or not control it or like, "Fuck it.
I'm going to show them. I'm just going to go drink again. they don't want me anymore or whatever.
And um 2001 I had gone uh a week to another asylum and uh I kind of ran away. I just said I don't want to be here anymore. So So I went and uh I went uh 10 days in in a war like the hospital rehab center in Iceland.
And uh I don't know how many times I went to and and there had been this uh like awakening in AA in Iceland, but I hated these guys. They were like loud and funny and you know and I hated that and I had been hearing it when I was going to the English speaking back in the days. I would have we're trying to have a meeting here.
This is no fun. This is serious stuff. And uh and I tried some time to get a sponsor and she just wanted to put some tarot cards or something and another sponsor uh asked me to like get uh baptized in this Christian So that's kind of I tried all kinds of stuff.
Nothing worked. And in August 2001, I had written down some things and I still have it. I have a date on it.
The date is August something, 2001. And it says all the things that I want and I wish a family, education, kids, travel, all this stuff that regular people have. And I knew I would never have it.
Never. Um, but my higher power, he has a way through men, right? Because I've always been kind of a sucker for men.
Oh my god, that sounded crap. But on the 16th of September, I had been uh drinking a lot that night and in I got invited to a party. It was like four o'clock in the night and I was walking with these men to a party where there is this silver colored Porsche Porsche car that stops on the road and they say hey you and I was like oh go to them and they say oh sorry we thought you were someone else someone else.
And I hear this voice. It was not one of the regular voices that I was just always hearing that said, "Ask them to drive you home." I was not going home, you know. I was going to a party with some boys and because I didn't have any friends at that time.
Really, nobody wanted me. My parents didn't want me. Nobody wanted me anymore.
So when I got invited to do stuff with people, of course, still I was fun and everything, I felt miserable all the time, but I don't know why I listened. But I asked them to drive me home. And these guys were working the 13st step in AA, but I didn't sleep with them or nothing.
But it's funny funny or it's it's heartwarming to look back and just Yeah, it's funny. It's funny that God knows me. And uh the day after I was going on a date with one of these guys, well I thought he actually took me to this cafe where his friends, girlfriends from AA were drinking coffee after an AA meeting and he just put me with them and then he walked away to his friends.
And they started questioning me, oh, do you have a sponsor? Are you new? Because we had this fire awakening in AA.
Arno was there with his AA book, always under his arm, marching on, you know, hitting people in the head. I am so grateful for Arnor. We're still buddies today.
He's been a really really much support to me and uh yeah Uh yeah. Wow. 35 minutes.
Okay. Speed up. Speed up.
Because now we're getting to the, you know, fun stuff, the variety and The first step, right? They are still here to remind me of the schedule how we do it in AA and uh yeah and uh I was talking to these ladies and yeah yeah we need to sponsor you go to a meeting and stuff and I was like I tried I tried everything you know but for the first time the day after that I think it was the day after that I went to an AA meeting and I heard for the first time what it is to be an alcoholic. you know, been going to all these rehabs, been going to these meetings and for the first time I sit there and I was like, "Yeah, I cannot stop drinking.
I cannot. I don't have the power. I am powerless." What do we do with that?
we seek power. And I remember it was the 19th, so I'd been sober for three days when I went on my knees. And at that time, I was living with my mom and they had this concert because of the 9/11 thing.
There was this concert on the on the TV and I remember going on my knees and I said, "God, would you please send a lightning through the roof and kill me now or let me live and be sober?" That was my first, second, and third step there. And then I had realized that I did not have power, that my life was a mess and had been for a long time. And I had like 2 weeks to figure out where I was supposed to stay because my mother was not able to have me.
She was moving out of her apartment and I could not live with her anymore. My father was in had been in a hospital for a long time and he was dying at that time. And uh I am there on my knees talking to something somewhat some I don't know whatever it is and I could feel something here in my heart I found my higher power.
It came to me that night, that night, and a friend called in the middle of the night, the same night, full of just been, I don't know, taking some crazy pills or stuff. And I started reading from the AA book from him, for him. I said, "Hey, man.
You know, I'm going to try this AA one more time." And I started reading from the AA book. I don't know why I did that. Three days over.
I'm trying to help somebody. What the Yeah. And it was not something I decided.
It was something that was just my higher power, right? And uh things kind of I I believe that my high higher power just came and said, "Okay, Rosa, I'm going to take care of you. You have given me your will.
I'm going to take care of you." And I did every thing. Every thing I was supposed to do except I got in a relationship when I had been sober for 3 weeks and he was sober two weeks and love at first sight, right? No, he was he was not my type.
So, it was kind of crazy, but uh and like I said, I didn't have a home like two weeks after I got sober. I was like just going around with AAS and just trying to be somewhere. My I remember my sponsor, she said, "Can you even have one room here?" Because there were some AA girls renting this apartment.
And uh then they kind of opened the door on me and my ex-husband like and they were like, "Oh, you have to go Rosa. That's not good." Whatever. But Norwegians also tough.
Okay. uh and uh I didn't have a home. My father was dying.
I got pregnant. I lost a baby. And this is all in my first 3 months.
My father died and I lost a baby and I didn't have a home. But I was still sober because I was going to every meeting. I was reading the AA book with my sponsor.
I started working these steps, making the fourth step and the fifth step and started making my amends. I did get time to make an amends on my dad before he died. And I hold his hand when he died.
And the thing is that I didn't know at that time that my father really sexually abused me when I was a child. It didn't come to me until I had been sober for 10 years that uh my sister came to me and said, "I have to talk to you." And when she said it, I was just immediately almost uh put into because they had thought I was getting a stroke because I got paralyzed on the on the face and and here and uh but the thing is the memories were coming that I had just closed all the way. I didn't remember anything.
And uh so it was it was maybe good that I didn't know at that time or whatever. I don't know. Don't know.
But I did hold his hand when he died and uh I was there for my whole family. And this is kind of I wasn't I hadn't been able to do anything for many years before I started doing the program. So for my family, for my mother, for my siblings to see me at that point, it was crazy.
I had made my amends and they were seeing something. They didn't trust me completely, but uh I'm going to try to pack things up. But uh yeah, then I just I don't know.
I don't know how to pack these years into something that happened like I was sponsoring like tons of women through the program. Uh our me and my ex-husband, we were actually together for 16 years and we had three babies. Babies, they're young people today.
But uh but that was kind of what I was just I just and I had this disability like forever because I was still insane and yeah I had I had mentioned because when I got sober I was really really medicated on like medication stuff to trying to keep me normal so I wouldn't hear the voices or see the visions or have the delusions that I had and I had them for a couple of years still being sober, but I was doing a a I was I I was just full of power and I had all the time in the world to give away what you gave me. And that's just became my life. Just sponsoring women, going to all the meetings.
I just and people were just are you never quitting having babies. You're just always having babies on your breast on the meetings like and uh but that was just I had so much time to give and I I I am still passionate about giving this program away. That's what I do.
That's my job. If I stop doing it, I will drink again. I have seen it so many times that people get drunk again when they stop or they hang themselves or shoot themselves because they cannot live and um I don't want to go there because this is fairly easy to do.
It is it there is nothing much to it. I just have to do it to go on my knees in the morning and do my meditation. And like I said, I'm on the crystal thing, so I'm really meditating a lot now.
And but and carrying the message and I have really good friends in AA that I can always call and they tell me the truth. I am so yeah one of the things that I didn't see you know from the first the the first months I couldn't see that I was selfish or selfcentered I didn't really understand these terms or you know I didn't really understand it I really thought that I was a good girl but you know 21 years later I always say yes to my mom because I owe her still what I did to her, you know, all the sleepless night, all the that I did, worrying and stuff like that and my siblings. I always say, "Yes, I'm here.
I'm almost almost a grandmother to my sister's grandkid kids because I I just want to, you know, I just want to pay, give back, and uh four or five years ago uh I had a really really rough time in my sobriety and I've done a lot of stuff. I have educated myself. I worked as a as a police officer.
I've done some man. It's just uh yeah 5 years ago uh some happened between me and my my husband. It was a really really difficult time and I had this program.
I done it I I I like did it so much. I've never done it as much as I did then. And uh I think it was Jennifer yesterday that was talking about just being on her knees like and that was just for hours I was just on my knees just asking for help and then I was also calling Arnor a lot because he also has this man.
He's a he's a man. I'm not a man. I don't understand men like like men don't understand women, right?
But uh and trying and and it's it's difficult for me to talk about it still just in front of a crowd. But I was facing my biggest fears. I was told that I was getting insane and I was starting to believe that am I maybe insane?
I didn't I didn't eat. I didn't sleep. And I was sober.
I was doing everything that I possibly could in this program. I got uh you know therapy and stuff like that. And it ended up like okay I have to go to the hospital.
Well I was told I have to go to the hospital because I was going crazy again. And uh and I met this really really nice doctor who looked at me and listened to me and and he said, "I really don't think you're crazy. I think somebody's just telling you you're crazy." And uh but you need to eat and you need to sleep.
So he helped me and that and and I was at that time working as a police officer and and it was just amazing thing just to talk to my boss and and it's so funny that I this wreck I was suddenly being a police officer. It was just crazy. And my boss, my two bosses, they they just loved me because of that.
And uh and getting some just time off. And all I knew to do was to do this program. And never did I doubt it it would work.
It has never ever failed me. Never. The only thing I have to do is do it.
I've done many four steps, fifth steps, nine steps. I've done crazy I know I'm not perfect, but I try and I do this program every day. And I moved and and life is such a amazing adventure if you just trust your higher power.
And I try to ste uh like stay grounded and talk to my AA friends if I get a crazy idea or something. And and when it came to moving here to Norway, and again it was a guy, right? Soulmate, that I kind of figure out that was not my soulmate.
But still, I'm here. But I never doubt this program. I never doubt that my higher power is giving me assignments or stuff that I cannot handle.
And often I'm like really are we not done? Is this not enough? You know, I always get the ugly packages.
I always get the But inside the package, even it's ugly on the outside. A couple of months later, you open it and you see what it really is and you see what it's supposed to like mean and you kind of get the oh yeah, it's so I can help somebody else that's going to have the ugly packets, right? It's not always what I want, but it's always what I need.
And uh I'm moving back to Iceland in December. And I had a house in Iceland that I just sold like a couple of months ago. And uh I have two kids that live in Iceland.
Uh 19 and a 17year-old. And uh the 17-year-old lives with a friend of mine because their dad is an alcoholic. And uh I don't know if it was it was at least when he was sober 16 years he got drunk again.
And uh that has been a really challenging. It's been challenging to watch my kids, especially the older ones. The the younger one, he he doesn't have the same perspective of his dad.
Uh but uh I'm trying to be everything I can. And uh I wish I could do something. I wish I could save him, but I've been praying for him since we got divorced before we got divorced.
I've been praying that my higher power makes him happy, makes him healthy, helps him get sober. And uh I also sometimes say to God, you know, the bastard, but help him please because I can say that my higher power knows me. And uh it was just two weeks ago.
I was uh at a noon meeting and uh in Tonsburg there were just men there and I was talking and and suddenly I just started crying and I said I love my ex-husband so much but I don't love him in the way that I would love a lover but I love him so deeply and the only thing I can do is still just pray and hoping or something, you know. You got to have hope. Um, I'm really at the same same time I'm uh going to miss my Norwegian Icelandic buddies.
Not buddies. No, sorry. Yeah.
Uh, and I miss the I'm going to miss the opportunity to get to know everybody here better. But, um, if you're ever in Iceland, you just come and visit. My doors are always open.
And that's one of the things that I was also taught when I came in here because there were people letting me in, inviting me for you know, dinner, cakes, whatever. Listen to speakers all day long. And that's what I did.
I opened my door and if you ever uh are talking to somebody that is crazy or whatever, needs help, give them my number. You don't have to ask for permission from me to give my number. This is my job.
This is what I do in AA. You can tell everybody out there my story, but don't go to the press with it. Understand?
I'm here to help people because that helps me. This is my drug. My drug is to help others and carry the message.
It gets me kind of high. It gives me God. It fills me up.
my my sponsor, she's been sober one year longer than me. I don't know what how that happened, but but it's just been amazing to get the chance to we've been uh I was uh started sponsoring her in 2007 six. Yeah.
Yeah. 2004. Yeah.
Wow. Oh, but uh and then like she moved here to Norway like 10 years ago, 12 years ago or something and uh we didn't stay in touch and and then she called me 3 years ago on FaceTime. Hey Rosa, miss you so much.
Can you still be my sponsor? And now I just Hey Arna, I'm moving to you. And uh and just to see the change in people, everybody.
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