transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:06] Hello, and welcome to Sober Cast, where we provide AA speaker meetings and workshops in podcast format. We're an ad-free podcast, and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting sobercast.com, look for the donate link, and drop a dollar or two into our virtual basket. We hope you enjoy the podcast. Have a great day.

Speaker 2:
[00:27] Hi, I'm Michael. I'm an alcoholic.

Speaker 1:
[00:28] Hi, Michael.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] Can everyone hear me? I'd like to thank Katya for asking me to speak here. My sobriety date is January 21st of 2001. To kind of give you an idea about my relapse and my story, I had my first drink at age 14, my first meeting at age 16, and then I got sober at 23. So out of the nine years that I drank, only two of them were without a knowledge of AA. Although my first time, as you'll hear in a second, of trying to really get sober was 18. But between 18 and 23, the most I ever had was 90 days. But I originally got sober and I'm from Houston, Texas. I've been in New York for nine years now. As long as I drank, that's a long time. So in New York now. But I had my first drink at 14. The consequences started pretty early. I didn't know anything about, our book talks about the alcoholism being the phenomenon of craving, which means once I start, it's almost impossible for me to stop. The mental obsession makes it very difficult to not take that first drink. I didn't have really the mental obsession so much, and I couldn't have told you what a physical allergy was in the beginning, but I definitely knew that once I started, it was almost impossible for me to stop, nor did I want to. My friends would say stuff like, I have a buzz, I'm good, and that just didn't compete with me. I couldn't relate to that. I just thought that no one liked alcohol as much as me. That was how I could express the phenomenon of craving that early. The consequences, there really weren't the second time I got in trouble and blacked out the second time, too. I was a blackout drinker. One of the things I learned in rehab was that that's not normal. I just thought everyone blacked out when they drank. I didn't know any better. And the consequences started very early. I just could never not mess up. You know, it was always, always, I had a talent for breaking funerary. If I was at your house, something, some piece of funerary was probably going to get broken. It wasn't the most graceful drunk, either. I, you know, and I knew that I had no control once I started drinking, so my solution was not to drink less, which is what normal people would do. My solution was to try to isolate myself. So I just, I knew that I made an ass out of myself in public, so instead of not drinking, I just didn't got in public anymore. Or I tried not to go out in public. And so I would drink alone at home, and then just try just to tell myself, don't go out. But inevitably, I would get drunk and end up going out. One of the kind of experiments I used to always try to do was, I knew in my body that I was a different person once I took alcohol into my system, and that I didn't make the judgments that I wish I could. So I decided to write notes to myself when I got drunk. So before I would start drinking, I would write sticky notes, and those little yellow sticky taps, and put them on different things. So I would put one on the door first, do not go outside. And then I would put another one on the phone, do not call this girl. And then I would hide my shoes and my keys in my wallet before I drank. But inevitably, I would then just go outside without my shoes, and my keys in my wallet. And for some reason, I always had a talent of going outside barefoot, I don't know why. I used to always make fun of those people on cops, you know, whenever they got arrested, it was like, just let me get my shoes, you know. Sure enough, when I get arrested, no shirt, no shoes. And, but, so needless to say didn't work, all of my different types of trying to control the consequences without altering my drinking. I went to my first rehab, my first meeting when I was 16, I had the unfortunate, unfortunate, to me it was unfortunate that my mom was dating someone in the program. So, the signs were fairly obvious and she kind of knew a little bit that she was going to Al-Anon. And so, I went to this meeting when I was 16, extremely drunk, my father was supposed to pick me up and he found me outside, around the block from my house, passed out on the side of the street. No thought whatsoever of how that might have looked to a father driving up on their child, being a parent now, it makes me shudder. But at the time, so he dragged me, my first meeting drunk, extremely intoxicated, would not be the last intoxicated meeting I would go to by far. And I don't remember anything of what they said, but I do remember people welcoming me and telling me I was welcome. I chain smoked the whole time, wandered outside a few times and came back, but I do remember the hand being held out to me there. And it was a meeting right next door to this kind of shelter, $8 a week, probably more now, but it was kind of a shelter place where you could get sober. The only requirements that you obviously could use, I had to go to two meetings a week, and the meeting house was next door. And I kind of looked around at this room of kind of smoking people and thought that I have nothing whatsoever in common with these people, and I'm not going to come back. Five, six years later, I would actually be a resident of that facility. But at the time, I walked out. The consequences started happening, the car wrecks. Luckily, my high power was just looking out for me. I never made it outside. I was always too drunk to make it outside of the parking lot, so I ended up just crashing the car into certain objects and cars in the apartment complex. So thankfully, I never hurt anybody. And I got arrested for public intoxication. And arrested and went into my first treatment facility when I was 18 years old. I stayed sober for 30 days out of spite, which does not work. Nor have I met anyone for whom that has worked. And because I didn't want to have anything to do with the god thing, I didn't want to have anything to do with the higher power, nor the steps. And I just decided I would do it on my own. Obviously, that did not work out, and about 30 days later, I drank. My first really serious time was when I was about 20 years old, and I stayed sober. I was all gung-ho at about, stayed sober again for 30 days, and drank again. I did some steps. I don't really remember how many I did, but I quickly went out again. In college, the consequences, the same kind of pattern would continue. Eventually, it got really bad, and I went to an inpatient rehab, same place, actually, as I had gone four years before. And this time, I was gung-ho about it. I was Mr. Spirituality. I tell everyone how to have a better or higher power. I was praying like 18 hours a day, and I was kind of the walking spiritual machine. And then, everything was going great, and about 90 days later, that feeling stopped, and I wasn't on the pink cloud anymore. And so, I thought that somehow I had been betrayed. Like, that was the deal. I stopped drinking, and God makes me feel spiritual 24-7. That's just how it works. And so, when that stopped, I started drinking again. And that's just what I did. I kind of viewed God as my spiritual drug dealer. And as long as I felt good, I wouldn't drink. But if any, like, real life stuff should come across, or I should stop feeling on a pink cloud, then I considered he had kind of backed out on his side of the bargain, and I started drinking again. One of my favorite lines from the literature, and I think it's in the 12 and 12, I just don't remember where, it talks about going alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. And I definitely wanted to do that. I wanted the relationship between me and God, but I didn't want to have anything to do with people in AA or in meetings. So I would go to this one meeting, smoking meeting, and sit behind the post so the speaker couldn't see me. It was no show. It was all call on people where I got sober. And I didn't want to have anything to do. I would have a sponsor and work with him, but I didn't want to have anything to do with people or fellowship or anything like that. And I can definitely say now how that cutting off of that spiritual feeling was definitely the best thing my higher power could have done for me, because it meant that I had to look for God among my fellow AA members. But the process would just repeat over and over and over again. I would get sober, I would feel great, I'd be gung-ho about it, and then 90 days later, almost on the day, I would not feel good. Something wouldn't go my way, and I would drink again. This process repeated over and over and over again. I eventually went back to that place where I had been to my first meeting, in the drunk room one time with the plastic sheets, and I managed to make a daring James Bond escape from this treatment center, which I found out the next day was a voluntary treatment center. And I went back and got all my stuff. The guy's like, I saw you running off. And I went back to that place and stayed there for another 90 days, and it's the same thing again and again and again. But AA was always there. And then the last, you know, six months of my drinking, it was two days at a time. So I would get sober two days, come back for two days, get sober to it, and we just, over and over and over again. I relapsed when I was in that treatment place. And so instead of my sponsors, like you need to tell them you relapsed. So I did the alcoholic thing and didn't tell them that just moved out. And I found this apartment complex that was pretty shady, and that I knew friends and family would probably not want to come over to at night, so I could just be kind of left alone and drink. And so I would go on these long binges, and it was right behind this taqueria. So every day when I needed to put some food in my system, I would kind of stumble over there drunk. Well, unfortunately for me, that was the after hour, after meeting hangout for all the meetings I used to go to. So I would go in there just completely wasted and see this group of AA people there. But they never pretended they didn't know me. They always said hi. They would sometimes feel sorry for me and buy me dinner and listen to my long drunk logs about why AA wasn't working for me. But I would also go to meetings. I would go to these meetings and I desperately wanted to get sober, but I also couldn't stop drinking. I went to many, many meetings drunk. And so I've never, ever, I've always been a big proponent of, as long as you're not being disruptive, if you're drunk, come to a meeting. It definitely, it was a really safe haven. I remember something, it was so bad, I would have to fill the coffee cups up halfway because my hands were shaking so bad that that's the only way I could hold the coffee inside there. But AA was always there and I was that guy who just like would everyone kind of saw what back in the room like, oh, here he is again, you know. But the great thing was that no one let that alter how they made themselves available, you know. And that was huge. And I just, I even took it for granted really, that AA would always be there. And it got so bad one time, I would call people over, I would have a bunch of booze and I would put about three-fourths of it in my apartment somewhere, I would hide it. And I would call AA people to come over to my house to pour down my alcohol, down the drain for me, because I wanted to get sober. So they would come over and I would get to see my AA friends and they'd pour down, everything's great, they'd leave, and then I'd break out the alcohol again. Like I was so desperate for companionship and for, and I wanted to be sober so bad, but I, that I would have them do it. And they don't, I mean, they, amazingly, they still came. But every time they left, they said, he's gonna drink again. Yep, yep. And, and I, I did. And eventually, you know, I, I used to think that there was, and you know, I'll talk about it a little bit at the very end, but I used to think that I knew what was different about the last time I got sobered in January 21st, 2001. But I honestly don't. I was in a kind of a near-death experience the night before, but I had had so many of those in the past, and it wasn't a fear thing. It was kind of a quasi spiritual experience, but I had had those in the past as well. Much greater strength, as a matter of fact. And it was, I'd been beaten down in the past, but I was beaten down then, but I'd also been beaten down in the past. So I can't really to this day put my finger on what was different. But I started coming back again, and I can't over emphasize how important this was. I had two friends who, one was a family member, my cousin, another, her best friend, who were in the program. And really just, I wasn't alone, really, those first six months. Pretty much everywhere they went, they took me with me. They took me with them, and that really, really saved my life. Ended up doing the steps again. I did know, even though I couldn't put my finger on it, I knew something was different. In the meetings in Houston, they give away chips for links to sobriety. I'm sure there are other places they do too. They had this one called the Desire Chip, the little white plastic ones. They would give those up every time you would come back again. I had like 30 of those things in my apartment. When I would go to the meetings, the guys knew me there. When they would say, does anyone want a Desire Chip? I would look down in my head. My friends would go, yeah, right here. He wants one. He's going to come up, right there. And so I came up and I just got head like, they were everywhere in my apartment. And I don't know what it was, but I just kind of knew something was different this time. And so I actually brought it when I was at my grandma's. I knew I had put it in a box somewhere. And I took my keys and under the recovery, I made a giant scratch. And the reason I did this is so I could tell this one from like the gazillions of others that I had in my apartment. And actually, I can't believe I still have it, but I made a big scratch so I could tell. Because I just kind of knew something was different. And I used to, like I said earlier, I used to think, and I think I actually I don't quite remember, but I think when I was about two and a half years, when I went to the Portland Icky Paw, I spoke on a panel and I think it was about relapse or something. So it'd be very interesting to see like what my magic formula was that I said at that time to never relapse again. Because I really don't, and for a long time, it was always something different, you know? But today, I just don't know. But the one thing that when I was trying to think about what I could say, that I guess my message is the other side of it. The one thing that was there the entire time, what was so crucial is that when it finally something did happen, AA was still there. AA and that was, you know, that only thing that I remember from my first meeting was that guy sticking out his hand to me and telling me welcome, you know, nothing else. The time and time and time again that I came back in the rooms, when I was drunk in the rooms, when, you know, people had no right to think I would get sober, nor was I offended that they didn't think I was going to get sober. They were still there. So even though they thought I was full of crap, when I called, they still picked up the phone. And I do that to this day. There's been so many times, especially in early sobriety, where some esponsi would call and I just didn't want to do it. And then about, you know, a ring before I knew my messaging machine would pick up, I would remember those people who picked up the phone when I called them, when I was going through that, and I always picked up. And so that's really, my message is not so much, I wish I had some kind of secret thing for how I stopped relapsing and got sober. But really, it's just one of gratitude that when I finally did get sober, AA was there, you know, and that is just so, so crucial to me. And I try to be that person now that was there for me in the beginning, because eventually, you know, the chronic relapser, and it's amazing, my higher power put one in my life, you know, and, you know, do I think he's going to get sober soon? Nope. But that doesn't in the least change the way I'm going to be available for when he calls, even now, you know. And that's just, it's one of those things that's been just kind of imprinted on my sobriety now, of being there for that person, because I never know when it's going to happen, you know. And I'm so grateful that AA never ever ever turned their back on me, never told me that I wasn't welcome or that I couldn't come back. And really AA was there when I came back, because if when I finally, you know, this last sober date, if those people had not been there, I don't know if that would have been the last time, you know. And I don't even like to think about what would happen if there's no AA now. So it really is one of the, you know, the only message I have about relapsing is try to stay sober. So when that person who keeps relapsing comes through the door, you're there to help that person. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:
[19:27] Thank you, Michael. You know, one thing I kept thinking about while you were speaking was the crazy things that we used to do when we were drunk to like trick ourselves. I used to like not want to text somebody specific, and then I got into the habit when I was drunk deleting the text, so I would think that I didn't actually do it. Like, we would come up with these crazy, like brilliant ideas that this time it's going to be different, you know, because of the blackouts. And I, too, didn't realize that blackouts were not normal. I really thought that, you know, everybody drank like me, and it's so funny, you get sober, and you learn so much about this disease. And I think for me, at least, the knowledge of the disease is definitely what has kept me, you know, coming around and what kind of drew me in from the beginning, because I felt like I belonged somewhere. So, excellent. Our next speaker is Tom from Washington, DC.

Speaker 4:
[20:27] Good afternoon, everyone. I'm an alcoholic, my name is Tom. And my sobriety date is November 2nd, 2007. I have a home group of sponsor, and I have the privilege of being a sponsor. Obviously, 2007 is not my first sobriety date. We're talking about the topic we're talking about. I first got sober back on August 6th, 1998. Leading up to that point, as most of you know from your own experience, I went through hell. I was a late bloomer. I started drinking when I was 16. It was my first time drunk. I grabbed a bottle of what I lovingly called tequila and finished off half a fifth of that and immediately blacked out. Evidently went into the liquor cabinet, got a bottle of sherry, got halfway through that before I busted that into the bathroom and just proceeded to make a mess of everything. I came to the next day about 3 o'clock and I had glass in my face and my hands and just a mess. I told myself, this is not a good thing. This is not a good thing. Alcoholism does run in my family. My father is a sober member, my stepmother is a sober member, my brother is a sober member, my grandfather died from this. And so I knew that me drinking probably was not the smartest thing. But that didn't matter. Because what alcohol does for me, within a couple of shots, it gives me that. I can breathe. Everything's going to be okay. Everything's all right with the world. It doesn't matter what's going on. Doesn't matter how I'm feeling beforehand, where I'm at, who I'm with. A couple of shots, I am straight. I'm good. And I'm like, I was like Willy Wonka's line, candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. And when I started drinking, the only reason for me to drink was to get drunk. That was it. I didn't decide to go out and just have a couple and socialize. It was always, I want to get it in me as quickly as possible, so I can get that relief I'm looking for. And I chased that for years. I chased that for years. And for most, most of the time I got it. The second time I drank was not as bad as the first, so I thought, okay, it was just a bad night. No worries. We're going to go with this. And I drank probably for about five years. I'm just about five years. I went to college a couple of places. Went up to Seattle. Get as far away from the parents as possible. Ran out of money. Went back to San Diego. And went up and down the west coast for a while. At one point, when I dropped out of college, I was actually, I thought I was just camping. But I was later told I was homeless. I was living on the floor of Yosemite Valley. And for about three months. And this, my life at this point was, I would get up in the morning, start collecting cans, turn them in, so I could have drinking money for that night, ask somebody to buy me some dinner, and do the same thing the next day. Over and over and over again. And eventually that got old, actually. It started getting cold. And I made my way back to San Diego. And met her. There's always a her. She moved to Arizona, so I moved to Arizona for a couple of weeks, and that wasn't working out. So I made my way back out, back out east, where I met another her, which ended badly. And at this point, I am 22 years old. I'm a college dropout. My life has gotten so small that I'm tending bar two blocks from where I'm living. There's a bar blocking between me and where I work, so I'd go to work, close out that bar, go to my home bar, close that out, get up the next morning and do it all over again. My whole world is a three-block radius. And I cared. It's not that I didn't have feelings. It's not that I didn't know that this was not good. I just felt helpless to do anything about it. It's just what it was. It's the only thing I knew, so it was the only thing I was capable of doing. So I ended up doing, after that relationship ended badly, is I wanted to kill somebody and I wanted to die. So I joined the Army, thinking they would be able to, you know, at least train me how to kill somebody in the process. Maybe I'll catch a bullet. And I did really well. I did really good. For a couple of months. I mean, I, you take alcohol out of me and I sign up pretty good pretty quick. Especially if I'd have no chance of getting alcohol, which was what was going on. I got, you know, promoted up squad leader platoon guide, most professional soldier in my platoon. And I'm getting ready to go to Bosnia and the day I graduate, they give me a three day pass. I went to the bar, two counties over, because the place I was, Fort Knox, Dry County. And so I went two counties over to the bar. I came to the next day and I ran home bus bound for San Diego. See, when I drink, I have no control over what I'm going to do. It doesn't matter what the consequences are. It really doesn't. Without the solution that's outlined in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am doomed to continue drinking. I'm an alcoholic. It's what I am. It's what I'm going to do. And so when I finally get out of the army, I was 90 pounds and 98. I will always be a thin man. I know. But I was a wraith. And I reached out to the one person I knew had found a solution and that was my father. And he 12-stepped me, started taking me to meetings. And he showed me what it was like to live sober. He told me, I'm an alcoholic, I'm a liar, I'm a cheat and a thief, and I need a sponsor, and he cannot be it. And so I knew at that point that, is this better? So I knew at that point that was important. He provided me with some tools and he dropped me off. And I fell into an active group of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I was pretty burnt when I first came around back in 98. I really had a hard time putting two sentences together in a coherent sequence. I could not formulate my ideas real well. I was a burnt cookie. It was not pretty. And by the time I realized that I was alcoholic, by the time that really settled in on me, I was in the middle of the solution. I was doing what I hear all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous, what the deal is. Go to meetings, get a sponsor, get service, try to help the next guy. And I was doing it. And my life got really good. My life got really good. Not only was I comfortable once again, because for me, Alcoholics Anonymous does the exact same thing that those three shots of whiskey does. It gives me that... It's okay. It's gonna be alright. Doesn't matter where I am, who I'm with, or what my circumstances are. If I'm applying these steps in my life, and I'm attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, I get the same exact result that I got from alcohol. Which is, for me, phenomenal. This is the only solution I have. Now it's viable. I was sober for nine years. I had people I was sponsoring. I was, like I said, I was doing service. I got a lot of gifts in Alcoholics Anonymous. One time I had the American dream, you know. I found her again. We got married. I had a dog, the house, the cars. I had the job that was flying me all across the US and Canada. And I let those things get in the way. My primary purpose shifted. It shifted from Alcoholics Anonymous to what I got, and how can I get more. And luckily at that time in 2005, I woke up to the fact that this was going on. I came home one day from a business trip, looked at the wife, looked at the dog, looked at the condo, looked at my bank account, so I had enough money to get to Amsterdam and have a really good weekend. And that scared me. And that scared me. And I got honest with my sponsor, and I started working the steps. Because of the actions I had been taking as a dry drunk, I lost all those things in my life, but I was able to stay sober. I was able to stay sober through that divorce. I was able to stay sober through selling the condo, splitting up the money, giving away the dog, all of that. What happened at that point, though, and this is really where my relapse started, is I stopped praying. I stopped trying to improve that conscious contact with my higher power. And I did a little geographic down in Georgia, and things were really good. I got plugged in right away. I started sponsoring people, I had service commitments. I was doing all the things I had been taught. I talked to my sponsor every day. And then I got a job that wanted me to work 70, 80 hours a week. And I was like, all right, well, I'll do it until I get something else. And slowly over time, I had to stop sponsoring the guys I was sponsoring because I wasn't showing up to the meetings where I was telling them to show up at because I was working so much. And so I had to drop my service commitments because you can't make it to all these meetings. And I'm really tired. I need to sleep. I just need the night off. And slowly over time, I stopped doing all the things I had been taught. And I didn't even notice what was going on. Like I said, I'd probably stop praying at that point probably a half year before. Within nine months of moving down to Georgia, I got another job finally, and I was working in Savannah. And I'm living in Brunswick, Georgia, which is right on the coast, just north of Jacksonville. And it's a long drive. Now where I'm from, driving an hour is no big deal to go to work, right? It's 30 miles in DC, okay? In Georgia, it's 80 miles. So I'm getting really worn out. And I have this thought, like, well, I really need to move to Savannah. And my next thought was, you know, if you move to Savannah, you're going to drink. And that was it. There was no, hey, dumbass, you remember the last 12 years of your life? You remember the fact that you've been sober now for nine years? Do you remember why you came to Alcoholics Anonymous in the first place? There was absolutely nothing, because I had lost that conscious contact with my higher power. There's absolutely nothing standing in the way of me and that drink. My next thought was, hmm, I guess I'm going to drink. And that's what happened. And it started off pretty slow. The first night I had a couple of beers, got a buzz. No big deal. But within that week, I was drinking every day. And within that month, I'm drinking around the clock. And two months of that, two months of a straight whiskey diet will do a lot of damage. It will do a lot of damage. The first time I was out there, I was a blackout drinker. I was not so lucky this time. I got to remember and feel everything I said and did. And that was hell. Because although I was physically getting drunk, and I was getting some very temporary relief, you people fucked me up with what you were saying it means. You guys really screwed up my drinking. And actually one of the first things I did when I started drinking was, I erased all my MP3s, threw out all my tapes, because I did not want to have any more reminder than I already had. So, about two months into that I'm a, if I don't have a drink every two or three hours, I start to convulse. The DTs are bad. I'm dying from alcohol and my sponsor calls. And I don't know about you, but when I'm drinking a couple of fists of whiskey a day and my sponsor calls, I let that go to voicemail. I'll check that one later. And I did check it. And here's, you know, it talks about it in the book. You know, here's a jumping off place. I know I can't drink. I can't keep doing this because I'm destroying myself. You know, I'm spiritually dead. I'm dying physically. Morally, I'm completely bankrupt, right? But I can't stop drinking because I'm going to die from the alcohol withdrawal. What the hell do you do? You know, what do you do? So I said that prayer that I said the first time I got sober. At one point, it's really easy to get on your knees and pray when you're convulsing on your living room floor. Just your knees is the next point to standing on. And so I stopped there on my knees and I just said, help. And I picked up the phone and I called my sponsor. I told him exactly what had been going on. And when I got off the phone with him, I'm sitting on the back porch smoking a cigarette and my bartender, who actually lived below me, came out the walker dog and she asked me what was going on. So I told her basically everything I just told you, right? From when I started drinking up to that point. And she asked, and so I tell her, and she looks me dead in the eye, and she says, I know somebody in the program, do you want me to have them give you a call? I need no further proof that my higher power works in my life. My bartender got me back into the room of Alcoholics Anonymous. Straight up. And sure enough, this guy came over, and he had three months. And he took me to a meeting, and at the end of that meeting, I'm falling to pieces. I mean, I'm starting to foam at the mouth, I'm shaking, and it's Halloween night in Savannah. And there's no way he's getting me into a detox Halloween night in Savannah. So he took me back to my house, and he sat with me at my kitchen table until I drank the night through, so I wouldn't die in my sleep. And we talked the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I told him my story, he told me his story. We talked about the joy that we found in these rooms. We talked about the fact that if we practice these principles, the state I was in is impossible to repeat. I practiced these steps in my life. I tried to do this as a way of life. And I went to the detox the next day and I was separated from alcohol for hopefully the last time. And I moved back up to DC and I got right back in the middle. There was no other choice for me. For me, I have to live this on a daily basis, or I am a dead man. Straight up, I got two solutions in this world. One is alcohol and one is Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm not going to live alone on alcohol. It's not going to work. I got right back in to the steps. I did work through the steps again with my sponsor. I was actually six months sober. Again, my higher power is working on my life and I was blessed to be offered a position to work on my inner group. I took an assistant position there and six months later, I took the manager's position. My entire life is Alcoholics Anonymous. And for me, that's the only way to do it. That's the only way I can guarantee my sobriety is if I start in the morning by asking for help. Throughout the day, I continue to ask for help and try to help somebody else. You know, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I cannot describe the difference between my first sobriety when I was working a program and my sobriety now. It's on a completely different plane. It is on a completely different plane. This is not to say that if I stop praying, I stop working these stuffs, I stop trying to help somebody else, I know for a fact I will drink again. That experience I just told you about, that relapse and that recover and what I'm even doing now in my life, is not a shield against them. It's what am I doing today? What am I doing today? Am I trying to practice these principles in all my affairs? And believe me, trying to practice these principles in all my affairs, especially the twelfth tradition, that last part, principles before personalities, try doing that in a relationship. That's not fun. It's not fun, but it's what's got to happen. You know, it's what we have to do here. I have been shown and given a way of life that is beyond explanation. You know, I can't draw a straight line from where I started out when I was 16 to where I am now, 35. The only explanation for me today is that there is a higher power that is active in my life because I am active in it. That's it. That's it. When we talk about in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, its whole purpose is to bring us into conscious contact with a higher power that can relieve our alcoholism and solve all our problems. And so every day, I start my day thanking that higher power. And I don't try to figure it out. It could be the force for all I know. I just ask it for help and I thank it. And I just try to do the next right thing. And really for me, that has been probably the hardest principle in this program. Because, see, I'm a perfectionist with an inferiority complex. So if I know I can't do it right, I'm not even bothered. I'm not even bothered trying. But what you all have shown me is if I just try to take the next right action, if I just suit up and show up and put my hand out there, I got a chance. I got a chance. And I love you all and I thank you for my sobriety. And I want to thank the committee for asking me to come out here and be a part of this. This has been a great weekend so far.

Speaker 1:
[39:53] I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Speaker 4:
[39:54] Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[40:02] Thanks, Tom. You touched on a lot of things that I definitely could relate to. First, that geographical cure, which I didn't even realize until I got into the rooms. I moved from New Jersey to New York, and I thought, okay, this is it, I'm good, nobody knows me here, and I can drink the way I want to, and no one's going to judge me. And that clearly did not work out. And thinking that being homeless is acceptable. I'm right there with you, I don't know who I thought I was, but I thought that this was normal. You know, to be drinking and drugging in New York by myself, you know, things like that, that we're just, you know, walking around and so caught up in the disease that you don't even know what's right from wrong. And I love what you said about trying to not figure it out. And I think, you know, for me, the gift of desperation is the biggest gift that I've gotten out of this program. You know, it's a simple program for complicated people, as my sponsor has told me, and the best thing that's been able to help me is that, you know, I give up. I really just give up. And I'll do anything that you guys tell me to do, and I'm not going to try and figure it out. So with that, I'm going to bring up our last speaker, which is Raina, and she's here from Detroit, Michigan.

Speaker 5:
[41:27] Hi, my name is Rayna, I'm an alcoholic. And I have to time myself, because my first open talk was an hour in ten minutes, and I was really offended when people started getting up and walking out at an hour. Because I was just about to complete talking about my drinking, and get to the good stuff, and they walked out, so it's fine, it doesn't hurt that much, though. I really don't want to be here, and I don't want to speak. At all. And I really like attention, but more than liking attention, I dislike telling the truth. I mean, honestly and sincerely, I dislike telling the truth. I don't want to stand in front of a group of people and tell the truth. I would rather be cute and funny, and never let any of you know me. And that's the way I am. After years of sobriety, I still don't feel comfortable doing it. I don't, and I just don't want to. And, you know, I recoil at the idea of being vulnerable. And so, here I am. And Katya told me, okay, she asked me to speak, and I asked her what I was talking about. I just said yes. And then she told me she would try to be here to hear me speak, because I told her I really didn't want to speak. And then she left a finger puppet, because if she didn't get back in time, I could talk to the llama or goat. I'm not sure what it is. So, thanks for having me here, Katya. That's great. I, I know, right? I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I was 14 years old. And, it was April 4th of 1998. And, I really didn't want to be in AA, but I wasn't, I wasn't really sure if I was crazy or not. But I knew that the drinking was a problem. I wasn't sure if it was the drinking or some of the outside issues that I had going on. But, but it was a problem. And people around me were dying. And I, somewhere in the back of my head kept thinking, like, I'm 14, like, this can't really be happening. But I was blessed in that I knew that Alcoholics Anonymous existed. My father, before he died, was a member of AA. And so I knew AA involved pig roast, motorcycle groups, and dances. I wasn't really sure how you guys stayed Sober, but I knew that you didn't drink. And so I came to AA not really liking pig roasts. But I like dancing. So I thought AA is really going to help me. And I kind of hung out in AA for a few years, you know. I spent like two and a half years. That's not true. I came to AA. Can I move this closer to me? I feel it's very far away. Okay. I came to AA and I was told very early on that I needed a sponsor. So I found someone that I didn't think would... Well, I asked her if she'd work the steps and she said, no, not really, but I'm trying and I thought, you're perfect and they really didn't want to do a lot. Then later on, I was told that if you do service, you'll stay sober. So I immediately got on a young people's committee and just tried to just be the annoying girl in the business meeting. So I did that for a couple of years until finally, the not drinking and the living in my own skin became absolutely unbearable. At that time, I was 16 years old and I was really still pretty scared of drinking. I'd been around AA for long enough that I'd heard enough stuff that I thought maybe I should really give the steps like a serious try. I mean, okay, so my first fourth step, after I got done reading it and my sponsor didn't say anything, we then ripped it up. We should have, I mean, at the time, I didn't know that you need that to make your bliss, the people to make amends to like, you're going to need your fourth step. But she wasn't done that step yet, so we didn't know what we were doing. And so I thought maybe I'll find like a real sponsor who's actually done the steps first, and then we'll do them together. So that's where I was at two and a half years sober. And I decided to get a real sponsor. And honestly, I was requested by the people that I was trying to do service with, that I finally get a real sponsor, and I stopped making up the stuff she was telling me, because they didn't believe that people would say that. So I got a real sponsor, and I worked the steps, and I was in love with Alcoholics Anonymous, absolutely in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I spent a few years, I mean, we were just, we were hanging out, AA and I, and I was going to young people's, and I was going to all these meetings, and I was, you know, no more than one a day though, because newcomers do two a day and they're crazy. So I was only going to one a day. And you know, I loved AA and I was happy and I was bubbly and I loved Alcoholics Anonymous. And then what happened was people started giving me suggestions and I don't know, somewhere in there it shifted because I got this attitude, well, I've been sober since I was 14, and I think I know how to do this. I'm pretty sure. You were old when you got sober, and being young when you get sober, it's like you live this, you know, you didn't, you live it and it becomes a part of you. So I'm pretty sure I don't need you to tell me what to do. I decided when I was 18, I was in college, I graduated sober, I graduated high school sober, went through all of high school sober and graduated sober and decided that I was going to go to college and be Ernest Hemingway. Oh, I talked to the little Obama goat guy, but I'm so glad you're here. Okay, so I decided after my first semester of college that I should drop out of my car or drop out of college, move into my car and just live in my car. I was three and a half years sober and I did it. And you know what, I got to be really honest, it was a great decision. It was an absolutely fantastic decision at the time that I made it. Any of you that are thinking about moving into your car, I highly recommend it. It's like an amazing process of self-discovery. I started driving around the country, going to young people's conventions and sleeping on AA people's couches. I had this absolutely fantastic time. I wasn't exactly being responsible, but I was sober in AA and absolutely loving being sober and being 18. And then I decided to start backpacking internationally, and that went really, really well for me. Until one day, I was sitting in the belly of Mexico, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, and for no, absolutely no reason, the thought occurred to me that maybe I wasn't really alcoholic. Because there were things that I hadn't really told people my first five years that I was here. Like there were things that happened that I did and that I was a part of that when I was drinking, that I just really didn't know how to tell someone. Even though we have a fourth step and we have a fifth step, and I just really didn't know how to tell people. I didn't really know how I felt about those things, and I just didn't know how to get right with it. I couldn't even wrap my brain around it, and I kept having these thoughts that were coming up about it, and I would get really upset, and I would get emotional and worked up about them. But then I would think to myself, like, I can't explain this to you guys because you like me now, now that I've worked the steps, kind of. You like me now, and I don't really want to tell you. I don't. And I've always had this, like, relationship with myself where I'm pretty much unworthy of any sort of love, care, affection, and if you treat me poorly, I'll like you a lot, though. And so, I'm sitting in the belly of Mexico, and the thought occurs to me that maybe I'm not really alcoholic. And I knew, though, because I had been sober since I was 14, I told you how I felt about that, that I was vastly superior, that maybe there was something wrong with my thinking about this whole not being an alcoholic thing, because I could relate to the drinking, especially the breaking the furniture, love that, repeatedly broke entertainment centers by like accidentally falling into them, and people were so upset about that. Like I just felt that they just had this ridiculous response to me breaking their furniture. It was an accident. Another thing, you know, like I couldn't really drink orange juice because I used it as a mixer for so long that I just couldn't stomach the taste of orange juice when I got sober. But those things, I was like, no, no, no, I'm different. I'm different because I'm different. And I had all of these reasons why I was different. I had these things that had happened in my childhood and I had things that had happened when I was drinking and that made me different. And I didn't want to talk about them in AA. And so when I had the thought that maybe I'm not an alcoholic and I had all this pride, I had so much pride, so much pride, that there was only a few people that I was willing to call and tell the truth to. And they were the people that didn't really work the steps in AA because they didn't intimidate me because the people that read the big book and worked the steps in AA kind of intimidated me. They made me a little nervous. And so I found, I came up with this idea to call one person and she didn't answer her phone. And I figured, well, you know, I tried. I tried really hard. Yeah. And at five years in one month, I drank. And I cried about it. I want to, I think that's very important. I was going to miss all of you, which will be, which will come up with my current life experience because I was going to miss all of you. Even though I didn't like you and couldn't really relate to you, I was going to miss you. So I drank and I stayed drunk for a few weeks. And things went really poorly as well. The first time I got drunk involved the situation with the federales. And then we had to bury the drugs and leave immediately. That was the beginning of like my reentry back into drinking. But I figured, you know what? Mexico, whatever, not really such a good place. Little stringent, like let's go to Guatemala. And it went poorly, guys. Like it just went poorly. And I ended up, I ended up in this hostel. They wanted to kick me out because I kept flushing the toilet after they turned off the electricity, which was apparently backing up their whole system, which I was like, you're overreacting. Um, raw sewage is nothing to be that concerned about. I ended up on my knees begging God to get sober again. Um, I was stuck in this village and I wasn't really sure how to get out. And I wasn't really sure the village that I was in. And I didn't know how I'd gotten there at 19 years old after I'd spent five years in AA. Like I couldn't figure out how I got drunk and how it was in this village. And I remember thinking, you know, if I drank myself to death down here, I don't think the people back home would know. Like I don't think they would ever know what happened to me. Like I could drop off the face of the earth and I don't think they would know what happened to me. And like how did I go from being a good girl in AA that did all of her step work and sponsored and helped people to like drinking? You know, like how does that happen? And like the problem was I had so much AA in my head and I had so much guilt that like I couldn't even drink enough to block it out. Like that's the truth. Like I couldn't drink enough to block out my conscious contact with God. Couldn't do it. And like I never thought that that would be possible that I could hear God while drunk. But there I am, drunk, missing AA, missing all these people that I didn't want to tell the truth to. And it sucked. It sucked really, really bad. And so I begged God to let me come back to AA. And I remember telling God that if I could come back to AA, I knew that it wasn't like a faucet, that I could turn on and off, and I would stay in AA, and I would do the step work, like really honestly do the step work, and I would I would do service. And you know, there's this, there's a friend of mine in AA, and he talks about not being a thief in Alcoholics Anonymous, that AA gives you this life, and do not just take it and not give back to AA. And I remember thinking that I didn't want to be a thief in Alcoholics Anonymous, like I want to give back to AA for the life that it's given me. So somewhere between Guatemala, this prayer, and a water taxi that I took out of the village, I got sober. By sober, I mean I stopped drinking. I came back to the United States, and I remember I had this great resolve while I was in, I flew into Chicago, and at some point, in customs, I remember in my head saying to myself, like, I'm going to tell everyone the truth when I get back to Detroit. The problem was, somewhere over like Michigan, flying back into Detroit, I started thinking that there was this campout, this young people's campout that happened every July, and I was flying back just in time for it, and I didn't really, like, I wanted to go with this guy, and I knew that he wouldn't go with me if I had less than a year, because I'd have to hang out with the women. And so I didn't, maybe after the campout, I would tell everyone that I drank, because I didn't want to have less than a year. And then we made eyeballs at each other at the campout, and I knew we were going to get back together, and he had been sober, like, seven or eight or nine years, or something like that, at the time, and I thought, you know, like, he wouldn't be so bad to marry, but he probably won't marry me if I'm a newcomer. Maybe I should buy a house if I'm going to do this staying sober thing. I got married and bought a house. I took my six-year token. I took my seven-year token. And then I had a bright light spiritual experience where God came up and drop-kicked me in the stomach. It hurt really bad. And then one day, it was Thanksgiving, I decided that I couldn't hide out in Alcoholics Anonymous anymore. Like I had this thought that told me that I had to tell the truth no matter what. Like I had to get up and tell the truth in front of everybody, no matter what, no matter how I felt about it. Even if I was telling all of you that I wasn't really worthy of your love, care and affection that I had drank because I was terrified of drinking again, which was not something that I wanted to do. I had to go to the women that I sponsored at the time and tell them, you know what, I haven't really been sober seven years. I've been sober two years. And it was one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. I stood up in front of groups where I took treasury positions that required a definite amount of sobriety. And I told them that I had lied about my sobriety day. I didn't want to be a newcomer again in AA. I clung to my pride so much. I am so prideful, I will tell you how prideful I am. I want to be the most prideful girl in the room, that's how prideful I am. It's crazy. It's crazy the things that I come up with. But when I don't write an inventory, I come up with these solutions in my head as to how I should live life and the way it's going to look. Like I think I shouldn't, my alcoholism, I think to myself, I'm not drinking, so it's okay to marry someone in AA and buy a house and not tell them that I drank a few weeks ago. And here's the deal about how great of a liar I am. Nobody knew I drank. Nobody knew I drank for years. And I was the only one, I was the only one that knew that I had really drank. Like, I mean seriously guys, like I have gone to everybody and told them that I drank and everyone was like really? We didn't really think you'd, wow. So when I put all this value on how you guys see me, the truth of the matter is, is like the relationship between me and God is what was most important. You know, and like I couldn't trust God and I couldn't be honest with myself and I ran around in AA absolutely dry drunk, absolutely dry drunk. And you know, from that point forward, there was a woman, she's my service sponsor now, her name is Christine. And from that point forward, I promised Christine that I would tell the truth no matter what. I was like, I'm going to tell the truth no matter what because I'm absolutely terrified of drinking again. Because what I've learned is that drinking doesn't give me that sense of release that it gave me. It doesn't. Like I can have a head full of God, and full of AA, right? And I want to say something about this God thing. I only say God because it's convenient. I view myself slightly Christian. I really like some of the Jewish beliefs. I love the Hindu religion. I'm a big, big, huge fan. You know, like, I mean, it's all a mix in there. I was dating this Muslim guy for a while. That looks really nice. So I say God because it's convenient, you know, but really it's just like a collective consciousness of the spirit. And when I hide out from God, and I hide out from myself by not doing inventory work, and when I hide out in Alcoholics Anonymous because I can do it, and I've been doing it for the last, okay, November of last year. I've been doing it since November of last year, where like I've slowly, slowly got my sponsorship down to where I'm only sponsoring a couple women. And I go to service meetings, and I don't really like going to regular meetings because people are whiny and I want to shake them. And I've gotten to the point where I've started thinking that, you know, maybe I don't need to be in AA anymore. Like maybe, maybe I'll just not drink and not go to meetings, and maybe I'll get married again. I've been thinking about buying a house. Like I will seriously find any other solution other than working the 12 steps and working with other alcoholics to see Sober. Like I will do it because, and I tell myself that maybe it's okay. You know, like maybe it's okay. Maybe I can just live this existence of not really being fully happy. But here's the deal. I have this relationship with God, which I can't escape, cannot escape it. I don't know about you guys. Maybe you can, but from what I've heard, even if you like drink to try to get away from yourself and God, it doesn't work. That's just what I've gathered from AA meetings so far. I don't want to be that person who is absolutely unhappy in AA. I don't want to be that person anymore. I don't want to be the person that ends up in the belly of Mexico crying because I'm going to miss AA, when the truth of the matter is, AA is there. AA is there. It's in Mexico. I don't know if you guys knew this. It's worldwide. It's crazy. But it's in Mexico. And I get these ideas and these beliefs in my head about who I am and about who I have to be in AA. And the truth of the matter is, I'm just as new as I was the day that I got honest with everybody about drinking. And I'm just as new as the first meeting that I went to when I was 14 years old and absolutely terrified and not sure if I was alcoholic. I'm just as new today. And I don't like to remain that teachable and I don't like to remain that open. I'd rather be seen as a guru of Alcoholics Anonymous. Which is funny, I said that to someone outside of AA. One time, my friend Jillian, she's a nurse, and we were having this conversation. I was trying to explain AA to her. And I was like, she's like, well, are you like, you know, like what, okay, so you're sober for a few years, you still use AA things. She's like, how does it really go for you? Like, do people really look up to you? And I was like, I don't know if they really look up to me. I'm not really sure. And she's like, I don't know if I really want to be like the best alcoholic of all alcoholics right now. Like, in the way she said it, I was like, maybe I don't want to be like, maybe I don't want to be the leader AA in all of AA, but maybe I secretly do. My relationship with AA, it changes, it varies. Like, it changes from year to year. And I get this idea sometimes that because I've been sober for a little while, that I know more, and really, honestly, like I've had bright light spiritual experiences and I've had spiritual experiences of the educational variety, and this is what I've learned. I don't really know. I don't really know. I don't really know. I just know that I don't want to drink today. And what's happened lately is that I don't really love AA. And so I've started dedicating meetings to various members of AA. Like, for example, Tuesday, I went to this meeting for Christine, who has loved me through all of my sobriety since I was 14 years old, and absolutely insane through every single business meeting where I wanted to call point of order even when there wasn't emotion. You know what I mean? Like this woman has put up with me. So Tuesday, I dedicated my meeting to Christine because she loved me. And Sunday, I dedicated my meeting to Eddie because he was there at my first open talk when I had to tell everybody that I had drank and lied for two years about it. And he sat there in the front row and he cried with me. And at the end of it, he came up to me and said, I drank last week and I didn't want to tell anybody. So what I've learned about being honest about relapse and honest about where I am and my recovery is that I absolutely have to tell the truth because that's how we stay sober. Like it's how we stay sober. And I don't know about everybody else and how they stay sober or connected to God. I know for me that I cannot live within my own skin and not get drunk and be dishonest. Like that's what I've learned. And I think that there's, you know, if you talk to various people and I have been sober for a long time, which I try to prick their brains on a regular basis unless they say something I don't like and then I don't go near them. But the people that I like that have been sober for a long time, they usually generally have one theme that they're working on at that point in time. And I don't know, maybe one day I'll get off the honesty theme. I'm not really sure. Maybe when I get comfortable with being honest. I know that today I want to be sober and I want to be a member of AA. And today that's enough for me. Thanks for listening to me. I want to thank the other speakers who spoke before me who maybe gave a little more of a uniform talk. I really am glad to be here. Thank you again, Katya, for asking me to speak.

Speaker 3:
[64:54] Okay. We have a couple minutes. I usually have something to say for everything, and I'm honestly speechless right now. So if anybody else wants to take a shot at it, feel free. The mic is open. We have a few minutes if anyone has questions for the speakers, or just wants to comment, feel free. Sure, just come on up to the mic so it can be recorded. Oh, sorry. Should have mentioned that before, shouldn't I?

Speaker 6:
[65:23] Hi, I'm Megan, and I'm an alcoholic. And this is really weird for me, because I have never, I have not given a speech, like I've never talked at a meeting, like, you know, this is, I'm the speaker meeting and I'm the speaker. No, I've never done that before, so this is a really weird position for me to be in. But I just wanted to say that I can completely relate to just the pride and the thinking and you know, I got sober a year ago at at 19 and recently, you know, I turned 20 and then I started thinking about my 21st birthday and I started, you know, recently I've had those thoughts where it's like, well, maybe, maybe it would be just okay, you know, maybe one day I won't, I won't be an AA. I'll just not drink. And like, even though I know that that doesn't work for me, because before I started drinking, I was crazy. Like I was, I was a dry drunk. My entire high school experience, my entire middle school experience, I swear to God, I was dry drunk in preschool. But, and that scares me because once I turned 21, like there is nothing stopping me from getting as much booze as I want to. So, and the only thing sometimes that stops me is that I, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would make it back to the program because I wouldn't want to pick up a white chip. Like that pride would stop me. So I can really relate to that thinking. And I'm so glad that like you shared about that. And it's, it's good to hear that I'm not alone in those thoughts because I know they're crazy. I just don't know. Like, and I know if I stay around long enough, it will stop because it happens every time. But sometimes it, sometimes I still get scared. So thanks for letting me share.

Speaker 3:
[67:16] Thanks for sharing.

Speaker 1:
[67:26] Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Sober Cast is ad-free, and we'd like your help in order to keep it that way. So if you'd like to help us be self-supporting by pledging a dollar or two a month, visit sobercast.com and look for the donate links. Thank you very much.