Finding Relief Through Sobriety: Annie's Journey

I would like to introduce our main speaker, Annie A.

Thank you.

Annie, alcoholic.

I don't ever need a microphone.

I'd like to thank Alex for asking me to speak and Mariana for suggesting him that he asked

me to speak.

You guys are a really nice bunch.

Jerry and Bridget, did I get your names right?

You guys were awesome.

I'm like, oh yeah, y'all are going to be disappointed and I'm the main act.

Anyways, it's an honor and a privilege to speak at an AA meeting and to participate

in my own sobriety.

I hope that what I have to say helps somebody.

It's my story.

It hasn't changed and the whole time I've been sober, so here it goes.

My sobriety date is February 19th, 1991.

I have a sponsor, Jane W. I'm coming up on 29 years.

Alcohol stopped working for me.

If it still worked for me, there'd be another speaker up here tonight.

I was born and raised in Santa Monica, California.

When I grew up in Santa Monica, it wasn't this shishy place.

It is now.

It was just this quiet, little, small town because people hear, oh, you're from Santa

Monica.

It's like, yeah, no, no.

It wasn't me.

I had, I guess, a pretty normal childhood.

I had two parents.

I was loved.

When I was three, my mother had a massive stroke and she was in the hospital for, I

don't know, a couple of years.

I was three.

I don't really remember a lot.

I have like little blips of what my mother was, like little memories of my mother before

she came out of the hospital.

But when she did, she walked out of the hospital.

She was in the hospital.

She was in the hospital.

She was in the hospital.

She walked with a cane.

She had no peripheral vision, so she couldn't drive.

And she was different, so I felt different.

You know, I didn't have a normal mother.

That was my problem.

I felt like everyone that shared at the podium, you guys all knew how to act and I didn't.

You guys all had the instruction.

You were comfortable in your own skin.

I was not.

Honestly, if my mother didn't have a stroke, I'd probably still be an alcoholic and I probably

would have still felt different.

It just would have been something different, but that's how I felt different.

And she was a constant embarrassment.

And I just felt all through school, everyone else had a normal life and I didn't.

And I was very shy at school.

Nobody who knows me nowadays believes I've ever was shy, but at home I was okay.

I was comfortable around cousins or people I knew.

But if I didn't know you and if I was at school, I was terrified to talk.

I was terrified to read.

I was terrified to answer questions, even if I knew the answers.

If I was picked on or bullied, I'd never tell an adult or my parents.

I don't know why, I just felt that there was something wrong with me and that I deserved

it.

I would have been great for a child molester, thank God I never was, but never, ever talked

about feelings.

I was raised, I was born in 1960, so I was raised when everything had to look good from

the outside.

As long as it looked good on the outside, y'all went to mass on Sunday, didn't matter

how you acted during the week, but everything had to look good.

So that's how I was raised.

And I'm a nice Irish Catholic girl.

I'm a Catholic.

So drinking was normal in our family.

Getting drunk was not normal in our family, but drinking was normal in our family.

Every holiday when we had First Holy Communions and stuff, the big question was where to put

the bar because that was going to be the most crowded room.

My dad had two drinks every night before dinner.

He used a jigger because he didn't want it to be too strong.

When I got older, that didn't make any sense to me.

My mother drank a lot.

She was an embarrassment.

She would get drunk and she would get sloppy, and I always was going to drink alcohol when

I got older because it was hip, slick, and cool.

When I grew up, there were the Thin Man movies and Auntie Mame and a lot of the movies from

the 30s.

People who are old like me are shaking their head, excuse me for calling you old.

I've been told by my students I'm old.

I'm turning 60 this year.

I always watched movies, and there was a TV show called M.A.S.H. where they would play

checkers with shots.

I don't know.

Drinking just looked really cool.

Hangovers even looked cool.

I couldn't wait to do it.

My family would go out, and the adults would order their cocktails.

We'd have Shirley Tentles.

Moving right along, everyone talks about their first drink.

I didn't have a first drink because we had sips of our parents' drink.

I remember one Christmas Eve, we were allowed to have champagne.

Every time we had parties, we'd have our own cocktails, and we'd pretend to smoke, and

we were all very adult.

I just couldn't wait to grow up so I could drink.

When I was in high school, I remember the first drunk.

I never felt popular.

I never felt with it.

I never felt like I belonged.

I had friends in high school.

I was with the cool crowd.

I just never felt like I belonged, and I was just waiting.

I was just never comfortable.

I don't know what it was.

Anyone that identifies with it, when I had my first drunk, I didn't care if I belonged.

I just felt that relief.

That relief.

Yeah.

That sigh of relief.

I've heard it described as my shoulders finally relaxed.

I felt cool.

I had fun.

I had something.

I don't know.

It was ale or something.

It was like a really strong beer, but I had it at a party in high school.

I don't remember a lot about that party, but I remember the next day, everyone was talking

about me, and I got a lot of attention, and boy, from then on, I wanted to have a drink

at a party.

If I went to a party in high school and there was no alcohol, it wasn't going to be any

fun.

I was supposed to get out of high school.

You talked about being great at school.

I don't know.

I got Bs and Cs.

It was the 60s, and I was supposed to get married and have children, and school was

not a career for me.

In high school, I went to classes.

I was on the swim team.

I was boys volleyball team manager, and every Friday night, we were drinking beer, and there

was a kegger, and I was having parties, and it was fun.

I didn't really care about college or going anywhere.

I think I went to SMC for a year.

Actually, let me correct myself.

I signed up for classes.

I showed up the first week or two.

They had something called a syllabus, and they wanted us to do stuff, and they would

explain what it was, and oh my God, it sounded really hard.

I was not smart.

I was just waiting for him to come along because he was going to support me because I was born

in 1960, and that's how it was.

Women got married, and their husbands took care of them.

That's how I was raised.

Real tricky, though, because it was the 70s, and things started to change.

Anyways, I got a job at Henshey's Department Store in Santa Monica, and I made $2.50 an

hour.

I was making minimum wage.

I hung out with some older people.

We'd go to the bowling alley, and we'd get drunk and shift ahead because I don't have

that long to talk.

You guys talked.

Bridget got pregnant.

She had a child.

You had a career.

I don't know how long you've been teaching.

I didn't teach until after sobriety.

I've heard speakers.

They went to college.

They got married.

They had jobs.

They had this.

They had that.

That's not my story.

I got drunk and stayed drunk.

I don't know how you people functioned.

I did work in a couple restaurants.

But luckily, I got a job.

I got a job.

But the alcoholism really took hold of me.

I graduated from high school in 1978, and the 80s came around, and one of the outside

issues in the 80s was that white stuff.

And yeah, that accelerated my drinking because a great big line of that and shots of tequila,

and I was off and running.

And what happened was, again, I was a cocktail witch, which was a great job for an alcoholic.

The busboys all dealt drugs to us, and we could drink all we wanted.

We had a lot of fun.

We had a lot of fun.

And I would lose jobs.

I argued that I didn't want that job.

There was another restaurant that was hiring me, so I let it go.

I got too drunk to show up for work.

We would close down the restaurant, open up the service bar, and party all night until

the morning crew was coming.

And then that was my life.

And that was when I was functioning.

And then it got to where I really was having some problems.

I was losing jobs, and I didn't have another one lined up.

I was starting to feel the heat.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

Alcoholism.

I swear I don't remember when it happened, but the list of stuff that I needed to be comfortable for to be okay got to be so big that I couldn't get out of bed without a drink.

I was having trouble getting to work because I would be drinking and doing drugs all night, and it would be 2 in the afternoon, and I didn't want to stop drinking.

And yeah, I had a job to get to, and I actually needed a job because they paid me for showing up, but that powerlessness, that step one, powerless over alcohol, I so identify with it because once I took a drink, it took me.

And as I said, I started losing jobs.

I drank at home alone.

I didn't drink in bars anymore.

I worked at Acapulco's, and it was maybe five, six minutes from my house, but the time that I had to leave the bar at Acapulco's to the time I got home without a drink,

that five.

To seven minutes was way too long, so I drank at home alone.

This will shock you, but my romantic life was not going too well.

I was still looking for him.

Drinking at home alone and passing out is not really an attraction for you, and I put a lot of emphasis on guys because I needed a guy to fix me because he was coming along.

Like I said, I was born in 1960, and in the mid-70s, something changed.

It was women's lib, and women went to work, and I was still waiting for him.

He did not come along.

What did come along was my disease.

It was in full swing.

People who think it's cool to drink, and oh, yeah, I had fun.

I partied.

My disease took me to I needed to have a drink to get out of bed in the morning, and oftentimes, I would just chug out of the bottle of vodka that I had next to my bed, and sometimes, I'd throw some of it up, and I'd keep drinking, and eventually, enough would stay down, and I'd be off and running.

This is why I didn't have a career.

This is why I was not married.

This is why I did not have children.

My disease took me really quickly.

It's fortunate because I got sober at 31, but I had about a two-year spin where I was just drunk around the clock.

I had very few sober moments.

I was driving around drunk.

When I talk about it, it just floors me how bad my disease was.

I would lose jobs.

My father, God, he was the best enabler.

I love my dad.

He would help me pay my rent and things, and life wasn't good, and there was something wrong.

It had to be.

That white-powdered stuff because I'm a nice Irish Catholic girl.

My whole family drank.

That was a normal thing, so it wasn't the alcohol.

It was the white-powdered stuff, and I was going to quit that.

My definition of quitting it was if I had to buy it or if it was a school night.

I didn't go to school, and I didn't work at a school, but I referred to it as school night.

If I had to work the next day, I would not do it.

If it was offered to me for free, yeah, I was there.

I really did stop doing a lot of the white-powdered stuff.

And I kind of was a little perplexed because I got just as high off of booze as I ever did off of the other stuff.

And I'm like, oh, shoot, I could have saved myself a lot of money.

And, yeah, my disease of alcoholism was kind of staring me in the face because I knew that drinking wasn't good for me.

And I would just, it was Thursday night, I was going to have a couple glasses of wine.

Wine is okay.

Ladies drink wine.

It's okay to have a couple glasses of wine.

I don't know what happened.

But this is my disease.

I would come to on Sunday with two empty wine bottles and two empty vodka bottles.

And I remember Sunday, I would be in a cold sweat, and I'd be shaking.

And I wouldn't want that drink, but I would need that drink.

And I'd just gulp the vodka, and I'd hold it in my mouth, and it tasted awful.

And I'd swallow it.

I didn't want to drink anymore, but I didn't know how to live.

And that would be Sunday.

Monday, I would be in a cold sweat.

Tuesday, I'd be a little better.

By Wednesday, I'd be okay.

I'd be feeling somewhat okay.

And by Thursday, I was just going to have a drink.

I was just going to have a glass.

Wine is what ladies drink.

It was okay.

It wasn't a lot of alcohol.

I was going to have a glass of wine.

You guessed it.

I'd come to Sunday with the vodka bottles and the wine.

I didn't know what to do.

I knew that if I had a drink, I figured out I had the good sense.

If I had a drink, it took me.

I do need to let you know that I would come out of blackouts,

and there would be people in my home who I didn't know.

There would be days that I wouldn't remember.

It didn't dawn upon me this was not normal behavior.

Luckily, I got...

I got my one and only DUI.

How I only got one DUI, I don't know.

But if you guys don't believe in a higher power,

I'm here to tell you I do because I drove drunk at least six months,

and I only got one DUI, and nobody got killed,

and I didn't get killed, and that's a miracle,

and that's someone looking out for me,

and I thank God every day that I didn't have to go through that

because I know people that did come in after killing someone.

I don't know if I could have dealt with that.

But I got my one and only DUI.

It was a Halloween party at Toppers.

It was a restaurant bar in San Francisco.

Santa Monica.

I showed up drunk.

I left drunk.

I came out of a driveway.

I don't remember a lot.

The 80s is like really a fog because I just don't remember a lot.

I used to have to fill out job applications.

I'm like, I know I worked at places, but I don't know where.

Thank God I don't have to do that anymore.

Anyways, I came out, and I guess I made a wide left turn,

and I hit some construction pylons.

I don't know, and this one lady was making a great big deal,

and they called the police, and I'm like, what the heck?

I spent the night in the Santa Monica drunk tank.

Actually, not that big a deal.

For me, I was mortified.

Oh, my God, I was going to jail, and I'd never been to jail,

and they actually handcuff you, and they don't put your handcuffs on

so they're in front so you're comfortable.

They have them behind your back, and then they put you in a car,

and that's really not conducive to comfort.

I don't know about these police officers, but they were in front.

I remember trying to get them in front, and he goes, what are you doing?

I said, I'm not comfortable, and he's like looking at me like,

lady, just stay still.

So anyways, I spent the night in the Santa Monica drunk tank,

and I got released on what they called my own recognizance.

I didn't know what that meant.

My father picked me up that next morning,

and I was just totally mortified that I'd spent the night in jail.

It's like I said, I heard people go to Twin Towers now.

I got off easy.

I actually was lucky because I got my DUI in October.

My sobriety date's February, by the way, and that was the end of October,

and that mandatory that you had to go to jail if you got a DUI happened in 91,

and my DUI was in.

It was in 1990, so yeah, I was really lucky.

Anyways, my father took me home.

He decided that it was a good idea that I never drank again,

and I went home, and I was upset because I spent the night in jail,

and it was not a fun party, and I needed a drink,

and I had a bottle of vodka, and I had to look for it.

I had a one-bedroom apartment, and I used to hide my bottles,

and I was looking all over for my bottles.

I've heard lots of people that hide their bottles.

The thing is I lived alone, so I still to this day don't know

why I was hiding my bottles.

But I had to find it, and I did, and I drank it,

and I was never going to drink and drive again.

My father says, I don't think you should drink again.

I said, well, I'm not going to drink and drive again,

and he looked at me like, I don't know, and he didn't know what to do.

He suggested AA because I had cousins in the program.

Now I think they'd charge you for that.

Anyways, so I got my DUI at the end of October, and I did drive drunk.

I remember another time.

I swore I wasn't, and I don't even remember the circumstances, but I was.

And you know when you have enough alcohol,

and you feel real brave.

Luckily, I didn't get pulled over by the cops.

Luckily, I did not have any trouble.

But when I went to court, they sentenced me to so many AA meetings,

and I had to go to this like alcohol counseling classes.

I don't know.

My dad paid for it.

My dad was a really good guy.

He was an enabler.

And I showed up, and basically it was kind of like AA.

We would share.

This guy Norm would come and share, and Norm had done everything.

After Norm shared.

He was the leader.

You're really comfortable sharing just about anything, because he had done it all.

And I met some guys there, and I'd always gotten along with guys better than girls.

And so, by the way, I have to back step.

I didn't call this place, the alcohol counseling place, until the day of the deadline.

I was a procrastinator.

That was one of my biggest defects.

And I waited until that day, and I guess it was around February.

No, actually it was end of January, beginning of February.

Anyways, I called.

And the woman asked if I had a problem with alcohol.

And I don't know why, but I said yes.

And I had the phone to me, and I said yes.

And then I pulled it away, because I was waiting for her to scream and tell me what a weak,

awful person I was.

And most people can handle their alcohol.

And there was something wrong with me.

Because that's how I was made to feel, because alcoholics were the people in the gutters

with the raincoats and all that stuff.

And I was just waiting for her to yell at me.

But I pulled the phone away, because I knew I was going to get yelled at.

But what happened was, she said,

I said, that's okay, I do too.

And I pulled that phone so close.

I was like, wait, wait, what did you say?

Can you repeat that, please?

And basically, I ended up going to my first AA meeting.

And everyone was really nice.

And they gave me their cards.

And I thought, why is it you people want to know me?

And they were nice, clean, lovely people.

And I have 15 minutes, so I have to go ahead.

I got a sponsor.

I worked the steps, but I didn't really.

When I did my fourth step, I'm like, I didn't sleep with Mr. Jones' wife.

And I didn't.

I didn't really understand the columns and stuff.

And I'm like, I didn't covet.

Yeah, no.

So anyways, my sponsor said, who did you do damage to?

And I told her the truth.

I did a lot of damage to myself.

I did.

I didn't think clearly enough that, you know, now I tell my sponsors, who pissed you off.

Okay, that's a really good way for me to do a fourth step.

But she told me just to forgive myself.

And met my husband in AA.

He came in when I had six months.

And we were really good friends.

We were really good friends for five years.

I remember I did do what was suggested.

I stuck with the winners.

I sat in the front of the room.

Went to a lot of meetings.

I used to go to six meetings a week.

Waited that year to date.

Dated Mr. Oh-So-Wrong.

I dated a very angry, very abusive, verbally abusive alcoholic.

And I was with Mr. Oh-So-Wrong for four years.

And I don't bring this up to put him down.

I bring this up to show you just how bad my self-esteem was.

And around four years of sobriety, four and a half years of sobriety,

my life did get better.

I got better jobs.

I was with Mr. Oh-So-Wrong because I was still waiting for him

because I was never going to do anything with my life

because I was not smart and I was not talented

and I still was looking for him to take care of me.

And I always heard not to make a list of everything you want

because you'll do yourself short.

My higher power gave me nothing that I wanted

when I first came in this program.

And I thank God every day that he didn't

because the life I got is so much different than what I wanted.

What happened was when I was about four and a half years sober,

I got a call at work and my father had fallen down the stairs

and he was in the hospital.

And I swear I just raced out of there.

I was driving on the wrong side of the street.

I got there as quick as I could.

And I found out the next day that he had severed his spinal cord

and he was paralyzed from the neck down and he was going to die.

And I love my father more than anything in the world.

He was a great man.

He was a great man.

He was a great man.

He was like my life.

And boy, that was a hard time.

And I remember I was waiting for the...

And he's been dead over 20 years and it still gets to me.

But I remember I was waiting for the family to show up

because I live close by him.

My siblings live down in Orange County and I was waiting.

And every time the elevator bell would ring, I would look out.

And one time the elevator bell rang and I looked out

and Jack N., who has since passed away,

he's one of the old-timers from my Monday night meeting,

he was there and I said,

Jack, is that you?

And he said, yes.

He goes, oh, honey, what's wrong?

I guess he could tell.

I was a little...

I was a little upset and I told him

and he sat there with me

and he waited until the rest of the family showed up

and he let everybody at the meeting know what was going on

and you people carried me through that.

It was really, really hard.

In fact, we had to ask the hospital

to have my father unplugged

because they didn't want to do it.

He wanted to be unplugged

but they weren't going to do it

and it was just ironic or a God shot

or my higher power working,

whatever you want to call it.

But the night that my father was being unplugged,

Jack Nisan and his...

or Jack N and his wife showed up

and this is one of the kindest, most loving men

that I knew in the program

and you know what?

Having him there just meant so much to me

and after that, I was still with Mr. Oh So Wrong

and I remember he said,

your father's been dead a week.

Can you quit being so self-absorbed?

You need to be over it.

And I said, well, I'm over you

and I was done.

I didn't care if I ever got married.

I was like...

I was like 35 years old

and had never been married and was single

and that was it.

I was going to raise my nephew

because my brother was on his second or third wife.

I don't remember

and I was just going to get on with my life

and what happened was

this guy came into our Monday night meeting

when I had six months

and his ex-wife was my girlfriend

that I went to school with.

My dad was her teacher.

Very small world, AA.

Anyway, she and I became friends

and I remember Mark was just really nervous

when he first came in

and I said, hey, you know,

we're all in our first year.

We're all nervous.

Don't worry.

Hang with us.

We'll show you what to do.

And he and I were really good friends

and after my dad died,

I remember I tried calling him several times

because he was a really good friend.

Long story short,

we've been married, I think, 21 years.

20 or 21 years.

I know we got married the day of the SC Stanford game.

I know it was in November

but I think it's 20 or 21 years.

Anyways,

and I got busy.

I got busy in the program.

I was married.

I decided to go back to school

and I didn't think I could

but I worked with a girl

and she goes, I'll help you.

And I went back

and I was just going to get an associate's degree

so I'd be more hireable

because the companies I was working for

would downsize

or they were taken over by another corporation

and you know what?

There was not a lot of job security

and when I was in college,

I heard them talk about the future teacher's track

and I went, oh, I could be a teacher.

They get Christmas, Easter, and summer vacation.

I can do that.

And I went back to school

and you know, at first,

I thought, no,

at least some more people can go to school.

That's not true

because I went to school

and I graduated

and I did pretty well.

I did what you people taught me.

I sat in the front of the room.

I stuck with the winners.

I got a teaching credential.

I've been teaching,

I think, 17 or 18 years,

somewhere around there.

I was meant to teach.

I love teaching.

Not every day.

Jerry and I were comparing war stories

but I love my job

and I get paid to do it.

Problem is, I got busy.

I was going to school full time.

That invalid mother

that was such an issue,

embarrassment.

Yeah, most parents leave money.

Dad left his mom

and I got to take care of her

and I took care of her for 13 years

and I made a living amends to my father

by taking care of her.

My husband and I would throw her in the car.

We'd take her to the beach.

We'd take her to the movies.

We'd take her to the Amundsen.

We took her everywhere.

We took her to the concerts in the park.

My mom and I got to be really, really close.

Thing is, I was going to school

and I was married and I was busy.

And I told you I hadn't completely worked

the 12 steps

and I definitely wasn't working the 12 steps.

I didn't go out and drink

but you know that restless,

irritable and discontent?

Yeah, I had that hat.

I was going to a meeting once a week

but I don't think I was really going to the meeting.

I'm sure I was thinking of a grocery list

or this or that.

My head wasn't in AA

and I got restless, irritable and discontent.

And I was at my school

and we were merging with the primary center

and there was a woman.

They had all the meeting of the special ed teachers

and there was a woman

and I knew her when my husband and I

used to go to a meeting Friday night

in the valley.

When I moved out here,

the only meetings my husband went to

were on the west side

because he worked there.

And we never went to any meetings out here.

There are meetings out here, by the way.

We've found them since then.

But I said to her,

I said, who's your sponsor?

And she said, why do you want to drink?

And I said, no, I just get pissed off a lot.

And so she introduced me

to a group of her girlfriends

and I started working with a sponsor.

My friend Bruce told me

about a Saturday night meeting.

Bruce lives in Santa Clarita

but he goes to my Monday night palettes.

Palisades meeting,

which I still go to.

My husband and I still go there every Monday night.

The rest of our meetings are in the valley.

And what happened was

I got back in the program

and I started going to more meetings

and my husband's like,

you can go to a meeting every Saturday.

And I said, yes, you don't have to,

but I'm going to.

He's like, fine, I'll go.

He actually loves the meeting.

He actually goes to more meetings than I do now.

What happened was

when I first got sober,

I call it, I dipped my toe in the AA pool.

I am now completely submerged

in the AA pool.

I am now completely submerged in the AA pool.

I am now completely submerged in the deep end.

If I don't say anything tonight,

these 12 steps that are on the wall,

I have them in my pocket.

I actively work them.

Physical sobriety is okay,

but emotional sobriety is so much better.

Working these 12 steps on a daily basis

is what I do.

And when I do that, my life's pretty good.

I was telling Jerry that when I remember to pause

and that God's in charge in the classroom,

the days go a lot better.

I haven't had a drink

in over 28 years.

I haven't had a drink in over 28 years.

I have been an alcoholic

on numerous occasions

during those 28 years

and my alcoholism

can look something like this.

I have one kid

that was like throwing things

and running around the classroom

and just behaving terribly.

And a half hour later,

her behavior is letting her color.

Now, when I work my program,

I stop and pause and go,

okay, she's quiet, I can teach.

When I forget to work my program,

it's like, what are you doing coloring?

You did not behave.

You interrupted the lesson.

You're not going to color.

Now, Jerry already knows what happened.

She's just going to melt down

and start throwing things

and run around the room again.

And me, the sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous,

says, you're not going to color.

You don't get to color.

That is my disease today.

You know, it's just, it never goes.

I try and work this program

to the best of my ability.

I sponsor some women.

I listen.

Honestly, when I sponsor,

I think about God and the steps.

All I have is the steps.

That's what the program is to me,

working the steps.

Mariana has heard this.

I tell everyone,

when I have a circle around me,

step one, two, and three is that circle.

Everything in that circle,

I have complete control over.

I have no control over the children in my room.

I should know that by now.

As I said, I've been teaching 17, 18 years.

They don't listen to a darn thing I say,

and they don't do what I tell them to.

I have five minutes left.

Okay.

I have no control over how people feel about me,

whether or not people like me,

whether or not there's traffic on the freeway.

I have no control over any of that.

I do have control over who I associate with,

whether or not I leave early enough to get somewhere,

all that other stuff.

When things don't work well, I turn it over.

I like turning it over to God.

Like I said, when I first came here,

I was looking for him,

and him was going to marry me and take care of me,

and I was going to be a housewife

that just went to the gym all day.

I've actually ended up kind of supporting my husband

because he lost his business for a while.

We're both working now,

but it wasn't what I wanted when I came in.

I love my life today.

I have a life that is absolutely,

truly amazing.

I have the best life.

I'm not rich.

I'm not famous.

I don't want to be famous.

I work for a living.

I have to do dishes.

I break nails.

I've already told you I work with little people

who don't listen to me.

I'm married to an alcoholic,

and when I wake up with the sober eyes,

I have a wonderful, loving, great husband.

When I wake up on other days,

it's like, well, he didn't clean up this,

and he didn't do that,

and oh my God,

he's screaming at the people in the car,

and where is his program?

I have a good sponsor.

She tells me to take my eyes off of him

and look at me.

There goes that circle.

See, my husband's not in that circle.

I'm in that circle.

Everything in that circle is my business.

I can control that.

Everything else,

I don't get to have any control over.

If something bothers me,

it's not why is that bothering me.

It's what the heck's the matter with me

that it's bothering,

and I have to go to my fourth step,

and I have to look at what's wrong with me.

And I do that a lot,

and life's,

pretty darn good.

Like I said,

I still gotta go to work.

I get up at 5 a.m.

I'd like work a lot better

if I didn't have to get up at 5 a.m.,

but I get paid for something I love.

I have a lot of friends.

I love being sober.

There is someone here that's new.

When I first came here,

I remember someone said,

do you have a sponsor?

And I said,

well, I'm not really jonesing

for a drink in the middle of the night,

so I don't need one.

And they said,

no, they help you work the steps.

And I remember looking at a flight of steps,

and I'm like, huh?

I had no idea.

I had cousins that were sober,

and I came here,

and I thought maybe you'd let me drink

and teach me how to drink.

How I thought that,

I don't know,

because I had two cousins that were sober.

But this program works if you work it.

It's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I'm gonna stop early

because no one wants somebody rambling.

And thank you very much for having me

and listening to me.

You guys have been an absolutely wonderful crowd.

Thank you very much.