Tivoli's Path from Denial to Sobriety: First AA Meeting Experience

- Hi, I'm Tivoli and I'm an alcoholic.

- Hi, Tivoli.

- And I'd like to thank Scott and Joan

and for having me here tonight.

I have been sober.

My sobriety date is April 30, 1990.

I have a sponsor.

I guess one of her other sponsors spoke here the other day.

So it's a pretty active group with a sponsor

who does a lot of speaking

and everybody in the group participates

and we have a Tuesday night step study.

So we're always reading and finding out

more about Alcoholics Anonymous and being in the program

and how do we stay sober?

How do we live life on life's terms?

I came in because I had a therapist

who thought it would be interesting

if I would stop drinking for just a couple of weeks

and sample Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, not commit,

but just try it and see whether, you know,

that might be a good thing for me.

So I tried the Alcoholics Anonymous part I wasn't going to do

but I did stop drinking for an entire week,

although she had asked for two

and it was hard for someone like myself.

You know, I hadn't, my mom's side of the family

is Irish Russian, so I would say our style of drinking

is closer to people in Alcoholics Anonymous than not.

So if you take them as the norm, I'm right, I'm like them.

So I'm normal, my drinking is normal.

There is really no problem.

I had a job, I had a car, I had an apartment.

I assumed I was doing quite well.

Although, and I guess the glasses got bigger,

so I could easily say I was only having a few,

but I was drinking a couple of bottles of wine a night.

And not every night, but most nights, at least a bottle.

I would plan on having two drinks.

I would buy at least two or three bottles

just in case I might want more than one or two glasses.

And so it was always available for me.

And I picked my markets as to who had the best prices on out.

And then I would choose what foods would look good

to the person checking me out or the people in line with me.

So you wouldn't think I had a drinking problem.

You would just think I was social.

And I remember being at some place getting alcohol one day

and someone said, "Oh, you're having a party."

And no, actually I had just wanted to buy enough

for the weekend so I wouldn't have to drive drunk

in order to buy more.

So that was what my drinking was like.

I, on the other hand, didn't really think I had a problem.

And so I come into Alcoholics Anonymous.

I heard a really big story that was not mine.

And I thought, "Oh, that's not me. I don't have that."

And so then I continued to drink for a year.

But you know, they say that Alcoholics Anonymous

will do when you're drinking.

And what happened to me was that I started looking

and I went to a psychic and, you know,

just to find out how to improve my life.

And she said, "Make a list of everything that you want

out of your life and everything you want in your life."

So the things I wanted out of my life were drinking,

smoking, and almost all of my friends.

And the things I wanted in my life were, you know,

a happy marriage and a better job and more money

and a nice house.

If you drink like I can, you don't get those things

on the right side of my list.

You know, I wanted a normal life that other people have.

They're happy in their lives.

They're enjoying what they're doing.

They have careers they enjoy

that they want to show up for work.

And I didn't have any.

And I didn't understand that I was the one holding me back.

So after a year of investigating

whether I might possibly be an alcoholic,

I was the kind of alcoholic

that then comes into the meetings.

So I called Central, the Los Angeles Central office,

and they told me to go to a certain meeting.

And I never, I didn't like working late.

But that day I, of course, did miss that meeting

and didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous.

I didn't know, living in Los Angeles,

if I missed one meeting, there were many, many more

that would take its place.

I thought there was like one a week.

So by missing it, I would then, of course,

just go back next week.

But I called Central office again.

And they were like, you know, as a matter of fact,

just one like 15 minutes from now at this area.

So that meeting, of course, was even closer

than the one they'd given me the first time.

And I showed up at that meeting

and it was a little candlelight meeting,

maybe about this size.

And I sat down and I started to,

I was so bereft that I was an alcoholic.

And I did identify as a newcomer in that meeting.

And then they had a meeting and I judged everybody in it.

And, you know, they shared

and she talked about their feelings.

And I just, ugh, I just hated them all.

But what I didn't notice, because I had so much perception,

was that everyone else had now closed up their chairs

and moved them to the side of the room.

And I was still sobbing in the middle of the room.

And a woman came over and opened her chair

and sat next to me and started telling me

about Alcoholics Anonymous.

And had broken up with her boyfriend

and happened to live, I don't know,

maybe she was 10 blocks from me.

So she was like,

"I'd like to take you to a meeting tomorrow."

So my plan was to go once a week.

I really wanted a limited plan and Alcoholics Anonymous

didn't want to come in and be here all the time.

But I didn't know how to say no.

She seemed awfully nice.

I don't know very much.

And she told me a lot about alcoholism.

And if you have the first drink,

then it makes you want the second one.

And that other people are able to have one

and they don't get that craving.

So I was learning a lot about, oh, that sounds like me.

Oh, now I get why I only want two glasses or one glass,

but I drink a couple of bottles.

And then I'm hungover, but I go to work

and I make sure I never miss on a Monday or a Friday,

because I don't want them to think

I might have a drinking problem.

And I change liquor stores every night

because I don't want them to think

I have a drinking problem.

And she explained to me that normal drinkers

do not do it that way.

They don't, they can buy it Ralphs.

You know, they don't have to change liquor stores.

They don't have a problem taking their trash out.

They had a lot of clinking bottles.

And so I had to figure out how to make my trash

not be as loud when I would take it downstairs.

And those are problems normal drinkers don't have.

So it was little by little, I was catching all that.

Maybe I had a problem and just kept showing up.

And she wanted me to do at least 30 days each day.

And as a matter of fact,

because she'd broken up with someone,

she was doing one meeting a day.

And as a matter of fact,

she was happy to come and pick me up

and take me to those meetings.

And she'd introduced me around and say,

"Tivoli has three days, she has four days."

And she was so proud of me for having, you know,

gotten that little bit of sobriety.

And I called her all the time and I hated my work.

I hated the people at my work.

You know, I just talked and had a lot of problems

that I wanted to discuss at length.

And people listened to me.

People were not listening to me when I,

I would be in social situations

and I made people uncomfortable

and they would as quickly as they could disappear from me.

So here I was in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was told to take commitment.

And I finally took what I took the bagel commitment

at the Sunday Palisades meeting,

which is a really large meeting.

And I begrudgingly took it, but I did take it

and started showing up with those bagels

and had to get there really early to cut them off.

But what I found is once I had taken that commitment,

I started to meet the other people in the meeting

and that they started to treat me as if I was a regular.

And they started to treat me as if I was part

of their family and were kind to me

and invited me to AA parties and included me in their plans

and invited me to go for lunch afterwards.

And I hadn't had any friends, you know,

or I had one girlfriend, we were a perfect pair.

She would call me and talk about her boyfriend

for like two hours straight and I would be getting drunker

and drunker and drunker and she wouldn't notice.

But that's not a normal relation.

And so in Alcoholics Anonymous, there was more give and take

and people invited me to play tennis.

And all of a sudden I had a life and I had friends

and I was staying sober one day at a time.

And I added commitments to that.

And I still was calling that sponsor all up.

And around, I guess a little bit before one year,

she forced me to do it in the inventory.

I didn't use the right paper

because my part in it was sort of missing,

but I was good at your part and what you had done

and you know, so, you know, I was a slow start.

I came in on a limited plan.

And by the, I would say the grace of God,

I've been able to stay and develop a better plan.

I changed sponsor.

I had the same sponsor for many, many, many years.

And a girlfriend had suggested I get her as a sponsor.

Our conversations started over the phone.

I'd actually never met her.

And which was a good thing because when I finally met her,

she actually looked exactly like my mom,

but she was not alcoholic.

I mean, she was alcoholic, but sober as opposed to my mom.

So I could call Nancy and she was always sober.

And I hadn't had that relationship with my mom

because she was strong.

My mom finally quit drinking.

When she turned about 80, she got dementia.

And with the dementia, A, in dementia facilities,

they don't serve alcohol.

So she stopped drinking.

You know, I felt so sorry for myself

when I came call at some didn't understand my problem.

And I didn't understand what the solution.

I am so grateful that I don't need to go to older

and then get dementia.

In my opinion, it was probably from alcoholic dementia.

Corsica, I don't, that's not a family story.

That's not what my sisters will tell you,

but I am grateful.

I didn't have to keep going in my alcoholism.

I'm grateful that I had that was able to go to that meeting

and be enveloped by alcoholics anonymous

by these kind people who treated me so well.

And I was not all that pleasant to be around

in the beginning.

And my life has gotten to change.

And I've done the steps a couple of times,

and then I've done a lot of spot check inventories

and working with, you know, my sponsor

and doing the amends and really learning

how to be a human being in this life.

I didn't understand who I was when I was drinking.

Someone once told me that the alcohol for me

was like a veil between me and other people.

I couldn't see my part in anything.

And luckily that first sponsor did bring my attention back.

We've got another piece of paper that covered that part.

You know, and it's the usual, excuse me,

the usual things that selfish and self-centered.

I only think about myself.

With the alcohol, I then don't notice the reaction

I have in the world and why other people are angry

or don't like me.

In doing some of the work with my first sponsor,

I had quit a job and I was leaving with my boss.

And they had a tradition of,

it was a relatively small office.

They would take you out to lunch, you know, to say goodbye.

So they not only did not take me out for lunch,

they didn't even take me out for coffee.

Some of the gals said they were gonna take me out for coffee

and then got too busy and didn't.

And I assumed because I didn't get along

with the office manager, which was certainly the case.

But more to the point was I was that girl

who was talking about you behind your back

and that I would kind of create havoc wherever I went.

So I was drinking in that job for a year

and then got sober for a year.

And then my boss and I both left together

and we ended up working at another company for 20 years.

So I came to the second one sober.

And the person I was in that first year of sobriety

and that last year of drinking is frankly more to the point

of why no one wanted to have coffee,

why they didn't take me out to lunch.

It was that I was selfish, I did it my way.

I did a great job for my boss, so he was happy,

but I didn't get along with anyone else in that company.

And my behavior of gossiping about everyone else

did not enhance my relationships.

No one could feel safe about being.

So the thing about doing the inventory for me

is I don't know that I ever would have known that

had I not done the work, had I not done the work

with a sponsor who could probably have a better understanding

of my personality traits and how they were working

and could guide me along that path to really look back

at who I was and how I want to be in the world now.

I don't want to be in a place

where I'm creating a lot of damage.

I just quit another job on Thursday

and I'd been there five years.

It was an entirely different experience.

Also, I actually was probably one of the main reasons

I was quitting, gave me flowers, brought in pastry.

My sponsor had suggested, I'd done some inventory

about the situation and kind of what was happening.

There had been a crisis and I didn't like how it was handled

and I was able to talk it in depth with my sponsor.

It was a situation that fundamentally

the company was changing and it was changing in a way.

I didn't really want to go on that journey with them,

but it wasn't about, I hate you.

You're the wrong person.

I didn't make it personal.

I was able to look at what are we doing

and do I want to do it that way?

Couldn't have ever done that before.

I wouldn't have had any clarity.

What I noticed is I tend to throw in grenades

so that I normally am not someone who will start the fight,

but I'm superb at finishing it.

And in a way that is so destructive.

It showed up in my inventory

over and over and over and over again.

And I don't have to do that.

I didn't do that this time.

I made my needs known.

I asked for what I wanted.

I had conversations around the direction I saw it going

and what my preferences were, but all very adult.

It wasn't that there were no grenades.

My sponsor had me, when I had talked to her about this issue

she said, we don't antagonize people

and we act as if we're all on the same side.

So I now have a post-it right where I can see it

when I work because my idea of being a human being

is to antagonize people.

What I used to do is I would be mad at you.

I would go home, I would be mad.

I would drink about it and I would chew on it.

And I would create this whole scenario

of what happened, real or imagined.

And then I would go back to work the next day

and up the end.

And I'm not sure, usually there was a problem,

but I was so good at making things so much worse

than they ever were.

And a characteristic of mine in alcoholism

is that that's what I did.

I turned on what was happening in my life

and I was blaming everybody else

for why I was not getting what I wanted.

I didn't take any responsibility.

And what I found in doing the steps

and developing a relationship with a power greater

than myself is that I can be more comfortable.

I don't have to agree with everyone.

I don't, but I don't have to pick up a drink regardless.

I can, you know, Ben talked about reaching out

and having that support and having those friends

and people I can talk to.

And it's typically for me, not that I'm craving alcohol,

it's that I don't know how to live life.

But I do know that when I was 15 years sober,

I was on a cruise of the Baltic.

I had always wanted to go.

I had wanted to go to Tivoli Gardens.

I had not been.

And I was so excited that I was on this trip

and I had spent a day in Berlin

and it's a long train ride back to the coast.

And it was my birthday and I had made friends on this trip.

I'd been going to the Friendsville meetings on the ship.

You know, I was doing all the right stuff

and I get back to that ship

and I'm feeling sorry for myself.

I'm feeling sorry for myself that it's my birthday

and no one is, you know, making a big deal about it.

Now, I had not told anyone it was my birthday,

which could have been the biggest problem.

There were people who would have certainly had dinner with me

had I said that, you know,

but I was just going into this pity party.

And I ended up having a conversation with God

as I walked the deck.

I don't see a sign I'm going to take a drink.

15 years sober.

It's $8 to call my sponsor.

No way am I spending that $8.

So I'm really making it, you know, a conundrum for God.

Somebody had once said that if you shut yourself in a closet

and expect God, and you're hungry,

don't expect God to put a hot dog through the keyhole.

You know, don't set those situations up.

But anyway, that's exactly what I did.

So I'm walking on the boat and thinking about drinking

because I'm feeling sorry for myself.

So there were only like three or four people

who had come to that Friends of Bill meeting,

but there was a really nice guy who had come

and he happened to be walking the opposite direction

and walked, you know, towards me and said hello

and talked about how proud my family must be that I'm sober.

And how lucky I am to have 15 years.

And he told me a little bit about himself

and some of the hardships that he'd had

and that Alcoholics Anonymous had helped

to navigate those difficulties.

He had wanted a promotion, but didn't get it.

And someone else did who was not as well qualified.

And over time, he ended up getting that job.

He said he suited up, he showed up,

he did the things he was supposed to do with the job he had.

And so I was listening to him and listening to him talk

about how proud my family would be of my recovery.

And that actually is not the case.

They weren't happy for me.

They're drinkers.

They want me to be drinking with them.

It did not go well.

They liked me much better drunk.

And, but his kindness really touched

and I chose to believe that that was a sign from God.

That that was what I had been looking for.

That being sober is so important in my life.

That nothing good comes in my life if I'm not sober.

So I did not drink.

I did get a box of candy, but and celebrated my birthday

and later told people it was my birthday

and they were so nice, which they could have been

had they not.

You know, I had set that up and what I try not to do

is do that.

And what I try to do is talk to a sponsor enough

so that I don't set those situations up

where I can feel poor me, poor me, poor me a drink.

Where I can feel less than or apart than.

So my husband really wanted to move to Park City

and we were going to see the Mayan ruins in March.

And so I'd stopped looking in Park City for a place to live

because I didn't want it to ruin my vacation.

And, but he found a home and we bought it site on scene

while we were in Guatemala.

And, and so we're moving next week,

actually Tuesday to Park City.

He's furiously backing at home.

And I keep remembering what somebody says to me

in the program, which is the more you're of service,

the more you show up, the more time opens up for you.

So all of a sudden, all of his projects

were getting accomplished towards the pack.

I was able to have a break in, in my,

I worked a little today and I had a break in my day

and was able to accomplish all of the things

I had intended to accomplish for today with the packing.

So I don't know why Alcoholics Anonymous to me is mad.

I don't know why I can go to a meeting

and be out of sorts or, you know,

I went to Ireland with a bunch of Americans

who were Irish and drunks.

I was the only sober person and I had to go to an Alcoholics

Anonymous meeting.

I could not really, their dialect is quite heavy,

that it's not on television, but in person,

it is quite heavy.

It was very hard to understand that meeting.

And then they made me the speaker even worse.

So, but I can go from that high level.

I don't know what to do to, I'm sober.

I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

COVID did me a big favor.

All of those online meetings.

I started going to meetings in Park City.

I don't want to move to Park City and not know anyone.

I've heard those stories.

I go to enough meetings.

I hear the ones where, oh, I moved out of town

and I didn't really need Alcoholics Anonymous anymore.

I'm good to go.

And I don't want to do that.

So I'm telling people at every meeting my intention,

you know, obviously I went online so far,

but I'm going to go to in-person meetings.

I have their list of meetings.

It is not 2,500 or whatever it is in Los Angeles

and Park City, but it's probably, I don't know, 40.

So I should be every week.

So I should be able to find something I like.

My advice to newcomers is sample.

And I think I should do the same.

That you're not going to like every meeting,

but you're going to find some you love.

And so you go and you try it and, you know,

you'll meet different people.

And in the beginning I went to these giant meetings

where there were wonderful, wonderful speakers

and they had food.

And to be honest, what I wanted was good looking men.

And then I've changed.

I'm married and I don't want to eat that many.

So now I go for a different reason.

Now I want to meet people that I can really get to know,

where I can take a commitment,

where I can feel comfortable in that meeting,

where I can meet newcomers,

where I can hear recovery in people's lives.

And I can hear what their problems are

because I may not have had that one,

but I may get it in 10 years.

You know, I've learned so much from everybody.

You know, all of the different stories.

I've learned how they've walked through craving

and how they've been able to keep showing up at meetings.

And what I've noticed is out of that, you know,

my sponsor's sponsees, they're women with a bunch of time.

I'm not the one with the most time.

She has, I think, 50.

The other ones are like 38 and 40

and all of these women with so much time.

And the thing that I see that we all have

is we keep coming back.

We're not perfect.

That isn't a requirement.

We aren't floating on a cloud every day,

but we have really good lives.

We have good relationships with people.

And when there is a falling out of any kind,

because of Alcoholics Anonymous,

because of doing the steps,

because of talking to my sponsor,

I can navigate my world better.

I don't make my world worse much of the time.

Sometimes, sure.

But not all of the time like I used to.

And welcome to this program.

It is such an amazing way of that opportunity

to put that drink or that drug down

where I didn't know how to do that.

I needed Alcoholics Anonymous to teach me that.

Just reading the book,

I had some retention problems when I first got sober.

So it was hard for me to read the book

and my sponsor jokingly would say,

"Well, just read it, it's a good sleep aid."

And it helped, you know?

And I think part of it is it's comforting.

It's comforting to know that Alcoholics Anonymous

is anywhere and everywhere.

I've been to a meeting in Stockholm.

I've been to one in Paris.

I've called central office when I was in Tokyo.

You know, I need help when I'm out of town.

I went to a meeting in Croatia a couple of years ago.

When I went to one, I think it was Guatemala.

And a lot of expats were there

and couldn't have been kinder.

And drove me home and, you know,

gave me all kinds of advice about, you know,

how to, what to see.

And really friendly people who want the best from me,

who really care about what's happening in my life.

And I get to hear about them and to hear about me.

But, you know, reciprocal relationships,

I didn't have that ever before.

My family life has not gone as well.

My husband's, his idea of drinking is on occasion,

on a Sunday, he would like a glass of wine.

And for him, what that is,

is a juice cup with a half a glass of wine.

So if he has three sips, he's like, "I don't get it."

And it's not how I ever was, but it is how he is.

And he doesn't have that attachment to alcohol

or things in the way I do.

I can get pretty excessive about things too.

So I wouldn't have been able to have that husband

had I not gotten sober.

My mom, as I said, got dementia, she quit drinking.

We were not close.

She had basically kind of cut me out of the family

when I got sober.

The two things I did, I got sober and I had moved out,

which as a 30 year old is not that exciting.

But a drunken 30 year old, of course, lived home with mom.

So I had moved out and she was quite offended by that.

So what happened at the end was she needed more money

in order to be able to afford the place she was staying.

And my sisters had asked if I would help.

And we had not had much of a relationship.

At that time, one sister had not talked to me for 10 years.

My mother had not talked to me for about the same.

And I had made my amends, you know,

so I was kind of clean, but really hurt.

And I decided I had the money.

I went ahead and I did that.

And I would visit her in the facility

and I would take her out to lunch

and I would take her to have her nails done.

And we ended up with a really nice relationship.

One day she hugged me and she said,

"Do you know you're my baby?"

And that was not the truth before,

but I understood what she meant.

I was kind of daughter.

So I was the one who was helping her when, you know,

maybe there weren't a lot of reasons to do that.

I figured that they had paid for my school.

I had gone to very good schools.

Whatever I could get into, they would have paid all of it.

And I decided I owed her that.

I owed her treating her as if she were my mother,

even if being an alcoholic mother,

she certainly wasn't the mother I wanted.

And I had hoped my family would get sober

and it just hasn't happened.

But regardless, what happened to me

was here is this woman with dementia who became so sweet,

an entirely different personality change.

And I was able to be helpful

and give her something that was valuable to her

and create a relationship and create healing

that I could never have had

had it not been for Alcoholics Anonymous.

And on the way, she was staying closer to my sister.

So she was down in San Diego.

So I would drive that, you know, hour and a half,

two hour drive, and then drive to see her

and then come back.

And I would do that every couple of weeks.

And I would be talking to people from Alcoholics Anonymous

and on the way back.

And I'd be talking to my sponsor

because I needed the support

about how do you do the right thing?

I'm not so good at that.

How can you be of love and service when people have hurt?

I'm not good at that.

I need your support.

And Alcoholics Anonymous has given me that,

has allowed me to be a better person than I know how to be.

And it's a direct result of each and every room

I've been in and the people that I meet

and the sponsors that I've been lucky enough to have.

I feel very grateful to have been able to participate

and I would like to participate in the future.

Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, I don't eat.