From Painful Thanksgivings to Healing Service: A 28‑Year Sobriety Story

Hi. Thank you for asking me to come speak or share. Thank you for your share.

Welcome to all new friends. And thank you to my friends who came. I think I tell,

I'm supposed to tell my friends when I speak,

I don't know who came up with that idea, but we do that.

We tell each other and then everybody shows up and then every time everybody

shows up, I feel like a complete fool because I think you guys,

how many times are you going to listen to me talk?

My sobriety date is February 19th, 1998.

And I just had my, I think my 20,

my 24th sober Thanksgiving.

And so that's been pretty amazing. I was talking about my Thanksgiving,

my home groups, the Valley club. I have a sponsor. She knows she's my sponsor.

I talk to her all the time. I sponsor other women. I have commitments in AA.

I have a prayer life. I have a meditation practice. I have two jobs.

I have two kids. I have three grand babies. I have a lot of things.

I have a mother I helped take care of. And,

and I'm able to do all of those things because I put Alcoholics Anonymous first

in my life. And I have since the very beginning,

even if I did it messy and sloppy and inconsiderately,

I still did it. I went to a million meetings in the beginning.

I had a lot of commitments and I took my commitments to the serious and I've

never participated in my sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous the whole time I've

been here. Um, so I went to the Valley club at the noon meeting and we were

talking about Thanksgiving and I was talking about the progression since I got

sober of before I got sober and the Thanksgivings would look like just a

painful night at my mom's house or my, you know, my mom and my stepdad,

they were about to have their 50th wedding anniversary. Um, anyway, my,

I used to drink and then have to have the dealer come and put drugs in the

mailbox because when I drink, I like to do Coke and it's like a vicious cycle.

Um, I am a diehard alcoholic. I love whiskey.

I used to walk around with Seagrams with, um,

Southern comfort in my purse with my kids pushing a stroller, you know,

down in Venice beach. I thought that'd be a good Sunday just to go do that. And,

um,

but I would black out and then I wouldn't know where I dropped my kids off and

now I'm at a bar and call calling my, you know,

calling my my kid's dad to tell him some lie about something with the car and

the kids and, you know, always just scaring people. And so it would,

it was like that during my Thanksgivings.

And then what happened was when I got sober Thanksgiving seemed really painful.

I didn't know how to sit through dinner.

I didn't know how to be around all these people drinking.

It was highly uncomfortable.

I made it all about me and how uncomfortable Thanksgiving was going to be for

me. And what happened was when I started to share that with other people,

I had people say to me,

why don't you see what you could do to be helpful at Thanksgiving instead of

what you can get out of it, see what you can bring to it. And so my Thanksgiving,

my Thanksgiving started to look differently.

It started to look like I would wash the dishes and not run away as fast as

possible.

It looked like I would show up early and help set up and then help clean up.

It looked like, you know, I would help with people's kids.

It would look like different all the years that would pass look different,

where somehow where it was like my worst nightmare turned into one of my

favorite things to do was to start preparing and cooking and bringing food to my

family's house and having Thanksgiving. And last Thanksgiving,

was last Thanksgiving was a super painful Thanksgiving for us.

My, so we had Thanksgiving dinner and then right after dinner,

like an hour after dinner, my dad passed away.

And he was my stepfather for 50 years. And I'm 56.

He married my mom. He got with my mom when I was 50,

when I was three and married her when I was six.

So it's been my dad like the whole time and we had a great dinner and I

made the turkey and he carved the turkey and it was, it was an amazing night.

You know, it was like, you couldn't have asked for a better goodbye. And so,

you know, cut to yesterday was yesterday.

Now the day before yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was painful.

It was like another painful Thanksgiving.

It was having Thanksgiving without him and having, you know, the,

but the beauty was that everybody showed up and rallied for my mom and nobody

made it all about them.

And nobody was in the corner crying and making it about them.

And I don't believe that I'm responsible for how everything's

changed in my family lineage,

but I have my best girlfriend over here who's told me for 20 years, you know,

when I change, everything changes and I have changed in my family.

And so it's like, I'm the,

I'm probably the closest kid out of all the kids to my parents,

like physically and emotionally. And so they watch,

they watch me as kind of a gauge what's going on.

And everybody rallied for my mom and everybody brought dinner and

nobody made it a big, sad, traumatic night. And it was, it was hard.

It was heartfelt. And then the next day was yesterday. We had the, um,

unveiling for my dad at the cemetery.

It's a Jewish tradition and you take the cover off the tombstone or the,

the grave site and all the kids were there and the kids lifted the thing and we

put stones and prayed and it was so beautiful.

And then we all went back to my mom's and you know, nobody in the,

when I was drinking,

I would have always drank all those occasions and I would have always had to

leave because I couldn't handle any of it. And you know,

I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, go early, stay late. How can you help?

And that's what I did. That's what I did Thursday. That's what I did Friday.

And that's what I did again today. It was like, today's another day.

I have family still in town and I was with, um,

my grandkids up until I got here today. I was at my mom's before that I was,

and I worked before that. And you know, I,

I grew up in the house that everyone's in now and I grew up there and I was a

latchkey kid and I early,

early on learned how to snoop and how to steal and I would snoop and I would

steal and that was like cigarettes and then it was weed and then it was alcohol

and then it was all of it. And I shared, it was funny at the, at the,

at the cemetery yesterday, everybody was talking and you know, I,

I might talk a lot in AA, but I don't like to talk in front of my family.

I'm very quiet for people who don't really know me. I'm,

I'm not like the most chit chatty person.

My friends tease me a little like asking me if I'm on a silent retreat and I'm

not very chatty unless I have something to talk about.

And so my mother called me out and she said, Siri, I want you to say something.

And I felt like I had to honor her.

And I was talking about how when we were younger,

we were still out of control.

And I remember my mom and stepdad fighting and he would say,

if you don't get these kids under control, I'm leaving, I'm out of here.

And my mom would do anything to protect that marriage.

And she put that marriage in front of us when we were young.

And so she and my dad, they, they got a house somewhere else.

And by the time I was 12, they were gone all the time.

And it was me and my sister, my brother alone,

we drove away any babysitters they had.

Any anybody who she could get to stay with us would never make it through the

weekend. They would never, I mean, my brother held knives to my sister.

My sister used to beat us up, but we came from a lot of dysfunction.

I'm not going to lie. It was like, we came from violence. We came from abuse.

We came from neglect. And you wouldn't know that if you came over yesterday,

you'd say no way did any of that happen under this roof,

but it all happened under that roof and under my real dad's roof.

And my real dad died when I was 21 from alcoholism. And so I was,

I shared about that yesterday that I'm actually glad that,

that he didn't leave her and that she did protect her marriage.

And I might've done the same thing, you know, I might've done the same thing.

She did the best she could at 30 years old to protect herself because she was in

love with this man. And she thought, you know, she had to do what it took to keep

him. And, and I'm glad she did because he,

in fact is up until this point,

like the greatest man I've ever known in my whole entire life.

And I got to have many,

many conversations with both of them and heard conversations before he died

about what went on when we were, when we were kids, they didn't know,

they didn't know any, like they only knew we were in trouble all the time,

but they didn't know the pain. They didn't know the anguish.

They didn't know the abuse that was coming from my dad.

They didn't know until we told them. And, you know,

they were a little bit mortified that we kept it to ourselves all these years.

But we healed through all of it. And so I grew up there stealing from them,

the weed, the alcohol, the cigarettes. And then, like I said, I had no guidance.

So by the time I was 14, I would,

they would leave one car home and take one car away.

So I knew how to drive when I was 14 and I would drive their car drunk all the

time. And I was off and running and I was a blackout drinker and I loved it.

I loved it. And I did plenty of psychedelics. I love you said that, right?

Yeah. I, I, that was like my, my prime weekend was like,

I'm going to drink and then I'm going to take acid and then I'm going to smoke

weed to come down. And I, I really like,

I really partied hard and I love to get drunk and do

Coke and then really never talked to anybody. I was like solitary and just like,

I just, you know,

my problem is I couldn't stop trying to chase that my whole life, you know?

And so I met a guy in a bar and he loved some other woman.

So I married him and had some kids with him.

I grew up having no moral, like right and wrong.

I don't know what is appropriate love.

I don't know what appropriate attention is.

I don't know what appropriate affection it is. Like, I don't know.

All I know is that at least thank God,

I know this is a mixed meeting and it might be a really weird thing to say,

but I want to say it anyway. I knew enough that when I had my kids,

I knew enough that I would never lay my hands on my kids the way my hands were

laid on me like that I knew. And so when, when I,

I did scream and yell and I was a spanker in the beginning and when I say lay

hands, I'm not talking about spanking, I'm talking about other hands. And so when,

when I, when I did get sober, I was so,

I was so lucky on so many levels.

Like I don't know if it was the willingness or the desperation,

but I remember being at Radford hall and talking to some woman who was

sharing a story about like,

like mine with two little kids and an ex-husband who was an asshole.

And like, she was like really awful to her children. And she, you know,

20 years later, he's, she's writing his paychecks and the kids love her,

respect her. And I thought I got to talk to her and I actually talked to her.

And she suggested I go get outside help. And I did.

And I got a lot of outside help to learn how to be a better parent.

And before I did that,

I used to beg Angela to sleep at my house because I knew if I had somebody

sleeping over my house with my kids, I wouldn't raise my voice at my kids.

I'd be too embarrassed. Like it was like a, like a safety measure.

Like if she's there, I won't act psycho. So that was my safety measure.

And it worked most of the time, most of the time. And so you know,

what happened, I'll just say,

so what it was like was I was the complete wreck and a nightmare and I couldn't

like a, the jig was up. I couldn't hold it together any longer.

And I knew something had to happen and I would wish for death.

Like I would wish I would go to sleep and not wake up. And I, and I,

that was my thought when I'd go to bed.

But the thought when I woke up was I can never let my ex-husband and his new

girlfriend raise his kids in mind. Like how, like I couldn't,

I was really in a place of, you know,

when I got sober I used to hear about the longest journey is from the head to

the heart. And when you're having, you can't get there,

it's called internal conflict for me.

And when I can't make a connection between my thinking and my feelings,

it's very conflicting. And then it's, that's when you have to, you know,

we pause and we meditate and we do writing and intense death and work it out

with our sponsor. Well, I didn't, couldn't do any of that when I was new,

I was like, I feel this way. I feel that way. I feel this way.

I feel that way. And I have to do something about how I'm feeling.

And so I really, it was really difficult for me to, you know,

gauge anything, but I did know a few things. And one of them was,

I don't want my kids taken away and I feel like I'm going to die.

And I didn't even think it was the alcohol. I wasn't even sure what it was,

but I went to work one day and Sanam loves when I tell a story.

I worked at this place since I was 19 years old and now I'm 31.

And there was a guy at my work who was 16 years sober,

who never ever even mentioned AA to me once I knew he was

sober and I knew he went to AA, but he never ever told me, you're a drunk,

you need help. He never said anything to me.

And I was driving to work and I dropped my kids off and I went and got

a drink so I could stop shaking.

And I wondered what lie I could tell when I got there.

Like I've told so many lies already and I never, ever,

ever that morning thought about anything other than what,

like how am I going to not work today? How can I, I cannot function.

I'm going to be sick and I'm shaking and I got to work.

And as soon as I crossed the threshold,

I walked straight to the sober guy and started crying. And I don't,

that's God. And he texted me on Thanksgiving two days ago,

"Sari, it's Steven, just saying happy Thanksgiving." And I wrote back and said,

"I'm in a meeting thanks to you." 24 years later, you saved my life. And you know,

we've, we, we connect every, very so often, you know,

it's like every few years he'll reach out to me.

But I went up to him and I just started crying and he just hugged me and he

said, "You don't have to live like this anymore.

Once you go to a meeting, you know, there's a better way." And I did.

And I went to a meeting and I got sober at the Moorpark meeting in Studio City

and at the noon.

And I went there because I had no clients that day and I was bored,

and I didn't know what to do.

So I looked in the directory and I went and I didn't stand up new or do any of

the things we're supposed to do. So if you're new here,

you're supposed to identify that you're new.

You're supposed to let us meet you and then you're supposed to let us help you.

Well, I didn't do any of that. I just ran away as fast as I could.

And then I went again and I did the same thing and then I maybe did it one more

time. And then I drank one more time and I knew I was done.

I said to my girlfriend I was with, I went out, I didn't want to go out.

I drank, I didn't want to drink.

I was a place I didn't want to be at and I knew I was done.

And I knew I like for a lot of years that I don't know,

I hadn't known how to really honor my no,

like this is a no. That didn't exist in my life. It was more like,

what is that? Just I'll shove it down, whatever that is.

And so I was done and I went to work the next day and my friend asked me if I

had gone and done those things, stand up new, get a sponsor. And I said, no.

And so he asked me to go to a meeting with him and I did.

And I stood up as a newcomer and I got a sponsor, Kathy T.

I was assigned a sponsor and we, I didn't stick with her. In fact,

I didn't stick with anybody for like 10 months.

And my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous has been like one,

one blessing after another, after another, after another, it's been,

it's, it's so, it's so hard. I have,

I have this friend and he passed away. His name is Bill Hill. And he used to say,

you know, if, if you don't understand it, I can't explain it to you.

And if you do understand it, it's unexplainable.

And that's how it is for me with the program and with God and the

step, it's an experience that you have to have. That's why our book says,

this is an experience you shouldn't miss,

but they're talking about like helping someone and then watching them help

somebody else. And then the book says, this is an experience you cannot miss,

but it starts with, it starts way back here before you get there,

but you have to have all the experiences to get to that experience.

And so that's what it was like and what happened. And you know,

what it's like now is been the last 24 years has been a series

of pain and growth and more pain and more growth and more pain and more growth.

And I have never thought that a drink was a good idea in any of the times that

I've been in pain when I have had the most problems I've had the most

sponsors and it's, and I've been thinking about this lately. I feel really,

it's going to sound very bizarre. And if you've been sober for a while,

maybe you could relate or understand. So for the last like few years,

I think I have one girl that just turned a year and another girl that's like 17

months. And I have no new people in my life. Like I have,

I have girls that I've worked with and I it's so weird.

And I just thought of this just now.

And I wonder if my life's been so calm in a sense,

maybe I'm full flight from reality,

but my life has been so I have felt so okay in all

the turmoil that's gone on in the last few years.

Cause in the last couple of years have been horrendous,

like the losses and the pain that I've experienced in the last few years have

been like super traumatic. And I got a couple new girls during that time,

which I think really saved my life.

But now I can't get a new girl to do anything with me right now.

It's like maybe God's like, just chill out for a minute. You're fine.

Like everything's fine. Just chill out for a second. And you know, I, I,

I did just somebody, we were at a ladies meeting. No,

I was somewhere and somebody said, maybe it was yesterday.

This guy was sharing it 69 resemblance. It was hot. It was Thanksgiving.

Wait, was it Thanksgiving? Last night? It was last night.

This guy shared 69 resemblance on my resemblance. And I was like,

Jesus Christ. I just finished out with some girl who had 69 resemblance.

I hope she's not on a zoom call.

So I'm not working with people and not that I need to defend my sobriety or

explain it to anybody, but I'm not working with anybody.

But at my worst times, there's somebody in here, a friend of mine,

a friend of a friend or whatever you want to call it, who's known me.

And watched me probably like probably the worst times of my life, you know,

and I had the most newcomers and the worst times in my life. You know,

I have,

I have an amazing job and I'm transitioning into another amazing

opportunity.

And I own my home for 30 years and my kids are grown and my

son has launched and he's like going to fly to see some chick in

Austin.

And he just worked on a movie in Boston on location and my

daughter's married and she has three kids and she's having a successful

relationship. And my mother's,

my mother invited my daughter and grandkids and husband to move in

with her and the house I grew up in so they could save up to buy a house and

they took them up on it.

And so my kids are living in the house I grew up in and it's three miles up the

street from here. And I live like a mile that way. And, and I, Ooh,

I feel so weird saying it. And I got engaged last week.

My ring's getting sized right now, but it's like so weirdly, you know,

when I heard you and I'm like, Ooh,

I'm about to have a successful relationship. I think I'm so okay,

but I'm afraid something's going to make me not okay.

I don't need a man and I don't need money and I don't need

handouts and I don't need hugs. And I don't like, I don't need things.

I'm I'm I have been praying for so many years to be self-supporting

body, mind, and spirit, you know? And it's like, I,

I really feel, and like I said, I could be insane.

And maybe all you guys think she's insane.

She doesn't even know what her life looks like,

but it feels to me that everything's fine.

That everything's fine. Like everything's okay. And you know,

I just, I mean, I've been in a place in my life for like the last few years,

I don't know, maybe the last three or four years,

I can't say exactly where I really feel God's presence just work through me.

Just like, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to say anything.

I don't have to do anything. I can just be, I can just show up.

I could be where I say I'm going to be. I like my small life. I like, you know,

I like everything exactly how it is. And I make,

I make really weird commitments to myself that I don't tell people because I,

I have, I don't, I,

I have pet peeves and one of them are people who run their mouths.

I don't like that. Like at all, at all, whether it's gossip or,

or the fake life you're about to have that you never follow through with,

like just be quiet. This is an action program, you know?

And so I, I like to make amendments for myself, you know,

and I committed like many years ago, like I'm going to see the world,

I'm going to go somewhere every year and see the world.

And I did it for like five years and then, and then my dad passed away.

So now I made this other like little weird secret commitment to myself that I'm

not going to see the world till my mom leaves the world because I don't want to

be like in India and find out my mom died.

And this is a woman who I was so angry at,

so angry at for so long because she didn't protect me.

She abused me. She didn't, you know,

she really didn't fend for me when I was little. And, um,

she chose my dad in front of me.

And so it took me three years to make my amends to her,

to do a nine step amends with her.

And I remember I sat down with her and I made my amends to her and she was

crying and I was still mad. And I said, what are you crying about?

Like, what are you crying about? I wanted to pull on her what she's to do to me.

Why don't you go in the bathroom and wash your face and come out smiling,

or I'm really going to give you something to cry about. Like that was my mom's,

that would be my mom's, my sister. And I say that to each other, joking,

like when we cry, I'm like, are you crying? We torture each other with it.

So my mom was crying. I said, why are you crying? And she said,

I was such a shitty mom. I was so selfish and I'm so sorry I didn't protect you.

And she really, really, it was like the book, the promises, you know, she,

she made her amends to me and it still took probably another 10 years

for me to actually like, let it all go, like to let it go,

but to let her into my heart, like to really let her in, you know,

to let her be. And, and even, you know,

so the last few years during COVID and all this other,

whatever drama was going on in the universe that was real and really painful for

a lot of people,

I was able to go and spend so much time with my mom and dad and really

become a person they can count on. And it was my mends to them.

And so now, now I did it for,

I did it with my dad because my mom was there,

but she was still that mom that was so hard to even deal with.

And then my dad died and now it's about my mother.

And now it's like I go over there and I see her and she counts on me and there's

a lot of us. I have five sisters and two brothers. I'm not the only person.

But I'm definitely the only person that's sober and in recovery and that

knows how to be appropriate and knows how to leave when I'm uncomfortable.

And so yeah, I don't know how much time I have left. I do.

I have like 10 minutes. Wow. How am I going to fill up 10 minutes? Okay.

So this is what I was thinking before I came to the meeting was how am I going

to go to the meeting and act like I have something to even offer when I have

actually been in like the foulest mood all day long.

And so I've had the last two weeks off work and I really hate when

people disturb my two weeks off. It's so bad. It's so bad.

But so I was having some couple people were having some conflict around

me and it, it involved me. It was like, I was the middle of the conflict.

That was my first week off. That was infuriating to me. Then,

then my grandbabies decided to get sick and my

daughter was losing her mind. So then that happened. And then my,

my boyfriend became sick from the grandbabies and I was like, God,

I'm not a nurse. Why do I have to take care of people? And so,

you know, but you know,

I did go to a meeting almost every single day that I've been off work and I did

step work and I was in touch with my sponsor and I went to Disneyland

and I,

and I'm going to Las Vegas next weekend to see a friend of mine get married.

And I have, I have so much, so my life's so full, you know,

and so I, I'll just tell this story. This,

this room used to be my home group for many, many years.

It was a Sunday morning meeting called the good,

bad and indifferent women's stag. And it was 10 AM on Sunday mornings.

When I was four years sober, I still had never gone to women's meetings.

Cause I was like, I hate women's meetings. I'm not going, I hate women.

I don't trust them.

So then I went through my first horrible heartbreak and sobriety and I thought,

how am I going to survive this? No God and no women.

Like I really was not doing well. And because I didn't share that part,

I'll talk about that also.

It took me like four and a half years before I started praying.

I don't recommend that to anybody, but that's just my story.

And it took me four and a half years to go to women's meetings. Again,

I don't recommend that for anybody, but that was my story.

So I went to my dresser,

my nightstand drawer and I have the directory that my friend at work gave me from

years before. And I pulled it out and I found this meeting.

So I came to this meeting.

So this was my meeting every Sunday, 10 o'clock for like nine and a half years.

And I met my, I had a sponsor for that first four years.

Her name was Michelle H and she was amazing.

And she took me through all 12 steps and she was good for me up until this

point. And then I came to this meeting and I thought I'm going to sponsor shop.

I need a sponsor shop. I needed a sponsor.

So I'm sitting here with my arms crossed and I'm watching all the women and I'm

thinking, no, no, never in my mind. Nope, no, no,

no, no, no, no. And I had one girlfriend and it was Angela. She's like,

she's getting the brunt of all my evils.

And so the only woman who I said absolutely not to was this woman,

Laurie P and she ripped her deposit slip out of her checkbook and handed it to

me and said, call me, I can help you. And I was like, Oh, okay.

So I called her and she became my sponsor for the next nine plus years.

And so she's the one that taught me how to pray. She said,

you better start praying like your life depends on it or you're going to drink

and you're going to die. And I was like, that's so drastic.

I really was offended that she would even say that. I was like, yeah,

I got by this far. I'm I don't think I'm going to die,

but I didn't want to get struck drunk. And so she took me in her home and she

took me in her backyard and she taught me how to pray.

And I actually became part of her prayer family and her, she,

she had a fair practice at her house and it was,

she actually ran a sweat lodge, her husband.

And so I started this prayer practice and I was part of their community and I

went once a week and I did sweat lodging with them and, and praying.

And it probably took me another four years until I started to feel that all the

effects of my prayer.

And then I started to feel God and I started to picture what this God might look

like. And it was pretty good. So I was like, I'm going to go with that.

And it just morphed into this whole thing.

And then I started to imagine getting in a God suit and I was going to step in

and zip it up and I was really going to be protected by this God that everybody

was talking about. And it just turns out that everybody was right.

Everybody who knew what they were talking about was right. And you know,

when I started that journey, things started to get better,

except my choices were still not great.

And I was still causing some havoc and some craziness in my life.

My house went into foreclosure, started having an affair with the married guys,

like a lot of bad choices, a lot of, I felt like all,

I was powerless over all of them, which is not true, but I had to switch sponsors.

So, you know, then that was 13 years ago. And, um,

I got with my sponsor, Diane D and she taught me about, you know,

getting quiet and getting right, like getting right with God,

like let's just get right with God. It's between you and God.

This isn't between you and all these other people. This is you and God.

And I started my meditation practice and I've been with her ever since.

And so I don't know. I started to talk about maybe today and my day,

and then my mood. I'm not really sure, but I just jumped all over the place.

I just know that every, every, everything comes back to here.

So I was at my house and it was like, I got the sick boyfriend.

And then I got my roommate and my grandma.

They they're watching the grand babies because I,

my daughter needed them babysat and they both volunteered to watch.

And I was like, good luck. Um, I got to leave.

And the minute Angela got there, I was like, bye, see you later. I got to go.

I couldn't wait to get out of my own house. And I hate that feeling. And you know,

so I get in the car and she's like, do you want to talk? And I said, yeah,

I'm grouchy. Like I'm grouchy.

I am sick of sick people and I have no patients. And you know,

it's like they've ruined my two weeks off work and everybody's ruined my time

off working. And now my gratitude listed said,

I can't wait. I'm going back to work on Monday. Like I go, when I work, I'm,

I'm actually like saved from when I want to work.

It's like going on vacation from her life. And I love my life and,

and it's just new and it's an adjustment and I'm adjusting to all of it and it

can't all go the way I want.

But the main thing I wanted to say was that we pulled up here in this parking

lot. And first I saw you and my heart was like,

from the Tuesday night meeting. And then I thought, is she from the union?

And my head like, but, but it's just pulled up. I felt better.

I was like, Oh my God, there's the AAers. Like we got to get in there.

And she listened to me and you know,

I always get to vent to Angela and she doesn't have to fix it for me.

She could, you know, like Trane says, she could just, you know,

be on my side when I'm wrong. She said, you know that, you know,

when the song drops at Jupiter, you know,

sticking up for me even when she knows I'm wrong, that's Angela. And, um,

unless I say, tell me the truth, but then she tells me the truth.

But we got here and I swear to God,

you guys have completely changed my whole day.

Like I'm going to be able to be a little bit different when I go home.

And that's how it always is though. It's like constant contact with each other.

It's the bright spot of my day.

And I'm always in contact with people from the program.

I've only prayed 20 times today and I've put one foot in front of the other.

I did exactly, I did every single thing I was supposed to do today.

And I don't think I hurt anybody today except me at Denny's

with the food that I ate, but I'll do better tomorrow on that one.

And I'm not even gonna beat myself up over it. I just don't even care.

It was early. It was four. I was like, it's perfect. Just four.

I won't eat again today and I won't feel bad later. And, um, yeah,

I'm just so grateful to be sober. And, and I know,

I know always that if I stay sober one day at a time and I bring myself to you

guys and let God and you guys just carry me, you know,

it's like a crowd surfing in here. It's like, just if you're new, just let us,

let's take you on the crowd surf. Just, just go with it. It works. You know,

it really does. And thanks for letting me share.