Bethany's Journey: From Early Drinking Abroad to 20 Years of Sobriety

- Bethany, recovered alcoholic.

(indistinct)

Everyone can hear me.

You can hear me do the wave.

I did the hitting for around the pandemic.

I was very skeptical of them.

You know, on the big books that is, you know,

modem to modem or face-to-face.

I was like modem to modem, that's ridiculous.

But you know, today it's actually become a saving grace

because I wasn't able to attend so many meetings

during the results of this.

And now it's made it easy to attend continuously

in other places, which I really appreciate.

And thank you very much, Bruce, for sharing before.

It's gonna be exciting for 18 years for you coming on.

You know, I loved hearing your experience

and I didn't get to see if anyone in the room was new

if you are.

Well, I absolutely hate sharing.

It's one of the things that's always-

(indistinct)

You know, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous

and through my whole life, I was a very shy individual.

I remember coming into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous

and I could barely speak.

So for me to actually speak long-term

in front of other people, it's a huge accomplishment for me.

And that's just fine for both of them

as a result of being here and continuing to participate

in this variety.

And I will admit lately,

my sobriety participation hasn't been great.

I've reduced my meetings, not on purpose.

It just kind of happens to about one a week.

And typically I go to three or four a week.

And so it's nice to be able to come back.

Right now, I'm saying yes to anything.

Because I know being present for these things

is what really fills me.

I have 20 years of sobriety.

I got sober November 11th, 2002.

My current sponsor is Abbie L.

And she and I have been working together

for a little over a year.

I've had a lot of sponsors throughout my sobriety.

I have worked the steps in numerous ways.

And I do sponsor.

I've sponsored being gambling.

And I take them through the book as outlined.

I'm the first to give 64 pages,

which I find to have been the most of their way

for me to achieve recovery.

And the book talks about recovery.

We are recovered from the seemingly hopeless state

of mind and body and I can say that I am a recovered body.

And it's something that I do every day.

I am grateful for.

And every day I do stay connected in one way or another.

Whether it's through another alcoholic, always with God.

And continuing to stay involved in my program.

Like this is a way of living for me.

And I can say when I was drinking, I didn't want to live.

You know, life to me wasn't really worth living.

I started drinking when I was 11.

I'm originally from Texas and a very small town

called Grand Prairie.

No one's ever heard of it.

And it's like a kind of state where if you stood

on a beer keg, you could look from one side to the other.

It's completely flat.

There's like nothing there.

But my mom remarried a man when I was 11

and moved me from this like super flat,

nothing really happening state.

That was my only thing that I'd ever known.

And took me to Hong Kong.

So I lived internationally for years.

And it was there where I started drinking.

There was no age limit for anyone getting off at that time.

And so I fell into the group of kids that what they did

was they went out on the weekend, went to bars,

club, partying, partying on the beaches for school.

And it was fine.

It was actually better fine.

It was really amazing.

As I said, I was really shy as a kid.

And when I started drinking, it was like I got to open up.

I opened up into some really loud, obnoxious,

emotional as you would when drinking, young girl, right?

It was like my emotions were all over the place.

I'm in a completely different country.

I'm trying to be somebody that I don't know how to be.

I started drinking at this place that was called M Place.

And it was a bar where you walk down some super shady stairs,

pass the dust, go inside, give them some money.

They stand your hand and you have your buffet.

So they gave me a beer sign that was as big as mine.

And I could refill it all night.

And I had never before.

But I didn't ever want anyone to know that I hadn't done this.

So I drank like I'd always been drinking.

So I have.

And it was truly amazing.

I got completely obliterated.

Don't really remember the night.

I had no idea how I got home, and the next day when I came to,

I knew I was right.

It was just like being a really deaf person.

And that's exactly what I wanted to be.

I didn't like myself.

I was shy.

I thought I was ugly.

I thought I was fat.

I thought it was all of these things, really stupid,

incapable, just not of the caliber of the people

that I was around ever.

And when I was in this different state, I felt alive and free.

And so I chased whenever I could.

And I would have told you that I was a social drinker.

But honestly, I don't know any 11-year-old social drinker.

It's not really a thing.

I drank as much as I could whenever I could.

And I couldn't have told you if I was an alcoholic,

I would have told you I was just a rebellious young girl.

And my rebellion continued on for a long time.

It extended into drugs.

It extended into all sorts of other things

that young women have a tendency to get involved in when

they're drinking.

And honestly, it's amazing what I made it out of those teams.

When I moved to the United States when I was 18,

it was hard to get out.

It was easier to get drugs, which I find pretty funny.

But my thing's alcohol.

So it's like I started dating older guys

in order to help get me alcohol.

And I also started doing a lot more drugs.

And the consequences weren't that extensive yet.

But they did start to grow.

But they didn't outweigh the good feelings

that I thought that I was having.

I used alcohol as much as I could

considering the situations that I was in.

When I was in my early 20s, I moved to Boston

to live with a drug dealing boyfriend

and a whole bunch of chaos that kind of followed.

And it was there that I really--

I just went off at the end.

I couldn't have told you what was really real anymore

with all of the drugs and alcohol that was going on.

And the consequences of that were really just

I was so strung out and didn't really

know what was up and what was down.

I went back to California to be with my parents

and kind of drive out for a little bit

and try to get my life together.

And I was going to college and working several jobs

and just still creating chaos.

And I thought everything was OK, but it really wasn't.

It got to the point where I described my drinking like this.

It was like something horrible had happened.

And I would say, OK, I'm never going to do that thing again.

And then I would get drunk again.

And then that horrible thing would happen, plus a little bit.

But then I would kind of go, OK, let me redraw my line

of where I'm going to end things.

So I would redraw the line, and then I would get drunk again.

And that thing would happen, plus a little bit more.

So I kept kind of edging myself back.

It was like just drawing lines in the sand, right,

trying to figure out where my boundaries were

and where are my morals, where are my boundaries.

And every time I liked that one, I

would cross it again and again and again.

And one day, it just got to where I had run out of sand

to draw a line.

I had backed myself into this corner

of not being able to commit to anything.

I had always wanted to be a good person.

I'd always thought that I was a good girl,

but I just couldn't pull it off.

Everywhere I went, I caused destruction, pain, humiliation.

I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief at that.

I had a job.

I was a bartender.

I stole from them, right?

I had friends, but I destroyed most of those relationships

because I couldn't be faithful to anybody.

I would lie.

I would hurt them, and not meaning to.

I never meant to do any of those things.

And I think that that's what's really confusing about, right?

It's like I don't ever mean hurt anybody.

I don't ever mean to not show up when I say that I'm going to.

I don't ever mean to do that thing again, and yet I do.

It's like I can't not do those things I would say I want to do.

And I got to the point where I was like, OK, well, maybe

it's the alcohol doing these things.

And so I would start going, I'm not going to drink today.

But then I would end up drinking later that day

because someone would call and say, let's go for a drink.

I couldn't ever quite dig to that thought of like,

I'm not going to drink.

I would always change my mind.

And it wasn't until I got into alcoholics

and then someone told me that alcohol changed my mind for me.

The night of my last drunk was definitely

the night where I crossed all of my lines.

Everything was fraught.

I hurt all of the friends that I was with.

I hurt the partner that I was with.

I had hurt people that I was working with.

It was the weirdest night for me was drinking, too.

It was most of the nights I would drink, black out,

pass out, and come through.

And that wasn't happening this night.

This night, I was oddly aware of what was going on

and completely physically out of control of myself.

And it wasn't matching to what my alcohol experience usually

was.

And all these horrible things happened that evening.

And then when I came to the next morning

and I looked around the room and trying to piece together

the destruction of the night before,

I was just filled with all of those feelings,

like the Hades Four Horseman.

And I got myself up out of bed, and I walked over to a mirror.

And it took me a while to be able to pull my head up

and look myself in the eye.

And when I did, all I saw was that I had

drank and moved myself away.

I had felt the shame, guilt, pain, self-loathing,

and humiliation of all the hurts that I had found

and all the pain that I had found.

And I couldn't go on like that.

And I wasn't quite sure what Alcoholics Anonymous was,

but I'd heard of it.

And I was like, I'm either going to kill myself

or I'm going to get some help.

So I googled Alcoholics Anonymous,

and it told me the preamble of how hundreds of men and women

help each other recover.

And I didn't understand what that was.

I didn't understand what it was to actually help

another person.

I had always done something for somebody for something.

So I didn't understand this concept of people actually

helping other people through something for nothing.

And I found the number for Alcoholics Anonymous

Central Office.

At this time, I was living in Bay and I.

And this nice lady answered the phone from Central Office.

And I think I'm meeting you.

And she says, OK, well, there's one for night.

And I said, oh, no, no, no.

I don't really want to go to.

She says, no, honey, you're going to go to night.

And I'm so very afraid that she did that.

I didn't know that there was meetings every night,

every hour, on the hour, in all these cities.

I thought this was the only meeting,

that I was going to miss my chain.

And so when she's like, no, honey, you need to go to night,

I was like, OK, where is it?

And it was-- nothing to remember.

You guys were in the valley, Radford Hall.

It was Radford Hall when it was over on Ventura Boulevard.

And I know it's moved a couple of times since then.

And I visited it in a newer location.

But I got sober when it was on Ventura Boulevard.

And I know that God was kind of with me that night.

Not that I was accepting of it at that point.

But this guy that I had pretty much destroyed him

the night before came to me that day.

And he was like, what's going on here?

I'm like, I think I need to go to a meeting.

And he was like, I'll take you.

And I really didn't want that.

But I couldn't tell him no.

And he took me to that meeting of alcoholics on this.

And it was Thursday night.

There was a candlelight that came.

It was 10 o'clock.

And it was so great for all of those things.

Because I don't think I could have loved an alcoholic

in the eye-- anyone in the eye.

And I feel like that he was definitely

sent to me to take me there.

Because my plan for that night was to try to find a meeting

by driving up Ventura Boulevard, driving back down,

going to the liquor store, and going home.

Like, it wasn't really my plan to go to the meeting.

But I got.

And I don't really remember what anybody said at that meeting.

But I felt more OK in that dark room

with these other alcoholics where

they were talking about whatever feeling comfortable.

They seemed comfortable.

I was like, I can come back and do this again.

And honestly, I have been sober ever since that particular

meeting.

And I don't ever think that that was anything that I did, right?

Like, God got me.

God got me to this breaking point to actually get me out.

And it's been through those breaking points

that have kept me going through alcoholics.

I haven't done this thing perfectly at all.

The first sponsor that I asked to take me through

whatever alcoholics do.

It was three months into AA before I finally

heard through the steps.

And I was like, what are these steps saying?

There was one woman that I felt kind of comfortable with.

And I asked her to help me.

And she said she wasn't going to help me.

I asked somebody else.

And that was my first experience, asking somebody.

It was so awkward and so hard.

And then I ended up with this other woman

that I didn't feel comfortable.

And I remember saying something about that at a meeting.

Everybody in the meeting in unison was like, get a new swamp.

And I still didn't quite get what they were supposed to do.

But this overwhelming feeling of this person

is really going to be able to help me when I have to.

I found another sponsor and another sponsor and another

sponsor.

And I've worked the steps with a few of them.

I remember being taken through.

Someone took me through with an NA worksheet at one point.

Someone else took me through by reading the poem as well.

I remember someone was going to take me through trying

to read the big book together.

But she'd never really done it.

And I remember she and I going together.

And I was like, hey, Mandy, where's the person?

And she's like, you know what?

I don't know.

And it's like trying to find out these things.

And it wasn't until I moved down to the South Bay, which

is where I live now.

We live in Gomita, a little inland city from the South Bay

that I was going to move on to.

And I found this meeting called the Denver Group.

And they absolutely saved my mind.

It's actually where I know Karen from.

And these people, they knew something.

They knew something different than anyone else

that I had ever talked to.

And these people worked the steps directly

from the big book, the first 164 pages.

But I knew when I heard them, they definitely

had a different answer, that the book talks about that thing

with depth and weight.

Like they were talking to something much deeper in me.

Until I got to this meeting, and that was two years

into my sobriety, I still wasn't quite sure what an alcoholic is.

And it was when I got to this meeting

and people started talking about the allergy of alcohol.

What is that?

And they're like, that's that thing

that when you start drinking, you keep drinking, right?

And I'm like, well, I always wanted to drink,

so I don't know what you're talking.

Uncovering the lies of alcoholism, it's wild.

Because I told myself, I always wanted to drink.

Yeah, I did.

My motto was, I want to drink more alcohol, right?

So could I ever really try to stop drinking?

Could I ever set any limits on drinking?

Probably not.

Well, those were my lies, right?

Because I wouldn't have walked into the rooms

with alcohol as long as I had.

I just always convinced myself that I had changed my mind.

And I was really good to just stop changing my mind.

And it took a lot of digging and looking at this thing.

Like I said, I would go to the bar every night

and go for a couple of drinks.

And then someone pointed out to me, a couple was two, right?

And I'm like, oh, so how many do you really have at the bar?

Well, I would drink until the bar closed.

How many drinks I had during the time that's what I had.

And then I'd drive to the liquor store

and have some water before I would pass out.

It was like they're--

but I had lied to myself and told myself

that it was what I was really having.

I changed the definitions of things

to meet me wherever I got.

And yeah, I'd always wanted to drink to get drunk,

but I was always drinking to try a sweet spot.

You know, that spot where the world's just kind of got

a humbug and you can kind of navigate your way through it

with a little kiddiness to it.

I think I experienced, really, like every other time

I was drinking an overshot mark of that little sweet spot.

That's what I was really having.

But that's my alcohol.

It was telling me, like, OK, so I had this one drink.

And now I'm feeling like I'm going to get there.

But I'm not quite there, so I haven't had any--

my alcohol has never said we're going

to go and drink everything, but it just

talked to me really quietly as just how-- even when one more

couldn't have gotten any, right?

Like, if I can hardly walk down the hallway,

what is the point of having just one more?

But my alcohol isn't the only one,

where I couldn't even stand.

Like, that's ridiculous.

That-- why would I even want--

I don't think anyone-- that's what alcohol is.

That's the physical allergy, no matter what the--

and then these people also told me

that there's this mental obsession, right?

It's like, even if I do happen to stop for a period of time,

I will pick up again, you know?

And that's, again, that thing I thought

had just changed my mind to go and drink.

Because I would tell myself, like, oh my gosh,

that was just a horrible experience that I had.

I don't ever want to experience.

I'm not going to go home.

And literally, like, later that day,

I would get a phone call, hey, would you meet a bar?

OK.

It was just like that.

It's just that quick.

It doesn't have to make any sense.

Like, it will just take me right back to it, no matter what.

And I remember the night-- man, I could--

I remember the night that I knew that I had some mind.

I talk about crossing the road, going

from a potential alcoholic to a real alcoholic and stuff.

And it is-- when you're a real alcoholic, that's when.

You know, you drink more than you say that.

I didn't have that information and experience drinking.

But after the pinnacle of one horrible--

I mean, I honestly think that I was such a disfamily.

So humiliating.

I was through that.

And then my brother wanted me to take him to a bar

because he was visiting the town.

And I said, OK, I'll take you.

It was the Abbey thing, one of the fantastic, huge things.

And he wanted to go for one of those.

He said, OK, I'll take you.

But I'm not.

He said, OK.

So we get there.

He's going to go to the bar and get the drink.

He's like, what do you want?

You put just water.

I don't-- they're all right.

So he comes back with two glasses.

And they are both absolute citronic and lithium.

And he just sets it down.

And he said, I don't want-- and he literally just took it

and pushed it my way.

And I could feel everything inside of me, right?

Everything inside of me.

I knew I needed that drink like I needed air, right?

And so I drank.

You know, that in the book is what

it talks about of turning into a real alcoholic.

Like, that was that point for me.

And I didn't know it then.

But I know it today that that's exactly what it's about.

You know, because I lived from that point knowing.

And it's amazing, right?

How does a person that goes from having zero

[INAUDIBLE] into me that [INAUDIBLE]

and it talks in the book about, like, on page 20,

it's like, you know, maybe you're

going to see how and why.

In the face of this, that we're not supposed to be drinking it.

And the book answers that question later by saying,

you know, how and why that we quit claiming that it didn't--

and I realized that in my whole life that what I was doing

was probably going to be taking control of everything

and delivering.

And it was through all of these reasons

that we get the kind of thing towards being in the opening

that I could watch the world, right?

It was in that uncovering of, like, I am alcoholic.

I cannot control my drinking.

I cannot control my not drinking.

What can?

How did I even get to these rooms?

Like, that's the first miracle that I anyway--

and I know that I was taken to these rooms by God.

But being able to, like, digest that, like,

that was nothing I ever wanted.

I didn't want to live.

Like, I was raised by these super nice church people.

You know, like, I went to Lutheran schools

and all of these things, and it just never rested.

God, like, wasn't something that I could ever understand.

And in these rooms, I was so very grateful that this

is the God of my own understanding.

This is something that, like, our own conception.

And a conception isn't a contract.

That's not, like, something that I think about and create.

You know, it is a starting point.

It is, like, a new point to begin with with me and God.

And I will say, I actually had a fantastic, like,

spiritual experience in early sobriety,

but I didn't know that that's what it was.

And no one could tell me that it was.

But it just sounded like a cool experience.

I was kind of nutty, you know?

I was going to the aquarium, right?

And I was taking this newcomer person.

And because you're supposed to take new people to go and do

things, even though I was only, like, three or four months

over myself, and I was trying to do everything different.

And so I was--

I had asked this new person to go to the aquarium with me.

And she and I were, like, arguing about God.

You know, she was adamant that God was not

worth it, that didn't exist.

And I was in this place of such self-doubt.

I was in doubt.

And it saved me, because I was like, I don't know.

These people say that we should believe in something.

I don't know.

Nothing's really worked for me.

And she's just going on about how much she hates it.

And we keep having this argument with the aquarium.

And, you know, I get to this tank.

And I know this story sounds really crazy, but, you know,

it happened.

And these are the things that happen to us that, like,

no one can take from us, right?

So I get to this tank.

And, like, she's just going off.

And we're just at this pinnacle of this argument.

And I can hardly take it anymore.

And so I'm staring in this tank, trying so hard to feed me fish.

And mind you, I still only have three months of sobriety.

So everything has to take me at the point, anyway.

And I don't see any fish in this tank.

All I see is just seaweed, seaweed, seaweed.

And I'm like, I paid this money.

I want to see where are the freaking fish.

And, you know, she's still barking at me.

So I'm looking even harder into this tank.

And then I get down on my knees.

I don't know why I was so determined to find the fish

in this tank, but I was.

So I get on my knees.

And then I look directly in the tank.

And then there's this thing.

I've never seen this before.

And it was the Weedy Sea Dragon.

And it was perfectly camouflaged by all of the seaweed.

That's why I couldn't see it.

It was so perfect in this environment

that I couldn't see it.

And then it just kind of hit me, this thought, right,

of like, and I don't think this way.

It was the thought of like, something had a plan in mind

and all this was created.

And then just this overwhelming sensation

of just like I had never felt came in, right.

And then I looked down at the bottom of the tank

and then there's like six more of them lined up, Eric.

You know, it was just this weirdest thing.

And today I can say like,

that was an actual spiritual experience for me

because I feel like I got the crack

and look behind the veil, right, the perfection.

Everything is created just as it should be.

You know, I didn't do anything to get to that point.

There's nothing that I could have done to have made it happen.

It just happened to me, that's God's fault.

But it wasn't until 10 years of sobriety that I met a dude

who became my sponsor, who saved my life.

Because at 10 years of sobriety, I, yet again, owe myself.

I couldn't continue to do this thing

because I thought I was going crazy.

Everything that I had touched

just kind of broke one more time in sobriety, right.

And it was because I was doing my own employment.

And when he and I were in the book together talking about this,

it was one of those experiences where the big thing was just working.

Bill Wilson talks about that experience

when he's at the wind chest theater,

but it was much more than that.

And that experience came to mind for me, you know.

Like, yeah, I've never been so moved.

Like, everything's like back and forth.

That's your beginning, that feeling, right.

Knowing that there is perfection and you can't do it.

It just, and what a beautiful place to be, right.

Because I get to see it in existence all of the time.

And in that, like I've been able to feel comfortable

with anyone that I can't make happen, but just kind of happen.

And in that, I've just been led,

I've constantly been led down the road

in sobriety, in recovery, in life.

You know, things just keep happening

and I just keep showing life is enough,

but I have been given perfect tools to be able to navigate.

Inventory is not an easy or is it a fun process.

However, it is a life changing thing.

Through inventory, I've been able to do that,

like uncover, discover, discard, right.

Like look deeper into myself and into this world

and how I can be different.

Like I don't get to, like you have to know, right.

Like you have to know that there's a different way

to behave in order to be able to behave any differently.

And yet the irony of that too,

is that I can't make that happen myself either.

It's like, I have to get into a greater sort

in order for that to even happen.

Just like, I can't not drink on my own.

I have to know that I can't not do that.

Thank you.

I have to know that I can't not drink on my own

and I have to have that relationship with God

in order to keep me going, right.

There's just this weird irony that you have to know things

so it doesn't mean that you can do anything.

And that's what keeps me really happy for being close

to depending on my relationship with God.

And it has taken so many devastating things in society

and so many absolutely tremendous things.

I have a wildly large life and you know,

one of the greatest things that in my life today

is that I get to help other people find this thing too.

I was a hope to die on top.

I literally only wanted to drink and die.

I found absolutely no other reason.

I made no point in the future of none, right.

'Cause I didn't find that it was going to be worth it.

In today, I plan all kinds and I think that it's all worth it.

I think that living to the fullest today

is one of the greatest things that you can do

and one of the greatest gratitude things

that you can do just for God, right.

You've been given life, live it.

Live it to its fullest.

And today I absolutely am trapped in that drama,

the trauma of am I going to drink, am I not?

That has been rewrote.

That dance has been removed from that and all that I can live

with a wider perspective than the Philly colors

which is something that I never understood before for today.

So thank you very much for letting me show up tonight

and I encourage anyone that is doubting themselves,

doubting ourselves, or any find somebody

that you could hear that has a solution

that can help you connect both.