Peggy's Journey: Gratitude, Dream of Relapse, and the Power of Honesty

- Good evening, my name is Peggy and I am an alcoholic

and I am so honored and I feel privileged to be here

to share my experience, strength and hope with you.

I was so delighted to get a text from Ben

asking me to do this because brand new sober,

I would come to these meetings of quality of life

because you guys got the greatest speakers

on Saturday nights and I would sit there and go, wow,

and here I am, what a trip, you know?

And so thank you Ben, thank you so much

for considering me to be your Saturday night speaker.

And wouldn't you know, my two guests

stem from being part of the quality of life family,

never fully being a quality of life member

but on the fringes always have I been

and I've always loved each and every one of you,

so thank you.

And I go to a meeting in this very same room

on Sunday mornings and I want to thank you guys

for cleaning up so nicely for us the next day.

So I have a sponsor, she's 21 years sober,

I have two home groups 'cause one's never enough for me

and one is 7 a.m. Valley Club on Saturdays

and the other one is here tomorrow,

my little book study, Big Bang book study.

And I was finally separated from alcohol

by the grace of God on August 8th, 2012 at 58 years old.

I mean, you know, it took a lot to get to hear you guys.

So I'd like to welcome you people

that are sitting back there that had the courage

to identify as somebody new to this program,

try to keep an open mind.

You know, this is absolutely a godsend,

it's absolutely amazing to me to be here.

Since I started, oh, so I lived in a sober living

in August, September, October for a year

and at about 30 days, 40 days sober or so,

you know, our thing was the girls would climb in my car

'cause I'm the only one that had a car,

it was my home before I got there, I lived in it.

And we would blast metal, smoke cigarettes

and look for meetings, it was a big deal.

And we landed at the Sunday night

beginners meeting of Quad, you know,

and that's how this journey began

and how I got to know so many of you, thank you.

And so since then, I've become a grandmother,

I have three grandkids and they call me Spicy G,

I don't know why.

And I have lived in the same residence longer

than any place I've ever lived in in my adult life.

I have kept the same job longer than I've had any time

in my adult life and I get to be in the helping industry.

I get to work with people that have major, minor,

moderate mental health difficulties.

I am a therapist, I can say that out loud.

It took a long time for me to even be able to say it

'cause I couldn't believe it.

So I got to sleep in a bed last night, you know,

with a roof over my head, not my car,

not a chaise lounge in someone's backyard.

Every day when I wake up,

I'm amazed that that got to happen again.

So much so that I will make that bed

and I will kneel beside it because I know that part mostly,

it's that grace that was allowed me,

that this can happen.

So when I woke up this morning, I woke up from a dream

and I thought, why this dream on the day I'm going

to a breakfast with my sponsor and sponsee sisters,

why this dream when I'm going

to my 90 year old mom's house, you know,

to help her because she's starting to establish things

before she passes.

Why this dream before I come to speak before you?

I prayed on it, I thought about it

and I'm sharing it with you tonight.

So my dream is vivid and it's in color.

I can tell you why as I proceed.

So in this dream, I had a commitment.

It was with a 12 step program.

It's not clear exactly what, but I was in charge

of something and there were a lot of people

in this big conference room walking around,

including my roommate, Todd and his partner.

And I walked outside to the patio and sat in front

of these two guys and with impunity,

meaning my mind did not expect any kind of punishment.

I proceeded to drink an icy cold one.

It was a green bottle, a green long neck

and it was icy cold and it tasted so good.

It was very, very, very vivid, this dream.

And I proceeded to have a second one.

Got up because I knew, oh, that's a bracelet.

Well, you know, old school watch.

I knew that I had something to do in there.

And wouldn't you know, the first two people I run

into are Todd and Joey.

And I say to them, I just had a couple of beers.

They say to me, guess you'll have to start over again, Peggy.

Now this is where the unraveling of my mind begins

and where it goes away from that first step,

the underlying principle of honesty.

My thought is, why did I even tell them in my dream?

I'm thinking these things, honesty.

I shouldn't have told these guys because I could have

continued and nobody would have ever known.

Unraveling this first step of admitting that I'm powerless

in my life has become unmanageable with everything

and no reservations.

And that layer of honesty underneath that step has fizzled

because already I'm thinking, why did I even tell them?

And then I'm starting to get a little bit irritable.

I'm irritable, I'm discontent because the insanity

has set forth in motion in my head.

I want another one, but I have a commitment.

In my dream, I'm thinking I still have to go up there

and do whatever it was that this group has depended on me

to do.

I don't want to, I don't want that responsibility.

I don't want to have to do this.

It's calling me, it's calling me.

The insanity begins.

Where's God in this in step three?

Where is he?

I failed to think of him.

So you know, if we work really hard at our steps,

certain point, we're gonna know a new freedom

and a new happiness.

It tells us that in the big book.

It's part of our promises.

Two beers and I'm becoming self-seeking.

That's supposed to slip away.

It's a promise to us.

That part of our personality, that part of who we have

become as a result of doing these steps has seeped back

into me 'cause I don't care about you guys anymore

and this thing that I committed to do

and this fundraising that we were doing

for a program related situation.

This dream probably lasted five minutes or something

but it stayed with me all day.

And here it is tonight.

It's significant.

I've had drinking using dreams in the past

in these past 11 and a half, 11 almost a half years.

But every single time I would wake up prior to smoking,

lighting, drinking, whatever my thing was,

I would always wake up.

But this time the dream allowed me to go through

and taste it, savor it, and then live through

the consequences of what went on in my head afterwards.

Alcohol is a cunning and baffling thing.

And it's just like, how do we do this?

We work so hard.

And Joey's telling me,

oh, you're gonna have to start over again, Peggy.

What does that mean?

I don't wanna hear anything about starting over

'cause I'm not done yet now.

I'm not done yet.

And for a person like me,

might as well start digging the grave.

Might as well.

Might as well start digging the grave, you know?

'Cause places, the places I've been,

the people I surrounded myself with,

the level that it took me at 58 when I got here,

I don't wanna see that again.

This is just a dream, but it was in Technicolor.

And it was something that is significant

because it made me realize just how important

the spiritual principles of this program are

and how easily they can unravel with just two beers.

Before sobriety, I lived in Riverside

and I had a family there.

I was married to a lawyer.

He's now a Superior Court judge.

And we have three beautiful daughters together.

They're living a beautiful life.

I could not wait for adult time

where it gave me the green card

to go and drink with impunity, I thought, you know?

I was such an embarrassment.

But when that split up because he told me,

"I never trusted you, Peggy.

"You're just like my dad,"

who had died a couple of years later

of direct consequences from drinking.

I can say, "Oh, it's him that spurred me

"into this endless cycle."

I can easily tell you guys it's 'cause of him.

No, it's not.

It's my life.

I'm an alcoholic.

I cannot control and enjoy my drinking.

I can't, you know?

And so what happens is that, I mean,

it leads me to things that I say I would never do,

stuff I was never gonna do

and consequences that are damaging

to the people I love the most,

the parents of my grandkids, my mom,

my 90-year-old mom out there in Northridge,

my siblings, my husbands, and myself.

I cannot drink with impunity.

People who are not alcoholics get to, you know?

They might have a hangover or something like that,

but with us, our thinking unravels

and we become so dependent on that drink

that we do become selfish and self-seeking.

We do become that person where the rest of these things

that I'm telling you I love, spicy G, don't matter so much.

I can say I love you to my kids,

but it's empty because I can't show it, you know?

You guys are gonna need water.

Where's my props?

(laughing)

This, this, you know, this, this, this.

It's okay, I'm joking, I'm joking, dude.

This, this, this, you know?

That was really my love, but you couldn't tell me that.

You can tell an alcoholic.

You guys can always tell an alcoholic, as Eddie says,

but you can't tell 'em much, you know?

You can always tell an alcoholic,

but you can't tell 'em much.

Oh, ha, Joyce!

(laughing)

You can always tell an alcoholic, you know?

But you can't tell 'em much, you know?

That's part of how all of our thinking is, all of us.

Our lives, we become that tornado in people's lives.

Thrashing ends, just leaving a wreckage like no other,

because we cannot drink with impunity.

When we drink, stuff happens.

In the Texas that I can't use swear words.

(laughing)

Stuff happens, and it ain't pretty, people.

So, so how is it that things change?

I have a sponsor.

She's 21 years sober, and women that are sisters,

sponsey sisters, you know?

And we had a lovely little breakfast today.

And what did we do?

She gave us an assignment.

It was a writing assignment.

We're supposed to celebrate the holidays,

but we had a writing assignment.

It's cool, it was to think about the upcoming year

as a sober alcoholic, to write an intention

on what you would like to improve on,

or what you would like to see happen

in some area of your life,

and then write about how you're gonna go about doing that,

and share it with each other, you know?

And I still had that dream in my head, you know?

And I get over there, and I tell my sponsey sister,

they go, "Oh, that's a nightmare."

Is it, though?

Is it a nightmare, or is it something

that I get to share with you guys,

how quickly we can succumb to the effects of alcohol?

I'm looking around the living room

at her house, at these beautiful women surrounding me.

One of them's birthdays today,

she turned 49, natal birthday, years old.

And she just got accepted into nursing school.

She's so excited, you know?

One of them, one, is also starting nursing school

at the beginning of the year.

Another one is happily married, loves her husband,

and just became a grandma seven months ago.

You know, I mean, I'm looking around the room,

and I'm looking at how their lives have changed,

because they're sober,

but not just 'cause they stopped drinking.

There's work involved, unfortunately.

How much work did it take for us to stay

in that state of mind?

How much lying did we tell ourselves

and to the people around us?

How much time did it take to do everything we did?

I used to sit in frickin' avocado trees for days.

That's my story.

And, you know, they had some nice branches

where you can kinda chill and watch the people below me.

I used to watch the neighbors across the street,

'cause I'd be up this day and the next day,

and sometimes the next.

And I'd see them right after the sun would get up,

walk out and pick up the newspaper

with a cup of coffee in their hand,

and walk back into their house.

And then I would see them a little bit later

get in their car and drive off.

Hours pass, and I'd see them come home,

and I'm like, "How do they do that?

"How does a person do that?"

My life became unmanageable, totally.

Not like that, how do we do it?

How do we become responsible human beings?

Somebody that has something to give back

to help a struggling newcomer,

because that's our purpose, to stay sober

and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.

In this dream of mine,

some of the other underlying principles of our steps,

I can look at brotherly love out the door,

'cause I didn't care about you guys anymore.

I care about me.

I wanted to fulfill this thirst I had.

There's no place for brotherly love.

True brotherly love, like in this group here.

When we're drinking, can't, can't.

And when I said, "Where's God in this?"

In this dream of mine, God didn't even come up.

Void from the equation, void.

I know He's there, I know it.

I just know it, because here we are.

This is miraculous, this ability for all of us

to come in and stay sober and sit in a meeting

on a Saturday night without drinking.

Miraculous is miracles given to us by the grace of God.

His grace, we don't deserve it.

He bestows that on us, and a relationship begins between us

and that God of our understanding.

The deepening of that relationship has changed my life.

I am so effin' amazed at just how different things can be.

One's perspective, how the world is viewed from me,

my perspective has completely changed.

My purpose in life has completely changed.

And intention, so if you did the math,

I'm like 69 and almost 69 and a half years old now.

And so I still love metal, that part hasn't changed.

That part hasn't changed.

But how I see the world and how I respond to it

has changed, you know?

It's just like, it just befuddles me.

It makes me kind of like I still don't get it.

I sometimes have to pinch myself, is this real?

But I actually have a master's degree

in counseling psychology, you know?

And my oldest daughter told me 11 years ago,

she's going, "Mom, you effed that up.

"You blacklisted yourself in that area.

"You'll never be able to do it.

"If you need a job to support your sober living,

"go get a job at Denny's or something.

"That's what you deserve."

It's very painful what happens to our children.

You know, my kids have shared with me

just how damaging my behavior and how it affected them.

I can't do anything to change that,

but to change from within myself, you know?

So I work in a community mental health agency

and I thought, you know, God's always behind all this.

Like, why not?

Why not see if the licensing board will consider me

to become a licensed therapist?

They said, "Okay."

They allowed me to become registered and that's what I do.

I get to take a lot of the principles

that I've learned here to my clients.

It's amazing.

I don't ever say, we got traditions here, you know?

That I got this from AA, you know?

Oh, cheers.

You know, but I can steer them to a meeting.

I can tell them that this is something that is life-saving

for so many people.

One of these days, you know?

I mean like, you know, so I'm at this crossroads in my life.

I get to be in a position to make decisions.

I didn't have that 11 and a half years ago.

My decision is which trash can am I gonna open up

to see what recyclables you guys have for me, you know?

That kind of lifestyle, like that, you know?

Like my kids used to send their friends to find me.

Like in the big book, they talk about a searching party

looking for this guy that's in a barn.

They sent searching parties out looking for me

to see if I was still alive.

They didn't even know if their old mom had kicked it or not.

How damaging to a child.

Not today, not today, guys.

On Black Friday, it was my youngest daughter's birthday.

I'm texting her, what do you want?

You have to get a present from mom, you know?

A mom present, but what do you want?

It's Black Friday, I'm willing to go out there

and get you something.

Finally, she texts me back and she says,

I wanna spend time with you.

That's all I want from you, mom.

Will you come to Disneyland?

So on December 12th, I'm going to Disneyland.

It'll be her daughter, my granddaughter's first trip there.

Yes, I might come, like thank you.

You know, and that dream was so vivid and so real.

The way it messes up our head

and unravels all the work that we do

to become a responsible, upstanding person of the world.

Somebody that can take a look at my wrongdoings

and make amends to the people that I harm.

Two beers, I see cold beers.

And the effect was like the nightmare

that we all experience before we get here.

I'm responsible as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

When somebody asks me to participate, I'm going to do that.

It's part of what we do here

to share our experience, strength at home.

Maybe, maybe, maybe somebody hears something.

Maybe we make a difference in somebody's life.

One person's life.

When we do this, when we extend our hand, I'm responsible.

I used to hate that word, responsibility.

Ooh, did that grind on me.

Accountability, hated those words.

It got in the way.

What that meant was in the way of my lifestyle,

selfish and self-seeking.

But if we keep working on this, that slips away, people.

I love the new freedom and new happiness bestowed upon me

from Alcoholics Anonymous, you know?

I'm like still mystified at how a person like me

could be here alive, sober, you know,

with a new perception, a new way of looking at life.

When they tell us in the reading today,

this is a program of traction, not promotion.

I hope I can, for one, be that person

just by my example, my behavior, my continued sobriety,

the people, you know?

I hope that the way I do things outside of here,

like the 12 step, we carry these principles

in all of our affairs, that I'm able to do that.

They say we're not saints, and I definitely am not, you know?

No, I'm not.

You know, I tend to use very colorful language sometimes

when it may not be appropriate, you know?

I sometimes feel anxiety, and I sometimes get pissed off.

I walked out on a meeting at work the other day.

Well, I respected me and walked out.

So I have to keep learning and keep my head

in a place where I am still open to learning.

I never, never, never wanna close my mind

to what this program has to offer.

My name's Peggy, I'm an alcoholic,

and I'm grateful to be here tonight.

Thank you.