1 00:00:00,370 --> 00:00:31,970 I want to thank Lisa in extension. A few people in here, a few people that had to sit with me a couple weeks ago, so sorry about that. If you're new, I'd like to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous, to this room. I really do not like to speak, you know, really what I'm supposed to do. I mean, I'm always, always happy to do anything for AA, and it's my job to show up and do what I'm asked to do, and I believe that, and that has served me my whole sobriety. My sobriety 2 00:00:31,970 --> 00:01:01,970 date is March 7th, 1987, and I haven't taken a drink since that date, and I really would like to keep it that way if I can, and I have no illusions that I'm cured, and, you know, that a drink is never going to happen to me. I know people with 34, 35 years that have gone out and drank again, so I believe it. I have a small Friday night meeting that I started in Burbank. It was last night. This woman has 32 years. It's a lot of time in that meeting, and a lot of newcomers, too, and she was just sharing, you know, it's just, 3 00:01:01,970 --> 00:01:31,970 I have today. You have today. We just start over every single day. I mean, I start over every day, and it's what I do that day. You know, if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I may not stay sober, and I don't know which thing it is that I do that keeps me sober, so I just keep doing them all, and I don't know if it's keeping my commitments, picking up cups, you know, back when I was washing ashtrays. Like, I don't know which thing it is. Driving to the end of the world to go pick up a newcomer to take them to a meeting, you know, on a Tuesday night. I don't know, so I just 4 00:01:31,970 --> 00:02:01,970 try to keep doing all of those, and I feel like the last couple of months, I just have had a lot of, I've had this renewed thing in my sobriety, and, you know, if you've been around or you're new, I mean, I think I go through periods where it's a little not as shiny and glossy and awesome and amazing as it is at other times, and I feel like I'm kind of coming out of one of those times, and the last couple of months, I've just had these reminders of really what this is all about, and I, a couple of months ago, I was 5 00:02:01,970 --> 00:02:31,970 my husband's ex-wife needed to go to meetings. She got the rest of the drunk driving and gone to jail, and she, you know, we are not friendly, but I just looked like I can take you to a meeting if you want, because I wanted to get her to good meetings, and so we spent a week every single night going to meetings together, and it was just this glimpse into my world that she had never seen, and it was so good for me to see it and to work with someone so new, but I look at it, and she's kind of in and out, not really going, and I'm kind of 6 00:02:31,970 --> 00:03:01,970 a court carl, but I can look at it and see I know her. I know her life. It's very small, and I know that if she, just like Rich was saying, if she just get in the middle and just do what she's asked to do and show up, she'd have this amazing life. You can't not have that if you're doing it. There's no way. It's just, I don't know what it'll look like, but it won't look like it did. It has to be in the middle, and I really believe half measures avail me nothing, not half measures avail me half. I believe if I don't get 7 00:03:01,970 --> 00:03:31,970 in the middle and do it all, I kind of just don't get the deal, and so that was one thing, and then I had, a couple weeks ago, I had to speak at the Pacific Group meeting in Quincy Night, and I only say that because it was, that was the big thing for me in my sobriety. No way could I ever do that. I'm not capable of that. I mean, anybody who knows that meeting, it's a very big meeting. I got sober in that meeting, and it, you know, it's circuit speakers. It's conference speakers. It's big-time speakers. It's not me. I am a part of the variety, kind of a boring drunk, 8 00:03:31,970 --> 00:04:01,970 and it was just, I just didn't think I could do it. That was the monkey on my back. It was, I was as afraid to do that at 31 years of sobriety as you were to come up here tonight. It was as scary for me then as when I was brand new to Read Chapter 5. I just could not do it, and I tried really hard to not do it. I begged my sponsor. I talked to Terry. I, and I've gotten out of it before because I'm manipulative, and I have a sharp tongue, and I'm really bossy, and I've got a little bit of time, so people tend to listen to me, 9 00:04:01,970 --> 00:04:31,970 and thank God that the secretary of that meeting did not work them to me, and because it forced me to face that fear and walk through it, and I'm not, because it's a self-help group, because AA is, for me, this is not a self-help program. That is not what Alcoholics Anonymous is, and I had to do that so I would stay sober, not so I could practice buying one grape at the grocery store to overcome my fear. I had to do that to stay sober. I have to walk through those fears because those fears will make me drink again, and I know it. 10 00:04:31,970 --> 00:05:01,970 That is how I drank. I drank over everything I was afraid to do. I'm not a trier. I don't like to, I don't like to do anything where I could fall down or look bad, so I just bow out and don't do anything at all. That is who I am. Charlie Carney, you know, my buddy Charlie Siegel say, I want the feeling of a job well done never having done anything at all. I just want to put on the suit and hold the briefcase and say I've done it, so that was really hard for me, but after that, I went home that night afraid that everyone's memories would be erased. 11 00:05:01,970 --> 00:05:31,970 But after a few days, I had survived, and I felt like this monkey was off my back, and there was nothing that could scare me that much until the next thing comes along that scares me that much, but that's how I learned, so that was that. And then the third thing that just really had come up was I sponsored this woman, and she is going through a really hard thing right now, and she's a nurse, and she's a long-time nurse. She's been in and out of AA. She's had long-time sobriety and not long-time sobriety, and she was caught shooting narcotics. 12 00:05:31,970 --> 00:06:01,970 That she had stolen from work, at work, and had to leave, and they fired her, and she's wrestling with some stuff regarding that and self-reporting to the board, and I see that, and I have, I feel just, I know that that's the thing that she's the most afraid of, and that's the thing that will take her out, and I know that, and I thought about that and thought, you know, in my sobriety, my life before I got sober was just all over the place. It was so 13 00:06:01,970 --> 00:06:31,970 that way. I was in, I was up, I was down, I was trying this. I mean, I was just a wreck. When I came into AA, I, my life, my life's been crazy, you know, at times, and not at other times, but my path has been straight. I just have always done what my sponsor has done. I've all, you know, may have hated it. I may have done it ungracefully, ungraciously. I may have shaken my fist at my sponsor, but I did it, and I've always been willing to do whatever I've been asked to do, and consequently, my life has kind of gone straight. 14 00:06:31,970 --> 00:07:01,950 There's lots of things that have been hard in there, but I don't have that faith, right, and I look at her and think she'll never stay sober if she can't face that little thing and just walk through it, and that's where faith comes in for me, and anyway, so I looked at that, and I thought, you know, I feel like I was like this train, and my, the wheel of the train was just a little bit off the track recently. Honestly, that Wednesday night thing, I just feel like showing up and having to do that, it just put the wheel back on the track, and now it's lined up again, and I'm kind of smooth on the track, and all my wheels are on the track right now. 15 00:07:01,970 --> 00:07:21,110 And you just go in and out of that in sobriety, and for me, the trick has been to keep coming to meetings, keep talking to my sponsor, keep admitting it, and keep trying. Nobody's perfect. My God, anybody who's done this perfectly, if anyone tells you they've done this perfectly, I don't believe them. I mean, I should not believe them, because no one can live like that. We're just, we're not saints. We're just humans. 16 00:07:21,110 --> 00:07:35,650 So anyway, I was trying to find the directions to find the email to this meeting, and I saw that the last time I've spoken here was 2012, so I must have really knocked the roof off last time I spoke, so it's been six years. I'm trying to redeem myself a little. 17 00:07:37,070 --> 00:07:51,010 I got, first, okay, I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. I am the youngest of six kids, and of an Irish Catholic family, and I, my dad was a really bad alcoholic, and he was not abusive at all. I didn't grow up in an abusive. 18 00:07:51,110 --> 00:08:14,910 My dad was just a really bad drunk, and he got drunk at all the worst times, and he was, you know, he was this Irish, he was a life insurance salesman, and my dad was kind of bigger than life. He was just this character. He wore a toupee, he would tip the toupee, he drove a limousine, you know, I tell everybody about the limousine, because this was, you know, I mean, I'm 57, this was a long, and I'm 31 years older, so it was a long, long time ago. 19 00:08:14,910 --> 00:08:20,910 He drove a limousine with, like, partition windows, and jump seats, and flagstaffs on the car, he had all these flags made. 20 00:08:21,110 --> 00:08:37,710 He would fly on the car for anything, you know, for your wedding, for the Kentucky flag, the crest of Louisville, the Irish flag, the Olympic flag, the American flag, and he had his business card made into a flag, which was a leprechaun jumping through a harp, and, you know, a leprechaun light post. 21 00:08:37,710 --> 00:08:51,070 My uncle was a, my uncle, his brother was a monk in the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky. We had a lifestyle statute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in our home. We would say the rosary every night after dinner, with our arms extended. 22 00:08:51,110 --> 00:09:14,570 And, um, it was just this crazy, strange house, and my dad drank a lot, and he embarrassed me a lot, and, you know, I just felt, I was dark-complected, I had this funny name, you know, Jobe's not my real name, but it's been my nickname all my life, so it's a stupid name, and I had this raspy voice, it smelled like, you know, it sounded like I drank a lot of whiskey and smoked cigarettes when I was, like, 10. 23 00:09:15,750 --> 00:09:20,710 I just, I don't know, I just, my perception of myself, I mean, from just always. 24 00:09:21,110 --> 00:09:35,290 Other than I was, I thought I was 6 feet tall, I thought I wore a size 10 shoe, like, my picture of myself was just not who I was. I just, I was so off, my perception of me is so wrong, and so screwed up. 25 00:09:35,430 --> 00:09:44,710 So, um, that house was crazy, and my dad was on and off antabuse my whole childhood, he was in and out of the mental institutions, he would drink on antabuse a lot, and get deathly, deathly ill. 26 00:09:44,710 --> 00:09:51,090 And, you know, growing up with an alcoholic is just, for me, it's just a different level of, you know, I just never tried. 27 00:09:51,110 --> 00:09:57,430 I don't trust it, I'm always smelling him, I want him to be, I don't want him to come home drunk, and he comes home drunk, I just hated it. 28 00:09:57,610 --> 00:10:09,150 And, um, there was a lot of craziness in our house. My oldest brother was, uh, the best and the brightest of our family, but by the time he was 17, he was a heroin addict, and by the time he was 23, he was dead. 29 00:10:09,150 --> 00:10:12,710 He had hung himself from a dumbwaiter in a house, you know, he just, it was crazy. 30 00:10:12,790 --> 00:10:18,410 And I was 12, and he was 23, and there had been a lot of craziness in our house before he had killed himself. 31 00:10:18,630 --> 00:10:21,070 He was, he was on and off, um, uh, PCP. 32 00:10:21,110 --> 00:10:41,110 PCP, so he would come, and it would be cycling, and he would just lose it, and he would destroy our house, and break all the furniture, and he wanted to rob banks, and he just, he had guns, and one time he came over on Christmas Eve, and my dad was really drunk, and my brother was really drunk and high, and he had a gun, and my sister and I were laying downstairs in our bedroom, and they're on the landing of the stairs, just fighting. 33 00:10:41,110 --> 00:10:51,090 My dad's telling him to shoot him, and, you know, just kill me, and we're laying there waiting to hear the shot that's going to go off, and the next morning, we had to go, my mom woke us up, we had to go out in the snow and find a gun. 34 00:10:51,110 --> 00:11:07,570 Before any of the neighbors found a gun, um, you know, no one died that night, but that was kind of what I had grown up in, and I grew up in this Catholic, you know, upper middle class Catholic neighborhood, and we were that family that everyone talked about, and we were the ones that had that kind of beat up cars in the front. 35 00:11:07,570 --> 00:11:12,570 My dad had financial troubles off and on, and we were the ones with the drug addict in the house. 36 00:11:12,690 --> 00:11:21,030 My brothers all ran away from school, you know, they ran away at 15 and 16 to Chicago, and one brother went to join the Danish Merchant Marine when he was 16 years old. 37 00:11:21,110 --> 00:11:28,310 But it's just insane, and we had holes in our walls, everybody had a temper, we were all Irish, we were all kicking holes in the wall, and it was crazy. 38 00:11:28,550 --> 00:11:40,690 And I started to drink because of my brother, and of watching what he went through with drugs, and, you know, he shot heroin, and it just, I have, like, this physical aversion to being that kind of stuff. 39 00:11:40,690 --> 00:11:48,830 I just, I never did drugs, I just, I smoked, I mean, I did a little bit of cocaine, you know, right toward the end of my drinking, only to drink longer, but very little. 40 00:11:48,990 --> 00:11:50,550 I just, drinking really got me there. 41 00:11:50,550 --> 00:11:57,550 I never said I wasn't going to drink, even though I'd see what my dad went through, but I said I was never going to do drugs after what I saw what my brother went through. 42 00:11:57,710 --> 00:12:06,450 And so when he died, I started drinking that summer, and I was 12 years old, and, you know, it's not that easy to get floated all the time when you're 12 years old, at least where I grew up. 43 00:12:06,530 --> 00:12:14,290 So we would drink on the weekends, we would have these camp outs and spin the bottles in people's basements, and just however we needed to to get drunk. 44 00:12:14,290 --> 00:12:17,130 And that just continued for me from 12 on. 45 00:12:17,310 --> 00:12:20,290 So I got into high school, and my dad got so... 46 00:12:20,550 --> 00:12:26,130 I got sober when I was 15 years old, and that was my first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous that I knew of. 47 00:12:26,430 --> 00:12:33,390 And he had been in and out of AA a couple of times, maybe years before, and like I said, his big thing was the middle institution. 48 00:12:33,870 --> 00:12:42,970 He had, we had a family psychiatrist that treated my dad, my sister, my mom, and, you know, my dad and my sister were in the middle institution at the same time, several times. 49 00:12:43,130 --> 00:12:45,990 You know, they'd have to go up and down separate elevators and crazy. 50 00:12:45,990 --> 00:12:50,510 Every light switch in our house had the thing made, it was a little cover that my dad had made. 51 00:12:50,550 --> 00:12:57,310 The middle institution, we had all these hash trays that were swirling paint stuff, you know, and they were so normal. 52 00:12:57,450 --> 00:12:59,150 I just thought, I'd never even thought of it. 53 00:12:59,350 --> 00:13:02,110 Every light switch had those Our Lady of Peace light covers. 54 00:13:02,450 --> 00:13:07,850 And my dad got sober when I was 15, and so he was my first example of Alcoholics Anonymous. 55 00:13:08,170 --> 00:13:10,810 When my brother died, my dad never drew a sober breath. 56 00:13:11,030 --> 00:13:12,830 There was kegs of beer at the funeral home. 57 00:13:12,830 --> 00:13:17,730 It was a very, there was a lot of stigma around my brother's death because we're Catholic and it was a suicide. 58 00:13:18,210 --> 00:13:20,530 It was, you know, everybody was bringing drugs to the funeral. 59 00:13:20,650 --> 00:13:28,250 The funeral home, the funeral in my brother's casket, because it had been a hanging, and my mother insisted on an open casket, you know, it was just, it was so twisted. 60 00:13:28,250 --> 00:13:30,990 And my dad was just completely wasted through the whole thing. 61 00:13:30,990 --> 00:13:39,830 And so when he got sober, I, my memory is my dad did so much work around in Alcoholics Anonymous over that funeral and over my brother's death. 62 00:13:39,830 --> 00:13:43,230 And he would have newcomers in our house and they'd be going through the big book. 63 00:13:43,230 --> 00:13:47,150 And that, what I looked for when my dad got sober was, was my dad going to change? 64 00:13:47,150 --> 00:13:49,990 Although he embarrassed me, he was a funny guy. 65 00:13:49,990 --> 00:13:53,710 And he had a lot of personality and I loved my family. 66 00:13:53,710 --> 00:14:04,750 My family was quirky and messed up, but I loved that my dad had so much personality and I was afraid he was going to be boring and vanilla and like a woman, you know, and I watch it for that. 67 00:14:04,750 --> 00:14:07,210 And my dad probably got a better personality. 68 00:14:07,210 --> 00:14:11,430 My dad was still the same guy, but he was sober and he embraced AA. 69 00:14:11,430 --> 00:14:14,510 He ended up getting Hepatitis C month and chronic bronchitis. 70 00:14:14,510 --> 00:14:19,950 And it was when you can smoke in meetings and he would sit in the front row and there was so much smoke in that room and he didn't care. 71 00:14:19,950 --> 00:14:22,530 He loved Alcoholics Anonymous. 72 00:14:22,530 --> 00:14:25,250 And that is what I saw at 15 and 16. 73 00:14:25,250 --> 00:14:26,670 He died when I was 19. 74 00:14:26,670 --> 00:14:31,330 He was four years sober and I would come home drunk at 15 and 16 and 17 and 18. 75 00:14:31,330 --> 00:14:32,710 And he never said a word to me. 76 00:14:32,710 --> 00:14:33,890 And I don't think I could do that. 77 00:14:33,890 --> 00:14:34,390 I have kids. 78 00:14:34,390 --> 00:14:36,390 I don't think I could do that, but he never said a word. 79 00:14:36,390 --> 00:14:38,090 And he was just this great example. 80 00:14:38,090 --> 00:14:43,970 And I think some of that is, you know, that's what, what our literature says, you know, attraction rather than promotion. 81 00:14:43,970 --> 00:14:45,190 And I just, I saw it. 82 00:14:45,190 --> 00:14:46,310 He wasn't lecturing me. 83 00:14:46,310 --> 00:14:47,950 He wasn't trying to fix me. 84 00:14:47,950 --> 00:14:49,390 He was doing his thing. 85 00:14:49,390 --> 00:14:52,230 And he was a good example to me of Alcoholics Anonymous. 86 00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:57,110 And I saw it and thank God because he made it okay for me to know this was a place I could go. 87 00:14:57,110 --> 00:15:04,030 And what happened is when I was little, I had been, we would, all the kids would go over to this guy's house. 88 00:15:04,030 --> 00:15:09,790 There was an old man in our neighborhood named Mike and he and his wife had a woodworking shop in their basement. 89 00:15:09,790 --> 00:15:16,370 He's a big part of my life because all of us would go over there, the kids in the neighborhood, and we'd use his lathe and we'd make these candlesticks. 90 00:15:16,370 --> 00:15:18,130 And I loved going over to Mike's house. 91 00:15:18,130 --> 00:15:19,330 And we, we did drink. 92 00:15:19,330 --> 00:15:20,330 We'd drink in his basement some. 93 00:15:20,330 --> 00:15:25,390 He didn't know that, but he, he would kick us out every night at like six o'clock and I didn't want to leave. 94 00:15:25,390 --> 00:15:26,430 I didn't want to go home to my house. 95 00:15:26,430 --> 00:15:28,650 My house was crazy, but he would kick us out. 96 00:15:28,650 --> 00:15:38,890 And when my dad got sober, I found out that Mike was sober in AA and he had been sober at that time, maybe 20, I mean, 25 years or, he was like one of the very early members of AA. 97 00:15:38,890 --> 00:15:41,830 And he, he was an amazing example. 98 00:15:41,830 --> 00:15:44,930 I feel like he saved my life on millions of levels. 99 00:15:44,930 --> 00:15:48,290 So he never said anything and he knew what was going on in my house and he'd kick us out. 100 00:15:48,290 --> 00:15:49,130 And he and his wife would go. 101 00:15:49,130 --> 00:15:52,490 She'd go to Al-Anon, he'd go to AA and they'd go every single night. 102 00:15:52,490 --> 00:15:56,390 So when I, you know, when I, my dad came into AA, he helped my dad. 103 00:15:56,390 --> 00:15:57,990 My dad died when I was 19. 104 00:15:57,990 --> 00:16:02,190 I ended up going to, I was supposed to go away to college and I never went. 105 00:16:02,190 --> 00:16:03,150 I flaked on that. 106 00:16:03,150 --> 00:16:07,030 One of the things I like to do is tell you what you want to hear. 107 00:16:07,030 --> 00:16:08,690 Like, yep, I'll be here tonight. 108 00:16:08,690 --> 00:16:09,850 I'll be here tonight to speak. 109 00:16:09,850 --> 00:16:16,530 And then at about three, I'd call and say I have a sore throat or I had a tooth pulled or my eighth eye or whatever. 110 00:16:16,530 --> 00:16:17,510 And I'm not going to come. 111 00:16:17,510 --> 00:16:19,010 And that is how I lived my whole life. 112 00:16:19,010 --> 00:16:21,050 I would tell you anything you wanted to hear. 113 00:16:21,050 --> 00:16:23,670 And then I'd make up a lie to not show up. 114 00:16:23,670 --> 00:16:26,950 And that, you know, I didn't know that that's not a very comfortable way to live. 115 00:16:26,950 --> 00:16:29,870 And that's what I mean by when I came in, it just became very straight. 116 00:16:29,870 --> 00:16:31,970 Like I just, I learned those lessons. 117 00:16:31,970 --> 00:16:34,430 And so I was supposed to go away to college. 118 00:16:34,430 --> 00:16:35,510 I did not stay back. 119 00:16:35,510 --> 00:16:36,410 And I drank a lot. 120 00:16:36,410 --> 00:16:38,850 I hung out in really bad bars in Louisville. 121 00:16:38,850 --> 00:16:42,070 I ended up drinking, there's a bar in Louisville called the Toy Tiger. 122 00:16:42,070 --> 00:16:47,170 It was, you know, this awesome neon sign with the tiger, with the martini glass. 123 00:16:47,170 --> 00:16:48,810 But it was this huge bar. 124 00:16:48,810 --> 00:16:50,350 And it was all these Fort Knox guys. 125 00:16:50,350 --> 00:16:53,570 I mean, there's Fort Knox right outside of Louisville and, you know, they have banana 126 00:16:53,570 --> 00:16:58,230 eating contests and white, you know, a white t-shirt contest and I was slamming shots at 127 00:16:58,230 --> 00:17:03,850 the bar and, you know, it's heavy metal music and Fort Knox guys and, you know, this Catholic 128 00:17:03,850 --> 00:17:08,870 school girl, my bow and my hair and, you know, just, just getting wasted. 129 00:17:08,870 --> 00:17:13,130 And so I ended up getting, say I was my dad died when I was 19. 130 00:17:13,130 --> 00:17:17,470 I got arrested for drunk driving and ended up getting sentenced to alcohol education 131 00:17:17,470 --> 00:17:18,810 classes. 132 00:17:18,810 --> 00:17:19,810 Whatever that is. 133 00:17:19,810 --> 00:17:23,430 I don't even know if that happens anymore, but it was, you know, I got sober in 87. 134 00:17:23,430 --> 00:17:24,430 So I'm thinking this was 85. 135 00:17:24,430 --> 00:17:27,430 I have zero sense of year or time at all. 136 00:17:27,430 --> 00:17:28,430 I swear. 137 00:17:28,430 --> 00:17:29,430 I remember I was born in 62. 138 00:17:29,430 --> 00:17:30,430 That's my biggest milestone. 139 00:17:30,430 --> 00:17:31,430 I can't remember. 140 00:17:31,430 --> 00:17:32,430 But something happened around 85 and I ended up going to jail for this drunk driving. 141 00:17:32,430 --> 00:17:33,430 And I was driving the wrong way, down the wrong street. 142 00:17:33,430 --> 00:17:34,430 I had been scaling the walls of a cemetery that night. 143 00:17:34,430 --> 00:17:35,430 There was corrugated iron at the top of the cemetery walls. 144 00:17:35,430 --> 00:17:36,430 I've got a couple of hands all up. 145 00:17:36,430 --> 00:17:37,430 I'm so sorry. 146 00:17:37,430 --> 00:17:38,430 I'm sorry. 147 00:17:38,430 --> 00:17:39,430 I'm sorry. 148 00:17:39,430 --> 00:17:40,430 I'm sorry. 149 00:17:40,430 --> 00:17:41,430 I'm sorry. 150 00:17:41,430 --> 00:17:53,730 And I went to jail and my boss at the time was an attorney and I worked for an indoor 151 00:17:53,730 --> 00:17:56,810 soccer team in Louisville, a professional soccer team. 152 00:17:56,810 --> 00:18:01,030 And he sent his guy to get me out of jail, but he bailed me out the next day. 153 00:18:01,030 --> 00:18:04,370 It was before drunk driving was as huge as it is now. 154 00:18:04,370 --> 00:18:09,050 So I got this alcohol education, he got it reduced and I had to do these alcohol education 155 00:18:09,050 --> 00:18:10,050 classes. 156 00:18:10,050 --> 00:18:13,590 So I would go to these classes and they talked about adult children of alcoholics. 157 00:18:13,590 --> 00:18:15,490 And I thought, well, that's my problem. 158 00:18:15,490 --> 00:18:17,990 So I decided I was going to go to an ACA meeting. 159 00:18:17,990 --> 00:18:21,130 I remember talking to the teacher of this class and saying, you know, I am an adult 160 00:18:21,130 --> 00:18:22,130 child of an alcoholic. 161 00:18:22,130 --> 00:18:24,010 I need to go to some meetings. 162 00:18:24,010 --> 00:18:28,070 So I went to these ACA, an ACA meeting and it was across the river in Indiana. 163 00:18:28,070 --> 00:18:32,650 And I just remember it was snowy and cold and I went, it was small and dreary. 164 00:18:32,650 --> 00:18:36,050 And I think I shared the whole time about my family. 165 00:18:36,050 --> 00:18:37,050 And then I left. 166 00:18:37,050 --> 00:18:40,050 And all I remember is that I had this overwhelming fear. 167 00:18:40,050 --> 00:18:41,550 I had this feeling that that was not my problem. 168 00:18:41,550 --> 00:18:43,730 I did not know exactly what my problem was. 169 00:18:43,730 --> 00:18:44,730 I wasn't there yet. 170 00:18:44,730 --> 00:18:49,290 But it was this first moment of grace where it was just like, that's not your problem. 171 00:18:49,290 --> 00:18:55,050 So I ended up, I had known somebody that had gotten sober in AA and I ended up going to 172 00:18:55,050 --> 00:18:56,810 AA because I had this drunk driving. 173 00:18:56,810 --> 00:19:00,510 And he, all those men that had helped my dad were all there still. 174 00:19:00,510 --> 00:19:01,770 And they had a lot of time. 175 00:19:01,770 --> 00:19:03,790 And those old timers just embraced me. 176 00:19:03,790 --> 00:19:05,290 And they're like, we saved you a seat, Jobe. 177 00:19:05,290 --> 00:19:06,490 We've been saving you a seat, which I resented. 178 00:19:06,490 --> 00:19:07,490 And the first meeting, the first meeting of my dad, I was like, I'm going to go to an ACA. 179 00:19:07,490 --> 00:19:11,830 And the first meeting, the first meeting I went to, they asked me to reach actor five. 180 00:19:11,830 --> 00:19:13,830 And I just thought, absolutely not. 181 00:19:13,830 --> 00:19:14,830 No way. 182 00:19:14,830 --> 00:19:15,830 And I told them no. 183 00:19:15,830 --> 00:19:16,830 And they laughed and said, oh no. 184 00:19:16,830 --> 00:19:21,610 And that was my first lesson in, you don't turn down an AA request. 185 00:19:21,610 --> 00:19:22,610 That's what they told me. 186 00:19:22,610 --> 00:19:26,470 And I, I thought I was, my head was going to come off my body. 187 00:19:26,470 --> 00:19:30,510 I just, as I'm reading, I'm, I'm so self-conscious anyway. 188 00:19:30,510 --> 00:19:34,170 And I'm not as much now, but I thought I could see my cheeks growing. 189 00:19:34,170 --> 00:19:36,170 Like, I'm so distracted. 190 00:19:36,170 --> 00:19:37,490 I'm so distracted. 191 00:19:37,490 --> 00:19:41,050 I'm like, you know, it was horrible and I'll never forget it. 192 00:19:41,050 --> 00:19:42,050 And they didn't care. 193 00:19:42,050 --> 00:19:43,050 Nobody cared. 194 00:19:43,050 --> 00:19:47,590 And it was sort of my first lesson and nobody really caring if something made me uncomfortable. 195 00:19:47,590 --> 00:19:50,010 People had cared that I was uncomfortable my whole life. 196 00:19:50,010 --> 00:19:52,090 My mom always let me stay home from school. 197 00:19:52,090 --> 00:19:53,630 I was a big fake sicker. 198 00:19:53,630 --> 00:19:55,230 You know, I would fake sick for everything. 199 00:19:55,230 --> 00:19:56,670 I fake sick for my first communion. 200 00:19:56,670 --> 00:19:58,490 I fake sick for confirmation. 201 00:19:58,490 --> 00:20:01,170 I fake sick, anything that scared me, I fake sick. 202 00:20:01,170 --> 00:20:03,110 And my mom would always let me get away with it. 203 00:20:03,110 --> 00:20:04,830 She was, you know, she felt so bad for me. 204 00:20:04,830 --> 00:20:05,830 And I got to AA and people didn't care. 205 00:20:05,830 --> 00:20:06,830 I was like, I'm going to go to AA. 206 00:20:06,830 --> 00:20:08,170 And people, they didn't care. 207 00:20:08,170 --> 00:20:10,510 It was like, oh no, you'll read, you'll read. 208 00:20:10,510 --> 00:20:11,510 And I survived. 209 00:20:11,510 --> 00:20:15,110 And it was just that first little lesson, you know, of doing one thing I thought would 210 00:20:15,110 --> 00:20:16,110 kill me. 211 00:20:16,110 --> 00:20:17,290 And I did it and I didn't die. 212 00:20:17,290 --> 00:20:18,290 And so I stayed sober. 213 00:20:18,290 --> 00:20:22,110 I didn't, you know, they were all, actually they sent me to, I didn't think I was an alcoholic 214 00:20:22,110 --> 00:20:24,470 and they sent me to see somebody to take a test. 215 00:20:24,470 --> 00:20:26,110 I don't know what that was all about. 216 00:20:26,110 --> 00:20:27,110 And I passed the test. 217 00:20:27,110 --> 00:20:32,670 They said I was definitely an alcoholic, and I didn't get a sponsor. 218 00:20:32,670 --> 00:20:34,530 I kind of went to meetings. 219 00:20:34,530 --> 00:20:35,530 I didn't get it. 220 00:20:35,530 --> 00:20:36,530 It snowed. 221 00:20:36,830 --> 00:20:40,110 I didn't know if there was a meeting, if it was too cold, if there wasn't a meeting. 222 00:20:40,110 --> 00:20:43,970 And these guys, you know, Mike really, this old man and these buddies, he, they take, 223 00:20:43,970 --> 00:20:47,110 they take me out for coffee and they'd be like, you know, the elevator, you get off 224 00:20:47,110 --> 00:20:50,870 the main floor, Jobe, and you know, you don't have to go all the way to the basement. 225 00:20:50,870 --> 00:20:55,590 And like, you're no more or less an alcoholic if you get off on the fifth door, you don't 226 00:20:55,590 --> 00:20:56,770 have to go all the way down. 227 00:20:56,770 --> 00:20:57,770 I don't know. 228 00:20:57,770 --> 00:20:59,290 That resonated with me for some reason. 229 00:20:59,290 --> 00:21:03,110 So I stayed sober and after 30 days, I drove to Chicago. 230 00:21:03,110 --> 00:21:05,110 You know, I was a, I did a lot of things in blackouts. 231 00:21:05,110 --> 00:21:06,110 I'm a big blackout drinker. 232 00:21:06,110 --> 00:21:08,350 I thought blackouts were really the objective. 233 00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:11,990 I thought if you didn't black out, it really wasn't a very fun night. 234 00:21:11,990 --> 00:21:14,170 I'm a party, bar drinking. 235 00:21:14,170 --> 00:21:15,170 I like bars. 236 00:21:15,170 --> 00:21:16,170 I'm not a home drinker. 237 00:21:16,170 --> 00:21:18,130 I'm not hiding it in my sofa. 238 00:21:18,130 --> 00:21:20,650 I'm not putting it in Tupperware so no one knows. 239 00:21:20,650 --> 00:21:25,710 I go, I go to bars, I get wasted, pick up guys, I end up in places I should not. 240 00:21:25,710 --> 00:21:27,390 I blow a paycheck in a night. 241 00:21:27,390 --> 00:21:28,390 I lose my car. 242 00:21:28,390 --> 00:21:29,390 I'm that girl. 243 00:21:29,390 --> 00:21:34,110 And I, um, so I went to Chicago and I worked for this indoor soccer team, which was a 244 00:21:34,110 --> 00:21:35,110 recipe for disaster. 245 00:21:35,110 --> 00:21:39,710 Cause it was all these guys from Europe and it was horrible. 246 00:21:39,710 --> 00:21:44,610 And so I drove to Chicago and I got, I prayed all the way there that I would not drink. 247 00:21:44,610 --> 00:21:48,670 And, um, I just, if you're new, you know, I used to listen to tapes all the time when 248 00:21:48,670 --> 00:21:52,510 I was new and Sandy B had this tape, dropped the rock and you know, it was a long time 249 00:21:52,510 --> 00:21:54,730 ago and he had this thing in there and I'll never forget it. 250 00:21:54,730 --> 00:21:57,730 He talked about, he goes, there's something to this, not drinking thing. 251 00:21:57,730 --> 00:22:02,030 Like you have to not pick up the first drink and that's important. 252 00:22:02,030 --> 00:22:03,110 It's really important that I do whatever I have to do to not drink. 253 00:22:03,110 --> 00:22:04,110 And that's important. 254 00:22:04,110 --> 00:22:05,110 That's important. 255 00:22:05,110 --> 00:22:06,110 I'm not going to stop. 256 00:22:06,110 --> 00:22:07,110 Take that first drink. 257 00:22:07,110 --> 00:22:08,110 Then I can stay sober. 258 00:22:08,110 --> 00:22:09,110 And you know, I didn't get the first drink as you dropped. 259 00:22:09,110 --> 00:22:10,110 I thought it was the third drink or the fifth drink. 260 00:22:10,110 --> 00:22:11,110 But you're always here. 261 00:22:11,110 --> 00:22:12,110 So I drove to Chicago and prayed. 262 00:22:12,110 --> 00:22:13,110 I wouldn't get drunk. 263 00:22:13,110 --> 00:22:14,110 And that doesn't work. 264 00:22:14,110 --> 00:22:15,110 Just if you're new, you can't pray and not get drunk. 265 00:22:15,110 --> 00:22:16,110 You have to not pray. 266 00:22:16,110 --> 00:22:17,110 And I got drunk and I slept around like I always do. 267 00:22:17,110 --> 00:22:18,110 And I came up the next morning in the hotel and I had to drive all the way back to Louisville, 268 00:22:18,110 --> 00:22:19,110 hungover and it's a six hour drive. 269 00:22:19,110 --> 00:22:20,110 And, uh, it was in, I guess it was in the beginning of spring. 270 00:22:20,110 --> 00:22:24,110 So I got sober March 7th. 271 00:22:24,110 --> 00:22:37,110 So I drove back and I ended up going back to meetings and 17 days into my sobriety, 272 00:22:37,110 --> 00:22:38,110 I still didn't get a sponsor. 273 00:22:38,110 --> 00:22:44,110 An opportunity came up right as I got sober, I guess, or right before to move to LA and 274 00:22:44,110 --> 00:22:48,110 work for the soccer team out here with the coach I had slept with who was married and 275 00:22:48,110 --> 00:22:49,110 had a baby. 276 00:22:49,110 --> 00:22:50,110 And I was going to work. 277 00:22:50,110 --> 00:22:51,110 These are the brilliant ideas that you get when you're new. 278 00:22:51,110 --> 00:22:52,110 And I was going to work for them and babysit the baby. 279 00:22:52,110 --> 00:22:53,110 But I look at that now. 280 00:22:53,110 --> 00:22:54,110 It's a crazy plan. 281 00:22:54,110 --> 00:22:55,110 But it saved my life. 282 00:22:55,110 --> 00:22:56,110 And what happened is that team, I don't think they knew it, but because they were going 283 00:22:56,110 --> 00:22:57,110 to move me and I was going to work for the team when I wasn't babysitting the baby, they 284 00:22:57,110 --> 00:23:00,110 moved, they shipped my car and my three pieces of furniture with his stuff, with his wife's 285 00:23:00,110 --> 00:23:01,110 family stuff. 286 00:23:01,110 --> 00:23:02,110 So I got everything shipped out here. 287 00:23:02,110 --> 00:23:03,110 I know. 288 00:23:03,110 --> 00:23:04,110 I mean, I don't think anything through. 289 00:23:04,110 --> 00:23:05,110 I'm like, LA? 290 00:23:05,110 --> 00:23:06,110 I don't know. 291 00:23:06,110 --> 00:23:07,110 I don't know. 292 00:23:07,110 --> 00:23:08,110 I don't know. 293 00:23:19,110 --> 00:23:20,110 I know. 294 00:23:20,110 --> 00:23:21,110 I don't know. 295 00:23:21,110 --> 00:23:22,110 I don't know. 296 00:23:22,110 --> 00:23:23,110 I don't know. 297 00:23:23,110 --> 00:23:24,110 I know. 298 00:23:24,110 --> 00:23:25,110 I don't know anything about California. 299 00:23:25,110 --> 00:23:26,110 What's a job? 300 00:23:26,110 --> 00:23:27,110 A job? 301 00:23:27,110 --> 00:23:28,110 I'll go. 302 00:23:28,110 --> 00:23:29,110 I really wanted to go to Boston. 303 00:23:29,110 --> 00:23:30,110 I didn't want to go to LA. 304 00:23:30,110 --> 00:23:31,110 I had zero interest in California. 305 00:23:31,110 --> 00:23:32,110 I didn't know anything about California. 306 00:23:32,110 --> 00:23:33,110 I flew out here on my 25th birthday. 307 00:23:33,110 --> 00:23:34,110 It was March 25th. 308 00:23:34,110 --> 00:23:35,110 I had 17 days of sobriety. 309 00:23:35,110 --> 00:23:36,110 And everyone in Louisville had said, you can't do this. 310 00:23:36,110 --> 00:23:37,110 Everybody in AA in Louisville. 311 00:23:37,110 --> 00:23:38,110 You can't go. 312 00:23:38,110 --> 00:23:39,110 You can't, you won't stay sober. 313 00:23:39,110 --> 00:23:40,110 You can't make a move like this in your first year. 314 00:23:40,110 --> 00:23:43,930 here to get a year under your belt. Well, A, I didn't have a sponsor. B, I couldn't have cared 315 00:23:43,930 --> 00:23:48,610 less what they said. And I don't even know these people and I'm not going to listen to them. 316 00:23:49,010 --> 00:23:52,850 One person, that old man, Mike, who I'd known since I was a little girl, you know, 317 00:23:53,150 --> 00:23:58,570 we always have these crossroads. And he said, you can go anywhere you want and stay sober. If you 318 00:23:58,570 --> 00:24:03,070 get out there, you get out there, you go to, you call central office, you go here and you will 319 00:24:03,070 --> 00:24:08,130 stay sober if you want to stay sober. And I always share that story because if he hadn't said that, 320 00:24:08,130 --> 00:24:11,810 I think I would have drank because I would have had an excuse because everybody said I was going 321 00:24:11,810 --> 00:24:16,050 to drink. So knowing me, I would have been like, well, they all said I was going to drink. I'll 322 00:24:16,050 --> 00:24:20,070 just drink and get it over with and just get wasted. And I might have died. I mean, I don't, 323 00:24:20,270 --> 00:24:24,950 I do not believe there's a revolving door here. I do not believe we get to go out and come back 324 00:24:24,950 --> 00:24:32,490 in at will. I saw my brother die. I just, I don't suffer with those rose colored glasses that we 325 00:24:32,490 --> 00:24:38,110 just, this is who I am. And I get to be like this always. I don't believe that. So he said, 326 00:24:38,130 --> 00:24:42,530 that to me and I heard him and it took away my excuse because I thought he said, if I want to 327 00:24:42,530 --> 00:24:47,790 stay sober, I can stay sober. And he put it on me and told me what to do. And it was the first time, 328 00:24:47,910 --> 00:24:52,930 you know, for me, a lot of sobriety has been learning that I am responsible for my own 329 00:24:52,930 --> 00:25:00,870 sobriety and I'm a brat. I'm a spoiled jerky brat is who I am by nature. And I'm a victim and I 330 00:25:00,870 --> 00:25:06,290 always want to blame you and my family and my brother and my weird dad. And it's always someone 331 00:25:06,290 --> 00:25:08,110 else's fault. And he just, he put it. 332 00:25:08,130 --> 00:25:12,490 It's squarely on me. Here's the tools. Here's what you can do. If you want to stay sober, 333 00:25:12,650 --> 00:25:17,410 you'll stay sober. And I did. I came out here and I was a train wreck. It was my 25th birthday. 334 00:25:17,910 --> 00:25:23,010 I remember what I was wearing to this day. I looked like, I mean, I was about as un-LA as 335 00:25:23,010 --> 00:25:27,450 you can get. And I, I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't speak. I smoked two packs of 336 00:25:27,450 --> 00:25:32,390 cigarettes a day. I was drinking so much coffee with sugar. It was crazy. I started looking for 337 00:25:32,390 --> 00:25:36,450 meetings and meeting directories and just hitting up meetings where I could. I didn't, I didn't know 338 00:25:36,450 --> 00:25:38,110 where I was going. And people, 339 00:25:38,130 --> 00:25:41,570 people were kind to me. I would go to these meetings. I went to meetings on Rodeo and Beverly 340 00:25:41,570 --> 00:25:46,950 Hills. I thought I was going to die with those people. I just thought I will never stay sober 341 00:25:46,950 --> 00:25:55,290 if this is AA because they were so fancy. I can't do this. I'm not good enough. I was so inferior 342 00:25:55,290 --> 00:26:00,950 and self-obsessed and hated myself so much. And people were really kind to me and they gave me 343 00:26:00,950 --> 00:26:05,070 their numbers, but I was, I came late. I left early and I wasn't about to make a phone call. 344 00:26:05,070 --> 00:26:07,970 I didn't know how to make a phone call. It just, I couldn't do it. 345 00:26:08,130 --> 00:26:13,390 And it would drop $20 bill in my purse to help me. They'd give me a ride, but they, I don't know, 346 00:26:13,450 --> 00:26:18,390 they didn't. That's all they did. And I ended up through a long, you know, my Catholic guilt, 347 00:26:18,530 --> 00:26:22,730 which has saved my life time and time again. I got no problem with my Catholic guilt. My mother 348 00:26:22,730 --> 00:26:27,170 guilted me into calling Mike England's granddaughter, that old man's granddaughter lived in 349 00:26:27,170 --> 00:26:32,150 LA. I've known her since I was a little girl and I hated her guts. I went to visit Kentucky. She 350 00:26:32,150 --> 00:26:37,970 was bratty and blonde and gymnastic-y and horseback riding and hot smoking. 351 00:26:38,130 --> 00:26:44,070 And I just hated her so much. She was so LA. And she was sober a year. And Mike said I had to call 352 00:26:44,070 --> 00:26:47,970 her. And my mom shamed me into it and said she was embarrassed that every time she saw Mike, 353 00:26:47,990 --> 00:26:53,330 he asked. And I had, I was bumping around LA for maybe 25 days. I was pathetic. I was freaking 354 00:26:53,330 --> 00:26:59,070 on some of the soccer guys, girlfriend's couches. It was ridiculous. I'd left that coach. That didn't 355 00:26:59,070 --> 00:27:04,370 work out. It was just, it was a mess. And so Leslie came and got me. I called her and she 356 00:27:04,370 --> 00:27:08,110 came and got me and she became my first sponsor, which is just, 357 00:27:08,130 --> 00:27:15,450 just a twist of fate because I hated her so much, but she came and she was so different and she was 358 00:27:15,450 --> 00:27:20,510 a year sober and she was doing everything. And she wasn't the girl I remember. And I, 359 00:27:20,670 --> 00:27:24,310 I didn't know what else to do. So I asked her to sponsor me and she was really a mean sponsor. 360 00:27:24,530 --> 00:27:29,390 She would get, you go to six meetings a week, you get a commitment at every single meeting. 361 00:27:29,470 --> 00:27:33,790 You get one night off to do laundry. You call me every single morning and I'm not your friend. I'm 362 00:27:33,790 --> 00:27:37,690 not here to be your friend. And you get on your knees every night and every morning and thank God 363 00:27:37,690 --> 00:27:37,990 for your friend. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be 364 00:27:37,990 --> 00:27:38,130 your friend. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your 365 00:27:38,130 --> 00:27:45,010 sobriety and ask God to help you. She was pretty hardcore. And for me, you know, I liked that I had 366 00:27:45,010 --> 00:27:49,970 a sponsor that only had a year and I'm a big believer in that. I, I, I don't think that for 367 00:27:49,970 --> 00:27:55,750 me, I sponsor, I sponsor people obviously, but I think that if somebody has a year or eight months, 368 00:27:55,810 --> 00:28:00,490 I mean, I don't believe there's a requirement to have 30 years or 25 years or 10 years to sponsor. 369 00:28:00,710 --> 00:28:05,990 And for me, somebody with a year was perfect. And she hooked me up with her friends who took me in 370 00:28:05,990 --> 00:28:07,950 because they were, and everybody was doing it. 371 00:28:08,090 --> 00:28:12,490 But I was the newcomer and they all had a year. And so they all took me in. And so it was this 372 00:28:12,490 --> 00:28:17,530 like group of women that were helping me and they were taking me to showing me where to go and 373 00:28:17,530 --> 00:28:21,910 helping me at meetings. And I got commitments at my meetings and, you know, commitments. I took 374 00:28:21,910 --> 00:28:25,710 them so seriously because I didn't know anything about treatment centers. I didn't have any 375 00:28:25,710 --> 00:28:29,910 insurance. I didn't have a job. I had a hundred dollars when I got out of here and my mom had 376 00:28:29,910 --> 00:28:34,630 said, don't come home. So it was really all I had. And I was afraid if I did the commitment wrong, 377 00:28:34,630 --> 00:28:37,890 you would fire me. You would, you know, tell me to go home. I would, 378 00:28:37,950 --> 00:28:44,190 just fry and smoke and drink coffee and eat lots of chocolate. And there was a book, Living Sober. 379 00:28:44,290 --> 00:28:47,590 I don't know if you have it on your literature table, but that book talks about, you know, 380 00:28:47,650 --> 00:28:52,170 things to do to stay sober. It's this really practical book. And I got it and read it about 381 00:28:52,170 --> 00:28:56,750 things to do to stay sober. And they were really practical and deep down in my core. 382 00:28:56,990 --> 00:29:02,390 And I'm a really practical person, I guess. I'm really drawn to that. I'm not, I've never been 383 00:29:02,390 --> 00:29:06,850 one who's drawn to really ethereal, you know, that's probably why I don't come across very 384 00:29:06,850 --> 00:29:07,930 spiritual. I just, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't 385 00:29:07,930 --> 00:29:12,010 know. It's like, I'm just not, I don't get it. It's over my head. Tell me what to do. My sponsor 386 00:29:12,010 --> 00:29:15,930 said, wash your face every night. Okay. I get that. Take the earrings off. One of the things I 387 00:29:15,930 --> 00:29:20,650 used to do was sleep in big, giant earrings and I ripped all my earlobes, you know, from that. 388 00:29:20,870 --> 00:29:24,810 And I'd pass out. I couldn't take contact lenses out of my eyes when I was drinking. That was too 389 00:29:24,810 --> 00:29:29,470 hard for me. Birth control, forget it. Like trying to keep up with that wheel and the date. 390 00:29:32,870 --> 00:29:37,910 These are the little things I could not do. And so those were the things I did. I rewarded myself 391 00:29:37,930 --> 00:29:42,410 by washing my face every single night, no matter what. I don't care how tired I was. And I did it. 392 00:29:42,510 --> 00:29:46,930 I've done it every night for 31 years. I would always take my earrings out. I will always make 393 00:29:46,930 --> 00:29:50,690 my bed in the morning. Those are the things I wasn't capable of. Contacts, really good with 394 00:29:50,690 --> 00:29:57,190 contacts now. But, and lastly, just, she just set me on that path. And, you know, I, you know, 395 00:29:57,210 --> 00:30:02,350 I learned like in the Pacific group, you know, there's the guard, got to be there at 930. There 396 00:30:02,350 --> 00:30:05,930 was, there's moods. And when there's a mood on a Sunday and you're helping another member of the 397 00:30:05,930 --> 00:30:10,910 group, you know what that is. And you show up at somebody's house at a pre-designated time and 398 00:30:10,910 --> 00:30:14,970 you're going to go help them move. And my first move was supposed to be there at nine. I showed 399 00:30:14,970 --> 00:30:20,690 up at like 915 and everybody left and I cried and they were like, okay, nine is nine. Like we're 400 00:30:20,690 --> 00:30:26,330 leaving at nine and no one cared. And those were the things that I believe shaped me. That's where 401 00:30:26,330 --> 00:30:31,010 I learned to be an adult and not because I'm going to be a better person or any of those things. 402 00:30:31,010 --> 00:30:35,850 Cause all that nickel and dime stuff I did is what made me want to drink. It's what made me hate it. 403 00:30:35,930 --> 00:30:40,930 I hate myself. It was never the huge stuff I did. It was the nickel and dime stuff I did. You know, 404 00:30:40,930 --> 00:30:44,850 not showing up when I say I'm going to show up, not showing up for my dad when he was sick in the 405 00:30:44,850 --> 00:30:50,790 hospital, just the stupidest stuff. And I learned how to show up on time and do what I say I'm going 406 00:30:50,790 --> 00:30:55,230 to do. And my sponsor was Marianne W for many, many years after I had Leslie, I don't know, 407 00:30:55,310 --> 00:30:59,810 after a year, which was stupid because she was giving me all the right directions. You know, 408 00:30:59,810 --> 00:31:03,750 so much of a year, you just got to make these changes. And then I ended up with my actual 409 00:31:05,930 --> 00:31:10,130 over 20 years. And Marianne taught me, you know, she used to keep this thing with her at all times. 410 00:31:10,130 --> 00:31:13,510 And it was like, do what you say you're going to do, you know, show up when you say you're going 411 00:31:13,510 --> 00:31:18,310 to show up and treat people with love and kindness, whether they deserve it or not. And those were the 412 00:31:18,310 --> 00:31:23,770 like the simple things I can do those things. I can do those things. If you ask me to do something 413 00:31:23,770 --> 00:31:29,610 huge, I cannot do it. But if you ask me to show up on time, I can do that. That is so small. I can 414 00:31:29,610 --> 00:31:33,350 do that. And those are the things I've learned. And that's how I learned to be a good employee. 415 00:31:33,350 --> 00:31:35,890 You know, I was there early and I, 416 00:31:35,930 --> 00:31:40,190 I worked the whole time and my sponsor wouldn't let me goof off. And then I'd go to my meeting 417 00:31:40,190 --> 00:31:44,550 and I learned all of those things and learned to be a better worker. And, you know, I was no 418 00:31:44,550 --> 00:31:50,610 rocket to startup. I've been married. I've been divorced. I went down in flames. It's 19, 20 years 419 00:31:50,610 --> 00:31:56,910 of sobriety, which I always have to share because it's not fun to have 19 or 20 years of sobriety 420 00:31:56,910 --> 00:32:02,770 and lose everything. And it happened. And I learned that it's not about things or houses or cars, 421 00:32:02,770 --> 00:32:05,810 because you can get, I mean, for me, I got caught up in that. 422 00:32:05,930 --> 00:32:09,910 And it's not that I was an ego freak or this big, you know, I just, it became, you know, 423 00:32:09,930 --> 00:32:14,790 I've got time. I should have a nice car. I should have a house by now. I need to get married. I need 424 00:32:14,790 --> 00:32:19,990 to have a child. I need to do all these things. And it all exploded on me all due to my own actions. 425 00:32:20,170 --> 00:32:25,690 And I left my husband, sold my house, the market crashed and I lost absolutely everything. And I 426 00:32:25,690 --> 00:32:30,990 had to start over in a new career, you know, making an eighth of what I had made and selling 427 00:32:30,990 --> 00:32:35,690 all my jewelry. So I didn't have much, you know, and I had to go sell this jewelry. I was selling 428 00:32:35,690 --> 00:32:40,830 watches for like $50 to get enough to go to the grocery. My sponsor gave me, her husband had 429 00:32:40,830 --> 00:32:45,110 passed away. She gave me a watch and earrings to sell and, you know, they weren't worth much, 430 00:32:45,230 --> 00:32:49,790 but it got me through. And I never felt like I was going to drink through that, but it knocked 431 00:32:49,790 --> 00:32:54,430 me to my knees. I lost three quarters of my friends. They didn't like what had happened to 432 00:32:54,430 --> 00:32:59,350 what I had done. I had left my husband. Nobody was big on that. We were kind of this AA couple. 433 00:32:59,710 --> 00:33:05,210 And it was really, really, really, really hard. And I had to double down on meetings and I had to 434 00:33:05,210 --> 00:33:05,610 dig. 435 00:33:05,690 --> 00:33:11,370 Really deep and realize it's not about what's on the outside. And that was a very powerful lesson 436 00:33:11,370 --> 00:33:16,470 for me that I've taken with me to today. You know, I just took my 18 year old son back to 437 00:33:16,470 --> 00:33:20,970 college. My youngest was 18 and I have two stepkids and these two, a 23 year old and an 18 438 00:33:20,970 --> 00:33:24,810 year old. And my ex-husband was there and I thought, well, I mean, we get along fine. He's 439 00:33:24,810 --> 00:33:29,350 in the Pacific group, but it gets on my nerves. And I thought, oh God, we've just been like five 440 00:33:29,350 --> 00:33:35,670 days together, moving my kid into the tour. And he drove me completely crazy on day one. 441 00:33:35,690 --> 00:33:41,250 He just drove me insane. And I find that my kid going to school back in the DC area, 442 00:33:41,390 --> 00:33:45,970 friends who live back there, I was embarrassed. Then the next day we were supposed to meet for 443 00:33:45,970 --> 00:33:50,750 breakfast and he ends up telling me he's really sick. And I'm like, what do you mean you're sick? 444 00:33:50,850 --> 00:33:55,490 He was kind of sick. He's kind of sickly. And I thought, oh God, do not die. And we showed up at 445 00:33:55,490 --> 00:34:00,710 my kid's thing, my son's thing. And he was really sick, like shaking uncontrollably, dripping with 446 00:34:00,710 --> 00:34:04,690 sweat, head down on this table outside this room where we were supposed to have breakfast with all 447 00:34:04,690 --> 00:34:05,190 my sons. 448 00:34:05,690 --> 00:34:08,910 He's fresh, you know, I'm coming freshman to college and, you know, he was shaking, 449 00:34:09,050 --> 00:34:13,730 couldn't get his driver's license out. And my son was scared and, you know, I'm rubbing his back 450 00:34:13,730 --> 00:34:18,310 and trying to help him and calm him down. And I'm making him look at me. I'm like, look at me, 451 00:34:18,390 --> 00:34:24,090 you cannot die on like a Joe's going into college, like stop it. And we ended up spending the whole 452 00:34:24,090 --> 00:34:29,710 day in the ER and ended up having a kidney stone and something else. But it was, you know, it was 453 00:34:29,710 --> 00:34:34,050 like, I didn't think we could ever do that. I mean, we could not look at each other when we 454 00:34:34,050 --> 00:34:34,890 went through that divorce. 455 00:34:34,890 --> 00:34:40,070 And I had a sponsor and he had a sponsor and they made us walk through that. And it was not pretty. 456 00:34:40,190 --> 00:34:45,850 His dad was sober. It's a long time number of AA. He died a couple of years ago and his father hated 457 00:34:45,850 --> 00:34:51,910 my guts. He never spoke to me again, ever. And Chris and I really like had to walk through stuff 458 00:34:51,910 --> 00:34:58,250 because of the kids. But that event, he minted this new relationship with us. And we could never 459 00:34:58,250 --> 00:35:02,330 have done it if we had not followed sponsor direction and stayed in Alcoholics Anonymous 460 00:35:02,330 --> 00:35:04,870 and tried to work through this program to the best of our ability. And I think that's what we're 461 00:35:04,890 --> 00:35:07,890 doing. And we're trying to do the best of our ability, failing all over the place, but never 462 00:35:07,890 --> 00:35:13,190 stopping trying. And I guess, you know, if you're new, please just never stop coming back. You know, 463 00:35:13,230 --> 00:35:18,850 you need to be in the middle. The fringes will not work. And the life, you heard it here earlier, 464 00:35:19,030 --> 00:35:23,790 your life will change. It will, it will change. I don't know what it'll look like, but it will 465 00:35:23,790 --> 00:35:28,190 change, promise. But you have to walk through it. And when you want to drink or you want to use, 466 00:35:28,470 --> 00:35:33,530 you have the tool and it's up to you and only you to make that phone call or to show up at a meeting. 467 00:35:33,530 --> 00:35:34,670 My feet just moved. 468 00:35:34,890 --> 00:35:40,050 I would just show up when I was supposed to show up. And so thank you all for listening. And thanks 469 00:35:40,050 --> 00:35:40,250 again.