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Source: Katie H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-06-25.m4a File: katie-h-box-of-chocolates-2026-06-25.mp3 Duration: 00:51:38
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Highest Compliments I Could Get in Alcoholics Anonymous is to be recommended by my friend, Jimmy. So, I'll take it. I see that it just started. So, Katie H., alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 17th, 2006. That means I woke up this morning with 7,466 days of continuous sobriety, free from the desire to drink or self-destruct. I was separated from alcohol on that day and I'll be forever grateful for a loving God, good sponsorship, and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as outlined in our big book in Twelve and Twelve. And I'm so, literally, this is my 20th year. I celebrated 20 years in January and I've just been humbled. I don't know. I'm humbled that I still get to be here, that I still get to stay sober without any understanding of why all the people I got sober with aren't with me, why the road continues to narrow and get less crowded, but the view continues to get better.
I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I love, love, love Alcoholics Anonymous. And so, it's an honor to be here and get to share a little bit about my experience. So, I have a sobriety date. I have a home group and a sponsor. That's my personal triangle in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have our three legacies and then I have my own. So, home group is Folsom Big Book Group in Folsom, California. Yes, like Folsom Prison. The prison is just down the road.
It's a good reminder of some of my options that I have. So, I choose my home group and that address is 410 Wool Street. If you're ever in Folsom, California, we'd love to see you. That's where I am on most Monday nights unless I'm sick or out of town. And my favorite, favorite thing about my home group is that I get there an hour early and I get to shake your hand. If you come in, I'll know that you're not a regular at my group and I'll get to welcome you and I get to meet lots of newcomers and it's the best job that I can have in Alcoholics Anonymous is that one. Home group and a sponsor.
I have a sponsor who knows that she's my sponsor. I'm current with a sponsor. I call her on Tuesdays. I see her on Mondays and tonight, I see her at my meeting tonight. I'm current because that's the greatest act of respect I could do for a sponsor. I don't have a 911 sponsor in the same way I don't have a 911 God. I can't, okay, sponsor, I'm calling you. Let me fill you in on the last six months because it's an emergency. No, she knows what's up. She knows with everything going on in my life. I don't have to fill her in. We just start right up and the same with God. I'm in regular contact with my creator. I'm not doing, I'm not throwing emergency prayers up. We're in regular contact and I need that. So, I have a hand and a sponsor's hand who has a hand and a sponsor's hand who has a hand and a sponsor's hand and this hand is in the hand of a sponsor's hand who is in the hand of a sponsor's hand and I don't have a hand left to pick up a drink.
Like I'm safe and protected in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous as a link in the chain and who knew that that was going to be what freedom looked like is being a link in the chain of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm really grateful that I get to be that. And so, hey, I am a drunk. I like to drink. I'm a vodka girl. I like, yeah, I like vodka. I drink warm vodka. Sometimes it's hot vodka. Today would have been a little hot. It's in the 90s here in Sacramento. So, I like cheap plastic bottle vodka. Like I'm a pop-off girl.
My vodka is warm, not because I like it warm. It's because it's a 90-degree day in Sacramento and my vodka is underneath the seat of my car. It's in my underwear drawer. It's underneath my bed. It's in all various places where I've hidden it or it's straight from the store and there's no time to make it cold and cute. And I'm the type of drunk that I get relief from hearing that plastic snap off the cap. I get relief just from that sound because I know what's coming. I know what I'm going to get as a result of taking a couple of swigs off that vodka. And it's going to be a feeling of ease and comfort. And man, I seek ease and comfort. I always do. And I got ease and comfort from the first time I drank. I waited a long time to take my first drink. I was 13 years old. As long as I could go, I mean, I took my first couple of swigs out of a Red Solo cup and was like, man, I could have used this in kindergarten. It just would have made my life experience a lot easier. Like I did not understand after I had those first
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couple of drinks at 13 years old that I had been wearing my skin really tight and I'd been holding my breath for as long as I could remember. I took a couple of drinks and I could breathe out and everything got a little loose. And like, this feels good. And I want to feel like that all the time. All the time. And that's what I did. My first time drinking. And I like to say, I like to explain like a little bit about my background. Like I come from a really privileged background, really. I have two loving parents who raised me. They were educated tech executives, gave me everything. We get to hear so many different stories and experiences in AA, right? Yale to jail and everything in between. And you could hear my story and there would be nothing in it that would point to like, there was something that happened to me as a kid that's like, that's why I drink. I don't know. I was just born with a gut that felt different and something in me that was unsatisfied and something in me that was afraid. And it was not because of anything my parents did. Like I said, I mean, I had trips to Europe and anything, you know, shopping sprees, anything I could want, I had. And again, a lot and a lot of love. My parents loved me and I always knew I was loved by my mom and dad. But there was something that alcohol filled that I didn't have an external and I wanted it. My parents didn't drink heavily. They, you know, my parents are, they do this weird thing where they get like a glass of wine at a restaurant and they do like this motion over it. Like, I don't know this motion, you know, it's more, this is my motion, not this, you know? And so, but I knew what to do when I started drinking. I mean, to be fair, my whole family is full of alcoholics. All my cousins, my aunts and uncles, they all deserve a seat in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm the only one that's here, but I digress. So, I'm a teenage drunk. And from that first time I drank, I tried to seek that feeling as often as much as I possibly could. The feeling that I got, I chased real hard. And I'm so grateful that our, that our big book is really, really specific about what alcoholism is and isn't and who and how it impacts people.
Because, you know, I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 19 years old and my sobriety dates from when I was 21. But at 19, that's not a lot of years drinking. And it talks about, in the book, it says, and more about alcoholism, that young people specifically, and women, are often far beyond recall in a few short years. And that was my experience. I related to that. It didn't, doesn't say in the book that I had to have had a DUI. I've had thousands of DUIs, just never gotten caught for any of them. That I had to have lost a family or a lot or crash cart, like it doesn't say any of that. It says, I've lost the ability to control my drinking. And that was absolutely, that's absolutely true for me. And that was true for me at the age of 15.
From 13 to 15, I was, I don't know about fun, fun with problems and problems. It was like, it was just more like I could manage it in some way, at least in the beginning. It was never really fun because I was a blackout drinker from the beginning. Like I never had just like casual drinking. It was blacking out from the get-go. But why at 15 years old, there's this experience I had. I went to a party. I was just always trying to have a good time, just having a good time. And I get to a party and I think I changed my mind. I have a couple of drinks. I'm not trying to blackout. I'm just having a couple of drinks and then I think I changed my mind.
And what happens for me every time I drink is I'm terrified that there's not going to be enough for me. Terrified. And so I'm at this party and I grab a bottle and lock myself in the bathroom and chug and chug and drink the whole thing. And I, that night I break a floor-length mirror with my head and don't go into convulsions. And I'm rushed to the emergency room where it looks like I was trying to commit suicide. And I spent a couple of days in the hospital and social worker looks at a 15-year-old girl with a BAC that high and thinks I tried to commit suicide.
So I'm 51-50 and taken away from my very loving parents who are so confused. And I'm placed in a psychiatric hospital. And my parents come and visit me. I'd been in the hospital a couple of days. Now I'm in this place for a day or two and I still vomit in my hair from before. And my mom and dad and my little brother walked in to visit me. And I'd never seen my dad cry before. And my dad sat down on this bed and lifted up his little girl and started wailing aloud, what have I done
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wrong? And I can remember this moment like yesterday, you guys, like I can feel the whole thing. And I remember like, I want to be a good girl. Like I love my daddy. I loved him. And I remember thinking, I am never drinking again. I meant it. I am never drinking again. If you'd given me a lie detector test, I would have passed it. Like I really meant it. And I was drunk the next weekend. So for me, I know that by the time I'm 15 years old, not only do I have an allergy to alcohol that I don't even know that I have, I have this allergy that compels me to continue drinking once I've put beverage alcohol to my lips. But now at 15, I know, at least by then, that I have the insanity of the mind, that I have this thing in me that's going to convince me every single time that maybe I've been a little too hasty, that maybe it'll be different. Maybe I can try. I'm obsessed with the thought of maybe it'll be different this time. Maybe there's a way to enjoy and control my drinking. Because you see, I'm a teenager. And I'm looking around at my friends, these girls that I know. And I don't understand why I can't be like them. I'm going to little kickback parties. And all these little 15, 16-year-old girls are laughing, holding a Mike's Hard Lemonade for hours, just nursing one bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade. That was really popular in the early 2000s. And I'm chugging bottles of vodka in the corner with my top off and vomit in my hair. I don't understand why I'm different than my fellows. I can't figure it out.
And I try all sorts of things to control and enjoy my drinking. I switch brands. I read self-help books. I try to get different friends. I try smoking more weed. What if I ate this beforehand? I am obsessed with how can I drink normally like these other girls? And I can't figure it out. And I get to a place at 19 years old where I'm drinking every day. I'm drinking beyond my control. I'm drinking despite every sweet promise or everything that I try to do.
I'm just, I can't stop drinking. And I don't think the problem is the drinking. The problem is the blacking out. That's my problem. I don't want to black out anymore because the drinking looked the same every time. And I'd wake up and I'd go, I don't want to do that again. The only thing that ever changed was the shoes and the guy I woke up with. And it's like, how can this be different? And I'm so cool. I'm in college. And this is a normal Thursday night in college at 19 years old would have been me, a pint of vodka, maybe a blunt, a four-pack pepperoni pizza hot pocket, a Disney movie, a pen and paper. And I'm sitting alone in my room writing about what Alice in Wonderland is really about. I'm coming up with a thesis on the Jungle Book or I don't know, a Disney movie. My world is this big. My world is this big. I am all alone. And I think that it's absolutely totally normal this way that I'm living. And a miracle happens. I just don't think that I can take credit for my own recovery. I know I can't. It's kind of a joke. None of this is my fault. Because what I see looking back on my life is the loving hand of God, even when I didn't believe in him. Because, oh, by the way, that's my cool life. And I'm also an atheist.
But atheist, militant, bristling with antagonism. You are so wrong, you poor, poor people of faith, you sheeple. If only you were floating around on the intellectual high that I belong on. And I am so content prior to investigation because I wasn't raised with any religion. I had never read any type of religious material, but I knew everything there was to know about everything. Do you know what I'm saying? Have you ever met one of these people? That's me.
And now I look back and I just see these breadcrumbs that God laid for me. And it's so amazing, you guys. Did we identify new people? I don't think we did. But if you're new and you're thinking, how am I sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous? It's come to this. And I'm listening to this weird girl from California talk about drinking warm vodka. How did we get here? And I don't know why the miracle is always in the rearview mirror, but it is. And I can see the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous the longer…
I can see the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous the longer I'm in AA, and especially the more I study AA history.
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The amount of things that needed to occur for all of us to be here are absolutely baffling. When I think about how, like, Hazard wanted to meet with Freud, and instead he got Carl Young. And, like, what if he had? Like, would we all be sitting around talking about our id and our dreams? And, I don't know, but, like, he got young. And, like, what if Carl Young hadn't met with William James in 1909 at a conference in Boston, Massachusetts, and hadn't gotten the book Varieties of Religious Experience, and had the humility to say, like, maybe us psychiatrists don't know everything there is to know.
And, like, what if Roland hadn't met up with the Oxford groups? And what if they hadn't had the courage to petition a judge to let Ebby out into their care? And what if Ebby hadn't had the zeal and the zest to find his old drinking buddy, Bill? And what if Bill had been wildly successful, wildly successful, in the spring of 1935, but instead his business crumbled? What if he hadn't been feeling that amount of terror and fear of losing business again, and, like, swayed dizzily at that hotel bar, and, like, instead made 10 calls to find Walter Tunks, who thought of Henrietta Cyberling, and Henrietta had been praying for Dr. Bob for years?
What if all of those, I mean, and a million other things, what if all of those things hadn't happened? I don't know, would I be sitting here? I don't know. So, I just, I think back on, like, my life, and all of these things that I think are the worst that could happen, like being an alcoholic, when it actually is a boon, is an absolute blessing in my life, is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me.
Because at 19 years old, if you would have told me that I was going to be sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have told you that that's a sentence. Like, that is the worst thing I could possibly imagine, but instead it's been the greatest gift of my life. So, my series of events, I'll quickly go through, it started as, I'm a nanny, I'm 19 years old. I'm a nanny, you guys, I'm an absolute alcoholic, taking care of a three-year-old and a nine-month-old, and this family whips me off to St. Croix for the summer, because I'm their nanny.
And I'm supposed to take care of these kids, and the drinking age is 18, and I'm 19, and party on. Like, I'm in a total blackout the whole time I'm there, I don't remember it. And my last night being on this island, like any other night, I get to go to a bar, and I get to drink at a bar. And I have to pre-party, so there might not be enough alcohol at the bar. I don't know if you guys have these thoughts, but I do.
And the last thing I remember is at the bar, I'm on my 16th Corona, and I'm watching the lime go to the top of the bottle, and it all fades to black as it does. And I wake up the next morning, or it's actually the afternoon. It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, according to the clock. I'm supposed to start nannying at 7 a.m. I don't know where I am. There's a baby on the floor. It's not the baby I'm supposed to be watching.
There's birds everywhere. Hey, there's alcoholic women on the call. You know what I'm talking about. We wake up in varied states, yeah? This was a varied state, and I put myself back together, and I'm driven back to where I'm supposed to start. I'm supposed to be taking care of these children, and I walk in the door, and this little 3-year-old girl who I love so much looks at me in absolute terror and says, Mommy, what's wrong with Katie?
And I'm excused, and I go and look at myself in the mirror, and I'm black and blue. Black and blue. And like I said, I'd woken up in varied states before, but that was especially terrifying. And the next day, I'm on a flight home, and my parents are holding an intervention. And I'm telling you guys, if that had happened two days later, three days later, a week later, you would have a different speaker.
Because I would have had a justification, a rationalization, something that I would excuse. Because when my parents said, we think that there is something very wrong with you, I said, I agree. And plus, my parents don't have an Al-Anon bone in their body. They were taking college away. They were taking internship. They were kicking me out, taking my car. And they said, we just want you to go talk to someone.
And I said, okay. And they had laid out on the dining room table all of my empties. And of the room, I wasn't even living in. I had empty bottles of vodka hidden all over my room. And I'm like, those aren't mine. It's so silly. And I go to an intake where the guy at the intake facility asks the questions, the alcoholic test. And I'm answering them. They're yes or no questions. And I got essay responses.
Like, did you drink in the morning?
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Well, what do you consider morning? These aren't easy to answer. And I'm lying my way through. I can't tell the truth to anybody. I don't even know what the truth is. But I do my best. And this gentleman asked me the questions. And he sets down the piece of paper. And he looks at me. And he says, you have a pretty advanced stage of alcoholism for someone so young. You're not going to make it past 25.
And then he starts to describe alcoholism as it's described in the book. And he specifically uses the words restless, irritable, and discontented. I'd never heard three words put together in a sentence that I'm more identified with in my entire life. And he said, give me 30 days and I can change your life. And, man, that's a pitch, you know. He lied. That's not true. But 30 days, I could say yes to.
And I think what happened to me when we had this conversation and this dialogue and he shared this with me is that I had a moment of clarity. And I think a moment of clarity for me is when God paralyzes the liar in me long enough for me to hear the truth. And I heard the truth. And not only that is that I didn't want to die. I had been suicidal since I was 10 years old. I think alcohol saved my life.
I think I found alcohol just in the nick of time to keep me alive long enough for me to find the life-saving rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said yes to something that I didn't understand or know. And someone gave me a big book. I'd been in treatment for about six days and I hadn't been to a meeting. I guess it was an H&I meeting. I don't know. It was pretty foggy. But someone handed me a big book and I didn't have a sponsor.
I opened up this book and I'm like war fever ran high. What in the world is this? And I'm flipping through and I see this chapter called Weagnostics. And I figured I'll start there. And I started reading that chapter. And I maintain that that's the greatest piece of spiritual literature of the 20th century. I underlined every single thing. I just so appreciate how Bill was able to use logic to combat my problems with faith.
And how he used broad terms like creative intelligence and spirit of the universe. And I could get behind that. And there was this line that says we miss the reality and beauty of the forest because we're diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. And I considered that maybe perhaps I was wrong. Like just maybe. Just maybe I could be wrong. Which, by the way, continues to be an avenue for a spiritual experience for me today.
When I consider I could be wrong about something. And what I did at six days sober and 19 years old is I opened myself up to a concept of a power greater than myself. And I said that little prayer that so many of us say. That little alcoholic prayer which is just simply help. And at six days sober and 19 years old I was washed over from the top of my head from the tip of my toes to with this feeling of peace.
A feeling of serenity. Just warmth all over wrapped all around me. It is a feeling better than the first drink. That's the best way I can describe it. It felt better than the first drink. And I heard this still small voice that came from way deep within me. And it said your alcoholism is not a curse. It's a gift. It's a relationship with me. As it's proved to be. And I'd love to tell you I stayed sober from that day.
I did not. I drank again. And if you're new like I'm not sitting here as some type of authority on Alcoholics Anonymous or spiritual experiences or anything. Like I'm just I'm just sure I'm just talking telling stories telling my experience. And my experiences is what happened for me was a first contact with God. I had never prayed since maybe I was five years old with my grandma and God came. You know God's a gentleman.
He only goes where he's invited and I invited him in for the first time and he came in real fast. But it did not did not certainly for me spell a spiritual awakening or a spiritual experience that's described in our literature. In the back of our book in Appendix 2 there's a whole thing called spiritual experience and what it describes is a transformation or an upheaval of who and what I am. And at six days sober and 19 years old that surely was not the case for me.
I put down beverage alcohol and I'm still left with me which is a self-centered selfish full of ego individual. And I walked into every room of my life still with that attitude just without being intoxicated. So I walk I walked into AA you know I probably went I probably jumped in a meeting a week with what do you have for me.
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You know I showed up late I left early. I didn't lift a finger to figure out anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a visitor. I was just a visitor in AA with what are a taker an absolute taker. I showed up in my in my living room with my parents as an absolute taker. Nothing changed in my life. You know so you knew people. Well how do you know if you've had a spiritual experience or spiritual awakening.
You know it's like I don't know but I can tell you that there is a big difference for me of people in AA. There's the ones that walk into a room and are like hey everybody here I am. Here I am you know versus the people that walk in the room and they say oh there you are. And it's this outward this where I'm a little bit more interested in you than me just a little bit. Maybe I don't know maybe that's the essence of a spiritual awakening.
It's it's I don't know it's what I see in Alcoholics Anonymous. That didn't happen for me like I said and I got a sponsor who told me I didn't have to work the steps. I was a year sober and I'm walking around with untreated alcoholism and absolute untreated alcoholism. And for me what untreated alcoholism feels like is someone's taking a potato skin peeler and they peeled off my skin and I'm walking through a salt fog.
Life hurts and not intoxicated. Like I've been anesthetized my whole life and now I'm walking around and it hurts. And I tried to commit suicide at nine months sober. I couldn't figure out why why you all were so happy and why I was sober and absolutely miserable. And it's because I hadn't done any of the work of Alcoholics Anonymous which includes taking inventory sharing that with another person.
Cleaning up my side of the street and then seeking a spiritual experience. I wasn't doing any of that and then being of service to you and passing it on none of that. I was still where is where is mine and I had to drink again. It was drink or kill myself. Those really are options. The book talks about making that supreme sacrifice. And in January of 2006 I get on a plane. I'm 18 months undrunk showing up to AA when it's convenient to me.
And I'm getting on a plane and I remember thinking like yeah like I looked at my seatmate like I'm sober 18 months. And then the flight attendant goes would you like something to drink and I said yes. And the drink comes my way without a second thought. No no ask is there alcohol in this. And then I wasn't really sober because I popped some Ambien and some Klonopin and then I'm taking and I'll have another.
And I black out obviously and I was told that I was cut off by the flight attendants because I was pretty rowdy. So I stole a bottle of wine from the back of the plane and I woke up in Rome. And I spent the next three weeks in an absolute blackout binge of all binge. I don't remember much of what I said or did. This is my favorite part of my talk. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to remember how cunning baffling and powerful alcohol is.
In my life. My last drink. I'm 21 years old. I'm in Florence Italy. It's January 16th of 2006. It's my mom's birthday. I don't know what day it is let alone that it's my mom's birthday to go back on the syllabus and figure out what day it was. And I really think it's going to be different today. I'm in Florence Italy. I've never had wine at a fancy Italian restaurant especially out of a bottle. I'd only ever drank boxed wine before.
So I'm going to handle myself differently tonight. And I go to this restaurant and I have three glasses of fancy Italian wine just like that's my plan. And it's like you don't know how much you need oxygen until a paper bag is put over your head. I'm like suffocating like where's the vodka. And I convince a bartender to sell me half a handle of vodka for 60 euro which is way too much. And I go up to my hotel room and I'm taking shot after shot after shot and I'm getting drunker and drunker and drunker.
And y'all I'm getting no relief. And it was like the most terrifying night of my drinking to not feel any better. And I never want to forget that alcohol is not a solution. I'm so grateful that I have full knowledge of that condition for myself today. And so I woke I came to. And so I woke, I came to, on January 17th, that is my day, I will do everything in my
[00:30:02]
power to keep that date, January 17th, where I was separated from alcohol, that's the best way I can describe it, I was separated. And what happened for me that morning is that I thought about you all. I was flooded with stories and faces of all the people I had met as I was visiting an AA for 18 months. And I wanted what you had, and I stopped taking all the stuff I was taking, I'd been taking a lot of pills for a while, and I went into like a hardcore detox, I like developed shingles at 21 years old, and the next thing I really remember, I was three days sober, so it was about the 20th of January, and I was in Paris, and I guess I stepped out of a cab, I think that's what happened, and I'm in front of this 800-year-old church on the Seine, and the Eiffel Tower's behind me, I walk into this church, and in the basement is an AA meeting, and it's an English-speaking meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's a big book study, and they just started chapter three, More About Alcoholism.
I can't make that up, it was the most profound moment, I don't know, it's just like God with neon signs, like, look here, stupid, and from there to here has been an incredible ride of 20 years. What I want to tell you, so I don't forget, is that this year, on January 17th, 2026, I got to take my sponsor to that meeting, we flew to Paris, France, and I got to take a chip at that meeting, and I got to thank that meeting for my recovery, and for 20 years of sobriety, and that they were there, and they got to carry the message to a very broken little girl, and I got to take my sponsor there, and I got to thank her by showing her the meeting that got me sober, and I have a chip right here that says 20 aunts, I have a bad French accent, but it's pretty amazing, and you guys, I could spend two more hours telling you miracle stories like that, like things that are just not anything that I could have done on my own, of like, just miracles, I'll spend the next 20 minutes trying to tell you a couple of them, but so I got a new sponsor when I came back to California, she's a woman of grace and dignity who walked me through every page of the big book, every page of the 12 and 12, and every page of our service manual, and gave me a well, a solid foundation in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I did my best at making amends that first time, and I had a lot of wreckage with my family, and a lot of anger, a lot of anger with my family over what I'd, how I'd hurt them, and I did the best I could with what I had at the time, and I made, you know, I got to make some amends, I got to make some amends to my grandma before she passed when I was a year sober, I'd gone to my mom with my list of all the money that I'd stolen from her, and she was so angry, she was so angry with my little checks that I wanted to write, just like, Katie, I want you to be okay.
You know, she didn't, I remember, I was so like, I went to my sponsor, like, my mom doesn't want my money, you know, and she's like, yeah, it sounds like what you really stole from your mom was peace of mind, that's not something that you can just write a check for, this is going to take years of reconstruction, and boy has it, I think I was 12 years sober when my mom finally told me on the phone randomly one day, she said, you know, Katie, I don't worry about you anymore, it took a long time, but, you know, I got to start to build a life here in Alcoholics Anonymous, I worked the steps, I started sponsoring, like, my life depended upon it, because it does, I started getting involved in service, I started doing every type of service, I love that I've gotten to get involved in every aspect of our service structure, from general service, to intergroup, to HNI, to bridging the gap, I've gotten to do it all, I got to be well-rounded, and I got to, I've gotten to do some amazing things in Alcoholics Anonymous, like Ramona said in the beginning, I'm just going to say it now as we're talking about it, I got to serve as an appointed committee member to our Trustees Literature Committee, so I got to serve at the bottom of the triangle, I got to vote and act like a trustee without having the full responsibility of one, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me, and I got to do the revision of the Young People in AA pamphlet, which was the joy of my life, I could cry tears talking about that project, I got to serve on our RIPTAB committee, which led to the creation of the Plain Language Big Book, and got to do a lot of other fun projects for four years serving on the board, which
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was an amazing, amazing gift of my life, peak, peak service experience of my life, and I got to get married, I got to have this sober wedding in AA, I got to get this job and start having this incredible life, and man, AA gets real inconvenient when you're given a huge life, and I never left AA, I don't have one of those stories where I left, but it just was like, do I have to do all of it and all the time, and can it be on my terms, and I did a lot of Young People, and I did a lot of YPAW, a lot of YPAW, and this isn't a bash on YPAW, but I wasn't fully integrated into AA as a whole, and at seven years sober, I just wasn't a great example of a wife, I wasn't a great home group member, I hated most people in AA at that time, I was uninvited to some family events, I wanted to find the words to tell my dad that I never wanted to speak to him again, my mom and I got into a physical altercation, I had multiple sponsees leave all at one time, I had a coworker send me an email that said like, please never speak to me again, and we like sat next to each other, so it was pretty awkward, and I'm just like a vision for you, an alcoholic synonymous at seven years sober, and I was also really thinking about like how fast I needed to like drive my car off the Folsom Bridge, and there was this woman that kept appearing in my life, and she was so beautiful, and so glittery, and I'm happy, and it was so annoying, like you know, like when you're not happy, and they're really happy people, I'm like ugh, and like she did AA different than me, and like so that was definitely wrong, and people would like line up to hug her at meetings, gross, and I asked her to sponsor me, and it blew me away, that was definitely God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself, and she's a good member of AA, and even though I wasn't very nice to her, she said yes, and she started walking me through the big book, and through the steps in a different way than I had done it before, which wasn't bad, it was just I needed it. I love that you guys say the set-aside prayer, I just needed a new experience in AA.
I'm so grateful, because she absolutely changed my life in a couple things. One, she asked me to start praying on my knees. I'd never been invited to do that, and it completely changed my relationship with God. By humbling myself physically, I got to have a new experience. If you haven't been invited to pray on your knees, man, just from that, I had to take a look at some of the prejudices I still had about spiritual terms. The book warns us not to have prejudice. A prejudice is just a prejudgment. I had so many prejudgments about things. I had so much content prior to investigation at seven years sober, you know, and I got to have a whole new experience with God. I told you, I was really angry. I didn't even realize how angry I was. I had a lot of confusion about steps 10 and 11. I think there was a lot of confusion in the fellowship. People kept talking about a nightly inventory, and I'm like, a nightly inventory versus an evening review. I wasn't even taking inventory, and I wasn't talking to a sponsor about anything. I just had all these built-up resentments I didn't even know about, really. The sponsor is taking me through resentments in a new way, and I do this fourth step and a fifth step with the sponsor. Again, I'm not an authority on this stuff. This is just my experience, but I had always had sponsors who did the fourth column as my part, which is fine, but listen, my brain, I'm pretty ill. When there's my part, that means there's your part, and there's parts, and I have a part pie. On this part pie, here's my part, and here's your part, and I'm still mad, and I'm still walking around with anger. My sponsor's like, well, the book, she's a big book thumper. The book says, where am I at fault? Where did I set the ball rolling?
Where am I to blame? That's very different language for me. When I start looking at these people that I dislike in that way, it's a little different. There is this gentleman that I absolutely despise. He's a home group member of mine. You all know that home group member. You're like, they'd be better at another home group. Well, this guy would be better served in another home group. I gossiped about him all the time. I really disliked this guy. He could just leave, please. I didn't look him in the eye for about two years. We saw each other every Friday night, and we wouldn't look each other in the eye. My sponsor was like, wow, that's crazy because freedom for me is getting to walk into any room and to look anybody in the eye. I'd never really considered that as being a definition of freedom. I certainly wasn't free. We started to take a look at where am I to blame in this relationship. What I saw is that every single thing I hated about this gentleman was just a reflection of myself. I don't know. I got to talk to God about this one day because it's just not fair, that spiritual axiom that anytime I'm disturbed, there's actually a problem with me because I really want it to be you, and every
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time it's me. It changed the way I prayed about him because I'd been praying a prayer. I had this resentment, and I did the sick man prayer like, oh, God, look at this sick man. Oh, he's so sick, little sick man. I loved praying that way for people. It's very self-righteous. But when I did this inventory this way, it's like, no, maybe we both suffer from a spiritual condition. Maybe I'm just as sick. Actually, maybe sicker.
So my sponsor said, let's pray on our knees, and let's pray for two weeks, and let's pray for all the things you would want for yourself for him, and why don't you mean it? I actually did. It only took five days. My sponsor said prayer is a conduit of miracles, and not only does it change your heart, but it could change another person's heart, and that sounded interesting. So I started praying for this gentleman on my knees, and like I said, it only took five days, morning and night, for his health, his happiness, his kids, his family, his business, everything. On the fifth day, I show up at my home group where I'd been showing up for two years, and we had been talking to each other or looking each other in the eye, and I show up, and he walks straight up to me, and he says, Katie, can I speak to you outside? Again, we haven't spoken in two years, and I said, yes, and in the parking lot of this church, at our AA meeting, he looks at me with tears in his eyes. He said, last night, I had a dream about you, and in my dream, I was making amends to you, and then he started making amends to me, and God stood between us, you guys. I don't even know how else to describe it, and then I made amends to him, and we both are free.
We're free, you know, and I remember calling up my sponsor, and I'm like, my sponsor, and I'm like, I don't know who we got to get on the phone, the pope, some bishop, I don't know. This is a genuine miracle that I just experienced, and my sponsor goes, oh, honey, she's seen it a million times. She was not impressed with this story, you know, and it's so funny, because since then, I have seen this happen. I've seen absolute miracles as a result of prayer and the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous applied in people's life, but I'm not surprised by these things either. They are commonplace occurrences, and Alcoholics Anonymous, I just got to share one of them with you, and I'd like to tell you, the rest of my amends went that well. They did not, like, people did not have that. People told me, people told me my impact in their life. It's so funny. I did, I was seven years sober, and I still did not fully comprehend the impact I have on others, how I affect other people. I thought my drinkie was just about me, and then I get sober, and I realize I am a tornado, and that's really funny, because my nickname in high school was Taz, like Tasmanian Devil. I am a tornado. I impact people, and it took me a long time for me to figure that out.
So, like I said, it took me a long time to reconstruct. When I was a year sober, when I was a year sober, my grandma, I want, we were at a family event, and I wanted everyone to celebrate me being one year sober, and I'm like, grandma, we should get a cake and a candle, and she whipped around and said, we will not be celebrating what you should be doing. Like, people weren't like, yay, Katie's sober. Like, my grandma was sick of me. I had torn apart her family, truly. I had torn apart the family with my behavior and what I had been doing, not interested in celebrating, and it took, I got, my grandma died when I was 19 years sober. It took, I got to call my grandma for 18 years and try to clean that up. I think it took 10 years for my grandma to start ending our conversation with, I love you, sweetheart. It took 10 years. It was worth it. A lot, a lot of cleaning it up with her. I think when I was 15 years sober, when my dad, we were on a family vacation, he put his hand on his knee and said, honey, I'm so proud of you.
You guys restored the innocence between me and my dad. It took a long time. If you're new, I don't mean to scare you with that. It's worth it, but sometimes it takes a long time and we got to be patient. The book book tells us that. Two years ago, my grandma's dying. I'm, oh, this will probably be my last story. I'm turning 40 years old, which I can't believe I turned 40 years old and I got to be almost 20 years sober in AA. Half my life spent in the life-saving rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you, God. My husband and I celebrated by going to Spain. On the way to Spain, I get on the international flight. As a joke, I'm like, don't let me drink because the last time I was on an international flight, that's what I did.
In the middle of the night, we were awoken by a woman who had woken up the whole plane. She had drank nine glasses of wine. Woken up the whole plane. She had drank nine glasses of wine, had a couple of weed gummies and popped some Ambien and she was having a panic attack and fighting with the flight attendants
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and with her husband and everyone around her. And you guys, I got to see what I looked like. I got a clear picture of who and what I was. It was unbelievable seeing her level of delusion getting off the plane, saying to her husband, can you believe those flight attendants? I'm like, oh honey, there's a seat for you. And while we were in Madrid, of course, everywhere I go, I try to go to an AA meeting. I found an English speaking meeting when I was in Madrid and I walk in and of course, the secretary, like I know her sponsor from Portland, like just wild.
So they asked me to speak and I'm sharing and a girl's in the back shaking, trembling and we run up to her after the meeting and she's 25 years old. She's from California. It's her first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once again, it's me. Unbelievable stuff. I'm just so blown away by these little God winks that I get all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous and that's just one of them. But I rushed back from Spain and this is like I said, two years ago and my grandma's dying. I told her to wait for me. I'd had this trip planned for a while. I'm still selfish. I'm like, just don't go to heaven yet, grandma. And I fly straight to Phoenix and I walk in the room. So I get to walk my grandma home. Like what a gift that is. And my mom and her sisters, they don't know what to do. They got the blinds closed. They got football on the TV. No one's talking to her.
They're all terrified. No one knows what to do. And I do not because I'm great. It's because y'all have taught me what to do. The women and men of Alcoholics Anonymous have shared their experiences of how to walk their loved ones home. And I knew to open up the curtains and to open up the windows and let fresh light in and to massage my grandma's hands with lotion and to turn off the television and to play her favorite worship music and to pull out her Bible and read her favorite psalms and show her pictures of her loved ones and tell her stories and to tell her that her parents are so excited to see her and her favorite dog and to give grandpa a kiss and I can't wait to see her again one day. And you guys showed me how to have that level of courage and directness and to not be afraid. Thank you so much. I got to be an example of Alcoholics Anonymous to my mom and her sisters without them even knowing it. What a gift. It's just such a gift. And I got to have a good enough relationship with my grandma to be able to do that.
And my family, I have a big family. There's like 40 of us. My grandma had lots of kids and they all did a survey to figure out when we're going to have her celebration of life and the whole family picked January 17th of that year. That's my sobriety date. Even from the grave, my grandma was ensuring that my sobriety date wasn't about me. And I got to give the eulogy at her service and I got to show up at her celebration of life just like I do at my home group. Just like you guys showed me how to do. I showed up an hour early. I showed up in a dress. I showed up and I gave myself a job. I was the greeter. I got to shake people's hands as they walked in the door.
And I got to give the eulogy because I know how to stand up and speak in front of others and be open and transparent because you all showed me how to do that too. I got to be a good example of Alcoholics Anonymous because of you guys. Thank you so much. My family thanks you so much. I don't think God got me sober for me. I think God got me sober for them. I get to be a healing member of my family today and a good example of AA. Again, not because of me. On my own, I am nothing. The father doeth the works in my life and surely through Alcoholics Anonymous and through a good loving sponsor and through all of you good people, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for my life and thank you so much for the opportunity to share. Thanks.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Well, you never know what you're going to get. You'll just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next week when our special guest is Holly. Nope, that's July. It's Sharon A. from Debeau Bay, Oregon. Yep, Debeau. I think that's what it is. If you like this meeting, please do a Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about the special meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards in the meeting after the meeting on the porch. Katie, do you have any closing comments and would you please close us out with a prayer or reading of your choice? If you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous, the most important thing you can hear is that Alcoholics Anonymous is a sufficient substitute for your alcoholism. And let's end with the Lord's Prayer, if that's okay.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
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those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. With thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Man, Katie, good job. Thank you, honey. Oh, wow. Oh, there's the one that's going to hook you up right there, Vivian. She'll jump on you. I've already asked for your number, darling. I told you. That was fantastic, Katie. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you, Katie. Just wonderful. Beautiful job. It was really beautiful, Katie. Thank you. Really beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Katie. Been replaced. What'd you say? Tell Jimmy, he's been replaced. Never. Never. No. There is no way. He gave us a great reference, that's for sure. Go ahead, Frankie. Katie, I want to thank your sponsor. I have the very best sponsor in the whole world, that's for sure.
Who's your sponsor, honey? Her name is Tamara Burleson, and her sponsor is Debbie Davis.