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Source: Cyndi M – From Louisville, Kentucky – Date Unknown.mp3 File: cyndi-m-from-louisville-kentucky-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:57:47
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My name is Cindy. I'm an alcoholic. Because of the grace of God, some simple actions in this program, both sides of sponsorship, I've been sober every day in a row since December 17, 1985, and for that I'm extremely grateful. It's because of that that I have a life. And as long as that remains the most important thing in my life, I get to keep having a life. And the minute that any of these worldly clamors begin to interfere with that being the main deal in my life, I'm in trouble. And that's the reality of it for me. I used to use my last name. I think I did. I'm working really hard not to do that because some of y'all have started putting things on YouTube. Please stop. Please stop. You know, it's anonymous.
It's the level of press, radio, and film. Golly, I never know quite where I'm going to go, but what I will say is that God sure has showed off this weekend. If you've not been to one of these things before, you're getting a real special treat because the women that I have the honor of sharing this podium with are pretty amazing. And it's not often that you get this powerhouse of women together in one place, and then all of you. And this is, to me, a perfectly balanced conference. And the reason is because we have old-timer and newcomer alike. You know, if it's mostly old-timers, we lose. If it's almost all newcomers, we lose. But when it's both of us, it's a time and a place that the 12-step can actually happen.
And this has been just—it was really neat to watch the countdown because I don't always get to see that kind of balance anymore. Quite frankly, more often than not, old-timers are more prevalent than new people. And we need you. I cannot tell you how much that we need you and how happy that I am that you are here. So I'll tell you a little bit to qualify. Gosh, I think that my doppelganger spoke this afternoon. But long story short, I've been drinking since I was this big. And I drank for exactly the reason it talks about in the big book, for the effect produced by alcohol.
Now different than what you'll hear some people say, it didn't make me feel smarter, prettier, happier. It didn't make me have more fun. I didn't have fun. I didn't know how to have fun. What I knew was that I was bleeding from the inside out, and I hurt. And when I drank it cauterized some of the pain. It stopped the bleeding. And that drinking was my salvation. I'm quite sure I would have killed myself had I not had alcohol to give me relief.
And that's where the problem began, is that I associated it with the cure, not the problem. And eventually, like with all of us sitting here, alcohol backfires. And when it backfires, it becomes the problem, but we still look at it as—I still looked at it as the solution. I got here the first time in October of 1980. I was barely 17 years old. At 17 years old, I'd been living on the streets. I'd hitchhiked all over this country. I'd been in over 25 institutions, foster homes, orphanages. And when I talk about institutions, I'm talking about state mental hospitals in the 70s, you know, not to holiday in variety. And I went to a couple of those, too. That was fun. But I lived on the streets, and I did all the things that you do when you live on the streets to survive. And it's just what you do. It doesn't really need a ton of discussion. When I got here, I didn't care about anything.
See, at 17 years old, I didn't have a hope. I didn't have a dream. I didn't have anything I was going to grow up and be. Life did not matter. It just didn't. I had given up. That thing it talks about where it says, you know, we're going to just, you know, blot our existence till the bitter end. I was praying. I wanted to die. I wanted to be done. I only knew pain. That's all I could feel. And at the same time, I blamed the rest of the world for my position, and I saw no way out of it. I really saw myself as a victim, because you just heard all this crap I went through, right? So now I'm a victim, and I don't stand any hope or any chance as long as I'm a victim. I also used to carry a gun. I carried a gun because people didn't pay a lot of attention to me. And I found when I brought that thing out, it perked right up. So the one thing that I still cared about, I had been in this foster home, and my foster brother and sister had muscular dystrophy. And that home probably saved my life because of two things. It was the first time I ever met anybody that I felt life was less fair to than me. They had never walked. They couldn't feed themselves. So
[00:05:00]
it was the first time I had any perspective on that. I'm not the only one that hurts in what feels like an unfair way. The other thing that happened that wouldn't happen again until I truly got sober was that I was useful in that foster home. I mattered. I hadn't mattered anywhere. I hadn't mattered. And so in that foster home, I helped put them in bed. I helped turn them at night. I helped give them a bath. And that's the same thing that happens in AA. When we start helping somebody else, all of a sudden, we feel better about ourselves. It is the magic juice in all of life. And thank God I had that. So my foster brother, I was in DC doing what I do. And Cincinnati was home base. And he was having surgery in Cincinnati. So I hitchhiked back from DC to be there for his surgery. And he survived. And I did the same thing I would have done whether he died or whether he survived. I had a cocktail. Because see, that's what I do.
It looks exactly the same. Sometimes it's called celebrating. Sometimes it's called grieving. But it looks exactly the same. I get drunk. And I'm a blackout drinker. It's been pretty well described. For me, it means I can wake up in the middle of a conversation and have to catch up. As women, it's really frightening. Because I can wake up in a very compromised position and not know if I volunteered or not. And it's really, really scary. So my friend tried to get away from me. Because I'm crazy when I drink. I'm just crazy. I'm crazy.
And so she thought she'd avoided me by going into this retail store. And I just followed her in with my gun and trying to have the conversation. That's a bad idea. When the police came, apparently, I tried to wrestle them for my gun. I didn't want to steal anything. I'm just crazy. But what ended up happening is I woke up. And what I'm going to tell you happened. I don't remember. But I woke up laying in University Hospital tied to a stretcher hanging on a wall.
Because that's what they do when you flip the stretcher over on your face because you're mad trying to show them why they shouldn't tie you up. And that's the kind of alcoholic being that I am. And so I look down and I'm black and blue from my chin to my knees. And I don't remember a thing. It's like, who did this to me? Because remember, I'm a victim. The rest of the world is always doing bad things to me. And that's all I can see. People have always done things to me. My life is terrible and it's everybody else's fault. And the nurse said, you did. And she said, you're an alcoholic. I'm barely 17. I'm not liking that a bit. And she said, the sheriff's on his way to get you. And by the way, you're not going to juvenile. And back in 1980, it was pretty rare for a young lady. So that's a loose term. For a young female to go to adult jail. But that's where I went. I had seven felonies. So that's what all those little accidents of chasing somebody, just that impulsivity with a gun. And the good news is, so I was really sick from the streets. I'd lived on the streets and I was malnourished.
And I was beat up. And then the cops kind of topped it off. And so I went into pretty serious alcohol withdrawal in jail and had seizures. And they had to take me to the hospital. And that's my good news. That's my good news. Because I was so sick, I got a shot. And that's how I found out getting tied down. Because they tied me down when they took me from jail. And I flipped the stretcher on my face because I didn't like being tied down.
They hung me back on the wall. And so I'm not smart. But they sent me to the only treatment center that had a vacancy. And that was in Georgetown, Ohio, which is, if any of you know where that is, it was a lot of farmers and farmland. And I spent two weeks going through detox and whirlpool tubs and things like that. I was beat up. And I'm there and I'm barely 17 years old. I'm from DC. I've got like, you can imagine, because I'm a bad girl. And I'm there with a bunch of old farmers who you couldn't put together complete set of teeth from all of them. I'm there with the fool that got a DUI on a tractor. Now, I didn't think I related to him, but we'll catch up to that because everything I didn't think I related to, I have later found that I do relate to. Well, I'll just tell you now.
[00:10:01]
I didn't think I related to him because, you know, the only thing I ever drove, I stole. And when they caught me, they were a lot more interested in the fact I stole it than the fact I was driving drunk, right? But I always get caught. And I'm grateful I always get caught because when you get caught, you get opportunity. There's never been a place I've been that somebody didn't try to help me, ever. That's the truth. I'd like to tell you it's not, but it is. I've rejected most of it because I wanted it to be the help that I wanted, the way I wanted it, in a way that I didn't have to do any work. Because I didn't create the problem you did, so you fix it. And that really was my attitude. So this guy, he's in a blackout and he's driving on his tractor down the highway because he doesn't have a driver's license to drive a car anymore. And he forgot about where he was and he put the plow down in the middle of the highway. And that's how he got caught. And see, I relate to that because that's what I do. I drink and I take a gun into a retail store. I do dumb things.
But I didn't see that relationship for many, many years, probably over a decade before I could look back and see a relationship between me and that fella. I was mad. And people from AA come in and they try to hug me and touch me. I had about a five word vocabulary. Use your imagination. Sounds bad to the bone. And that was my defense. You see, I wanted so desperately to be loved. And I really wanted to be touched, but I didn't believe that there was such a thing as safe touch. I didn't believe there was a touch that wasn't sexual. So touching scared me.
And I didn't believe in love, but I wanted to be loved desperately. And so every time somebody tried to be nice to me, I used my five word vocabulary like a shield, like a weapon, and I shoved them away. But you know what those old fools kept doing? Being nice to me. Not a single person said talk better. They didn't. Nobody talked to me about my vocabulary and had they, I would have left. And nobody talked to me about the way I dressed. Good thing. They just said, we love you, come back. And they were so shiny that eventually I wanted to be like them. Not because they made me be like them, but because they were so attractive. I wanted to be more like them, but that took a long time.
So I got out of there. And when I was there, they talked to me about doing the steps. I didn't like that idea very much. They said, Cindy, if you'll just work the steps, your life can be different. And I said, you don't understand. You see, I'm broken. I believed it with all my heart. All those institutions, you know. I had a different label everywhere. They gave me nice little titles and I bought into it. It was an old idea, but I didn't understand it was an old idea for a long time. For me, it was my truth.
I'm broken. I'm broken beyond repair. I'm a discardable human being. And if I tried those steps and they didn't work, it proved it. So I was so afraid to try it, not because I was going to find some truth about myself. I was so afraid to try it because it wouldn't work on me. And so I left there and I didn't do recovery, but I went to the clubhouse and I hung out and I slept on everybody's couches and I manipulated people into mostly men, into buying my lunch and my dinner.
And see, I treated AA the same way that I treated the streets because it's all I knew. I didn't know how to be different. So I used people in Alcoholics Anonymous and I manipulated people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I found a couple of fellas to go drink because that's what I do without a spiritual solution. I have to have a cocktail because I vibrate. I vibrate. I got a firing squad in here, not a committee.
You know what I mean? It's like, I have to have a cocktail. So me and these couple of fellas went drinking. I always break out in felonies. It is my truth. And so I decided to borrow carpet from a model home in broad daylight. Oh, I am a bad to the bone criminal. I'm just dumb. And when I drink, I just get dumb. And did I mention I always get caught? I have two brothers that didn't hardly ever get caught and they've not fared nearly as well as me. And that's why I'm grateful for always getting caught, even though back then I was really mad about it. So anyway, there were no halfway houses.
So anyway, there were no halfway houses for women in Ohio or Indiana at the time, in October
[00:15:03]
and January of 1980. I was still barely, I was still 17 years old. My birthday's in July, now it's January. I've been around AA for a few months. They, there was a new halfway house that had opened in Lexington, Kentucky called Chrysalis House, and they, my probation officer made me become an emancipated adult. She said, you've been living like one for like five years, it's time to be an adult. So I became an emancipated adult, and that was the only way I could go to the halfway house. So I went to the halfway house and changed my life. And the reason it changed my life, we've already heard about, because it changed the way I behaved. And by changing the way I behaved, it changed the way I thought and felt. See, when I had all those psychiatrists and all those probation officers, I always wanted to get the right one that would help me feel better so I could act like you act.
You know, I really, and I would switch them, you know, and I'd be like, I need a new one. And I never, they could never help me feel better. They could never fill the void. So, and I didn't feel like I belonged in AA. I really didn't. I thought I was too broken for AA. I really did. I didn't think that my problem was alcohol. I thought my solution was alcohol. It just couldn't, I couldn't concede completely to that. And I thought I was lying to tell you I was an alcoholic. After all, I was 17 years old. Now, granted, I've had alcoholic poisoning six times, you know, hospitalized for it. You know, it's like, I'm pretty alcoholic. And I drank around the clock. But you know, again, my solution, because we're delusional. The reason I say this is not to show you how bad I was. It's to tell you that I will always convince myself, you know, without a spiritual solution, that I'm not really one of you. That I really don't belong in AA. So when I went there, they didn't care. They said, they made me go to a meeting early and make coffee. And you know what happened?
Everybody in the meeting started to know who I was. And they started to know my name. And I started to feel like I belonged. Because it is by doing that, that I get to be a part of. When I just come visit you, I'm not a part of. And I don't belong because I don't feel like I belong because I don't participate. Then they said, Cindy, you need to get a J-O-B. Well, you just heard my resume. I didn't have a driver's license. You know, there's nobody to sign for it. You know, like when you're on the streets and stuff, nobody's going to sign for your driver's license. So and you heard my resume. And so what am I going to get a job doing? I got a job setting tobacco in the fields. And it's hard work. But you know what happened? I started to have my own money. I started to buy my own stuff to eat after the meeting instead of manipulating somebody else to do it. My shoulder started to go back.
My chin started to go up. Because I was doing things that give people esteem. And that's how I began to feel better. Then they said, Cindy, you need to go take classes and get a GED. I'm like, a GED, man, that's for losers. That's where people didn't go to high school. Now, right? Because there was a big part of me knew I couldn't pass that GED. There certainly was. And I don't know about you, but like if I meet you and I think you're not going to like me, I don't like you first. You know? And if I think I can't do it, then it sucks.
And once again, they said, we don't care. So I went and I took a test to see where I should be in classes. They said you don't have to take the classes. They said you come back and take the test. So barely having been to high school, I took that test and I scored in the top. Because I also was a hidden reader. Reading was my first escape. And I scored in the top two percentile of anybody that ever took that test.
And so let me tell you, this is perception, right? That thing that stunk. Now I'm like, look at me, I'm Cindy, I got a GED. You know? Let's shout it from the rooftops. So all of a sudden that thing was like, oh, it's all of a sudden great. It's the way I roll. And so then I went back to Cincinnati and I'm an AA Wonder Girl. You've seen us. One of the great things about having a really low bottom and being really rough is you don't have to do very much to be a lot better. And everybody's on your side, you know? They're
[00:20:00]
like, oh, there's that underdog. Boom. And I did pretty good in AA for a couple of years. I love Alcoholics Anonymous with all my heart. Alcoholics Anonymous breathed life into me. It didn't regain, I didn't have a life. Alcoholics Anonymous breathed life into me. It taught me everything. I learned about finances and I'm pretty good with them by being on committees and being in my home group and learn about prudent reserves and learn about financial responsibility. I run three businesses on those principles. That's where I learned it.
That's what I know. That's amazing, right? Everything I know I learned here. So I was pretty smart. I memorized that big book. I like to take pot shots at old timers that were misquoting it. And I was quite popular with them. I had to make amends to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I made amends and then they asked me to do some volunteer work and a fluke of events happened and I got offered the district director position. I was 20 years old and I was two years sober of all the outlying counties in Cincinnati. Which means I was going to put on the telethon and do all these things locally. Now you just heard my story. Do I sound qualified for that position? No, but I'll tell you what my ego said. Oh yes. Oh yes, I'll have that job. Thank you. Like Bill, I'm finally recognized. I knew not to take that job. I knew that I didn't know how to do that job. My ego is not one that thinks I need to be better than you. I don't. I've never thought I'm better than anybody. My ego is one that thinks I have to have a little more than you to be as good as you. I have to have a better job so I'm good enough to spend time with you and talk about work. I have to have a little nicer car so it's good enough for you to ride in.
I have to have a little better house so you can come stay in it because I'm not good enough. That to me is the epitome of egomania with inferiority. That's how it manifests in my life. I took a job I knew I couldn't do. I took a job I didn't really want to do, but I loved the title. They gave me business cards. Cynthia R. Masters, District Director of Masculine Dystrophy says, wow. I went to Oak Street, the AA clubhouse and I passed those babies out. I said, you two work the steps. You may get some business cards and a new car.
See I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I thought that getting your family back, getting a good job, I thought that's what sobriety was and I wanted to be as good as you. I wanted to work as hard as you. All the time I'm so scared. I go to this job and I had a secretary and I ran away from her because I didn't know what you do with a secretary. I flew for the first time to Las Vegas to meet Jerry Lewis and learn how to do this telethon thing. Buddy, you could still smoke on planes, thank God, because the only thing I'd ever done is hitchhike.
I tried to dress appropriately for the job so I bought a fuchsia skirt suit that you could see at 100 yards. Beth might remember that, I don't know. I will tell you that the district manager talked to me about my dress. Everything was fraudulent. Oh yeah, I did have a person's shoes that matched. See, everything about my existence was fraudulent. So what I was doing was doing what it talks about in the fifth step that we do drinking and I was doing it sober. I was coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and I was telling you how great life was and how great I was doing and if you work the steps you can do and I'm going home and wanting to slice my wrist. See, what I didn't do was I didn't tell you the truth.
I didn't come and say I'm afraid. I don't know what to do. I came with my AA ego and my AA image and my AA and my insecurities and I didn't. See, we got to admit, we got to concede we're in our most self and we got to help others but we also have to be honest and honesty for me means that I'm authentic and I'm transparent. It means that I'm the same person here that I am at home that I am at work, which is why I don't wear a skirt at the podium. I sit in board meetings with Fortune 100 companies and I don't wear a skirt
[00:25:00]
so I would be fraudulent to come do it here. I would be dis-authentic and I would want to slice my wrist. And so, to thine own self be true, what I have to align with is God's will. Period. Period. And what is somebody else's best bet? The steps are always our best bet but how that manifests looks different for all of us. So anyway, I ended up sexually acting out throughout Alcoholics Anonymous because that's my first thing in self-destruction.
I start sleeping with everybody, more than one person a night, sober. And then I get so filled with self-hatred and self-loathing that I'm either going to put a bullet in my brain or I'm going to have a cocktail. I do not remember taking a drink. I was turning three years sober and I woke up drunk. And you know what happened? I was relieved because I had been living tortured. That's not what recovery is. Recovery is not not drinking.
It's not. And I had a reason and excuse not to go back to that job that I couldn't do. By the way, if you're in that position, you don't need a reason. You're allowed to just quit. God's got you. And I went back to AA and I raised my hand. It's a new meeting. I said, I drank. I'd watched so many people do it. I want to be sober. I'm back. And guess what happened when I left that meeting? Hello, liquor store. Because what it talks about in the doctor's opinion is once I put one in me, I don't really have a choice about drinking. Only divine intervention, once this train gets rolling, is going to intersect with my drinking. So I tried to come back to AA fairly frequently and then it became less frequent. My drinking life became a normal one. There was no bravado of felonies. There was no jails. My car got repossessed. I got kicked out of my apartment. If you had an apartment, I lived with you. If I had one, you lived with me. If you had money, we drank on you. If I had money, we drank on me. That became normal.
So my last drunk was not a bunch of bravado, crazy stuff. And by the way, that has nothing to do with my alcoholism. My alcoholism probably accelerated really poor behavior, but I go to the prisons a lot and there are people in prison that are not alcoholic. So consequences are not what make us alcoholic. As a matter of fact, there's a gal here that sponsors Christina and she was the first person that I knew that taught me that somebody that got sober with a car and a garage and a house could have as much pain and as much alcoholism as me. And Beth G. gave me that gift and I've seen it many times since in the women I sponsor.
But alcoholism isn't about any of that. Alcoholism is about when I want to quit, I can't necessarily. Once I take some, I don't know where I'm going to go or how much I'm going to take. And that doesn't mean it's going to happen every single time. Because for some women, it doesn't. But you can't guarantee whether it will or not this time. And that's enough. Because I think sometimes my story is like this big, big story and it's easy to start for people to compare and don't do that. Don't do that. We're exactly the same. Somewhere upon the time, you guys picked up a drink and you didn't plan on getting drunk and you did. And that's why we're the same. And there's only one way out. And that's a spiritual experience.
And that's the whole point of the book. And that's the whole point of this deal is to introduce us to something bigger than ourselves. So my last drink was December 16th, 1985. And I sat in front of the place I lived. I was coming out of a blackout. I've already told you how scary it is to be in a blackout. And I'm crying. And I've peed myself. I'm like you. I have a severe allergy. And I've puked myself because I'm a puking drunk. There's nothing sexy about my drinking. Although I often think so when I'm drunk.
And so I'm coming out of a blackout and I'm terrified. And that's why I'm crying. Because I can't find my home. Now I'm sitting right in front of it. That's pitiful, incomprehensible, demoralization. And the next day I woke up different. And the difference was that I had a level of humility that I had never experienced before my recovery. I got a sponsor that didn't know about the Oxford group and the Washingtonians. She didn't memorize the big book. She didn't even know about the concepts, but she knew how to stay sober. And she knew how to put the steps on her life. And the first thing she said is you are not allowed to quote the big book anymore. You may only paraphrase as it applies in your life.
Because see, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I knew all the See, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I knew all the words. I didn't understand how to live them. And so that was a, that was a humility for me to be willing to take that direction.
[00:30:04]
And then she said, I want you to look at the first step, Cindy. And the powerlessness and unmanageability, that's easy. When I drink, I'm powerless. My life has never been manageable, so that's not hard. And then she asked me to do something that's not in the book, but it's my experience. She said, I want you to look at the probable consequences if you drink again. Okay. I said the same thing we all say, go to jail, mental hospital, die.
She laughed at me. She said, you're not afraid of any of that. And she was right. You see, in jail, I'm like the vice president. I grew up there, man. I do great. You know, I know, I know how to do jail. And in a mental hospital, the bar is so low. All you got to do is have the most pudding. You're like a success, you know. I mean, I've ridden a Harley Davidson my whole life. That is not somebody that is afraid of dying, you know.
So she said, I want you to dig deeper. And this is still why I work my tail off in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because if I could have drank and died, I would have gone for it. My fear is that I will drink and live for 20 years. Because, see, I'm a black hole that sucks the life out of everybody that gets near me. I don't want to. I really don't want to. And I think I'm not, but I do. I only use people. If you get in between me, and I'm going to be at that ballgame tomorrow, I promise.
And then at the bar, it's just going a little long. I am a black hole, and I hurt everybody who tries to love me. And I think I'm generous and kind because I'm delusional. And I think it's everybody else's fault. I don't want to live my life like that. So I'm a step person. Work the steps. I'm a big book person. Have a weekly big book study at my house. Have a sponsor. My sponsor's name is Snow. She's a freaking rock star.
And she's a voice I can hear. She's a voice I can hear every time. So let's talk about being sober. Let's talk about, because we know how to drink unsuccessfully. That's why we're all here. We all are good at that. But what we don't know how to do is how to put this thing on life and how to live a sober life. How do we deal with the boring? That's the hardest. How do we deal with the exciting? How do we deal with the trauma?
How do we deal with the grief? How do we do that sober? So I tell a handful of stories, and I'm going to tell them. I'm afraid you're getting a little bit of canned pitch tonight, and I apologize. When I was 11 years sober, my grandmother died. And my grandmother was the kindest human being I've ever known, and I did intimacy with her. And my grandmother taught me spirituality, and she's the one that taught me when I was a kid, fear and faith always live in the same house.
Always. It's which one you feed. My grandmother grew up in an era where it was popular to be prejudiced towards certain groups of people just because of the color they were born or whatever. My grandmother never uttered a negative word about a single person or group of people ever. She practiced love and tolerance and didn't need somebody to tell her it was the code. When I feed faith, I'm kind and I'm loving.
I'm positive about you and me. And when I feed fear, I'm negative, I'm judgmental, I'm cynical, and I gossip. So fear and faith are always here. Which one do I feed? Which one do I give my juice to? And my grandmother gave it to faith, and she did all these. She was wonderful. And she died, and she was scared to death. And I got really mad at God, and I took a walk in the dark at 11 years sober. Because I thought, God, how can you take this woman that has done nothing but serve you her whole life?
She's been kind to all your kids. She's been an example. She's the only person who went to church all the time and never made me scared of church. She never threatened me that I was too bad for church or God. She just loved me, and she taught me that love's the answer to what's the question.
[00:35:03]
Is that rain? That's freaking awesome. We're getting clean. So when she was scared, I lost my trust in God. I just thought, you're not who I thought you were. And I talked to God, right? Here's the part I did right that I didn't do when I relapsed the first time. I went to meetings, and I told the truth. I did not go in with an 11-year sober persona. Because, you know, we get those, I'm 11 years sober, and this is the way somebody 11 years sober is.
I'm 11 years sober, and this is the way somebody 11 years sober behaves. Bull crap. That's not authentic. It's not transparent. It's a lie, and I won't do it. I got drunk doing that. So I went to meetings instead at 11 years sober, and I cried. And I said, I can't feel God. And when you've had a spiritual experience and you can't feel God, it's the loneliest thing ever on the planet. And it took away my reason for living.
Because that spiritual experience is what gave me joy in life. The other thing I did right was I kept looking for God, even though I couldn't feel him. I almost blew my brains apart that year. And that's why I share this story, because we have people in AA that blow their brains apart sober, and we think, how could that have happened? I think there are two things that happen. We disconnect spiritually, and then we don't tell our truth, because we think we have to fit into this AA mold and model.
And so if you're not good enough for AA and you're not good enough for yourself, then you only have like two options. So always tell your truth. Always be honest. Don't worry about what somebody thinks. That's hard to do, but it's the solution. So one of the things I got in early recovery was a big old Harley Davidson. And I got that Harley because I vibrated. I told you about my firing squad. And it vibrated more than I did.
And they wanted me to meditate. Well, I smoked a lot, and that committee was really loud when I tried to be still. And I'd get on that Harley, and it'd vibrate more than I did. And those voices, oh, my pipes were louder than the committee. And I could feel God in the wind, because God will meet me where I am. I don't have to go to the mountaintop. I don't have to go somewhere else. All I got to do is want to meet God, and God will meet me.
So now I've turned 12 years sober. It's February 1, 1998, and I'm tore up. You know, I have not been able to get through this. And there probably was an easier way, but I didn't find it. So I got on my Harley, and I thought I'm going to go try to connect. And I'm on Interstate 65 in Louisville, Kentucky. And somebody's coming over in my lane. I'm doing about 65, 70 miles an hour, and so are they. And I couldn't drive out because there's something here.
And boom, they hit me. And I was catapulted 17 foot in the air. And I came down, according to a police report, I came down on the hood of a car. Imagine that. You're driving down the highway. Here I am. And I rolled off that car, and that car drove up me. And my face was shredded by the undercarriage. My lungs were collapsed. My heart got shifted to the left. I have a traumatic brain injury. I have a spinal cord injury.
I'm laying on the highway. When your lungs are collapsed, you can't breathe. I couldn't breathe. And I got scared, probably like my grandma. And I always say this. We're afraid to change home groups. Kind of makes sense to be scared of the big adventure, right? And then I let go in the most absolute way I've ever let go in my life. I let go. And I got wrapped in nothing but white, billowy clouds of love.
Nothing but love. Obviously, I lived. That was my first. But they called my mom when I was in the ER, and they told her to come. But I probably wouldn't be alive when she got there. Because my aorta had gotten squashed when my heart got shoved over when the car drove up me. I still got a tire track. It's kind of cool. And I've had 22 surgeries reconstructing my face. I have a traumatic brain injury, which has been the most challenging thing about that accident.
[00:40:01]
I lost every single thing I owned. I had a business. I lost it. I lost everything. I didn't know where any value would come from because I had taken so much pride in my intelligence. Who takes pride in your intelligence like you created it? But that was gone because I couldn't remember your name five minutes after I met you. And my looks were gone. I looked like this. Kids were scared of me. Went through a lot.
And nobody expected me to function again. And I got the fast track for social security disability and food stamps. So I'm 12 years sober, and this is my life. And you know what you guys did? You brought me new girls. And the new girls, she'd come to my house, and you'd try to get her to tell me what she told you on the way over. She'd take one look at me and say, uh-uh. After a little coaching, she'd say, well, wow, Cindy, my boyfriend left.
I don't know how I'm going to go on. I would have a seizure. She would feel better. So now I don't know what's happened because I got a brain injury and I can't remember anything. But what I know is that when people come to my house, they're kind of sad. And when they leave my house, they're kind of happy. I'm feeling a little bit like Gandhi, you know. See, I'll tell you what I did right. Because we have to do some things right, or God won't do the rest for us.
We have to do some things right. And what I did right, because see, I don't know about you all, but when I first got sober, I thought, man, I'm going to be one of those gurus. I'm going to have followers when I get, you know what I mean, the spiritual thing. Having a seizure was not my idea of the more spiritual I would ever be. But what I did right is I let it be enough. Because it goes back to what happened in that foster home.
If I'm useful, my life is worth living. And it doesn't have to be useful the way I think I should be useful. And when I feel useful, it gives me some momentum to get better with a lot of things. So I'm going to tell you about the six-year period. I'm going to do this really fast because I've got some more stuff I want to say. I had the wreck in 98. While I was still having surgeries from the wreck, I had started to get my life back a little bit.
I took a commission-only job. Nobody would hire me. I don't know why, but they wouldn't. But I did really good at that commission job, and then I did get hired. I sold something that I didn't understand at all, technology. It's a great thing to do with a brain injury, but nobody else did it at the time either. But what I did do was I made sure that the people I worked with would be fair. And I promised that, and I kept that promise.
So anyway, then I got cancer. So in 1998 I had the wreck, and then in 2000 I had cancer. It wasn't early. It was stage 3 breast cancer. I spent a year doing chemo and radiation. I felt sorry for myself one day with that because I thought, God, what do you want from me, man? Look at this life I've had. Look at this life I've had. I grew up on the streets. I grew up in a house where I should have been dead.
I have alcoholism. I had a highway motorcycle accident that would have killed anybody, and I heard all that back. And it's exactly what was said this morning. It is attitude. It is perception. It's like, look at me. I've had all this stuff, and I'm still alive. I'm still alive. Lucky me. So it went from poor me to lucky me. So then I got through that chemo and radiation, and I started a business in technology that I can't do anything that it does.
I had $1,700 to my name. I was still a recipient of the Traumatic Brain Injury Trust Fund. They were helping me organize my bills at home because I couldn't figure out how to pay them. And when I told that lady, I like to share this sometimes, because when I told that lady, I said, you know, I'm starting a business next week. She's over there helping me because my bills are all over the floor. I can't figure it out.
And she said, good for you. Good for you. And here's the next thing she said, if you need help organizing there
[00:45:01]
let me know. She didn't bust my dream. She didn't tell me what I was capable of or not capable of. We don't know with anybody. I'll tell you right now that business does business globally. I have a number of Fortune 500 clients in spite of me, not because I can't do a thing, it does. So then, this is all six years, then I started falling and I couldn't get up. So Beth went through this piece with me, like she went through all, but this one we were kind of close. She got to see all my craziness. But when I was a kid I got kicked through doors and my back was broken. And when I had the accident, it exacerbated that back break. And so I started to fall down. My spinal, my spine was stretched, so my spinal cord was stretched. And that was what was, so they had to cut part of my spinal canal and hardwire me up with a bunch of hardware in my lower back. And it triggered, it triggered, it triggered everything. All of a sudden that slideshow of trauma came back. Every kick to my back, everything thrown at my back. And I talked to Beth, I said, I can't do this, I can't do this. I was crazy. And when I got out of the hospital, it was forgiveness work that got me to the other side of that. And the evidence that I did that forgiveness work. So I actually made amends to demand that it broke my back, not for breaking my back. For that every time anybody said something nice about him, I made sure they knew he wasn't. For every opportunity that I could take to take pot shots at him, my dad, he was my adopted dad, but my dad sat on the bench. And my dad was very violent and people, I tried to disarm his reputation. So no matter what somebody's done to me, I'm not okay to hurt them. And that's the hardest one, when they really hurt you bad. But I'll tell you what happened out of that amends. My dad has a mental issue. He's like multiple people and he doesn't ever remember what happened. My dad's a good soul. It took me a long time to see that. My dad loves me, but my dad can't be the same person every day. And I always wanted him to be sorry, and he could never remember. And when I made amends, and the last thing I said, and dad, if there's anything else I've ever done to harm you, please let me know. You taught me to do that. And I like to make it right. He repeated my words. My cousin had confronted him about a time he beat me with an extension cord camping. And my back and legs had bled. And my cousin had just confronted him a few weeks ago, and he said, Cindy, I don't remember this at all. He said, but I'm mortified and I'm sorry. And then he said my words, if there's anything that I've ever said or done besides this to harm you, let me know. Well, lock and load, baby, I've been waiting my whole life to have this conversation. And the evidence that I made the amend, as I said, daddy, that was a long time ago. I love you. How about we try to have a decent adult relationship? And I'll tell you something. My dad, I'm still scared of him. I was with him this week, and I had to leave because the aggression started coming. But I love that man, and I show up for that man, and I show up for my mom, and I love my mom. And how cool is that? So I'm not to the end of the six years yet.
So I got a house. I've got this Victorian house, and it's got really high ceilings. And I was in the attic. You were around for this. And so I wouldn't tell these stories if everybody in AA hadn't been around for it. Because it would just sound like hogwash. So I'm in my attic, and I slip through the rafters, and I land on my neck in the doorway below. And my C5 breaks in half. And I wind up paralyzed from the chest down. I can move like this, that's all. And so I ended up being, to make a long story short, in the hospital three months. And they didn't know if I went. And I didn't know if I wanted to live. I was paralyzed. My friend said, we don't care. We helped you get up all these other times.
You get up again. And I've had miracle surgeries. My neck is artificial. I do not have a C5 vertebrae. And how blessed am I? I learned to walk three times in six years. Now I'm
[00:50:05]
not without long-term health effects. That's the game. So what? How lucky am I? I get to have them. You know what I mean? Most people have been through what I've been through. They don't get to have them. They're dead. So I told you this morning about my brother getting murdered. My brother's in my Irish 20s, and I'm much younger than me. I can't tell you how much I love him. We were warriors together. We survived together. My siblings call me mama's sister, because that's what I did. And so it broke my heart. I can't say it broke my heart like a mother's heart. But as close as I know to being a mother, it broke my heart. And I didn't stop crying for a very, very long time.
You know, this thing comes back. It's like my dad was very rude at his funeral. My dad didn't know how to handle it. And so he said, I never respected him anyway. And it hurt me to my core. And then he told my mom a week later she wasn't allowed to cry anymore. That was enough grieving. We were going on. And so I had to cycle through another layer of forgiving him, another layer of letting that go, another layer of accepting that that's his woundedness. And as Peg says, we don't shoot our wounded. And that includes if there's somebody in our family. Having compassion for somebody that really wounded me has been honestly the biggest success of my life. It's the biggest success of my life. I have compassion and I have love. But what happened? I hated my mom. And I hated my mom because my mom didn't defend me. She lied when shoulder services come. She didn't protect me and I hated her for it. I didn't think she loved us. When my brother died, I saw the deepest woundedness in her eyes that I've ever seen in a human being. And I realized she had been stuck.
And I was so full of compassion and love for her. I love my mom. All I wanted was for her to feel better. And then when I got septic, she turned 70 while I was in the hospital. And then next year, my sister and I took my mom and my aunt to Kenya for a safari to celebrate her 70th and she smiled again. And I love that. I used to think I'm not going to give to them because they didn't give enough to me. I'm not going to help them because they threw me away. They put me in institutions. My dad brought me off at the highway when I was 13 years old to hitchhike wherever I was going to go. I couldn't get over my own woundedness enough to love them. But you healed me. And I'm not wounded like that. They can get brought up again like at my brother's funeral. But I'm not wounded like that. I love them. My mom was in the hospital this week. Now I have meetings on a half hour on a half hour. It's ridiculous. I canceled everything. And I went up and I sat by her bed. We laughed.
We had fun. She's home today and I'm glad. She was in the hospital for a week. And what a privilege and an honor. I bring her comfort. All I brought her was pain because I blame her. I let her know I hated her. I let her know it was her fault. Here was this little wounded lady and I tortured her. I let her know. They're very educated people. Four kids. None of us stayed at home past 15. None of us graduated from high school. Ducks don't come from chickens. Chickens don't come from cows. So that forgiveness has saved me. I'm a free woman. I'm not tormented. I don't live afraid. I have relationships I couldn't love when I got here. I couldn't love. My cousin died, my favorite cousin. Her husband grabbed me up because he knew I would get it. I felt nothing. My brother died. All I did was cry everywhere. I'm so grateful. I have my whole library of feelings. I get to feel it all.
I get to feel great joy. I get to feel you love me. I get to feel me love you. I get to feel sadness and grief. I get the whole life's apple. How lucky am I? So I told you. My sponsor says go show God off. And my sponsor believes in abundance. Oh boy, I have. I've
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shown God off. But I talked to you this morning because sometimes what shows God off one day begins to separate me another day. And so by staying in the present, in the now, in the here, I get to figure out, is this contributing to my relationship with God, which is the only safety and security I have? Or is this taking away and depleting from it? And I'm in a spiritual moment. I don't know my answer. Beth and I talked about it at lunch. I don't know my answer. But I know that God will reveal it. And it won't be that long.
You know, I want to write books. I do. I don't have any education, but you know, I wasn't supposed to be able to start businesses either, you know. I have got the opportunity to write for women's magazines on managing chronic debilitating pain without narcotics. That's a gift from all my pain. How lucky am I? Every single bad thing that's happened to me, and I just told you a lot of things that happened to me sober, that rarely happen to people drinking. And every single one has become a gift. Every single thing in my childhood.
I'm so glad I had my childhood. Because if I didn't, can you imagine having my sober adulthood, I would not have been prepared, you know. My childhood prepared me. I mean it's the truth. If I want that to be true, it is true. And if I want to blame the world and say my life has just been shitty the whole way through, that can be true too. One allows me to be happy. One makes me want to cut my throat. It's pretty simple, isn't it? Boy, is that hard for us, golly. I've really enjoyed being with you women, all of you, especially the speakers this weekend because I felt very connected. And I felt loved and supported.
And I hope that you have from me as well. Love's the answer. Thank you for giving me a life.