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Source: Deb H – Sunlight of the Spirit 2011 – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: deb-h-sunlight-of-the-spirit-2011-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:19:38
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All right, good morning. My name is Deb. I'm a real alcoholic. And with her telling that story, I'm sitting up here and I've got tears in my eyes because, you know, it's just what we do for one another. You know, I, you know, I mean, if you're going to be a mess, be a mess with us because we know how to do that. We do. We know how to do trauma and drama and everything in between. I'm going to set this up here which makes you think I'm going to be paying attention to the time and I'm not very good at that.
Anyway. Oh, Dolly, thank you for calling and asking me to be here at the sunlight of the spirit. When Dolly call, when people call me to ask me to do women's retreats, I always ask them, is this Alcoholics Anonymous or is this an extension of therapy? Because I need to know what it is they're asking me to do. Because if it's Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm all in. If it's therapy, I'm unqualified. And so I need to know and when Dolly called and asked me to come do sunlight of the spirit, I didn't even ask.
Because I know what this is. And I know it's Dolly and Chris and I know Gail is going to be here and I'm like, it's just going to be straight up old time AA and I'm in. And I actually had to call a guy in Jekyll Island, Georgia and tell him that I had just gotten a call from these women who I simply adore back in my homeland and that they want me to come the same weekend I'm supposed to be in Jekyll Island.
But that indeed I had him on my schedule first and so I'd be happy to be there. And he says, so it sounds to me like you'd rather be in Cleveland, Ohio in November rather than Jekyll Island, Georgia. And I said, I know, crazy, isn't it? And he said, if you find me another female speaker to take your place, you go to Cleveland. And I was like, you rock, Ray. And so I found him another female speaker.
So I got to come and be with you this weekend. And I never had done that before. Like it just would never have occurred to me to swap up commitments. But I was like, you know what, to get to hang out with a bunch of women from the area where I got sober and to participate in old time AA for three solid days, my soul needed to be here. It really did. And the fact that I'm getting to close this particular weekend as your closing speaker, I mean, what an honor it is for me to be here, really.
What an honor it is for me to be here. And the fact that I got to start out my weekend with newcomers picking me up and having a crisis, I'm like, I am this perfect, as it should be, you know, if it had started any other way, it just wouldn't have been right. Thank you so much for taking good care of me. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, I'm supposed to tell you what I was like, my goodness, what happened and what it's like today.
And I'm going to do that to the best of my ability. I'm also going to do it as quickly as possible. I have a plane to catch. That's the only drawback to being the closing speaker on Sundays is I don't get to spend the kind of quality time that I would want to with all of you after I get done. And I absolutely hate that. But that's the limitations of, you know, getting pumped up for one weekend and then having to fly home.
So I'm going to miss some of the interaction that I value so deeply. And I'm sorry about that. But I'm going to talk as quickly as possible, primarily for Bill's sake, because I run over a lot. And, you know, I don't want him to have to make, you know, two CDs when this is over so we can all get on the road. So I'm going to do the best I can. I prayed to God about it this morning and said, God, you know, you're going to have to hustle this along.
Now, God doesn't listen to me very often. And you'll get to hear some of that as well. Anyway, I was born and raised in a really small town right outside of Akron, Ohio. So I really am kind of a hometown girl. The name of that little town was Ripman. It's right next to Wadsworth, which is, yeah, yeah. It's a little tiny redneck town. Anybody from Ripman in the audience? Are you really? Very nice. Very nice.
My sister. So anyway, so I was born and raised in Ripman. And at the time, we had a population of about 5,000 people. And everybody who lived there had come out of the hills of West Virginia when the coal mines started closing. And they all were primarily blue-collar workers who worked union or non-union at the surrounding factories. And there was just a strong sense of patriotism. There was a strong sense of, as long as I'm getting up and going to work every day, everything is fine because I'm providing for my family.
I call it the blue-collar work ethic. And by God, no matter what's going on, I'm going to get up and I'm going to punch that clock. And as long as I'm doing that, everything else is fine. And my family, we were one of those. My dad worked at Rubbermaid, which used to be in Worcester and has closed its doors now. My dad and many of his brothers and sisters worked at Rubbermaid.
[00:05:00]
And he was a member of the union there. My mom worked at a little factory in Orville, Ohio. She was not union. And we just were, you know, we were living the blue-collar lifestyle here in central Ohio doing the thing. And the thing that was going on in my household, which was also going on in many other households, but we never talked about it, was we had alcoholism. And when I say we had alcoholism, I mean we had alcoholism.
It's the family disease of alcoholism. And we were all suffering under it. And we were all absolutely smashed down by it. And there was nothing we could do about that. My mom had been raised by an alcoholic, and she'd married my dad, who was alcoholic. And my father's case of alcoholism is very, very severe. Still to this day, he's alive. He's mean as a snake. He's sick as a dog. And all he wants to do is drink.
And now he doesn't have car keys, so he can't get to booze. And he's worse. Can you imagine drinking like we drank and somebody just snatching away your booze and putting you in a place and you can't get any? When I drank, I drank for a feeling of relief that I didn't know that I needed, but once I got it, I hung on to it. And I can't imagine being stone-cold sober, having no God, no program, and no booze.
Kill me now. And that's where my dad's at right now. And he's mean as a snake, and he hates all of us. He hates all people. He's asked us not to come around so I don't have a relationship with my father. And that's just alcoholism. That's just alcoholism. And when I was growing up, he was always mean. He was angry when he was sober. And when he was drinking, he didn't get that feeling of relief that I got anymore.
He'd been alcoholic probably long before I was born, and he'd reached that point where alcohol wasn't working for him anymore, but he needed it. And so when I was a little kid, I was absolutely terrified all the time. Because the alcoholism in my family was a very violent form of alcoholism, and there was constant abuse, and we never knew what we were going to do that was going to trigger it. And so all I had to do was breathe.
And that was enough to make him angry, enough to make him lash out. And my mother, having been raised in alcoholism and having lived in alcoholism her entire adult life, she had the rage of the alcoholic without the alcohol. And I wouldn't say that in any other room but a room full of women. And my mom, every now and then, my sister will get on a good rant and tell her just what our childhood was like, which is not helpful.
And then my mom will pick up the phone, and she'll call me no matter where I'm living, and she'll say things like, did I beat you too? And I'll be like, oh, you and Diane are fighting again, aren't you? And she's like, yes, and you should hear the horrible things she's telling me that I did for you, that I did to you girls. And I'm like, you know what, Ma, that's really your fight. That's really your fight.
I want to have a loving and kind relationship with you, and I'm not going to participate. And I let she and my sister do that thing. Because that's not going to help anybody. And so those are the kinds of boundaries that I have to set today, but that's the kind of stuff that they currently hold onto, and those are the kinds of conversations they have when they need to hurt somebody, because they need to hurt people because they haven't recovered from the disease of alcoholism yet.
And I say yet, because I hope, I hope, I hope that they come in someday. Not into AA, but they need Al-Anon. And so anyway, so I'm growing up in the family dynamics of the disease of alcoholism. I'm angry all the time, and I'm scared all the time. And being scared is a very vulnerable position. If you walk around and you look afraid, people will take advantage of that posture. And so it was not okay to be afraid.
I didn't have words for that, but I knew that. And so instead of looking scared, I looked angry and in control. And what that looks like when you're eight and nine years old, I walked around like this. I had my little shoulders around my ears, my hands were balled up in fists, I had little ponytails, and I was just telling everybody what to do. Everybody, if we were in the neighborhood and we were making a little dance routine, by God, I was choreographing.
If we were building a little ramp to jump bicycles, I was orchestrating the construction of the ramp. The sledding hills that we would make that would go in between houses down the hill where I lived, I was the one that was figuring out what that route was going to look like, and I was supervising the packing of the snow. Nobody did anything in that neighborhood without running it through me, okay?
And it was just best if everybody got that up front. And everybody did. I intimidated boys. I intimidated everybody because for some, they just must have sensed that all I wanted was somebody my own size to take a swing. That's all I wanted was somebody my own size to pick on me so that I could do something, so that I could respond. Lack of power has always been my dilemma. My dad would come home, he would get into one of those rages, and we'd go flying across the room, and we'd be physically hurting, and there was nothing I could do except try to curl up into a little ball so that he would have less body area to harm.
[00:10:02]
And all I wanted was somebody my own size to pick on me so that I could just hurt someone else the way I was hurting. And so I walked around like this, and I was ready. I was in a state of high alert. And as Mari was talking about, she's in a state of high alert. My state was maybe a little bit different than hers, but it was wound up and I was ready to go. And that's how I was living my childhood.
And somehow, someway, I put it all together that booze had a whole lot to do with what was going on in my house. I did not know that my father hated me because he didn't have the ability to love me. It was always, you know, that wife and those GD kids and da-da-da-da-da, and they don't act right. If you had my family, you would be like this too. And I remember sitting there at, we had the little kid table, did you have the little kid, we had a little kid table in the corner, and I remember sitting there and he was going off about something, and those stupid kids who were never going to amount to anything.
And my sister, who's two years older than me, it's just the two of us, and she's crying and her little heart is breaking. And I remember just, I was sitting there and the thought came to mind, how can grown people be so wrong? Because I knew that what he was saying didn't make any sense. And I have no idea, well I know today it was a loving God, but the loving God had put the idea in my head that he was wrong.
And that we were okay, and that we were good enough. But that's not at all what we were being fed, and it was breaking my sister and it was making me mad. And so that's the kind of stuff I grew up in, and many of us can relate to those kinds of things. And I knew that booze was important, it was important to my mom that my dad not drink any of it, it was important to my dad that he drink it non-stop.
Therein is a basic familial conflict. And so my daddy would get home from work from the factory at 2.45, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he'd walk in, he'd have a 12 pack under his arm, he'd drink all of that and then go back down to the beverage drive-thru, get another six and finish that off. And that was kind of a daily routine for him, he was a big, big drinker. And my sister and I, we'd fight to see who got to get in the car to go down with him to the beverage drive-thru, because we didn't have any idea about that whole drinking and driving thing, and we just wanted to spend time with our dad when he was okay.
Because no matter how much he hurt me, all I wanted him to do was love me, it was just an amazing thing. No matter what he was doing, I just wanted to be his, I wanted him to be proud that I belonged to him and that just, that was never the case. That was absolutely never the case. And I wanted to know what this alcohol stuff was, because I knew that it was important, I wanted to know what it was, why is it so freaking important, why can't he just not drink?
And so I decided to figure it out. I asked lots of questions and everybody would just tell me that stuff's for adults and you don't need to know anything about it. And I'd be like, well that doesn't make any sense, it's very important, it's clearly important, it's running everything in my little world and it's, I needed to understand it. And they wouldn't help me understand it, and so I went out and I did research.
I had a little girlfriend, her name was Tammy, her parents had a full bar in their basement. Her parents drank, but they didn't drink very often, and when they did drink, they got really happy and they kissed on each other a lot and they danced, and it was a really fun place. And I was like, huh, that's not at all what it looks like in my house. So I spent the night with her, we slept down in their basement, I told her that I wanted to try drinking.
She didn't think it was a big deal because she got sips off her parents' drinks and it just, it didn't run their house. So she said, okay, well we can try that, like no big deal. So we went down, slept in the bar, and we started picking bottles off the bar based on their labels. And the first bottle I picked out was Christian Brothers, because at the time, Christian Brothers had Little Pilgrims on the label.
I'm nine, you know, I'm nine. Cartoon characters, Little Pilgrims, I'm all about it. So, you know, I mean, if they'd had Scooby-Doo on the label, that would have been my brand. And so we're picking bottles off the bar and we're just drinking out of the neck of the bottle and we're trying to get something down our throats because that stuff tasted so incredibly nasty. And really, I didn't find anything that night that I liked the taste of whatsoever, but what happened was, you know, I could, I swallowed a little bit out of the tops of every one of those bottles and at some point I got enough alcohol into my system to where the change happened.
I mean, the magic happened. All of a sudden, my little shoulders came off my ears and my little hands let loose. And for the first time in my short little nine years, I exhaled for the first time. Just like, I was no longer scared. I was no longer angry. I was nothing. I was nothing. And I thought, oh my God, I get it. I get it. I understand why he drinks. I had been given a feeling of relief and a treatment for a problem I didn't know that I had.
Treatment for a Problem I Didn't Know That I Had.
[00:15:00]
That moment, I had the first spiritual experience and I had no concept of God, but it absolutely gave me a sense of ease and comfort that I had never ever had. And I loved it. I loved it. I didn't like the taste of it. I didn't like the smell of it. I didn't like the sneaking around that it required. Eventually, I didn't like the lying, the cheating, all of the hanging out with dangerous people and getting into jackpots and being abused and all those kinds of things that go along with being a young female who is drinking her butt off every single day.
I didn't like any of that. But what I liked was the fact that when I got enough alcohol in my system, I was able to exhale and I was able to not feel any of it. And I decided that next day, I'm nine years old and I said, I get it. I understand why he drinks. My mom, she just needs a drink. I mean, she was wound tight. She was wound tight and I'm like, if she would just take a drink, everything would be fine.
She would be fine. She wouldn't be nagging all the time. He wouldn't be angry all the time. We could all just get along. My mom just needs a drink. And then my very next thought is, and so do I. I made a conscious decision. I didn't make a conscious decision to get alcoholism. I didn't know what that was. I made a conscious decision to drink again as often as possible, period. Because I needed that feeling of relief.
I wanted my shoulders to come off my ears. I wanted to not be scared anymore. I wanted to feel like and believe that everything was okay and I couldn't get there sober. I could only get there when I was drinking. And so from that point forward, every decision I made was about whether or not it increased or decreased my access to booze, period. I evaluated your life, if you were one of my little friends, based on the lifestyle of your parents.
Did they have a bar? You were so in. If you had older siblings who would buy it and stash it, you were totally in. Teetotalers? No thanks. I mean, I would hang out with you at school if we had to and if we were in like the same little clubs or whatever, but that was about it. I wasn't hanging out with you after school. Because if you didn't increase my access to alcohol, the relationship wasn't worth it.
Absolutely wasn't worth it. And so everything that I did, the mental obsession to drink came on immediately. Because you know what? When you're 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, you got no job and you got no skills and you're not supposed to be drinking so it's illegal and everybody's going to be really mad at you if they catch you. It has to be a full-time job to drink. It just has to be a full-time job.
And so I took on that full-time job. By the time I'm a sophomore in high school, I'd been drinking for about 6 years. And I think it was Mari talked about our capacity to consume alcohol. And we grow an enormous capacity to consume alcohol. By the time I'm a sophomore in high school, the summer before that sophomore year started, I had just turned 15 years old, I was drinking a fifth of vodka a day.
It's a lot of vodka. And some random beers, depending on how much time I had. But I was drinking a fifth of vodka a day. Now, when you're 14 or 15 years old and you're not making any money, there's a significant price to be paid for a fifth of vodka a day and I was paying it. There was a dark little house on the wrong side of the tracks and people lived in there who thought that it was perfectly fine to keep a young teenage girl as drunk as she needed to be.
And there was a price that had to be paid for that and I paid that price over and over and over. But by the time I hit that spot, I was physically addicted to alcohol, the obsession to drink was so incredibly overwhelming I was unable to process other information. And I just had to drink. And stealing it off of porches and taking nips off the tops of bottles when nobody was looking, that was no longer enough.
That was no longer enough. I needed to be able to sit down with a bottle and drink. And really drink. Get it in and not be interrupted. And by the time I'm 15 years old, I'm no longer drinking for that feeling of relief either because it's not coming. It's not coming. The only thing I know for certain is that if I can stay drunk and not sober up fully, I will not have to live with the memories of the things that have been going on in my life that hit my head in full color.
Because when I was sober, it's as if I had a merry-go-round that went constantly, constantly, constantly through my mind's eye and it was all the faces and the circumstances and the blows that I took and that I saw and the people that I… constant, constant, constant. I was so ashamed that I had difficulty breathing.
[00:20:02]
I was so ashamed that I couldn't look at myself in the mirror, I couldn't brush my own hair, I couldn't apply makeup correctly, I couldn't do any of that. I absolutely believe that I didn't deserve anything decent in life, that I had made decisions that were sending me straight to hell if there was a place, and I didn't deserve for you to treat me well because I didn't have the ability to treat you well.
And I knew that. And if you got too close to me, you were going to be hurt. If you had expectations of me, I wasn't going to meet them. And I knew on a very, very basic level that I was done. I was a person who was no longer worth air. But I had to drink. I had to drink. There were every single day, for a while, I would wake up and I would say, I don't want to drink today, I don't want to drink today, I don't want to drink today, and then I would start to shake and I would start to sweat and I would start to get nauseous and start to vomit and do those things that come to us when we're on a really, really hard run and we need to get sober for something, and we start to shake off that drink.
And I would start to shake it off and I would think, oh my god, I can't do this, I can't do this, it's going to hurt too much, and I would go drink again. I have a head that convinces me that drinking is my best option when clearly it is not. My friend Carl said it last weekend, actually, and it was just so clear. He said, you know, he said, my mind would have killed my body years ago if it didn't need it for transportation.
And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I had alcoholism. I didn't know, I didn't know much about alcoholism, but I learned about alcoholism. I knew that I had what my dad had. I knew that. I didn't know that it was going to be a permanent condition with me. I was young and thought maybe somehow, some way, I could get around that or whatever. And I just, you know, our head, it takes all of this inappropriate behavior and it puts it in there and it shifts the reality of it so that it's okay.
I don't know if your head worked like my head, but really, it could justify the most unjustifiable behavior in the world and it would make it okay. And what happened was I just had to build this entirely new paradigm to live in where it was okay for the things that were happening in my life to be happening in my life. And none of it was okay, but I had to make it okay in my head and that just happens.
The disease of alcoholism is really, really an amazing mechanism. The more I drank, the thirstier I got, that's the basics. The more I drank, the thirstier I got. I was physically addicted to alcohol by the time I was 15 years old, probably 14 years old as well. The daily drinking was after my birthday when I had hit 15, I think. But the more I drank, the thirstier I got and when I was not drinking, I was going into a significant and severe withdrawal and my head was convincing me that no matter what happened last night, I had to get something to drink.
And so by the time I landed in treatment in November of 1986, which was my sophomore year in high school, I had been drinking the clock round for at least six months. Unable to draw a sober breath, uninterested in drawing a sober breath. I didn't want to be sober, I didn't want to come to, I didn't want any clarity of thought because any time that I was not drunk, it was too painful to live in my own head.
Again, I didn't want to get sober like my dad lives today, stark raving sober with no God, no program, and no relief. I was not interested. I finally ended up getting caught. Everybody gets caught at some point when they're doing things that are illegal, against the norms, whatever. I finally got caught, it ended up being a really big row. There was a party at my house, it wasn't supposed to be at my house, it was supposed to be across the tracks, which is where we partied all the time, instead we stayed home.
They came across the tracks, it was a big deal. My mom came home early, busted us. I had been sitting physically in a drunken stupor for several hours at that point. They had brought me a bottle of Jack Daniels instead of a bottle of vodka, I don't know why that mattered, but it did. I drank that bottle, somebody said I couldn't, so I drank it down straight. And then I sat there and I was slowly dying, and was grateful for it.
I was not afraid of dying, I just didn't want to live the way I was living anymore. Dying was good, I'm good, really. But living the way I was living, I was getting really, really exhausted by that, and I didn't know what to do about it. I was just in that place where I was like, I got nothing, I got nothing. So anyway, with getting busted, the police were called, it was a big deal, they had people from the wrong side of the tracks who were very bad people, who I should have never been associating with in the first place, their warrants out for their arrest, it's a big high drama event in a really small little town, and I know that I need to get out of Dodge because I'm the linkage between those people and this thing and the cops being there and all that.
[00:25:00]
I'm the linchpin, and so I got to get out of town now. I'm 15, I have no job, I have no transportation, I have no money, I have nowhere to go. Where do you go when you're a kid? If you're not being taken there by your parents, you end up in a treatment center. The peanut gallery is a little subdued, but they're helpful. So I go to the guidance counselor on Monday and she looks at me and she says, what in the world happened at your house?
Now, let me tell you who I was. I had a 3.8 grade point average, I was playing three varsity sports, I was the president or one of the officers of every single little extracurricular club, I was the girl that every parent wanted her son to date, I was incredibly popular, president of my class, and I was drinking every single day and unable to draw a sober breath. I had everybody snowed to a fair extent.
Because you know, in little towns, probably in big towns, people just want to believe what they want to believe. People don't want to believe the truth sometimes because it's too painful or it makes them feel like they've failed in some way. I mean, that's what gets most people into Al-Anon, if you think about it. My mother has an amazing capacity to believe what she wants to believe rather than what is really going on.
I mean, it's impressive. Sometimes I just look at her and I'm like, wow, how do you do that sober? I mean, it's impressive. So my little town was participating in that dynamic where I was concerned. Do you hear that? That's total self-centeredness. The entire town was, no, I'm just kidding. So the guidance counselor was like, what in the world happened? And I said, well, you know my dad's alcoholic.
And she says, well, yes, honey, we know he's a drunk. And I said, well, and it's a family disease. She said, oh, I know, I know. She said, well, are you drinking? And I said, well, I've had a little something to drink a couple of times. And it's not going so well. And she said, well, honey, you know better than to drink. She said, you know better than that. And I said, I know, but everybody drinks a little, and I've been trying it, and that's what happened over the weekend, and I had a little too much.
And you know, just, well, we're now in this mess. And she said, yes. She said, you need to cut that out. And I said, it's probably a good idea if I cut it out. I said, but it's happened a number of times, so maybe I should go away and have an assessment. Because I'd found out that there was a treatment center in downtown Cleveland, and they did 10-day inpatient assessments on adolescents, 10 days, which meant that I got to go to Cleveland and get out of town for 10 days.
It's the only place a 15-year-old can go without a job, money, or another destination in mind. So she was like, well, you can go tonight. And I'm like, wait, wait, that might be a little too soon. I have some things I need to take care of. Now, what affairs does a 15-year-old have to get in order? But I had affairs to get in order. And I said, and besides, you don't want me to leave my mom alone at Thanksgiving.
And she said, oh, no, that's really nice of you to think of that. She said, how about going in right after Thanksgiving? I said, that'll probably be fine. She said, do you think you can keep it together until then? I said, I'll be fine. Yeah, we'll be good. And she said, OK. So she schedules me to go into Glen Bay Hospital in downtown Cleveland on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1986. Now, that means that I am two weeks away from getting out of town, which is a good thing.
But I run into a guy that I'd been doing some drinking with who lived behind our house. And he had been in that same treatment center. And I told him, I said, I'm going to that treatment center you went to. What can you tell me? And he says, well, there's no drinking in there. They lock the door. I said, what do you mean they lock the door? He said, they lock the adolescent unit. You're not getting out of there.
And I said, at all? Ever? And he said, yeah, at all. And I said, well, how am I going to get out of there to go drinking? He said, I have no idea. Because I'm not planning on getting sober. I'm just planning on getting out of town for a little while. And once the counselors, once they go to sleep at night, I don't know that you guys stay up all night. So once the counselors go to sleep, I'm going to sneak out.
I'm going to go drink. I'm going to get back before they wake up. And I mean, same, same. I'm not planning on getting sober. I just want a little bit of a break. And let those people who are really angry with me, who are fairly dangerous, I just want them to calm down a little. It's reasonable to me. I'm 15. I don't have good problem solving skills. That's why we don't let 15-year-olds run the world.
Or families.
[00:30:01]
terrified because now I've set up this situation where they're going to take away my booze. They're going to take away my booze. I'm going to have to not drink for ten days and that's completely unacceptable. I have no idea how I'm going to do that. Physically, I can't do it. And mentally, no thank you. No thank you. And like I said, I wasn't afraid of dying. I just hated the way I was living and so I decided I was going to drink myself to death.
So I went on a run that would end all runs, I thought. That was the goal anyway. I did everything that I could. And I had to get involved in kind of managing some things because I was a person who blacked out and then passed out. Because I would drink the fifth and then everything would go black and whatever I was doing, I was doing. And then at some point, I would just go face down. So I was like, so clearly I could handle that much booze but I needed to not pass out so that I could ingest more alcohol because that's the only way that I could die. I was scheming, scheming while drunk. That's also bad for you.
So we call that a Midwestern understatement. You guys understand those here. I say those things in California and they go, whatever. So good to be in the homeland. So the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1986, I had been drinking myself to death purposely and I'd been getting really close. Every time I would come to, I'd be a little disappointed and I'd figure out how I could drink faster, stronger so that I could maybe get there and not wake up this time. So I'm on a run and I come to in Glen Bay Hospital on Monday and I had gotten there on Saturday. And they didn't believe that adolescents were real alcoholics at the time and they didn't put us through medical detox. And so they put me in a room and they just let me shake it off. And I was almost dead. I was in very, very tough, tough conditions for a long time and thank God I'm a blackout drinker. I'm so grateful. I hear people go, well, you know, maybe if I wait a while those memories will come back. And I'm like, really? You want to remember that stuff? Oh my God, I remember enough? I don't want to remember the rest of it. I'm good. So I don't remember that weekend and I'm really good with not remembering that weekend because when I came to on Monday I was hurting. I was physically hurting. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I was miserable. And I quickly find out that it was my intention to, of course, minimize how much I'd been drinking and how often and with whom. I was going to be dishonest about all of that so that they didn't get some righteous idea that I should stay longer than the ten days. And when I had checked in in my blackout I had been completely honest. Yep, so my chart had a little alcoholic stamp on the front of it. I had already been diagnosed even before I was done detoxing. And I spent that ten days and they said, you know, we're keeping you for an additional thirty. So downstairs to treatment I went and I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. So I'm headed downstairs.
I get downstairs and the counselors call a code and they're rolling up their sleeves and loosening their ties and they're headed right back up to where I had just come from and I said, what's going on? And they said, your sister's here. It seems as if I had gotten really honest about what she had been doing as well. And then they had tricked her by saying don't you want to go to Cleveland and visit your sister? And she and I were thick as thieves and she was like, yes, I want to go visit my sister. And so here she goes and they get her to the unit and the unit's locked, remember I told you that. Well the door closed and they threw her pajamas and said we'll be keeping you for a while and she lost it.
And we could hear it. So that was bad. You're with me, I love this. Midwestern understatement. So that was bad. So ten days later my sister comes down. Now I've been in treatment for 20 days. I have 20 days left before they're going to spring me out of this place. I still am disinterested in being sober. I don't really care about all your lectures. I don't care about your information on alcoholism. I don't care that people are coming in and they haven't had anything to drink for years. That was ridiculous. Whatever. People just giving up.
You're just giving up like that? That's just stupid. And I got nothing. I don't want to be sober. I don't want any of this because I have no booze. I have no relief. I want relief and your freaking lectures are not helping. They're not helping. How is that going to fix anything? Like disease information is going to help me. No. No. I need a drink. I need a drink. And the people in this treatment center, they're blocking me from my drink.
[00:35:01]
My sister comes down and I'm so excited to see her. I haven't seen her for 20 days and she looks at me and she says, don't go to sleep. So the last 20 days I was in treatment, I was wide awake. I was wide awake. She was really mad at me. They put us in an adjoining room because we were siblings. They thought that was a great idea. All it did was increase her access to me. When I was getting out of treatment, I was exhausted because I hadn't been sleeping. I was just happy that I thought maybe I'd get a full night's sleep and I'm leaving on the elevator and my sister grabs me and she says, you don't relapse until I get out of here. You will not be out there drinking after you've put me in this place.
I was like, all right. Good to go. So I go home. I get my bottle. I cross the tracks. I get her stuff because my sister did drugs and I drank. That way there was no conflict of interest in our house. So I got her stuff. I got my stuff. I put it on the floorboards and I waited for 10 days. I waited. All I want is some freaking relief and I am not getting it because I need to fix this relationship with my sister so I'm waiting on her to drink.
Don't tell me alcoholics don't have willpower. My sister gets home 10 days later and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy that you're here. I take her upstairs, lift the floorboards, show her everything I got. I'm like, tonight it is on. I've been ticking off the days on the calendar. I'm ready to go. And my sister says, well, hold on. They called it a spiritual awakening. I was like, they called it a what? Who called it that? What are you talking about?
She says, the last couple of days I was in treatment, they called it a spiritual awakening and we need to try to stay sober. And I said, no. No. And she said, no, really, we need to be sober. She said, we need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, Alcoholics Anonymous? You don't even drink. And she said, they said, NA sucks. I have to go to AA. And I was like, no. We're relapsing tonight. And she said, no, we're not. If you drink, I'll tell.
Oh, yeah. So off we go to AA meetings. Oh, my gosh. So here's how we do AA. My ma drops us off. That's impressive. She drops us off 15 minutes before the meeting's supposed to start. We stand outside and stare at the door thinking, I ain't going in there. You can't make me go in there. I'm not going in that room. Freaking old people. And I stand outside. I don't smoke, but I learn. So I'm bumming cigarettes. And we stand outside and we smoke cigarettes. And we talk to people who think that adolescent newcomers are cute until we're late. Then I walk into the meeting. I'm at least 5, 10 minutes late. 10 minutes was really what I preferred. They were all in church basements at the time. And then we used those metal folding chairs that were really noisy if you were trying to be quiet. We'd walk in 10 minutes late. We'd walk through the middle of the room. We'd grab the chair and we'd drag it across the floor just to make sure you knew I was there. And then, and then, I was up, down, up, down, up, down. Three cups of coffee. I don't even like coffee, but I have three cups of coffee in every meeting just so I can maximize the disruption. Because I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and somehow it's your fault. And you're going to pay for it. Because I don't want to be there. I got no interest in being there. I got no interest in sobriety. I just want to flip and drink. And I don't know why you guys are all dedicated to sobriety, whatever. But I just want to drink. And so I'm punishing every room of Alcoholics Anonymous I go into. And when you guys circle up at the end of the meeting to pray, I wasn't raised in church. I don't know how to pray. And there's a lot of words in that Lord's Prayer and you are not pulling my punk card like that. So the moment you guys start to circle up, I am out of there. And I go stand outside and I wait for my mom to come pick me up and take me home. That's how we're doing Alcoholics Anonymous.
We do that for a couple of months. And we do that all around Akron, Cleveland, Doylestown, Rittman, all those little towns. We're in all of those meetings where people have hardcore old time AA and we are treating it like that. And there's a guy, I know he hates me, his name is Mac. And Mac sits in the very back of the room by the door and he has his little crew of men out there and they're the greeters. Now what he really is is an old time sniffer.
But they call him a greeter. Oh yeah. And you got to, when you come in the door, you got to walk through their gauntlet to get into the room. And he hates me because he sneers at me every time I walk in the room. Now I know I'm acting badly. He knows I'm
[00:40:02]
acting badly. He hates the fact that I'm treating Alcoholics Anonymous the way I'm treating it. And I don't really care. So I go to sneak out one night because y'all are circling up. And I hit the door and he's standing there like this. And he's got his glasses perched down on his nose. He's older than dirt and been sober since Christ was a child. He has the longest finger I've ever seen on a human. And he looks at me and he goes, get in the circle. So I walked over and I got in the circle. And as soon as y'all were done, I was out the door again and there's Mac. He had not moved one inch. He had not circled up. And he's standing at the door and he looked at me and he said, are you alcoholic? Well nobody had ever asked me if I was alcoholic. They told me I was alcoholic. I was stamped alcoholic. I was treated like an alcoholic. But nobody had ever asked me if I was alcoholic.
And I said, and he said, can you stop drinking once you start? Can you control the amount that you drink? And I said, in my head I'm like, why would I do that? I mean is that something you're supposed to do? Because that didn't make any sense to me. But whatever, they have all kinds of strange ideas in this room. So I'm supposed to start drinking and only drink a little and then I'm supposed to stop. Well that's just ridiculous. It makes absolutely no sense to me, but okay. And he said, can you stop drinking once you start?
And I was like, I've never tried, dude. Seriously. And I said, I don't know. And he hands me five bucks and he said, here's five bucks. Go find out. He said, we are tired of the way you're treating Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, we are in here trying to save our lives and you're treating it like a joke and you need to figure out whether or not you have alcoholism. He said, go try drinking and try stopping. And if you can't, you get back in here. But you be ready to do something different. If you can, I never want to see you again. So I go found my sister and I'm like, go get your five bucks, we're out of here. I'd been working on her from the outside and her disease had been working on her from the inside. My sister was sitting in rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous even though she didn't have an alcohol problem, she had a drug problem and she was unable to relate and therefore never found a seat here. We do people a disservice by keeping them in Alcoholics Anonymous when they are not alcoholic. We need to help people get to the right room to treat the right thing.
And my sister was not an alcoholic. She didn't drink. She smoked pot like they were going to quit growing it. And she would do stupid stuff like drop acid and go to school. My sister did drugs, she didn't drink. We did her a disservice. So when it was time to relapse, she had no drugs and no relief. And I had no booze and no relief and it was time. And we went out and we relapsed that night and I had a formula. I was going to have three shots and two beers and that was it and I was going to work and I was going to stop right there. I had heard what he had said, I thought it was ridiculous but I'm going to give it a try. Three shots and two beers and I'm going to hang. So I had my three shots and two beers and I sat there. And it hit. It had been a long time. I hadn't had anything to drink for like four months. So it hit and it came on me pretty good and I was like, that's not bad. Now my shoulders are on my ears and my little hands are balled up in fists and they've been that way the entire time I've been without alcohol in my system.
And I'm angry. And I'm scared. And I got no alcohol and I got no relief and I'm miserable and I'm ready for that drink and I have that drink and I drink it real fast and it comes on me and my shoulders come down this far. And my little hands are like this. They loosen but they don't let go. And I think my equation was just a little off. I'm thinking one more shot might take me where I need to go. And so I have one more shot. And one more beer.
And one more shot. And one more beer. And one more shot. Now since I had stopped consuming alcohol I hadn't crossed the tracks once. I hadn't hung out with those people who scare me and I hadn't had to participate or allow the things that happened to me to happen. Happened to Me to Happen. Sometimes physical sobriety does bring its rewards. And that night, guess where I went?
[00:45:03]
I crossed the tracks. Because at some point, I just needed that bottle. I just needed that bottle and I needed to be with people who I could drink with the way I drink. And so I had to go back to doing what I had been doing, the way I had been doing it, and suffering those consequences and trying out some way to make it okay in my head. And I came to the next day and I was incredibly sick and I was beaten and I was a mess.
And I had not, I couldn't look in the mirror and I couldn't breathe, I couldn't inhale and exhale all the way. And not only were my shoulders on my ears and my hands in little fists, but I was curled up into the fetal position and I was rocking. And I thought, oh my God, you could live like this for a very long time. And I heard Max Shadburn in my head and what he said was, if it doesn't work, you get back here.
March 15th, 1987, I walked back into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and you've not been able to run me off since. I got there on time. I sat in the middle of the room. I only got one cup of coffee and I didn't talk to a soul. I didn't write notes. I didn't get dates. I didn't do any of that. As soon as the meeting was over, I went back to the back corner so that I was very close to the door. I got in the circle without being told to.
I bowed my head real low so that my hair would cover my face so you couldn't see that I didn't know the words to the prayer. And as soon as the prayer was over, I went to leave the room and Mac was standing at the door. Now there was a woman. It was his nemesis and her name was Jane and she sat in the very front of the room. Mac was the president of Alcoholics Anonymous and she was the queen of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I didn't know what kind of governmental system you people were running but clearly they were in charge. And Jane was 73 years old. She'd been sober absolutely forever, way longer than I had been alive. And when she would get to the meeting, she had a parking place. Nobody ever parked there except for Jane. Some old timer would drive her to the meeting. Somebody would yell down and they'd say, Jane's here and newcomers would go grab a high back wooden chair and they'd go out car side and they'd gently load her into it and they'd carry her down into the meeting space like the pope moving through the mall.
And they would sit her at the very front of the room right there where Penny is sitting. She smoked cigarettes on extenders, she had her hair pulled back like Mari's and had this glow around her. And everybody loved her and she loved everyone and I hated her. I hated her. And so I'm getting out of the room and I have to get past Mac. And he's standing in the door with those glasses on the end of his nose and he said, did you get a sponsor?
So I walked to every woman in that room and I said, will you sponsor me? And every woman in that room said, no. Uh-uh. No. Certainly not. And I walked back over to Mac and I'm trying to get by him and he catches me and he said, did you get a sponsor? I said, no one in here will sponsor me. He said, that's a lie. And I said, I'm not asking her. He said, oh yes you are. I said, uh-uh. He wouldn't move out of the door.
I thought I could take him but that would cause a row. And I walked back over to Jane who was still sitting in her high back chair smoking her cigarette on an extender saying something lovely and loving to someone, whatever. And I walk up to her and I said, will you sponsor me? And she looked up. And she says, why should I? Now instead of telling her where to shove her cigarette extender, which is my sole intent, I said because I need to be sober and I don't know how.
And I thought, who said that? Who said that? And she looked at me and she says, well, then there'll be some things you'll be doing differently. And she gives me the list of things that I'm to do now that I'm being sponsored by her. Have you all gotten your list from your sponsors? How many meetings you're going to, how many pages in the big book you're going to be reading,
[00:50:02]
whether or not you get to speak at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was not allowed to speak at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. She said, meetings is where we talk about the solution to the disease of alcoholism. You don't know anything about that and you'll not be spreading your disease. I thought she was a bit harsh. I had many names for her of which I shared none of them. I left that room and I thought, my life is over.
My life is over. I can't drink and in order to not drink, I have to hang out with these freaking people. And the next day, I get up and go to school, I come home from school and I'm doing homework and thinking about how my life is over. And at 7 o'clock, there's this car that pulls into my driveway. Do you guys remember the 1970s when all the cars were as large as boats? Do you remember those cars?
There's this old Ford LTD. It's 1987 and this is like a 1972 model. And these cars, they float down the road and you use one finger to steer them. But they had enormous steering wheels and you had to start turning like a half a block back. Oh my God, if you've never, if you're so young, you've never been in one of those cars, just take our word for it. And so there's this enormous car and it comes into my driveway and it floats in and the body on them is so large that when they stop, it takes a minute.
So they stop in the driveway and it goes like this. And I'm looking out the window and I'm like, what in the world? And there are old men in the front seat and they are smoking cigarettes and they're drinking coffee and listening to the most God-awful country music I'd ever heard in my entire life. And they think that there's something funny going on because they're laughing. And I'm like, what is going on?
So I walk up to them and I, and they roll the window down and I said, can I help you guys? And they said, Jane sent us, get in the car. And I'm looking around like, who's going to watch me get in this car with these old men? Oh my God. What's, what are people going to, oh my God. So I walk in the house and I'm like, Ma, Ma, AA's here. And she said, okay, honey. And I was like, don't you even want to meet him?
She goes, no, you'll be fine. So I go out and I'm standing there and I'm like, where are we going? They said, just get in the car. We're going to an AA meeting. And I was like, okay. So I get in the back seat and I'm sitting in the back seat. Now you could have fit 12 people in that back seat. And I'm sitting back there by myself going, what are your names? They tell us, you know, tell me the names and off we go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And when we get there, we're early. And they're like, where are the first people there? And I'm like, well, where is everybody? And they're like, well, we're the setup crew. And I'm like, what? We're there at 7.30 for an 8.30 meeting? I'm like, what? What's up? We've got to set up the meeting? So I'm in there setting up chairs, setting up the same chairs. I'm screeching across the floor and I'm like, oh God.
So then the meeting happens and, you know, the guys talk about a bunch of stuff I don't understand and I'm using a language I don't get, whatever. It's about God, God, God, God, God, God. And the meeting finally closes and I'm like, oh my gosh, I get to go home now. I'm so happy to be getting to go home. And I don't like home, but I want to go home because I need to get away from these AA people. Oh no, you don't go home after a meeting.
No, no, no, you go to the donut shop. Oh yeah, the donut shop. Like I want to hang out with these old guys any longer than I absolutely have to and there we go to the freaking donut shop. And I'm sitting at the donut shop and I'm like, what are we doing here? And you know what we do? We rehash everything that they just talked about at the AA meeting. I didn't understand it the first time. It's the last place I want to be.
And they finally take me home and it's late and my homework's not done. I got things to do. And the next night, guess what happens? Oh yeah, oh yeah. And I walk outside and I'm like, I went last night, I'm good. It's a different crew. It's a different color car. Different kind of men.
[00:55:01]
And I get in the car. I have no idea why I get in the car, but I get in the freaking car. And off we go to another meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then guess what? We go to the donut shop. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. I have a propensity to be chubby as it is. I don't need donuts at 10 o'clock at night. And what are we talking about at the donut shop? Something that just happened at the AA meeting.
Every single night I have a Monday crew, a Tuesday crew, a Wednesday crew, a Thursday crew, a Friday crew, and they all have specialties. Oh yeah. Some guys, they're just about the structure of the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and how I'm to behave. The next guys, they're about the concrete steps that you take to get on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The next guys, they specialize in amends.
Oh yeah. They're great storytellers. The next guys, my Thursday crew, actually this is my Tuesday crew, they're my God squad. Oh yeah. Because everything that happens is directly tied to a relationship with God. And you've got to have one and you've got to get on it now. So each of my crews, they had different specialty areas in Alcoholics Anonymous. And every single one of them has their own favorite donut shop.
And after a while, I know what the routine is and I know who's coming for me and I know what meeting we're going to and I know what donut shop we're going to and I know what their specialty. Oh my gosh. And I thought that I was going to outsmart them one night. And I know that we're going to the Barberton Monday night speaker meeting and it starts at 830. No, sorry, it starts at 8 o'clock. And these guys don't go late to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, they go early to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
If I stand here from 7 to 7.35, we will be late going to the Barberton meeting and there is no way that they're going to be late and I will get a night off. So I stand on my front porch looking at them for 35 minutes. And they're just sitting in the car with the motor running, listening to country music, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and having a really good time together. And at 7.35, I walk out to the car, I know that I've gotten it this time, I'm going to win, finally I'm going to win.
And I knock. I said, well, fellas, it looks like we're going to be a little late for that Monday night meeting. I think we'll just go ahead and take the night off and I'll see you next Monday. They said, there's an 830 in Cleveland, get in the car. And what I can tell you is that there was a car with old timers in it in my driveway every single night at 7 o'clock. They came no matter what kind of brat I was, no matter what was going on in their lives, no matter how busy they were, no matter how many people they had sponsored, no matter what, they were in my driveway at 7 o'clock for me to get in the car.
They never asked me for gas money. They never failed to miss a donut shop. They never asked me to buy my own coffee or my own donut. And they never, ever spent time with me where they did not increase my understanding of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And eventually I started to understand the words that they were using and I was able to participate in the conversation with them and eventually I started to have questions about that God that they were talking about.
And I learned through them telling me stories at the donut shop and through them walking me through the pages of the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous, not only what was wrong with me, but what the solution was to what was wrong with me. And they also somehow convinced me that I was going to be okay, that I was lovable, that God was going to forgive me and that I deserved to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
All I had to do was want it. And they did all of that through sitting at donut shops with a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and 30 and 40 years of stories to tell me about their own lives, about the lives of the guys they sponsored, about other random people they knew in Alcoholics Anonymous. And they would share with me their stories of restoration. And they would share with me the times when they didn't want to do the next right thing, but they did it anyway and what the outcomes were.
And they taught me about God in very, very simple ways. In very, very simple ways. I told them finally I got honest and I said, I don't know how to pray and I don't believe in God. And they said, well, tell us what you do believe.
[01:00:02]
And so I told them about how I was going to hell and how I was unforgivable and all these horrible things that I had done in very general terms because I still lied a lot. And they said, well, it sounds like you do believe in God. You just don't believe that he's kind or loving. And I said, okay, I'll give you that. And so they helped me to retool my idea of God by telling me about how they built a relationship with God.
And I would take them these enormous problems in my life, you know, the problems of a 16-year-old and about how whatever was going wrong and, oh, I was just going to die. And I would take them these problems and they would say, say these words, say this prayer. And they would find a prayer for me in the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous because every step has a prayer after it. And they would find those little prayers for me and sometimes they were four words.
And they would say, say this prayer about that problem and then wait. And let's see what happens. And I would take these little problems to God and I would say the prayer that they showed me to pray out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And a day or two or a couple hours later, there was an answer and something got fixed. And I would go back and I would forget all about God and I would say, well, that thing just seemed to work out.
And they'd be like, uh-huh, let's trace this backwards. You brought us a problem. We connected you to God through this prayer. You said that prayer, right? Yes, sir. And then you got your outcome, didn't you? Yes, sir. Well, that's a loving God taking care of you. And so they connected for me the participation in a relationship with God that I didn't necessarily believe in and the care for my life that came from the loving God that they knew.
And they just drew those lines very simply for me. You participate and there are outcomes. You don't participate and there are still outcomes. What they convinced me was that God was a faithful and loving God whether I cared to acknowledge those qualities about him or not. And slowly they built for me a construct in all of this convoluted thinking that I had. They built for me a structure in which God lived.
And I began to participate in having a relationship with God. And the things that I would take to him grew in size and grew in number. And every single time I relied on him a little bit more, the outcomes were that much more amazing. Every single time. Because you see, I had no idea believing in a power greater than myself. I had an enormous problem believing in a loving, caring power greater than myself.
Because what I was doing is I was equating because, you know, God the Father and I was holding the God the Father up to the standards of my earthly father. And that was blocking me from being in right relationship. That was blocking me from being in right relationship. And these men, the men came to my life because they told me stories about how they had failed their children. How they had beaten their children.
How they had not shown up for their kids. And how now they love them. They would never raise a hand to them. And they showed up every single time. And how they had healed that relationship. And that it was never about whether or not they loved their children. It was about whether or not they had the ability to show it. And sitting at the donut shop, I got on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned about forgiveness.
I grew a relationship with a God of my understanding which expanded every single sip of coffee. And I started to recover from the disease of alcoholism. Because they showed up. They were consistent. They were loving. And they didn't hold it against me when I couldn't act right. And they showed me that fathers love their children no matter what. And that God, my father, loved me no matter what. And so I was able then to begin to participate in a relationship with God.
I didn't get sober in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got sober in donut shops with members of Alcoholics Anonymous who had the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And inside that big book is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got on the program and participated in the fellowship. You don't get in a program. You get on a program. I got on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Now that doesn't mean that I'm 17 years old one day, I'm standing there and my crew just
[01:05:01]
rolls in the driveway and I look and I said, oh my God, all my friends are 70 years old. Now I love them and I was getting some incredible life skills and I was a hell of a card player. But there was coming a point where it was going to be time for me to move on. So they helped me finish high school and I graduated. And then it was time for me to go on to college and they kicked me out of the nest.
And they said go. The first thing you do is you find a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in this town where I was going to school right outside of Columbus, Ohio. They said you go there and you find a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and the first meeting that you go to week after week and somebody remembers your name, that's your new home group. So I would go to meeting after meeting after meeting and there was a Wednesday night meeting and at the very second meeting, one of the women there said, hi Deb, it's good to see you again.
And I said, do you have a home group book? And she said, yes we do. And I said, I'd like to make this my home group. And I signed up because I just learned the value of following direction from people who had been there before me. And what I've realized over the years you guys, I've been sober now 24 and a half years and what I've realized over the years is that the foundation that I was given for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in Northeast Ohio, in the homeland of Alcoholics Anonymous, sitting at all of your finest donut shops, is a foundation that absolutely does not fail me.
Because it was not a foundation built on a human, it was a foundation built on a relationship with God that was brought to me by taking the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and getting on the program. It does not mean that I've always made the right decisions, that I've always been the most honest and upstanding member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It doesn't mean that I haven't screwed up, hurt people, damaged relationships and all that kind of stuff.
What it means is that I get to, because I have the tools, go back and fix everything that I break and not break it quite so badly the next time. And little by slow, I get to have this, I get to live this life that God has given me. I graduated high school, I graduated college, I have a master's degree, I do work that I love, I have relationships with people that are built on purity, honesty, unselfishness and love.
Four things I knew nothing about when I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't raised in it, I wasn't taught it and I did not know how to perpetrate these lovely things. No idea. But because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and because I was held to a higher standard that I would have ever set for myself by members of Alcoholics Anonymous, I get to participate in life based on these most days.
And I have a foundation that is unshakable. Yesterday I heard him say the other night, well I hate it when people say that alcohol is no longer an option. You know what? Today alcohol is no longer an option. I don't drink at things today, I pray at things today. Now I'm sober about 17 years or so, 2003. Now I had surrendered every area of my life to God except one. And every area of my life except one was really going famously.
I mean I was just doing great. I just told you about these degrees I had and these great jobs I had and I got to move around a lot and living in the southeast and every three or four years I move for a new great job opportunity and I am sponsoring people and have home groups and I'm speaking and I'm doing all kinds of stuff and I am checking the blocks and you watch me walk around and you're like, man she got her shit together.
Man she got her stuff together. Can you edit that Bill? Not so much. And I do and I do and my life absolutely in all of those ways it is absolutely awesome and I'm living by these principles and they're in my life and it's just awesome. And the one area of my life that I'm kind of running on my own because I don't think that God's standards on who's handsome and who's not are quite up to par. So I keep the whole male-female relationship thing, I got that.
I got that. You know self-reliance is my new form of insanity. I gave up the insanity of drink and I replaced it with the insanity of self-reliance. So every now and then, no matter what circumstance, I'll be like, oh yeah I got it. Danger Will Robinson. Anytime I say I got it, hold on. Well anyway so I'd always had it in male-female relationships, I'd been married and divorced and had lots and lots of relationships and all kinds of things, I was very European in my 20s.
We can talk about that, that's a whole different talk. And anyway I was doing just fine and in 2003 I meet a guy and his name is Lee and he's 6'1 and has broad shoulders and shaves his head bald and has blue eyes and he's a major in the Marine Corps and he's fun and he's kind and we ride Harleys together and we golf
[01:10:03]
together and we hang out and we are just absolutely, we fall in love, we're best friends, everything's going great. He's not really interested in being married, I'm not really interested in being married, we're just living life and having a really grand time. And meanwhile, in 2002, God started to have a conversation with me where it went something like this, Deb, yes God, I want you to give me everything, I want you to surrender every area of your life to me, okay God will you have all but one, uh-huh, I want that too, mm, no.
We call that spiritual arrogance and he says no, no, no, really I want all of it, I have perfect love to give you and you continue to block me and I'm like uh-huh and have you seen him? I'm good, really, I'm good, I live a really good life, I do the right thing all the time, you know, I'm sponsoring, I'm doing media, God, really, I'm an overachiever, I'm good and he's like uh-uh, I want the rest, I have more to give you and you will not give me that opening.
So anyway, we're having this conversation and I also know that he wants me to come into an organized religion so that I can get the kind of guidance and direction that I really need now because I had really, I had listened to you, I had followed you, I had done what you did, I followed your examples, I mean I did crystals and runes and Native American stuff and went to all kinds of different churches and I did meditation, every brand or type of approach to God that you people have in Alcoholics Anonymous, man, I signed up and I followed you down that path and none of them fit.
I grew from all of them because there are good things in all of them but none of them were mine and God was saying, I know which one's yours but you're going to have to get humbled to get it and I'm like, yeah, no thanks because that would mean that I'd have to really raise my standards, particularly in this one area that I'm running, so no, thank you but no. Don't ever say thank you but no to God, really, it sets up a hard way to go.
So anyway, so I'm in this, God and I are having this relationship and he's continuing to say I need this from you, you need to go here so that you can get some more spiritual guidance, I need you to be complete in this area, I want you to be in a deeper relationship with me and I'm like, I understand, I hear you, I understand the things that you're putting in my life that are pointing me in that direction but I'm not interested.
2003, I meet Lee and he's all of that and we're doing this thing and it's just great and he doesn't pray but I pray but I have to have the relationship with God because it's up to, I'm the one that needs it in order to be sober and to have a life worth living. Normal people who aren't in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's none of my business whether or not he has a relationship with God or whether or not he prays, that is business, not mine.
And so we're together for a little while and we're having this relationship and we're head over heels in love with one another and we're absolutely best friends and we are enmeshed with one another and I am relying on him for many of the things that I used to rely on God for. I am relying on man rather than on God for some things in my life, for that peace, for that comfort, for that love, for those things that God has always provided for me, I'm getting it now from this man who does not pray and is not directly connected to God and I got no issue with that because he's a good guy and he does the right thing most of the time just like me.
And finally I'm speaking at the Louisiana State Convention 2005 right before Hurricane Katrina, it's on Easter weekend and God has been waking me up every single morning, very very early no matter how much sleep I've had and I'm wide awake and the only place that I'm comfortable in my own skin is on my knees in prayer and meditation and that's been going on for weeks. And finally it's good Friday morning 2005, I'm in a hotel, I'm in New Orleans and I'm on my knees in prayer and meditation and I was like, God, please, I have got to get some sleep, I'm exhausted.
And he said, I have perfect love to give you, stop blocking me, give it to me now. And I said, I'm not giving him up. And he said, yes, you have to. And I finally get that if I fail to enlarge my spiritual, if I fail to tend to my spiritual condition and I fail to grow and to deepen the relationship with God that the quality of my life is going to decrease to the point where I feel desperate again and I will drink for relief.
That's how it's going to happen to me and I know that. How It's Going to Happen to Me, and I Know That, and I See That in My Meditation, and I said, OK, OK, and I begin to weep. You should really try to listen to that talk, whoo, because I'm speaking at the convention
[01:15:01]
and I'm crying all the way. And I go home, Easter weekend, Walter Hall is there, he's from Houston, Texas, and Walter is one of the guys who delivers me messages directly from God. He'll call me out of the blue and say, God wants you to know, and he'll just lay it out for me and I'll be like, that's the thing I was missing, thanks Walter, love you, click. And it's just the message directly from God, he needs me to know something that clearly he is unable to send to me any other way but through Walter Hall.
And Walter Hall is there that weekend, I met him that weekend, and that's where we started this weird messenger relationship, and Walter said, you need to sit by my wife at my Sunday morning talk, he said, I got a message for you from God. And I was like, oh my God, since when do they start inviting crazy people to talk at Alcoholics Anonymous conventions? But I do what I'm told, because that's what I do, and I sit next to his wife and I'm crying the entire time and he delivers this message to me directly from God and I understand exactly what I'm supposed to do now.
Not only am I supposed to give Lee up, but I'm also supposed to go to the Catholic Church and I'm supposed to get instruction there on how to use the tools of the Catholic Church to deepen my relationship with God, that's my path, and it's very clear. And Walter delivers that message to me and puts a bow on the package. And I go home from that on Monday and I'm crying and I'm having dinner with Lee and I tell him that I have to break up with him, and I tell him why and I explain to him the entire thing in the last three years of me fighting God and all these kinds of things, and he just looks at me at one point and he says, now let me get this straight.
You're leaving me for God? And I said, yes. He said, I haven't done anything wrong, and I said, no. He said, there's not another man. I said, no, that'd be easy. I know how to do that. He said, but you're leaving me for God. He said, I believe in God. I said, I know you believe in God or I believe what you tell me, but you have no relationship with him and I need to be in a relationship with someone who has a relationship with God because the relationship has to be based on God and this isn't.
And I'm relying on you to take care of things in my life that I should be relying on God for and I can't continue to do this. My life depends on it. And we break up and we are absolutely miserable without one another, absolutely miserable without one another. I go to the priest the next day and I'm like, all right, I'm here and I'm supposed to become Catholic and he said, I'm very happy about that, I see.
And I'm like, look, I'm just doing what God told me to do. I'm here. What do I need to do to be in? Well, they don't make it easy for you in the Catholic Church. You really got to want it. Oh yeah, there's paperwork and classes and all kinds of crap. So I start on my path to join the Catholic Church. What I don't know is that Lee goes to his battalion chaplain because Lee's in the Marine Corps, he goes and he sits with his battalion chaplain who's an Assemblies of God minister by training, which the Catholics are here and the Assemblies of God are here in their practice of their Christianity.
And Cartus looks at Lee and he says, now what is she doing again? He says, she left me for God, she's going to become Catholic. And Cartus says, well, she's pretty great, if I were you, I'd go to Mass. And so Lee says, okay. So Lee comes to me, finds me, he starts going to Mass with me, he and I spend the year, we become engaged and we spend the year and we join the Catholic Church together. He converts from what he was raised as and I come in as a heathen.
I think that's a cute word, some of you may be offended by it. So I come into the faith and all of a sudden he and I have a spiritual language to use in conversation with one another that we never had before. And we're talking about God and we're reading God's scriptures and we're doing all of those things that we never did before because we didn't have the tools to do it. And we build a relationship that's based on our relationship with God and we pray every single morning out loud, forehead to forehead and we say, God, please stay in the middle of this relationship and help us to love one another the way you would have us.
And we build this amazing relationship and we are both initiated into the Catholic Church, I get baptized, we both come into the Catholic Church, two months later we're married. And the priest who did this all, his name is Father Ski and he's just a great Franciscan priest who's very, very loving. And so Father Ski brings us into the church. We get married in June, Lee leaves in August to go to Iraq.
And he leaves and he's gone and about a year later he comes home from Iraq. And while he's gone to Iraq, every single time he calls me, we get together.