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Source: Sheri J – From Toronto, Canada – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sheri-j-from-toronto-canada-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:46:33
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Good morning, everybody. My name is Sherry, and I introduce myself as a grateful alcoholic. Wow, am I grateful to be here. My home group is Marklin Wood in Toronto, Canada, and I'm going to have to be returning home soon. They're going to ask me if I have anything to declare, and I'm going to have to say I have a few extra pounds to declare because you guys have taken care of me so well here, so I'm so honoured and so grateful, and I really want to thank the committee for having me. Debbie is my new friend, and I'm going to figure out a way to get her across the border so she can come see me. Kathy, thank you so much for the honour and the privilege, and it truly is an honour and a privilege to be here with you. All I had to do was drink just to be able to have this honour, and it never ceases to amaze me how grateful I am. I certainly wasn't too grateful when I first got to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't like any of you guys because you were happy and smiling, and I didn't understand how you did that sober. I was a girl that was morbidly depressed for a good majority of her life. It was all of the turmoil and the inside pain that I had, but I'm held together by tape, glue and a smile. I still am today. If you ask me if I'm fine, I'll tell you I'm fine, but on the inside, sometimes it's not doing as well as the outside. But thanks to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that measures up more now than it ever did. The biggest mind-altering substance is the truth. Yeah, and I found my truth through the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the truth was I wasn't at all who I thought I was, and it was through my life experiences that I thought I was a different person than I did after I did the 12 Steps, and that's what the 12 Steps are. That's what a spiritual experience is. It's a shift in perception. It's a change in the way that I view myself, and I am so grateful for these 12 Steps.
The only difference between the drunk I was then and the drunk that you see before me are these 12 Steps. I couldn't understand social drinkers. I've never been one. My first drink was a Purple Jesus. Started at the age of 13. Yeah, usually somebody laughs, so you also drank like I did. Purple Jesus is not what you would call social drinking. It's overproof alcohol and grape Kool-Aid, and it came flying out my nose at breakneck speeds, and I was left in a park covered in vomit the first time I drank, and all I sat there and did is, I need to figure out how to do this better. It touched around every nerve ending that was raw in my soul, and it just made me feel part of and connected, and that's the way that I drank right from the get-go. I don't understand social drinkers. The difference between me and a social drinker is you Al-Anons will have a couple of drinks, and you'll say, oh, I'm feeling this. I better put it down. Yeah, the alcoholics are laughing going, yeah, this is just when I get going, right? The difference between the problem drinker and the normal drinker is the normal drinker or a heavy drinker will put down the drink, and their problem goes away, but that's when my problems just get started. I am restless, irritable, and discontented by nature, and the modern version of that for me is anxiety, anger, and depression, and I've suffered from that my entire life, but again, these 12 steps changed my life literally. I'm so, so grateful for them. I can't tell you how grateful I am to be here and how honored and privileged I am. I suffer from a three-fold illness.
I have an allergy of the body that renders me powerless against the first drink. I think I've known that since a young age because I never just wanted one. If I didn't have the opportunity to pretty much drink my face off, I wasn't going to touch it, and I don't know how I knew that. I just did. I don't process alcohol the way that normal people process alcohol. I have an obsession of the mind, so that means my disease centers in the mind, and I have a mind that will rationalize and justify its way to the next drink every single time. This is the only disease that will tell you you don't have it anymore, and I did that time and time again. I came in, again, I started drinking when I was 13. I've been sober for six years, and I drank for 35, so yes, if you do the math, that makes me 29. Okay, that's the way I counted my drinks, too. They were always less, and that's just the story of my life, but the most important piece that you guys gave me is that I have a spiritual malady, and what that means is my spirit is malaligned to life on life's terms. I don't know how to live life on life's terms, and I used to think that it was because of my childhood things and my childhood trauma, and I got diagnosed with PTSD, and I paid psychiatrists and psychologists thousands and thousands of dollars to find out that I'm just an alcoholic with a lack of spiritual principles. I used to analyze whether it was
[00:05:04]
nature or nurture that brought me to these rooms, and I used to need to know why, and now I don't. If you want to make one of the long timers in the room laugh, just walk into the rooms when you're new in AA and say, but you don't understand. Gets them every time. That was me when I walked into these rooms. I was a you don't understand girl, because if you had had my life and what happened to me, then you would drink the way that I drank, too, and it turns out so many of us have the same thing in common, and I've heard some beautiful speakers that I can connect with and identify with to core levels, and I thought I was so alone, and then I come into these rooms and find out that so much of my story is like your story, and you drank the way that I drank, and you felt the way that I felt, and I was so grateful to find my people because I felt so alone. Alcoholics are the only people that cure loneliness by isolating, and that's where my drinking took me in the end. I would sit on my couch. I would black out, binge. I got so bad at a certain point I knew I would drunk dial, so I would write Post-it notes down. Anybody ever do that?
I would write Post-it notes to try and remember the conversation, because I knew I wasn't going to remember it. Problem was I was so drunk I couldn't read my own writing. Yeah. 90% of the population doesn't drink the way that we drink. 90% of the population will not have the story that I'm about to share with you. I come home one day, and I used to work in dentistry before I changed careers, and I remember, you know, I deserved a drink. That's what my ego told me. I deserve a drink. So I come home dressed much like this, very professional, and realized that my box of wine had burst in the fridge. Yes, I'm a real classy girl. I drank out of a box. Actually, the reason I did that is I didn't want my daughter to see the levels that I was drinking, so if it was in a box, she couldn't tell how much I drank. And I remember I get home, and that box had burst, and I have one of those fridges that has those spill-proof shelves that hold all the water, all the alcohol in them, and I thought, okay, great. It's still there. This is a wonderful thing. I'm still good. So I'm sitting there, and what does an Al-Anon do when they see a spill in the fridge? Yeah, you guys get a cloth, right? What's the alcoholic do? How do you guys know that? Seriously. You drank like I drank, too. Incredible. Incredible. So picture me much dressed like this, bending over in my fridge, drinking out of a straw, telling myself that I'm just frugal. The lies we tell ourselves. Denial. Don't even know I'm lying. That was me. What a wonderful buzz it was that night, though. I will tell you, I almost felt like drinking like that on a regular basis. Apparently, normal people don't clean house with a 26er.
I don't understand why. My house was never so clean, and after I got sober, I figured out that I was probably seen double. That's why I was so thorough with the job. But I'm okay with that now. My house is a little dirty, but I'm sober, and that's all good. So I'm so grateful for that. I'd just like to go over a few things from my childhood, and I'm fairly candid when I tell my story, much like some of the other speakers that have been here, and I think it's very common. From what I understand, the stats are one and four for the experience that happened to me. So I'll just give you a little snapshot of my childhood. I grew up in an alcoholic home, so I do qualify as an Al-Anon. I ended up marrying an alcoholic as well, so I've seen this disease from all sides. And then, of course, I became an alcoholic. But growing up in my alcoholic home, there was a lot of shame there. And I had the dad that would drink too much and fall asleep in his food face down. That's the way that I grew up. The dad that had parties that, you know, I'd be totally petrified because all of his drunk friends would be over. I remember one party, they decide that one guy was going to go and get my Mickey Mouse guitar. Can you imagine?
He's up on my ping-pong table playing my ding-a-ling. Even at six years old, I knew that this guy was not right. And I thought, I'm never going to be like that. Well, fast forward, you know, I became like that. I have a few drinking stories that, yeah, we won't share, but they are my fourth step. And I just remember feeling just a constant fear. I never knew which dad I was going to come home to. Was it going to be nice dad? Was it going to be scary dad?
He was a pretty scary guy when he was drunk and, you know, it was frightening to be in that house. And I remember one Christmas, we decided that we were going to open our presents two days later. And the reason that we did this is my mom had decided that every Christmas, my dad would ruin Christmas and he would get drunk and he would just terrorize us. So my mom thought if we opened the Christmas presents later that, you know, that wouldn't happen. So imagine that in between those two days when we opened our presents that my little friends are asking me, so what did you get for Christmas? And I had to lie
[00:10:03]
because of the shame in my alcoholic home and I couldn't tell them what I got because I didn't know. So I became a liar at an early age to hide all the chaos that went on in my house. Again, I'm a girl that's held together by tape, glue, and a smile. The other story that I tell and I tell it through the eyes of a child, and please keep in mind that the longer I'm sober, the happier my childhood gets. This is a true story and that's what the 12 steps do. They change my perspective, but I do tell it through the eyes of a child and how I saw it at the time. Again, I look at that Christmas story now and thanks to you guys, I'm just grateful I got any presents because so many people didn't get presents.
But I'm self-absorbed and that's all I could think about. That's all I could drink about. But now when I look back at my life, it wasn't so bad, but there were a few pivotal moments in my life that I do believe that experience changed and wrote on the slate that I was become. One night, we went out for dinner and I would always take my little doll to the restaurant. My little doll's name was Sweet Connie, and Sweet Connie came everywhere with me. She was my savior and my protector. I would hold on to her when I was afraid of my dad. And I just remember us going out to this restaurant and my parents had this huge, huge fight about me bringing the doll into the restaurant. And for some reason, Mom won that night. She usually didn't, but she won that night and I was allowed to bring the doll in the restaurant and my dad caused a huge scene because he was drinking like usual.
And I just remember sitting there just feeling so ashamed and just very embarrassed even at a young age. That was in grade 2. And after that, my parents dropped me off at an aunt and uncle's house that I barely even knew. I had no explanation of why. I had no mom, no dad, and no explanation. And I'm just scared to death as a little girl. And even at that time, I'm so self-absorbed that I think if only I hadn't brought this doll into the restaurant, everything would have been okay. I was ripped out of a suburban home and put into an inner city school, again with no explanation. Today, I'm grateful for that aunt or that aunt and uncle for taking me in because I was inches and seconds from being put into children's aid. I was later to find out that what the truth of the matter was is that my dad's alcoholism had driven my mother into what was then called a complete nervous breakdown. She was down to 83 pounds, she was hospitalized, and she couldn't be my mother anymore. Not that she didn't want to, but she couldn't, but that's not the way that I saw it for a good majority of my life. I was abandoned, that's all that I saw. I had a dad that told me I should be in children's aid and didn't care where I was. So I'm grateful today to that aunt and uncle, but at the time I sure wasn't because later on that uncle ended up molesting me. And that was something that I carried for years and years and years, so we're as sick as our secrets. So I ask you guys, what owns you? Who aren't you forgiving?
And what can't you let go of? Because the program of AA is about letting go. The first thing I need to let go of is alcohol. The next thing I need to let go of are my old beliefs and prejudice about God, because there was no God working in my life when those things happened to me. So you weren't ever going to convince me that there was ever going to be a God that cared about me. I thought God was out to get me. I had a God of my misunderstanding, and you guys brought me to a loving God that literally changed my life, and I'm so grateful for that. It's a God of my understanding. And so many people listen to the word God, and that's because they assume that I have their idea of God. But if you had my idea of a God of my understanding and the life that I've been given today because I've tapped into this real source of power, you would feel the way that I feel. And I don't have a God of my misunderstanding today. And I'm so grateful to you guys for that, and that's what the 12 steps did. Again, the 12 steps are the biggest mind-altering experience that you can ever have. Because of those experiences, I felt dirty in places that soap doesn't reach, and a good four steps corrupt your soul, and changes your mind, and changes your perspective about life, and I'm so grateful for that. But I'm going to tell you what those experiences did carrying on into my adult years.
So I took on hostages because I don't know how to have relationships. My first hostage, I'm going to go through a series of hostage taking. Again, many of my other speakers here told my story. We tell them in different ways. I like to affectionately refer to mine as booze and boys or step one. I am powerless over alcohol, and my loves have become unmanageable. So needless to say, I asked my sponsees when I'm talking to them, I said, what would you look for in a husband?
So here was my one ad for my first husband, alcoholic. Check. Alcoholic? Check. Narcissistic? Check. Doesn't treat me so well, treats me like dad? Check. Awesome, let's get married.
[00:15:07]
Oh, he was good looking too. That was mostly the main important part, because when we made children, he was going to make me an absolutely beautiful child, and he did, because she's sitting over there. She's going to kill me now, because I've called her out in the middle of a room full of people, but she's absolutely amazing and incredibly normal, considering the parents that she comes from. She shows no signs of this disease, and she's absolutely wonderful, and this was the girl that told you that there was no God working in my life. Well, there certainly is when it came to her, so I'm so grateful for that.
But yes, so there's the series of hostages. So my alcoholic clashed with his alcoholic, so that wasn't good, and I just remember he was, you know, I wasn't an alcoholic, because he was more of an alcoholic than I was, so I don't know if anybody has that story. I remember I tried to take him to a meeting way, way back when of Alcoholics Anonymous when we were in our early 20s, because I needed him to be fixed, because I certainly wasn't the problem, that was him, and that's kind of the series of relationships that I'll have.
Again, I'm a girl that chases the outsides to fix the insides, so once I get the white picket fence, the 2.5 children, the car, and the career, I'm going to be okay. And I got all those things, and I was never okay again. I'm held together by tape, glue, and a smile, but inside I'm dying of untreated alcoholism, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I think that it's because of those experiences, I think, that I'm just not right, and if you had my life again, you would drink the way that I drank, too. So I stayed with that guy for quite some time. I got drunk walking down the aisle. This should have been an indication that this wasn't going to work out so well. I was a girl that should have wrote help me on the bottom of her shoes and had somebody come and rescue me, but no, they actually let me marry him, so what can I tell you.
Then I figure, you know what, it's a brilliant idea. I need to trade up now, because we've been together a long time, and this just isn't working out, so it has to be the guy. Remember, it can't possibly be me. It has to be the man in my life, so I trade up to the pot smoker, because I figure this is a brilliant idea, because he's much more mellow, and he doesn't steal my booze. This is brilliant. Now, this is my keen alcoholic mind at work here, so you're going to have a series of unfortunate events, again, that I call hostage-taking in relationships, and that's just the story of my life, because, again, it has to be the man. It can't possibly be me, and once I get the right guy, then I'm going to be okay.
What I've come to learn, if I have to give up 100% of myself to be in 50% of a relationship, that's not just good enough, and I am a girl that will accept the unacceptable, and I did that time and time again. Again, I'm going to chase the guys, so my next relationship is jump-how-high-guy. Yeah, I hope you Al-Anon scooped him up somewhere, because that's what he was. God bless him. So what I was going to do is I thought, okay, well, I've had the alcoholic. I've had the pot smoker. I need to get with someone that doesn't party the way that I party. This is the problem.
That way, I'm going to have a designated driver, first of all, and they're going to be able to look after me, so I found this poor Al-Anon guy. He barely drank. I tried to teach him, but, you know, I'd make fun of him because he couldn't drink the way that I drink, and God bless. He put me on a pedestal, and when you put an alcoholic on a pedestal, we fall off very quickly, so I really hope that he found the Al-Anons and that he's happy now.
The next few hostages that I took on were don't-even-know-your-name-guy. Yeah, I know. It's tough to believe, but, yeah, I'm not going to make amends to them, because, you know, I'm a French-Canadian people-pleaser, and I don't really think that they're suffering too much, so. Again, because of that, like I say, French-Canadian people-pleaser, the only time that I have trouble in relationships is when I'm vertical. This has been a challenge for me my entire life, but we're working on it, so.
The last relationship that I had was the workaholic, and his workaholic clashed with my alcoholic, and God bless him. I was going to fix him and his three children, because they were all reeling from the divorce that he'd just gone through, but, of course, I was going to help him out and make him okay. And on paper, he was wonderful. He was, you know, the eastern district manager for a huge sporting goods store, and he just looked wonderful on paper, but that relationship was the one that brought me to my knees, and I'm so grateful for that, but I certainly wouldn't have said that when it ended.
I also forgot another relationship. There was doesn't-even-live-in-the-country guy. That's always a favorite for you guys, because it's possible for this alcoholic to fall in love by email. I know that's hard to believe, but I thought, you know what, we're not having sex, so it must be a real relationship. So I dragged him all the way back from Australia. God bless him, and he came back, and then after three weeks, I went, well, you know what, I think I kind of remember why we didn't make it in the first place, so it was really nice having you, and I sent him back, and again, that's just me. I am a series of unfortunate events, and it's all your fault.
So when I came in, and you guys taught me to do a thorough four-step, boy, was I surprised when you guys weren't to blame. It was just totally shocking. You're all going to be happy to know that I've been in a relationship with God for the last five years, and it's the healthiest relationship that I have ever worked on, and I'm so grateful for that.
[00:20:16]
So I've stayed away from a lot of you guys, and I always laugh, thinking, why haven't I had a date in the last five years, and it's probably because I share those stories with you. I will tell you that it's possible to go without sex for five years. I know that's hard to believe that you don't spontaneously combust without having sexual relations. Wait for it. Okay. You guys are good. I always say if I ever go up in flames, I am single-handedly going to wipe out Alcoholics Anonymous, but I needed to get healthy, and I needed to work on myself, and that's what a God-centered relationship is. My big book talks about the fundamental idea of God is within all of us, and I used to chase God in a building, and I'm not a religious person, and I thought some guy with a staff and a beard was going to come down and remove all of my characters.
But apparently, that's not the way that it works. I'm so glad that you guys brought me to a God that I can understand now, and I know the difference between God's will and my will, and when you first come in here, that took a little interpretation, so sponsors are great God filters, because I remember thinking when I first came in here, oh, look, a leaf is falling from a tree. It means Sherry's supposed to buy a new car.
Yeah, apparently, that was a lot of Sherry's will and not God's will in there, but, you know, so again, check with your sponsor if you need an interpretation of what God's really trying to tell you, and in step three, it's about turning over my motives and my actions to the care of God. That's what it is, my motives and my actions. A lot of people ask me how I was going to forgive those relationships or forgive what most people would find unforgivable, and I remember talking to somebody about forgiveness, and this quote literally changed my life in the way that I viewed AA.
Forgiveness is giving up the hope that my past could have been any different. Forgiveness doesn't mean that what was done to me was okay. Forgiveness doesn't mean that I'm ever going to forget. Forgiveness means I love myself more than I hate what he did to me, and all of a sudden, I could let go, because I realized that I was playing God in that situation, and I was taught when I came in here by some great people that forgiveness is the cornerstone of recovery.
Victims in AA don't recover, and if I maintain a victim mentality, I'm going to stay stuck. Depression is thinking about my past. Anxiety is thinking about the future. The only way that I have access to spirituality or what I like to term God is if I stay in the moment. That's the only way that I can feel loved, and that is what divine love is. It's about staying in the current moment of now, and I'm so grateful that Alcoholics Anonymous taught me how to do that.
I used to drink to stay in the moment of now. It said spirits right on the bottle. I thought that was instant spirituality. I mean, it says so on the bottle. How wrong can it be? What happened was I would drink, and all of a sudden, I didn't think about that uncle. I didn't think about anything anymore. I didn't worry about the future and how I was going to pay the bills. It just brought me into the current moment of now.
If you thoroughly do these 12 steps, that's what they'll do for you. They're going to teach you how to have access to that power as long as you're in the now, and that is the biggest gift that you can ever give yourself. So again, back to forgiveness. A lot of people ask me, how did you forgive that child molester? Well, that child molester suffered from an obsession of the mind so powerful that it caused him to do things that he didn't want to do, and it caused him to hurt the people in his family that he loved, and he didn't know how to stop, and he did them anyway.
As a practicing alcoholic, if I can't identify with that, I don't know who can. And all of a sudden, I realized that I'm playing God, and again, it didn't mean that it was okay. It meant that I could move forward. It doesn't own me anymore. I almost drank myself to death over that secret, but now it doesn't own me. So when I talk, I ask you, what owns you? What are you hanging on to? What aren't you letting go of? Resentment is to re-feel old anger. The only way to get a resentment is to judge somebody, to find them guilty, to play God, and to re-feel that over and over and over again.
Resentments like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Well, that uncle was already dead, and so was my dad, and I'm sitting there still drinking over deep-seated resentments. So I ask you, what aren't you letting go of? What do you need to let go of? Because that is the entire program of AA. It's about letting go.
[00:25:00]
And I'm free, and the only reason I can share those things is because I am free. And how free do you want to be? I was a really angry girl because of that. I grew up in high school. I remember my yearbook said ambition to be president of Molson's. Oh, that's in Canada. Destination drowning in my work, which I can tell you I succeeded at. Again, my hero was Black Sabbath. I was a rock and roll girl, so I would challenge this. We were talking about Van Halen yesterday, and she said that we might have fought over the same guys, and I said, no, you like David Lee Roth, and I was kind of a Sammy Hager girl, so it would have worked out well. We would have drank together, I guarantee it. I would have drank with a lot of you.
I was the first one up on the bar, of course, and again, I'm attention-seeking, right, because I just need you to fill that soul-sucking void that I have in my heart. And again, the 12 steps taught me how to do that, and I've got a God-centeredness now that I'm so grateful for. I can't make conscious contact when I'm unconscious, and I am unconscious when I am blocked, and that's why I needed to do a thorough four-step. And a thorough four-step taught me, because I remember going into that step thinking, well, how am I going to forgive? I had no part in that, because a four-step is to let you know what your part is, and I said, I have no part, but my part was a lack of forgiveness.
My part was not letting go. My part was not being able to use that experience to share with other people to help heal them, and that has been one of the biggest healing tools that I have ever had in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. It brought me to a God of my understanding, and I always tell you, if you're new, pray with disbelief, but pray. God always loves hearing a strange voice, and I'm so grateful for that.
I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the difference between God's will and my will. Again, you've heard what my will is when a leaf falls from a tree. By the way, I want to tell you, it's a really sweet ride. It was my midlife crisis, and I bought a convertible, and it's great. Again, one quick story. I remember I'm driving in the convertible, and again, I'm a walking example of the big book, because I never know when you guys are going to pop up, and I'm driving down a highway in Canada. I've got the roof off. I'm bopping to the tunes. This is great.
I see some guy hanging out the window, and I'm like, great. He's trying to hit on me. That's fine. Before I know what I would have done, it would have been the one-finger salute and stop looking at me, but now, again, I've been taught that I need to set the example of the big book, so I just drive, and I kind of wave, and I get to my meeting, and three guys show up going, were you driving a blue convertible on the 427 South?
So I'm thinking, thank God I didn't turn around and give the one-finger salute, so you never know where you're going to be seen in AA. So again, it's about walking the walk, not just talking the talk, and that's what I like to do. I like to be a walking example of how this program works, because I see a lot of people that can quote this book inside and out, but how are you living your life? I'm one of these nauseatingly happy people that I used to hate when I walked into these rooms. I have an absolutely amazing life, and that's thanks to you guys. I'm just so, so grateful to you.
Let's check on time. Again, a lot of people with the forgiveness and the resentments and God's will. I remember I had a lot of trouble deciphering the difference between God's will and my will, but the only way that I can live in the now is to stay in the moment. So I have a few spot checks that I do and that I tell people that I'm working with as well. So ask yourself, will this matter a week from now? Most of the things that I used to worry about were so trivial that they wouldn't.
Another one, one of my favorites, and this is a lot to absorb, so I'll try and say it slow. I'm trying to speak really slow, because this mind goes fast, and usually I can give my talk in 20 minutes, and people go, oh my God, you talk so fast. So I'm trying to slow it down, so I'm hoping I'm doing okay. But they used to talk about the difference between God's will, like how do I know if I'm in my will or if I'm in God's will? So resentment is when I didn't get my will met in the past. Anger and depression are when I'm not currently getting my will met, and fear is when I'm afraid I won't get my will met in the future.
That's how I know when I'm not in the current moment and now, and I am so grateful for spot checks like that. I have a prayer and meditation routine. I won't leave my house without accessing that power. In Toronto, I'm kind of known as a thumper, a big book thumper, and I'm gathering you have a few of those down here as well. I'm all about these 12 steps, because again, the psychiatrist and the psychologist didn't know what you guys know about alcoholism, and it's not alcohol-wasm, it's alcoholism. It's currently alive in here, because I'm selfish and self-centered by nature, and it's all about me.
Fish and Self-Centered by Nature and It's All About Me, and I have to recognize when I'm in that mode and the only way that I can do that is through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
[00:30:03]
Anonymous. Again, I'm so grateful for that and I can't tell you how much you guys have given me. In my relationships, I was a runner and this is what a four-step told me. I'm a runner. I've got huge abandonment issues and huge trust issues, and you guys brought me again to be able to trust and to be able to love myself. I'm a runner because I'm going to get you before you get me, and that's what I did. I dumped every one of those guys. Not one of them got me first, and that's because I never, ever want to be hurt the way that I was hurt as a child, and that was what my four-step showed. I'm not responsible for what my uncle did to me, but I am responsible for the mess that I carried into the relationships with men, and I used to say that all men are the same, but AA taught me that you're not the same, that there's good, kind, and decent men and just my picker's off, and that was the problem because I'm dirty in places that soap doesn't reach, so I go and gravitate to men that I think don't treat me the way that I deserve to be treated, and I don't do that anymore, and I'm so grateful, and every speaker in this room touched upon the one long-timer that touched their heart, and I'm so grateful that mine is still with me and he's still here, and he came with me on this road trip, and everybody in Toronto thinks we're together as a couple, and it's so cute, and this man is showing me unconditional love, and he is the only man I think that I have ever truly loved with a God-centeredness, and I'm so grateful to be here, and he's going to be getting 45 years soon, and his name is Eric, and again, he's still with me, and he comes on my road trips, and like I say in Toronto, they think we're a couple, and the way AA's are, it's like how do you know two AA's are in a relationship? There's a moving van in the driveway when they're on their second date, so needless to say, Eric and I go to a lot of meetings together in Toronto, and now we've road tripped together, so I'm sure that we're happily married, and the love child's on the way, so he's the one that actually perpetuates those rumors, by the way, I'm just letting you know. You guys know the biggest pick-up line in AA, right?
I love what you shared. Yeah, that used to work on me in the beginning, you know, you guys were just feeding right into my ego, I tell you, that 13 step is something to be amazed with. I remember when I first finished the 12 steps, I thought I was going to get the good-looking guy from my group, and apparently he didn't want to leave his girlfriend, and I couldn't understand why I did all the 12 steps, and I thought that was my reward. Yeah, the god of my understanding has a great sense of humor, I tell you. I'm so blessed and lucky to be here. Ah, the stories that come from AA, I tell you. So there's, up in Canada, we call it the LCBO, it's called the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. They tried to control my drinking too, but that didn't work. And I should have known that I was destined to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember when I was little, I used to play a game called Liquor Store. Has anybody played that? See, in Ontario, I don't know if you guys have that down here, but way back in the day, I remember my dad, he would fill out these little pads and he would write down the number because they kept all the liquor in the back. Like, you guys have regular access to that. Oh, I'm sure I can imagine what it would have been like down here. But we actually, again, they put all the liquor in this one little store. We still find a way to get to it though. And here they are, they had these little pads way back in the day and you had to write down the bottle number that you wanted and this and that. And my dad would bring these pads home from the Liquor Store, true story. And I would sit there as a six-year-old and play Liquor Store. Now, who does that? Yeah, I think I was destined to be here. I don't know if you guys have, anybody know what 420 is down here? Yeah, okay. I outside issue people. 420 is International Weed Day and that's my belly button birthday. So again, I'm just destined to be with you guys. I'm named after liquor, I mean, do I need to keep going? Again, this program is wonderful. I will tell you though that half measures avail you nothing, they don't avail you half. So if you're new, you need to do this work thoroughly and fearlessly from the very start and I urge you again, if you've had any issues like I've had, to make sure that you're being thorough and fearless from the very start. You don't have to tell everybody like I do what your childhood was like, but you do need to share that with a crucial person. You need to let go and become free and again, that's the whole lines, that's the whole program of AA again is about letting go. If drinking was my only problem, then rehabs would have turned out winners and I'm so grateful because I've changed careers and I'm going to tell you a little bit about that.
Just because life isn't going your way doesn't mean that it's not the way that it's supposed
[00:35:01]
to be going and my second year of sobriety, I affectionately call prayer and medication. I was medicated on antidepressants and benzos, they were all doctor prescribed and I'm just sharing my experience and this has only been something I've recently been sharing from the podium. Keep in mind my experience, I'm not a doctor, but I was heavily medicated for what I now call a spiritual malady and a lack of acceptance of God's plan. So again, just because it's not going your way doesn't mean that it's not the way that it's supposed to be going. My second year of sobriety, I'm wrongfully dismissed from a job that I absolutely love and I end that engagement and I'm just broken and again, the good looking guy from my group isn't going to be my next hostage and I'm just spiritually bankrupt. So my doctor put me on a bunch of these even knowing that I was an alcoholic. I was never so suicidal as I was with those medications, I just had a very adverse effect to them. If I didn't have a daughter, I wouldn't be on this planet today, I can assure you the crazy thought patterns that they gave me. But when you fast forward again, I wouldn't change a thing.
I sat on my couch heavily medicated for almost a year. I'm not drinking, but I'm far from sober. I don't like God's plan for me because he's basically taken everything out of my life that I loved and I can't understand why. Well, if you fast forward, I'm going to tell you some of the gifts that Alcoholics Anonymous has given to me and one of those gifts was that I was able to go back to school. I had only one regret in life and no, it wasn't any one of the hostages. My only regret was never going to university, so I pursued a career and went to McMaster University and I just graduated not long ago. I became an addictions counsellor. I know it's hard to believe, but I just can't get enough time with you guys, so I figure I'm going to do it for a living. And up there, I'm so grateful that I get to work in one of the few remaining 12-step treatment centres that there is in Toronto and I'm so grateful for that because I get to talk about the steps in God all day long. And I paid thousands and thousands of dollars for an education to find out that everything I ever needed to know is in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Trust me, I've tried to find a loophole because I'm a manipulative alcoholic and there isn't one.
There's not an answer to life that I can't find in this book and if you need help, you come and see me because I will show you an answer in this book. And I'm so, so grateful for that. And there's a story that I like to tell, be careful what you pray for. There was one day when I'm up there in Canada and I figure, okay, it's been a while now and I need a new relationship. I know it's shocking to think that I'd like to try that again, but I'm probably in my third year of sobriety. And I'm sitting down and I'm praying to God and I'm like, you know what, if you see fit, you can send me a guy. I'm not even going to offer any characteristics or qualities because my picker's off, but I'll know him when I see him. But a week later, I get asked to speak in a male prison. Not what I had in mind. Forgot the God of my understanding has a great sense of humour. What's the first thing that this girl thinks about when she gets asked to speak in a male prison? What am I going to wear? They all wear orange up there and I'm thinking, God, I can't wear orange because I'm going to clash and I don't want to wear anything too tight because they're going to come after me. I'm going to be locked up. I mean, I'm having all these crazy thoughts.
What am I going to say? I almost refused to do that talk because I was petrified with fear, but you guys taught me to suit up and show up and I'm so grateful that you did. I ended up doing that talk and it was one of the most amazing experiences that I've ever had. I had 60 guys all in orange jumpsuits, highly respectful. Each one of them shook my hand. Each one of them thanked me for coming. And I thought that maybe I should censor my talk because of the content and some of these people were in there for sexual offences and I was told not to. So I delivered my talk much with the same candour that I do today.
And I think some of the reason I was there is to show them that maybe somebody would be able to forgive them. I'm one impulse decision from, you know, ever changing my life and some of them were in there for different offences that I could easily have been caught for like drinking and driving and so forth. And again, the only difference between me and them is I didn't take an action or I didn't get caught. And I was so grateful to be able to be in there. And fast forward four months later down the road, I sit in a really thumpy big book meeting on a Friday night and in walks one of the guys that was in that meeting.
And he sat there and he looked at me and he said, did you speak at OCI? And I said, yes, I did. And he said, your story touched my heart. Do you have a few minutes to talk to me? I suffer terribly from depression. And I got to sit there and talk to that man and I never saw him come back but I've prayed for him ever since. And I was so grateful that I walked through the fear because fear stands for false expectations appearing real.
And that was one of the most amazing talks that I ever gave and I was so grateful for that experience. And there's not any drink or any drug that could replace the moments
[00:40:02]
that I've been given in Alcoholics Anonymous, the gifts that I get to give when I sponsor somebody, the amazing experience that I have and somebody else has when I take them through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA isn't here to tell you what to believe, we're telling you how to believe. The 12 steps are here to get you to a God of your understanding and a beautiful life that's all yours for the taking if you just move out of your own way. And I'm so grateful for that because I've been given a life beyond my wildest dreams and I can't even possibly explain to you how grateful I am to be here.
I now come to this program out of a desire for a new life. I don't have to be here, I want to be here and that's how my perception changed and I'm so grateful. Again, some of the gifts that I've been given are beyond my wildest dreams. I had another experience that I had to open up about in my fourth step and I was date raped at a certain point in my dating career. And again, that was a resentment that I'd held on to and I always say the God of my understanding can take anything and spin it into gold if I allow him to do that.
So I ended up volunteering on the Toronto rape crisis line and half of the women that phone have a lack of forgiveness to the person that did that to them. So many of them are drunks and my daughter and I do this work together and I end up coincidentally, not coincidence of course, getting all of the drunks that I end up 12 stepping and they don't even know it. You can 12 step people without them even knowing it and I'm so grateful for that so that's how God can take that experience and turn it into gold. Again, the gifts of AA are just beyond what you could possibly imagine and going back to school, I was absolutely petrified and I thought I need to walk through this fear because it was just God sent to me and I knew that. And I remember they had the nerve to make me take a course called Introduction to Addictions. Yeah, I thought my 35 years of drinking experience would get me exempt except I couldn't figure out how to transfer that credit over. Needless to say, I'm not telling you this out of bragging. I'm telling you this out of a shared experience that I got an A in that course because if not, it would have been highly embarrassing in front of you guys. So again, God can take anything and spin it into gold including my fear and I'm so glad that I walked through it. I had another experience in another course and I was trying every way I could to get out of this course. I just didn't want to take it because it involved reliability and validity and statistics and this and that and I thought I'm just a drunk like I can tell you why I drink but I didn't know why I needed to know all these statistics and everything. I'm a good alcoholic so I'm looking for the easier, softer way so if I can drop it and take something else, I'm all in for that. Turns out that I couldn't drop it. I'd already paid the money so I was more cheap than I was fearful so I decided we'll just go ahead with that. And I remember doing my first assignment and I sat there and I sent it in to my professor and I said, okay, you know, I really blew this one and I thought I blew them all but for this one, I'm like, no, for sure. This one's really bad, you know, I'm really sorry. Tell me if I'm way off track and she sends me back the mark. I got 100% on that. Anybody know what that course was?
Adult Children of Alcoholics. Thanks, dad. I love you. And that's the gifts that Alcoholics Anonymous has given me is to be able to walk through fears and take courses like that to become what I think I was destined to become. Alcoholism took away that university dream and AA gave it back and I'm so grateful to you guys for that. Again, I get to go to work and I get to talk about God and the 12 steps all day long. I get to see the newcomers that walk up to me and say, but you don't understand and I just chuckle, you know. Inside, I just got that little smirk on and I always tell them that treatment's discovery, not recovery and there's huge differences between being in the middle of AA and just being around AA. If I left my drinks on the edge of the table, they'd fall off and spill and that's pretty much what's going to happen to the newcomer if you don't get right in the middle of this thing. I'm a big believer that you've got to have a sponsor and be a sponsor because it's the biggest gifts and I'm very well sponsored in AA. My sponsor is Anne A. Her sponsor is Mari G. If anybody's ever heard of her, she had to make amends to the entire island of Jamaica so all of a sudden mine didn't seem so bad anymore. Yeah, and her sponsor is Clancy.
I think a few of you might have heard of him. So I have very strong sponsorship lines. I don't get into too much trouble anymore. Mind you, I don't want to the same way that I used to so I'm so grateful. I always end my talk with there's 86,400 seconds in a day. And AA took me from a bad life to a bad year, or sorry, from a from a bad life to a bad year to a bad week, and now I won't even hand over a bad day to this disease.
[00:45:00]
And those 86,400 seconds, some of them in that day must be filled with purpose. Some of them must be reaching out to other alcoholics that still suffer. Any one of us can do this. When I first came into AA, I was told, do the next right thing. Well, thank God I didn't do that, because for me, that would have been getting in another relationship. But I was taught to do the next kind thing. And when I was new, and someone put their hand on my shoulder when I was shaking, and I didn't want to be here, and I wanted to run out the door, somebody said, just stay.
It's going to get better. And I can promise you that it does if you're new. And I was so grateful for those hands that touched my heart and got me to stay in these rooms. And my sobriety date is February the 6th of 2011, and that's when God brought me to AA, and AA brought me to God. And I'm so grateful to you guys for doing that. I was a little girl that was told to be seen and not heard. Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a voice and a life beyond my wildest dreams.
The most important thing that this voice ever says in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous are these, are the 12 steps that we took as a program of recovery. I'm so grateful. Thank you to all of you, and God bless you.