ESH: Michelle A

Hello and welcome to SoberCast where we provide AA speaker meetings and workshops in podcast format. We're an ad-free podcast and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting SoberCast.com, look for the donate link and drop a dollar or two into our virtual basket. We hope you enjoy the podcast. Have a great day. Hey everybody, I'm Michelle. I'm an alcoholic and I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. I want to welcome the newcomers tonight. Welcome home. I hope you stay with us a while. And if you've been gone for a while, I'm glad you're back. There's nothing like it. There really isn't. Thank you for your story tonight, Brock. And happy birthday, sweet sister. You know, my drinking career didn't start terribly early. High school was when I really got introduced to alcohol. But the internal story started a lot earlier than that. And I was born in Modesto, California, home of Gallowine. And I lived there for about the first year of my life. and then we moved to Southern California, and I grew up on the west side. But growing up, I have a brother who is three years younger than I am. I always had this feeling that something about me was different. Just always intuitively something was a little off, never really felt a part of. It didn't help that I came from a tennis-playing family, and he was a star tennis player, you know, ranked 10 and under in the world. And I was always in the park lighting fires and creating chaos while they were playing tennis. You know, and my folks got divorced when I was 12 years old. And I was really tight with my dad and not so much with my mom. So it was really hard for me when he left. And he was getting ready to move to the East Coast. And at that time, I was like, there was talk about my brother joining him. and I was like, I want to go with Dad. Why can't I go to New York? And she said, you know, because your father's not responsible for you. And so it just validated that feeling that I had, that nagging question of who do I belong to? About the time I was 16, so I started drinking my freshman year of high school, you know, with pride. I mean, I could drink, and I was really proud of that fact. So I hung with people who drank accordingly, and we'd like line up all the empty bottles on the back. I remember getting my first apartment thinking there was this bookshelf. I could just fill it with booze. And looking back, my poor mother's standing there, I'm sure, just aghast, like, what are you talking about? But at any rate, when I was getting ready to go get my driver's license, I asked my mother for my birth certificate, and she told me that I could use my baptismal certificate. I'm like, what, are you high? I cannot take the baptismal certificate to the DMV. And she left the house, and I pulled down that shoebox that she had all of her very important documents in, and there was my birth certificate with a different last name than the one I'd been using for 16 years. And so for me, it just validated that feeling that I wasn't a part of. Like, who did I belong to? Who was this butler guy? I'd been going by the name of Davis all of my life. You know, and in those days, I guess you could just get somebody a social security card with a different name on it because I had one. But it was a really hard thing for me to take in. And so it accelerated. My drinking accelerated, and the marijuana use was introduced. And I now had a single mom, and I was going to a Catholic school. And in the day, there weren't a lot of divorced families. so it was just an added stigma that I was dealing with. But I was one of those kids that really wanted to go somewhere, so I got a job at 16 at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I left school at noon to go work. So I was self-supporting at an early age. And what happened for me is the drinking just accelerated, and the drinking led to drugs, and eventually I got to a place where life had become unmanageable. And I had gotten a job in the fashion industry, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. It was the 80s. It was a wild time, you know, on the planet. But especially in the fashion industry, there was a lot of cocaine and a lot of alcohol. So I didn't really stand out as somebody who had a problem with things, but it was affecting my life. Enough to where I was considering, as it talks about in the book, well, maybe if I just drink on, like, Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays. You know, there was a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song about the cat on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But that didn't work. Or maybe if I just, you know, drank water and snorted cocaine, that would be okay. That didn't work either. But, you know, so I kept, I was classic textbook without even knowing it. And always discontent. Always discontent. and always feeling like I didn't know who I belonged to or what I was doing. And so this feeling, it never left, you know. And for me, what happened, what played out was my mother thought I should get some professional help. So I obliged, and I went to see this therapist, and she spent a lot of money on me seeing this therapist, who I just told that I would take hot baths at night to relax, you know, and I didn't have a drinking problem. I lied about the intake of alcohol that I was drinking because my folks loved their fine wine. So we would sit down at dinner, and I think we had two bottles between the three of us. The therapist thought that was a little much, but I didn't tell her that after dinner that I went out and drank until 2 o'clock in the morning. At any rate, I stayed with her for a while, and she became my Eskimo. but at one point she said, you know, I really think you should consider checking out a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, the only reason I even consider it, because this really cute guy, I mean, this guy was gorgeous. His name was Michael T., and he and I drank together, but he had worked at this one bar, and I knew he was sober. So I thought, cool, I'll call Michael. So I call Michael up. He's a little surprised to hear from me, even more surprised that I'm asking to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he says to me, great, there is a fabulous meeting on Friday night. You've got to be kidding me, right? Like, Friday night? Like, isn't there a Monday morning meeting or something we could go to? And he says, no, it's a great meeting. I'll meet you there. So, you know, I thought I was going on a date. So I'm all ready to go to the Friday night meeting, and Michael meets me at the door, and then he drops me off with the women. and I was like, what just happened here? So, you know, it's awkward. If you're here for the first time tonight, I feel your pain. It's awkward. You know, so I'm sitting there checking out the literature, not really knowing what to do, and it's time to get in there. Ring the bell, time to get into your seat, right? And he had saved a seat for me, and as I go to get into my seat, I step over Danny W., who I went to high school with, And he's like, Michelle? And I'm like, Danny? And so I sat in my seat, and I thought, wow, this is really trippy, right? So the speaker that night, her name was Yvonne, and she was a wild card. I just dug everything about her story. And she was talking about how her drug dealer boyfriend had spelled her name out in quaaludes for her birthday. And I was like, dang. She had eight letters in her name, and so do I. I was enthralled. I just thought that was wow. So I just was attentive. I was loving it. So I thought, this is not so bad, right? So at the end of the meeting, Danny comes up to me, and he says, so, you know, how long are you sober? And I go, I'm not. And he goes, okay. And he went over to the literature person and bought a big book. and handed it to me. And he said, keep coming back. So, uh, you know, this went on for a little while for me. I probably started going to meetings in, um, October or November and I would go to meetings, but I always drink afterwards. You know, I was just following directions. And this one particular evening, I was at the Friday night meeting again, and it was a podium a meeting like this and I came up to share some nonsense about how I didn't have a sponsor, but I had a therapist, you know, and they're just about to get me, you know, away from the podium. And that evening I had plans with my girlfriend. It was December and we were going out. So she's at home waiting for me. I changed my clothes, put on a little leather skirt and we, you know, have a few cocktails at home and off into the night we go. So I don't know about you guys, but I loved dive bars. You can always, like, be a princess in a dive bar, right? It's not that hard. And so we would inevitably I was one of those just restless kind of drunks Like I have one drink and then I be certain that there was something way more exciting happening someplace else You know so then we move to the next bar always go in through the back door And this went on for a couple of establishments, and then we just decided, you know what, why don't we just go back to my place, throw on our sweats, and really get loaded. And I thought, that's a grand idea. But I was smoking cigarettes at the time, So I needed to stop at Lucky Market to get some cigarettes. So we walk into Lucky Market. It's, I don't know, 1 in the morning. And who do I run into but Danny W., who has seen me at the meeting just four short hours before at the podium. He's like, you're Jones, aren't you? And I went, yeah. So he said, you know what, I get off work at 5 o'clock. I'll come over then. like all right fine so my girlfriend and I left and we went back to my place and I thought well I'll just drink hot tea and snort cocaine because he's an alcoholic and you know things will be fine I had a couple of hours to kill so uh Danny comes over at five o'clock in the morning I kid you not with his big book I'm still in my party dress because again I think I'm on another date and But so we're sitting there at my little round wooden table, and Danny's, you know, got the book out, and I don't remember what he was trying to tell me, but it says in Bill's story, you know, Ebby is sitting at the table with Bill, and Bill's thinking, you know, my gin is going to outlast him. And I sort of had the same feeling. Well, I didn't want to drink, but at some point I got like, I couldn't take it anymore, so you don't mind, do you, you know? and I went over to sit on his lap and give him a kiss and he said to me, I can't kiss you. You've been drinking. And I was, oh my gosh. I mean, nobody had ever said that to me before. Ever. And it was, you know, I was humiliated and I didn't know what to do And so I just crawled back over into my own little chair. And he got up and went downstairs and got on his motorcycle and didn't start right away. So I'm okay. He's got to come back. And he got the bike started and off into the night he went. You know, and for me, that was my moment of incomprehensible demoralization. And I'd had a lot of moments before that one that were far more dramatic, included, you know, much more risk-taking. But this moment was my moment. This was the moment that I thought, what the heck are you doing? It's 6.30 in the morning. You're in your party dress, alone in your apartment. Girl, what is going on? You know, so I went to bed that night, and I got up the next morning, and, you know, I smoked a little pot because I figured I was going to be stopping soon enough. and I went to the meeting and I just sat in the back of the room and cried, drank coffee and cried. And I went home and I got up the next day and I went back to the same room and I was walking up the stairs to the meeting and I ran into Danny W. again and he said, are you counting days yet? And I said, yeah, I guess I am. And that was the 11th of December, 1988. and I haven't had a cocktail or a line of cocaine or a quaalude in 28 years and it's nothing I've done on my own. It's only because I found a power source that could help me with my state of hopelessness and despair and inability to stop drinking and using on my own. And, you know, life changed for me dramatically. They told me you don't have to change anything, you have to change everything. and I did because I hadn't done anything sober in a long time. I had no idea what sobriety entailed. You know, I always say, because it's true, I'd see that bumper sticker one day at a time, and I thought it was the TV show. I mean, I just did not understand. And then that would piss me off, too. It's like, one day at a time, like, why the heck are we doing it then? I mean, it just didn't make any sense to me. And I was angry. So if you're angry tonight, I feel it for you. You know, I was frustrated, but I knew that there was something here. And when I walked into that meeting that first Friday night, and Michael T. was there, and Danny W. was there, these are people that I drank and used with. And for whatever reason, they were choosing to be at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on a Friday night. They were choosing. and they were happy and they were free-spirited. I was drawn in by this and I trusted it because I knew these people. And so that was my experience and continues to be my experience in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's always somebody who has been through whatever it is that I'm going through before me, and they've been able to stay sober doing it. And that is the gift of this program. So I started out on my journey, and I put my little plastic numbers on the refrigerator one day, two days, three months, nine months. I got that year of sobriety, and I got involved, and I got in the middle of the circle, and I took a commitment. We had commitments. People, you know, you could smoke in meetings back then. You had to sweep the floor. You know, there was lots of things to do, but I got involved, and I found my family. I found my family. And we had lots of social activities in the day. We'd have barbecues. We'd have, you know, I mean, it was just, I was home. I was finally home. But there was work to do, right? I had step work to do. So I got myself a sponsor, and I started to go through the steps. And then I, in turn, took somebody else through the steps. I do it a little differently today than I did back then. But, you know, I was willing to be willing to do things differently. What happened for me was in that Friday night meeting that I went to for two years running, there was this guy sitting on the other side of the room. And one night, after two years, I just went up to him for some reason. And we ended up going out to dinner that evening. And I invited him to my old boyfriend's wedding to join me. And he thought that was a little odd. He had like 20 freaking questions for me. And I'm like, really, dude, I just wanted to know if you'd come to the wedding with me. I don't really need to, you know. Anyway, so he ended up going to the wedding with me. And we were engaged six months later and married a year after that. And we had three, have three beautiful children, but they were all children of sobriety. You know, I had, they all came to meetings. We got sober in Brentwood, California, you know, Pacific Palisades up there. We went to all those meetings up there, and the kids always came with us. And in 1996, late 96, we moved to San Diego. And I found my family in San Diego because that's the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous, right? I can be anywhere on the planet, and there's a meeting available to me. And as soon as I walk into the door, I found my distant cousin, right? And for a girl that doesn't really have family of origin, that's a big deal for me. I always wanted a big family. One of the perks I thought of marrying this guy was he had five siblings. You know, it was important to me. So we came to San Diego, and I was about 10 years sober at the time. And that's when I started to ask myself who I was turning my will and my life over to. because I'd been turning it over for a long time now, a decade. But I didn't really know who I was turning it over to. You know, I knew that it worked. I knew that there was a power source, but I really took it to the mat. And I found myself a big God, a really big God. And my whole attitude and outlook on life started to shift, right? I had more space inside of me. All the devilments started to fade away. Now, I had three kids under four, so don't get me wrong. There's a lot of chaos involved in my life. And my husband at the time traveled Monday through Friday. So it was a tall order. But I had my meetings, and I had my women, and I would sit on the driveway just crying with them, kids screaming in the house, talking to my sponsor. But somebody had my back, and that's been my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. And, you know, what happened for me was at 20 years of sobriety, my husband relapsed. And, you know, I had always fantasized about what it would be like to drink with him and, like, have champagne at our wedding. And, you know, I knew he liked cocaine. And I thought, wouldn't that be fun? Oh, my goodness. real-time alcoholism when you're stone-cold sober is the most terrifying thing i've ever seen and the powerlessness that is attached to that is beyond we it tells us in the book man we're on the front lines the firing lines right i didn know this man i had no category for his illness and he checked every addiction box there is And gambling was at the top of the list And I was a traditional mom right He handle the money and I handled the home And I was presented with chaos. It was beyond my own comprehension. But again, I had a fellowship around me, and I had people to support me, to tell me how to take the next step. My children were 12, 14, and 16 years old at the time. It was, you know, it just, it was insanity. And he finally moved out of the house, but the chaos didn't stop. And any of you that have ever been in the rooms of our sister program of Al-Anon, which I say I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon because Al-Anon has helped me tremendously during this journey with him. You know, every time there was some crazy thing, every time he got, you know, arrested, when my son was with him, when he got arrested, when he took the last few dollars out of my kid's savings account, you know, every time I thought, surely that's it. Now we're done. No, we're not done. And I'm powerless over it. My own alcoholism, I felt like I had some control over, but watching somebody I loved go down the drain was excruciating. And so we tried to do an intervention on my daughter's graduation weekend, and it didn't stick. And I remember the facilitator asking me, he's having everybody write their letters. He wants me to write my letter. And I thought, I have nothing more to say. And I picked up the phone and filed for divorce. And that was a loss of a dream for me, but I had taken it as far as I could. and I couldn't be married to the disease anymore. And so I went to a sober club med in 2012 at the height of all of this insanity and my sweet brother in sobriety, he paid for me to go. And wouldn't you know it that my roommate was a financial planner, divorce for women in particular, and my other new best friend, she was a divorce attorney in Los Angeles. I have a big God. I have a really big God. And we are on the beach in Turks and Caicos, and she's got her phone out, and she's calling a private investigator to freeze the assets because there were in the millions of dollars in a bank account at the first of the month, and now on the 21st of the month, there was 20% left of that initial amount. So his gambling addiction was off and running, and she was able to freeze the assets for me from this sober club bed beachfront. And because of that, I have a roof over my head today. My children, two of them have graduated from college today. The youngest one is a sophomore. God provided every step of the way. It wasn't easy. It wasn't fun. it still is the unknown. You know, that's what we deal with, right? Faith is the absence of seeing what's in front of us, but knowing that we can trust what's ahead because of the one who's leading us there. And that was my experience. And the husband, you know, he got sober for a little bit, and it didn't stick, and then he got sober again. He's sober today. And during that time, you know, for me, I got a promise from God who told me that his sickness was not going to end in death but to his glory. And the particular place that I got this from and the numbers that it came from added up to my wedding anniversary. And I hung on to that. And to this day, you know, he's alive and he's breathing, and my Al-Anon recovery enables me not to know what his sobriety date is this time around. I don't know what it is. All I know is that God's got him, he's got his path, and I just pray that he's able to be alive and healthy for my children today. And that's a gift of this program. You know, I'm in the midst of taking a couple of people through the work right now just simultaneously. simultaneously and so it's like I get to do the homework twice in the same period of time, which is really good for somebody like me who can forget a lot. And so touched by Bill's story because it's so similar to mine if I really take the time to slow down and read it. You know, he says in the beginning about that ominous warning on the tombstone. and how many ominous warnings did I have out there while I was drinking and using and I didn't heed any of them but strangely enough I've had ominous warnings in sobriety and I didn't heed them either and that's what the work does for me is when I'm able to take because for me what happens when I get to that place and I don't listen right I don't listen Intuitively, I know the direction that I'm supposed to go, but I think, well, maybe, I don't know, you know, I'll just try it and go this way. It never bodes well for me. It just doesn't. So it's such a beautiful reminder that nothing really changes. The verbiage might change, the way that Bill writes his story when he wrote it, but the situations are essentially the same. And certainly the heart language is the same. So what this working with others and going through the work this time has enabled me to do is have an open mind and a new experience to really let go of the things that have held me back, right? because such is life. Lots of things happen that are out of my control. And as my sponsor always says, you know, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And so it's how I choose to look at things. And gratitude is a breakthrough attitude. You know, my girlfriend Kimberly tonight is a beautiful example of that for me. She's facing a really hard time. Did you see that smile she had on her face? She's not putting it on for the meeting. She wakes up like this. It's a tad annoying until I've had my coffee. But that's her heart. That's her heart because she's connected. She's connected. She's clear. She's sober. And that's what sobriety enables. It affords me is that connection, right? Because if I'm not sober, I'm not connected to the power source. And if I'm not connected to the power source, I'm going to be ineffective. And if I'm ineffective, I'm not able to help you, let alone me or my kids. You know, and I've had to let go a lot with my children. It's a family disease. Alcoholism is a family disease. and I have my youngest, he suffers. You know, he has that, I can see it as that same, like, who do I belong to? I know that he has two parents, you know, and I know that I'm his touchstone. But his life was drastically changed at 12. Those are really formative years. And for those of us that have the disease of alcoholism, you know, it's mind, body, and spirit. It's that insecurity. It's that not being able to trust ourselves to thinking that somebody else has the answer for us. And what the steps enable us to do is find those answers for ourselves, right? I mean, that's the gift, is to be able to know that we are going to get through anything, no matter what it is, because life comes, death comes, relationships end, friends go away. It's just, it's life today. But we have a fellowship and a family within us that offsets that, right? It's been my experience that usually when I'm in the barrel, somebody's on the mountaintop. It's just the way it works, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for the program and what my children have been able to glean from it. because even at my worst, and during the throes of the Wisdom's alcoholism, I lost my stuff a couple of times. But my children knew that I was always connected to this program. They knew that I was always going to meetings They been at meetings themselves And I think that gave them comfort You know and today when it Mother Day or it you know whatever it is that they're always giving me a beautiful card, thanking me for being there for them. My son recently got himself into a jam. It's not the first one. Oh my gosh. that boy I love him but you know the message because of this program that I was able to give him is that my love for you is unconditional and it doesn't matter what you've done there's no shame there I am here for you and if you have to reconsider because he was accused of doing something if you have to reconsider I will be there with you and we will walk through this every step of the way. And if you didn't do it, I will stand with you in your truth that you didn't do it. But you're the only one that knows. And you're the one that's going to carry the burden. And that's what we learn here, right? That's the steps in action. When we do our fourth step, we put it out there. You know, are you going to put down the take it to the grave stuff? Are you going to try carrying it with you a little longer? How many more sleepless nights do you want? I don't like, I mean, I have sleepless nights when my slate is clean. I don't need any more help with sleepless nights. Seriously. And, you know, for me, with my amends process, I was a thief. And it wasn't because I didn't have money. I just didn't want to pay for anything. And, you know, so I would steal chickens out of the market, you know. I'd steal my birth control pill. didn't want to pay for them. I mean, it was an epidemic. And when I worked in the garment industry, we had a lot of samples, you know, and so I happened to be the sample size, and we were supposed to put our little tickets on the pegboard, but I'd always, like, take a couple of those tickets and take them home so that I have less to pay for, right? So when it came time for me to do my amends, I had to go back to my employer and tell him that I'd been stealing from him for two years. I had been breaking into a cold sweat thinking about that. I mean, that is a tall order, right? But you guys kept telling me, you can do this. One step at a time, you walk into his office and you will tell him. So we sat down and I told him what was going on. and you know today and to this day it still amazes me how quickly the ego rebuilds because no sooner was he getting his little spreadsheet out to figure out my plan of restitution i'm like dude what are you doing it was like i was already the ego was like already back i'd gotten over the big hump my biggest fear of telling him and now i just couldn't believe that he was going to write it down and keep track of it. You know? And that's what I face on a daily basis, guys. My thinking, it's off. It's off. It's better today than it was back then. But that's why I need to be connected. It says we intuitively, you know, know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. When I wake up, I did this for the first five years of my sobriety with my sponsor. We read Upon Awakening to one another, and we committed our days to one another, and we, you know, talked about whatever we had done the day before to one another. I have always been accountable to one person on the planet, always. So when it says, you know, it just comes, that's the miracle of it. We're not fighting it. We're not avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. And that's how I know when I'm aligned today, when I'm neutral. if I've got peace I'm doing alright and I've had times recently where I've been a lot of chaos a lot of chaos and I've been walking around with a boulder in my gut and I'm screaming out to God give me a word, give me a word, give me a word he's like how about that boulder in your gut no, no, no you know but I know when I'm not peaceful I have an unsettled spirit something's off something's off there's an action that needs to be taken so when I take the action the neutrality comes back often coupled with deep sadness deep sadness but I can handle the sadness because I know that that is just burning away whatever it is that needs to go and opening up some room for whatever it is that's to come but don't tell me that when I'm going through it because I don't want to hear it because it hurts too much and there's still a little piece of it that I'm holding on to thinking maybe this time, just maybe this time things could be different but if I don't have that neutrality and I don't have that peace chances are it's my experience, things aren't going to be different I'm just going to get drug one more time instead of letting go. So I'm grateful. I'm so grateful for the tools of the program, all of them, all of them. The fact that I know who I'm doing business with today because my God knows what he's doing. At 10 years, I was able to lay a solid foundation. My roots were down deep. And when that storm blew hard in 2011, I was ready. I was ready. And that hasn't changed today. Whatever comes, I know I can get through because I know I have a God who is faithful. He's proven that. I'm a journaler. I don't know if you are. You know, it helps me because I can go back year after year and read about all the things I was so worried about and how he's brought me through every step of the way. Never like I thought it was going to play out, but every step of the way. You know, my son, the other one, he was suspended his last year of, his senior year of high school, and it was hard. It was really hard. It was hard for him. It was hard for me. But God worked it out, you know, and he didn't get to walk with his class. It was devastating. I wanted him to walk. I prayed that he would walk. I wrote every day, please let him walk. And he didn't get to walk. But what happened for him was they allowed him to have his own little ceremony. And they all came out in their robes. And his sister put on the graduation music. And he spoke from the heart, my son. And he was crying, and he was in gratitude, and he was in humility. and his father showed up sober and was able to be transparent and say, you know, hey, my name is Bill, and you put me in front of a podium, I don't know how to say, you know, start a PowerPoint presentation or say, hi, I'm Bill, I'm an alcoholic. And he was just transparent. It was such a beautiful day, and God worked that out. My biggest fears were taken care of in a way that everybody was there, wished that they'd had that particular ceremony because they didn't like standing out and being in the bleachers in the hot sun for two hours waiting for their one-minute name to be called. So I just, you know, when I don't know what's going to happen, I know that I can trust that wherever he leads, he proceeds. And that's been my experience here. So from that first Friday night in Brentwood 28 years ago to this day, what is it, the 22nd of July in 2017, this fellowship has carried me through every step of the way. You guys are my family. I know a few of you, but all of you are my family. And if you're here tonight for the first time, as I said before, or you're coming back a couple of times to see if it's for you, I'm telling you, the possibilities here are limitless. You will find a fellowship that is authentic. You will find people that you can call at any hour of the day or night that will tell you that they will leave their cell phones on for you next to their bed in case you need them. This is not frothy emotional appeal. This is the real deal. It's available. It's a priceless gift. So I just want to thank you for letting me share tonight, and I just want to leave you with one thought. There is no high like the most high. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Sobercast is ad-free, and we'd like your help in order to keep it that way. So if you'd like to help us be self-supporting by pledging a dollar to a month, visit Sobercast.com and look for the donate links. Thank you very much. JENNIFER