vol 201. 4/9/2023 (Eden S.)

SPEAKER_03 0:01 We believe that alcoholism is a disease and that Alcoholics Anonymous is one solution to that disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members. Everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest.

SPEAKER_01 0:25 My name is Eden. I'm an alcoholic. This recovery date is April 9th, 2023. I like to start with this set-aside prayer and the serenity prayer.

The set aside prayer. God, today help me set aside everything I think I know about you. Everything I think I know about myself. And everything I think I know about others.

And everything I think I know about my own recovery so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth. The serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Ah. I was born in New York City. Um, and at six months of age, I moved to Los Angeles, California. I say that because those are two big cities, those are two metropolitan cities, those are two cities that a lot of things happen.

And that doesn't make me an alcoholic. It just makes my experience that of a city girl. I was raised in a family, um, in a family of how do I say this? A family that had a name that was known around the world.

And that's part of my story. I don't say that anything, you know, in any other way than there's comes pressures with that that I've had. My mom's a recovering alcoholic, and my father passed away of leukemia in 2012. First time I drank, I was 15.

But before I ever started to drink, I was hiding food in my closet. I was waiting till I could get home from school to have my nanny make me my grilled cheese. I was waiting till 9:30 in the morning at school that I could run to nutrition and hope that I had, which I did, the money for the nachos, and then I always wanted extra cheese. Food was an issue.

Food was an obsession. Food took away the loneliness and the little girl who just wanted to be held. I needed safety. And in food, I thought there was safety.

Little did I know that whatever I thought the where the safety lied inevitably was the problem at hand. At the age of 11, my dad sent me to um fat farm to wait watchers. And I didn't want to go. The last thing, sorry, my dogs are barking, but that's hey, that's part of life.

I didn't want to be sent away. I didn't like going to camp. I didn't like being away from my safety zone, which for the most part was my home, my bedroom, my nanny. Wherever I found that love and that that place of safety, I was attached to it.

So he sent me away, me and my brother, actually, my adopted brother David. And we were on our way to go get skinny. I didn't understand why I was being sent away. I didn't understand that I was a heavier set girl.

I didn't understand what, and when I say heavy, I say that I was probably the finest girl at camp, and that I was at the age, I think 10, 11, 12 around. So I was chubby. I was kind of just kidding, my hormones were kicking in. But and that's okay because people see pictures of me and and and uh you were just a sweet, cute little girl.

No, behind that sweet, cute little chubby girl was this obsession, this why I wanted the food, why I was using the food, what was going on, it was my mind was controlling it. I needed it, I had to have it to feel better, and not just to make me not hungry. That my choices were more, more, and more. If it had cheese, if it was fried, if it was in a package, I wanted it.

That being said, at 15, I found freedom in my first drink. And it hit me. It hit me the first time. Um, it felt so good.

Oh that was um a different kind of freedom than food. I didn't have to, you know, at that time feel bloated or fat or anything. I could just feel free and pretty quick. Pretty quick.

I remember we were 15, and because we lived in LA and pretty much knew, you know, everyone who was doing nightlife and uh would go out without an ID and we would get in. And everyone, you know, was there. It was probably a Friday or Saturday night. And I think we're at this place called Black Market.

And we went rolling in. I can't remember who drove that night. I think it was my friend Alex. And we get there, and he kind of pulled me aside and he looked at me.

He said, What are you doing? You're gonna be just like your sister. Oh my god. I left her out of my story thus far.

My mom, yeah, she's a recovering alcoholic. She didn't get sober till I was the first time till I was uh right around this time when I started drinking. But I had a sister who was an alcoholic, drug addict. My entire like childhood.

From what I could remember, she started at maybe 11. I was five years younger than her. We do the math pretty much from my my my childhood memories were my sister always um not necessarily being a hundred percent present, not necessarily always being a hundred percent honest, not being what I like where's my sister? So I did I began to like put up my walls.

I didn't understand how to have a relationship with this person, with this girl. I didn't, I couldn't comprehend at that time that she was hurting, that we were raised in the same family, that we weren't getting our needs met in certain ways. That was way beyond my comprehension. I just looked at it like my sister's insane.

My sister is crazy. My sister comes home and says that the guy is in the park in Beverly Hills, where she was just raped and hurt, and uh I couldn't make sense of it, nor did I want to. Um, so when Alex said to me, You're gonna be just like your sister, I was like, Are you kidding? There's no way, no way, no way will I be like that girl, and don't worry, I got this.

But I knew. I knew that the minute I took that drink, I knew the minute that it changed, I knew that that freedom that came and that all of this sort of like pressure of being the daughter of or being raised in Beverly Hills, or just this life that I didn't choose. And trust me, I'm grateful. But I didn't choose it.

I just wanted to be loved, I just wanted to be heard, I just wanted to feel safe, I just wanted to know that like I'm okay. Um and I found those things in food and in drink. Ah, I felt good. I don't necessarily need to stay in my sickness and my disease.

It lasted a lifetime. Um I can continue to qualify many, so many stories. The drinking went on, the disease then spread to men. So now it's food, alcohol, and now men.

And let me be after the alcohol, before the men simultaneously was exercise. Because I wasn't enough, because I wasn't good enough, because I didn't look a certain way. So I had to, whether it was working or not, physically move my body to the point of obsession on a daily basis to be better, to feel okay, to feel safe. So food, drinking, exercise, and now the game's on.

Men, if I can't find it in one of those things, I'm gonna find it somewhere. But I knew that or yes, I knew, I thought that whether it be Shane, Gabriel, Jordan, Brian, Roberto, huh, this is fun. Um you give me a name, I've probably been there. And it's not even, you know, it's not a joke.

I took it very lightly up until my inventory this time around. Because I couldn't figure out how to fill this hole. I had no connection, I had no understanding. I thought that by anything that I could fill the pain, whether it be people, places, things, and just do that day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day, and that it wouldn't stop, that this is how I would get by.

Until my life was completely unmanageable, and not on the outside. Because I had the husband, I had the two kids, I had the house, I had the car, I had the businesses, everything on the outside looked as if the daughter of Link lived the life that she was given. And again, I'm grateful. But I wasn't, I was dying inside.

I was in so much pain all the time. SPEAKER_00 11:45 If I couldn't find it in the food, and I couldn't find it in the alcohol, and I couldn't find it in exercising non-stop. And I had to find it in the guy neck, the guy that I thought was cute, the guy that I wanted that I couldn't have, but I was gonna be fucking sure that I was gonna get him. SPEAKER_01 12:01 You better believe it.

I was gonna make sure. And of course I did. And I usually got, and I do not say this with ego, I was a sickness. It was a sickness.

I got what I wanted for the most part. I made sure of it no matter what I had to do. And at the time, men wanted one or two things, so I, you know, worked the situation to make sure that I got the person that I wanted. And then when I got them, I didn't want them anymore.

Because I had no idea how to build a relationship. I had no idea what it meant to love someone or to be loved. And I know my parents did the best they could. My father was a workaholic and was raised in an orphanage, and his mother took him out when he was um eight, nine, maybe ten or eleven.

My mom was an only child raised by her parents here in Burbank, grew up to be an actress, met my father, they got married, and her life became his. And I respect their stories. I do. I respect what they went through.

And I know that they only did the best that they could, or only they did what they knew how to do. There doesn't, there's no pamphlet with this parenting. They got divorced when I was seven. My mother was really in her drinking.

For some reason, my dad sort of let the kids live with my mom, which didn't make sense to me, but he obviously couldn't control his workaholic and four kids. So my brother David, who was adopted, had some issues along the way and so was always being taken care of or looked after by someone else. My sister got married at the age of 15 and um had a drinking and drug addiction. Let me remind you, food and men as well.

She was anorexicolemic and 100% addicted to men. She passed away from the addiction um January 1st, 2002. She didn't wake up New Year's Day. She passed away with three ex-husbands and three children at the age of 30.

I was 29, she was 35, 34, 35. She lived many lives in her 35 years, and she never got the gift of recovery. She never got the gift of recovery. And even after she passed, I still, you know, coming from an alcoholic mother and then a sister who overdosed.

I still had that idea of I got this. Although, you know, there were many times where I'd sit back, I'd just sit and be in the spirit. I always knew I always had a higher power. There was always something greater than myself.

There was always something bigger. So I questioned everything, but I couldn't find the answers. So somewhere along that line, there were the connection was off, right? The alignment was off.

I kept it okay, that I'll find my answer here. And the answer is never gonna come in food, the answers are never gonna come in alcohol, the answers are never gonna come in exercise, the answers are never gonna come in men. The answer is gonna come from my higher power, and that being God. And there were many a times where I sat back and I said, I I get it, I get it, I get it.

I'm an alcoholic. I realize I've been in and out of these rooms with my mom and my sister for so long, but I'm not ready. So when I'm ready, I'll get there. And I sort of had this unsigned contract with God that when I'm ready on my time, I will get there.

Excuse me if I'm skipping around, but all these emotions and feelings, emotions and feelings, all that is is information. So all this information is coming to me at once. Um, and I'm sharing it the best way I know how, honestly. This unsigned contract that I had with God got me nowhere, ever.

Got me nowhere. It painted a very pretty picture, it painted everything was okay on the outside. It said that I got it all together and God's taking care of me. Yet I was never willing to do the work.

And that's not that's that's that for me is not the um the road. You can't take that road, and I took that road for so long. Um, my father, being the workaholic that he was, tried to teach me, tried, said things that I'll never forget. I'd always be that little girl, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

And yes, finally I get his attention and he'd say, Yes, darling, and I'd blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, complaining about something. And he'd look at me, not even hearing my complaint, not even hearing my complaint, saying, Go do something for someone else. At the time, I was appalled. I was appalled.

How does dad say that to you know his baby girl? But later on, he's exactly right. It's not about me. It's not about me at all.

It's about being of service. But he was trying to teach me these things that for somehow he knew, somehow he had a connection, somehow his higher power for the universe that he called nature, a spiritual force, had the answers. But I didn't get it. I just wanted my dad to be present.

I just wanted my dad to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. And he just wanted me to work for it. And he just wanted me to go be of service. And he just wanted me not to take up space, but to be like, you know, pretty much what he had to do.

And in every area in his life, find the answers. And I wish to this day that I actually knew what I know now and that I could have had the conversations with him to listen to those answers and to like really understand his process because it's a magical one. Um, he passed away in 2012, and I was drinking. I was drinking a lot.

Meanwhile, I just opened a business, my second business. I had two children. I was single, which means I wore all these different hats. I wore the hat of Eden the daughter, and then I put on Eden the mother, and then I put on Eden the business owner, and then I put on Eden the single woman, and then I put on Eden the friend.

Let's go get, you know, get wild. I wore all these hats, and I didn't know how to wear any single one of them. And I would continue to put them on and take them off and put them on and take them off and act appropriately on each one. When that's like sort of disassociating from self, in my eyes.

Because I didn't know how to do the job of any single one. All I knew how to do is search for a solution outside of myself. So the first time I got sober was December 5th, 2013. And I was sober for nine and a half years.

And I'm gonna bring it back closer to present day. I was sober for nine and a half years. And right around six years, I remember taking my cake and my brother Dave came. And I hadn't been, you know, not necessarily going to meetings like I did my first three, four years.

I was in the program, I was going to meetings, I was barely doing my step work. How about let's just say I was not doing the steps because you're either all in or you're all out, in my eyes. But I was giving it everything I had to show up, and I'll tell you, those meetings kept me alive. Those meetings kept me sane for as long as I was willing to show up.

And about six years I stopped doing any work. In the beginning, I sort of had all these pseudo-sponsors, and they'd start to walk me through the steps and names that like we all think we know of these women, you know, in Los Angeles. Um but I was like, oh, I can have her, and I can have her, and I can do work with her, and I can do work with her, not really doing the work, just saying I have a sponsor. SPEAKER_04 21:04 What a joke.

SPEAKER_01 21:13 Just gonna take another deep breath, and I'm gonna ask God where he wants me to go right now. Yeah, I had nine and a half years, and my best, my best thought being sober was I need a drink. I can't take this. This pain is awful.

The the the lack of feeling, the numbness, the at this point. Look, I I've got control of my eating habits. So if anything, I got control into the point where I had a diet that was planned for me. I didn't have control of men.

I continued to use them consistently to make me feel better, but I didn't know that it was a problem. Nine and a half years of sobriety, COVID hit, my businesses are gone. All the things that define me were gone. I decided to call everyone that I knew besides two of my girlfriends and tell them.

Because I did yoga, because I exercised every day, because I did have businesses, because on the outside everything looked good. When I told everybody that I was going to start drinking, everybody said, Oh my god, that's great. Now remember, I wasn't in the rooms, I wasn't going to meetings, I didn't have a sponsor. I called everybody that I knew that either were normies, maybe didn't drink that much normies, and they thought that I was making the right decision.

Well, okay. I got on an airplane and I went through uh Boston to visit family. And I got on the plane and I asked for a glass of wine. And I drank the glass of wine after telling everyone that I was going to drink.

So I had I had to get out of jail and free pass. But remember, I didn't tell two people. I knew those two people would have never, ever, ever, ever agreed. But you're only as uh sick as your secrets.

But I thought I had this. I really, really, really truly thought I had this. I did. I had it.

I'm different. I can do it. I'm gonna drink. I'm gonna be okay.

I drank. I got off the plane. Um, I don't remember. I think I ordered three glasses of wine before I passed out.

The flight was five and a half, six hours. East coast. I got there. I had a coffee.

I felt okay, didn't really think anything of it. Continued that behavior. I also mean well, when I called everyone and said that I'm going to drink, I said to myself, hey, if the behavior that showed up throughout my entire life, whether it be anything in my wheelhouse of disease, food, alcohol, men, exercise, shows up rearing its head, um, I'll stop. Um, it showed up pretty immediately.

I didn't really see it as a bad thing. I didn't see the first time I went out with some friends again, and then I had two martinis and two glasses of wine and was throwing up everywhere that that was a problem. I thought, oh, I'm just newly back at drinking. I didn't realize that the apps, dating apps, that I would begin to use men, like use them, have them come over, have intimate conversations, um not necessarily have sex with them, but use them to feel better.

And didn't give a shit what they thought, how they felt, or that I could possibly hurt them. I didn't realize that coming home already slightly intoxicated with a bottle of wine and a couple friends, that getting high with my daughter would be a positive thing, and that she would have to put me to bed. I didn't realize that waking up some mornings, throwing up, having my daughter come take care of me was a problem. I had said to myself that when this behavior comes back, that I was gonna stop, and I didn't even see it was a problem.

So it clearly it's a problem. And I started feeling more numb and more alone and more afraid, and I had no idea why. I was already in pain. I decided to start drinking again.

I'm in more pain now, and I have no idea why. I'm lonely, and yet I have friends around me. Everything just got out of control for me. Things that happened in the 10 months that I went out, and by the grace of God, I stayed sober for nine and a half years, and only being in the program, working the program and only a few sides of it for the first six.

How I stayed sober for four and a half years on my own will. And I went out, and for 10 months, it all came crashing down. It all came crashing down, and I remember saying to my son one day, like, I don't even know why I'm here anymore. I don't know why I'm here, I'm just numb.

I said that to my child. Like it wouldn't make a difference if I was here or not. What? All I did in this life was recreate what I saw as a child.

My parents, workaholic alcoholic. They got divorced when I was a child. I got married, I got divorced, I drank myself into oblivion. I didn't feel in the first place.

And here I thought that alcohol was going to give me these feelings, and yet it just made everything that much more um just meaningless. Everything was meaningless. I want to get into into what really matters. And what really matters for me is that on April 9th, 2023, I woke up in Las Vegas.

Now that you can imagine what stays in Vegas, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I don't know what happened. Both nights I blacked out. Thank God for the gentleman that I was dating at the time, um, that I got back to the room safely.

Their stories, haha, they're funny stories. They're not funny stories, they're not funny stories at all. Um was on a family trip, family being my daughter and and her boyfriend and his parents, and me and the gentleman I was dating, and I don't know how I got away with it. I was completely wasted both nights.

And for some reason, the kids weren't around. Teenagers, thank god they want to go run off and do their own thing. Both nights I peed my pants in the casino. Both nights I was like trying to push through people and like get into tables that were closed, and these are just things that we're told from those that I was with.

Not funny, not okay, and not who I want to be at the age of 49 years old. And when I woke up on April 9th, that's it. I woke up, and everything inside my body, everything inside my being, everything said, you are done. That is it.

There is no more alcohol in your life. None, none. I said, I know exactly what I have to do. Get home from Vegas, and tomorrow morning being Monday, you're gonna go to a meeting.

And sure enough, I went to my first meeting and I have not, by the grace of God, craved alcohol at all. But I will tell you, this has been the most difficult eight and a half months, probably of my life, because I'm doing the work, because I'm showing up one day at a time, because I have a sponsor that I talk to every day. I have a sponsor that he's kept me in step one. In step one, I'll be nine months sober on the 6th of January.

And I've been in I'm on step two now. Step one, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable. It's taken me eight months to go through the work. And for me, that's what I needed, and that's what I wanted, because I realized that my disease wasn't just alcohol, as we've stated.

But then I had to realize the depths of what food, what I do with my relationship with food. I've decided not to have a relationship with men in my first year of sobriety or until I get through all my steps. And at this rate, it might be more than a year because I'm taking my time, I'm going through them, I'm like fine-tuning it with a comb, because I cannot live the life that I've been living for the last 49 and a half, 50 years. I can't, I won't do it.

And AA, thank God has 12 steps that I can change and live my life, a better life. And and the fact that I can know that I'm powerless, the fact that I can know that I'm powerless over people, places, and things, then I can accept that, that I can surrender to it. When you really do step one, it was like I felt like I was being born again. I felt like I was coming out of the birth canal that I never ever ever put, you know, in my mind the experience of what it was like, what it was like to be birthed, right?

We think of giving birth as a mother, but I never go back and think of the experience of what it was like for me to be born 50 years ago. Let me tell you, the last eight months has felt like a rebirth. And it's painful, it's painful. And just on the other side of that pain is hope.

There's so much hope because through the acceptance, through the willingness, through the powerlessness, I found this hope. And this all happened with my sponsor and take going through the steps. And step two, we came to believe the power that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And with that hope and and and developing this relationship with a power greater than myself, I can be restored to sanity.

I don't have to use food. I don't have to use exercise. I don't have to use men, I don't have to use money. I get to one day at a time wake up, stay in step one.

I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol, over food, over men, over money, over exercise. I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I came to believe, meaning that there's a process there. A surrender, the hope, something greater than myself, can restore me to sanity and begin to create this life that I want to live, that I choose to live.

It's not my will, it's God's will. And so every day today, I wake up, and my head, let me tell you, in the last eight months, eight and a half months, I the chatter, the back and forth, wheel wasn't until I started step two that this started to ah, quiet, quiet. But I had to realize that I was so powerless and that I had to accept this, and that something else outside of me can restore me to sanity, and that if I ask, that the answers will come. So I ask in prayer and I listen in meditation, and I do this every morning.

I wake up. The first thing I do is talk to God and I ask and I pray. And I don't only pray for myself, I pray for my children, I pray for the ones I love, I pray for AA, I pray for NA. I pray for my dogs, I pray for the people in the world that are suffering in and out of the rooms.

I pray for the people in the world that are suffering with all that's going on. I pray, I pray for everything. And after that, I get in the big book and I do page 86 on awakening. And after that, I write my gratitude list.

Pen to paper, I write my gratitude list every day, one day at a time. And after that, I do just for today. And my sponsor taught me and is teaching me that just for today, Eden, we will do these things. And my list is funny at times.

I go through and every day I sort of write down my morning routine. And the first thing on that list is God. SPEAKER_02 35:17 The first thing when I open my eyes is talking to God because one day at a time the conversations get greater. The chatter, the negative, the disease in my head gets smaller.

That disease will never, ever, ever, ever go away, ever go away. SPEAKER_01 35:35 But my connection, my asking, my prayer, my willing, my acceptance, my surrender, my being of service, my honesty, one day at a time is where I live, is where I stay. I live in the recovery of AA one day at a time. And one day at a time, I get to restore myself to sanity.

I get to see what that sanity looked like that I never really understood. I'll give you an example. Today, my brother had sent me a text and it was beautiful. And he said, Hey, after Thanksgiving, you know, I felt some tension, but I feel that that's sort of going away.

I said, Hey, I love you. And you're right. And one day at a time I'm learning, and one day at a time I'm doing the steps, and one day at a time we're building back the relationship through trust, through honesty, through the principles. That my worldview, that my idea of love was completely different.

My idea of love was in food, my idea of love was in alcohol, my idea of love was in men, money, and exercise, not in the relationships that I'm building today. And I'm learning how to have relationships through the relationship that I have with my sponsors and other members, my sponsor and other members in AA. So really truly, for me right now, today, is acceptance, willingness, and coming to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. And at nighttime, I take my inventory and I watch what comes up and I make necessary adjustments.

Just the other night. My brother David, who I spoke a lot about, my adopted brother overdosed September 14th of this year. Um I stayed sober. I might have had a couple nights of overeating, but I've stayed sober.

I will not pick up alcohol. Again, I'm still working on food, and that's one day at a time. As is alcohol, as is man, as is exercise, as is money, all of them. But if I will not pick up alcohol today, and losing my brother, and losing another sibling to addiction.

We got his toxicology report back, and the first thing on it was fentanyl, and the second was methamphetamine, and the third was cocaine, and the fourth was alcohol. This disease wants us dead, and it's gonna do everything in its power to succeed, and that's not happening today, for me at least. In losing two siblings, by the grace of God, I will still stay sober one day at a time, and I will continue to recover out loud, and I will continue to be of service in honor of my siblings that have passed, and everyone else who struggles with addiction. And I will do that one day at a time in AA using the 12 steps and my sponsor.

And I'm so grateful for the fellowship in AA. That keeps me sober one day at a time. It won't let me isolate. I'm so grateful every day, the things that I'm learning to live the life I have today, the freedom that I have in my heart, the freedom that I have in my mind to know that I don't have to go in the kitchen and eat myself.

And don't let me say that I haven't. Because I have. But instead of being seven days a week, maybe it's one, two, three times a month. Now that's that's big.

That's big. Drinking's not an option. Money is one day at a time. It doesn't have to be an option.

I don't have to use men to feel better. Ever. And in working the 12 steps and in learning how to have these relationships, I will never, ever, ever, ever have to use a man again. I can have a loving, kind relationship.

God, grant me the serenity, accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. I am so grateful for being able to have some experience, strength, and hope to share with anybody who needs that. Today I'm sober, I will stay sober by the grace of God. Today my relationship with my higher power is stronger than any relationship I have in my life.

And I'm never alone. Even when I try to isolate, I am never alone because God is in my heart. I'm willing, I'm powerless over people, places, and things. I'm in acceptance of what is.

I've surrendered. And I will continue to be of service. SPEAKER_03 41:49 Thank you. Thank you, Eden.

Your vulnerability is much appreciated. Thank you. I really enjoyed your presentation because it came with such a deep, true passion. And going out there, you said you were out there for 10 months with a head full of AA.

Was it terrible? SPEAKER_01 42:18 Not till the end. I sort of thought I was like, oh, this is fun. Oh, who can I call?

Oh, maybe where are we gonna go and drink water? You know, not till the end. I thought like I just tried to manage it. What I know today, yeah, it was awful.

It was brutal. I was just dying inside. I was becoming just this empty shell of a human being. SPEAKER_03 42:41 In the book, the what is it, cunning, baffling?

Cunning, baffling, powerful. Okay, there we go. When you were speaking about your daughter and just your behavior, you don't see it as a problem. You can look back now and see it as a problem, but that's to me that reminded me of the instant of this disease that is so tricky and it's right in our face, and we know what our values are and we know what our standards are as a parent.

And yet it's letting us do these other things and completely blinding us from the basic reality right in front of us. Is that how it feels when you look back and you're like, how did how did that seem normal? How did that feel okay? SPEAKER_01 43:29 Well, I've said to her, you know, um, because my she smokes marijuana.

I said, you know, I want you to tell me the truth always. You know, your aunt and now your uncle. Um, I want the truth. There's nothing I can do or say that's gonna change what you choose to do.

I can only lead by example. And I don't know how I fell back into not leading by example because you know, from the age of uh at least for this, I think she was four until eight. 18 months ago, um, I got to stay completely sober from alcohol. But that still didn't mean that I was in recovery and that my behavior was different.

Um, and drinking in front of her and the choices that I made, she sort of was at an age that she was rolling her eyes and like, oh, this is kind of cool, but like, mom's what's going on with mom, and oh, I feel bad for her. I'm gonna go take care of her. No, it's completely fucking insane. Completely fucking insane.

I'm so glad that it it it just lasted for that little amount of time because I watched mom drink until I was 15. Night after night, day after day. I knew if I got home from school and she had already started that this was gonna be a long night. I managed to keep my kids, you know, from the ages three and four because they're 15 months apart until their teenage years out of that.

Thank you, God. Um, but still, you know, my son didn't get to see much of it, maybe just a couple nights and days that were fun, uh-huh, so-called fun in Italy. That's some insanity jumping off boats and into the water and things that that I guess we think are fun, but they're completely um dangerous to everybody. So uh he didn't get to see much, but yeah, my daughter did.

And you know what? By the grace of God, I'm back, and by the grace of God, she got to see that because maybe, just maybe, just maybe somewhere in the corner of her mind, she can see the truth. SPEAKER_03 45:27 I say, like, no matter well, I don't say I heard somebody say in the rooms a long time ago, no matter how old someone is, they don't want a drunk parent. No.

SPEAKER_01 45:38 Well, like one of the most painful fucking things ever, the fact that like I was that too. You know, my son was like, I remember he was he was really young, and I came home from a birthday party. First of all, I was driving drunk. I got home.

Um, for some reason, I took my son out of my ex-husband's room and I put him in bed with me. I don't, I don't know where the the sanity was, it obviously was not anywhere. And it was like a day bed, and I woke up in the morning and he was on the floor. Like I'll never ever forget that.

At some point from midnight on, I put him on the end of the bed, the day bed with me. And by the morning, he was on the floor. He I mean, I I don't know, that's just fucking insane to me. unknown 46:18 Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:18 You had mentioned the laughter, and you're like, these things are not funny. And we do laugh at them in the rooms. There's a lot of laughter in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when it comes to our children, those are the ones that probably don't cross any sort of laughter line.

Like, you know, we are we have mom guilt no matter what, and probably father guilt too, no matter what we do. But then you add alcohol. Alcohol? SPEAKER_01 46:46 Oh god.

It's painful. It's painful. But I'll tell you the relationships we get to build now, right? In recovery.

SPEAKER_03 46:55 You mentioned that quite a bit. And one thing that I didn't notice in your story, and you don't have to go there if you don't want to, no pressure. You mentioned your mom was in recovery too. Is she still living and is she still in recovery?

SPEAKER_01 47:06 Yeah, mom is alive. Uh, she's gonna be 70. God, I think I always say she's 76, but I think she's 78. And um she is sober.

She she was sober for 15 years or 17 years, and then my sister overdosed, and she actually went out the night that my sister overdosed. My mom came back to that house and she was two sheets to the wind. I was like, what the fuck just happened? My sister's dead and my mom is drunk.

Like, whoa. And my mom continued to drink for the next um multiple while. And then the first time go around in 2013 when I got sober, I think it was within my first year of sobriety. She's like, Hey, are you still going to meetings?

I'm like, I sure am. And she's like, Well, I think I'm gonna go with you. And she stayed sober ever since. SPEAKER_03 47:47 I love that.

SPEAKER_01 47:48 Yeah, and she, you know, she's at the age where she doesn't necessarily go to meetings, she does have a sponsor, they talk all the time. Um, it's not for me to work her program, and and maybe I could be a better um suggestion maker when it comes to my mom. SPEAKER_03 48:04 Um that was a really good dance around the traditions there. SPEAKER_01 48:08 You like that?

You like that? Thank you. Um, because I allow sometimes when, you know, having just lost my brother, the people that were involved, um, I I tend to not work the principles as much. And I see her doing the same thing, and and I it should make better suggestions.

But uh, she's great. We learn a lot together. SPEAKER_03 48:28 That's awesome. SPEAKER_01 48:29 Yeah, it's really flesh.

I think it I inspire her because I do work my program daily. I live in recovery and I'm learning. I didn't do the steps in the book, and and I'm learning, and every day I want to learn more. Um, so she kind of thinks like, wow, haven't you had enough or aren't you okay by now?

I'm like, no, mom. I'm going out till the end with this, or at least for today. SPEAKER_03 48:53 Well, I'm thinking, aren't you exhausted? SPEAKER_01 48:56 Um, that's funny because I said one day, I was like, mom, okay, so when everything calms down, all this, this, and this and this, I go, oh shit, it's never gonna calm down.

It's never gonna change. Um, no, I actually like my my um the spirit of God and my relationship with you know it's Jesus, it's not about religion. It's not, you know, for me at all in the slightest. But that power greater than myself keeps me keeps me going, keeps me going to where when I don't have energy, I find it through God.

But then I also find the ability to rest. And I find the ability to say no, and I find the ability to pause. And when I don't, I call my sponsor and I'm like, oh shit, I just did this. And he starts laughing at me and we go through it.

SPEAKER_03 49:43 You mentioned a male, so a male sponsor. So yeah, I have a male sponsor. SPEAKER_01 49:48 Um, because I don't because for me, there's no rule. SPEAKER_03 49:53 There's let me just say there's no role, and I'm not judging.

I'm just I don't normally call it out. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But let's talk about it. SPEAKER_01 49:59 I love that you did.

I love that you did. I um I think the first time, the first go around, I for some reason, and you know what it could be, and I will get there my fourth step. It could be the fact that my mom's an alcoholic, recovering alcoholic, that the voice of a woman, that the energy of a woman, that the you know, it doesn't work for me. It just doesn't.

And the relationship that I don't have with men right now, as far as I have no interest. Like the the fact that like the alcohol sort of just oh, by the grace of God, it's gone. I have no obsession. The same exact thing happened with men, which I'll tell you it's a fucking miracle.

No joke. So the fact that I have a sponsor who's a man who, oddly enough, I've um grown up with, who oddly enough, with my brother who just overdosed a very, very, very, very close friend. He came back into my life um about a month before, and we were always close, but kind of on our own. You know, again, I went out and started drinking.

Um, he came back into my life right before my brother overdosed. And I guarantee you, it's God saying, you know what, Eden, I have I know the plan, I know what's about to happen. You don't, and I'm gonna put him in your life at the most perfect time. And we um, I'm learning how to love, I'm learning how to respect, I'm learning a man who is my sponsor, wanting nothing else from him but to be loved, listened, heard, and just for me to actually say to hear that, like, hey, what the fuck are you doing?

These are the principles, you know, kind of work the 12 steps, these are the principles, these are the traditions which we're getting to, not not ahead of myself right now, and really work my understanding of what God means to me. And for that I'm forever grateful to Him. It's really powerful. SPEAKER_03 51:49 Is there anything that you left out or that you're thinking of now that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01 51:54 Oh my god, I'm sure there's there's so much stuff I left out. There's so much stuff I left out, but really I have to I have to reiterate step one and step two for me. Like if I didn't go through step one and I hear it all the time, and and again, there are no rules, and again, I'm not one to judge or say how to wonder program. But my step one, having been in it for eight months, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Any other way. And I even said last week, as now we're going through, you know, so so on that note, I do work the um steps right now in NA because the workbook and the and the way that it's laid out, you know, there's 70 questions per step. So then I meet with my sponsor pretty much each time we go through the step, six to eight hours per session. So you can imagine what that looks like.

And I just said to him last week as we're going through the second part of step two in like six to eight hour sessions. Um, hey, can we go back over step one? And he starts laughing. And he's like, What is wrong with you?

I go, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Can we just go back over step one? Because, right, for me to be of service to another addict alcoholic is for me to be completely willing and powerless. And that's what I find in step one.

And if I don't work step one to the best of my ability, I don't have this. I don't have it. I just don't have it. And and and waking up, and I'm getting better at what I do before I go to bed, but waking up and taking that, it takes me an hour, takes me an hour minimum to set up my day.

And it is not a joke. Like I spent so much time on alcohol, food, and men, and exercise that if I can't do that with God and meditation, then there's something wrong with my with my program. So those those couple things um mean the world to me. SPEAKER_03 53:44 I love that you said that, Eden.

I love that you point my sponsor today. I call her every Sunday and she's telling me, Well, I know you're really busy, but if you have time, and I said, you know, I always have time. If it's important enough to me, right, I will make the time. And I think that's pretty consistent with anybody in the rooms because we made enough time to hide, not all of us, but those of us that were hiding and sneaking and making up stories and conniving, and I gotta go home first, and I gotta go to this place because I can get the we that I have time.

Yes. What would you like me to do, sponsor? I will do it. SPEAKER_01 54:18 I have time exactly.

I surrender, I'm an acceptance. You tell me, I'll do it. That's right. Right.

Period. And there lies so much freedom in that, obviously. Well, maybe not, obviously. Uh, for me, there lies so much freedom in that.

And we do have the time. We just do. SPEAKER_03 54:34 If the outcome is important enough to us, we will find the time. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:39 And I refuse to live like I used to live. And so the life that I'm creating one day at a time, I have the time for it. How bad do you want it? SPEAKER_03 54:50 How bad do you want happy, joyous, and free?

SPEAKER_01 54:54 Yes, I want it so bad. That's good. That's good stuff. And I want to pay it forward and I want to be of service, right?

We uh every day, every day it's another one who bites the dust. Every fucking day, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's just like, okay, okay. If I can do one thing to have to in the slightest, whether it's you and I talking right now, which it is, right?

Whatever I can do, I'm gonna do it. SPEAKER_03 55:25 I am so sorry for your loss for your sister and for David just not that long ago. That is devastating. SPEAKER_01 55:35 I love you, thank you.

I you know, I I really have stayed in acceptance. Uh with Kat when she passed, I didn't, my head was up my ass, I didn't even get it. With my brother, I um I'm looking at a picture of him right now. I just find peace that he's in peace.

Totally shocked at like what? Wait, what? But I have to surrender, I have to be in acceptance, and I have to be willing to work through this. Without that, I will I will just struggle through this.

So my grief process process has been really interesting and a beautiful process, and thank God I have God. And thank God I have my sponsor, and thank God I have AA in the rooms and the steps. And you right now. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 56:23 We're lucky to have you. SPEAKER_01 56:25 Thank you. I can't, but we can. SPEAKER_03 56:28 That's that's right.

Step one, girl. I got that, I got eight months of that. You are definitely thorough, is the one word that comes into mind when you were talking about your step workers. That is thorough.

Thorough? Yeah, you know, being the word doing your steps thoroughly. SPEAKER_01 56:44 Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 56:45 You know that word that I can never spell with all the O's and the R's and you're like, what order is this going? SPEAKER_01 56:50 I love you. So wait, I I do my gratitude list every morning and I'm dyslexic. So sometimes I the the letters get changed around and I share it because I recover out loud because I think that these this is important for that one person who's listening, right?

Who's watching. And so thank you. And so somebody said, or not take me, you know what I mean. Amen.

Um somebody said, Hey, gratitude is spelt, or grateful is spelt. And I was like, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm dyslexic. Like, who fucking cares? The work is being done.

Um, Thorough is, yeah, because my brain fucking doesn't get it. And me just saying, you know, yeah, I'm willing. Or yeah, I, you know, is not enough for me. I have to do the work.

I have to do the work because that unsigned contract that I told you about when I was a kid that I had with God that existed my entire life. SPEAKER_03 57:43 Yeah, when I'm ready, I'll get their bullshit that you told us about. Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER_01 57:47 Well, it happened until just eight months ago that I realized, oh shit, oh my God, this is what I'm doing.

I have to do the work to get the life that I want. Oh my god. And if I only knew then what I know now, slowly, one day at a time. What?

Yeah. So um doing it thoroughly is um an understatement, especially for someone like me, because somehow, somewhere along the road, someone said, No, I got you, I'll take care of it. No, that's not how it works. SPEAKER_03 58:25 Thank you so much.

I have one final question for you. I do want to say that I'm really impressed with your ability to ignore your dog because you're just like a mom with a with a toddler, and you're just like, it's she's fine. Yeah, I know that feeling. SPEAKER_01 58:40 Yeah, I know that feeling.

Well, you know, I've sort of given in to um what is, and so it is. And the more I fight it, the more I persist. So I choose peace. SPEAKER_03 58:52 That's very calming.

SPEAKER_01 58:54 Thank you for noticing that. Wow, thank you. SPEAKER_03 58:57 Okay, final question, final question. For the alcoholic out there still suffering, what message would you like to leave them with?

SPEAKER_01 59:05 Still suffering. When you're not alone to get to a meeting. Don't isolate. Please don't isolate, find help, get online, get on a Zoom meeting, reach out, say something, say I need help, get on social media, anything, say what you need, ask for it.

Be still enough to listen. And one day at a time, if you're willing to do the work, I promise you your life will change. SPEAKER_03 59:44 For more information, read the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcoming back.net.