vol 298. A True Advocate with Chelsie

SPEAKER_01 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_02 0:25 All right, my name is Chelsea, and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is July 26, 2022. I'm a very grateful alcoholic, and I want to put emphasis on that because there was a lot of years where I was very angry and denied being an alcoholic. But today I see that as my superpower, and I will go more into that uh later into the story.

Just a bit of a background. I was the youngest of two older sisters. So there's three kids in my family with my mom, my dad, and my two sisters. I had a third sister, but she had she unfortunately passed away at birth.

I was a surprise baby. I was born to a mother and a father who didn't have a great relationship. There was a lot of dysfunction in the household. And so a lot of times my sisters were the ones to kind of parent me.

I don't really remember a lot about my mother growing up, but my my dad was an important factor of my life. He worked at a radio station, several radio stations, and I was his tag-along. I would go to radio stations with him. He built transmitters for all the local radio stations.

And so I would help him with whatever he needed to do there. And then, you know, when I would come home, I would be mainly with my sisters. And my oldest sister is nine years older than me. My middle sister is six years older than me.

There's a lot of jealousy in the household. Um, me being the youngest, you know, my middle sister was pretty jealous and she kind of would bully me. And it was, it was a kind of an uncomfortable environment. But my oldest sister really took on like the main parenting role and um loved doing things for me.

And I was just her little, her other right hand. And so yeah, going into school, I didn't have a ton of friends. I I always felt like kind of an outcast. I never felt comfortable in my skin.

I always felt different and weird. And I just would kind of go into my shell around people. And as I got older, you know, I I isolated myself a lot and didn't talk very much, um, especially when I was at school. And um I was put into some special classes in third grade.

I got pretty low test scores. They put me in a special program. And kids in school were were not nice about it. I was with people with special needs and I was upset about it, especially as I got older because I remained in those classes all the way up until high school.

And and I I just felt really misunderstood. Like I don't feel like I'm at the level of these people. They just don't know what to do with me, so they're putting me in here, kind of situation. And so I had a lot of animosity from that day on.

I felt extremely different. I felt stupid, and there's teachers who would call me stupid. It was just silly the way that they handled that back then. But so as I got into middle school, I started hanging around with some cooler kids.

I noticed that I started talking differently, acting differently. I was really like absorbing the energy of the people around me. So I kind of became a chameleon. And while I was in middle school, I was about 11 years old, my parents decided to divorce.

That really messed me up. Um, I didn't understand it. There wasn't a lot of dialogue about it. And so when I went to school, I started acting out and not realizing that I'm very emotional and scared, and there's just a lot of fear.

The year my parents divorced is really when I recognized that alcohol was my drug of choice. I would sneak to the where the alcohol was hidden in the house and I would drink it and I would drink a lot of it, and I didn't tell anybody. The friends that I would hang out with with at school, there they were kids who also came from very dysfunctional families where there was not a lot of parental guidance or involvement. And we just kind of, you know, as I got older, the the friend group grew and we just drank together and started hanging out with older adults who we knew would buy us alcohol, provide us with, you know, cigarettes and whatever else, drugs, you name it.

I mean, we had access to it. And I lived with my mom along with my middle sister, and I started being a very strong hatred toward her, um, blaming her for everything. Um, while my oldest sister, who's nine years older than me, she was off living with my dad and, you know, doing her own thing. She really wanted to be involved in my life, but I I sort of let her in, but not all the way.

And I didn't tell her that I was, you know, drinking and and using and all the other things, hanging out with, you know, kids from the streets. And yeah, I mean, there's there's just so many nights where, you know, I'd be walking the streets with my friends and couch surfing and just doing things that I should not be doing. And I'm I it makes me sick to think about it to this day because I have a 13-year-old and thinking of her doing that would just kill me. Um, but yeah, so I just thought I was cooler than cool.

And my friends gave me a lot of strength and I felt like I belonged for the first time in my life. And, you know, as I got older in the high school, I'm skating by the skin of my teeth. I'm I'm getting terrible grades, I'm flunking classes. I don't think I'm gonna graduate as the years go on when I'm in high school.

The partying's huge, drinking a lot, using a lot every weekend was like what we look forward to. You know, what party spot are we gonna go to? And the drinking leached into the weekdays, smoking weed on the weekdays, using various drugs with my friends on the weekdays. And by 16, the summer of going into my junior year, I I recognized my sister, my oldest sister, was like, Hey, you're you're not gonna graduate, you know, you're gonna flunk out.

You need to really put your pedal in the metal and focus on your school. And so she helped me get with my counselor, and I ended up shockingly passing all my classes. I did summer summer classes and things like that, and my grades went up, and I graduated high school. And I was like, holy crap, I got away with that all while drinking, using, partying with my friends, you know.

It it was just like um, it was uh I was really excited by that that you know, I can do all these things and I could still, I can still, I can still do well. And so out of high school, I jump into my career pretty early on, and I start working in the mobile industry, and alcohol is very present in that environment, you know, in sales. There's a lot of schmoozing with people to get them to buy from you and things like that. And so I I didn't stop drinking, I continued to drink, and my drinking got excessive.

It went to another level. Yeah, and it was just a new level of party life for me. I started going to clubs a lot with my coworkers, and you know, drinking became this um thing that I could do and then go home at night, go to sleep, and wake up the next morning and do it again. It was just, it just became this like constant racket of just terrible behavior.

And and honestly, I didn't see any consequences for my drinking or using until later in my life, and so I had no reason to stop. Eventually I got together and married my my friend from high school, and um my life drastically changed at that point. I wanted to be more present, I wanted to do well, I I wanted to kind of get away from that lifestyle. But my partner and I, we we got to drinking it and and using you know various opiates and things like that together.

And he started noticing that I was becoming very angry and volatile, and I was taking aggressions out on him when I was in blackouts, and and it started becoming a problem, my aggression with alcohol, especially with alcohol. And it used to, I mean, it almost drove us to divorce several times. I ended up getting a promotion at work, and while on a work trip, I had a bad feeling that something was gonna happen. There was a lot of drinking involved in this work trip.

You know, we were all celebrating getting our promotion, and I was I was sexually assaulted on that, I was roofied and sexually assaulted on that trip. And um, and I felt so disgusted with myself, I blamed myself. I didn't tell anybody, I was terrified. I wanted to pretend that it didn't happen, and I wanted to just make it go away.

And so I started drinking in private and um so I leave that work trip still pretending that nothing happened, and I didn't tell anybody. I found out I was pregnant about a month later, and um my ex-husband and I had been working on, you know, having a child for a long time and had had been unsuccessful. So when I got pregnant, I just told myself it was my husband's and um you know, all the way made, you know, made it to term and had my child, and and I ended up telling him about three days after I had my daughter. And um a relationship was so incredibly broken at that point, and we wanted to make it work, and you know, he he wanted to be a part of my daughter's life, and he was such a great father to her, and he's just like, I don't care if you know she's you know not biologically my, I don't care.

I still want to be her father. It doesn't matter, you know, what the what the circumstances are. And so he was, you know, we kind of went along like you know, nothing happened, but it was this constant like we need to get a paternity test, da da da. And and we did the paternity test and it came back that it wasn't that my daughter wasn't his his child.

And it was just drama and the household, you know, it was just a mess. And so, yeah, the drinking in private, you know, I would just go off somewhere and grab a bunch of you know, Chardonnay and just drink it just to like numb my feelings, my thoughts, my inner dialogue. And in 2017, I got a DUI, and I do want to mention I got a DUI also in 2011, right after the sexual assault happened. I completely spaced that part, but I did get a DUI in 2011, did diversion, and then fast forward to 2017, right when we're going through the divorce, I get another DUI.

And my daughter was in the back of the car when that happened, and I got arrested. And my ex, well, soon-to-be ex had to come get my daughter and I went to jail. And I was terrified. We had been at we were selling our house um due to deciding to get a divorce.

My license was suspended at that point. Um, I lost my job, everything that I thought was important to me. I mean, things that were important to me as well, but I I lost everything because I chose alcohol over everything, you know. And so 30 days later, I'm moving out of my house.

We had sold our house, moving into an apartment, and I had movers over moving all of my furniture over and I'm go get them pizza. And I'm drunk. I've been drinking and driving, and on my way back, I hit somebody at like 45 miles per hour at a stoplight. And I got out of the car and ran to a dumpster and hid the wine that I was drinking.

Cops come and I get arrested again. I lied to them. I just, I like it's just it's crazy. It's I'm laughing because it's just, it's it was just a sad situation.

I was in such denial and I told the cops I wasn't drinking, and I clearly was. So I got arrested. I lost my license. I lost custody of my daughter.

I um I blew my life up. I I lost my new job that I had gotten, and I did have to serve time in jail and um was on house arrest after I got out of jail and continued to drink while I was in house arrest. I I I planned out my times, my drinking times. My life was just a disaster.

Like I'm planning my drinking times around when visitation comes for my daughter. I'm still lying to people and hiding my I'm hiding like everything is a lie in my life. And I have, you know, CPS people coming over to make sure my house is a safe environment. And I I didn't see it really anything wrong with my behavior.

I was so completely delusional. And I blamed my drinking for my my entire life situation. Like, well, you drink too if you had a life that I had. It was just this silly story that I continued to tell.

And so I did, I did first experience the rooms of AA. I started going into the rooms of AA in 2017, and because I had to, because I was court-ordered, court mandated for me to go to meetings. And I just told the people what they wanted to hear and and left. You know, and and I didn't bring this up before, but I had I had been written rehab before, and I only spent a week there and again told people what they wanted to hear.

And fast forward to my 2017-2018, I go to another rehab because I I can't I can't control my drinking. It was, it was, you know, I had a family intervention. They're like, You, your, your life is out of control, you need help. And so I went to another rehab and um went to Betty Ford, spent about two weeks there, told them what they wanted to hear, was more focused on attention from boys and men in that environment than getting my daughter back and being a good mother and being a good person, a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister.

I didn't care about that. So, yeah, while in in Betty Ford, I I didn't I didn't make good choices. I um I and nor did I recognize or acknowledge that I was an alcoholic. And um when I left Betty Ford, I went back to my apartment and was put on, I guess, at house arrest, and that's when the house arrest started.

And so it was 60 days of house arrest and drinking on my house arrest. And I I managed to graduate college, like in between all that, I was going to college and I managed to graduate, which is shocking, and I did pretty well. So then in 2019, I finally gained custody back of my daughter, and I had a partner who I'm still with today. We ended up buying a house, and then COVID hit.

And COVID is really what did mean with regard to my my drinking career. Um, I started drinking all day, every day. Um, my daughter was scared of me. I like I said, I just drank exactly the way I wanted to.

Nobody smelled me. I didn't have to hide it. You know, fast forward to 2022, I had gotten a new job and I was in training and I was blacking out, falling asleep during my training. And I don't remember about a month.

Like my my I still have my job, and a month went by, and then I wake up to my oldest sister standing over me and she's like, You need help. And I told her to get out and leave, and she came back again and she's like, I'm taking you to my house. We're gonna get you, we're gonna get you sober, and we're gonna we're gonna get you help. So I was taken to my sister's house, and I did detox with her for about four days and wasn't doing well at all.

And my sister's panicking. Um, she's having to essentially carry me around the house because I can't walk. I had lost full mobility. Um, I was going to the bathroom myself.

I was falling and crashing into things. I had a bruise all the way at my side. My entire side of my leg was black. I had knots on my head and just I was a complete and total wreck.

I hadn't showered in over a month, and it was just, it was a nightmare. So my sister contacted a close family friend and it was like, My sister's dying. I had been to the hospital, and they're like, You're, you are in terrible shape. If you don't stop drinking now, you're gonna die.

And so my sister's terrified. And she contacts a family friend, and the family friend's like, we can get her into a rehab, but she needs to go to detox first. So I spent about seven, eight days in Hooper, which is in Portland. And my sister and another close family friend had to carry me to the car because I couldn't walk and carry me and hold me up in line at Hooper.

And I was the first choice because I was the worst off in the line. And there's there was hundreds of people standing outside hoping to get in there. And it's just it's it's telling that they were like, She needs to get into a bed first. So I went to Hooper, spent a week there, thought I was going home.

Sister picked me up, and she's like, You're not going home. Um, we're taking you somewhere and you get to choose if you want to stay or not. So she took me to a rehab. It was a 12-step immersion program.

And it was in Beaverton and did a tour. I had gained a little bit of my mobility back, but I was still very, very wobbly and weak. I was given a tour of this beautiful place, and I I just remember seeing all these people who were residents in the rehab, and like I was so scared and I was so hurt. And I, in my life, I had never really felt surrender ever in my life until that very moment.

I saw people that were like me for for like the first time I really saw them, and I really recognized what situation that I was dealing with. I'm like, I'm gonna die an alcoholic and an active addiction if I don't do this. And so I surrendered and I and I stayed. And I met my new family there.

I went through all my step work there. You know, I admitted I was powerless over alcohol and that my life has become unmanageable. And I mean, we were doing AA from like sunup to sundown. It was you wake up in the morning and you meditate and pray, and then you, you know, it's just this very structured, kind of militant environment.

And I was full-blown put in the middle of AA in a way that I never, I never wanted to do in the past. And and I hated it at first. I'll be honest with you. I just was like plotting getting out of there and leaving, but I stayed.

And um, I started to love it, and I started to to to um have fun. And I recognized when I was there that I never really knew what love was. I never knew what true happiness was, and that my entire life, I was just doing I every relationship I had was transactional in some way. And um and so I I I went through my my step one and and all the way through step nine.

And I think the most powerful experience I had in that house when I actually had my first real spiritual experience was was step three. Became willing to give my my will and my life over to the cares of God as I understood him. We sat on that step for a long time because I refused to do it for several days. And then one day, I don't even know if it was a white light experience, but I I I felt God.

I felt something bigger than me guiding me. And I felt that that entity, that power. I realized that that was always there. And I had just been, it's like I had been blocking the connection consistently throughout my life.

And I got on my knees and I and I be I I gave my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood God to be. And I could look at myself in the mirror and I saw, I saw me, and I and I felt love for like the first time in my life. And that love grew exponentially. And step three um made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood him.

I finally became willing to do that because I felt it. And I recognized at that moment that, you know, God has had really always been there. And and I don't usually identify my higher power as God, but I I say it just because it's you know, good orderly direction. I it's of my understanding.

I believe that my higher power universe God is everything. It's all around me. And I just felt really full and I felt uplifted and I was excited to do my steps, you know, the rest of my steps. I I started remembering things.

I I moved on to step four and I I was you know going through my moral inventory and I was just shocked at um I was just shocked at some of the things that I was writing down on my fourth step. And when I went on to step five and I was doing this with somebody else, you know, admitting these resentments to my counselor at the time, it was it was shocking to me to have somebody completely and understand where I was coming from. And it's crazy because I was teamed up with a person in that rehab who had such a similar life story, and she was yeah, it was just it makes me really emotional because it was a really powerful moment to go through that with her and to have her completely and totally understand where I'm coming from. My whole life I had felt weird and like nobody understood me, and that I was so ashamed of the things that I had done in my life, and to have that person just be like, No, you know, I I I see you.

Like I have I've been through these same things, and I just felt heard, I felt seen. It was just a really powerful moment for me to go through my fourth and fifth. Step and identify my character defects, things that I never recognized were a problem in my life, like attention seeking, and I had this huge lift list of defects. Um, you know, peer pressure, you know, leaning into peer pressure and self-hatred and judgment, doing other people's inventory, control, like all these things.

I'm like, holy crap, like this is yeah, this is kind of me. Like this is who I was for so many years, and I wanted to give those over and hand those over to my higher power. Like, please rid me of these things. And if they come up in the future, I I hope I continue to identify these things that I'm doing and and just let them go and not hold on to them my whole life.

So yeah, I I went into step seven and you know, or sorry, step six, and I I handed all of my character defects away to my higher power, and it was just this like beautiful moment of just like I felt such a pressure lift off of me. Then I got to make my list of people that I need to, that I but I needed to make amends with. And one of those people were my ex-husband and my daughter and my sister, my oldest sister, and and I wrote my amends out. And I went to meet with my family and and my and my daughter's my daughter's stepmom because she had been a really uh powerful force in my daughter's life.

You know, she showed up when I did it for so many years, and I was so angry with her for so long until that, until being in that rehab, I I saw her and the strength that she had to help raise my daughter when I couldn't. You know, I I apologized and you know, not really apologize, but I I took accountability for my actions with my ex-husband and with my my sister and for with other people as well. And since that moment, I've I've I've been able to have a really beautiful co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband and my my my daughter's stepmom. It's just it was really empowering to acknowledge where I've come short and how I've showed up in these people's lives and just to own it.

You know, I've never owned my or taken accountability for anything up until that point. And I'm just I'm forever grateful. I uh I graduated from that rehab and I continued to come back to the rehab and volunteer, do volunteer work. I immediately took a service position where I secretary the meeting at that rehab for two years.

I continued that process for two years. I did whatever I was told. I got a sponsor. I I didn't say no to service positions whatsoever or um speaker, speaker uh meetings or anything like that.

And um that is really important because those experiences help me stay sober as well. The things that I had lost, the material things that I had lost during my act of addiction, I've been able to gain those things back. I've become an honest human being. I can look at myself in the mirror with love, um, with gratitude.

And I'm able to look around and be around other people and and and recognize when those character defects are coming up and I'm starting to judge somebody or I'm trying to control and be the conductor in the environment. You know, I just I can recognize my shortcomings immediately. And, you know, this, you know, AA and um being in the program and um working a program is is it's not all, you know, like puppies and rainbows, you know, there's dark times. Like there's been some things that I've experienced, you know, in in recovery that, you know, have been difficult.

But the difference is is that these difficult things, I'm willing to take them on. I'm not, I'm no longer willing to um avoid situations that used to baffle me and just go to a 7-Eleven and drink over it. I I don't have that, like the mental obsession to drink over things that aren't going my way. It it was gone, you know, almost immediately.

I'd say maybe about three or four months after being sober. And I'm not looking for a way to hide anymore or, you know, just hate people. I I actively want to be a good human being and and do kind things for other people and just lead with love, you know, more or less. And um, you know, I've been able to get my driving privileges back.

I did not drive for six years. I didn't have a license, and I was able to get my license back and um buy a car. And uh I was able to get up to date on all my my my payments that I had missed. You know, I just I've been able to develop an amazing relationship with my 13-year-old daughter.

I've been able to get really honest with her. I'm essentially growing up with my daughter, which is kind of a crazy thing to say, but like she knows everything that's happened. She understands addiction in a way that is so important, especially for her age, so that she doesn't have to make the same mistakes I made. I show up for people, you know, I show up for my family.

I don't expect anything in return. I I just I lead with love in my life. You know, I bring the 12 steps into my job. I'm still in mobile, but you know, I work in a more corporate environment that that's not really sales related.

At work, I I don't have transactional relationships with people at work, and I do everything in my power to be kind and loving and um and just look at things from a different scope. You know, if if I encounter challenges, I don't run away from them. I I face them head on. I just I want to be the best version of myself that I can be.

Um, there's a lot of people that I've impacted at my at my job by admitting that I am an active recovery. And um, it's just it's something that that I'm forever grateful for. I've met a lot of people in my work environment who are in AA and that we're able to share this like beautiful thing with each other. And outside of work, I I attend, you know, several meetings.

I started a uh AA book study with some of my some of the people at my rehab. I go to several meetings. I I actually have a position at a re another rehab where I've um I run an AA meeting there. Yeah, it's just is life is is very beautiful.

Like there's a lot of hard things going on in in the world right now, and I can either look at that and just let it bring me down, or I can do something for another alcoholic, or treat somebody with love and respect rather than focusing on the negative. And I'm just forever grateful, honestly. SPEAKER_01 28:36 And um yeah, I think that that's all that I have. Thank you, Chelsea.

Yeah, okay. I love your delicate delivery, easy to listen to. SPEAKER_02 28:56 I'm I've been overthinking this whole thing and like, oh god, am I saying that right? Oh, do I sound stupid?

Like, am I stuttering? SPEAKER_01 29:03 Yeah. That's because we care so much. You know, we do.

Alcoholics are kind of amazing when we look at your that piece of your life where your license was suspended, you lost your job, you divorced, you're selling your house, you got another DUI. In the midst of all this, you also were going to college and graduated. So the shit that we do is, I mean, I think overachievers is a safe word for most of us. Yeah, absolutely.

Yes. SPEAKER_02 29:37 And we just prove to everybody I'm worth it, prove to everybody I can do it. You know, it's like it's it's funny. SPEAKER_01 29:47 You have all of that capability that you had when you were in the midst of all of that nightmare.

But today you talked about leading with love and just you want to actively be a good person. And I can hear your desire for that. And you mentioned a little bit about how you show up today leading with love. Can you share a story um or an example of when you showed up leading with love instead of how you used to show up?

SPEAKER_02 30:24 I can. I have one from pretty recently, actually. So there was, I think it was a couple weeks ago, I chaired a meeting and there was a girl that I noticed, and my first thought of this girl was she's mead mugging me. Like, what's up with this girl?

Like, you know what I mean? Like my first thought is like, what's this girl's deal? Jeez, like what could be, you know. What did I do to her?

You know? And so I called on her, you know, and I I called on her because my first thought was like, She's got an issue, bring her up here, let's show, let's put her in her place. Like, that's my disease talking, you know what I mean? That's my disease driving the car.

And she and I, and after that, I'm like, no, she's exactly like I was. She's desperate, she's scared, she is afraid for everything right now. And I remember what that feels like, like it was yesterday. And she came up to the to the podium and she just started bawling.

At first, she was real irritated and she's like, Thanks a lot for calling on me. This is not what I want to do. But, you know, and then she just put her guard down. She's like, I'm really struggling.

I I I'm navigating in a world that I don't understand, and I'm about to lose my kid, and I'm about to lose my house, and all these things. And I'm like, I I believe that that God or higher power universe led me to call on her to bring her up because there are so many other people probably in that room who know exactly what she's feeling. And I saw her and I felt her and I I wanted people to hear her. And after the meeting, I went up to her and I just hugged her.

I'm like, Can I hug you? And she's like, Yes. I'm like, I I totally understand where you're coming from. I am right here if you ever need to call me.

You know, I appreciate you. I don't know if somebody's told you this today, but you're worthy. You are worthy of a sober life. Um, I have a very similar story.

I'm happy to share it with you anytime, but please reach out to me anytime. And we've been in constant communication since. And, you know, I could have just turned my cheek to her and just been like, whatever, get out of here, but that's not who I am anymore. You know, like I have done, I there's moments in every day where I do people's inventory and I I judge, but I immediately catch it.

I'm like, absolutely not. Nope, because that's my disease coming in and trying to, you know, drive the car. And and I I can catch it when it's happening. So I like that.

Yeah, I believe in that situation I did lead with love. SPEAKER_01 32:47 I like that. And I and I don't know if that this is true what I'm about to say, but it it's kind of like I don't know, it could be the universe using our character defects for good. She gave you a mean mug look, and you're like, whatever, I'm calling on you.

But but then it's so I don't know if it's if that's true, but sometimes our character defects can still be for good if we are practicing these principles all our affairs, right? 100%. And you shifted to leading with love with her instead of I don't know, judging her. Yeah.

You talked about early on about uh feeling stupid. Um, that whole elementary school thing. You were in a class with perhaps special needs. I don't know what the politically correct term is for that.

Um at my kids' school, we just call it special education. So you're in the class with the with children of a different um needs, but you're also still mainstream, it sounds like how did you put that to rest in recovery? Because I would still be walking around being like, I am fundamentally stupid. Have you worked through that?

Do you does it still show up? SPEAKER_02 34:21 Yeah, it still shows up for sure. You know, it shows up, it's I mean, that's always in my head. Like if I I'm at work and I don't understand something, I have that voice of that teacher calling me stupid in the back of my mind.

And I just I have to recognize it and and just say, no, fuck off. Like that's not that's I'm not stupid. I'm I'm I'm brilliant. We are all we all are, and I can either let it like completely and totally derail me, or I can just be like, okay, let me let me look into that.

Let me let me pray about it, you know, like, hey, why are these feelings coming up? You know, like God, like what's going on here? And usually it's it's due to some insecurity. It's due, you know, obviously, or it's just that I'm feeling like a lot of times when that happens, to be brutally honest with you, it's because I haven't, I didn't start my morning off with prayer.

If I set my day up right, I wake up, hit my knees first thing in the morning, and I do I read the daily reflection, it will set my day off right. And I won't have those intrusive thoughts as much. But if I don't do that, I'm gonna have those intrusive thoughts all day long. I'm that little girl more often, that sad, lonely, afraid little girl.

If I more often, you know what I mean? Like if that makes sense. SPEAKER_01 35:35 Yeah. SPEAKER_02 35:36 So, but I just gotta recognize it and stop it.

Like, hey, that's not, that's that's no longer a narrative that I want to support, you know. And I I notice other people doing it too, you know. Like my coworker, he's also in recovery. And we're like so similar, it's crazy, and we butt heads because it's like that control aspect comes on it.

Like, no, I'm right, no, I'm right, no, I'm right, no, I'm right. Or like, and I'm like, hey, we're insecure right now. Let's talk about this. Why are we so focused on being right right now?

SPEAKER_01 36:07 Yeah, and I I apologize for listeners, but uh because they're gonna have to hear this again. But I recently named that voice. Her name is Victoria, and she tries to tell me that I am stupid and I am not worthy, and all of these awful things. And there is something about prayer and meditation and staying connected to my higher power that kind of keeps her quiet.

Yeah. For me, it's not just prayer in the morning, it's all of the things throughout the day. It's the who am I gonna listen to, Victoria or my higher power? I'm listening to something in my head all day long.

I get to curate what I accept and and what I tell to quiet. Uh I love that. Easier to do Victoria. Victoria.

I know, it's such a beautiful name. And the reason why the reason why my mother was gonna name me that, and instead she named me Tara. So that is like it's like the alter ego that never was born, but she tries to take over of my body. I I'm gonna take this up with a therapist.

Don't worry, don't worry too much. SPEAKER_02 37:21 I love it so much that you have named her. That's awesome. SPEAKER_01 37:27 Um okay.

Early on, like you opened with the the idea that you are a grateful alcoholic and that you had many years of hating that. Um, did you did you get a chance to elaborate on that? Uh, or did you have anything you wanted to say? SPEAKER_02 37:46 Oh, yeah, I'll I'll I'll elaborate on that.

I don't think that I did. But yeah, I'm I'm I I I look at my disease, our disease, as a superpower. I look at all of the experiences that I went through, you know, losing the license, losing my mobility, losing my job, the house, the car, the my daughter, the material things, whatever, especially my daughter and um and the relationship with my daughter, because that got really, really dark. She's terrified of me.

And um I I use, I look at that as a superpower. Like if I didn't go through those horrible things and I didn't completely tarnish my relationship with my kid, I would not have done what is necessary to get sober. And I I don't think I would have, I don't think I would have jumped in the middle of this thing as hard as I did. And I can share my story with other alcoholics, like the girl that I called on in the meeting.

I can connect with these women, these people, because I share a similar story to them, even if I don't share a similar story to them. I use my shortcomings and my things that I've gone through as is my superpower because it does help other people. And not always, but there's there's a lot of people that it that it can help. So I hope that is a good enough answer.

SPEAKER_01 39:05 Yeah, there's um there's just so much um pain and suffering that you went through. And um I can I can relate to it needing to be so bad before we were willing to change. Yeah. SPEAKER_02 39:30 The last thing was death, you know?

That's the that's the one last thing I could have lost, you know, is my is my life. Like the most important things. Well, and it's funny because I used to think that all these material things were important and they truly aren't as important as my family, my child. But like I I get in my car and I like put my hands in the wheel.

I'm like, I'm so grateful to have this device that can safely take me somewhere. Like, so I look at even material things differently. Like, I have a gratitude for even, you know, material things, but obviously a different gratitude for like my human family, you know? SPEAKER_01 40:08 Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:08 But like it's just such a privilege to have the right to drive a car and to be warm and to be safe and to even have a bed, a warm, comfortable bed to lay in. And like when you've almost lost all those things, or you did, like having them back feels so different. And as far as with my 13-year-old, it's like I'm like I said, I'm growing up alongside with her. And like I didn't have that relationship with my mom.

I didn't have a mom that would just be super vulnerable and open and be accountable. I didn't have that, and so I'm so grateful I could give that to her, you know. So grateful. SPEAKER_01 40:44 How about your other relationships?

You had listed at one point daughter, sister, mom, friend. I think you've you're been in a long-term relationship. Uh, I imagine every day looks very different than it did before. How are those relationships?

SPEAKER_02 41:02 Well, I'm gonna, I didn't talk a lot actually at all about my partner. Um, he is 10 months sober. He stepped into recovery back in March of 2025. And, you know, we've been together for a lot of years, and we had a pretty like it was it was a kind of a roller coaster of a relationship.

We were very codependent with each other. You know, I got sober in 2022. I didn't realize he was addicted to a drug, that it was like controlling his entire life until he finally admitted it to me when he was in the hospital like 10 months ago. And so he came home from the hospital and and kind of opened up to me.

And my first thought was, I'm so pissed. Fuck you. Why didn't you fucking tell me? And I just I I was I was freaking out, I was packing my bag, getting ready to leave.

But I was like, my sister didn't do that to me. My sister put her hands out and said, Come with me, let me help you. And my program tells me not to do that, and my higher powers telling me not to react this way. So I took his hand, I said, Get in the car, we're going to a meeting.

And I stood by his side ever since. And I've been just walking alongside of him, you know, and it's a beautiful thing to be in a relationship with a person who's also sober and in the program under understands the gravity of this thing and how powerful it is. And to then see him helping others and share his story. And he's like, Oh, my story's not that, you know, it's not that uh interesting.

I'm like, Yeah, it is. You got a lot of men who are like, holy crap, me too. Holy crap, me too, you know. So you're connecting with a lot of people.

So that's beautiful. My sister, my oldest sister, I'm super close to. We have developed a bond, like otherworldly bond. It's so cool.

You know, like I'm sometimes the voice of reason with her, which is weird because she's always been my voice of reason. And yeah, super close with my middle sister. Um, I don't speak to my mom right now. We had a, I kind of set a boundary and I'm standing firm on that boundary.

And, you know, the door's always open if she wants to rekindle a relationship, but um I just had to make that kind of draw the hard line in the sand and uh and just focus on my program. Um yeah, my dad, he lives at the coast. He's great. We're about to celebrate his 80th birthday.

SPEAKER_01 43:15 Oh my god. SPEAKER_02 43:16 Yeah, he is getting up there. Yeah, and just yeah, I got my AA family, and you know, and it's just a cool place to be. SPEAKER_01 43:28 I like it.

I like it. I appreciate you sharing um all of the adding things. Yeah, please. SPEAKER_02 43:34 So I've got my beautiful nieces and nephew as well.

I've got my niece and nephew of my oldest. So that she those are the daughter and son of my older sister, and then I have my niece and nephew of my middle sister, and they're amazing, and they had a um a very strong hand in help, you know, helping me through my recovering as well. So I'm very grateful for them as well. SPEAKER_01 44:00 It's just so much love for you to show up for them in a way that in the way that you want to.

And it just makes me love the program. I'm just like, oh my God. No. You're talking about the boundary with your mom.

And I'm like, yes, this is the stuff that we learn how to. I mean, of course, we sometimes trip over ourselves and whatever, but we have like the program and and hopefully good sponsorship. And they can help these. We help each other create boundaries and stick to those boundaries and not feel guilty and not overreact and not blow it up.

We can just it's okay to set a boundary and we don't have to yell to do it. Amen, sister. SPEAKER_02 44:48 Amen, sister. Because I've had negative dialogue about that situation.

I'm just grateful to be like okay with it. I'm okay. You know, it's okay. SPEAKER_01 44:59 It is okay.

It is it is self-love to do what we need to do. I'm setting a boundary currently with with someone in my family unit that um I don't I don't I don't have to feel guilty about that. I have to I go back to my talking points, you know, on why this is the right thing for me. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:27 We get to choose. SPEAKER_01 45:29 Yeah. A few more questions. I think maybe three, but I definitely want to hear more about this 12-step immersion program that you were in.

You said you did all the steps there, or or maybe some of most of them. Um yeah. SPEAKER_02 45:47 Yeah, so I did all of them. So um it's no longer operating, but it was a rehab that was a 12-step immersion.

It was like the Navy SEALs of freaking rehabs. So, like you wake up at the butt crack of dawn, 6 30 in the morning, you go downstairs, you meditate and pray, and then you move on to uh breakfast, and then you move on to or sorry, starts with breakfast, then this meditation and prayer, and then a book study for like an hour, and then you clean this whole house together as a group. And let me tell you, that was one of the most important things I learned is how to work together among a team and have it not be transactional, like so powerful, like to and and and then to start wanting to clean the house and give back to this like safe place that's full of love, and it's just yeah, crazy. I never thought I'd ever like to like clean a house, but I I love to clean a house.

But anyway, and then you move on to like uh this fireside speaker who would come in, they'd have a new AA speaker every day for like an hour and a half, come in and do this, what we're doing right now. And then you go to lunch and then you do a break and you get phone time, and then you go to an AA meeting. So the house gets together and leaves and goes to a meeting for for however long and then comes back and does nightlies, which is essentially step 10. So you do your inventory.

Have I been kind and loving? Have I, you know, been honest? Like all, you know, you do you go around the room and you all do your inventory out loud with the group, and then you go to bed and pray. And it's just it was it was a it was I had to be in that type of environment, I think.

And then I stayed in that environment after I graduated, and I I was a uh, you know, a staple in the household helping the new people coming in and giving them hope. And I so wish it was still around. Oh it's a shame that it's a shame that it's not here anymore, but I'm grateful for the time that we all had in that place. It was beautiful.

It was on five acres of land, it was a big mansion, it was just stunning. It was built in the the 30s. SPEAKER_01 47:55 Why did they close down? Is is that shareable information?

Nope. Okay, that is uh that's an offline question. Sorry, listeners, you don't get to that's all dead. Uh all right, good stuff, good stuff.

All right, is there anything that you left out of your story or that you're thinking of now that you would like to add? And we can pause. SPEAKER_02 48:27 I just want to um let anybody know who's new here or is thinking about getting involved with AA, that I I I promise you. I'm an example, and there's so many stories on this podcast that are examples, and Tara is an example of the promises that are you know promised to you.

You know, the promises are real in the big book. As long as you put yourself right in the very middle and you stay there. And I like I started out saying I'm forever grateful, I am because the promises showed up for me. And even in in dark times in AA, just don't give up, just give it a chance and yeah, you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 49:13 I love that, but you kind of answered my last question too. So I'm gonna ask you to dig deep and see what final message you want to leave for the listener that's suffering. SPEAKER_02 49:31 When I walked into the rooms of AA, uh, I was so scared and I was so ashamed of being an alcoholic. And I looked down on the people in the rooms.

I can honestly say that. And I I never wanted to admit that I was an alcoholic because I thought it seemed dirty and gross and like hopeless. And man, has my outlook changed. If you are that person and you walk into your room and you think it's beneath you to admit that you're an alcoholic and that your life is becoming manageable, just please keep coming back because your feelings will change.

You know, your feelings will change. You're gonna meet your so many new family members, non-biological family members that will show up for you in your life and you can show up for them in their lives. And it's just your life gets very big in AA. SPEAKER_01 50:22 Just um keep coming back.

For more information, read the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcomingback.net.