vol 308. Perception is not Truth with Sherri W.

Show Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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, and 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's Sherry W, and I'm an alcoholic. And uh I'm honored to be asked to share my experience, strength, and hope with you. One of the interesting things about my recovery to me is perception. I used to think that my story, how I saw things, was the truth.

Today I don't really see it that way anymore. It's my perception, my interpretation, how I internalize these events. So the reason I mention that, I'm gonna do my very best to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now, and offer you my experience, strength, and hope. But if anybody else was gonna tell my story, it would probably be a very different story because it's only my story through my experience.

I had a uh grandmother, so dear to me, who as a young child, she taught me all about God. I had huge faith. She taught me Bible verses, she took me to Sunday school. She actually taught Sunday school, she taught me to pray.

Um, my family, who wasn't religious, my mom, my dad, uh, and my sister. I just had one sister who was a year younger. They weren't religious, but they put us in private Christian schools. And my experience was as a young child, um, I had great faith.

I thought God was a Superman in Santa Claus. I thought I was very safe. And uh I felt that way for a number of years. My dad would be what uh I would describe as a functional alcoholic now.

In those years, I would have told you I'd never, or rarely, seen him drunk. Well, the truth uh that came to my understanding in my recovery, he drank daily. He went to work, um, came home. From four o'clock on, he drank and he drank until he passed out.

And uh, I believe today, if you drink daily, uh you're never sober. So that's something that was different. He was a part of a huge extended family, what we called a bunch of migrated oakies. They came from Texas and California during what uh was the Grapes Wrath, a great drought in the Midwest and the South.

Uh, they moved to California. It was a huge extended family, and uh, we had big parties every weekend. Those family parties were great food and uh playing cards and lots of kids and country music and singing and dancing, and uh, for a number of years I felt like a favored child. I was I felt like I was one of the favorites of that family.

When I was uh 11, 12 years old, those men, those uncles, and even my father, um sexually uh uh harassed me, approached me in very inappropriate ways, uh, kind of like chasing me, touching me, fondling me in very inappropriate ways. And in that moment, almost with very defined clarity, almost to the minute in hindsight, I can identify the moment where I moved to what the book talks about is self-reliance being the core issue of every alcoholic. And I moved to self-reliance. I ceased praying, God didn't exist.

I never told anybody. I felt unsafe and I felt chased, and I felt like it was up to me to take care of myself. That went that went on for a while. As I grew up, I went into um high school.

One of the things I was really proud about myself, I was a chameleon. I could fit in with any group of people. I really admired that about myself, that I could fit in with the ducks and the uh socias and the people getting loaded, and um I really thought that was a real attribute. In uh craneside, I see it a little differently.

I see it as I really didn't have a sense of self. I was not developed in who I was. At one of those family parties I was talking about, I took my first drink and I drank uh uh bourbon and coke. I drank it to a blackout, and I've never drank it again.

And it would be a long time before I ever started drinking. In high school, I met my childhood sweetheart. He appeared to have uh an issue with alcohol. And I spent all of our years together trying to manage and control his alcohol.

What that means to me today, I was already in a fight with the disease of alcoholism, and I hadn't even taken a drink yet. I would have qualified for alumin at the age of about 16. I spent a lot of years trying to manage and control other people's drinking. Uh, his mom, who was the first experience I ever had with the word alcoholic, she uh drank uh to excess.

She hid bottles all over the house, and uh she'd make big fancy dinners and she would pass out at the dinner table. And uh at some point when we were in high school, she got sent away. I didn't know where she went, and she came back and she didn't drink anymore. That was my only experience in any kind of alcoholic recovery for years and years.

She's the only person I knew who actually, well I would say today got sober. So I'm on a mission. Uh, I really um trying to create a secure and happy life. And uh remember, I'm in self-reliance.

I broke up with a childhood sweetheart, and at uh 19, very shortly afterwards, um, I got engaged and got married, and I married the guy that uh your mom and dad would want you to marry. He was about 15 years older than me, he was very stable, and he wasn't an alcoholic, and he was very boring, and I divorced him within 60 days. And um, I was in school at the time, I was in college, and the next one, he was the guy that uh all the girls wanted. He had, you know, like movie-starred good looks, and all the girls were after him.

And I was never someone who tried to compete for people's attention. You either ran arrested or you weren't. And that was the first time I tried to compete for someone's attention. And uh I wound up with him, and uh I wound up uh married to him.

He his rules of his family were much different from mine, and he didn't like to work, and that was just not okay with me. The rules of my family, remember, you work, you pay the bills, take care of the family, and you can do whatever, but those are hard and fast rules, and that that was just not okay with me. I stayed married for nine months. The only reason is because I was embarrassed.

So now I've been married and divorced twice. I'm 21 years old, and I haven't started drinking and drugging yet. It's kind of funny. Um, at 21 I did.

I started uh seeing uh alcohol, but also other drug substances. I went to work in uh mental health and security. Then at 21 I became uh the youngest female correctional officer in the state of California. I really thought I was gonna work in criminal justice, maybe even be an attorney, but um went to work in institutions.

I just started my career in actually drinking and drugging. And um, this is where my story kind of becomes like a crazy B movie because I am uh the correctional officer who ran off with the inmate. Um I got involved with an inmate and he got released, and we were living together. Um, the authorities, my bosses, uh, showed up and gave me the opportunity to choose either the relationship or my job.

And I chose the relationship, which set me on another course. He was something called a junkie, and I did not have a lot of experience uh with street drugs or not much exposure other than in the institution to some degree, but I didn't really know what that was. We uh set about a relationship and I began to see the signs of what I didn't understand. He would uh be sober and fine and seemed like everything was okay.

And pretty soon he was nodding out, then he was in night sweats, and you know, in that process, I learned a lot about uh drug addiction. I was very busy again trying to manage and control his using, trying to teach him what to use and not to use. I was so arrogant. I really was one of those people.

I thought I had a uh a method to manage and control drugs and alcohol. I always was the one more functional. Um, I always picked someone who was struggling more, who was having more trouble. They even depended on me in some way to try to manage and control their drinking and drugging.

And because of that, it kept me from looking at my own for a very long time. He also was a um a drug smuggler, and he was in charge of the cargo taxi in Long Beach, which was a really great job if you're a drug smuggler, because you're smuggling containers of drugs into the country. So here I am. I had a history.

I thought I was going to be working in law enforcement, and now I'm living with and hooked up to a um drug smuggler. And it was a very tumultuous uh relationship. It went on a couple of years. I would leave and I would come back, and I was really struggling, and um I couldn't get away from him.

And again, I was working for some attorneys, and uh one of them came home from he's sailing around the world. He had a private yacht and he was sailing around the world, and he invited me to come sailing with him. So I packed my bags and called my parents, who by now, since I've been married and divorced twice by 21, I've run off with the inmate. Now I am uh gonna sail around the world with an attorney.

And so they're not very surprised anymore by the things that I'm attempting or or doing. And part of it, it was to escape the relationship, but it was also uh my drinking and drugging was escalating. It was it was harder and harder to manage and control. So we're doing what we, I guess, what we call a geographic, that's how I would see it today.

And I sailed around uh uh New Zealand and Australia for a number of months. We sailed uh the coast, uh, we got to the Gulf of Carpenturia, and we crossed and we were in the Alp back in Darwin. And um, the cross of the Gulf of Carpenturia was very uh difficult. We were getting ready to cross the Indian Ocean, so I was afraid on some level.

I couldn't have told you I was afraid, but I must have been afraid. And the attorney during all this time that I was there with, you know, we're having a relationship, and he thinks we ought to get married. And um marriage, I mean, me and marriage isn't aren't doing very well. I always say yes when somebody says, you know, it's a great idea, we ought to get married.

I always say yes, but I don't get married. So uh we go to the outback and we go to a bar. There are some people there who are domesticating buffalo for beef, kind of like wild cowboys. They are um domesticating buffalo for beef and uh live on a ranch and they herd them with Toyota Land cruisers and helicopters, and they invite us to come to the outback and go do this.

In the meantime, and I don't even know how I did it or how it happened, but I did. I hooked up to one of the buffalo catchers and wound up jumping ship in the outback in Darwin, going to the Buffalo ranch to live with this buffalo catcher. And of course, all my friends used to uh laugh at me and sing that song, you know, Buffalo Gal Want to Come out tonight. It's a very old song.

Anyway, um, I went to the Outback. Um, within weeks, I was bored and wanted to get home and didn't want to be there. His mom lived in Florida and it convinced him we had to go see his mom. And uh the minute we got on a plane, I um I started talking him into me not going to Florida and I was gonna get off in California and do some business and then go meet him in Florida.

But um, I never did any of that. Um I did stay in California. He was kind of a secret for a number for a while until he started calling, looking for me. I came back home and I did what I always do.

Uh I went to work, my same life that I had pretty much. Um drinking and drugging was a part of my life, partying was a part of my life. Um I always, like I said, I always uh worked, I always had a job. Now I was working in the real estate industry, which lots of alcohol and lots of partying.

During those years, I I started uh seeing my childhood sweetheart again. And I was um also dating someone from Guadalajara from Mexico. And so I was dating two minute ones, which is very weird for me. I never do that.

I was having some uncomfortable. I felt like I couldn't find a way to live, I couldn't find security, I couldn't get comfortable. And I don't know why, but my thought was that my choices in men, my relationships with men were my problem. That led me to a moment of clarity to some degree, a spiritual awakening of some kind.

And it was the first time uh in relationship to these two relations, uh relationships that I had that I prayed. And I hadn't prayed since I was a little girl, I mean, in a very long time, and asked God to help me, and it was the first time in a long time. But it was all focused around relationships. And uh I had clear-cut answers very quickly.

Uh the guy from Guadalajara who wanted to get married and the whole thing, yeah. We had a conversation, and obviously we never had a conversation about God. We never talked about God. And I asked him, um, you know, do you believe in God?

And his answer was, no, I'm an atheist. Well, that seemed like a clear answer to me because I've never been an atheist or an agnostic. I just ignored God. I really felt uncared about, but I never didn't believe in God.

So that ended the relationship, which was a shock to him. And then the childhood sweetheart, I don't know, it became very clear to me that it was a very intimate, loving, close, lifelong relationship, that he was not meant to be my mate. And uh I knew those had to be God's answers because it wouldn't have been my answers. I would have picked one.

I never would have both relationships let go of, but I did. After that prayer in that situation, I started uh looking uh for God. I went to churches, a number of churches, and I found a church. And I it was a very comfortable church.

I was very happy there. There were loving, kind people. Um, I joined a singles group, I was a part of, I had to work hard to manage and control my drinking and drugging to show up, but I did it. And uh, they were so warm and welcoming, but I would never tell them anything about myself.

Never. I I hid everything from everybody, and uh everything was good, and I would uh carry that facade and protect uh my drinking and my drugging. My drinking and drugging now had become much more isolated. I was no longer party girl, I was no longer going out, it was being hidden, and I was beginning to think it was a problem of some kind that I was still working hard to manage and control it, but I would attempt to stop.

And I could, I could stop for some period of time, a few days, maybe a week. And then, as we well know, the disease of alcoholism tells me, oh, you're good. See, you don't have a problem. And it would be back on, worse than ever.

During those years, it'd be another two or three years. And still I got involved with people and got engaged and said I'd get married, but they were long distance relationships. It was so weird. It was uh a guy in North Carolina, a guy in Florida, a guy in uh uh New Mexico, and I would meet them somewhere and I don't know, it I I would develop these relationships.

And um I always look like a good deal. You gotta remember, I look like a good deal. I lie and hide about my drug and alcohol abuse. I function, I work, I do things, I take care of things.

Um, so I am kind of the same as my family, kind of a high-functioning alcoholic addict. No jails and institutions, always have work, always worked. And nobody in my family, nobody was telling me anything about getting sober or maybe I had an issue. No, there was nobody there telling me that.

It was really between me and God. Um, I don't know, it was um January the 13th, 1987. And um, like I said, it became more isolated and using. I was at home and I was praying.

And on TV came um an ad, most of you are probably seeing it's a frying pan with eggs growing in it, and it's this is your brain on drugs. And it said, call this number. And uh at the time in the 80s, there were chic centers and there were est programs, and there were all kinds of aversion treatments, and the only thing I'd ever heard about alcohol treatment of any kind was the Betty Ford Center. It was the only thing I knew of.

I mean, I didn't know Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew the Betty Ford Center. I didn't know anything. For some reason, out of my intervention that night I picked up the phone and I called that number.

And a woman answered the phone, and um I said, I can't stop. I'll stop for a little while and then I start again and can't quit. And I said, What kind of program is this? And again, God is so gracious and kind to me, gave me exactly what I needed.

And the woman said, Well, it's a spiritual program. Well, I was already convinced that God was the answer. I just couldn't find it. And uh when she said that, I said, Okay, all right, I'm coming.

And uh I packed myself and went to rehab. Um, did not knowing I'm going to rehab. I drove myself there. Uh, the woman, it was interesting later, she would tell me it was her first night on the unit as an alcohol and uh drug counselor.

And uh she went back, she got the phone call, she goes back to the rest of the staff and she says, Oh, I was an alcoholic calling, they're coming. And the staff tells her, Oh, they call all night long saying they're coming, nobody's coming. Well, I showed up and I was there knocking on the door, and I went into treatment. My interpretation, how I see that, because I'm telling you, from that moment to this, the craving's gone, the obsession's gone, the delusion's gone.

I mean, I just couldn't understand it. But the way I see it now is I I beg God. I mean, I was in a relationship with God, begging him, but he wanted me to humble myself and ask human beings for help, which is what I had never been willing to do. And when I did it, I was relieved.

It was gone. God removed it, but I didn't understand. I thought. I was so scared.

I did not want to leave the treatment center. I didn't know if it was because I was there. I mean, I didn't know how it was possible that this terrible thing had been removed. And to the credit of that treatment center, um, they taught me a couple of things, very, very important things.

One, most important thing, they introduced me to Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh, that was my intro into Alcoholics Anonymous and sent us to meetings. So, yay, that was great. And the other thing, and again, divine intervention, God, God interceded and I heard something.

I hope somebody hears what I'm gonna say too, because this was so pivotal to me. Remember, I'm a chemologist, I'm a combination of um alcohol and drugs. And one substance isn't very important to me, one substance I think makes me normal, and one substance I think is a problem. So I differentiate between chemicals.

Not that I wanted to get sober of all of them. I just thought I had a problem. And what I heard somebody say and why it rang through to my core and delivered me, I don't know, but what it was, it was a drug is a drug, is a drug, and alcohol is king of all drugs. Um, from that day to this, I've never differentiated between chemicals.

Anything that changes me from the neck up, period. I don't care. If you say, I don't care, if the doctor says, I don't care. I want to be clear, present, and sober.

I don't even care how I feel about it. I just want to be present with whatever is. And um, it was that clear statement. Drug is a drug is a drug, and alcohol is king of all drugs that delivered me from that terrible thing.

I left the treatment center and I ran to the doors of AA. I laugh, I work with people and I want them to, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days, and uh they have a problem, you know. It's challenging for them. I went to noon meetings while I was working.

After I got off work, I went to the 5:30. After the 530, we'd go to dinner, I'd go to an 8 o'clock meeting, and then we'd go out for coffee almost every night. And on the weekends we had dances and pool tournaments and activities, and then joined up. I got in the middle of the herd.

I did what they suggest you do, and I got a sponsor. I was so excited when I got to AA, and there were 12 steps to see 12 things I could do. I'm a doobie. I like to do things.

So you give me something to do, I really thought and I would uh get through the 12 steps and there would be some arrival. Um, no arrival, just a design for living, but I didn't know that. Um, I still believed I had terrible problems in relationships. And I had a friend who I met in a within, I don't know, within 30 days, I went to the doors of Alamon.

I joined. And back then, Alamon groups and A groups were very separated. It was them and us. It's it's very it's changed a lot now, but that's how it was back then.

But there were a couple of people who really welcomed us with open arms. And uh, it's my opinion, every alcoholic when it gets sober, want to manage and control people, places, and things. And that's what Alan's all about to really focus on that. So I ran, I was in both programs.

Some things die quickly and some things die slowly, and I still was looking for that relationship, security in a relationship. And I got engaged twice in the first two years that I was sober. The third one, he was uh sober and the most intense and the smartest man um I had ever known. And I agreed to marry him, and we were getting married in Bishop, California, and we went to a uh rehearsal dinner or a rehearsal with the minister.

And when we walked out of the church, I told him I thought I was having a heart attack. And he looked at me like really, they all know my story, right? Because I don't get married, I get engaged and I don't get married, and he looked at me like I was making it up. He took me to the hospital and um I had a spontaneous pneumothorax as a result of stress and fear.

And I wound up in the hospital with a giant tube in my side, and my mother and who would be my future husband both acting like I did it on purpose. So that was kind of, I assume, a challenge to me. I don't know if it was God's will or my will, but I married him. Um, I was uh wrapped in a sheet with a tube at my side, and we were in the doctor's mound, and that's how we got married.

The first week of my marriage, he went home and I stayed in the hospital. Um and it was such a great experience. Um, I had such an outpouring of love. The doctor could not even hardly have a conversation with me because AA was calling.

AA was calling me, encouraging me, comforting me, and loving me, supporting me. I was so blessed. And believe me, uh it was a trial for those people because nobody wanted me to marry this guy. Nobody.

But they all showed up and uh supported me and loved me and him in ways that uh were just astounding to me. Right away, I was pregnant and we had two boys and two and a half years apart. And the second one, the youngest one, he was born on my fifth AA birthday. The irony of that was not lost on me.

It was very precious to me. It's gonna make me cry. Um, sorry. Our relationship was very tumultuous.

One of the things I attached to with him, remember, I'm always the good one, and everybody else is always the bad one. And he was very unhappy. And um, part of the promise I made him that probably attracted him was because I wanted him to be happy and I wanted to make him happy. I didn't know you couldn't make people happy, but I wanted to.

And I became the focus of all the anger and all the responsibility for his unhappiness pretty quickly. But I was the one volunteering to fix it, and I couldn't fix it. We stayed married a very long time, uh, 14, almost 15 years. I stood in the gap with his rage and deflected it onto me to protect my children from it, and I did that with intent, and um, it was okay with me until a couple of things happened.

Uh, I became suicidal for the first time in my entire life, and I'm 17, 18 years sober, and um I had an experience with my kids. My kids were now 10 and 12, and I could not stand and deflect between them and their father, and um I made a decision to get a divorce, didn't want a divorce. I was really set on uh staying married. Um I mean, I cried all through the divorce.

I didn't want it, and by the way, I didn't want to be responsible, I didn't want to be uh a single parent to two boys. I did not. But I knew I had to let go of that marriage, and I did. It wasn't easy, it was very hard.

The commitment I made to myself between me and God was that I wouldn't get involved with anybody else, I wouldn't bring another man into my kid's life. Um, it was a really important commitment to me. My judgment of myself was that uh kids deserved an intact mom and dad. And if you couldn't keep it together, you have no business bringing somebody else into their lives.

And so I didn't, which was really good for me because it took me, I don't know, four or five years um of work, hard work, in a fourth and a fifth, and a sixth and a seventh to really see myself. Um, I had built such a case, I'm the good one and you're the bad one, to make myself feel better then, to give me a sense of power, to avoid my own disease. I mean, I had built that case in such a strong way that took a lot of work to uncover. Oh no, I just none of it was true that all of us were the same, we're just uh desperate and afraid, looking for a sense of security and love, trying to find it in external sources, and it doesn't exist there.

And we all do that a little bit differently, but we are all doing the same thing. That's all anybody wants security, love, validation, acceptance, and we just keep looking for it from people, places, and things. And my experience is it doesn't exist, it'll never exist there. All those things are coming and going and ebbing and flowing.

The only constant source of love, security, uh, freedom is the power and the love and the will of God. Um, but I am distracted and always looking on the outside for something. I really believe um when you're born, you come to this world looking for God, and that's why you're crying. That's what I think.

The reason you're crying when you get here, because you get here and you got parents. And parents, whenever they become a disappointment, they have to be a disappointment. They have to be, or else we would know there's no God. If a parent could feel the whole God, then we'd know, okay, there's no God that parents have to be a disappointment.

And then human beings have to look for that security, validation, love uh that they were looking for when uh they got here. And whatever it takes, and however long it takes, whether it's alcoholism and drug addiction or uh misery or whatever it is that drives you hopefully, hopefully, into a surrender and a trust and dependence on the will and the power and the love of God. And it's the only solution I've ever found. The only solution.

And not conditions. Conditions, conditions are just changing. And for a moment, they might give me a sense of well-being and pleasure and love, but they always change. They always change.

Got divorced, did the work. By the time my youngest, the one born on my fifth day birthday, was 14, he was full-blown alcoholic addict, running away from home, using it was a nightmare. My kids have been raised with some awareness and knowledge of the disease of alcoholism, and this is how it was presented to them. Your mom and dad are alcoholic addicts, and uh genetically, you could be predisposed to that.

And here's how my oldest son uh is totally obsessed with fishing. I know it sounds crazy. From the time he was six years old, he always wanted to fish. Wherever we were, how he could fish.

And to this very day, he makes his living fishing. Um, so he had a primary obsession. So I would tell him, you know how you sit around thinking about when am I gonna fish, where am I gonna fish, how am I gonna fish? Well, if you add drugs and alcohol, you're not gonna be thinking about fishing anymore.

It's gonna be where am I gonna get loaded? How am I gonna get loaded? And so it was it was common experience. They would tell me that their perception, their idea was everybody drank and used.

Um, then if they had a problem, they went to AA and they got sober. And that was all they ever saw. All they ever saw was recovered sober people. So their perception, that's how they saw it.

So my youngest son, I'm trying to stop him again. I'm uh in a fight with the disease. Uh I haven't had a drink in 20 years and no desire. And I'm gonna fight uh in full-blown alcoholism and trying to stop.

And I have an underage child, and I'm powerless over the disease of alcoholism, and I got a 14-year-old, and what a quandary. It was a very, very challenging time. And I worked hard. I did.

I sent him away to a treatment center, I sent him away to a school, I had him captured. I prosecuted him when he would rob me, would put him in juvenile hell. I mean, I tried, I took him to meetings, I exposed him to recovery. I was, I was in it.

Uh it was a big, big struggle. Finally, I um prayed a prayer of distraction. And what I said was, God, I'm powerless over Noah, I'm powerless over his disease. I'm gonna surrender him, the life of my child to you, no matter what.

Live or die, drunk or loaded, separated or not, I'm gonna surrender his life. And please, bring me people to help. I'll help anybody. Anybody that you want me to help, that I can help, bring him.

And um, I'll help them. I was very clear that I could never be the answer for no. Like I said, my belief is if a parent could be the answer, you'd never find God. And that's how we'd know there's no God, because a parent could be the answer.

I don't know why it's that way, but that's that's my take on it, that's my experience. So it rained down young people, and uh lots of them, lots and lots of them. And it could only have been by divine intervention and they showed up. And my desire, my prayer was to be of service and to help them.

But I have to say, they helped me and blessed me in uh ways I could never have imagined. They would comfort me so much with Noah. They became brothers and sisters to Noah. They were just such a a great source of healing.

And a huge number of them are sober, they have long-term sobriety. There are a few who who didn't make it, who died. There are uh there are some who were sober for a period of time and um are back out on the streets. And um it's it's very difficult, very hard.

I got to that surrender. In that surrender over Noah, I could never be afraid. Never. I could be sad, I could be mad, I could be glad, but I could not be afraid.

And we would talk about fear and do inventories, but I could never really embrace fear. I would escape fear by obsessive thinking and plotting and planning. People call it anxiety, I don't call it anxiety. I was really the core issue was I was vulnerable, afraid, and knew I was powerless.

And so my mind would race uh thinking about what I can do, how can I do it, how, whether it was get Noah sober or whatever it was, but always to escape how vulnerable and afraid I was. And with Noah and that experience, I finally got there. I finally got to be afraid and embraced being afraid, and I could be afraid and have comfort even when I was afraid. It would be um a number of years uh with Noah, in and out, jail in institutions, um very difficult, hard, hard time.

Uh, he had a brief period of recovery for almost two years. And it was such a precious time. Um we got to speak together, share meanings together, share recovery together. It was it was lovely, lovely.

He was very young, he was 21. People always say, Are you afraid he's gonna be gone? I said, I'm not gonna be afraid and miss what I have today. And I enjoyed and showed up for every moment of Noah in those moments.

And I'm so grateful that I had uh that blessing and that experience. Um, during that time, um, Noah uh and his girlfriend at the time got pregnant and uh gave me the gift of a precious granddaughter. Both of them, no recovery, full-blown, alcoholic addict, severe, to the point that eventually when the baby was two or three, uh, we went to court, both sides of the family, and uh took their parental rights. And the other grandmother has had the parental rights uh guardianship and um custody for the better part of the last 10 years.

Burn up date today. The mother's sober and hoping, hoping that she stays that way. Um in December of 2023, I got a call and Noah had OD'd, and he was in the ICU, and I went to the ICU, and um there he was. And I knew in that moment when I saw him, I knew he was coming back.

And um I stayed by his bed those nine days, and all I prayed for was a psychic change. That's that's all that God would intervene and deliver him. And for nine days, uh, he was there, and um there was a plan, and a different doctor came on and changed the plan and uh called me and told me uh Noah was trying to leave treatment, and um, I was on my way there, and I leave the hospital, and so I went, and he's still in a stupor, he's still possessed, he's still the only thing he cares about is uh leaving and going to get high after nine days, and uh he didn't know where he was, he couldn't maneuver out of the room uh by himself. I was fighting with them because I felt like he was a danger to himself and that they should 5150 him and keep him, but I lost that battle, and I was smart enough to say I'm not gonna hurt myself.

Um, and he left. And um, like every good alcoholic drug addict found another way back to it. That was uh December of 2023, and that was another level of uh heartbreak um that time. During those next couple of years, I was going through something spiritually that I thought was all about me, and I'm aging, and um my body's aging, and it's obvious, and uh I'm diminishing in my physical capacity, and I know that the body's gonna die, and I'm becoming uh separated from the body.

My spirit is becoming more separated from the body, and I'm well aware that the body's going to pass. But what came to me in those couple of years was the absolute that, not that I believe or I think or I hope, but the essence, whatever that is that is me and is every person, the soul, the energy, whatever you want to call it, it can't be killed. And I know it can't be killed. And I don't know, and I would talk a lot about this because this is what I was going through with God.

August 16th, 2025, I got a call and uh Noah had Odean, and I got a call to go to the hospital, and I went, and when I got there, different from the last time, I knew Noah was gone, and uh he wasn't coming back. He was on life support. But it was very, very clear that he wouldn't he wasn't coming back, he was gone. Um I stayed by his bed, I hugged and kissed and touched and loved on him.

I don't know what other people thought, but I wasn't doing it for Noah, Noah wasn't there, and I was well aware Noah wasn't there. It was for me because it was the only connection I had this last physical connection, and almost audibly God said to me, uh, do not worship the body, for he's not here, he's gone. And I had to surrender and let go of him while he was still physically in that that body was still there. But for me, no one was gone.

This is where when I talk about um person. I learned a lot about it through this process because that was my perception now is gone. Family, friends, his dad, other sober people. They would see something else and hang on to something else and hope for something else.

And actually, they were mad at me because of where I was. But I couldn't be where they were. And initially, I had said I would make all decisions regarding Noah because I didn't want his brother or his dad to have to take any responsibility. But um, because of where they were, I wound up letting go uh and letting them make the decisions, which nobody was happy about.

Of course, they want me to make the decisions, but I wasn't. And um eventually they were able to let go, and he was able. Not the way I would have wanted. And um, I wanted Noah redeemed, I wanted him joined with his daughter, I wanted him joined with me in recovery.

I mean, I had a whole story that I wanted. And that's not the way it was or is, and um I had to let go even of that want and accept his passing even as divine and perfect by the will and the hand of God. Even though, believe me, it is uh not what I wanted. The other thing that changed for me so much the last six months, a year of Noah's using used to be, I wanted Noah to get sober for his child and for me and for our relationship.

Last six months or year, all I wanted and what I was so broken about is I was so devastated that Noah was going to miss being free of this torture in this life. I was just, I just couldn't stand it. Wanted him to be free. And my oldest son, after Noah passed, said it to me, most honestly.

He said, for whatever reason, mom, Noah couldn't get free in this life. He had to pass to be free, and I believe that. And so interesting, I had been so separated from Noah, this great divide between us for a number of years, and uh actually I feel closer to him in the spirit than I did in the physical for many, many years. I'm just sad that uh he missed the freedom.

So what that did set me on fire again, which I've always been on fire for recovery, but just to help anybody who uh is afflicted with this terrible, terrible disease. In these last few years, it's changed. It's not newcomers anymore. The people who come to me now are over a number of years and struggling, practicing these principles in all our affairs, emotionally, spiritually, growing.

The book says it when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. And we all want to straighten out mentally and physically, we struggle with putting the spiritual malady first. The spiritual malady is a number of things, but how it's um so important to me right now, what's going on. I I am of the alcoholic variety on page, I think it's page 58 in the big book when it says, lest for a few brief temptations, he could not drink even if he would.

He is repulsed at the thought of a drink. And that is my experience. And it's almost that same experience that I have in response to resentment. A few years ago, I started doing uh four-step workshops.

And the reason was I saw people intimidated by a four-step or using that intimidation. And I don't know, uh the four-step such a freedom that I just wanted to share it. And so I wound up doing that, and I've been doing it for a number of years. And over those years, it's just become clearer and clearer to me uh that resentment, just like the book says, you know, it's the number one destroyer of all alcoholics.

I think it's the number one destroyer of everybody, but it's just how I think of it. But it just separates you like chemicals, like if you're drunk and loaded, the same. If you're filled with resentment, it's gonna separate you too from sunshine of spirit, and it just blocks you from everything. So that's where I am in uh my recovery today.

I work a lot helping others, I uh volunteer to do four-step workshops and just to help anybody be free of resentment on that block. Like I said, it's as important to me in recovery from the drink. A few things I'm gonna tell you. Um, the childhood sweetheart, uh, he's sober 25 years.

We're still really very close friends, still live in the same town. Uh, the inmate, uh, he just came to visit me, I don't know, about uh three or four months ago. And uh he's married and sober. He's sober.

He's sober more than 20 years. The ex-husband, uh, who we had such a volatile relationship. We're very close, very good friends, um, and uh grandparent and parent together. I am um blessed.

Uh the the way my life looks is nothing like uh what I was trying to get or make the picture to be. It's nothing like it. But it is filled with love and purpose and presence. One of my favorite things about being sober, and I said it before, but I'll say it again.

I love being present no matter what. I mean, I just don't want to be altered, and I want to experience whatever I experience. Um, sad, mad, happy, glad. I it just doesn't matter.

Even that death of Noah and the pain of that, I am so grateful to be able to be present for it. Not only that, I don't just want to accept things, I want to embrace things. Even embracing that, I mean, that was a challenge. That's a very, very hard one.

But my experience says every time I accept and surrender to the will of God, I'm comforted and everything's better. And every time I pick up and fight, I'm sure that it should be different than it is, everything's worse and I'm miserable. It's just as simple as it is. So one day at a time, my biggest prayer is I will be done, it's pretty much it, no matter what, trust you have.

I think that's it, Tara.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Thank you, Sherry.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

I'm sorry I cried so much. I didn't mean to.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

Oh, God, Sherry. I didn't realize that you lost your son. I mean, it's been less than a year. Um year and a half.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

I'm sorry, I said 25, that was 24.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Okay, okay. Um well, um I'm mostly um encouraged by the story and the faith that you demonstrated throughout um your experience with Noah. Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing the pain of that.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

You talked about Noah being um still possessed when you went into the ICU. And can can you say more about that comment?

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yes. Um, possessed by the disease of alcoholism. Whether that's an entity, a demon, or the disease, but it lives in your mind. It sounds like you, it sounds familiar. It's that thing that says a drink or a drug is a good idea, that it's a solution. And for me, when I say possessed, I identified as a demon from hell trying to kill you. That's that's the way I identify it. Because that voice, people in the rooms think that's them. They think it's them, they think they plan to drunk, they think they plan to take a drink. It's not you, you're being deceived. It's the disease of alcoholism at a minimum. And in my world, it is a demon from hell trying to separate and kill you with a lie. And the way it deceives you is by sounding like a good idea and sounding like yourself.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Thank you, Sherry. That's really well said. Thank you. I have a few more questions, but I do want to share a fun fact. So we'll we'll lighten, we'll lighten it for a second with the fun fact. My mother was a correctional officer, and she ran off with an inmate.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

That's great. Oh my god, that's so funny. I love it. That's great. Six degrees of separation. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Right. But she ended up marrying hers. He is sober. That's very impressive. Very cool. So I think I have three more questions, but you never know. You talked about uh Superman Santa Claus higher power, which is the best way to describe the god that I'm trying to reframe in my life and in recovery because I default to both of those images and capabilities. Can you talk about the journey and progression of your higher power if you're comfortable sharing? Oh, I'd love okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

I'd love to, and I don't know how well I can articulate, but that was the beginning. That was the early stage, and it stayed there even in later years when I first came back to God. Um, it still was Protect Me, Save Me, Help Me, Keep Me. It was me, me, me.

Me, me, me was my favorite song. Um, and me is what brought me back to God, begging for help. And I was a beggar. Uh that is who I was.

And honestly, back to Noah. Noah, I mean, I'd moved spiritually over the years in many, many, many ways and surrendering and accepting so many things. I mean, uh, the marriage, uh, the disease, nose disease, um, financially, I'd lost my home job. I mean, I had third stage melanoma.

I mean, I'd had everything within five or six years that you had to surrender. So that that moved me. That moved me spiritually. There was no fight.

There was only the surrender and the acceptance and the embracement of those things. But no, I stayed in a fight with for a much longer time. But what really the core to me is how powerless, how vulnerable I am, um, that terrifies me. Only, only a surrender and a dependence on the will and the love of God, the only, only way out.

And I mean, I've used every escape hatch. And as they all failed, and I had to go through every single one for every single one to fail, uh, for me to come back to what's true and divine and perfect. And that experience, it's only those years of experience. And every time, you know, God is so gracious, so kind, so faithful, so loyal, so true, that every single time I would accept something, surrender something, confess something, I was comforted.

Not that anything changed, but I was comforted. And what I said is true. Every time I fight, everything's worse. So it's it's a simple uh lifetime of experience that draws me near.

Now it's so different because I love being present. I love being in the moment. I couldn't even be in a moment. I was always plotting and planning.

It was not a depressive, I was not a remorse and regret kind of girl. That that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I was high anxiety, what they call anxiety, plotting, planning, managing, controlling. I was that. Now, the minute my mind wants to pick that up, I have such an aversion to that obsessive thinking.

Plus, it is a key. It tells me, oh, you must feel very vulnerable right now. You must be really afraid right now, because you're picking up what you always did. Whether it is if you turn to the remorse, regret, and what should have, would it, could have happened, or you move to the plotting, planning, trying to get do and be, but you're trying to avoid, in my opinion, the vulnerability on the powerlessness that's the reality of it.

Reality of being a human being.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Yeah, that that reminds me of what you said in the beginning about your, you know, your perception is simply how you see things. Um, or, you know, it's your internalization of the experience. This connecting that notion to prayer doesn't change anything on the outside. It changes us. Um and when we are changed, our world and the way we're experiencing it changes. So it's like the simple inside job.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Yep, it really is. All the simple things they told you from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

Yeah. Yeah. And just the pressure of I'm unsafe and now it's up to me to take care of myself. You carried that weight from such a young age, the self-reliance that was necessary. And it sounds like you did outside work to process that. And oh, I did this, yeah. Um I don't know if you want to talk about that or if you want me to go to my final two questions.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

But we can talk about it a little bit. Okay. Um I mean, I had sponsors, um, but I was emotionally so shut down. I remember I I did have a therapist, and I'm a huge believer in talk therapy. I think it's the most um successful therapy there is. I think there's just such power in if we say it, uh, the freedom that comes from saying it. So I went to a therapist, and uh my big thing was that I had two emotions, mad and high. That was becoming I didn't have much. And I was so shut down. And she would look at me and we'd talk about something and tell her something and how do you feel about that? And we just feel what? We're just so blocked emotionally. So really, she helped me open the door to my emotions. That's that's the best way I could describe it, what it helped me to do, uh, just opened me uh to feel. Um, like I said, you know, I'd been busy uh being chemically altered, uh hiding money, trying to get away from it, trying to manage it. So um to come back to embrace it. What a foreign idea. But that was the biggest help. I did some um adult child uh work too, some retreats and some therapy about adult children of alcoholics. And I'm a big believer in al-on. I swear I won't say every Al-Anon belongs in an AA, but I'll say every AA belongs in an al-Anon. So I'm no problem with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

Well, I appreciate I appreciate all of that. It helps um understand all of you and your experience in 39 years of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

39 years, it shouldn't even be that old. How's that even possible? It's just so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. And it goes by faster and faster the older we get. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:45

And I am now the little old lady in the room, you know. I was talking about the people who come to me, and I remember the little old ladies in the room, and I didn't believe them, especially when they talk like me, how wonderful everything is. It's divine and perfect. When they talk like me, I really didn't believe them. And so now I'm her, you know, sitting in that room. And it's just astounding. It's astounding to be that one. It's just so strange.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

Yeah, well, we're really grateful that the little ladies and the little men come back otherwise. Thank God. Oh, yeah. We, yeah. I mean, so many things would be different.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

Yeah, there are so many people who who leave, and that is a transition. I'll talk a little bit about that. And that happened in my early spreading, probably 10 years, probably close to 10 years. Like I said, my favorite song was Me Me Me. And my experience in watching people, and everybody's favorite song is me, me, me. When you get there, you're pretty desperate. And when you get yours, I see a lot of people leaving when they get theirs. And um I think unless there's a transition, a shift from me, me to a calling, um something, a purpose, uh, to be in the room that extends beyond yourself, which I felt like a responsibility. I was given something so freely, and there were all these people there to love me and support me and help me. And I had to be there to give the same. And I think unless you make that transition, you might leave AA. And the craziest thing I think you could ever do is leave AA. Um, here's the place they gave you this wonderful life and this wonderful way to live. And your best thinking says it's a good idea to leave. It's it's insane. And most of the time, or my experience says a lot of times when you're leaving, you swear you're not going to get a drink, but a lot of those people wind up with a drink separating from AA. And um, so I think that um transition from me, me, me, because when I go to meetings now, it it doesn't matter if I want to go, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. I need to go to be there for others. That's that's the truth. I need to be there. I don't care, just as long as I'm in the room, doesn't matter. I need to be there for that reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

Yeah, you show us that it works. Well, typically this is where I pause and and see if there's anything that you left out or anything that you're thinking of now that you would like to share. So we can take a deep breath and see if anything surfaces. Okay. No, something.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

I don't work the steps. I don't um I live the steps. The steps are integrated. It's what the book says, you know, it really is a design for living. Remember, I said I was so excited it was one through 12 and a lot of direction. They are um my living guide. Almost every day um there's some step that comes up in my life, whether it is um oh, something I'm powerless over, something I have to accept, something I have to let go of, uh, something in myself I need to face, a resentment I need to look at, uh, character defect or situation that's revealed in me that I need to let God move through and be prepared for, or to make uh an amends on something, or continuing to seek God and uh and uh spiritual life. And my favorite, honestly, is um, and that's a big part of it. If you don't get to the 12-step, you may not stay because the 12-step is critical. We focus so much on all the others in so many ways, but carrying the message and practicing these principles in all our affairs, if you do that, you'd never leave it. You you couldn't, you and you'd never be loaded, I don't think. I mean, practicing these principles in all your affairs wouldn't order. I mean, that's a lifetime, and then being present to carry the message and help others. Critical.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

Hmm. Thank you. That's a that's a yummy addition. Thank you, Tara. Okay, we have made it to the final question for the listener who is suffering. What would you like to leave them with?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

Run, run, don't walk. There's a it's free, it's right there, it's one step away. Um, there's hope and freedom beyond your wildest dreams, and you need a willingness. That's all in uh a desire. Willingness and a desire to show up, and uh there's uh uh an AA meeting wherever you are. There's an AA meeting, run to a meeting. And if you're fortunate enough uh to be there and to be sober and early sober and whatever stage of your sobriety, stay there. Don't leave, there's nowhere to go. People always say keep coming back. I always say stay, there's nowhere to go. This is it. And um, if you're bored and you've been sober a while, uh you're in danger danger mode, uh, shift your thinking to be of service to others. It's not all about you. Make that shift uh that you feel called and a responsibility to give away what you've been so freely given. Make sure you get to that 12-step. 12-step will keep you there. And if you're filled with resentment, there's a solution. There's such a solution in the four step. You can do a search eventually. I mean, you could probably find me somewhere. I always I live in California and I'm in uh Ranch of the General, but I do four-step workshops. Um maybe I'll send them to you, Tara. I do them um and I do them by Zoom, so it's not like you have to do them in person. So, you know, pretty powerful. Pretty, I mean, God always uses it for me, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

So thank you. Yes, I would love that information for myself and anybody listening that might be interested. Okay. Yeah, and you bring up a good point. There is a meeting anywhere, any second of the day. If you don't have the meeting guide app, download the meeting guide app with the folding chair. You can find a meeting going on right now, anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

Um and you know what, I mean, I love that we have technology podcast Zoom. I am so grateful for all of that, but there's nothing like really carrying your body into a meeting with people. Absolutely. Really, there's an energy and a power and something there. I strongly recommend you go do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

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