Latest / Sober Talk SA / Sober-Talk -SA Carissa Part2

Transcript

Sober-Talk -SA Carissa Part2 · Sober Talk SA

0:00
Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I've lived
0:03
experience of alcohol. If you or anyone you know is
0:06
struggling with alcohol, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
0:10
1300 Double. 22222. Or check out their website on
0:15
aa.org dot AU. I'll just run through the
0:20
preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous.
0:22
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women.
0:26
We share the experience, strength and hope with each
0:28
other. They must solve their come
0:30
problems and help others to recover from alcoholism.
0:34
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
0:37
drinking. There are no Jews at fees for a
0:39
membership. We are self support through our
0:41
own contributions. Is not allied with any second
0:45
denomination, politics, organization or institution.
0:49
Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or
0:53
oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is stir soap
0:57
and help other Alcoholics achieve sobriety.
1:00
This is the second part of Carissa's story.
1:04
You know, I I was just in such a such a state but I I decided
1:12
this day. You know it was really hot
1:14
stinking summer's day and I'm sitting outside in my kids
1:17
waiting pool and I weighed about 48 kilos and I'm drinking a
1:20
bottle of vodka and I downed a bottle of sleeping pills and and
1:24
they didn't work. Nothing worked and I thought I
1:29
might give this a a another crack.
1:32
But the problem was I never knew whether it was day or night or
1:36
what day it was. The only way I could tell was if
1:39
I turned the TV on and you know if sunrise was on, I knew it was
1:44
the morning and if the the nightly news was on I knew it
1:48
was night time. That was the only way I could
1:52
tell because we didn't have iPhones and stuff back then.
1:57
So that was the only way I knew what time that time of the day
2:00
it was. Unless it was, you know, pitch
2:02
dark. And it was, it was not time.
2:06
So I got in my car and I drove to a women's meeting and then I
2:14
continued to go to meetings and I detoxed.
2:16
And I, you know, for the first three months, I was off and on
2:24
like I'd I'd not drink during the week and then I'd drink on
2:27
the weekends. And, you know, I tried different
2:31
things. And in the end I thought, no,
2:34
this is not working. So I just continued to go to AA
2:37
and, you know, I sobered up in Flinders St. and I spent the,
2:42
you know, my first year probably in Flinders St. going to all of
2:47
those meetings. And I'll tell you what, if you
2:49
can sober up in Flinders St. you can sober up anywhere back in
2:53
those days because it was just full of people that were like,
2:57
you know, homeless. The homeless people used to come
3:00
and eat all the sandwiches and have cups of tea and then leave
3:03
again. I just, I was just astounded
3:06
like I'd listen to these people share.
3:08
And I just think, oh, my God, these people are amazing.
3:11
They know everything that, you know, like I just wished that I
3:17
I knew what they knew. Like what's the secret here?
3:20
And it there was no secret. It just come to meetings.
3:25
You just do the suggested things.
3:26
That's all it was. So you know I ended up getting
3:30
sober and and it was amazing. And I, you know I had 13 years
3:36
of recovery and it was great. You know, I did great things.
3:40
I finished off my teaching degree.
3:41
I I ended up becoming a teacher in a really prestigious school.
3:45
I brought my kids up. I went on camp, so I went
3:49
overseas for the first time ever.
3:52
And then I end up going overseas three times.
3:56
Bought a house, got engaged. You know, I spent my 30th in in
4:02
bloody rehab. And then I I spent my 40th as a
4:06
surprise engagement party and it was just amazing.
4:11
But then a couple of years ago, you know, I stopped going to
4:15
meetings. I made work my priority.
4:19
I slowly dropped off. I wasn't ringing people very
4:23
often. I just wasn't doing the things I
4:27
should be doing. And one day I was driving home
4:32
from work and I was having this terrible anxiety attack and I
4:36
just thought, if I just have a drink, it'll just take the edge
4:40
off and and that's it. I'll just have one and I'll be
4:43
fine. And.
4:45
And I did. I went and had this drink.
4:47
I stopped in at this pub and I had a drink and that was the I
4:52
was gone. And I relapsed and I relapsed
4:56
hard for nearly two years. And I'll tell you what, when
5:01
they say you pick up where you left off, I picked up and I
5:05
went. I went so hard.
5:10
It was absolute living hell, and because it was COVID, there was
5:18
hand sanitizer around and I was drinking the hand sanitizer.
5:24
I was drinking anything that had alcohol in it and I was
5:28
completely insane. And at this point suicide became
5:35
an option and I tried to take my own life.
5:41
I took every tablet that was in the in the cupboard.
5:45
I even took the dogs tablets for these.
5:47
Got anxiety. Took the dogs tablets for when
5:50
he goes to get his head, his haircut and goes to the vet.
5:55
There were fifteen of them in there.
5:56
I took them. I took all of the every single
6:01
tablet I could find in the cupboard and I washed it down
6:04
with a bottle of freaking Aloe Vera bloody hand sanitizer.
6:08
And I went and laid on the bed and I thought, all right, good
6:10
night. Thank God you know I'm going to
6:12
die. And then four hours later I
6:15
freaking woke up and I was not happy and because I'd ingested
6:21
so many tablets, freaking had double vision for two days.
6:24
It was awful. Oh my God, they I don't know, it
6:27
was in those dog tablets, but bloody hell, I did not feel
6:30
good. And it was a long after that.
6:34
But the dog had to have a haircut and my husband said, oh,
6:39
those the tablets, where are those dog tablets?
6:42
And I said, oh, I don't know. I had to make up an excuse.
6:46
Oh no, no, we're the dog tablets.
6:48
Are he goes, yeah, we we got 15 of them, remember?
6:50
You know, Ellie and I went and got them not very long ago.
6:53
I said, oh, I didn't know. I said I I cleaned the medicine
6:56
cup cupboard out when I came, came back.
6:59
I don't know, maybe I accidentally threw them out.
7:00
He goes, plenty of you. He goes, they cost $150.
7:03
You better find them. And I was like, oh God, I can't
7:06
tell him that a bloody took them, but it yeah, it was
7:10
terrible. I ended up in psychiatric wards.
7:14
I ended up in lock up wards. From first drink to hospital was
7:22
generally 7 days. I ended up in Jodassa about
7:29
three times, and I never thought I'd end up there because I I
7:33
used to go to Joslin all the time.
7:34
But since I'd built that new big Dassa, I used to take the
7:38
meetings there. I never expected to be a patient
7:41
there. And the detoxes were horrendous,
7:47
absolutely horrendous. And then, you know, they found
7:51
out that I was, you know, unscrewing all the bottles of
7:57
unscrewing all the bottles of handset sanitizer off the walls.
8:02
So whenever I was going into hospital, they were removing all
8:05
the hand sanitizer off the ward. So I had nothing.
8:11
I had nothing, you know, because when I go in there, I'd blow,
8:15
you know, two points something. And then three hours later I'd
8:19
blow three points something that that'd be confused that say,
8:24
Chris, we can't work out why your blood alcohol level keeps
8:28
going up and, you know, did you bring alcohol with you?
8:31
I'm like, no, no, they've already checked me and they
8:33
didn't realize that I was, you know, hiding this stuff.
8:36
And it's like, well, you're never going to get better if you
8:38
keep freaking drinking the alcohols hand sanitizer.
8:42
So, So yeah, it was awful. It was absolutely awful.
8:48
And I scared a lot of people. But I was lucky that I had some
8:53
really, really good friends in the fellowship that I'd been
8:59
around for a long time. And and during my years of
9:05
recovery prior to this relapse, you know, I was one of those
9:10
people that I always hung out with old timers.
9:13
I always loved the old timers. I loved talking to them.
9:17
I love hearing what they had to say.
9:20
I just love being with them. And, you know, they were the
9:25
ones that were there. You know, I had visits in the
9:27
hospital. I had people coming to see me.
9:31
I had people bringing meetings to me, you know, And I was a
9:34
mess. Yeah.
9:37
And it, it took me, took me nearly two years and I'm almost
9:43
five months sober now. And and I'm doing it, doing what
9:48
I'm told. I'm doing it differently.
9:51
I'm doing every suggested thing. I'm not just saying, Oh yeah,
9:55
I'm getting down on my knees. I am actually getting down on my
9:57
knees and praying and I'm asking for direction.
10:00
And I'm trying to do the right thing.
10:02
And I'm going to as many meetings as I can and I'm doing
10:05
as much service as I can because, you know, I'm still in
10:08
early days. I'm in that first year and you
10:12
know, I'm trying to deal with this, you know, putting on the
10:17
stack of white in that first year because all you eat is
10:20
sugar, you know, sugar and caffeine.
10:24
Or I've given the caffeine away because I know it just gives me
10:27
anxiety. So I don't know that from
10:29
previous years, but you know, I've put on a couple of stone
10:32
and that's OK because it was quite underweight before.
10:34
But you know, always love it when I hear sayings like you
10:41
know a A is always the last card in the deck but it's always the
10:47
ace. You know there's so many cool
10:49
little sayings in a A and and I love them.
10:54
You know I I carry this little book around with me and I write
10:57
a lot of them down and that the old timers say, you know if you
11:02
can't remember your last drink you probably haven't had it yet
11:05
And you know just little things like that and and I love them
11:09
because they they're funny but they're also it's this is deadly
11:15
serious. We live with a fatal illness.
11:20
This is a fatal disease that we live with, and you can't muck
11:26
around with it. You cannot muck around with it.
11:30
We cannot rest on our laurels. We cannot for one minute think
11:35
we're normal because we're not. And I know when I'm not running
11:40
well that I need to be able to meet him, and my husband's know.
11:45
He knows as well, he he says. Why aren't he go on it?
11:51
Because I pick up a member quite, quite a lot because he
11:53
doesn't drive it nice. He's well, what are you why
11:56
aren't you picking him up tonight?
11:57
I said, oh he's having a night off or he goes, oh, you can
12:01
still go. I said no, Oh no, We're going to
12:04
do something different tomorrow night and he gets worried he's
12:07
he well, you still need to go. So I'm really lucky that my my
12:11
partner's really supportive of me being an A, A.
12:15
And I'm lucky that you know, he hung around.
12:17
You know, we've been together for 22 years and, you know, I've
12:21
given him, you know, 1313 and a bit years of sobriety, but the
12:27
rest of it was not a good time. And that, you know, the hell
12:32
that I put my kids through absolute hell.
12:35
I terrified them as children and then I terrified them as adults.
12:40
But, you know, I caused a lot of wreckage in this, this last
12:44
relapse a lot. And I'm talking about financial
12:48
relationships. I knit, you know, I'm lucky I
12:52
didn't lose my teaching license. But I'm really fortunate that
12:58
because I'm doing all the things, the suggested things,
13:02
this slowly, slowly coming back. You know, my my daughter's
13:07
speaking to me, you know, for, you know, a sore Christmas Day,
13:11
first time I'd seen every year, which has been, which is a step
13:15
forward. I've got a job for next year,
13:20
which is not full time. But, you know, that's good
13:23
because, you know, I can be one of those people that gets
13:26
obsessed about work. And this suits me better.
13:31
I'm cleaning up some of my debt and I know it'll take a year to
13:34
clean that up, but I've got time, you know, so I'm not
13:38
drinking, so I'm not wasting money on that and ambulances and
13:41
stuff. So got an ambulance bill to pay
13:45
off and other stuff, but you know, that's OK.
13:48
I didn't lose my license, my driver's license.
13:51
I should have. I didn't kill anyone.
13:53
I probably could have. You know, there's a lot of
13:56
things that I could have done. But you know, I'm here to here
14:01
to tell the story And you know, the stats for, you know,
14:04
Alcoholics coming into recovery that that actually stay in
14:10
recovery is about 2%. But I hate to think of what the
14:14
stats are of people that come into recovery and have a
14:19
substantial amount of recovery time and then go back out of
14:23
what their their likelihood of coming back in and staying sober
14:28
alike, you know? And I want to be that that
14:31
person. I want to be that statistic that
14:33
stays sober because I don't ever want to go back to that hell,
14:37
you know, it's absolute hell. And and I know that, you know,
14:43
in my inner circle, the people that I hang out with, the the
14:46
people that are my closest friends, the ones that that I
14:50
rely on, the ones that rely on me, the ones that were crying
14:53
when I was nearly dead, the ones that thought they were going to
14:56
bury me are the ones that said you scared that you scared us so
15:00
much that, you know, I scared one woman so much She started
15:04
going back to meetings on a daily basis.
15:07
She's been sober for, you know, over 20 years.
15:11
And and I said, you know what, maybe that bust, you know, maybe
15:16
that helped a lot of people see how bad it really is because
15:20
people said, oh, I couldn't believe that you busted, you
15:24
know, or you relapsed. And it's like it can happen to
15:27
anyone. I've heard of people 40 years
15:30
picking up a drink. It doesn't matter.
15:32
The days don't matter, you know, You just, you just have to do
15:37
anything but drink some days and it's a good day.
15:43
If I've done nothing but not take a drink, it's a good day.
15:48
But I have more good days than bad days.
15:51
Now I'm. I mean, I know I'm still on that
15:54
first year and it's, you know, almost five months.
15:58
But I'm loving life at the moment, you know, because the
16:02
gifts of recovery are coming back to me.
16:05
The people I love are in the rooms.
16:08
The people that never gave up on me are there.
16:11
They're happy I'm there. You know, they didn't cut me
16:15
off. They didn't say we don't want to
16:16
see you for a year. You know, they don't judge me.
16:20
They just said welcome back. Thank God you're here.
16:24
You know, and and that's all we need.
16:27
That's what Alcoholics need. We need to be needed at the end
16:31
of the day, we need to be loved and needed.
16:33
And that's what we, you know, that's all we want, you know,
16:37
And for me, for my recovery, that's what I need.
16:42
But I also need to be helping another alcoholic.
16:46
And for me, I love picking up other people that can't get to a
16:51
meeting and take him there. And you know that that's the way
17:00
I can give back at the moment because I haven't got enough
17:03
time up to be of service in other ways, you know, in a Home
17:07
group. But if I can pick up a member a
17:10
couple of times a week, they can't drive for whatever reason,
17:16
That's great for me because we have a meeting in the car, you
17:20
know, we have a chat about things.
17:22
And I I don't feel so alone, you know, because you know often at
17:27
meetings you have a talk to someone that you get interrupted
17:30
or you know, come on, we're closing the lights down now or
17:33
it's got to go or you get there early and then there's so many
17:36
people want to chat too. And but when we're in the car
17:39
for half an hour and we have that talk and it's like, you
17:43
know you just go that little bit deep when when you're sharing
17:47
with each other and it's like you know this person's got so
17:51
much time up and you know I'm right back to the start of of my
17:59
dates. It doesn't mean I haven't lost
18:02
what I learned in all that time, but to to hear that we're both
18:07
exactly the same. We both felt at home in the
18:11
psych ward. We'd both feel at home and we're
18:13
with people that are, you know, mental defects, you know, people
18:19
that aren't quite right, you know, and that's OK That is
18:25
completely OK. And I I'm really glad that, you
18:31
know, I'm not glad I had the relapse, but I I sort of am
18:37
because it's brought me to a new level of recovery.
18:42
It's brought me to a level of knowing that this is not
18:47
something that you muck around with.
18:50
AI is not a social club. It's not it's it's your it's a
18:57
life support machine. If I don't go there, I will die.
19:03
And I know that. I know that now since having
19:08
that relapse. So, yeah, thank you for
19:13
listening to me. And God bless you all.
19:17
And, you know, please, just one day at a time.
19:23
That's all we have and that's all I've got.
19:26
That's all you've got. And together I can just get
19:31
through this. God bless.
19:36
We have local meetings for the full week in the local area.
19:40
Monday is Gala meeting at 8:00, Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00,
19:46
Wednesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00, Thursday is 2 Wells at
19:51
8:00, and Friday is Salisbury at 8:00.
19:56
There's a meeting at Devron Park at 12:00 and on Sunday there's a
20:00
meeting in Salisbury at 7:00 and many of the meetings in the
20:03
area. For details of your local
20:08
meetings, please phone 1300. 2222 double.
20:13
Two and once again, if anyone you know is struggling with
20:17
alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300
20:21
Double. 22222. The website isaasa.org dot AU.