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Transcript

SOBER TALK SA - Sabina · Sober Talk SA

0:00
Well, hi, my name is Sabina. I'm an alcoholic, recovering
0:04
alcoholic, I like to say. And gosh, I came into the
0:11
fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in 2007 for the second
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time. And the first time I came in in
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2001 and I, I walked in and I listened to what people had to
0:26
say and I walked out thinking I'm not like those people and
0:30
I'm not going to stay here. And, and I was 26 years old and
0:34
I thought I was way too young for, for a program that I didn't
0:38
need help. Yes, I walked back out and came
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back in about six years later because I did need help.
0:48
My sobriety date is the 25th of February 2007 and that means
0:54
I've been in a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 13 1/2
0:58
years now. Which is an absolute miracle in
1:02
my mind because when I walked into the rooms of AAI, never
1:08
thought that I'd be able to function out in the world
1:12
without the use of alcohol in my life.
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It was just such a big part of my life.
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Everything revolved around it. I'm kind of what they call
1:20
people often refer to as a functioning alcoholic.
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I was, I was going to university, I was working a
1:28
couple jobs and I had a roof over my head.
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I paid my rent and my bills. That sort of that sort of part
1:37
of life is always really heavily instilled in me to take care of.
1:42
So I had those things all happening and and I hadn't been
1:46
fired from jobs for my drinking, but basically all I did was look
1:52
forward to drinking. And if I knew a drink was
1:56
coming, I was excited and happy. And if I didn't have one, I
1:59
wasn't happy and I was restless and irritable and discontent.
2:04
And my weeks would revolve around getting to about a
2:09
Thursday night. And I would write myself off on
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a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, recover on a Sunday and start
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end with my week on a Monday. And you know, my first drink was
2:21
at the age of 7 at my first communion.
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And, and it was given to me by my grandfather, who was also an
2:30
alcoholic. He's now passed.
2:33
And my father was absent until my grandfather took the
2:37
responsibility of raising me like I was his own.
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And another functioning alcoholic did all those things
2:44
out in the world that that looked good and and that people
2:47
praised and took care of the family financially because he
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came from an alcoholic family where that didn't happen for
2:54
him. His father was spending all the
2:57
money and he was, you know, off in the bar and and so my
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grandfather thought, well, I'm not going to let that happen.
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But he was also an alcoholic and he gave me that first drink and
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it was some some cooking wine and lemonade.
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And I don't remember that like sparking anything in my brain.
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I remember feeling really special because he gave it to
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me. And he he did say, you know, SH
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don't tell anyone. I remember feeling, you know,
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like a special little girl because my grandfather had done
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that for me. But it didn't do anything else
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for me at the time. I just remember that at these
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parties, at these gatherings that my grandparents would have,
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and this one in particular was for my first communion.
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But everybody was drinking and everybody was really happy and
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loud and boisterous and I was really attracted to that.
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And but my first drunk came by the age of 11.
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And I think about that now. I have a four year old daughter
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and I think, how does somebody write themselves off at 11 years
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old? But I did it and you know, I had
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a little supervision at home and I was with some friends and, and
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I was at a girlfriend's house and her mother had a a vast
4:12
liquor cabinet. And so we mixed several
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different types of liquor together and put it in a big
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plastic cup. And they said, who's going to
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drink it? And I put my hand up and I did
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it. And I remember at that point
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just feeling like the weight of the world had come off my
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shoulders. I felt like I never had before.
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I felt a part of I felt smart, I felt beautiful.
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I felt I could do anything. There was No Fear, there was no
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anxiety. And I don't remember being
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riddled with all of that, but I remember feeling really lonely
4:50
really my whole life having these feelings of loneliness.
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And when I had that drink, I did not feel lonely anymore.
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And that was just the beginning. So that's really how it took
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off. And I knew it at a young age
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that there was something wrong with me.
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I just didn't think. I didn't know.
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It wasn't normal to to drink like I drank.
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It wasn't normal for me to be hanging out with people that
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were like, you know, 1015 years older than I was as a young
5:19
teenager. It wasn't normal to be waking up
5:23
in the places that I was waking up in.
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And, and I was a blackout drinker, as people call it.
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I often blacked out when I drank and didn't remember what
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happened. And I put myself in places with
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people that I would never put myself in to today.
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Very dangerous people, as I said, people much older than me.
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Drugs are a part of my story. Whenever I drank, it was easy
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for me to pick up drugs, you know, and, and I used them to
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keep me going. And, and that's common today.
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You know, we see people dually addicted and Alcoholics
6:00
Anonymous a lot more today than we have in the past.
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And, you know, so I basically my health scared me into the rooms
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again. I came into the rooms, as I said
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it, 26 years old, walked into the rooms and there was all
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these people that seemed so much older than me.
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They were in their 40s, which I'm in my 40s now.
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And I thought they were ancient, you know, and, and, and they
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weren't, but because I certainly don't feel ancient, but, you
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know, I thought they were, and, and they were telling all these
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stories about the things they had done in their alcoholism.
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So when they were drinking, you know, and, and I was appalled
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and they were laughing and, and, you know, I'm and, and I just
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thought, no way, this isn't for me.
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I haven't done any of these things that these people have
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done. You know, some of those things
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were, you know, crashing cars and going to jail and losing
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their jobs and their families and friends and, and that stuff
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hadn't happened to me. And probably because I didn't
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have a lot of that stuff in the 1st place, you know, I hadn't
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lost. I mean, I had had a job and I
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had a home, but I didn't and I had friends, but I didn't have
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any, you know, didn't have a relationship.
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And looking back now, I can see that the relationships that I
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did have, the love relationships were, were actually, they all
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ended because of my behavior. And I didn't know that before I
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came into a, a, my relationships with people, they were, I, I
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always felt that I had really good relationships with everyone
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around me, you know, whether they were love or my family or,
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or just friends. What I came to learn was that
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once I got sober, that people actually, that significant
8:02
people in my life actually didn't feel like they could talk
8:06
to me about anything. I remember coming into a A and
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going back to the states to see my family and I had been sober
8:16
for a year. You know, I was living in
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Australia for a year and, and I went back to the States and, and
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I was talking to my sister and my sister said, wow, you seem so
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different. And I said, really, what, how do
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I seem different? And she said to me, well, I can
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actually talk to you. And I, I was, I couldn't believe
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it. I thought, what do you mean you
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can talk to me? And she said, we used to just
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get angry all the time. I couldn't talk to you about
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anything. You just fly off the handle.
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And I was really surprised by that because I had never seen
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myself that way. And I always seen myself as this
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open person that anybody could get along with.
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But it really wasn't the case. And I was starting to get some
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home truths about myself and I've had to learn a lot more
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along the way. But I basically came back to a a
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because I had some health issues.
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And I thought that that I would die if I, I didn't stop
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drinking. I didn't think I would die from
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the drinking, but I thought I would die if I didn't stop
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drinking because of the health issues.
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And, and I went to a few meetings and that's when I heard
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all those people when I was 26 and, and I went to three
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different meetings and, and I had this tumor out that I had in
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my body and it was benign. And within a week I was drinking
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again with futures in my throat. So, you know, I went on for
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about another six years after that sort of wandering around
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and trying to trying to control my drink.
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And, and I hear this a lot actually, you know, some people
10:07
in the rooms that share, you know, I was trying to control my
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drink. So for me, like I was trying to
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control it in the way of what I drank, when I drank, where I
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drank, who I drank with. I moved away from the pub.
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I lived in a little town in Northern California and I was
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about 5 minutes walk from, from all of these pubs because I was
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in a college town, a university town and, and, and I thought
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I'll, I'll move away from there so I can't get to the pubs as
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easily. And that will solve the problem.
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And I won't go out on Thursday night, but I'll just go out on
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Friday night and I and I won't drink tequila, but I'll just
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drink beer and, and I'll only take $20.00 with me because
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that'll only get me so many drinks.
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And that's sort of showing my age there.
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It's $20 when it gets you far these days.
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But you know, it, I, I thought I'll just take this much and
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then, you know, what would I end up doing?
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I'd end up asking somebody for money or trying to get someone
11:09
to buy me a drink or I'd end up wobbling home to get more money,
11:14
you know, or, or I'll just move away.
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I'll just move away from the pubs and then I can't get there,
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you know, as quickly and on as easily.
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And I ended up moving into this, up onto this little mountain in
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the Redwood, in a Redwood forest, away from everybody.
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And instead I just started buying my drink on the way home,
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my alcohol on the way home and drinking it by myself.
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And yeah. And, you know, now being an A,
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A, when I listen to people share, it's when we get to that
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point where we really start isolating from the rest of the
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world that things get really dangerous for us because the
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fear really sets in. We start getting fearful, really
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fearful of everyone in the world and everything around us.
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And the anxiety sets in. And then we stop functioning
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well and our relationships breakdown and we end up drinking
12:08
by ourselves. And then we stop working.
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And then, you know, eventually we drink ourselves to death or
12:14
we take our own lives because we can't function anymore in the
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way that we've been functioning. And so the drink stops working
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for us. And that's what happened for me.
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I tried all these control methods.
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Nothing worked. I was exhausted.
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I've heard somebody say once I was sick and tired of being sick
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and tired of being sick and tired.
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And thought came to me, you know, how about a A and to be
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honest with you, you know, in the States, we have a million
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different 12 step programs. We've got sub Utah anonymous,
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you know, and you know, we've got a, we've got a 12 step
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program for just about anything, you know, And So what that tells
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me is that this 12 steps can treat my life problems, you
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know, but I ended up going to many, many 12 step rooms.
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I qualified for all of them. I had issues with, you know,
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relationships, food. I was going to Al Anon for
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support for the other Alcoholics in my life and hearing my own
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story being told and thinking I'm a fraud.
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I probably shouldn't be here. And I was in this other 12 step
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program and I had gotten a sponsor and I needed to get I
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was I was holding on. I was white knuckling it, as
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they call it. I had this heavy grip and I was
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doing everything I could not to drink on my own.
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And I had gotten to about, I think 8 to 10 weeks.
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And I was using this other program.
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And we had a public holiday come in the US that arrived.
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And it's a big drinking holiday, you know?
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And I, I remembered I flashed back to what I'd done the year
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before and it wasn't pretty. And there was a lot of shame and
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remorse about my behavior. And, you know, I, I thought, I
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don't want to do that again. Like I don't want to go there
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because the pain in me was so yucky.
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Everything, it just felt so yucky to remember some of the
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things that I had done when I was drinking that I wouldn't
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normally do when I'm not. And I just just didn't want to
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go there. So I, I called up the sponsor
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and I said, I can't get to this meeting tonight for this other
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program. And she said, well, you know,
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you've been to Allen on, you can go to Allen on meeting or, you
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know, you can go to an, a, a meeting.
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There's a lot of those around. And she said, you know, just go
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there, keep your mouth shut and listen.
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And you're getting a 12 step meeting in.
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And I thought, yeah, that's a good idea.
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And I didn't use the Allen on meeting that night.
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I chose an, A, a meeting and I went to that meeting and I
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raised my hand and I said, I'm Sabina, I'm an alcoholic.
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And then I just cried like a baby.
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And it makes me emotional to, to even talk about that, you know,
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because it took me a long time to get to a place where I was
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ready to admit that I had a problem.
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I think I kind of knew I had a problem, but then there was
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admitting it out loud to a group of strangers, but they all had
15:39
to have to do it at some time as well.
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And then accepting that I had a problem.
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There's a there's, there's something in that there's
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admitting and then there's acceptance of, wow, I actually
15:50
really do need some help because I can't stop on my own.
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And I had so many people come up to me at the end of that meeting
15:59
and give me their phone numbers and say, give me a call.
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I understand where you're at. I can help.
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We're here. You don't need to pick up
16:09
another drink. You can stay sober, you know
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that you're you're welcome here. And every time I'd go back like
16:15
after that, I just started going to a meeting every single day
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because I needed a meeting every single day.
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And my day would consist of getting up in the morning, going
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to my first job, going to university, leaving there, going
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to my next job, going home, taking a shower, eating dinner,
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going to a meeting, getting in bed, gripping that gripping.
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I can remember gripping my, my pillow in my, in my blanket and
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saying, Oh my God, it's another 24 hours.
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It's another day that I haven't had a drink.
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And it's been 13 1/2 years and I haven't had a drink now by just
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continuing to go to AAI called up that sponsor and I said, Oh
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my gosh, I'm an alcoholic. And she said, isn't that great?
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I've been sober 26 years. I thought, I thought my life had
17:11
ended. And she said to me, isn't that
17:13
great? But I thought, no, it's not
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great. But she was like, now you can do
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something about it. So you know, she was in two
17:22
different programs, too. And I felt like there was some
17:25
hope. And that's what happened to me.
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When I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I saw
17:30
people that were happy, joyous and free.
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I saw people I was, I was miserable.
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I was, I was starting to feel depressed.
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I, I, I was, I, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
17:43
And there were these people that were happy and they were hanging
17:46
out together and they were talking about their disease,
17:50
which we know now, alcoholism is a disease.
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It's not just something that you choose.
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Because I can tell you right now, if I could choose not to
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drink on my own and do it all by myself, I wouldn't be an, A, a,
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you know, but it's, it was just these people and they would have
18:08
like a month and six months and six years and 30 years sobriety.
18:15
And I thought, holy hell, you know, they're, they're smiling
18:20
and they're laughing and they're sober.
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You know, maybe there's something happening here that,
18:26
that I need to know about. And so all I did is I just kept
18:28
coming back at the beginning, doing those meetings every day
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on the weekends because I wasn't working or going to school.
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And that was a big drinking time for me.
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I went to two or three meetings a day at the beginning.
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And I remember thinking, is this all I'm going to do with my
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life? Is this all there is?
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You know, But it gave me, it gave me purpose and, and I
18:53
wasn't drinking one day at a time.
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And I ended up moving over to Australia.
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My husband is in this fellowship.
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He is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for longer
19:06
than I am. And, and I kept doing those
19:11
meetings daily for a long, you know, for probably the first
19:14
year maybe, you know, and then they, you know, they start to
19:18
taper off a little bit because my life, I actually, you know,
19:21
get another job and, and start doing life and Start learning
19:25
how to live life, but staying really connected to a, A, I have
19:30
sponsorship. Some people call them a mentor,
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some people call them a friend. All I needed to find, I needed
19:36
to have that person who had been doing this program for a long
19:40
time to help me navigate my way through it.
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I needed somebody that I could call at 3:00 in the morning if I
19:46
needed to and cry my eyes out or talk about how I'm feeling or
19:51
somebody that I could say, God, I really want to drink right
19:54
now. What do I do?
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I, I started making some friends in the fellowship and to be
20:00
honest with you, my deepest relationships are with people in
20:04
the fellowship today because we all speak the same language.
20:08
You know, we call it the language of the heart.
20:10
You know, we're talking about the stuff that really matters in
20:13
life. And when I was drinking, sitting
20:15
at the front bar, I was seeking that.
20:17
I was seeking those deep friendships, but they doesn't
20:20
come in the bottle. And, you know, sitting at the
20:23
front bar was a very abusive place.
20:26
It was a place where people where we didn't speak nicely to
20:29
each other. And it just wasn't, it just
20:32
wasn't good treatment. I felt a part of there too, but
20:35
it just wasn't the treatment that I was looking for, you
20:37
know, And so I have that sponsor and then I start looking at the
20:43
program, you know, my, my sobriety starts to build up onto
20:48
my shoulders. It's what, what I've heard it
20:51
called, you know, it's the things that I've done in my
20:54
drinking days are starting to build up.
20:56
And I'm starting to remember some of my actions that I'm not
21:00
proud of. There's shame and there's fear
21:04
and there's anxiety with it all and all I need to learn how to
21:08
deal with those things now, the things I've done in my past so
21:12
that I can move forward and start living a good life, you
21:15
know, and start changing some of my behaviors and my attitudes
21:19
around the way I do things, the way I treat people, the way I
21:22
treat myself. I just Start learning about
21:25
self-care. Like, what does that even mean?
21:27
How do I look after myself, you know?
21:30
And all of that has come from Alcoholics Anonymous.
21:36
There's a program of 12 steps. We start looking at how to live
21:41
using those 12 steps and I started delving deep and did
21:46
some serious healing. And I'll be really honest, like
21:49
the first few years of my sobriety, I was had a lot of
21:52
grief. I had to do a lot of healing in
21:55
my heart. But I can tell you now that
21:57
like, I have a faith today, like this is not a religious program.
22:03
It's a spiritual program. I was always trying to seek
22:06
something spiritual in my life. I had belief that, you know,
22:10
that something blew the wind in the trees and that, you know,
22:14
somehow the sky was blue. And, and I studied science in
22:19
university, you know, so I was an environmental science focus
22:23
and, and I had to try to figure out how to merge the two.
22:27
And today I have some this incredible faith that
22:30
everything's just going to be OK.
22:32
And I don't know what's doing it.
22:34
Some people call it God, some people call it Gaia, some people
22:38
call it the universe. Some people use a rock.
22:42
I don't know. And it doesn't have to be
22:44
anything. It's, well, it's not anything
22:46
tangible. It just is.
22:48
I just have this, this ever knowing and this sense of calm
22:53
that I can get to. I mean, I'm human, I'm human, so
22:57
I'm still living life and I still freak out and get anxious
23:00
and have things come up and don't always know how to deal
23:03
with them properly. And sometimes it takes me a
23:05
while to get comfortable in certain situations.
23:08
But you know, there's always this sort of ever knowing that's
23:11
deep in my belly that provides me with a bit of comfort and
23:16
safety and direction. If I sort of stop and just sort
23:20
of TuneIn and I go, Hey, you know what, where, where do I
23:23
need to go? What do I need to do?
23:25
It's that it's that gut feeling that people talk about that
23:28
tells me, right, you know, the difference between right and
23:30
wrong and to go left and right. It's it's a beauty.
23:35
It's a connection that I've never never been able to tap
23:39
into until now. And it's taken a while to do it,
23:42
but it's happening, you know, And so I have this faith and I
23:46
have this sponsor still. You know, I've had a few
23:51
beautiful people who've guided me in this program.
23:54
I have friends and fellowship. I've never really had really
23:58
close female friendships in my life.
24:01
I've always sort of hung and drank with the boys.
24:06
I lie. I have, I've had a few, but not
24:10
people that I usually drank with those those female friendships.
24:12
And now my closest girlfriends are in this program.
24:16
I have 3 really close, wonderful women in my life that I can call
24:21
the drop of a hat and they would they would do anything for me
24:25
without without me giving them anything back.
24:29
They just come and and help me if I needed it, you know, and
24:32
that's that's pretty special. I don't know a lot of people who
24:35
can say that, that they have those kind of friendships and
24:40
what else. I, I've, I'm in a job that I
24:45
still really like, like that I really enjoy doing.
24:48
I've been doing it for almost 11 years.
24:51
Like I've had some consistency in my life with that and I'm
24:55
building skills and self-confidence and I, I have a
25:00
relationship with everyone in my family.
25:03
Unfortunately, alcoholism has affected my family significantly
25:08
and the disease has affected my family.
25:11
But somehow through this program, I have the ability to
25:15
understand and to just accept people as they are.
25:19
And so I'm able to have relationships with every single
25:22
one of my family members and they don't.
25:26
So it's, it's, I mean, that's a testament in itself to me that
25:31
that something's working. You know, I, I'm married, I have
25:37
a child. I didn't even believe in those
25:39
things before I came into a or that they could exist.
25:45
And I'm still involved in the fellowship.
25:50
You know, my family, we really like to travel and we like to do
25:53
a lot of camping. And, and we've done that like
25:56
we've just come back from the NT.
25:59
We were camping with a bunch of people from the fellowship
26:02
traveling around the NT. We go to weekend camps where we
26:07
gather with other Alcoholics, Al Anon, adult children of
26:13
Alcoholics, alla teens and we all just get together and camp
26:16
and have a lovely weekend and make food and do sport and go
26:21
swimming and and have a lot of laughter and just fellowship and
26:27
friendship. I've traveled to Bali and gone
26:30
to conventions there and it's, it's, it's, it's amazing to go
26:35
to a hotel and there'll be 500 Alcoholics walking around the
26:39
place together to just take it over.
26:41
And you think what, this blows my mind, you know, so the future
26:46
is bright, you know, it really is.
26:50
So I just keep coming back, keep coming back.
26:54
I try to help other people, try to help guide other people these
26:57
days that come into the fellowship and and just try to
27:02
be a good citizen of the world. Yeah.
27:07
So thanks for listening. We have local meetings for the
27:12
full week in the local area. Monday is Gala meeting at 8:00.
27:18
Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00. Wednesday is Elizabeth E at
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8:00. Thursday is 2 Wells at 8:00 and
27:28
Friday at Salisbury at 8:00. There's a meeting at Devon Park
27:32
at 12:00 and on Sunday there's a maintenance Salisbury at 7:00
27:37
and many of the meetings in the area.
27:41
For details of your local meetings, please phone 1300
27:46
double 22222. And once again, if anyone you
27:51
know is struggling with alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics
27:54
Anonymous on 13 under 222222 or check out their website ona.org
28:01
dot AU.