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Sober Talk SA - Jenny 2 · Sober Talk SA

• 0:02
  Welcome to Sober TALK. I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic.
• 0:06
  Soap dear. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 0:10
  If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, please
• 0:13
  call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222.
• 0:19
  I'll visit their website ata.org dot AU.
• 0:26
  I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
• 0:29
  Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
• 0:31
  fellowship of people who share the experience, strengthen hope
• 0:35
  with each other that they may solve their common problems, and
• 0:39
  help with us to recover from alcoholism.
• 0:42
  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
• 0:45
  drinking and no dues of fees. Fair membership without self
• 0:49
  supporting through our own contributions.
• 0:52
  He is not allied with any sect in immersion politics,
• 0:56
  organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any
• 1:00
  controversy, either endorses or oppose any causes.
• 1:05
  Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other Alcoholics
• 1:09
  are chiefs of Brady. Yeah, it's any alcoholic.
• 1:12
  I wasn't nervous until Peter just miked me up, and now I am
• 1:15
  because I feel like I'm doing a performance right.
• 1:20
  Yeah, I didn't prep anything because my faith has never been
• 1:25
  the issue. I do have a strong faith, so
• 1:28
  I'll get the awkward part out of the room.
• 1:29
  I am a religious woman, but my problem was recognizing that I
• 1:37
  couldn't handle booze the way that I thought I could handle
• 1:39
  booze, and I justified it in every single way possible.
• 1:45
  You know, like I, I love the shit I did, absolutely loved it.
• 1:53
  I, I love Johnnie Walker and I loved Hans more than I loved my
• 1:57
  husband. I don't even think I loved my
• 1:58
  husband. And any excuse to go out with
• 2:02
  those two blokes, I'm out, you know, I'm gone.
• 2:05
  You know, like the ramifications were very clear from the
• 2:11
  beginning because I am a, a child that grew up in this
• 2:17
  program. You could say this program was
• 2:19
  my church. My mum was Al Anon for about 42
• 2:23
  years. My dad was an atheist, also the
• 2:27
  alcoholic and we weren't allowed to go to church because my mum
• 2:33
  believed in God became my mum's a Greek woman, he's German,
• 2:37
  English, bit of Scottish and lots on that side and just a
• 2:42
  very angry man in general. So we weren't allowed to learn
• 2:46
  Greek in case we talked about him very paranoid and all all
• 2:51
  this sort of stuff. So there was a lot of you're a
• 2:53
  kid be seen, not heard growing up kind of stuff, you know, like
• 2:59
  I was very fearful of my old man, but it it made it easier
• 3:05
  for me to believe in God because he didn't believe in God.
• 3:09
  And I know that sounds weird because as a little girl,
• 3:12
  actually, you know, I think I'd be idolizing my dad, but I
• 3:15
  didn't, I didn't even like my dad.
• 3:17
  You know, I understand my dad. I just don't like it, right?
• 3:20
  And the reasons for that is because he left the family.
• 3:22
  He chose to drink. And that was the heartbreaking
• 3:25
  thing Mom had found Alan on. He knew about a A and he still
• 3:30
  didn't want to see he had a problem with alcohol.
• 3:33
  So yeah, the mum and four kids were left.
• 3:36
  So we're we're left with a lot of dysfunctionality and learning
• 3:40
  about life without father's brain and whatever he might
• 3:45
  know. And he was handy with the power
• 3:47
  tools and building cabinets and all that sort of stuff, stuff
• 3:51
  that my brother definitely could have learned and I could have
• 3:53
  done with a few skills too, you know.
• 3:55
  So when it came to drinking, it was easy.
• 3:59
  It was something that was just in me.
• 4:02
  I was so naturally built for it. I thought, wow, I'm excellent at
• 4:06
  this sort of stuff. You know, this is, this is, I
• 4:10
  don't even have to think about this, you know, like, it's, it's
• 4:13
  not rocket science, you know, like.
• 4:16
  And it offered me all, all the comfort I could possibly would
• 4:19
  have, would have needed, would have desired, would have hoped
• 4:22
  for stuff that, you know, a loving father could have given
• 4:25
  me. But it didn't happen that way.
• 4:27
  So I'm like, yeah, cool. Got all those little foot warm
• 4:33
  fuzzy feelings inside every time you had that first mouthful, you
• 4:37
  know, like, yeah, there was absolutely nothing I didn't like
• 4:41
  about booze. Like I loved it all.
• 4:44
  I wanted it all, you know, like I, I wasn't fussy on my drinks.
• 4:49
  I had my party drinks, I had my pub drinks, you know, I had
• 4:51
  drinks for different occasions and all that sort of stuff.
• 4:54
  Champagne at the races, you know, like, you know, trying to
• 4:57
  be a lady. I didn't think that went down
• 4:59
  well, but yeah, I to me, although I had mum in the
• 5:07
  fellowship and I've listened to a a people growing up.
• 5:10
  I had them. They were on our back porch.
• 5:12
  I heard trying to sleep at night.
• 5:14
  I'm hearing all the a a guys and the girls in recovery.
• 5:17
  You know, the the steps going around, you know, like people
• 5:21
  saying the steps. I'm I'm being dragged to
• 5:23
  meetings left, right and centre. Aloteen.
• 5:26
  I, I needed to explore it all for myself and figure it out for
• 5:30
  all for myself. Yeah, just, it was, it was, it
• 5:34
  was a magic world for me. It was what I thought was God's
• 5:37
  Kingdom, you know, like I went, it's OK because I'm a good girl.
• 5:42
  I don't do drugs, you know, I don't even like smoking.
• 5:48
  But man, I love that booze, you know, like, and with the booze
• 5:52
  comes the dope and the cigarettes and everything else
• 5:56
  after, you know, like, but again, justifying everything,
• 6:00
  you know, like I was just brilliant at that.
• 6:04
  I don't, I don't spend money on my nails growing, you know,
• 6:09
  getting fancy haircuts and all that sort of stuff.
• 6:12
  I'll spend it on booze, you know, like my kids are well
• 6:15
  dressed, you know, all of that stuff, you know, refrigerator's
• 6:19
  full, you know, like house is clean, you know, so I'm going
• 6:23
  out, you know, like, and yeah, it's just I mentally and
• 6:29
  emotionally abandoned my children even though I
• 6:31
  physically didn't leave them, you know, I like.
• 6:34
  And that's the simple fact of coming through and working this
• 6:37
  program myself is that I come to realize that I was not the crash
• 6:43
  hot woman wife mother that I thought I was.
• 6:47
  You know, like I was still faithful and all that sort of
• 6:51
  stuff because like I said, I wasn't interested.
• 6:53
  I was in love with Johnny, you know, like none of none of that
• 6:56
  stuff I I was interested in. I just wanted to get off my
• 6:59
  face, dance the night away and yeah, if I could wake up
• 7:04
  tomorrow morning. I didn't get give a shit if I
• 7:06
  did or not. Like, it's fine.
• 7:08
  Well, I've lived my life hard, gone hard.
• 7:10
  Go go hard or go home, you know, like I had all those, those
• 7:14
  attitude, you know, like, you know, I also come out with a
• 7:18
  bang, you know, like, yeah, I'll tell you.
• 7:25
  So now I'm 46 years old, alright.
• 7:29
  I had my first drunken episode at 14 at the ice arena and threw
• 7:35
  up all over this fella's lap, you know, just made an absolute
• 7:40
  humiliation of myself. But it, you know, and I'm still
• 7:44
  thinking I'm top shit, I'm going out there to do it again, you
• 7:47
  know, like, yeah, it's just no, no real recollection to what it
• 7:52
  means to behave as a human being.
• 7:55
  No, no recollection to think about others, you know, like I'm
• 7:59
  just this is this is all I'm doing for myself.
• 8:02
  You know, that whole pour me, pour me, pour me another drink.
• 8:07
  You know, my mentality stayed like that for probably 10 years.
• 8:15
  Yeah, about 10 years. And then I had an experience
• 8:19
  where I went to Ireland for a month and I had somebody else
• 8:26
  controlling my funds, somebody else controlling my, my means to
• 8:31
  get around my ability, like just everything.
• 8:35
  And I found myself in a state of desperation over an island and
• 8:41
  just I found this little Locket and in this side, this little
• 8:45
  Locket that had a mini Bible like so many that on the front
• 8:51
  of the Locket was a little magnifying glass.
• 8:53
  And you use the that little bit magnifying glass to supposedly
• 8:56
  look that. But Nah, that ain't even going
• 8:58
  to happen when you got beer goggles, right?
• 9:00
  You just can't see anything. But I knew what it was and that
• 9:04
  was enough to just hold on to and I hold on to it for dear
• 9:07
  life. That little trinket, just that
• 9:09
  fight just kicked in and I'm still drinking and I'm drinking
• 9:13
  and I'm drinking and some really bad stuff happened to me there,
• 9:19
  which I won't go into detail, but soon as I got home
• 9:23
  eventually and that and the way I got home was lucky.
• 9:29
  I had a purchased a return flight, so as long as I didn't
• 9:34
  miss that flight, I could get back.
• 9:37
  But I didn't couldn't get to the airport or anything like that.
• 9:41
  And again, this man had passed away and the girl that I was
• 9:46
  with was going through all of this stuff and she came across
• 9:52
  some money and I said I want like it was in euros.
• 9:55
  And I said I want 20 of that. And I, and I and I basically
• 9:58
  ripped it out of her hands. I didn't let her control me
• 10:01
  anymore. I ripped it out of her hands.
• 10:03
  And I grabbed that 20 and I got my taxi to the airport and I got
• 10:07
  all my flights, you know, like, and I got home and yeah, she had
• 10:12
  changed all of her flights. She stayed there and everything.
• 10:14
  And it was just, it was atrocious.
• 10:19
  I was so frightened in Ireland that and I know it's a beautiful
• 10:24
  place. It was just in my drinking.
• 10:26
  I was I was so frightened and so afraid and because of the things
• 10:31
  that happened to me, I got back and I went.
• 10:33
  I'm going to do something about my drinking.
• 10:35
  I know it's my drinking. You know, a girl shouldn't be in
• 10:37
  the position that she's in. I know that, you know, like, and
• 10:41
  the, the first thought is a a because I know a A exists.
• 10:46
  It's a solution. I've got to, I've got all this
• 10:48
  education now. I'm blessed.
• 10:50
  I've, I've, I've been given all this information before, you
• 10:53
  know, like that. It's not, it's no secret that
• 10:56
  this place exists and that people were getting recovery
• 10:59
  because I was growing up with them and they were all getting
• 11:02
  recovery on my back doorstep. Like, so I went, oh, it's not
• 11:08
  for talking myself out of it. It's not for me, you know, like
• 11:14
  obviously there weren't all good people that I met, you know, so
• 11:17
  start telling, telling myself there's not all good people
• 11:20
  there. There's some really, you know,
• 11:22
  grabbing bad people were everywhere, you know, like.
• 11:25
  And so, yeah, it's just still trying to find those excuses not
• 11:29
  to come to a a still trying to find the excuses.
• 11:33
  Because I know it's that about abstinence.
• 11:35
  I know it's about stopping drinking.
• 11:37
  I know it's not about controlling your drinking or
• 11:39
  drinking less. I know it's about not drinking,
• 11:43
  you know, and then living a different life.
• 11:45
  And I'm like, do I really want that?
• 11:48
  Do I really want that? Oh, no, no, not ready yet.
• 11:57
  So, yeah, just, I did try Kilburn, which is now my Home
• 12:02
  group, for my first meeting at 25.
• 12:05
  And yes, it was just another bad experience.
• 12:10
  You know, I I got told I was too young to be an alcoholic, which
• 12:14
  is a cliche thing that's been said to people in these rooms.
• 12:17
  All right? I'm just one of those cliche
• 12:19
  moments where I knew the lady didn't know what she was talking
• 12:22
  about. All right.
• 12:24
  But I still went, ah, it's my ticket.
• 12:25
  It's my golden ticket. I'm out of here, you know,
• 12:27
  because I'm not really want it. I don't really want it.
• 12:30
  I don't really want to get sober.
• 12:32
  I will still want to drink, you know.
• 12:33
  So yeah, I went out, back out for a while and then second
• 12:39
  meeting probably about, we're talking now another 12/12/12,
• 12:43
  thirteen years later. I tried to do it on my own, you
• 12:47
  know, like that's just another, probably another talk in itself,
• 12:52
  those 13 years trying to do it on your own and finding other
• 12:55
  means and other ways and all that sort of stuff before I
• 12:59
  went, oh, give a another crack. So we're starting to starting to
• 13:03
  surrender the white flag. It's sort of halfway up, you
• 13:06
  know, like in yeah, I went to Henley Beach and I saw Darwin
• 13:12
  Paul there, who I knew from Darwin as a kid.
• 13:15
  So it was nice to see a familiar face.
• 13:19
  I called him Uncle Paul when I was a kid.
• 13:21
  Sometimes it slips out still. Yeah.
• 13:23
  But the IT wasn't enough to to not pull me into the atmosphere
• 13:31
  again where I could see the Ramsgate across the road where
• 13:35
  my dad used to drink and where I used to go to the sandbar and
• 13:38
  then go to the Ramsgate and, you know, see live bands and, you
• 13:43
  know, I like. And I went, oh, I still want to
• 13:45
  be part of that life, you know, I still want want, you know,
• 13:49
  that self want, self will want. And then, yeah, I ended up going
• 13:55
  out and drinking after that meeting.
• 13:57
  And yeah, I I have something in me that's always wanted to be a
• 14:02
  bit of a cowgill. So talking desperately to my
• 14:06
  husband that, you know, let's move to the country, you know,
• 14:09
  like. And and that that conversation
• 14:12
  went on for a little while, but he wasn't willing to and I end
• 14:18
  up leaving him again probably about third or fourth time.
• 14:20
  And eventually he sold the house and we got this property out of
• 14:26
  Murray Bridge and the country area out there.
• 14:30
  Mate, did I feel the presence of my Lord Jesus Christ.
• 14:33
  I felt him like they like when I was little and I went, this is
• 14:38
  strong. This is powerful.
• 14:40
  And because I that our property was on a block, the gusts of
• 14:44
  wind that used to come up, it was enough to take this little
• 14:47
  girl to lick the clouds, you know, like into the clouds and
• 14:51
  those everything in my world at that moment I saw was grey.
• 14:55
  I didn't see things in colour. I was so out of it in my head
• 15:01
  that, that my vision, my perception on everything was
• 15:05
  just grey and ugly, you know, like, yeah, my, my misery was
• 15:11
  just a thousandfold, you know, like, and yeah, I, I just felt
• 15:17
  this presence of the Lord and it was just like, I wanted to fly
• 15:22
  and my head, my head, I want to fly to a, a what the heck?
• 15:27
  I was to think that not a million years, you know?
• 15:32
  And yeah, sure enough, the meeting there was at the salvos
• 15:38
  and I went down there and I'm empty.
• 15:40
  Empty. Entered a room with about four
• 15:42
  old men and I went. You sure, Lord?
• 15:45
  You sure? Lord?
• 15:46
  You want me to be here? You know how I am with men,
• 15:49
  right? And yeah, I want you to learn
• 15:53
  from these men, Jen. You know, like, oh, that's even
• 15:57
  worse. Still having an argument with my
• 16:01
  Father in heaven, you know? You sure this is what you want
• 16:04
  from me? You know, like trying to do
• 16:06
  God's will? Yeah.
• 16:09
  So I'm like, damn it, just be obedient, girl.
• 16:14
  Be obedient. You know, like so hard.
• 16:17
  Us Alcoholics are undisciplined, you know, like, oh, OK, OK, I'll
• 16:22
  hear what they have to say. Oh my God, They just fought
• 16:26
  between the myth, between themselves.
• 16:28
  They're all battling to try and teach me the what's the their
• 16:31
  idea of what's right, what's wrong, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:34
  I can't. The only thing I'm learning here
• 16:36
  is that they're a bunch of Dick heads.
• 16:39
  I can't, but I can't. I am so confused with everything
• 16:42
  that's going on with the program and the banner because of all of
• 16:46
  this stuff that's going on with the people in the room.
• 16:50
  And I'm like, how am I supposed to learn the program for myself?
• 16:55
  I need to learn the program for myself.
• 16:57
  And in about 6 months sobriety, I went down the hill back to
• 17:02
  Adelaide. I walked in a meeting and I met
• 17:05
  this beautiful lady with a lot of grace Deb, her name is, and I
• 17:09
  asked her to be my sponsor and she did and she took me straight
• 17:13
  through the big book. And as I'm doing reading this
• 17:16
  stuff with her and getting in license and all, you know, like
• 17:21
  my world's coming to color. It's coming.
• 17:23
  You know, my life's becoming easier like comprehensive wise.
• 17:29
  I'm comprehending things a bit better.
• 17:32
  My my readings picking up. I'm getting my comprehensions
• 17:35
  getting faster. I'm my intake, my, my ability to
• 17:39
  learn is becoming better. You know, like just everything
• 17:43
  starts to improve. And in my own herself, in my own
• 17:47
  well-being, it's all starting to improve.
• 17:50
  My life's falling worse around me because I'll in sobriety, I
• 17:56
  get divorced, he takes my kids. So I lose my kids.
• 18:00
  We've got to go through court battles, you know, all that
• 18:04
  monstrous stuff that's going on around me.
• 18:07
  But I'm getting sober and I'm going to stay sober on this
• 18:11
  journey, which is what my heart had desired for so long in those
• 18:15
  thirteen years that I was trying to do it on my own, that I went,
• 18:19
  why did I wait for so long for a a why?
• 18:23
  Because I'm a stubborn woman. I'm an absolutely stubborn
• 18:27
  woman. And working it out as I'm doing
• 18:29
  my character defects, you know, like, and I'm like, now you got
• 18:33
  to put the, you got to put the whip away, Jen, You can't.
• 18:35
  There's nothing you can do about that.
• 18:36
  You can't ruin the clock, you know, like, but man, when I see
• 18:41
  these young ones come in, I'm like, yes, so excited, you know,
• 18:46
  because I'm not going to tell you're too young to be an
• 18:49
  alcoholic because you know you, you know you.
• 18:52
  And if you don't know you, I want you to stick around.
• 18:54
  And do you at least know you? Yeah, It's just, it has been a
• 18:59
  miracle. But for me to to be here because
• 19:03
  I'm such a person who highly wants to be independent, highly
• 19:08
  wants to do things on my own. I still call myself a lone wolf,
• 19:13
  you know, like, but there's no way, and I know this through the
• 19:17
  inner being of my soul that I could do this on my.
• 19:19
  I've tried. And I'm, I'm not prepared to go
• 19:23
  down that path in my future. I'm becoming more embracive to
• 19:26
  having others around me, whether you're good, bad or ugly.
• 19:30
  Yeah, but yeah, I, I, I'm going to leave Johnny and Han alone,
• 19:37
  you know, like good luck to them, but they're just not for
• 19:41
  me anymore, you know? Like, yeah, I have.
• 19:45
  I have to stay where there's, there is peace and there is
• 19:49
  serenity. If I'm not around like minded
• 19:54
  people, if I'm not allowed, if I'm not around soul searching
• 20:00
  people, you know, always looking to what, what, what's, what's
• 20:06
  going on, You know, like I can't, I can't, I can't afford
• 20:11
  to search for something exterior to fill me up interior.
• 20:18
  Like I, I know that I'm a spiritual being.
• 20:22
  That's what that's why I'm put on this earth to, you know, like
• 20:25
  I am a spiritual being. I'm not a.
• 20:28
  I'm not just all flesh and bone. What, what you see on the
• 20:31
  outside, this stuff in the inside too.
• 20:33
  So I've got to, I've got to be really contingent on that
• 20:37
  spiritual condition, you know, like, but I've got to be
• 20:41
  practical and I've got to work my program.
• 20:44
  I'd read this bit every morning and read out from on awakening,
• 20:49
  read that every morning, every night.
• 20:51
  I do my inventory, you know, or a gratitude list, sometimes
• 20:55
  both, you know, like, but yeah, the I like reading the daily
• 21:00
  reflections. Stevens picked this just for
• 21:03
  today for me to help me focus whilst I was doing this share
• 21:07
  and I'll read it out just for today.
• 21:10
  I will try to strengthen my mind.
• 21:13
  I will study. I will learn something useful.
• 21:16
  I will not be a mental loafer. What a great term is that right?
• 21:20
  A mental loafer. I will do something that
• 21:22
  requires effort, thought and concentration.
• 21:26
  I can't stress how bad my concentration was when I came in
• 21:29
  and I'm talking about an educated woman, but I had drank
• 21:33
  myself under the table that badly.
• 21:35
  And I literally there were times where I was under the table, you
• 21:40
  know, like on the table, under the table, dancing on the table,
• 21:43
  whatever, you know, like. And my, my concentration had was
• 21:48
  shot to hell, you know, like, and I'm some of you might think
• 21:52
  I'm daft, but I'm not daft, right?
• 21:54
  But I could have my, my moments, my bimbo moments.
• 21:58
  But yeah, I, I'm, I clearly have a good ability to learn.
• 22:05
  But drinking, I can't learn a thing.
• 22:08
  I can't learn a thing. You know what?
• 22:10
  Because I think I don't know everything already.
• 22:12
  You know, I think I know how to put this booze away.
• 22:15
  I think I know that it's good for me.
• 22:18
  What a lot of crap disease of lies, just constantly telling
• 22:22
  lies, you know, like, no, everything I thought I know was
• 22:26
  just was rubbish, absolute rubbish.
• 22:28
  So I had to keep that booze down long enough for my concentration
• 22:32
  to to return. So I could learn about this
• 22:35
  disease and I could learn about myself and I could learn about
• 22:40
  God the way that I want to understand him or I need to
• 22:43
  understand him more to the point, you know, like because
• 22:46
  everything else just gets twisted and my wires are gets
• 22:49
  crossed in my head, you know, and I don't need to tamper that
• 22:53
  with anything else. You know, like my conscious
• 22:56
  contact with God needs to come first.
• 22:59
  That's for me. That's my personal view.
• 23:03
  A A has more than two million recovering Alcoholics throughout
• 23:07
  the world. In Australia there are about
• 23:10
  18,000 members. They're made in over 2000 local
• 23:15
  meetings spread around the country.
• 23:18
  Meetings range in size from a handful in some areas to
• 23:22
  hundreds or more in larger communities.
• 23:25
  And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
• 23:30
  issues, please call Alcoholics announcing 1300 Double 22222 or
• 23:36
  visit their website on aa.org dot AU.