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Hi everybody!

My name is Sheila G. and I am an alcoholic.

 

    I had my last drink at about 4 am May 19, 1992. My sobriety date is May 23, 1992.  Someone asked me to write my story, and encouraged me by saying that mine is a success story, I am humbled for anyone to compliment me in that way (I do pray that I am no-where near the end of this story either!).

     I am in North Texas, and the way we do it here is to share about what it was like what happened and what it is like now. I am a garden variety drunk, just like  Bill, Bob, Mary Agnes, I'm not less then or more then you or any one, my progress is measured by my journey not yours, and I pray that if anything I say is beneficial to you, that you will use it and remember to pass it on. I do not intentionally break the traditions, I will warn you upfront that due to my age and choices, my story is not that of a "pure alcoholic" (Like they exist?).  

     First things first I'd like to give a little credit to God, who I choose to call God, for Loving me in spite of myself, to my Daddy for believing in me to my Mother and my Mom, who always Loved me and to AA, especially the Shalom Group in Denton TX who taught me how to walk in the Sunlight of the Spirit... I feel like someone should be handing me a little statue right now, so I guess I need to move on.  :-)

WHO I AM AND WHAT IT WAS LIKE:     

     I am the youngest of nine children, born in Livonia Michigan in January of 1966. Some of you may be thinking that you spilled more then I drank, and well, maybe you did, that isn't the point. I was blessed to get here young, but not a moment too soon. My Dad was once a member of AA, I don't remember any of that time, I just remember him drinking, and dying. I found out about his 6 months of sobriety after I was sober about a year.

     When I was born my parents were relatively wealthy, Mother came from a successful immigrant family and Daddy was successful at every venture he chose to undertake. We lived in Highland Park Michigan, at that time an affluent suburb of Detroit. As many of you know this was a bad time for Detroit, the late sixties that is. I don't have real consistent memories of Michigan, just a flash here or there, I was three when the riots came and we moved to Arizona.

     This was an awful time for my family, giving up Mother's family home, uprooting my Nana (her Mother) and nine kids, all to move west and make a new beginning. My Dad's Father passed away right before I was born, that was the end of my Dad's career in AA. Mother told me years later that these were the best months of her life, the six months of his sobriety... Well she had a pretty crappy life. Dad met and took up with a woman in the rooms, even went so far as to take all of the kids to meet their new Mom, so AA and its people were not Mom's favorite topic. Not during my growing up anyhow. I do recall a wooden plaque that hung in the kitchen with the Long version of the Serenity Prayer, but in our Irish Catholic home, another prayer on the wall was no big deal. Well I didn't know it was.

My Dads drinking hit a new low after this time of sobriety, and with his drinking violence became a way of life. Dad beat Mom. Mom beat the kids. The kids beat each other. We had an incredibly violent home, looking back now I am astounded that all nine of us lived to be adults. In Tucson our lives took a turn for the worse, Daddy's drinking was spiraling out of control, he had also developed a love for gambling and of course women. Mother threw herself into teaching and being active at church, Nana lived with us and took good care of us as much as she could, but nine kids and one 80 year old Grandmother in a house that was possessed by alcohol and violence wasn't a very safe place for kids.  I guess if you believe in the genetic or the socialization theory you could lay odds that half of us would become addicted, and you would win, in fact I would go so far as to say you could bet that 100% of the children in my family have grown up to fight their own addictions, some of us successfully, some of us just switched, and well we are all still works in progress.

Despite my Grandmother's care, I was molested the first time when I was 4 and then repeatedly through out my child hood, the last successful assault was when I was 14, at age 17 I managed somehow to dissuade the last attack. Funny but of all the assaults the one that I managed to stop was the one that threw me over the edge, and became my justification for drug and alcohol abuse for the next eight years.

I do not remember my first drink. I remember my first drug.  I was 8 years old, smoked hash with a hitch-hiker my sister had picked up. I began to smoke cigarettes when I was 6, but not regularly until I was 12. My Grandmother died when I was eight, shortly after her death my parents declared bankruptcy Mothers car was picked up by some scary guys Dad had bet it and lost in a poker game. Dad lost his business. Mother got fired from her teaching job at the Catholic school. All of us children got expelled from the school, we lost our house, and Daddy went in the hospital and was diagnosed with Cancer. Eight was a bad year for me I guess. My Mother, Father, and 7 of nine children moved into a 3 bedroom one bath house that Daddy called a tin Lizzie house, it was, to him, the ultimate failure.

Over the next four years I smoked a lot of pot, as often as I could, and drank pretty regularly, Daddy had made arrangements for my big sister to baby sit his favorite bartenders kids, there was an endless supply of alcohol at their house and they became my best friends, me and my brother 6 years my senior. I never got caught that I recall, and really it didn't seem to hamper my life at home or school, we were sneaky enough and my parents were wrapped up in their own hell on earth.

My father died 3 months after my twelfth birthday this was the beginning of black out drinking for me. Over the next 5 years I did not live in any one State for more then 6 to nine months. Mother sent me away to live with brothers, sisters, in-laws or anyone who would let me live there. I dropped out of school permanently when I was 15 having successfully completed only the 8th grade, I couldn't imagine going to high school until I was 20 so I just quit.  So many things happened that I was able to feel sorry for myself about. It would take a year to tell it all.

My Mother went to work at the Sheriffs office after she lost her teaching job, and after Daddy died she brought home an inmate, that was to be my step father, he was a heroine addict, a pimp and a con man to the extreme. Mother got fired from another job, and I guess for her this was the final straw, she began buying and selling large quantities of marijuana, and I became her dealer when I was at home. My stepfather was a piece of work to say the least and it was many years later that I finally was able by the grace of God to forgive him. Their main source of income over their 15-year relationship was insurance fraud. They supplemented this with international drug trafficking.  Also at age 14 I was diagnosed with endometriosis, a disease that can cause sterility when not controlled. Of course in my chaotic life I never received treatment and by the age seventeen was told that I would never have children.

So by the age seventeen here is what I was, a young girl with no place to call home, a feeling of not fitting in, a world of resentment blame and shame, anger, sexual problems fear and sorrow. All that on the inside and on the outside a young attractive girl who could lie right to your face and make you believe that you had lied, not me. I learned a lot in my home and I was very well versed in manipulation.  I was also addicted to amphetamines and weighed in at 90 pounds at 5’10”it wasn't a pretty 90 pounds either.

I got engaged several times before I married at age twenty, I know I was looking to all of those men and boys to save me. I got lucky in the one that I did marry he never beat me, and didn't kill me, even when I betrayed him by getting sober. I, like many drop-outs got into the service industry, worked in restaurants and grocery stores for the first 8 years of my adult life, I was pretty darn successful too, rose to the top in several ventures and thought that I was king of the world many times, there was always something that caused me to fail though, someone who didn't appreciate me or someone who just didn't understand. I became very paranoid and began drinking daily to pass out by the time I was 23.

My husband drank and used drugs with me, we were quite a team and when he was at work I drank and used drugs with his friends. I was an unfaithful wife, especially in my heart.  During my marriage I grew in many ways, including getting off speed and gaining almost 200 pounds, when I sobered up I weighed in at a delicate 260.  I was married to Tom for 6 years, we bought three houses, a couple boats, cars, and stuff. We appeared successful, had credit cards and lots of stuff, but somewhere we missed something. Our life was miserable for both of us, we lived to drink and drank to live. I still recall him saying once "there has to be more then this to life" Well yes there is.

When I turned 25, I was hit with an enormous depression, I looked at my life and hated everything, hated what I had become. Hated how I looked, what I did and what I had not done. I had always wanted a child, a little girl of my own. I also wanted a college degree. After 5 years of marriage and surgery and treatment there was no child, and Tom didn't want any. He had two from his first wife and did not share my desire for children. He also did not share my enthusiasm for education, it was not a priority to him, if anything he only wanted me to have a trade and may have supported attendance at a trade school if I was interested.  Fortunately/unfortunately I failed miserably at dexterity testing and the employment office encouraged me to go to college not become a tradesman they said I just didn't have the manual dexterity to be a machinist. So I went to work as a baker and left that dream on the shelf, I would take it down and look at it once in a while just to keep the resentment but only completed two semesters when I did finally get into the University. Just long enough to convince myself that I was a failure and a quitter.

Somehow I began to associate my failures with my drinking. I began that horrible battle of trying to control my drinking, gave up all drugs even cigarettes and was just going to drink on weekends, or only beer and then I was going to not drink. I would pay the "bank" three dollars a day for every day that I did not drink, and then if I did drink I took out five dollars as punishment. The major flaw with this arrangement was that I was the bank. It was a joke. Every form of alcoholic insanity marked the year between my 25th birthday and when I ran into the lady who would lead me to AA.

Everyone in my tightest circle, husband, best friend, brother, husbands best friend, all of them went to jail for a DWI in that year. I was the only one and truly it became a deterrent, I damn near gave up driving all together. I bought a house in the middle of the Oklahoma wilderness up in the Arkansas area, I was going to move there and live a good drug free life, I lasted three days... Well not really I had all the pot I could ever smoke growing on the property thanks to my neighbor, and the drive to the border for beer was only 5 minutes. So those three days were not spent sober, I just gave up on the geographic cure and got lonely.

WHAT HAPPENED:

I returned to Texas and my husband, got a new job, thought I would try giving up cigarettes because maybe that was the real problem. Gave up all drugs, except alcohol of course and then my drinking multiplied by leaps and bounds. Three jobs lots of friendships and the loss of two homes later, it was March of 1992, and I was hung over at work as usual. I needed something to take the edge off. I went to the convenience store across the street from my job to get some cigarettes and Mountain Dew to get the day going and a lady held the door for me. I recognized her as someone that I had spent many evenings with drinking and drugging, but someone I had not seen in a few years as our circles of friends had changed. Then something hit me, she looked very different, her eyes weren't red and for the first time I could remember she wasn't staggering.  Her name was Chris J.  I had known her for years she was a dope head and a big time alcoholic (well that is how I had judged her...a real loser in my book, but good enough to party with).  There she was and she was sober at 11am, wow something was definitely wrong, Chris started every day with a Michelob, a joint and a handful of pills, that was how she had been for ten years that was who she was, I had never seen her sober in 10 years, and there she was with clear eyes and a smile on her face. That was the really strange thing the smile, I couldn't ever remember her smiling, she was the most miserable person I had ever known and here she was smiling. It caught my attention, then she really got my attention when she declared that she was sober, and had been since November of 1991.

Wow, for someone who couldn't make it 24 hours that was an eternity. This opened the door for me, and I took about five minutes to tell her that I had been trying to quit drinking and drugging and I was having trouble with it. She asked if I really wanted to quit, and I said, well I think so. I'm not sure. I can remember feeling a wave of fear, and a feeling of curiosity, not really hope, but interest.  She asked if it would be all right for her to come see me at work and I said yes, I was the manager after all!!!

So she went her way and I went mine and I thought a bit about her, but then went about my day as usual. She came to see me at work and I don't remember if it was that day or a few days later, but she was persistent, she came and she listened to me cry, blame, rationalize, and justify my drinking for hours at a time, she heard all the stories all the excuses and she kept coming back, she met with me at least once a week, brought me a big book, a desire chip, she even brought her teenage son to apply for a job.  He was an active member of Alateen. I did hire him.

Between March and May of 1992, my drinking continued. Chris continued to listen to me and she was very active in AA, she told me she loved me every time she came, and left with the admonition that God Loved me and a hug every time, I wasn't getting many hugs anymore as I had come to a place where human contact was painful for me, and I didn't really want that kind of intimacy not even with my husband. My life was filled with superficial friendships and grandiose ideas of my importance in the Republican Party and in the Chamber of Commerce by day and then at night the club scene and motorcycles. It was all so unreal, and somewhere inside me I knew that it was all a lie, I just couldn't find the truth anymore, couldn't imagine what it was, my one thought about the truth of my life was that whatever the true Sheila was, she was a disgusting joke of a person who couldn't possibly measure up, and if anyone ever really knew me they would never love me anyhow, so why bother.

During this time a friend from the past, a "real alcoholic" named Eric showed back up, he came to my home on May 18,1992 with two quart bottles of Bud, and informed me that he had spent the last two years sober, in AA, and that he had decided to drink and decided that he wanted to drink with me. I hadn't seen Eric for a little over two years, he had been arrested for selling machine guns, and several DWI's.  My husband and he had been best friends but somehow in the drinking Eric and I had developed an inappropriate friendship that led Tom to tell Eric to stay away from our home and me. Honestly I was afraid of Eric, he had a crush on me and he made bombs for fun, not the kind of guy I wanted mad at me. And honestly I did love my husband and did not want to leave him for Eric, so needless to say this blast from the past was frightening, but I let him in.

Eric was truly brilliant, and I did enjoy talking to him, he was one of the only people I knew who didn't think it was stupid that I wanted to go to college even though I was a grade school drop out.  Eric thought I was smart.  He bought me books as gifts; I’ll never forget that about him, he saw something in me, that person that was hiding under all the drinking and false airs.

He got to my house about 8 PM and we drank the night away him asking me about my drinking history, me telling him about Chris, sometime in the evening I got out my Big Book, we drank every drop of alcohol in the house.  And talked all night about our drinking histories and what it had done to our lives. Sometime during the night Eric convinced me that not only was I a True Alcoholic, he was too, and there was a way for both of us to get sober.  Eric left at about 4am after we smoked and drank everything in the house. I would not see him again for 7 years. Honestly I thought he had either died or gone to the pen for good that night. (I saw him at church on Mother’s Day in 1999, clean and sober 7 years, married happy daddy of two beautiful children, we've not seen each other since, but it was a gift to find that out.) After he left that night, it was just my Big Book, my desire chip, very foggy and emotional heart, God, and I.

That was it, I was beaten, and I surrendered to the fact that my life as I knew it was over, I clutched that chip I read the words "to thine own self be true," and I prayed the most powerful prayer of my life. "God, please don't ever let me do this again."  I fell asleep, had to work that day, went in hung over as usual and did what I had to do, I don't recall much about that day, when I got home from work Tom and his best friend Robert were there. They were drinking Cokes, very unusual, I went to the fridge to get a beer and there weren't any. Tom was mad at me for drinking up everything in the house and had made a decision to not replenish our supply. I whined a bit and asked him to go to the store, he said no, if you want beer, you go get it. So you see, it wasn't me sticking to the idea of sobriety, it was definitely God doing for me what I would not do for myself. For that afternoon, that was more then I was willing to do to get a drink. I decided to go to bed instead.

When I awoke for work the next day, I remember hearing a voice that I choose to believe was God, saying to me "Sheila, it has been 24 hours since you had a drink, you never have to do it again." I went to work. My Alateen worked that day. His Mom came to see me; he made me a double chocolate shake to take the edge off, and really helped me a lot that day. I had started to shake and was very jumpy.  I got more jumpy the further away I got from the drink, the shakes got worse I got to where I could not sleep, when I did fall asleep the nightmares were awful. On the fourth day I decided it would be all right to smoke a joint, no I didn't ask anyone, I made that choice by myself, it helped the headache and I was able to sleep.

Well gratefully Tom wasn't too hip on the idea of sharing his pot with me, he was a bit irritated with my new found self-righteousness that I wasn't drinking, and he was not going to help! Thank you God! So that was my very short trip on marijuana maintenance. It was May 29, 1992 when I attended my first AA meeting. The 6 o'clock Friday Night Closed meeting of the Shalom group in Denton Texas, it took me a while to get up the courage to go, and Chris was kind enough to take me to the first few meetings.

WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW:

          Well, briefly. Nine Years, 6 months, one daughter, a college degree, a fulfilling career and two marriages later some wonderful guy in an online group asks me to write my story.  In his opinion I am a success, and I do believe that I am in many ways, but most importantly I am still sober. I have had a lot of thorns with my roses in this journey called sobriety. But in my opinion, what makes it all a "success" story rather then a failure is this: In all of this, and there has been a lot of fun times, I never quit trying to grow spiritually and that is what it is all about.

Through the power of the steps I have come to know myself in ways I never thought possible, and I have allowed others to know me. The steps exposed the truth that I was afraid of Love and dying to experience it. In AA I was able to admit my weaknesses and my strengths to myself, and then to another person. I asked God to heal me, and he did. I was blessed in my first year sober to be relieved from my two "biggest" reasons to hate God and the world, my diagnosis of being sterile was proven wrong and my life condemned to the limits of being a high school drop out, well that was changed when I was accepted into Texas Woman's University. 4 years, a million meetings, and a lot of BS later, I graduated with honors. I got a job working for our Governor.  I was blessed to meet some incredible people, and I got to travel all around the country.

My marriage failed early in the program, I focused too much on trying to change him, and was honestly searching for a way to kill the pain. I went a little crazy, tried to kill myself, and had to go into the mental hospital at 4 months sober. While I was there I met a man who attended my home group.  I fell head over heels (no puns), and spent the next few years diligently practicing the thirteenth step. All I can say about that is if you wanna try it, it is incredible, exciting, fun, and a wonderful way to learn powerlessness at a whole new level. I wouldn't trade that time in my life for the world. It was a training ground for who I am today.

I gave myself honestly to another person, and I never could have done that before AA. I was faithful and open with him. I had never been honest or open in a sexual relationship before. It didn't work, we both failed in lots of ways. He relapsed, I went psycho trying to control him. We both screwed up, we both lost, and we both gained a lot.  After our 7th or 10th break up, it was finally, really over.

I spent 3 years of sexual abstinence. I needed it.  My sexuality was very wounded initially from the sexual abuse as a child, but more significantly by the way I lived as a young adult. Again, this is just what I needed. It darn sure wasn't easy, and there were many times I wondered why I was doing it. But then there was something that happened. I sought a relationship with my higher power in a way I never had. And he was there. 

I found a church, a place to grow in my Love of God, and I was led to grow and learn and somehow at some point I had an incredible change of heart and soul. I recommitted my life to Christ in October of 2000. Since that time, it is almost like the first year sober, everything has changed.  First I had to change jobs. I was recruited by a substance abuse agency in January of 2001 to help develop new programs. This is one of those things I said I’d never do sober, work in the field that is. But they got me when they told me people were dying. I don't counsel, just because for me I can’t. What I do is write grants and get funding for new programs.  I also do a lot of community work. Getting people involved and helping to educate people. I don't use my membership in AA in my work. But I don't avoid breaking my anonymity if I truly believe that someone needs to know. 

In the last year or so, I met three men who asked me to marry them, and darned if I didn't think they were all sent from God. But time has a way of disclosing our true selves, and only the third was really sent from God.  Tommy and I were married June 30th of this year. I think that is the success story that inspired Ross to ask me to write. Ours is a simple success. Two people who were injured, who had sought the Lord, and been healed. Two people who were happy in their relationship with God, but still didn't want to be alone. We met on the Internet, in a cyber church of all places. Turns out he lived 7 miles from me, he is 7 years younger than me. He is sweet and kind. Doesn't drink or use any illicit drug. I don't know if he will ever seek solace in Alanon. Sometimes I think he should so that he can learn our language. But I don't push him. His journey is a Spiritual journey and it is in line with the one I have chosen.

We have been blessed with an incredible ministry to young people. Who knows where it will take us? Just for today, I continue in AA, and the blessings continue. Sometimes the blessings are disguised as painful experiences.  Sometimes they are just beautiful. Tommy is a beautiful addition to my, and my daughter Sarah's life. So far it’s been pretty good. I almost died less than a month after we married, and even that was a blessing.  It humbled me and it made me cigarette free. But that is another story.

Today I am a winner, I haven't had a drink all day. Everything else is just fluff. Thanks for encouraging me to write this; sorry it took me so long, and sorry I could not do it is 6 paragraphs. I guess I need a little more ego deflation. God Bless you all, and I sure hope that somewhere on this journey we can meet and you can tell me about your blessings.

            Until that time, thank you for keeping me sober today.

    

Love and hugs,

Sheila

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©Copyright 2001 by Sheila G.  All rights reserved. This page is privately maintained and is in no way affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous or any other organization or institution. The views and/or opinions are solely my own and does not represent the views or opinions of any organization.
Last edited on: May 01, 2004
 

 

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