"Rocky."

The Butterfly Landed.

My name is Jenny

I am a grateful alcoholic today. I was born into a family of non-drinkers, it wasn't that they chose too.............it was just not a part of their lifestyle. I had 7 siblings all non-alcoholic. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, all non-drinkers. I was raised on a farm with only relatives as neighbors, away from towns.

When I was 10 years old I was prescribed barbiturates, as I was such a "nervy" child. The childhood abuse started for me at the age of 5 by a relative and my life went down hill quickly. At 8 I prayed and prayed to the God of my childhood as I heard in church that if you prayed and kept on praying, God would answer. It didn't stop and I came to believe that I was too evil to be loved by God and went further into that awful black hole of inner loneliness and feeling so different to everyone else.

From the moment I took that first pill I felt normal, chuckle, what ever that is. I found alcohol at 13 after we moved from the farm, into the local small town. In retrospect I know today I drank from the first to get drunk and to numb out. I drank alcoholically and became a binge drinker starting on gin :).

My schoolwork suffered, until then I was a top student, and barely passed grade 10. I ran away at 16 with a lad from another culture to mine, and we had liking to drink and lust in common. That geographical took me over 5 of the 6 states of Australia, a marriage, and the birth of 3 children. We arrived in Old and he wanted to settle and as he was my God I tried to be what he wanted, even though his ideas changed daily on what I should or should not be. It became a drunken abusive marriage, and I know today he helped save my life, chuckle, as he would not allow me to drink what I wanted too. So I went back to using prescription drugs and illegal ones.

Then after a suicide attempt, and a stay in the local hospital again, ( had been their heaps of time for his violence perpetrated against me) and his violence turning on to the children, I left. "Things" were going to be different. :) With out him monitoring my alcohol consumption, I became a daily drunk, very quickly, and slid down the path of a single female alcoholic. For the next 3 years, my children would beg me to come home after work. I would promise I would meaning that promise as I said it, but unable to keep it.

Then the night happened when my youngest daughter looked at me with so much disgust, publicly telling me, she was too ashamed to call me her mother. That night I prayed to the God of my childhood, that one I was so frightened of, that one that was sending me to hell. And a loving God came to me, as I was, drunk, smelly, kneeling in a dirty toilet in a small country pub.

I take my sobriety date from the next day 8th October 1983 and I have not needed to pick up a drink of alcohol since. There has been many excuses, but not a need. God did for me what I couldn't do for myself. That same morning I met the man who guided my footsteps and loved me for the next 5 years until his death, I changed many things and my lifestyle, but not the inside of Jenny.

I know today he knew a lot about alcoholics anonymous but knew I was not ready. After his death I closed down, my family and friends tried to reach the inner me, but my brick wall was up and running. The ever present masks of "I'm ok" up in place, and a closet full if needed.

I stopped praying, why should I, !!!!!!!!!!!!! and chuckle the new area of my work had placed me in an organization that actually expected me !!!!!!!!!! the great me !!!!!!! to take clients to AA and NA meetings lol. I sat in the rooms and looked at the steps on the wall, and felt superior. I was sober and I didn't need this crap. Older sober members told me I couldn't give to the clients what I did not have, and when a couple of them got sober and maintained sobriety, I made sure I took my share of the credit :) I look back today, and know, AA and the God they found gave them sobriety. I was just the vehicle used protestingly, to transport them to meetings lol. I went back to my original in early May 1990, prescription drugs, and illegal, as I had promised my God (even though I didn't like him) that I would never drink again. I had a 3-week bust and came into AA on the 29th May 1990.

I came late to meetings, left early, and wouldn't share. I WAS NOT AN ALCOLIC. Was told many time you will do till the next one comes along, lol. Then after 7 months of sitting in meetings, listening to the differences, very arrogantly not mixing, or sharing, I heard what I needed to hear. That night I surrendered accepted and became grateful. The butterfly who ran all her life from people, emotions, and life, had landed squarely in the center of AA.

Now the work began on bringing that bound cocoon type person out of herself, by working firstly, through the steps, and the tangled mess of my life. To the spiritual awakening of Step 12 where I believe God helped me in the knowledge of this program, with his wisdom, to know who I am, and give me a spiritual link to not only him but to other alcoholics as well. Over the years this butterfly has struggled and fallen, got back up with help and struggled and became finally strong enough with in this beautiful fellowship to stand tall and live life with the skills learned from older sober members.

I can be still and comfortable in my own skin today. I can take responsibility for my share of what happens in any given situation. I can love, laugh at myself, remember rule 62 most of the time. Can be who I was meant to be.

God did for me what I could not do for myself,

but by the grace of God go I.

My name is Tracy

I'm an alcoholic,

sober since 5.5.04 by the grace of God and AA.

This is my first time in AA. I never knew anything at all about AA before I came in. I never knew anyone else that had been to AA (that I knew of) I joined first with online AA (another group, not this one) The night of my last drunk (home alone as usual) I did an online search for AA and came to that first group I joined.

It was good to feel accountable - that I had them to answer to if I busted, even that at the end of the day, I knew it would be myself I'd be letting down the most (and my son) It took me about two and a half months to get to my first f2f meeting. I have been every week since, and I have to drive to the next town to go, 100km round trip every Tuesday night, and I would not miss it. Some weeks I don't feel like going, but I won't allow myself an excuse not to, because do that once and I will do it again. I have made the commitment and I will stick with it, as if my life depends on it, which very possibly it does. I don't want to find out the other way around.

I tried to stop drinking many times before AA, on my own. I went through all the kind of things written in the Big Book. I tried to drink only with other people. I tried to only drink on nights when I didn't have to work the next day. I tried to drink no more than any other person I drank with. I tried never to drink alone. I tried to drink on special occasions only and never to over do it. I tried to ration the amount I drank when I was drinking home alone. I tried to drink something with lower alcohol content. I tried to use more mixers, more ice, and make weaker drinks. NONE OF IT WORKED. The night I did the online AA search I had resolved I was not going to drink that night, because I'd gotten really drunk the night before, but I was still telling myself that when I poured the glass of wine. I was POWERLESS.

Abstinence is an easier resolve than to try drinking normally. This is part of where it is the first drink that does the damage (for me) it kills the resolve. I have had periods of abstinence, like a whole year while I was pregnant and early breast feeding with my son, and times in the past up to a few months at a time, but as soon as I took the first drink, the resolve was gone and I was back on the roller coaster. If I managed to drink without getting drunk the first time, if I managed to go another week before I picked up again, if I didn't get drunk and I didn't drink, IT WAS ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT. If I wasn't doing it, I was thinking about it.

I am an alcoholic. Always have been and always will be. I accept that now. I am powerless over alcohol. I still don't really LIKE that sometimes, but it is the truth of the matter and there is nothing that I can ever do about it. I have ACCEPTED this. I try to be grateful for all that I have to be grateful for. I would rather be an alcoholic than have many other worse, unstoppable diseases I could have. At least the disease I have, I can be given a daily reprieve from it, and I can live until I am 100 years old with it, and, best of all, it can show me how to live a better life than I ever have before it.

In many ways we are the lucky ones, the non-active alcoholics of AA. Today I am sober and that's a good thing. I was finished with my on and off the wagon days by the time I came in the doors. I feel lucky on that score. I was entirely ready for this journey (in AA)

Thank you all for being here.

Light & Love, Tracy F.

Click here to go to Angellady’s Introduction page to all the pages on this site.”